Nightingale

by East Coast

Chapter 7: Runaway pt-2

The dark night air was crisp and somewhat purifying after the events I witnessed from my window. I hadn't planned for such an explosive exit... I had hoped that I could leave with no altercations.

That went out the window when Bebop brought the raging psychopath solely known as Panic to my father's gala.

I wasn't close enough to see everything she did, but it was clear that if there were any survivors tonight, they would not be eager to return to Castle Shadow Scar. I can still see the flames flickering in the back of my mind as Thorne, Bebop and I made our way out of the castle grounds, and into the streets of the Diamond District. The stunning mansions were familiar to me, having visited many of them for some political party or upon request of some suitor my father encouraged me to give a chance. We slunk in the shadows, the three of us, and I was surprised how fluidly Bebop moved through the dark, like a mouse in an alley.

Thorne had never been stealthy, so I allowed him to ride atop of Bebop, which may have been hindering the scrawny earth pony. I had to stop myself from passing him in these dark back streets. I suppose I may have inherited a gift from slipping around in the dark from my father, or maybe it was just something I picked up from exploring my large home as a filly, avoiding the supervision I hated so much. I could smell meals from the kitchens of these well to do ponies and I swallowed the saliva these aromas brought on. I had forgotten I hadn't eaten since supper.

Errr... Lunch? I think that's the peasant pony term.

"Bebop, do you know where you are going? The exit from this district is nowhere close to us. Are we trying to-"

"Princess, Lemme tell you something... Your lovely home is now little more than lovely rubble. Those pearly gates that keep out the real ponies are more than likely on red alert. The first thing you need to learn is that we peasants like breaking the rules, and we've gotten smarter about it over the years."

I paused and looked at the cotton candy maned stallion. I giggled a bit and shook my head, holding my hoof to my chest as I straightened my dress with a subtle application of telekinesis.

"We peasants? No, no, no. You are a peasant. I am the princess. It's why I'm in charge of this rebellion."

There was a long pause while Bebop stared blankly at me. He blinked and so did I. I felt like there was something I was missing.

"Pfffaaaaahhhh ahahahahaha! Wahahahahahehehahaha!"

I knew there was something I was missing. I guess I just didn't get the joke. I certainly suspected he was laughing at me though...

Which would be very,

very,

very,

Bad.

"Bebop... I'll tear out your eyes if you can't find the gall to tell me what exactly you find so funny."

I bit my lip as he fell slowly to the ground, rolling on the floor and sending Thorne on a very swift trip to the Netherbrick streets... He was also squishing my linens that were in his saddle bags. I'd kill him for this later, but for now I needed him.
But I had to remain calm. That's what separates ponies like me from ponies like him. I took slow breaths,exhaling out smoke as my hot breath was caught in the dropping temperature of the night.

"Tell me what, exactly! Is so funny."

I furrowed my brow and took a threatening step towards him, I felt something tugging at my heart... Actually that's not truly accurate, the feeling was more of a coming eclipse of my heart. I felt like choking him.

I didn't obviously.

But I really, very much wanted to.

"S-Sorry 'your high graciousness' but ahaha, I just think that's really cute."

"Oh do you? Well by all means, laugh. Please don't let me disturb you... Thorne? Could you please go alert the guards? I've been kidnapped by a lecherous earth pony peasant who belongs to the resistance... I’d like to see him publicly flayed."

Thorne, to my moderate surprise actually began walking out of the alley after recovering from the spill he took when Bebop had the brilliant idea to roll around on his sides with a baby dragon sitting atop him. Much less surprisingly, Bebop's chuckle slowly came to a stop as I smiled smugly at his quickly widening gaze.

He didn't know I was lying, I'd never go back there of course... Well... Not soon anyhow, but Bebop still needed to learn that he's the one in trouble here. I'm certain my father would forgive me, even if it meant being under house arrest for the rest of my life.

"Woah, woah, woah! I'm too pretty for what your daddy does to his prisioners... I think you should think about the bigger picture here for a second... Has it ever occured to you to wonder how it is a relatively stable stallion with a solid sense of style, met the craziest girl to want to fight your dad since... Well... you, I guess."

There was a moment of pause as I thought about what Bebop had said. He was right for once... It felt awkward that Bebop, a clever, welldressed pony, especially by earth pony standards had come to know Sequestria's most wanted on such a personal level that she would risk her life for him...

And me by association...

"Princess, you have to understand. The resistance has been going strong for-"

Objection!

"Going strong? Is that what you call countless public executions, private executions, imprisionments~"

"Na, na, na, na. That's the point. Even after all that nasty stuff we still operate just fine."

I felt a bratty scoff coming on. I hated ponies trying to sell me their version of success when they truly needed help. I saw it too often with spoiled nobles who wanted my father's help repairing their catastrophic failures, while passing off their career case of criminal stupidity as "minor setbacks". I guess in short excuses bore me.

By the old, I'm bratty.

"When we get to Apple Junction, I'm sure Gallopy will be happy to explain who's in charge. She usually in wonderful moods and not at all a crazy mare with anger issues. Now,"

Bebop went over to a bulkhead and kicked it open, bowing his head, very poorly I might add.

"Get in the damn basement."

