I Wished For A Body Invisible
II. I Wished For a Body Invisible
Edited by the Ever Faithful randomguy, LonelyBrony the Triumphant, and Lhmac the Magnificent Mistress of Majestic Malleable... I ran out of words starting with M. :c
Rarity wasn’t alone.
Others wandered the empty streets of Jannah besides herself and the guards that the mad zebra D’Jalin had brought with him. Scavengers darted out from houses and into alleyways like little birds picking at a huge carcass of some majestic king of the plains. She’d spot them here and there, skittish and half-starved, coming out of houses with tiny heirlooms in bags. They’d see her and panic, and before she could say a word they’d disappear beneath the streets or into some hole. She knew they sold the little treasures in the towns to the east somewhere, and it bothered her to think of the tombs being defiled.
They had given her an idea, though. An awful, hateful idea. But a Lady does what she must.
She stared down at the little grate and grimaced. The drains criss-crossed the city like veins, and she knew they’d lead her past the walls.
Yes, she would do what she had to, but she’d rather it be absolutely necessary before she delved into the dark underground. She could almost feel the filth and the squalor from here, and she already hated it.
But she’d stayed out in the open long enough. Rarity trotted back out of the street and into the alley. It was different from Canterlot. Here, behind the individual houses was a kind of long lane. Some of them had once been pretty. This one had little benches, and she laid out on one of them. In the middle, a small cracked fountain stood still. No water came from it, and she wondered idly how long ago it had finally stopped.
Of course, she had probably already exhausted her options. The guards at the gate had been there early, even earlier than she had. There were no buildings close enough to the wall to try and rig some sort of bridge or line between them, though she’d tried earlier. The moat that had once been full of water made sure of it.
It was probably the storm drain or nothing.
Rarity looked up at the sky, frowning at the brooding clouds. If it rains... Well then things would just continue as they had been, wouldn’t they? Her whole quest had been marked by stupid misfortune up to this point. It had begun poorly and continued poorly.
Bitterly, she growled at nothing and closed her eyes. It had been a long day, and she had made almost no progress at all getting into the inner city. I’m terrible at this. Rainbow, why couldn’t it be you?
She’d asked something similar before.
It had been raining then, too. Her mane had been soaked and ruined, and she hadn’t cared a bit. What she had cared about was getting an answer from Twilight.
“Where?”
It had been her only word. She’d given no warning of her coming, no explanation. Twilight hadn’t needed them. The wounded unicorn had recoiled in shock, flailing, but even then Rarity had seen knowledge in her eyes. Twilight had known she would come.
“Where is she?” Rarity asked again. She didn’t raise her voice; she didn’t have to. All the force was in her baleful stare, and Twilight wilted before it.
She looked awful. Burn marks and bandages covered half of her face and one eye was hidden behind an eye patch.
Rarity would not ask again. A Lady did not repeat herself to no purpose. With fury, and with suddenness that shocked even her, she had pulled the fallen Twilight up and brought her forward in a heap.
Lightning crashed outside, and later Rarity would think it was fitting. Her eyes reflected in Twilight’s were riotous with wrath and sorrow.
“I... Rarity, please let me just explain.”
Rarity growled wordlessly. Her refinement was gone, sheared off entirely like paint from a wall by the rain and by the news delivered by Celestia herself. She would repent and regret it all immensely later, but in that moment she could not care less for Twilight’s terror. It was irrelevant.
Twilight had lost Rainbow. Her Rainbow. Her only Rainbow. She’d left to go poke her librarian nose into every Lunadamned nook and cranny of some half-forgotten continent and took Rainbow with her and she had sworn to bring her back!
And she hadn’t.
“Quickly.” She spat the word out like it was a bullet from some Griffon gun. Twilight flinched.
“We were... north. North of Isdrimar Ruins. Rainbow didn’t want to camp inside the rubble. She said it was creepy, so we were going to set up a little outside of it. We were talking, and I just... they were quick! They were silent. Neither of us saw them until they were everywhere, coming out from b-behind every tree! Out of the ground! I-I tried! I used all my magic, but it was s-so quick and Rainbow kicked one in the face and then they hit me and I collapsed...”
She broke down, sobbing. It melted some of the ice around Rarity’s heart, but not all of it. She let the librarian cry and said nothing. She offered no comfort, but made no demands on her. Twilight managed to calm herself.
“Who?”
“He’s... I mean, his name means nothing to you. He’s a—”
Rarity cut her off with such anger that Twilight almost started sobbing again.
