Blackscale

by Leviathan

A Glimpse

I opened my eyes to the sight of soft light. It was the type of artificial light that fills the passages of small houses and illuminates dingy streets. The light came from a singular bulb that dangled from the center of the area, slowly swinging back and forth. It was dim, only highlighting the center of the room while leaving the corners dark and recondite.

I was laying against something soft and feathery. It was comfortable beyond any level of experience I had. I looked over my shoulder to see what exactly I had been laid upon. It was a bed.

Huh. Is this what they were supposed to feel like? The one I had used at the orphanage had been rough and uncomfortable due to decades of use and thick springs.

As the rest of my body caught up with my mind I was able to take in more and more of the room. It was barren of anything. The bed that I rested upon seemed to be the one of the only types of furnishings present. There also was a small one-pony desk in the corner that looked as if it had seen some neglect. Lastly, there was a small dresser.

There were four walls, and door. The room was large enough. The walls of the dorm were stone, as was the floor, as was the ceiling. Lining the ceiling were wooden support rafters. I think I was underground. I lifted my hooves off the bed and placed them against the stone. I was not prepared for the sharp pain that ran up my leg and I toppled over.

It was only then, when I felt most helpless, that memory of the previous night came rushing back. I remembered the murder at the orphanage, fleeing through the woodlands, meeting a shade of the night, and striking an agreement with him. So I had, quite literally, sold myself to the devil. Wonderful.

The stone I was sprawled upon was, unsurprisingly, frigid. It chilled me to the bone. I looked upon the leg that had caused the problem. In Baltimare wounds I sustained had always been superficial enough so that I didn’t have to pay them too much attention.

This time, though...my leg was numb, very numb. I had practically no feeling in it aside from the occasional tingle. Attempting to move it resulted in a small shock. It was a very uncomfortable discharge of electricity that passed through the limb.

I didn’t want to lay on the hard stone surface so I did the only thing I could. I yelped. “Hello? Is anypony there? Please, I need help!” It seemed a bit idiotic to scream out into a kidnapper’s lair, but stone is not the most comfortable rock.

Besides, I had already traded my soul in a fit of fear and adrenaline, so what possible harm could befall me that I was not already destined to face?

I heard the shuffling of...something against stone. Whatever the sound was, it was not the clopping of hooves against stone. It was something else entirely. I was not able to piece anything else together before she burst through a door.

She had the head of an eagle, but distinct parts of her body were very lion-like. For one, she had a bushy tail. She talons for fore-legs. They were sharp, tuned to a point so fine they gleamed, even in the soft light. Yet, they did not scrape across the ground as one would expect. Instead, they gently glided over the stone walkway, hardly even leaving a trace.

Her lion paws rapped against the ground, soft pads conforming to the stone. The strange, tissued tail swished through the air, making gentle circles as it moved. Her wings were folded to her sides, tucked neatly into the tufts of her feathers.

The most striking feature of this new addition were her emerald eyes. They were so large, beautiful, and so very kind. They were tender and had motherly element to them. I almost felt as if she was wrapping me into a warm embrace with just a stare.

The pure majesty and general beauty she displayed left me without doubt. She was a griffon. I had seen their kind before. Every so often one or two would pass through Baltimare looking to make a quick buck. They were generally excellent thugs due to their strength and speed.

Several crime lords would kill to have a chance to employ a griffon. Several more did. Apparently the devil I had met was one such pony. Something about prideful, mean, violent, territorial, predators just seems to appeal to those characters.

“What’s happened, my dear!?” The concern in her eyes was a foreign concept to me. I had been exposed to too harsh a life to actually believe in kindness. At that time it just appeared as a hollow stare. But, I did not have many options at that point.

“It’s my leg...” My voice was strained and my throat was sore. When had that happened?

“Oh, poor thing. Come let’s get you back into bed, shall we?” She rushed over to me, easily lifting up my frail form with her powerful claw. Even though it had been sharpened, she still managed to refrain from digging the points into my skin.

She had me onto the bed within a second.. She swept the duvet and sheet over my body in another. “Which leg hurts, dearie?” Was that concern in her voice, or just my imagination?

“...”

“Come now, I can’t help if I don’t know which leg it is.”

“Left hind-hoof.” My voice was automatic, my words stale. It was the voice I used whenever I spoke to an adult.

She reached a talon over before I even had the chance to shrink away. She gently grasped my right leg, lifting it up to examine it.

“My left...”

“Ah, yes. My mistake.” She laid my leg down gently and reached for the other. As soon as her talon touched the fur I winced away in pain.

