Where Loyalties Lie: Ghosts of the Past

by LoyalLiar

XXIV - Regrets

XXIV

Regrets

Cigarette smoke rose from Twelfth Sister’s lips and mingled with the falling snow above the roof of Stalliongrad’s enormous train station. In life, the mare had hated the habit. But in death, sitting in the snow, it was a good substitute for the comfort of real body heat, and that sensation was the only true relief from the sheer boredom of her assignment. With Trotsylvania overrun by rebels… or revolutionaries, or whatever the Stalliongradians called them… train traffic had almost completely stopped. In a few hours, the eight o’clock would come down from Saraneighvo, and at eight-thirty, it would leave again.

Ostensibly, she was there watching for rebels, although the way Big Brother put it, attacking Stalliongrad city itself was suicide. Thus, the thestral sat on her belly on the roof of the train station, staring out at the unending white stretching off into forever and enjoying her momentary break from the chaos that had consumed the Night Guard since their summons to Stalliongrad.

Tufted ears perked at the sound of a train’s horn in the distance. “Early…?” Resigning herself to climbing down into the eerily empty station, Twelfth rose, stretched out her forelegs, and sucked down the rest of the tar and precious heat in her cigarette in a single long draw. Not hacking and coughing afterward was one of the rare benefits of no longer needing to breathe. As she spread out her leathery wings and felt the mostly-idle blood in her veins slosh about, she heard the train whistle again.

“From the south?”

With a newfound urgency, Twelfth dug her forehooves into the snow and used her unnatural strength to dive off the roof. With a grin that exposed her fangs, she closed her wings and dove muzzle first from the forty-foot high roof into the considerable snowbank that had been built up beside the tracks. Once all-but buried, emerging was a simple matter of pushing up her weight on her wings and legs, and flipping backward to land outside the station doors on the freshly shoveled sidewalk.

Two of Stalliongrad’s black-clad guards reacted with surprise, though without an understanding of their language, she wasn’t sure if the shock came from her sudden appearance, or her unnatural appearance.

“Стой! Кто—?” a lanky, young earth pony began, only to be interrupted by a stern, wrinkled unicorn.

“Она одна из стражников принцессы Луны. Не приставай к ней. Мы можем получить неприятности от коменданта Молота.” The older mare gave a nod in Twelfth’s direction. “Проходите, госпожа” Her magical aura opened the gray metal doors.

“Thanks?” Twelfth muttered, walking into the station. Compared to the boring walls of perfectly smooth concrete that framed the building, the steepled roof and mustard-colored wallpaper seemed more appropriate to Mareis or Neighples than what she had come to expect of Stalliongrad. Lush, cushioned benches offered plenty of places to rest, and an ornately framed ticket booth dominated the entryway, though with few trains coming and going, the enormous room looked bare. A few civilians lay on the couches, but far fewer than the chamber could hold. A stallion with an unkempt and bushy moustache was the only administrator, despite the dozen windows on the ticket booth. Those few looked her way as she entered, and continued to stare at her for her unusual shape, but the thestral paid them little mind. Adjusting her purple armor, she walked up to the edge of the platform for the line to Trotsylvania.

The train, a huge bulky thing just like all the other trains of Stalliongrad, plowed toward the station at an alarming speed. Its wheels churned forward and smoke billowed from its stack even as the awful grating of its brakes began to fill the station. The civilians winced and covered their ears—and they didn’t have the magical hearing of a thestral. Twelfth half expected her ears to start bleeding, and she almost wished the sound would just hurry up and deafen her.

When the train finally lurched to a stop, it was still belching steam up to the roof of the station. Twelfth glanced to the curved sword strapped under her right wing, and then tapped her raw hoof on the tiled floor. She didn’t have to wait long.

A particularly short blood red pegasus climbed down out of the train engine’s cabin. His face and chest were stained with coal and grime, though it was the hairless scar running diagonally down from his shoulder that caught Twelfth’s attention. Well, that and the fact that his wings were on fire.

As a night guard, Twelfth was no stranger to empatha, but the fact that he used his magic so casually was a red flag. The small but bulky pegasus spat on the beautiful tiled floor before looking up, and only then did he lock eyes with the thestral.

“Well, that’s oddly relevant,” he muttered, before glancing back over his shoulder. “Twilight, look. It’s one of the thestrals we were talking about.” His attention briefly turned back to Twelfth, and his eyes wandered over her body. “Могу я поинтересоваться вашим именем?” Before Twelfth could clarify her linguistic preference, he turned back to shouting toward the train. “She’s cute too; great hips, though with what you told me, I don’t think I’d want those fangs anywhere near my—”

“I speak Equiish.”

“Oh.” And then, to the stallion’s credit, he smiled without missing a beat. “Well, I hope you’ll take all that as a compliment then. What’s your name, thestral?”

At that word, Twelfth lowered herself and flared her wings. “How do you know about thestrals? Who are you?”

The stallion brought a hoof to his brow, and then ran it down his muzzle. When Twelfth was able to see his mouth again, he was wearing a stupid grin and his shoulders were twitching from light laughter. “Commander Red Ink. Honor Guard.”

Twelfth stared in shock for a moment as her mind painted a black jacket on the stallion’s back. She might have continued the thought for some time, had another pony not emerged from the train. The buckwheat pegasus was slightly taller than Ink and dramatically lankier. His most notable trait was the bloody, bandaged stump that took the place of one of his forelegs. “Росчерк? Что это еще за блядство? Почему у неё крылья летучей мыши?”

“Долгая история, Серп. Намного выше твоей головы. Просто иди в госпиталь.” Ink’s response didn’t even come with a glance back to the other pegasus. The Honor Guard’s attention remained locked on Twelfth. “Serp. My old subordinate before I took over the Honor Guard. Picked a fight with a Vargr. Now, who are you?”

“Twelfth Sister.” It was a flat answer, and one Twelfth had gotten very used to providing to a question that most ponies considered completely natural.

Ink rolled his eyes. “I didn’t ask for your rank. What’s your name?”

“You’re not supposed to ask that, Ink,” the voice of a younger mare announced from the train engine. Twelfth’s eyes flicked up to a mare who needed no introduction. Even wearing a torn tan coat and carrying a sword that looked like it was taken from the Hearth’s Warming pageant, Twilight Sparkle was unmistakable. The young unicorn was occupied helping another mare down from the carriage.

The pale sky-blue pegasus shuddered on her hooves as she stepped down onto the firm ground. Her pale white hair shook beneath a burgundy bandanna wrapped around her forehead. A slimming dark gray vest was her only protection against the magical cold of the wintery domain.

Twelfth broke into a run toward the mare. “Solo? Are you okay?” Using her wings for drag, the thestral stopped within inches of the other mare, and then the same leathery wings wrapped over the struggling pegasus’ barrel, steadying her. “Are you hurt?”

“Excuse me,” Twilight butted in, flustered at having been pushed aside by the chilly thestral. “Do you know Going Solo?”

“We’re old friends,” Twelfth answered. “Better friends than you, if you still use her full name. Easy there, Solo. I’ve got you.” The thestral’s nostrils flared, and she frowned around her slight fangs. “She’s been whispering again. I thought she’d kicked the habit. What happened to her, Sparkle?”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “Do I know you?”

“No, but everypony in Equestria knows you. You and your friends are in the papers every three months.” Twelfth turned away from the unicorn when Solo stirred in her wings. “You were always trouble, Solo, but I didn’t think you’d ever rank with the Honor Guard and the Princess’ student. Are you selling her whispersalt too?”

Who—” The harsh forced-whisper ended in Solo coughing heavily into her wing. After a few painful seconds, she lowered her wing and looked up. “Who’s asking?” When her eyes found the thestral, she frowned. “You’re one of those… thestral… things?” Her hoof shakily rose to her vest, reaching for a hidden pocket containing a single bladed shoe. “How do you know my name?”

“I know a lot more than just your name, Solo.” Twelfth smiled, and then held a hoof up to her fang-filled face. “What if I told you I still owe you from that time in Moneighco?”

Solo’s hoof fell from her vest, scraping across taut blue fur and tapping on the cold stone floor of the station. Her jaw quivered twice, trying to find her words. Finally, they came. “Eyewitness…? But… you can’t be dead.”

“Read ‘em and weep, Solo,” Twelfth Sister replied, spreading her wings and baring her fangs as casually as she could manage that normally threatening motion.

“Hold on!” Twilight cut into the conversation. “Solo… or, whoever you are—” that comment was directed at the thestral. “—can somepony explain what’s going on? Do you two know each other?”

Ink chuckled from his place, leaning against the side of the now-still train engine. “Your friend knew the thestral while she was still alive. But now she works for Luna, right?” Twelfth nodded. “And this is a mare with the gall to carry whispersalt on duty, behind Shining Armor’s back. So…”

Twilight’s head dropped and her ears wilted at mention of her brother. Ink winced in realization of what he had just said. “Twilight, I’m sorry—”

“It’s fine,” the young mare cut him off. “He’s alive. We’ll find him. Solo, do you want some time to catch up with your friend?”

“Yeah. But I’m not leaving you alone with him.” Solo’s glare could have almost melted steel. On the receiving end, Ink let a frown build on the edges of his scruffily groomed muzzle. Turning back toward Twelfth, the former smuggler took a step forward. “What happened to you, Eye?”

The thestral folded her leathery wings and seated herself, sucking in a wholly-unnecessary breath for the story. “I was at a Nightmare Night Party at a museum in Lubuck. Bankers and nobles and trophy-spouses, as far as the eye could see.” She briefly glanced toward Ink. “And in case you missed it, my name’s Eyewitness, so I see pretty far. Anyway, we weren’t knocking the place over like usual—”

“We?” Twilight asked.

Twelfth shook her head. “Don’t get your guardspony friend excited, Sparkle. Even if I told you names, you’d never catch them. All you need to know is we were friends. The brains, the muscle, the magic, the teeth, the face—that’s me—and the locksmith, Wax Mold.”

“What happened?” Ink asked. “Lubuck uses Royal Guards, right?” He ran a hoof along his chest, tracing the edge of his long, furless scar as if trying to appear only slightly interested. “It’s not like you picked a fight with one of my Black Cloaks.”

