58 - Firefly
From days on, she kept on talking, talking, and talking.
Apparently a broken wing did not stop Firefly on revealing everything about her life, like how she was to first foal to fly back to the cloudlands upon her Ascension Initiation and her victory against the Boar Tribe when she was just a filly warrior. She paced around the large hole as if in a holiday, and several times she came very close to Posey. She even offered her share of berries fallen from the trees, but Posey refused them in the hopes she would walk away.
“You know,” said Firefly as she chewed on some blueberries, "I really got to hoof it to you. I expected earth ponies like you to just try and shoot a pegasus. You, however, fight more like a pegasus. Up until now, I have not heard of an earth pony lunging in to try and bite off a pegasus’s wings, especially in midair.
“And that move you did to avoid Crimson’s fire breath, that was just awesome! Most pegasi don’t have the feathers to perform a stunt like that. If you were a born pegasus, I wouldn’t hesitate to make you my wingpony. Hell, I would be your wingpony.”
She won’t shut up, Posey thought. At least today she finished relishing on her many victories against Gaea, but this was still too much. Either Firefly was going to kill her, or Posey would.
The other option was escape, but pony hooves were woefully inadequate for climbing the steep walls of this large hole. To top it off, and if Posey was right, this was both a Government-restricted area and a No Mare’s Land. Winsome Woods was the site of constant guerrilla battles between Pegasopolis and Gaea, with neither side gaining ground. Both nations would claim one area for a day or so, but would soon lose it afterwards. As far as Posey knew, she was still on Gaea soil.
Wisely, she kept her mouth shut, resisting all temptations to scream for help. Her cries would have alerted pegasi guerrillas or Gaea’s secret police, and both would execute her all the same, even if she were the adopted daughter of the Chancellor.
Why would this area be restricted?
Still, she was surprised that no pony heard Firefly and her constant slobbering imitation of lightning noises and machine gun fire when she recreated her battles without the use of moving pictures or radio. Her mouth would dry up, and when it did, she used her Atmos Arts to form dewdrops that she licked off her dirtied hooves.
“You’re a shy one, aren’t you?” asked Firefly. “Or have I been using the wrong Eques dialect and you didn’t understand a word I’m saying?”
Posey had gotten used to the darkness of the hole and the forest. From the rapidly diminishing sunlight, it was almost sundown. Firefly usually quieted up for fear of roaming wolf packs or mountain lions, but no carnivore was foolish enough to jump down here for an easy meal.
Then it appeared, the shimmering indigo-wings of a Midnight Butterfly. It flittered down and briefly touched the curious muzzle of Firefly to elicit a smile from the pegasus. Then it floated off and landed between her and Posey, who finally rose from her laying position and stared down upon it. Then she mercilessly crushed the insect beneath her hoof.
“That was awfully mean,” said Firefly. “I mean, that thing was no match for you. There’s no honor in that.”
“I. Hate. Butterflies.”
“For a nation that prides themselves in fighting for nature, you all seem to be hell-bent in destroying it.”
“Earth pony science and industry is a product of Natural Selection, not weather witchcraft and magic.”
“What’s so natural about you earthies destroying a dragon’s nest? Or gassing an entire Abada city?”
“We’re trying to save the world from your kind. It was magic that nearly destroyed the world before the Great Pony War. We’ve eliminated the unicorns, and we will eliminate the remaining magical abominations plaguing this planet.”
“Funny you say that because I hear you’re using an enchanted pond to mass-produce clone soldiers.”
“That is a lie perpetuated by your nation. We have earth pony soldiers from around the world willing to die for a common cause. We would never stoop as low to use magic to aid us.”
“But you must at least have some knowledge magic and their properties, even if you are incapable of casting them. Otherwise, your jets would fall apart before our Atmos Arts if you didn’t coat them with enchanted materials.”
Posey grumbled. The pegasus was right that the government extensively researched artifacts to combat the remaining magical threat across the world. This pegasus was asking too many questions; questions too intelligent for a brutish barbarian. Posey better not speak any further lest this become a shouting match, which might escalate into a violent confrontation. Already she exhausted herself with frustration at trying to prove her scientific superiority to the equine vulture, and she lay down to reserve her own energy for more important matters.
“Where are we anyway?” Firefly asked.
What a dumb question. Didn’t she have a map like mine?
“I mean, this is Winsome Woods, but here’s no mention of there being a giant hole with a buried monument.”
“What monument?” Posey asked.
“Over there,” Firefly pointed. “There’s some kind of butterfly sculpture jutting out from the wall.”