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It was dark, it was damp, it was musty and entirely unpleasant. I felt the cold mix of dirt and concrete beneath my hooves and I wished I had brought some boots. Regardless, it was somewhat blissful in this darkness. I blinked once and my eyes were adjusted as if it was a bright sunny day. Now, I hardly had experience with too many basements that were not largely made out of the dungeon but I never suspected they could be so big. One could easily fit two dozen ponies down here comfortably, perhaps a half dozen more uncomfortably. I stayed close to Bebop as he trotted to wall where two lanterns hung, burning what I assumed was ever burning fuel by the look of the brilliant emerald flames held within the glass. I heard the bulkhead close behind me and my head shot round to watch as Thorne stepped down here with us. I had forgotten he'd been gone. I looked to Bebop who may have been frightened by the noise or something.

He seemed calm now, but not the usual calm one has when they have been calm for a sufficent amount of time. Whatever had made him pause had lost its grip on him and he came to the wall, me joining him by his side.

"If you are to tell me that this wall actually leads to some secret, underground network of tunnels that some plucky smugglers and daring rogues use to escape my father's gaze... I will call you a cliche."

I heard Bebop chuckle as his hoof tapped against the lantern on the left, sending it spinning to the side as the wall shook before my eyes.

"Then I won't say a word about this secret underground tunnel that plucky smugglers and daring rogues use to escape your father's gaze... Because that would make me terribly cliche wouldn't it?"

He chuckled some more, amused with himself surely, but oddly enough, whether in response to the building anxiety I was trying to hide or perhaps I was the excitement I was trying to suppress but... But I found myself smiling.
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As it seemed these were a vast tunnel system, we were only following one particularly well lit path but I made note of every intersection we came across. I would have to explore these in my own time some day soon and get a feel for them. They may just offer more assistance than travel. Thorne was now riding on my back, sleeping. I often forget that even now he is just a baby as far as dragons comes. I used my magic as we walked to access my saddle bags and retrieve my good luck blanket, wrapping it around him as best I could.

It was admittedly cold down here.

"Bebop," My voice was a whisper, trying not to wake my life long companion, "How much further?"

"Not to-"

"Shhh! He's sleeping!"

"Sorry... Not too far now. See those markings on the wall? The red paint? That's only marking the route to Apple Junction. The Green leads back to the Diamond District, the yellow heads out to Appleoosa and the blue leads to uhm... Well I don't know where the blue leads honestly..."

I looked at the walls more closely now, seeing what I originally thought was graffiti. The blue obviously was the one to catch my eye, the current enigma that it was. I couldn't place the design, but I had seen it before. Keep in mind of these paints the blue was the most faded. it was barely there at all it seemed. You needed to be looking at it to really see it, if that makes any kind of sense.

"We're here. Just uhm... Let me do the talking... I uhmm... I don't think anypony really doesn't know you're coming."

I giggled a bit and flipped my main from my eyes with an air of practiced grace.

"Please, Bebop. I'm a diplomat. if there's one thing I can do it's introduce myself when entirely unsuspected."

His only response was a heavy sigh and what I suspected was a secret knock on a wall.

There was a long pause where Bebop shifted his weight around uncomfortably. He coughed a bit before knocking again, this time a little harder. Fortunately for the uneasy stallion the wall began to shake, just as the one before this one had.

Before I could react, I felt a swift blow to my temple. Bebop recoled and soon found himself arguing with a figure who swiftly faded as I fell into the darkness of sleep...

Or a coma. I am currently unsure of which.
__________________________________________

The world around me was untamed and wild. The star ridden sky a glorious deep violet with a moon so brilliant and hot one could only imagine they were in a dream.

Which I was. This, I knew, was my Dreamscape, having been a lucid dreamer since before I could cast a spell... I was casting before any unicorn in recorded history...

The princesses kept very fine records.

I never shared this with my father... As a filly it was the only secret I could keep from him... It was my special, secret place...

I remember the summer days when the Flams invited my father and I to see their latest innovations in their patented heximagical technologies. I would sit there and day drift to sleep, all the while my father and his constituents talked about whatever it is totalitarian puppeteers talked about.

As a filly I remember how bright it was here. I kept the sun high, I had a little village named Townsville. My father was a wacky scientist and I was his lab assistant. We had fun... Childish fun. The kind that instills this feeling of melancholy as you remember what it was like to be so carefree, unburdened by the pressures of expectations...

It changed though, just as I did. The happy hamlet of Townsville would be replaced by Moonhaven, a place I played a finicky rogue who fought an oppressive government, all the while being a posh barroness by the day, attending lovely events with the very same people I would rob by night...

I was angsty then, looking for something in my dreams that I was missing in real life... Excitement... Romance... Attention, silly things a young girl wants from anyone besides the ones she had it from already.

I kept it simple now. An island. An island villa. I'm largely alone here, but I like it that way. I use this place to contemplate the why of things... I just use this place to think, or remember.

Just a place for me to be with myself.

Author's Note:

Supper is the posh, propper term for lunchin... At least as I understand it from my poshy posh, posh people friends... She would have had diner as her final meal of an evening. Just some clarification for people like me who read that and were like "Uhmmm... Dude? LIke uhmmm... Wtf?"

Comments

[Maelstrom]

That went out the window when Bebop brought the raging psychopath solely known as panic to my father's gala.

Panic - names get capital letters

I bit my lip as he fell slowly to the ground, rolling on the floor and sending Thorne on a very swift trip to the netherbrick streets

MINECRAFT!! Also: Netherbrick - see above

"Listen... I want you to think about how I, a relatively stable stallion with a solid sense of style, could have access to the most psychotic mare to fight your dad sense, well, maybe you, huh? The resistance has been goin' strong for-"

I'm not sure what is wrong here but, it is difficult to make sense of. - perhaps polish it a little?

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The happy hamlet of Townsville would be replaced by Moonhaven

Thats actually quite a cool name for a town/city

Really enjoying this story.