“We didn’t get caught. Look, I’ll keep it short. We weren’t after plain cash or gems like usual. Somepony Wax had talked to was offering four-hundred thousand bits for a single piece: a necklace. About… this big.” Eyewitnesses’ wings were held two inches apart. “Shaped like a shield. It had a gem in the middle, and—”

Twilight interrupted the story with a gasp. “You stole the amulet?”

Twelfth rolled her slitted eyes. “I was about to tell you, I don’t have a clue in Tartarus where the stupid necklace went. I don’t exactly remember what followed very well, but I woke up dead on a rooftop in Canterlot. Stabbed right through the ribs.”

“Do you know who—” Solo began.

“Wax Mold,” Twelfth answered. Solo gasped, and Twilight recoiled in shock. “And to spare everypony’s bated breath, no. He didn’t get away. But at some point between Lubuck and Canterlot, he ditched the thing. I’d like to ask what the deal with the necklace is, but Princess Luna made it quite clear I wasn’t allowed to ask.” Staring pointedly at Twilight, she added another thought. “If you happened to explain while I was in your presence, though, that wouldn’t be breaking her command.”

Twilight swallowed nervously. “It belonged to an archmage, a long time ago. Another one of Princess Celestia’s students. It’s not dangerous… at least not by itself. But if you know just a little bit of necromancy, it’s a way to talk to Mortal Coil—an old archmage.”

“So it lets you talk to some old dead pony?” Twelfth asked.

Solo smiled. “I’m talking to one right now. Doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.”

The comment earned a snort of laughter from the thestral. “It’s been too long since you cracked a joke like that.”

“A lifetime?” Solo asked.

Then, to Twilight’s mild shock and Red Ink’s crippling disappointment, Twelfth Sister leaned down to the slightly smaller mare’s side, and offered her a surprisingly affectionate nuzzle. The motion continued all the way down to the very base of Solo’s neck, where the thestral deposited an audible kiss. Solo’s blush pierced her coat.

“So… how’d you wind up with an Honor Guard and Twilight Sparkle of all ponies? Please tell me Sparkle isn’t a client.”

“Eye…” Flustered, Solo staggered back. “You’re freezing! And can we not do this right now? I mean…”

“It’s only barely necrophilia,” Twelfth teased, stepping forward into the space Solo had left. “But seriously, you don’t exactly seem like you fit in with the Princess’ student and the Commander.” Then the thestral stopped herself, turning to Ink. “Do you do that too? ‘The Commander’? Or was that only the black asshole?”

Ink’s smile disappeared, and he exhaled plumes of thick smoke. “It was a sign of respect. He earned that title. Maybe someday I will too.” He forced a deep breath, and this time exhaled a cloud of mist that seemed to fit the chilly air that persisted even inside the train station.

With a surprisingly sudden motion, Twelfth Sister produced a cigarette from within her armor. “I wish we weren’t stationed somewhere so damn cold.”

“Here, let me get that.” Ink smiled at the mare, and then extended a wingtip toward her. What started as a little spark of fire danced forward. Tongues of flame stretched out to become wings and feathers, until it wasn’t merely a burst of fire but a tiny phoenix soaring forth from his leading feather. The blast of seemingly living fire touched the tip of Twelfth’s cigarette, and then vanished into as much smoke when Solo screamed.

Twelfth wrapped her leathery wings around the twitching mare who knelt on the cold ground. Twilight rushed to her side.

But Red Ink scowled and paced forward, folding his wings at his side. “Alright, I’ve had enough of this. What in Tartarus is wrong with you? Because I don’t give a damn if you got hit with a firework when you were a foal. You’re getting in the way now.”

“Ink,” Twilight scolded. The rest of her thought never arrived, though.

Going Solo’s blue wing pushed Twilight away. On shuddering hooves, the mare rose from the ground, eyes on the verge of tears locked with Ink’s. Her leading feathers moved under her barrel, undoing one button of her vest, and then another and another. When the fitted gray garment was completely loose, the mare reared up on shaky legs, using her wings for a moment of balance. In the center of her belly, devoid of any fur or bandage, was a charred patch of black and red flesh, waxy in some places and almost like charcoal in others. Though it had clearly been cleaned and treated, the edges of the burn still gave the sickening impression that they might have just been fresh.

Ink took a slow breath, and his expression softened. “What happened to you?”

“You did.”

Ink took a hesitant step backward. “When?” he whispered.

Solo’s mouth fell open. Her wings flared up from her back. “You don’t remember?”

Ink seemed to have no response. His wings slowly pulled closer to his torso. His eyes stared forward, at first appearing locked onto Solo’s, until she moved and they stayed still.

“Baltimare, Red Ink. Do you remember that?” The acid in Solo’s voice seemed to have no effect on the stallion, yet in brought a snarling grin to the smuggler’s off-white muzzle. “You tried to kill Shining Armor!” she shouted. “And when I helped him, you tried to kill me!

Ink said nothing. He stood, silently, staring through the guardsmare as if she wasn’t there at all.

Going Solo panted as her sheer rage contested with itself for words.

“Is… is that true?” Twilight whispered.

Silence offered her answer.

Hesitantly, Twilight walked forward. “Ink?”

Solo lowered, herself, wings spread. “He’s a monster, Twilight.”

But Twilight did not pause in her approach. The Honor Guard found he couldn’t bring himself to look away from Solo. All that left his mouth were two words. “I’m… sorry.”

Solo’s hoof met his jaw with enough force to drive the stallion onto the hard floor. “Sorry? You think sorry is going to bring back the ponies you burnt to death?!” Solo stepped over the toppled stallion, rearing up for another blow, when a purple blur latched onto her and pulled her back. Twelfth Sister’s wings beat the air, but her supernatural strength easily overpowered the mortal pegasus.

“Easy, Solo. Don’t pick fights you can’t win.”

Still, Solo struggled. Her red bandana slid up to one of her ears, and her face contorted into a tight knot of rage. “He doesn’t even remember!”

“Solo, you need to calm down!” Twilight cried, raising her voice only to be heard. “Violence isn’t going to help Shining Armor!”

If Going Solo even heard the words, she gave no sign. Struggling in vain against Twelfth Sister’s overpowering grip, the mare still panted and pushed.

“Please, Solo. You need to calm down—”

Somehow, Solo slipped free of the thestral’s grip and lunged forward at Ink. Her hooves caught his jaw and his shoulder.

The blows seemed to jar Ink from his stunned silence. His shoulders tensed as he pushed himself up from the ground, and his wings rose to their full height. The first tongues of flame measured in feet; by the time they had grown to their full strength, they licked the ceiling of the train station lobby, twenty feet overhead.

Solo took a single step backward. Ink matched her, his nominal height completely forgotten as the flames on his back loomed over the guardsmare.

Another step forward, and it was Solo’s turn to lose focus. Her eyes wandered up into the fire, and her tail pulled in against her flank in fear. Ink watched her for a moment before she turned, spread her wings, and flew off. By the time Twilight and Twelfth had turned around, the former smuggler had already slipped past the parked train on the rails and out into the snowy open air over Stalliongrad.

“Solo!” Twilight shouted.

“You deal with him, Sparkle,” Twelfth Sister growled, shooting a harsh glare in Ink’s direction. “I’ll find Solo. Meet us at the castle.” With those blunt directions, the thestral spread her own leathery wings and silently cursed the Honor Guard. Big Brother was going to kill her.

Ink sat opposite Twilight at a table in the corner of a cramped little corner cafe, staring into his hot cocoa and watching the swirls of cream dance, simply to avoid her eyes. He barely registered the sound of approaching hooves until the little notepad Twilight had set on the table started speaking in Equiish.

“C—Commandant Blood Stroke… Is there anything—”

“No,” he interrupted harshly. The waitress, a unicorn who could barely be called more than sixteen, dropped her serving tray from her buttery yellow arcane grip as she jumped backward. Glasses broke and water spilled on Ink’s hind hooves. Sighing, he looked up, ready to assure the filly that he wasn’t going to hurt her. The memory of fire stole the words from his tongue. Without comment, his wing reached down for the dropped tray.

Before his eyes, wrapped in rosy magic, the shards of glass reformed into unblemished cups. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I think we’d just like some privacy.” With those delicate words, Twilight handed the restored glasses and their tray to the filly.

With a grateful nod, the filly slipped away, leaving Twilight and Ink by the frosted window, where the shadows of snowflakes danced over their muzzles.

The cocoa was lukewarm, at best. Ink frowned, and set the drink down. Ceramic rattled on unfinished wood; the harsh sound left him pinning his ears back, and his eyes wandered over to the window.

“Can we talk, Ink?”

He winced, and only caught himself after the motion was through. He sighed, and tried to look her in the eye. He really did. Somehow, his neck just couldn’t complete the motion. “It’s true,” he blurted out, still staring through the window. “Everything she said.”

“I know,” Twilight answered, her voice still gentle.

“Armor told you, didn’t he?” Ink stacked his forelegs on the table and lowered his head to rest his chin atop them.

Twilight offered a little sigh that made Ink’s ears perk up. “No, Ink. I didn’t know until today.”

“Then Solo—”

“I know because I know you.” Twilight’s hoof stretched out, gently pulling Ink’s muzzle until he was at least facing in her direction. Sitting upright, she looked down on him not with judgement, but something resembling pity. “The way I know any of my friends.”

He found himself quietly wishing it could have been judgement instead.

“If Solo had been lying, you would have gotten defensive. You probably would have made a joke or caught on fire or something. Locking up like that, though… That’s not like you. At all.”

“Hmmph,” Ink grumbled. “I still lit myself on fire. Scared her off.”

Twilight gave a slow nod. “I was hoping to calm her down, but she was attacking you, Ink. And I can see her side too, but you didn’t actually hurt anypony.”

“I killed three ponies. Burnt three more, badly.” Twilight’s eyes widened in shock. “In Baltimare,” Ink elaborated. “She was one of them. The rest were…” And then he closed his eyes. “I still don’t know their names. I thought it was better to stay away after what I did.”

“What actually happened?” The question was so calm, Ink found himself staring up at Twilight with a raised eyebrow. “Roscherk, I don’t think you’re a bad pony. I used to, before you came to Ponyville, but you lived in the library for two months. I don’t think you were ever the kind of pony who would try to hurt my brother to get ahead.”