“That’s just a rock.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s a sculpture. I think I see two columns running down the sides.”
“It’s just a rock!” Posey yelled. Her voice echoed loud throughout the hole and caused many sitting birds to flock away squawking.
“You should probably keep it down,” said Firefly. “Who knows what pony or ponies would be patrolling the area? One thing’s for certain though: you definitely scared a lot of wolves away.”
Posey groaned before turning away. Out of energy, she slipped underneath her dirty and tattered overalls for the night.
It rained one day.
Droplets of water slowly roused Posey to her hooves. She didn’t rush, but she hurried to prop up her food and water supplies off the ground in case of flooding.
Posey wasn’t sure if this was the work of Gaea’s weather control towers or Pegasopolis’s weather ponies. This was No Mare’s Land, and it was highly likely that stray clouds and gasses from both nations produced this unscheduled storm. It took Posey everything to remain calm as puddles filled all around her while waterfalls from the edges poured into the hole. The torrent washed clumps of the wall into the hole, forming a few muddy hills in the process.
Gradually, the butterfly-shaped stone began reveal more of itself. Firefly was right. It was surrounded by two weathered-down columns hoof-carved from a bygone era, perhaps dating all the way back to the Before Times. She didn’t want to say anything that might jeopardize any supposed national security, but there was no denying that it was there.
When the rain stopped, the hole was a smelly mess filled with debris of mud, leaves, branches, and a few fallen tree trunks. While parts of the walls had crumbled, none of the damage produced an incline for any grounded pony to climb up.
But Posey wasn’t about to give up. After consuming a few berries, she pushed clumps of dirt into the largest mud hill she could find and strengthened the makeshift platform with two tree trunks. It was now high enough for her to at least try to grasp what appeared to be base of the mystery monument, but before she could even stand on her hind legs, she slipped.
So she tried again. She slipped. She tried a third time. Slipped again. All the while, Firefly stared at her almost concernedly, whether she wanted to offer a helping hoof or as if to ask Posey to find help. The earth mare ignored her. Alone or as a hostage, Posey was going to escape.
She slipped the fourth time, her mud-made platform collapsed upon itself. She screamed and pounded the muddied ground with her hoof.
How long has it been? Posey could scarcely recall the passing days. Her maps and notes were useless at this point. Besides, they all had been used to wipe herself clean when she went to the bathroom. Nowadays, she just went out of in the open and buried her waste. Her pants must be stinking and crawling with bacteria by now.
Subsequent rainstorms washed parts of the wall off and debris, but she neither had the strength or hope of building another escape platform. Edible nuts, berries, leaves, and moss were becoming harder to find. When she saw the first tree leaf yellowing in the forest canopy, she knew she would not last long.
That pegasus across from her remained perky, despite a gaunt muzzle and a show of ribs. Even in her worsened state, she still exercised and trained herself as if there was going to be another exciting battle.
There was no hope for them. If Gaean soldiers arrived, Posey would be killed along with Firefly for illegal entry to a restricted area. If soldiers from Pegasopolis arrived they would kill Firefly for the shame of living and allowing the enemy to live, however that worked. Posey wasn’t that good in memorizing pegasi culture anyway. She was too interested in the multitude of ways of killing them.
As Firefly did her morning stretches, Posey walked over to a fallen tree trunk and snapped off a sharp bark off. Splinters pierced her lips, gums, and tongue, but she bore through the stinging pain as she made no effort to conceal her muddy trot with the weapon in her mouth. She even allowed Firefly to turn to and face her. At the very least she would grant her the permission of dying without surprise.
“I guess it’s time, then,” said Firefly. “Well, my wing’s still broken, so I’m dead anyway. Make sure you stab me hard enough right here.”
Firefly even had the strength to stand still on her hind legs to puff up her ribbed chest. She stared dead-on into Posey’s eyes not with fear or anger, but with smiling pride.
Was she giving up? Posey couldn’t understand pegasi and their twisted sense of honor. The horrified earth pony even wanted Firefly to cower in desperation, or resist even for a little. Instead, the pink pegasus stood bravely facing her imminent death, unless she knew that Posey would not be able to kill her.
And Posey couldn’t. This wasn’t like shooting down pegasi from the safety of her fighter jet. Amidst all her hatred for the equine vultures, she could not kill one right before her. The sharpened wooden shiv fell from her mouth, and she fell into a sobbing mess.
“Just get it over and kill me already!” Posey wept. “I’ve had it with everything! The pegasi, the war, my revenge… I was meant to die in Mustangia!”