“Celestia as my witness his name, now. Stop talking in circles, Twilight. I need to find her.” Her voice strained. She was no longer demanding; she was pleading.
Twilight nodded. “D’Jalin. He’s an exile out of the Zebrahara, a war criminal... a monster. The other shamans stripped him of his title and cursed him, and he’s been leading a private army since. I mean, we had heard rumors that he was in the area, but nopony had seen him and we just figured he wasn’t around and... I followed them as best I could. They left tracks, and I came across a village and they told me where he’d taken her.”
Rarity waited for her to continue.
She did her best, sniffling. “He’s in J-Jannah.”
The name meant nothing to her.
“It’s... old. There’s some sort of mystery at the center of it. Celestia told us before we left that she wanted us to go there last, and only if we were sure it was safe. It worried her. They took her inside with them... I couldn’t go in. I was hurt... I-I was going to, but I couldn’t find a way in...”
She was groveling. At first, it made Rarity sick. But then, some of her compassion returned. She sighed, long and low.
“Twilight. Twilight, stop it. I’m not going to hurt you. Can you draw me a map?”
“But... the Princess...?”
“She’s afraid of something. I heard it in her voice. She’ll wait too long, and then what will happen? I can’t wait that long! I can’t wait at all, Twilight! I have to find her now.”
The worst part about being stuck here, at the second layer of walls, was that she’d come rather far before now with ease. It was all rather cruel, to tease her with simple tasks and then throw this wall in her way. She was a small pony and this was a vast city, with high walls and sturdy gates. She’d never felt so powerless in her life.
The day was slipping by, and the sky above had darkened with brooding, heavy clouds. The prospect of oncoming rain moved her out of her exhausted melancholy. She’d need to find shelter soon.
“Look. It’s about to rain and I don’t wanna be out in it. That’s all.”
Rarity froze as a voice echoed down one of the alleys into the little courtyard.
“If you say one more word...”
In her haste to rise, she tripped and sprawled flat on her face. Her limbs burned with panic. A house, a house, she had to find somewhere in one of them to hide—
They were close. It was a miracle that she’d heard them. Above, thunder crashed, and the bottom of the heavens fell out.
She scrambled into one of the houses, peeking out of the doorway as two earth pony mercenaries wandered into the courtyard, cursing at the rain. One of them, the leader, gestured around herself at the little neighborhood of buildings and her subordinate nodded.
The mare who seemed to be in charge headed for her hiding place at a brisk trot, and Rarity’s hold on thought evaporated in panic. She needed to vanish. She couldn’t be caught here, not now. Not while Rainbow was finally in reach! The sour-faced mare was close, and she knew there was nowhere for her to hide...
The storm drain.
She galloped for the front door. Behind her, she could hear the mare call for her companion’s help and she knew she’d have only seconds, if even that.
She was out into the street, and in the dark she felt exposed and naked once again. For all intents and purposes it was night again, and the Nameless would be out. Rain poured down on her, making the cobblestones slick. She stumbled.
She tore the grate up with her magic and slid into the hole it left behind, stifling a cry of pain as she felt the harsh stone tear at her coat and skin, and then she was in shallow water and in pitch black darkness. Her legs hurt, but she didn’t have time to make sure that everything was in its place. She replaced the grate over the tunnel and cowered.
The mare was at the opening, looking up and down. Rain poured in through the iron grate like a waterfall, obscuring her face, but Rarity could hear her fury.
“Check the houses across the street. No, damn you, I ain’t... Stop being a baby. You can handle one unicorn mare!”
He evidently didn’t think so.
“If she has a gun, yell. You think a little cunt like that would even think of getting her hooves on a gun? It’s just rain. Don’t stay in the street. Go!”
Rarity didn’t dare breathe as the frustrated mercenary took one last hard look around her and headed back.
When she was gone, Rarity let out a strangled sob of relief.
The tunnels were flooded, but not so much so that she was forced to quit them.
The water came halfway up her legs, and the cold air made her shiver. It was perhaps not as dirty as she had imagined, but it was just as cramped and miserable. Her only light source came from her magic, holding aloft her tiny flare a few feet ahead of her.
The worst part was that she couldn’t turn. The feeling of being watched had not left her, and she could almost feel eyes behind her in the tunnel, watching her progress.
It was perhaps not a good moment to remember how much she hated small spaces anyway.
But it was all worth it. Rainbow was only a day away. She’d be able to throw off any pursuit or search in the wide cityscape inside the inner walls once she surfaced again, and then it would only be a matter of sneaking into the great acropolis.