Ink sighed and turned toward the window. “I was worse than you think, Twilight. But you’re right. I didn’t actually want to kill Shining Armor.” As the snowflakes fell outside, Ink brought his cocoa to his lips, and downed the now chilled liquid in two quick gulps. “How much do you know about empatha?”

“Um… I read Commander Hurricane’s journals, and he was the one who rediscovered it. But that’s all just theory. I don’t know what it feels like.”

Ink nodded, and then raised himself up from the table into a poor imitation of proper posture. “The magic is based on emotion. Fire comes from anger, ice from sadness, wind from excitement. Or desperation, Mentor always said, though I’ve never felt it. And stone from fear.”

“When you say ‘Mentor’, you mean Commander Lining, right?”

Ink nodded. “He was the one who taught me. Well, taught me to be any good. When Polnoch—my little brother—when the two of us were working for Frostbite with the Secret Police, Commandant Truncheon taught us the basics. But Mentor…” Another sigh escaped the red stallion’s lungs. “Your personality affects your empatha. It’s a… an extra-edge sword?”

Twilight smiled slightly. “Double-edged is the idiom in Equiish.”

“Ah. Anyway, for soldiers, that’s what it is: the more emotional you are, the stronger your magic, but the more likely you are to let your emotions overtake you in battle.”

With a nod, Twilight silently indicated her understanding. Ink frowned. “I don’t know a ‘nice’ way to say this, so I guess I’ll just be blunt, Twilight. I’m the best fire empath in Equestria.”

“Um, I don’t mean to be rude, but how do you know that?”

“There’s a pair of huge iron doors in the castle,” Ink half-heartedly muttered. “They’re melted open in the middle, wide enough for somepony to get through.”

To Ink’s surprise, Twilight’s eyes widened in recognition. “The throne room doors that Cyclone burnt when he was attacking River Rock?” When Ink offered her a completely blank stare, Twilight looked down at her hooves. “Sorry. I guess you wouldn’t know about that history.”

“I know, Twilight. I just don’t care. My point is, Mentor taught me to control my anger. Even calm, I can heat those doors enough to bend them. I’ve only ever failed him twice.”

“Twice?”

Ink winced, realizing what he had said. “You don’t want to know, Twilight.”

At first, Twilight said nothing. Under her gaze, Ink felt his skin writhing beneath his coat. After a lifetime of silence, Twilight nodded. “I understand if you don’t want to talk about it, Ink. I won’t force you to. But one of the first lessons my friends and I learned when I moved to Ponyville was that being friends is just as much about accepting help as it is giving it.”

Ink’s ears perked. “You keep insisting we are friends, Twilight?”

“Yes. Don’t you?”

“After I told you that I tried to kill your brother? This isn’t some lesson about Rainbow Dash insulting somepony or Rarity being jealous. I killed innocent ponies—”

Twilight took a deep breath. “Maybe you aren’t like my other friends, Ink. You’ve made some mistakes. But I guess, more than anything else, that’s why you need a friend. Or a few friends, but we can work on that once we rescue Shining.”

Ink’s nostrils flared, and then in a surprisingly fast motion, he stood from the table. “Walk with me, Twilight. Let’s find my brother.”

“We need to pay…”

Ink rolled his eyes and then glanced to the far side of cafe, where the young waitress was very pointedly occupied polishing an already gleaming table. Ink cried out in Stalliongradi, and Twilight’s notepad translated his words aloud. “Send the bill to my office.”

“O-of c-c-course, C-commandant.”

As Ink shouldered his way out the door, he muttered a harsh “thanks” that probably didn’t reach the waitress’ ears.

Outside, the snow on the streets of Stalliongrad fell slow but heavy. Without wind, Ink revelled in the temperature, letting his fetlocks pick up a hint of dust as his hooves dug down to the flagstones underneath the powder. Without his namesake jacket, the ponies on the street paid him little attention, though at least one recognized his cutie mark and gave him a wider berth. Overhead, buildings of brick and stone and plaster rose up tall and narrow on uneven heights, leaning against each other to create lopsided alleyways. Overhead, Burning Hearth Castle loomed over the city, mirrored on the opposite side by the spire of his brother’s obsidian obelisk. Rippling blue magic ran along its surface, through the frame of wooden scaffolding around it, reaching up toward the sky.

“What are you looking at, Ink?”

“That,” Ink answered, gesturing to the obelisk. “I’d guess Predvidenie is there.”

“Is that the focusing pinnacle he’s using to try and end the eternal winter? I read about his experiment in Popular Magic, and I’ve been meaning to write him asking about it. The article was very vague about the way he was applying void crystals in his resonant gem matrices, and I’m curious how he got past the near-infinite resistance quotient.”

Ink nodded in feigned understanding, and started to trudge through the snow. Twilight shivered as she followed, even wrapped in her tan jacket. Their path led through streets Ink had learned by memory years earlier, past familiar storefronts and down streets whose stones were older than Equestria itself. From street to street the buildings shifted in age and style, leaving Twilight in a perpetual state of curious wonder, trusting Ink’s direction while her eyes wandered the city’s skyline.

Unlike his companion, Ink was more interested with the path and the ponies on the street. They passed a few Black Cloaks who the stallion didn’t recognize; without his jacket, he passed unnoticed. In older days, he recalled enjoying the influence and the wide berth that precious jacket inspired, but now he found himself sickened by the thought of the attention. There were still more than a few ponies on the street who knew his size and his color well enough to guess his identity, made clear by their wide steps and nervous sidelong glances, but even those were better than being crowded by his former subordinates.

With his mind lost in memories, Ink didn’t see the little rubber ball rolling on the packed snow covering the street until it bumped against his hoof. He regarded the thing with idle eyes: it was cheaply made, a solid cherry red that wouldn’t be lost in the snow, but it bounced well enough. He tapped the top twice, letting it dribble up and down, before catching it with his wing and looking up to find the owner.

A little filly with her mane in pigtails was slowly walking toward him, unsure what to make of the strange red stallion. Her eyes briefly jumped to the sword Twilight was still wearing, hanging off her neck at the shoulder, but to a filly so young, the ball was more interesting than a strange metal tube. She was halfway across the street toward Ink when a pair of strong hooves wrapped around her sides. Scolding the filly, her mother pulled the child back toward their home, and the door slammed shut with a surprising force.

“Huh…”

“Hm?” Twilight, shocked away from the sights of the city by the sound of the door, turned to Ink. “What happened? Where did you get that ball?”

“A filly kicked it to me,” he answered, his voice still unsure. “Hold on.” With no more explanation, the soldier hesitantly crossed the street to the door. Twilight followed cautiously, stopping a few strides away. No knocker or doorbell hung on the house’s unfinished and unpainted door; only a heavy lock and a handle. Trying to avoid sounding angry, Ink hesitantly raised his hoof and knocked twice.

The wait that followed took two full breaths, though that seemed like forever. When the door opened, it was the face of the mother who stared back at him.

“Your filly…” The words drained off as Ink took in the sheer terror on the mare’s face. Her eyes were watering at the edges, and tears ran down the gaunt cavities on her cheeks.

She shuddered as she tried to speak. “Please, Commandant Blood Stroke, she didn’t mean to interrupt you. She was only playing. She didn’t know—”

“I just wanted to give her ball back,” Ink interrupted, holding out the toy in his wing. “I… um, I’m sorry if I scared you?”

The mare didn’t seem to know what to say. It was with a shuddering hoof that she pulled the ball beyond the door. “Thank you. Thank you, Commandant. I’ll keep her out of the way of your soldiers in the future.”

“It’s no trouble.” Ink nodded, visibly uncomfortable. “Now, I need to be going.”

Though it would be unfair to say it slammed, the door closed rather quickly.

“What was that about?” Twilight asked as Ink walked back to her side.

He didn’t answer her, at least at first. His head hung. His breath stung when it hit his lungs. It took three long breaths to find his voice. “She’s a rebel. Or at least she listens to them.”

“What? How could you possibly know that?”

“Because she believes the story…” Ink took a deep breath. “Twilight, I… there is something I would like to tell you. Well… no. Something I should tell you. But when I am done, I’m afraid we will not be friends.”

Twilight swallowed hard. “I already told you, Ink, I understand that you’ve made mistakes.”

“Not like this.” Turning toward the obelisk once more, the stallion exhaled a cloud of thick mist from the fire building in his gut. “Put away your pad. I will speak Equiish. I do not want this heard.”

At first she hesitated, unsure of what the stallion could possibly mean. Ink only frowned, waiting. Once Twilight had stowed the quill and notepad for her translation spell, he began to speak. “After we killed Frostbite and ended the revolution, Mentor left Stalliongrad with Stoikaja. You know who she is, right?”

“In Equestria, she was called Soldier On. I moved out of Canterlot around the time she joined the Honor Guard. They say she was part of the plot to assassinate Princess Luna.”

Ink scowled. “She worked with us to overthrow Frostbite; usually on missions with my little brother. Mentor taught her to fight too, and when he left after the revolution, he took her with him. He needed her help for some Honor Guard mission in Suida. That was a few months before you fought Nightmare Moon. I don’t know what happened, but when she came back, she was different.

“A lot of the poorer earth ponies who had sided with us against Frostbite wanted us to split up the treasury and strip all the land from the remaining nobles so they’d have some pay for their work. Father sided with them at first, but Predvidenie showed us the math. We needed that money to make the new government work, or ponies would be starving. We’d nearly convinced them all when Stoikaja came back.

“She was a face of the revolution. Mentor had stood her up that way; she represented the ‘common pony’, since Father was an alicorn and our mother had noble blood. So when Stoikaja sided with the farmers, she drove a rift between us.”

“Didn’t Predvidenie try to show her the math?”

Ink opened his mouth to snap back at her show of naivete, but hesitated when he looked at the young mare’s face. Her hopeful expression honestly believed the conflict could have been resolved with simple statistics. He only barely caught his disappointment before it slid onto his muzzle. “She wouldn’t listen any more than the rest of the masses.” Ink’s eyes fell to the road. “She’d always gotten along best with Polnoch, so she tried to pull him over to her side. But when that didn’t work, she hired Masquerade to kill him.”

Twilight recoiled. “I… that doesn’t make any sense. If she was going to assassinate him, why not do it herself? Wasn’t she a soldier?”