She planted her tearful muzzle into the dirt, waiting. She waited for Firefly to grab the wood shiv and stab her. If not that, she waited for her to crush her windpipe with hooves or a jaw.
A pink hoof gently touched her head, and obediently Posey raised her head and faced her calm executioner. Indeed, Firefly did go after her neck, but instead of biting it, she kissed it.
Then she kissed her lips.
“What are you doing?” Posey asked.
She kissed her again.
“No, stop.”
“Just relax,” said Firefly.
And Posey relaxed…
Her good wing covered Posey like a blanket.
Desperation and deliriousness could not explain what they did last night. Her mind didn’t want to accept her. It wanted to fight back. Her body did not.
What happened last night should have sickened her with shame. Of all the ways to lose her virginity, she had to do it with another mare–a pegasus even. Pegasi were reputedly polyamorous, and it wasn’t due to any desires of love, childbearing, or a longing to become a parent. Notions of family were swept aside for values of survival, battle, and honor. Pegasi foals lived in a nation where they may never meet their parents. The state raised them.
What Firefly did to Posey was as normal to her as a dinner date between friends or a chat at the bar. It was meant to ferment greater camaraderie and relieve stress before and after battle. Yet, there wasn’t going to be any further battles being fought. Both Firefly and Posey had already tired out last night at the first go around.
The pricking pinions on her back made Posey shudder silently. She didn’t move for several hours, and by then she basked underneath a heavenly sunlight. It had been a while since she had been out of her clothes. The breeze bristling through her fur was refreshing. She no longer cared whom she was with and who looked at her. She was certain that Firefly was staring, and Posey turned around to be sure she was.
“I don’t like throwing the word ‘cute’ around,” said Firefly, “but you have a cute Insignia.”
For the first time in a long while, Posey saw her own Nature’s Call before she subconsciously covered the quintet of tulips with her tail. At least today, the memory of her destroyed hometown did not upset her. Instead, she was in the moment, with her heart skipping beats, and she watched Firefly blink playfully as time slowed for Posey.
“I’m not a lesbimare,” Posey declared, “and this doesn’t change anything.”
“I know. Gonna come back for more?”
“No… It's too early…”
Gaean government bureaucracy was notoriously slow, but even for Posey, this was ridiculous. More than a month had passed. A search party would have arrived by now, either to rescue her or kill her.
Posey spent the passing days cleaning up any debris had blown in or fallen into the hole. Poses had given up creating a platform of mud, and instead constructed a makeshift hut from most of the wood and branches she gathered. Food was not plentiful, but she was able to sustain herself with a sudden influx of fallen berries and nuts. To her surprise, she discovered that several squirrels, raccoons, and rabbits were dropping them into the hole. She wasn’t sure if this was intentional or not. Ponies had lost their affinity with animals a long time ago due to centuries of habitat destruction. Likewise, the animals had lost their trust with them.
She also found time to take care of Firefly, not that she really wanted to. It was just that there was nothing else to do. Posey groomed her tail and preened her wings, which was kind of ironic that she almost ripped one off. Posey did allow Firefly to groom her as well, and her leg involuntarily twitched whenever she brushed a sensitive spot on her hindquarters.
Nights were spent cuddling together underneath the hut of sticks and wood. Firefly was adamant in using her good wing as a blanket for the yellow earth mare, and to make sure of it, she shredded Posey’s flight suit. Even when they were cuddling side by side, they sometimes did not sleep for hours and would instead watch fireflies dance before the glowing butterfly stone.
“I think I might be able to fly us out here,” Firefly said one night. “I think my wing healed enough to get us back up to the ground.”
“Us? You do realize that I am the enemy.”
“Are you kidding me? I’m not letting starvation or being buried alive take you out. There’s no honor in that. Besides, we still have our rematch.”
“It will be hard for us to fight after all this.”
“I’m not too worried. I’ll just sucker punch you just so I can rekindle our rivalry.”
Posey had estimated two months for the pegasus’s wing to at least be partially healed for a short burst of flight. Even if she believed Firefly’s words, her heart sank. If she had somehow been exempt from execution from her own ponies, her foster father would parade her around as a hero and a survivor of the failed military operation. Then afterwards, she would be at the front lines again.
Facing her peers wasn’t the bulk of Posey’s worries. She feared no betrayal from Firefly, but she knew that once they were out of the hole, her respite and her month of peace would vanish. She entertained dark and selfish thoughts of pouncing Firefly to the ground and then finishing the ripping of her wounded wing from her body. A part of her wanted to remain here in this peaceful purgatory, but she couldn’t find any sane reason. It wasn’t like she loved her. She was trying not to love her. Firefly was a pegasus, a living abomination of ponykind. Posey wanted to hate again, and she forced herself to remember the horrors the equine vultures had done to her in Mustangia. The more she tried to hate, the more her heart ached, and tears started to flow from her eyes.