Her nostrils flared upon seeing me shy away. “Is you’re leg numb, little one?” I was beginning to close up again, but the look of pure sympathy etched onto her visage broke me.

“...Yes...”

Her face contorted into an expression of anger, causing me to experience no small amount of terror. I cowered away from her powerful stare, fearing the wrath of the griffin. But, my dread was misplaced.

“That dim-witted, slack-jawed, brute! He knew how exhausted you were, and yet he still...he still teleported. I am going to kill that idiot!” The griffin had her talon raised skywards, sharp claw clenched into a tight fist.

“What?” I asked, still shrunken into the safety of the blankets.

“Oh, it’s nothing dearie.” A wide smile formed on her beak and her eyes regained that motherly aspect as she looked over me again. “Just some fool who has made his last mistake. I’m Aeria, by the way.”

I stared at her. I had already made myself vulnerable enough. Why should I also give her my name?

“This is the part where you tell me your name, darling.” Her smile never shrunk and her eyes never lost that shimmer. It was an incredible that she was able to act a facade out so well. Most ponies who pretended to care quit after a few minutes.

She stared at me for a moment before loosing a long sigh. “I understand. I was like you once. Solitary, cautious, callous, frightened...alone...but you don’t have to be anymore. You have us.” Her smile grew a few sizes, threatening to engulf her face in an implosion of self-induced, nostalgia-filled happiness. She placed a reassuring talon over my shoulder, gently caressing the fur. It had a relaxing affect on me.

I still wasn’t quite ready to give in, though. “But who are you?”

“We’re...well we’re...uh-” Her voice faltered for the first time.

“We are Blackscale.” A familiar voice pierced the air. It added a certain tranquility to the scene, almost creating a placid environment. It maintained a steady rhythm.

Aeria flipped around and I left my eyes drift towards the source at a much more gradual pace. It was the shade. Aeria looked positively furious with him. “You! You have a lot to answer for!” Was she this mad over my deadened leg? Why should she even care? Silence hung in the air. “Well, Star!?”

So I had a name for my shade. Star. It was oddly fitting, considering how his glowing amber eyes stood out against his onyx coat. “It was irresponsible of me to teleport an exhausted filly over such a long range. I do realize that. You don’t need to remind me...again. But she’s fine, Aeria.” So there was minor bickering in Tartarus. I didn’t know that.

“Don’t you try to tell me she’s fine, Star! Her leg has been hurt by your careless actions! That won’t be back to normal for days. How could you have been so selfish!?” There was no smile. Just a disappointed frown and scolding eyes.

Star shrugged off the rebuke with a simple reply. “She’ll be fine. It’s just a side effect that displacement energy has on young ones. There is no reason to be so...high-strung.” He gave a smile that just screamed the essence of smugness.

It looked as if Aeria was about to explode. “...High-strung...?” Her voice was shaking and I thought I spotted her eye twitch. Her talon was clenched into a tight fist, bright yellow coloring starting to drain to a pale white. I had seen that look many times on the streets. Somepony was about to receive some serious punishment.

My shade was not oblivious to this fact, so he dropped the smug look and serene grace he had masqueraded before. He cleared his throat and spoke. “He is actually waiting to see my apprentice here. So I shall take my leave, if you don’t mind.” He turned around lighting fast, horn aglow with magic vapor.

I felt myself being lifted by some unknown force. I tried to spin out of its grip but found myself held too tightly. What had me. My gaze fell to the ground. I was simply floating. Some sort of gaseous black cloud held me in place, keeping me levitated.

I didn’t have any knowledge of magic at this point in life, so I had no real way of knowing that it was just simple levitation. The magical tether holding me had me out the door and floating right next to Star. I was in a state of pure awe at a basic spell that is widely considered to be on a foal’s level.

The hallway we were in was extremely long, with a door at the end. Star kept me in his telekinetic grip. A voice rang out from what had been my room. “We aren’t done here, Star! It’s a very, very small sanctuary that I am very, very familiar with!”

For the first time since I had seen him, Star looked distressed. “By the maker, she’s going to skin me. Somehow I always knew it would end this way...” His gaze dropped as he bit his lower lip. It made it rather hard to tell if he was joking or not.

He appeared much less intimidating without his cloak and dark aura. To the point where I almost felt, ‘mildly uncomfortable,’ as opposed to, ‘I may loose my bowels at any moment due to sheer fright.’ I even managed to dig up the courage ask a question. “In there you said I was your apprentice. What did you mean by that?” I was still frightened of him, but only to an extent. Even though I was completely at his mercy.

