The Hands of our Fair Empire

by izanoslayer

Chapter 2

"Bits, I found some bits. Scraped them together, I'm sorry."

I wake up again, my body feeling numb. The afternoon light seeps in through the curtains and illuminates the dust in the air, cascading onto the bed. He stands at the side, his eyes blue and soft.

"Seven bits, it's all I've got."

I nod. "It's okay," I whisper. "I wasn't going to charge."

"Bullshit, that's not right. Here." He sets them down on the bed stand, just below the mirror that reflects me wrapped in sheets looking up at him with deep eyes.

He shakes his head. "I'm sorry I did this. I'm sorry about the necklace. I can pay it back, well, I can try to pay it back."

I look at him with his dark mane rustled and his eyes looking down at the floor.

"No," I say. "Please, don't feel bad, it's my fault. It is."

He avoids the contact of my eyes. "I've got to leave."

"Okay," I say. As he turns to trot out the door, I open my mouth again, a little grin forming on it. "You know..." He turns around. "At least you were good."

He chuckles a little, but under the surface his mind is so aflame, he wants nothing more than to get away from me and forget about me and everything I remind him of. Okay. That's okay. I would too.

That's okay.

He regards me for a few more seconds and then he turns and leaves. The room is silent, the curtains motionless. It is as of time has frozen over for all of eternity, and I no longer have to worry about being all I can be before I die.

But then my ears adjust and it's not as silent as it'd seemed. Muffled, distant creaks in the building, and a wind whistling outside the closed curtains. I tussle with the sheets and get up, my hooves clicking on the oiled wood and creating a sound that haunted. It was cold in the bed chambers, BlackFeather figured that it wouldn't be a stretch to think its occupants to be able to keep each other warm enough, and we'd save on the heat bill. But my partner's warmth is gone and I am breathing out smoky mists, standing there in a black dress too skimpy for the chill.

I go to the curtains and look out onto the grey expanse. The street is empty and the shop doors are boarded up, signs in the broken windows that say they will be back soon. Snow sinks down, the flurries spinning and chasing each other like in a filly's game, blowing every which way in a frozen drift.

A crack appears on the window in front of me. It is on my reflection and slices me in half, down the middle of my face. It must be cold. So cold.

I go out of the chamber and breathe in the warmth of the circular lounge. I sit there for a while and look around. My head is crystal clear, unlike the murky-brown water spewing out of the fish-head fountain that serves as the centerpiece of the cyclical chamber, the ceiling reaching overhead only a few feet and cushioning the trickle of the water.

Seven bits. I hold them in my hooves, looking down at their rusted golden faces and seeing a hint of purple in there, reminding me that I am alive and not a ghost. It is a sinking ship, boards darkened and soggy, and I sit in a lifeboat that will not unlatch. I am not the last mistress and so in this way I am no more important than the boards. No more than anything.

I get up and go out to the central dining hall, making sure I look cleanly and refined in the mirror before I slowly trot in the darkened hallway, the illusion of warmth swooning me with it's embrace.

"How much?"

I jump. It's Haze. She was ahead, her eyes gleaming in the low light.

"Sorry!" She laughs. "Spooked?"

I catch up with her, smiling. "Is the shift done?"

"You answer my question, I'll answer yours."

Okay. "Seven."

"...Bits?"

I blink. "Yeah, seven bits."

"You're slipping."

"My question."

We're down the hallway, entering the Dining Hall.

"Yeah. Shift's done, it's almost dark. Plus the snow, everypony went home anyway." She chuckles. "But seven bits? A whole shift?"

"Come on, Haze. Mind your own business."

We are stopped now, and her eyes are cutting into mine.

"Some of us," she breathes, "Can't get seven damned bits in a three-shift day. Some of us'd kill for your attention level. I'm just a little pissed you don't always take advantage of it."

"I do."

"What was that? This morning? What was that?"

"He was cold."

"I'm cold. You're fucking cold."

"I wanted to let him in."

She leans closer. "I want to let my brother in. But I know I can't. You've got a house. I don't. I live on the street behind this fucking building and hope and pray that cultists don't rape me and murder me every night. My brother is sick and dying and I don't know of what."

A tear breaks on her face.

I don't know what to do. I don't know what I can say.