Ink nodded. “Stoikaja is dangerous.” He tapped the scar on his chest, running from his shoulder to the base of his ribs. “Deadly. But she didn’t just want to kill him. She wanted to frame me. I was the only one holding her back. Father was on the verge of supporting the farmers himself, and all Predvidenie’s money can’t buy him a spine to stand up to an army. If she took Polnoch and I out of the picture, she won.”

“But that didn’t happen?”

Ink shook his head. “Masquerade operates through middle-ponies. She puts spells on them to keep them from talking about her, and to make sure they haven’t been discovered by guardsponies. But none of her magic protects her contractors; only herself. I managed to track down the pony who Stoikaja talked to. Between his testimony and the evidence I dug up to find him in the first place, I knew the truth. But by that point, Stoikaja had already built up a following.”

“The rebellion?”

“I thought if I cut off the head, the rest of it would crumble. But Mentor had taught Stoikaja too much about stealth for me to flush her out. I had to make her come to me.” Stopping for a moment, Ink swallowed heavily. “I could only think of one way to do that, though. Stoikaja had two foals.”

Far to the east of Stalliongrad, snaking amidst the Clawcasus Mountains from Sibearia in the east to the dreaded edge of Treasonfang Pass in the northwest, the ponies of Stalliongrad had built a wall. The strangely dark granite that made up the mountains left the landscape with a surreally picturesque black and white appearance as the perpetual winter of the region struggled to cover the mighty edifice.

Within the dark stone walls of the serpentine structure, a relatively lanky, slight-figured, and short red stallion fiddled with the stubble building up on his chin and tried to ignore the sound of crying echoing through the room. From the sheer force with which his ears were pinned to his skull, and the notable pinch of muscles between his wings, it was clear his efforts were failing.

“Damn it, Voyska, can you make her shut up?”

Voyska Spetsial'nogo, the mare responsible for acquiring the sobbing filly in the first place, rubbed a hoof through the young child’s mane. “What in Tartarus am I supposed to do exactly, Commandant? She’s five years old!”

“Let us go!” shouted the periwinkle colt in the corner. Eight or nine years old at most, the young pegasus spread his wings without understanding exactly whom he was addressing. “Mommy’s going to come get us, and if you don’t let us go, she’ll hurt you!”

Roscherk Krovyu rubbed his brow with a hoof and resumed the slow pace back and forth in front of the door that had occupied the previous four hours. The stride only lasted two laps before he stopped at the face of a rather cheap pine cabinet filled with military rations and miscellaneous glass bottles. Without even really looking, he procured two such bottles, pouring them into a tall cup. Or, at least, he tried to. When one bottle proved to be empty, his wing flung it backwards over his shoulder, where it smashed against the stone wall. Unhesitating, he filled his cup to the brim with the liquid from the other bottle. The potent scent of juniper and alcohol hung in the air.

“Is that straight gin?” Voskya wondered, looking up from the filly she held against her own lush black coat.

Roscherk nodded as he held out the drink in her direction. “We’re out of tonic. Still ought to shut the kid up.” His eyes fell on the earth pony filly in question, and she curled tighter against Voskya, her cries growing louder still. “How about it, kid? What’s your name… Neustannaja?” The foal made no response, which seemed enough of an affirmative for Roscherk to continue. “Take a nice nap? Maybe stop crying for twenty seconds?”

“Leave her alone!” shouted the colt, lunging at Roscherk’s extended wing. Gin splashed in the air and drew gray puddles on the floor, though most remained in its vessel. “And let us go! We wanna see mommy!”

“Really?” The glint of the sealed ceramic cast light from the room’s hanging oil lantern into the sagging pouches under Roscherk’s eyes. He downed at least two shots worth of the straight gin in his glass without hesitation. “I’d love to see your mom too, colt.”

The colt took a step forward, as if he thought he could somehow intimidate the soldier before him. “My name’s Upornyj, not ‘colt’.”

Roscherk snorted, and then helped himself to another gulp of his drink.

“Roscherk, you’ve been drinking a lot lately. Ever since—”

Voskya winced when her commander smashed the porcelain cup on the floor. “Since when, Voskya? Since Polnoch died? Since I found my brother with his organs melted? Since Stoikaja and her fucking farmers killed forty-five ponies on Gemstone Way?”

Voskya gently set the filly on her lap aside, and then rose to her hooves. “Does that make what you’ve done right, Commandant? I thought your new police were supposed to be above foalnapping. What would your ‘Mentor’ say?”

“That two orphans are worth stopping a war,” the stallion growled back, turning his back to the mare and sulking. “He’d be doing exactly what I’m doing now, Voskya. She admits to having Polnoch killed for her greed, or I burn her alive.”

After his heavy panting died down, the mare responded. “She’ll lie to you,” Voskya whispered, hoping not to upset her commander again. “She’ll claim she’s willing to confess, but she’ll use her dying breath to send a message, and the peasants will start another rebellion.”

“No she won’t,” Roscherk growled. “Because she cares more about her foals than the rebellion.”

“Are you sure about that?”

The heavy, steel-framed wooden door creaked open, amplifying the whistle of the snowstorm outside. As Roscherk’s coat stirred lightly, the stallion once more dipped his head. “If she didn’t, Voskya, we wouldn’t have caught her.” Turning to the pony looming in the doorway, the blood-colored stallion perked his ears. “Is it time, Drobilka?”

“She’s here,” growled the old mare with scars on her throat, sounding for all the world like a stallion ought to.

Roscherk’s eyes flashed with fire, and whatever haze the alcohol had placed in his mind was burnt away. “Bring the foals.”

He hardly noticed the warmth of Drobilka’s coat, nor the gust of wind that swept amidst his hooves when he pressed through the door. Up the black stones, hooves crunching on the white snow, he trod. Two thin lines of fire traveled up the crests of his wings, and the bitter chill of the blizzard vanished.

“Where?”

The hoarse-voiced mare gestured with a wingtip. “Patience, Roscherk. They’re coming.”

“Polnoch has waited long enough.” Roscherk’s right hoof reached up to the furry collar of his cheap black coat, and almost without thinking, he stroked it. “It will be over soon.”

“What are you going to do with the foals when it is done?” Drobilka asked him.

Roscherk shrugged. “Send them to an orphanage somewhere. Canterlot, maybe Trottingham. Somewhere far away. They don’t need to be part of this.”

“I mean now,” the mare growled. “You aren’t going to let them watch, are you?”

A shake of his head was Roscherk’s answer. “I gave Stoikaja my terms. I intend to honor them. The foals will be on the way back to Stol’nograd, whether I put the bitch down here or drag her back there to confess.” For just a moment, the flames on the stallion’s extended wings flared blue. “And here she comes now.”

Out of the wind and the snow to the west came seven ponies. Six were clad in heavy winter coats of neutral browns and blacks and grays, but the seventh in the center of the formation wore only a crimson scarf.

A head and half-again taller than her closest peer in the cluster of guards, Stoikaja walked with a surprising determination for a defeated mare. Her hooves crushed the snow, and her shoulders pressed heavily into the wind, undaunted by the chill. The mane that Roscherk had last seen flowing down to her shoulders was chopped to nearly nothing; in some places an inch long, in others barely risen above her scalp. Two slender red lines marred her right shoulder; a half-dozen more had caught her forelegs where her deadly blows had crossed with the guardsponies’ weapons.

Her emerald eyes caught Roscherk’s amber, picking out the orange of his flames against the monochrome horizon.

“Where are my foals?” Stoikaja shouted, her powerful voice easily clearing the few hundred yards separating her from the foot of the wall.

The fires on Roscherk’s wings grew taller at the sound of her shout, but his face remained even. Turning back to the sloping stairs buried on the top of the wall, he spoke firmly. “Bring them up, Voskya.”

As Roscherk’s subordinates led Stoikaja to a slope of snow at the foot of the wall, Voskya led the two young foals up the stairs, holding them firmly with her purple magic. The young filly shuddered, docilely heeding the tug of the unicorn’s lead. Her brother struggled in vain, flinging his weight back and forth at odd intervals in hopes that he could break the spell wrapped around his shoulders

Neustannaja whimpered. “Don’t throw us off the wall! We’ll be good!”

Roscherk scowled. “I’m not the villain here, filly. You are only here because your mother—”

At that moment, the two foals stepped up from the stairs onto the upper level of the wall. Voskya’s focus lay on the colt and his continued struggles, so when Neustannaja caught sight of her mother, her bolt toward the familiar face broke her free of her magical restraint. The little earth pony filly managed three full galloping strides before strong red legs wrapped around her and pulled her back.

"Let her go!" Stoikaja yelled, beginning to spring forward.

"No sudden moves," Roscherk answered. The spite unrestrained in his every word turned to icicles in the bitter air, despite the fire roaring from above his black coat.

Stoikaja's hooves slid to a stop on the snow below the wall. Desperation rang out over anger. "Please, Roscherk, don't hurt her."

"I'd be glad not to." Roscherk's hoof wrapped around the filly's neck, pulling her up against his chest where her struggles meant nothing against his lean soldier’s physique. "Here's how this is going to work, Stoikaja. You admit you hired Masquerade to kill Polnoch.”

“That’s what you want, bastard?!” Stoikaja took a step forward, but that single step was all she had the courage for, as Roscherk’s grip tensed. “Fine…” Green eyes blinking and twitching, struggling not to cry, scarf flying on the wind, the mare lowered her head. “I… I did it. I killed him.”

Roscherk scoffed, maintaining his grip. “You think I care if you say it to me? I already know. Donoschik told me, right before I lit him on fire.”

Stoikaja shouted up the side of the wall. “Let go of my daughter!”

“Burning Hearth.” Roscherk’s reply echoed through a lull in the wind. “You stand on the wall of Burning Hearth. You tell Postantev and the damn elk and anypony else stupid enough to have believed what you said about me. You tell them the truth. Then you die.”

“No!” The shout came from Upornyj, the pegasus colt struggling against the hold of Roscherk’s lackey. Motivated by desperation, the pegasus colt slipped free and charged toward his sister and the threatening red stallion who held her tight. “You’re not gonna hurt Mom!”

Unfortunately for the colt, no amount of desperation could make up for Roscherk’s honed reflexes and his superior size. Lashing out with the edge of the his free forehoof, the trained soldier caught the back of the colt’s neck. Upornyj hit the black stones of the wall so hard that he bounced, before skidding on his jaw along the smooth surface of the frozen stones.