“Hey, don’t worry,” said Firefly. “We’ll make it out, and it’ll be all over.”
With a peck on the cheek, Firefly stopped Posey’s tears. The fireflies continued their dance around the butterfly stone until both mares fell asleep.
Voices. She heard voices. Voices that roused the yellow earth mare from the blanketing comforts of Firefly’s wing. The accent was unmistakably Gaean, but she had to be cautious. Certain pegasi guerrilla fighters had been reported to imitate Gaean dialect, and some were even willing to cut off their own wings in order to penetrate earth pony society.
Once out of the hut, Posey sat with her sharpened stick between her teeth and waited for an attack. Firefly was still sleeping soundly. At least in this morning, she did not abruptly wake up frantic over Posey’s disappearance, not there was anywhere else to disappear to.
“I’m pretty sure were not allowed to venture this far,” said a distant voice.
“Damn them for all I care! This is the only place we haven’t checked. Posey’s alive out here, and I’m sure as sapphire we will find her here.”
Excitement and relief welled up within in Posey. She dropped her stick and ran up to a dirt hill and began yelling at the top of her lungs. Two sets of galloping hooves slid down dirt and trampled branches. The frazzled heads of Sapphire Shores and Sweetie Drops poked out of the edge to see Posey illuminated by the morning sunlight. They looked terrible, but Posey could imagine that she herself looked worse.
To her fortune, Posey’s comrades-at-arms did not call for help, and instead began using an overhanging tree to jerry-rig a rope lift. Firefly had woken up by now, but Posey discreetly motioned to her to stay quiet and hide in the rickety hut of sticks and leaves. Sapphire and Sweetie Drops soon brought Posey out of the hole and nothing more. The three mares exchanged embraces, and laughed at the yellow mare’s obvious nudity before covering her up with a long overcoat before trotting off.
“Now that you saw me in the nude,” said Posey, “it wouldn’t be fair for you two to not show me Nature’s Call.”
“Not going to happen,” said Sweetie Drops.
“That’s our Posey,” laughed Sapphire.
“But seriously,” said Posey, “I am glad that you two were the ones to find me.”
“It wouldn’t be any other way. Your pops had to pull a lotta strings to even get us out here so as long we say nothin’ about this area.”
“I suppose that you’re not at liberty to tell me what that monument is.”
“Well, we are ordered to brief you anyway about the secret of the Winsome Woods,” said Sweetie Drops. “This place is the location of the Stone of Empathy, a magical artifact dating back before the Great Pony War. However, this area isn’t restricted because it is hidden here. The Stone is noted to have a mood-altering effect on anypony who comes close to it. It is even said that it gives you the ability to communicate with animals.”
“They mentioned other aftereffects, but they ain’t saying anythin’ else,” said Sapphire.
“Which is why we have to get you out as soon as possible before the Aether Contamination becomes permanent and we become affected as well.”
Posey immediately stopped in shock of hearing the two dreaded words: Aether Contamination. Synonymous with Magic Poisoning, Aether Contamination was the official scientific term for any kinds of hexes, curses, and any unexplainable phenomenon that could be directly traced to visible magical artifacts left over from the Great Pony War, and to a lesser extent, spells cast by unicorns. Posey bit her lip, knowing that earth ponies afflicted with serious Aether Contamination suffered a fate worse than death, and that they would disappear from records to be experimented upon in secret labs planted across Gaea and their allied countries.
“Sorry, Posey,” said Sweetie Drops, “I didn’t mean to worry you. They tell us it’s just a mild curse, and I’m sure the Decontamination Team will clean you right up.”
She hoped she wasn’t lying.
“I assure you,” said Posey, “that I am the same Posey you knew and loved. Heck, even the rabbits wanted to maul me if I wasn’t out of their reach.”
“Good, ’cause we gotta hurry out,” said Sapphire Shores. “They’re gonna move the Stone of Empathy and firebomb the entire forest.”
Posey blinked. She almost failed to resume walking behind her comrades, and with each step her heart grew heavier. Contamination or curses, her thoughts suddenly focused on any possibility, slight or otherwise, of turning back. If she did, her comrades might reveal their true objectives and execute her on the spot. At least her own government would be kind enough send her own friends after her.