"And you, Emeline, have beauty. You've got beauty and potential, and, and the wings which are all the rage with them, but yet you splurge yourself on a guilt-soaked free-fuck while the rest of us get spit on and lucky if we even get picked."

Silence.

"I..."

"What?"

I whisper, no longer looking at her. "Sometimes you need to let go."

I meet her eyes. They are dark. She shakes her head.

"Don't you get it?" Her voice breaks. "You're the only one who hasn't."

* * *

On my way out the heavy street door I'm stopped by BlackFeather.

His jet black face is flecked with grey, his ruby eyes calm.

"I trust it won't happen again, Emm?"

I look. "No."

"You understand, don't you?" He searches my face. "You have to understand."

"I do."

I did. The wind howled and flurries blew into the warmth. We couldn't fall like the others. We could not lose our professional niche. The first pony we served a home and not a service would open our doors to the rest.

BlackFeather's face glows in the grey light. The flurries spin.

"Black..."

He listens.

"Are we going to be okay?"

A long pause. He breathes, unsteady. "I don't know."

As if on queue, a scream, distant and muffled, made its way down the street. It was so far, but it was the scream that signaled the end of a life. It was the funeral and the burial and the hearing. I listen. Then, I look at him, sad and searching.

"Okay."

But then he continues.

"Tomorrow, though, it's nightmare night."

I start. Oh, no. "I-I'd forgotten!"

He cocks his head. "Why so jumpy?"

The lights hum above and I look around, searching for any other sign of life. I think we're alone. Just me and BlackFeather.

"Emm," he prods, concerned. "What's wrong?"

I close the door. "I'm leaving, Black."

He doesn't ask why, we're past that now. "Can I do anything to help?" Are instead the words he asks.

I smile, but I can't hold it together. "No," I sputter through tears.

I am not crying for the loss of a job or the loss of the bits, I don't even know why I am crying but I sob harder than I can remember sobbing. The cold seeps over us as the heat shuts off like it does at this hour before holidays, and I simply hold him and let the water flow, formless and misty, pattering on the wood and echoing like a drip in a lost cavern.

"Oh, BlackFeather. My mother says its no better in the city. No warmer in the south."

He just breathes, old and understanding. "Then where, Emm, do you plan on going?"

"I don't know."

"But you have to go, right?"

I look and him and control myself. I look at the dark whorehouse entranceway and then I think of the streets and the screaming and the snowy nights. The smoking and the bed with no sheets. The old stallion who sits on the corner and the sun that chokes behind grey sludge.

"Yeah, I do."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay." His face is calm and I can trace the lines of complexion on it and I can see in his eyes the reflection of a world that I have never known. He speaks, his voice gravelly. "But maybe, you'd like to stay until tomorrow? Nightmare night is our busiest one- at least, it was last year- and you might appreciate the bits when you leave."

I nod, slowly, to myself.

Then I look at him. "One more, then. One more night." He smiles.

"Okay, Emm. Okay."

I open the door. The sound of snow is a lullaby.

"I'm glad I got to meet you. I'm glad you're getting out."

"Bye, Black."

The howling wind whispers in my ear that these buildings I pass are nothing but dust in its eternity. It says that they will fall and turn to dirt, and then out of this dirt trees will rise, touching the sky through the grey clouds with their branches, eternally tall and silhouetted.

The snow floats silently as I trot, the crunch beneath my hooves keeping time with my heartbeat. My scarf is not warming. There is little wind.

A hellish silence fills my mouth and my gut, it's blackness clouding my mind and eyes. I trot home, further still as the sun dims like a flame without fuel and the twilight sinks around me. There are no stars and there are no words I can say that will show you what this is, what it truly is.

Ahead there are three forms that stand huddled around a flame. I pass them cautiously, and they look up at me with crystal blue eyes and dark manes, the fire reflected in a dance of warmth on their faces as I pass. They burn not trash, but a pile. A small pile of three corpses, each sloppily thrown onto the next. I freeze, looking.

A colt's body shrivels and blackens upon the broken concrete, it's eyeholes filled with organs and veins. I am no longer frozen and I gasp in terror, icy irises pierce.
"It's okay," one croaks. "We aren't going to hurt you."

"You're too nice to look at."