Stoikaja’s next stride turned the tundra into a battlefield. The first of the six black-clad soldiers surrounding her thrust with a spear for her side. The desperate mother grabbed the shaft of the weapon between her forehooves with speed like a snake. Rising up onto her hind legs, she yanked the weapon back, letting the spear brush past her side and into the belly of the Black Cloak charging her from behind. The tug of the spear also unbalanced the stallion holding it; he stumbled forward just in time for her hooves to wrap around his neck.

Neustannaja screamed at the sound of the stallion’s spine cracking into splinters.

Roscherk glanced down at the earth pony filly in his hooves, and then bluntly shoved her toward Drobilka. The older pegasus, consumed with preparing herself for battle, stumbled at the sudden weight before wrapping her wings around the foal.

“Get her and the colt out of here. I’ll deal with this.” Blood red wings extended, igniting into pillars of flame that tore through the icy sky.

A blast of crackling arcana flew over Stoikaja’s shoulder when she lowered herself, letting her foreleg sweep out in a wide arc that picked up a heavy pile of snow. Flicking her elbow, she launched the mass of frost into the unicorn’s eyes. Only a moment later, her right ear twitched, and on instinct, all four of her legs kicked off against the snow. The desperate backflip put her in the air as a trio of sharpened icicles filled the space where she had been standing. The pegasus black cloak, a wiry sky blue stallion, wheezed when she landed on his back. Her hooves wrapped her scarf around his neck and pulled up.

When the unicorn hurled his next spell, Stoikaja rolled back, spreading the strangled pegasus across her flank as an equine shield. He gasped and went limp as the bolt of magic cleanly pierced his ribs. Releasing her grip on the dead stallion’s neck, Stoikaja bucked the corpse at the unicorn, pinning the unfortunate pony.

Fire consumed her world before she could turn on the next attacker. It singed her frosted coat and brought water to her eyes. She coughed on the smoke, and in that tiny show of weakness, Roscherk struck.

The right cross struck her jaw, and then he kicked off her skull before she could catch him in a grip. Exactly as their mentor had taught them: for a pegasus to lose their mobility is to die. She knew better than to try and fight his battle. Loosening the shoe on her right forehoof, Stoikaja turned her eyes to the sky. She didn’t have any blades to strike with, but the Black Cloaks had left her the plain steel shoes on her hooves.

Her ears twitched at the sound of heavy wings beating the air. Swallowing back her anguish, she tossed the loosened shoe into the air. The smooth steel crescent glimmered in the firelight as she spun, rearing her hind legs for the kill. Without a blade on the leading edge, she’d have to aim perfectly to kill him.

When the flying shoe met the steel on her hind hooves, it rang like a chime. The wet crunch that followed it told her she’d managed a hit. It was over.

A filly’s scream cut through the air. Stoikaja’s eyes traced her children dropping through the sky as Drobilka fell, her brow cracked and bleeding where she’d been struck with a shoe. The mother ran for her foals, but on flaming wings, Roscherk was faster. His hooves caught little Neustannaja, while the bruised, unconscious, and now burnt form of Upornyj was left to Stoikaja’s care.

When she caught her son, Stoikaja cast a quick glance around at the surviving Black Cloaks. Though the unicorn had freed himself from the burden of his compatriot’s corpse and joined the two surviving, sword-wielding pegasi, the introduction of the colt to the battlefield gave all the soldiers pause.

Clearly, Roscherk was not so restrained. When he landed on the black stones of the Wall alongside Voskya’s attentive horn, his forehoof flicked Neustannaja aside, freeing his wings to once more spew Tartarus into the blizzard that filled the skies. The filly skidded to the far edge of the wall, overhanging a sheer precipice to a frozen lake hundreds of feet below. When she tried to move, Roscherk roared and waved his wing. The stones around her melted, ringing the filly in with a pool of glowing magma. For her part, the little earth pony filly unleashed a hoarse scream, her throat tired and her eyes unfocused, at a loss of how to respond to the unending nightmare of her surroundings.

“You know my terms, Stoikaja. You can end this rebellion and die an easy death.”

Stoikaja ran up the wall, slowing only when the bouncing of her stride threatened to send her son spilling from her back. “Polnoch would have been ten-thousand times the Commandant you are, Roscherk.” Her trots on the ice grew heavy, her tail flicking back and forth through the snowflakes in the sky. Her voice shouted up into the storm. “You killed him! I’ll die to save my foals, Roscherk, but I won’t lie to Stol’nograd! I won’t let you win! I won’t do that to Polnoch’s memory!”

“You want to talk about Polnoch’s memory?” The flames on Roscherk’s wings turned blue, and fire danced over his tongue as his voice grew louder. “You didn’t even have the courage to look him in the eyes when he died, whore!” Voskya dove back from the fires on Roscherk’s wings, but nevertheless, the heat left her coat crinkling and blackened.

Stoikaja stopped at the edge of the flames, and laid her son down calmly on the edge of the fire. When she looked up, her eyes were wild, dancing with fire. “Get away from my daughter.”

“Then say it.”

Stoikaja's primal scream filled the air, and she began to run forward.

The Commandant roared in anger, and his mouth lit up in pale blue. A torrent of fire poured off his tongue toward Stoikaja, hot enough to drive away the icy curse that plagued the land. Most of the other Black Cloaks were petrified as smoke engulfed their prisoner. It came as little surprise when Stoikaja tore out of the black clouds toward Roscherk, but she passed him up entirely in the interest of saving her daughter.

He was not so distracted. The steel shoe on his hoof, now heated to the point of glowing white, seared into the mare's flesh with every strike he landed against her. His hooves moved with untraceable speed, slicing into her flesh and searing shut the wounds they left behind.

She toppled to the cold surface of the wall with a deafening crunch, mere feet from her daughter, too determined in her rescue to even gasp or cry out in pain.

Roscherk pounced atop her and wrapped his hooves around her neck as his wings flared. Only inches from her filly's hooves, Stoikaja was pulled into the air by the burly pegasus who was her most loathed enemy.

"Say it!" he shouted, as consumed by his obsession as he was by flames.

Stoikaja twisted in his grip even as she gasped for air. The sheer might of her body was thrown into a single blow against Roscherk's ribcage, shod hoof first. Bones slid into muscle and sinew two dozen feet in the air, and in shock, the short lived flight ended in a sudden fall.

As Roscherk remained crumpled, his lackeys charged her. Stoikaja acted on little more than instinct, dancing away from spells and swords with the sense she still didn’t fully understand. Her ear twitched, and she rolled to the side. A sword would have filled her belly. A shoulder spasmed, and she pounced, catching the unicorn’s horn with a hoof just as the mana for a spell began to build. The coat on her neck stood up, and she lunged after the backpedaling unicorn, just in time to feel a razor-edged sword trim the longer hairs of her mane. Her hoof lashed into the unicorn’s throat twice, tearing up a gaping wound, as the pegasus behind her stumbled with the balance he’d lost in the swing. Without standing, she caught his chest in a single-legged full-body buck. His sternum sank behind his rib cage, and bone spurs pierced his sides as he died. The pant of wings on the air followed, marking the last of the pegasi moving in for the kill. Rearing up, she parried his sword with a shod forehoof, and then broke the diving pony’s wing with her remaining hoof. His momentum carried him over the wall.

Vosyka survived until last, teleporting and dancing away from Stoikaja’s blows. The tickle on the tip of her nose warned her of the blow she needed to end it. As the Black Cloak mare appeared before her, the earth pony rammed her skull down forehead first, putting stars in the other mare’s eyes. Before Voskya could recover, Stoikaja snapped her neck.

The crackle of fire was the first sign that Roscherk had awoken. His roar came next, guttural and indistinct, blending in with the flames that filled the skies once more. The fire spread wide this time, untamed and unlimited, consuming the bodies of his fallen comrades, wrapped in black coats turned bodybags. The sky fell orange and black along with the familiar blue and white. It was clear Roscherk hadn’t noticed. His only thought was of the towering mare before him.

He struck Stoikaja and her flesh burned. Her hooves shattered his foreleg, but the heat in his blood concealed the pain. He ripped at her and burned her, biting and striking in a whirlwind of flames that would have cooked a lesser pony alive. Her strength and her endurance were nothing against him when his mind refused to recognize such petty concepts as pain and danger. He protected himself not by dodging or blocking, but with the sheer volume of damage he and his fires wrought upon her once-invulnerable form.

When he had broken her guard, his hooves beat against her hind legs again and again and again, burning open flesh and muscle and even blackening and melting the edge of her hoof. By the time his fury had abated to permit speech, the unstoppable titan of the rebellion could no longer stand.

"Now..." Roscherk sucked in a breath between his furious words. "... I'll finish what Frostbite started."

Stoikaja's face was too battered, and her mind too tired to even consider a response. Roscherk hefted her with a wing and a hoof, and carried her to the edge of the wall, where an icy fall awaited.

“Mom!” Neustannaja shouted. Roscherk heard it too late. The filly dove, hoping perhaps to pull her mother back, just as he released his enemy for a final fall to her death.

Two ponies tumbled down the sheer wall of black stone, toward the frozen surface of a lake far below. Though they disappeared quickly in a wall of smoke and snow and darkness, Roscherk stared down for some time, until the fires on his wings died and the chill in the air pressed against his bones.

When he turned back to the wall, amidst the charred and withered corpses of Voskya and the others, he saw another body. Smaller, leaner, with little wings and what remained of a wild-cut tail. Burns marred his body, and his chest was still.

Twilight was quiet for a very long time. Ink couldn’t bring himself to look her in the eye, fearful that he might guess what she was truly thinking. Instead, he let his eyes wander the streets of Stalliongrad. Old streets that he’d called home for a few years. Streets he and Polnoch had patrolled in slim gray and black uniform under Frostbite’s orders. Streets he’d fought up and down with Mentor at his side. Streets—

“Thank you for sharing that, Roscherk.”

Ink turned toward Twilight, and he found in her eyes… something. Something he couldn’t quite place. But it wasn’t the hatred he had been expecting. Rather, something closer to pity, though that wasn’t the right idea either.

“Don’t tell anypony,” he told her.

“I would never tell,” Twilight told him, and he believed her. She looked at him with a sad curiosity. “Have you been keeping that secret all these years? Have you ever told anypony?”