But Posey wanted to sprint back for Firefly. If she had to, she was willing to kill her comrades, whether or not they were under orders of execution. But her comrades were her friends. They fought together. They laughed together. They cried together. Firefly was just one pegasus out of many. Posey forced to convince herself that it was the Stone of Empathy’s effects or even the pegasus’s weather witchcraft that was making her feel this way.
One question did pass through her mind: what if the Stone of Empathy had nothing to do with her wavering emotions?
She couldn’t answer. Before she knew it, Posey and her comrades had immediately boarded a helicopter in the middle of a military encampment in a fresh forest clearing. That and many other aircraft had suddenly lifted off, leaving several tents and crates behind as Posey saw three heavy-lifting helicopters drifting the monument far off to parts unknown. She kept her muzzle pressed against the glass as her copter flew further and further away, hoping to see an equine-shaped speck flying away in the distance. Nothing came out of the forest, not even birds. Then from the horizon, a flock of war bombers began raining hellfire that ignited Winsome Woods. Posey could even feel the explosive force shaking the helicopter and the ungodly heat.
She had to look away and stare straight ahead. The firebombing went on, and she became deathly silent in her seat on her trip home. She could have said something to save Firefly, but in her fearful cowardice she didn’t. She killed her, and, in a way, she killed herself.
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ya see, all this does is make me hate that bitch even more. i swear to Faust, i can't wait for her to get what she deserves.
No body. No death. This is a standard rule I have for all fanfics and media. On the other hand, Firefly dying would probably make Dash into some kind of cool genocidal general bent on wiping out the earth ponies. Hilarity would ensue when she has to team up with AJ and Pinkie.
3505112
I actually pity her more than hate her now. She's... twisted. Her life has been nothing but tragedy upon tragedy. The first pony she might have actually loved was burnt to death, one of the worst ways to die imaginable. It also explains why she is so protective of Winter Tulip (Apple Bloom); because she is the only pony she has ever loved that she hasn't lost. Not yet.
I am honestly starting to like Posey. She isn't a cold blooded monster like she was portrayed to be.
3505791 no, not a monster. just a cowardly, backstabbing, manipulative, sick, twisted, lying, cheating, narrow-minded, pony who needs to die for the greater good.
Usually I don't like villain that have a sad story, mainly because a bad guy who is evil just because he want to be evil is funnier, but this time I really want Posey to redeem herself, or at least prove that she can still do something good.
3506286
Your entire family, every friend you ever had, your first love, everyone you ever knew and the only place you could ever call home.
If all of that was brutally torn away from you, would you be able to move on without scars? No, you wouldn't.
3507079 but would i blame an entire race for the actions of certain ponies? no, i'd go kill the fuckers that killed my family, then move far away where nothing could ever hurt me again.
3507561
But what if there were more people than you could remember? What if you didn't know any of them but only knew of their kind?
I don't think that the jews only hate the Nazis they came in contact with, but every Nazi there was. It'd make sense that they would hate and want revenge for how they were treated.
Think of it like this; Posey remembers only one pegasus that desperately wants to kill, the others are just annoyances to her. That is not to mention that she was brought up and trained to kill pegasi and think that they, and unicorns, were abominations that were to be eradicated.
You cannot fault her for being what she is when she was made to be that.
3507586 'sigh' to be honest, i shouldn't even be debating this, since i have no idea of what she's going through. maybe i would have done better, maybe worse. i hope i never have to find out.
3507595
What little my one year of psychology classes taught me points towards the fact that Posey would, under no circumstances, have turned out differently. Imagine her as a marionette, and the destruction of her village, the slaughter of Firefly, and everything bad that happened to her, as the strings attached to her.
She is powerless to do anything save what the strings command her to do.
3507603 ok, that's kinda creepy. now i'm imagining every movement is the will of some sick puppeteer doing a show for the entertainment of others.
3507625
That's what some people call fate
3510565
All mentions of Firefly have been during this flashback. We haven't had any confirmation that she survived the
Vietnam napalmingfirebombing.That said, there are several factors that could lead to her being alive.
Depending on the depth of the hole, the firebombing may not of reached Firefly as heat and fire don't like going down (warm air rises). In addition, it was shown Firefly could
waterbendsaturate her fur in water, something that would come in handy when dealing with intense heat and fire. Finally, the author has shown a propensity toward not killing characters off despite having ample opportunity to do so (Octavia, Bon Bon, etc.). Of course, One Piece rules could be in effect (characters aren't killed off in the present Marineford arc aside, but flashbacks are a graveyard).this make posey more understandable. This Earth Party has had much longer to cement itself then the Nazi.
However I think the present day Posey isn't the real one that empty Chryssy cell makes me think that.