But that was the real problem, wasn’t it? Skulking about the city she could do. But infiltrating a fortress? Just getting into the inner city was almost too much for her to handle. How would she manage that?
Rarity could see the opening up ahead, and she could hear her heartbeat quicken. Yes, this was the tricky moment.
She doused the light and plunged the tunnel into absolute darkness.
It was terrible. She imagined that the Nameless would come for her in the tunnels, climb down and devour her or swallow her up in the Noise, and it almost drove her to tears. The quiet echoes of her hooves sloshing in the collected water no longer seemed quiet at all.
She came at last to the opening, where the drain emptied into the moat, and paused to look for another grate. For a moment, worry flowered in her heart. Rarity worried that perhaps she had miscalculated with her plan to slip under the walls.
But at last she spotted another opening, and breathed a small sigh of relief.
With care, Rarity worked the grate off and turned it. She tried to pull it back in with her, but it wouldn’t come. Oh. Of course, yes. Sighing, she pushed it out and held it in midair. I’ll have to be careful setting it down. It’ll be loud. She remembered the guards that would probably still investigate any noise in the dark, even with the Nameless roaming the city. Rarity let the grate rest on the floor of the moat gently.
They were as scared as she was. How could they not be? In Jannah, they were all like foals in the dark. They’d investigate, timidly, but they’d find her all the same. There was nowhere for her to run in this little bowl.
Now for the next challenge: being silent. Ponies were not made for climbing and that is the end of the matter. But for all her protestations, she would have to try.
The best she could do was a kind of frantic sliding down the smooth surface. Rarity tried her best to be quiet, biting her lip as she landed at last in the center of the hollow stone moat.
It was no longer dry. The rain had collected in the center here in little pools and she splashed, sending water everywhere. Her heart almost beat its way out of her chest in panic, and she was torn between freezing in fear and floundering her way up to the other opening.
But she heard no sounds from above her. The bridge, to her right, was silent.
Rarity let out a shaky breath and rose on all four hooves. With dismay, she found her gun had been thrown from her pack. She scrambled over to it and picked it up with her magic. Rummaging in the saddlebag, she found her tarp and tried to dry it off. The one time I don’t bring far too many choices of clothing with me... If she hadn’t been mortally terrified of making even the smallest peep, she would have laughed bitterly.
The rain beat down, and she wiped her filthy mane from her eyes. The gun would probably be fine; she would just have to keep it out of the rain and tend to it later. The captain on the airship who’d given it to her on the way Westward had told her how to do it. She remembered most of it.
The pistol was wrapped up in the tarp hurriedly and stuffed back into the saddlebag. Yes, it was messy, but she didn’t have time. She just prayed she lost nothing else on the climb up.
How to get up to it? She hadn’t had time or the presence of mind to really plan this before. Tiny tunnels were not good places to plan things like jumping high enough to reach a small sewage opening.
Rarity supposed her only recourse was to just... run up the wall. It sounded stupid.
She tried it anyway, building up speed. Her hooves clacked on the stone, but she couldn’t go slower. She was almost there... and then her momentum gave out on her. She began falling. But she’d already gotten high enough to lodge herself awkwardly in the little indention in front of the grate.
Rarity groaned softly as her body complained about the strain of the unnatural position. She kicked with her hindlegs against the smooth, wet stone wall, searching in vain for some kind of purchase.
She tried rising on her forelegs, but they were useless.
It was pathetic. She felt helpless, trapped. She’d either fall and hurt herself, or stay here and hurt herself.
But she had to do this. She had to get across. Rainbow needed her.
She kicked her legs again, almost comically trying to run up the wall. But it worked, and she found herself crammed up against the next grate. She panted and shivered in the rain. It was the work of a moment to lift the iron away and crawl inside.
She shivered in the damp tunnel.
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Just hope that your shells aren't wets...
1868514 that would be completely unprecedented in the literature I enjoy wouldn't it? And unfortunate.
Wouldn't it be.
:3
ha
1868532
Yes, nowhere before has anything like that happened. Certainly not in the literary circles you participate in.
I don't know how you managed 11 downvotes for this story. I like it! I simply must have more.
1872187 It may sound arrogant but I don't either! I wish one of them would have told me... I'd love to hear why.
1872391 You won't unfortunately. That's why whenever someone actually tells me they downvoted and explains why, I am sure to tell them how much an actual explanation means to me. Then again, some just could be jerks who don't like a certain pairing or shipping in general.
Holy fuck I really like this!! Jannah awaits!!!'