He nodded. “Predvidenie knows. He’d helped me find her foals—find Upornyj and Neustannaja. When I came back alone, I knew I couldn’t keep it secret.”

“And?”

“He helped me keep it quiet. Set up an official story, that all my soldiers had died trying to apprehend Stoikaja, and that I was the only one who survived. Left her foals out entirely. Most ponies didn’t know about them. She’d always kept them hidden.” Ink frowned, and his wings sagged on his back. “But the rebellion didn’t die. We started seeing graffiti. ‘Stoikaja lives’. And when I caught rebels, they’d call me ‘foal-killer’. As far as the good ponies care, it’s just some slander. But that mare back there, the mother with the ball… I could see it in her eyes. She’d heard the stories. She thought I’d kill her daughter.”

Twilight brushed up against Ink’s side and reached up a forehoof to wrap around his shoulders. To her surprise, he recoiled from the gesture. Lowering the hoof, Twilight let her gaze fall back to the ground. “It was an accident, Roscherk. A mistake.”

“Does that make a difference?” Ink asked.

Twilight nodded. “I… well, I’m not sure I know what to say, Roscherk, but—”

“Ink,” he corrected. “Please, Twilight.”

Twilight’s ears perked, and her hooves stopped still on the snow-dusted avenue of Stalliongrad. “Why? I thought I was pronouncing it right—”

“You were. Just…” He hesitated, his eyes drifting to the horizon. “Look, I don’t know,” the stallion whispered. “It just sounds better right now.”

Without pressing the point, the unicorn’s hooves returned to their path. “What I’m trying to say, Ink, is that you can’t change the past.” Glancing down to where her hooves met the snowy streets, Twilight whispered to herself. “What would Princess Celestia say?” A glimmer of metal caught her eye, and her gaze drifted back to her own side, where in the commotion of the day, she had forgotten that she was wearing Heims Osculum against the somewhat worn and dirtied tan jacket she’d bought in Trotsylvania.

“Have you ever heard the story of Cyclone, Ink?”

He nodded, and when he spoke up, it was clear his mind was elsewhere. “Everypony in Stol’nograd knows about Tsyklon. One of Commander Hurricane’s soldiers who didn’t like ‘giving up’ on the pegasus nation, so he took over the unicorn capital when everypony else migrated to Equestria. What does that have to do with me?”

Twilight took a deep breath. “Well, Ink, Cyclone was a lot like you. He was a talented soldier, and a powerful fire empath, and he was Commander Hurricane’s son. More than anything, he wanted to live up to his father’s legacy, and get the pegasus homeland back from the griffons.”

Ink seemed to be barely attentive. His hooves lazily beat the snowy streets, and his eyes traced a path across a wide bridge over the Volgallop. “And…?” he muttered.

“And like you, he made a mistake. He tried to usurp Cirra from his father and overthrow the Diamond Kingdom. He didn’t remain in River Rock—Stalliongrad—because of some nationalistic ideal. He was exiled from Equestria, and forced to stay with the remaining eternal winter.”

“I did not need the knife twisted, Twilight.”

“That isn’t—” Twilight huffed when she saw the wry upward twist at the corner of Ink’s mouth, short-lived though it was. “My point is, nopony remembers those things about Cyclone. Part of that is because they were left out of history books, but it’s also because of all the good Cyclone did in his later life. He saved Stalliongrad from starvation by negotiating with the dragons for the heat to grow crops. He helped negotiate a peace between the grizzly bears and the polar tribes to found Sibearia. And his skills as a soldier let him save Equestria once or twice too.”

Ink slowly nodded, and then a slow smile emerged on his jaw. “Also, he was clearly compensating for something.”

“What?”

“Have you seen his sword? Infernus?” Ink spread his wings out. “It’s like, if I wanted to make the world’s biggest pancake, that’s what I would use. It’s longer than I am.”

“Well, to be honest, Ink, that isn’t very—”

“How badly do you actually want to finish that thought, Miss Sparkle?” In the ensuing silence, Ink gestured with a wing at the small stone structure ahead, surrounding the base of his brother’s massive monument. “I do appreciate your story though, Twilight. Now, let’s find my brother. Then, hopefully, we can find yours.”

The base of the obelisk was a rather mundane stone building that would have blended into the surrounding buildings, were it not occupying the center of an otherwise wide brick square lightly dusted in snow. The air here was warmer, Ink observed, than in the rest of the city. Perhaps Predvidenie’s idea wasn’t as insane as it sounded. The stray thought died as quickly as it had risen; ahead, two Black Cloaks stood flanking the heavy sheer-skysteel doors that offered entrance to the building.

“Товарищи,” Ink began, only to hear an imitation of his voice offer greeting from Twilight’s notepad in Equiish, over his shoulder. “Comrades.” It sounded tinny and off-key, but Twilight would survive. Ink continued unhindered, and the spell followed along. “New recruits? I don’t recognize you.” Before either could answer he shrugged it off. “Doesn’t matter. I’m in a hurry. Looking for my brother. He inside?”

“Commander Blood Stroke,” one of the stallions greeted with a surprisingly casual tone. “He is. But Countess Star gave us strict orders not to be disturbed.”

“I’m sure she did,” Ink replied. “Typical. Star’s lackeys. I’m glad you aren’t letting the average idiot passerby on the street go nosing through whatever sensitive, explosive magical crap Foresight is keeping in there. But I think it’s safe to say those rules don’t apply to me.”

The guards shook their heads, and the pegasus of the two spread a wing across the doors. “I’m sorry, sir. She was quite clear.”

“Do you understand who I am?”

Nods.

“The military advisor to Princess Celestia? Her personal bodyguard? The foremost soldier in Equestria?”

Nods.

“And you’re still saying I can’t go inside?”

Heads shook.

“I see.” Ink glanced back over his shoulder. “Twilight, give me a moment to speak to these two fine stallions more personally. There’s some fine pre-Civil War architecture down the street.”

More curious about what Ink was actually indicating to with his extended wing than believing his claim of such fine, rustic architecture (given the extensive damage the city had faced in the dragon wars), Twilight turned around. Within two seconds of that motion, a fleshy gasp and three heavy metal clangs could be heard in the air. Worried, the mare spun back around, only to find Ink leaning casually on the wall beside the door. The two black cloaks were laying at his hooves; one, unconscious with a bruise forming on his brow, and the other groaning and clutching his gut.

“They… slipped,” Ink explained helpfully. “It’s icy.”

The doors to the building were flung open in a golden light, and an irate stallion’s voice called through the opening, helpfully translated by Twilight’s spell. “What in Tartarus are you letting somepony knock—Blood?” Foresight, his brow sweating and his ever-present scarf hanging loose around his neck, walked up to the doorway in astonishment. “And Twilight Sparkle?”

“Hello, Predvidenie,” she greeted. Her notepad helpfully announced ‘Foresight’, before she ended the spell and tucked it into her jacket. “It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?”

Shaking his head as if slapped, Foresight nodded and picked up in Equiish. “Too long. Far too long.” Stepping out of the way, he gestured into the structure beneath the Obelisk. “I’m sorry, that probably sounded like I was hitting on you, Twilight.”

“I understand,” Twilight replied as she walked into the warmth of the closed structure. “No harm done.”

The inside of the building was, at first, a short hallway with tiled linoleum floors, plastered drywall walls, and florescent lights. It even smelled like a government office, though there were no bureaucrats or doors with little plastic nameplates to justify the scent. Only Foresight’s cologne offset the perception of micromanagement and inefficiency that Twilight couldn’t seem to shake.

“Smooth, Four-eyes,” Ink whispered to his older brother as he too slipped inside. “Well, this place is nice. Interior heating? And electric lighting?” He waited for Foresight to close the doors, and then followed his elder brother inside. The short hallway inside turned abruptly to the right, before opening in a square room centered around a cylindrical pillar of pure diamond. “You sure threw in on this thing, didn’t you?”

“They were cheap compared to the void crystal I bought from Princess Cadance.” Foresight’s hoof gestured up to the ceiling, where the inside of the smooth, black obelisk could be seen, glimmering like the night sky with tiny specks of light. “But you probably don’t care about that right now, Roscherk.”

“I’d love to hear about it,” Twilight announced, looking up with glimmering eyes toward the intricate lines carved in the stonework where the lower ‘building’ met the black crystal of the obelisk proper. “What are these matrices? You have counter-thaumic resonance dumping an unstable feedback loop into the void crystal? I feel like I’ve seen this before, but I can’t place a name.”

“They don’t have one,” Foresight replied. “At least, if they do, I haven’t found it yet.” His horn ignited, lifting a heavy book from its place on a table at the far side of the chamber. An ornately carved cover of sapphires was wrapped in a frame of purest silver.

Twilight gasped. “Is that the Grimoire Fatalis? Princess Celestia said it had been lost!”

“It was in King Sombra’s private library.” Foresight once more nervously tugged at his scarf. “Cadance and Shining Armor were very kind to lend it to me, once I explained what I needed it for.”

Twilight let her gaze wander the walls of the obelisk again. “How does a book of necromancy and narcissistic journal entries help solve the windigo curse?”

“I needed a way to generate and store controlled thaumic inputs of alicorn magic.” Foresight glanced over to his brother’s exaggerated yawning motion, then rolled his eyes behind his gold-rimmed glasses and returned his attention to Twilight. “His void-crystal orbit method might not be the most efficient use of arcana, but it’s a lot more practical than asking earth ponies for bone marrow donations to get the endura I’d need. Fortunately, we have more than a few competent mages willing to generate the empatha and endura necessary if they’re paid well. Mostly university students, but—”

Ink interrupted his brother by audibly spitting on the otherwise pristine floor. Twilight realized the source of his reaction, and scowled at the paired steel doors on the far side of the room, which parted to reveal a familiar and unwelcome face.

“Ah. Tvilight Sparkle. I trust your trip vas safe?” Countess Shooting Star offered a meaningless flash of teeth by way of a smile to the younger mare before turning toward Ink. “I see you’ve upgraded the skill of your escort. I hope the spirited filly you had before is vell.”

“She’s fine, Countess.”

Foresight, sensing the tension in the room, adjusted his glasses and grinned nervously at both parties. “Twilight, have you already met Countess Shooting Star?”

Twilight nodded. “She asked me to go into Onyx Ridge. She wanted me to rob a grave.”