I waste no time and hurry past. Then my ears ring with a crack-crack-crack and heat waves over me, shocking sound, and I turn, startled. They lay dead, blood pooling from their wounds, a stallion stands opposite the corpsepile with a smoking rifle suspended in his magic.

He fires again, the bodies jiggling under the bullets, the sound louder than I'd have ever imagined.

"Are you okay?" He asks, from across the way.

I nod.

"Are you... Are you really okay, ma'am?"

"I am."

He laughs. He laughs.

"Fuck you, all of you fuckers."

He shoots the burning corpses as well.

* * *

When I unlock the door the last of the sun's light has gone and I am fumbling for cold metal in a black abyss. The door creaks and within my eyes adjust to the dull orange glow of the oil lantern. My mother is there and she is closing her eyes, bowing her head to the window and whispering.

"And furthermore, protect my daughter, my lady. Oh, please, keep her safe."

She opens her eyes just a crack, and she says for me to join her. I make no move, only watch in silence as she closes her eyes again, confident I have complied despite the fact that I have not.

"Tomorrow, raise the sun. Raise it before the clouds and let it's light shine on us all. Let us bask in it and smell the salt on the trade winds once again. This we ask of you, as your loyal subjects. Grace forever."

When I do not echo the closing verse she realizes I am not next to her and she looks up.

Her eyes are scared. "Why didn't you talk to her with me?"

"I'm sorry."

"What- what happened to the necklace?"

I walk to the bed and fall into it. I don't remove my makeup or unpin my mane. I look at her, the room sideways. "I'm sorry."

"Talk to her, Emeline. She can hear you."

I do not speak. I only look at her, so tired. Then the oil lantern hisses, and it fades. The black washes over us but neither have moved.

"I'm going to work once more tomorrow. Just once more."

"Why?"

"Because it'll get me some bits."

"I don't care."

I stare into the black.

"I can't see you come home like this, your face all dolled up and your eyes dead. I can't watch it happen to you anymore. I can't stand the thought of... you... And some scum stallion in a room... and just for coin."

"I'm working tomorrow."

"It's not work."

I lie there for too long. Our breathing is a shallow, nearly inaudible ambience behind the wind's screams. Then, I answer.

"You're right. It's not work." I shudder. "It's the only thing I have left. And it makes me smile for a moment- if only for a moment- when I am eyed and wanted- and for a short while, loved. I feel depression, and, and sadness, but I feel alive for a while, I feel as if I am there- which is more than your fairy tale prayers can do, even for yourself."

She stays silent for an eternity as well, until the last ghosts of my words have echoed off through the walls and into the eternal nocturne.

"I love you, Emeline."

I almost cry. I almost parrot her words. But I do not. I will never believe in anything again.

* * *

Morning is melancholy and my mother is sleeping as I wake and heat the lantern. Over it, I heat some tea and I put some cream in it. I open the cupboard where I keep the food because I thought I still had some hardtack in there. A morsel.

I unlock the door and head down rickety iron scale stairs to the central apartment terrace where the chill nips at the dead grass. I sit at one of the garden tables (making sure it wasn't the one with the broken leg, I'd gone through that before) and I inhale the steam that rises from the cup, taking a sip. A single stallion sits at another table, smoking a long cigarette. I imagine he'd be reading the newspaper, if they still printed. He's young, about my age, I assume. One of the silly pastel southerners, a sky-blue coat like Clearwater's with a longer, tousled mane swept back over his ears, named "Daybeamsunraysparkleshimmer," no doubt.

I smile, doing that little exhale thing you do when something's mildly amusing.

He looks up. "I shaved it, cunt!"

He's horrified when he realizes I'm evidently not the party he'd assumed I was.

"Mustache. I had a mustache, and it's this... Running joke."

I look down and take another sip. The morning haze is misty and awakening around me. Snow patters the earth.

"Sorry," he mutters.

My thoughts return the night before, and I see that colt shriveled and blackened on the snowy streets.

I haven't talked with anypony for a while, so I finish the warm drink and look up at the technicolor stallion from across the cold maze of tables.

"A mustache, you said?"

Comments

[Mike the Red]

Thanks for the update. This is a good depressing story.

[masterchef227]

Apparently Regidar, apparently...

[N00813]

Short question: Are you still planning to work on this? I know that this is an experimental piece that might not get finished, but still, it's bloody great.