“I made it quite clear I vas interested in the history of the place. You vere looking for your brother.” Star strode forward. “It seems you found vat I asked anyway, if my eyes aren’t mistaken. Is that not Heims Osculum hanging from your side?”

Twilight scowled, and led with a hoof forward—a classic dueling stance, meant to convey her determination. “I’m not an idiot, Star. You knew Typhoon’s body was preserved in the ice. That’s why you wanted her corpse, and not just her sword or her journal.”

Countess Star cocked her head, and a hint of concern slipped into her voice. “Journal?”

“I don’t know what freaky necromancy you wanted to do to Typhoon, but I’m not having any part in it. She went through enough in her life!” Twilight took a breath and tried to regain some measure of composure. As if a twist of her head would somehow wipe away the anger in her voice, the mare adopted what she must have thought was a calm tone. “What are you doing here?”

“Ahem,” Foresight said aloud rather than actually clearing his throat. “Twilight, Countess Star has been making empatha for me. She’s far-and-away the most productive donor. Recently, there was a rebel attack on Trotsylvania—”

Star raised a hoof. “She knows, Predvidenie. She vas there.”

Foresight looked at Twilight over the top of his glasses, almost disbelieving, before regaining his composure. “Forgive me; I still tend to think of you as the school-age filly taking college classes with us. After Discord and Nightmare Moon, I suppose rebels wouldn’t faze you.”

“It also helps that I knew them from my last trip to Stalliongrad. They wanted me to come with them, but even when they tried to push the issue, I didn’t think Youmin was going to hurt us.”

Following that statement, the room hung in a dead silence. Foresight and Star both looked to Ink, who leaned against the wall regarding his own hoof in a deliberate show of disinterest. The act might even have been believable, were it not for the brutal canyon creased into his forehead.

Star picked up slowly. “Sparkle, I understand you are not from Stalliongrad, but you might do vell to mind who is listening to you if you’re going to call the rebels your friends.” Then she made a show of laughing off the comment. “Still, the room is not on fire, so I suppose there is very little to be vorried about. Returning to our original point,” she said, before turning to Foresight and lifting a necklace of fire opals from her neck in her magical grip, “Predvidenie, here is the promised empatha. Tvelve thousand thaums should be enough to—”

“Twelve thousand thaums?!” Twilight’s hooves slid on the smooth floor as she nearly lost her balance in shock.

Ink coughed into his hoof again. “I’m assuming that’s a lot?”

“More than just a lot. That’s…” Twilight steadied herself with a deep breath. “Let me put it this way, Ink. You can probably make twelve thousand thaums of empatha in a day or two; I’ve seen a few samples of the kind of magic you can do. But you couldn’t store it in gems or a resonance glyph to make it useful in a system like this one. Most unicorns can make a few thousand thaums of arcana a day, if that’s all they do. A practicing mage like me can do it in a day or less. But converting arcana to empatha with void crystals is incredibly inefficient. You keep less than a tenth of a percent of what you put in. It would take most unicorns ten years to get that kind of mana stored up.”

“You don’t believe me, Tvilight? See for yourself.”

Twilight’s horn lit up, and she pointed it in the Countess’ direction. For a moment, only the sound of the mana building on her brow broke the silence. Then, slowly, her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. “That…” Her eyes grew narrow, and then wide again. “I’m still not sure I believe it, but that does feel like a few thousand thaums.”

Star smiled almost viciously. “Glad to be proven right. Now, Predvidenie, you take these. And with that, I can see you and the princess’ student have business. If you can give me Heims Osculum and this journal you’ve found, I can be on my vay with a freshly restored force of guards.”

Twilight shook her head. “I’m not giving you anything of Typhoon’s.”

“I’m afraid I’m not actually asking, Tvilight.” Star leaned forward, looking Twilight in the eyes. “Since you seem to think you are in a position of power here, let me make things perfectly clear. You may vell be Celestia’s prized student. You may have the favoritism of many in our government. But this vill be the second time that you have come into the Domain of Stalliongrad and stolen from us. I’m certain you know that archeological treasures are the property of the domain they lie in.”

To Twilight’s surprise, a blood red hoof grabbed the shoulder of Countess Star’s expensive dress and pulled her back. “You think you can win threatening Twilight Sparkle? I knew you were a bitch, but I never thought you were that stupid. Think about who you’re picking a fight with.”

“Roscherk—” Predvidenie’s protest did not live long against stronger wills.

Star calmly placed a hoof against the long scar on Ink’s chest, and pushed him him away. “You don’t scare anypony, Roscherk. Certainly not vhen I’m in the right. Look around. The battle’s over. Стойкая победила.

Ink’s wings burst into flame. Star smiled. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Sparkle knows I’m right. Just look at her.”

Scowling, Ink looked to Twilight. Though she was furious, the young mage shook her head slowly, and waited for the fires on his wings to die down. Once the room was still again, her horn ignited, and both Typhoon’s journal and Heims Osculum floated over to the pale countess. No more than a few mere heartbeats later, Star was gone.

In silence, Ink, Foresight, and Twilight looked at one another. The room was still. The only movement to be seen was the smoke from Ink’s fires fading into nothingness as it dissipated into the air. Almost a minute later, Ink finally found his tongue. “Why in Tartarus did you give her the damn sword?”

Twilight frowned. “I didn’t want to confront her until I’ve talked to Princess Luna or one of the Night Guard, but there’s something…” A slow, contemplative breath held her words back. “When I was looking at that necklace with the empatha, I found something else. She’s keeping an illusion on herself.”

Predvidenie chuckled. “I know you aren’t exactly one for politics, Twilight, but lots of nobleponies have a minor charm like that built into their jewelry, just to make them look a bit younger or hide a blemish or scar.”

“I know.” Twilight glanced back to the door out of the obelisk. “But most ponies don’t use a nightmare illusion for something like that. The only other pony I can think of who uses that sort of spell for a disguise is Masquerade.”

Ink straightened up. “You think she’s with the assassin?”

“Like I said, I need to talk to Princess Luna. But in the meantime, Foresight, we didn’t just come here to talk. We’re in a hurry. I need to find Shining Armor, and Ink said you could help.”

Foresight’s hoof nervously returned to his neck. “Well… I don’t know what you’d want me to do, but I can send out some guards, maybe offer a reward for information—”

“Don’t waste her time, Foureyes,” Ink cut his brother off. “Use the stupid rock.”

“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about, Blood Stroke…”

The back of Ink’s hoof struck his brother across the cheek. “Don’t give me that crap. You can trust Sparkle.”

“But…” Foresight wilted when Ink raised his hoof again. “... fine. Twilight, can I trust that what I’m about to tell you will remain between us?”

Nervously, Twilight shrugged. “I guess…? It’s not dangerous or anything, right?”

“No, but…” With a tug of his magic, Foresight finished pulling his scarf tight enough around his neck that his fur was beginning to bulge around it. “I suppose I’ll just say it. Twilight, we can find your brother with Electrum’s Orb.”

Author's Note:

Added to our editing credits: SolidfireSolstice, DJThomp, Pega-ace, and Zennyth. Thanks, guys!

Comments

[arancaytar]

A particularly short blood red pegasus climbed down out of the train engine’s cabin. His face and chest were stained with coal and grime, though it was the hairless scar running diagonally down from his shoulder that caught Twelfth’s attention. Well, that and the fact that his wings were on fire.

I can't help but think Roscherk is one horn away from the Donut-Steeliest alicorn OC ever in that look.

“Eyewitness…?"

Oh, she's from that one story! I remember now! I had a feeling back when her smoking was mentioned.

“You killed him! I’ll die to save my foals, Roscherk, but I won’t lie to Stol’nograd! I won’t let you win! I won’t do that to Polnoch’s memory!”

Huh... anyone else suspect that Masquerade was actually working for a third pony? Framing two ponies for framing each other is exactly the kind of thing she'd do. (Meanwhile, sending an assassin to kill someone seems somewhat too subtle for Soldier On.)

“It’s like, if I wanted to make the world’s biggest pancake, that’s what I would use. It’s longer than I am.”

... how would you use a sword to make a pancake?

[Tchernobog]

“No, but everypony in Equestria knows you

something missing after that sentence!

The battle’s over. Стойкая победила

Missing closing quotes!

[LoyalLiar]

6151403
If it walks like a spatula, and it quacks like a spatula...

[Evil]

Sweet chapter, the fighting screen was interesting.

[Zevski]

Sibearia sounds like a nice place, is this the first actual mention of it in the story?

Eyewitness x Solo best ship.

Also, all those cute Black Cloak mares killed, what a shame.

I see you've been collecting more cats- I mean editors.

[djthomp]

Twelfth Sister is definitely my favorite thestral. Her being friends with Solo and just instantly dropping the thestral anonymity at the first sight of her is a big plus in my book.

Then, to Twilight’s mild shock and Red Ink’s crippling disappointment, Twelfth Sister leaned down to the slightly smaller mare’s side, and offered her a surprisingly affectionate nuzzle. The motion continued all the way down to the very base of Solo’s neck, where the thestral deposited an audible kiss. Solo’s blush pierced her coat.

Woah, very good friends, or so it would seem.

That phoenix fire trick to light the cigarette was slick, too bad it also triggered Solo. But then again, it probably does Ink good to be faced point-blank with the results of his actions. Same for that conversation with Twilight in the cafe, it also probably does him good for ponies that know the truth to accept him as a friend anyway.

Man, flashbacks and Ink, never a happy combination. Makes me wonder if he has a single happy memory that isn't too mature rated for the story.

“They… slipped,” Ink explained helpfully. “It’s icy.”

Completely believable.

“No, but…” With a tug of his magic, Foresight finished pulling his scarf tight enough around his neck that his fur was beginning to bulge around it. “I suppose I’ll just say it. Twilight, we can find your brother with Electrum’s Orb.”

Continuity!

New random theory for the chapter, Luna is actually a sapient cheese golem due to Pinkie's mind wandering while the girls were using the Elements on her back in episode two. Turns out you kind of need everyone on the same page while using magical artifacts that powerful, and if they aren't odd things happen.

[Jirodyne]

Scowling, Ink looked to Twilight. Though she was furious, the young mage shook her head slowly, and waited for the fires on his wings to die down. Once the room was still again, her horn ignited, and both Typhoon’s journal and Heims Osculum floated over to the pale countess. No more than a few mere heartbeats later, Star was gone.

Umm... why is Twilight brain dead stupid? She should have given the stuff to Predvidenie since his Father is the ruler of Stallionguard... Not the Coutist that is using illegal magic that Ink could have easily arressed her for on the Spot if Twilight spoke up...

This story was good once, but now it's all going down hill and getting worse and worse with every chapter...

[LoyalLiar]

6156705

This story was good once, but now it's all going down hill and getting worse and worse with every chapter...

I'm curious what you think has changed that leaves you with this opinion. What's different about Ghosts than what you liked to begin with?

[Jirodyne]

6156880 Well I liked the last story when Rainbow was the main character. There was mystery too and very unique. Did she really die? Will she save Luna? Then at the end, Luna was saved, the assassin defeated, and now onto Rainbow's very unique life as she deals with being dead, and being called back aparently by her mother with visions....

Then this story took that interesting idea, and threw it under a train. Rainbow is bearly ever seen anymore, we're stuck with characters that seemed to just be shoveled in for no reason. Seems Rainbow isn't unique and that there are a LOT of undead walking around and not many seem to care. One point Rainbow was thrown into the world of the dead, where the 'pull' should have been strong and yet she is now in the living again... Ink was made the commander, even tho the commander is alive and Celestia KNOWS that, and also knows that Ink was a thug murderer of innocents, slaughterer of who knows how many people in Stallionguard, and still made the commander.... Just because. Dead-Eye was kinda a love interest for Rainbow, ended up dieing and being reborn too... Then promply shoved out of the story and not seen from again. It's very easy to see that Soldier On did not kill Ink's little brother, and Luna can very VERY easily clear up all this hate by pointing out "Oh hey, this is Third Brother, who is Ink's Brother and Soldier On's lover, and he says Soldier On didn't do it." There is also Twilight... Twilight is just so... so bloody stupid. Even in this chapter, she had no reason to give those items to the Countress, yet do so anyways for no reason at all. What else... There is Third Brother, Soldier On's lover who is... somewhere, there is so much shit going on it's impossible to tell what is going on. There is Rainbow's Dad. Can't remember anything about him other than that he is a stupid idiot that should never have been a commander with how much of an idiot he is. All the talk hyping him up prove just to be talk as he ends up being a little bitch. I can't even remember much else because there is just so much...

The first story was simple. Rainbow is undead. She has to save Luna. She does... This one is... It's just a mess, every chapter rarely has any connection at all with the chapter before. It skips around to different characters at different points for different reasons, a lot of it seemingly meaningless. Luna is soemwhere, probably brain dead, and Celestia is sitting on her fat ass eating cake. The elements of harmony are useless and the others beside RD and Twi can just all die and nothing would change. Shining is missing because... Well he is. Should be dead, but nope. Somehow he is alive and safe. Cadance is... I have no idea. I think she was only brought up once.

It's a big mess. I was just hoping for a more Slice of Life, maybe light adventure with Rainbow exploring her being dead and dealing with it. Not this... Big mess of shit.

[StormyVenture]

I really fail to grasp why they don't just kill 'Countess Star' already. I'm sure Ink could manage.

[StormyVenture]

6157214
The commander of the honor guard is not needed to be a spotless example of nobility and perfection. Celestia gave him that position for other reasons. Plenty of 'innocent' people/ponies get killed in crossfire and war among other things.

[LoyalLiar]

6189672

For what crime?

Being kind of a jerk? (Execute Trixie!)
Being sort of shady? (I'm sorry, Pinkie, but after Party of One, I'm afraid we have no choice.)
Allegedly planning some misguided necromancy is the best charge they have on her, and performing an unlicensed seance isn't a capital offense. It's only actually *animating* the dead (eg making a Thestral or a zombie or something) that gets you a one -time introduction to the Night Guard.

If "old Ink" were here, he probably would have tried by now.

I don't deny the logic that she's clearly untrustworthy, but the fact that Twilight and Ink don't just kill her on that ground is more or less a major part of what defines them as "the good guys" (or at least as civilized)

[Jirodyne]

6189860 Here is a question, why didn't Twilight give the journal and stuff to Ink's brother/father? The rulers of the city? Or directly to the musiem? Why give it, directly, to someone you KNOW is not going to put it in a musiem or anything, and infact is going to be doing something very illegal with it? Could have even messaged one of the Princesses. But nope. Stupid Twilight is braindead stupid... Especially when said person was using a very highly illegal illusion spell that could have them arrested on the spot? And you KNOW that?

[RoboRed]

Well, after about a year, I've finally caught back up with this. I'd like to tell you a little bit about that, because there's a reason why it's taken a year for me to from chapter twenty where I last was, to chapter twenty four.

This story simply became unenjoyable to read.

I think I started feeling it somewhere around chapter sixteen, or right around the time when Rainbow's wings were torn off. It wasn't directly because of that scene, but that was an event that I feel starkly changed the whole mood of the story in a negative way. Really, it was a culmination of some ongoing things, some of them already highlighted in points made by 1968621, 2081821, and 6157214. Namely, it felt like just about every single character except maybe Twilight just pissed me off. It just felt overall like everyone was a part of their own faction, against each other, doing stupid things, being stubborn, being manipulative, being cryptic or secretive...it just felt like a lot of the conflict in this story was uneeded and could be resolved by people not being so. fucking. STUPID. On a related note, the "factions" thing. There are seriously a lot of characters to keep track of in this fic. Probably too many. I know where was a wiki announced some point in time ago, and this fic seriously needs it just to keep track of everyone. Thirdly, it was difficult to keep track of what was going on. Plots within plots keep getting added with many still being left open. That, and there's a lot of time between updates to keep track of them.

Add all of this together, and I just no longer felt like reading Ghosts at all.

However, I realized that I am a fallible human being. I am prone to forgetting details over long periods of time, there are a bajillion other fics my brain is trying to remember the lore of, so sometimes stuff can get forgotten, mispercieved, or jumbled up. For this reason, I decided to give the story a second chance, and give it a reread.

This turned out to be a good idea. It helped realign what was going on in the story, settled some misperceptions, reminded me that not every character was unlikable, and had some earlier things make more sense given future knowledge of Loyaltyverse lore. I'm interested enough to start following it again.

That being said, while they don't seem as bad as they did before, I think some of the previous criticisms still stand. "Unlikable characters" is rather subjective, I will admit. Although Twi still ends up with the idiot ball too many times for my liking, the Commander is bloody stubborn, White Flag is an unlikable bitch and Celestia...dear god, Celestia...I don't think there has ever been a story where I have ever absolutely loathed Celestia so much. In fact, all the immortals just piss me off to some degree, with Luna being the least offender. Manipulative, secretive, stubborn, needlessly territorial...I almost want the main baddie to just end them all.
I still think there are a LOT of characters in this story. I had to keep a separate document open during my reread just to keep track of them all, who they were, their established positions on current goings-on in the story, and my feelings on them. There's also a few we haven't seen in a while that seem to be important to the plots going on, such as Red Warden, Sforzando, Marquise, and Haute, who just seem to have disappeared. Speaking of that, there do seem to be an awful lot of subplots going on. Off the top of my head: Shining Armor's whereabouts, Masquerade's mission and the true mastermind behind it, Rainbow Dash and the Commander, Soldier On's history with the Blackcoats, Krenn threatening Equestria, whatevertheheck led Twelfth Sister to Twilight and Solo, whatever the heck is going on in that memory that Luna, Mirror, and Eldest are in and the history behind that, Foresight's plans and the obelisks, what's-her-face the elk/deer lady slowly creeping into conflict with Celestia, the nobility trying to arrange Cadence's remarriage and Shining's replacement, whatevertheheck was going on way back when with Duchess Red Warden...there's a LOT that's going on and it's a bit overwhelming to keep track of, especially over a long period of time.

Anyways, I'm back to following this, but I'm remaining critical. Also, hope this made sense - I spent over a week trying to write this out, and I just plain suck at putting my thoughts to text.

On a separate note, the image here is broken: 4811763

[LoyalLiar]

6386623

Let me open with what I think is the absolute most important thing to say here, RoboRed: thank you. Thank you immensely not only for your feedback, but also for giving the story a second chance.

The truth is that right now, I'm not terribly satisfied with the state of Ghosts myself. That isn't to say I intend to abandon it or pull away from it. But through both the conversations and feedback I've received from you and others here (all your citations - DualThrone, Alondro, and Jirodyne provide such feedback) and through talking with the PoL team (huge shoutouts to DJThomp and Lapis-Lazuli of Lapis-Lazuli and InkyJ as well as the usual team), I think the problem I've been afraid of really facing is bloat.

Or rather, BLOAT

In a couple weeks, I'll write a blog post on what I'm about to say in further detail, but Ghosts wasn't really supposed to be 3 more-or-less standalone stories. The problem wasn't so much a change in the planed material as it was my total mis-estimation of how long it would take to get from certain points in the story to other points. In my mental model, I assumed the pacing of Honor Guard would scale from it's two main stories (and, though I didn't realize it at the time, no side PoV's) up to three main PoV's and... many asides. But such additions do not scale storytelling time linearly, as I had assumed.

Theoretical ramblings and diagnoses aside, I wrote the three stories together because the intention was that they would eventually come together. I thought of it as a sort of experiment. And though I'm hardly the first to say so, that experiment mostly failed. I still feel like Ghosts has a story (or rather, three or four) worth telling. It needs some polish and some love in a few places, but one thing that it really needs is something I've been planning with the PoL team for going on two or three months now: Ghosts needs to be broken up.

What I mean, more specifically, is having three separate stories (WLL: XXXXXXX) for Twilight/Solo, Rainbow, and Luna. I welcome feedback on that plan, but in my mind, that solves the issues you and others have raised that there are too many plots/characters/themes/too much to keep track of (you only need to keep track of the ones relevant to the plot you are following). Should also help to keep word count per chapter down.

Like I said, I'll put up a blog post in the near-ish future explaning the above more fully.

On an unrelated topic, I'd love to hear some more thoughts on Celestia, if you're willing to spare the time to offer them. What really stands out as making her unlikeable in your eyes?

Again, thank you very much for your feedback, for re-reading the story, and for taking the time to offer so much thought.

-Loyal