He looked at me as if I was strapped in a straightjacket. “I realize you’re uneducated, but I assumed you had some semblance of a brain. You asked me for a purpose, remember? So what do you think I meant?” His tone was serene once again, not at all dry or sarcastic. He could have been delivering a serenade to the Princess at the Gala with that same voice. Instead he was insulting me.

“...” I didn’t want to anger him. “Then what do you do...exactly...?”

“Were you not blessed with a pair of functioning ears? I said we were a part of the Blackscale.” He stated that as if it should explain everything. As if uttering that name would remove any doubts.

“...What...? I’m confused.”

“No, you’re not really. You’re just well mixed. Come along, Trixie. Come along.”

It was obvious I wasn’t going to get any more information out of my shade, so I just kept silent and hoped that my future didn’t prove too bleak. He drug me along the corridor at a slow, gradual pace, allowing me to see a great many things as we passed through. The corridor was also made of stone, and it was quite well decorated.

The entryway that had led to my resting place was not the only one present. Doors aligned the entire corridor, about twelve feet apart each. There were approximately four on each side, including mine.

Tapestries hung on the spaces between these openings, decorating the hallway. Each one depicted a different scene, but all had one thing in common: culpability. Some of the draping depicted a pony sneaking by several others and taking an item, some exhibited a pony impersonating another, another depicted a pony whispering poison into a companions ear, one even displayed a pony torturing a companion, and others even showed somepony slaying kinsmen.

The ponies performing such acts were all wearing the exact same garbs. An unlit black, hoodless cloak accented by a stygian violet. There was a symbol on top of each of the tapestries, but I did not recognize it.

It was a grayish feather crossing overtop an oleander shrub. The feather dripped a singular droplet of black ink that became red as it flowed. I didn’t recognize it as belonging to any organization. It was puzzling, profusely so. What could it possibly mean or represent?

“You’ll find out soon enough.” Star continued to look straight ahead.

His voice snapped me out of stupor, startling me a bit in the process. I looked over to him. “I’ll find out what soon enough?”

“Why this place is decorated in such a grotesque and peculiar way. That is what you were wondering, correct?” His smile was unnerving. It didn’t change, nor did the look in his eyes.

“I kind of expected Tartarus to look like this, worse actually. What I’m really curious about is that symbol.” We were nearly to the end of the corridor now. I could still hear a few banging sounds coming from where I had slept. That griffon sounded quite unhappy.

“You think this is Tartarus? Sorry to disappoint you, but this we’re somewhere much, much better.” His smile became dreamy, nostalgic even. He appeared to be reminiscing.

“If not Tartarus, then where? Where could we possibly be that is made purely of stone and decorated so...horridly? What are you? Who are you?” My fear of Star was starting to return, partially due to how cryptic his words were, and partially due to how much he appeared to love this place.

Star stopped walking. He turned his gaze on me, his deep amber eyes penetrating through my own. “What we are has already been told. Where we are is to be told.” We were at the large door at the end of the corridor.

His black telekinesis reached out to the handles, gripping them tightly. The doors did not creak, neither did the hinges wail. They were well oiled, abiding to their master’s wishes and opening without complaint or resistance.

We were in a circular lobby. There were doors similar to the pair we had just exited everywhere. They lined the edges of the hallway, creating a small perimeter around the room. Star didn’t even pause. He walked towards another pair of doors, obviously quite sure of where he had to be.

We were not alone in the lobby. Several others stood throughout the room, chatting amongst themselves. It wasn’t just ponies that inhabited the room. On all sides of me there were young griffins, hyenas, ponies, zebras, wolves, foxes, some and even drakes. Drakes. They stood, chatting with one another, either oblivious to their physical differences or not caring about them.

One zebra made eye-contact with me and quickly started whispering to his neighbor. That neighbor, in turn, told another. That neighbor informed another, and soon all eyes were upon me. I could hear several whispers regarding “new recruit,” and “doesn’t look tough,” and “blue.” Mainly the latter.

I tried to shrink away from their viewing eyes, but I was held tight in place by the black aura Star manipulated so masterfully. Everyone in the room made way for Star and I, an unknown gleam in their eyes as they looked upon him. They didn’t look at him with fear or hatred...just...respect.

Some of them even smiled at me. Not the wicked smiles you would see on the countenance of a tormentor either, but genuine smiles, meant to comfort and share elation. Rather than helping to calm my nerves that made me anxious. I was still quite sure that whatever fate awaited me, it would not prove to be satisfactory.

Star still carried his serene grace, even with all eyes on him. It was quite admirable. He had a minuscule smile crafted that exuded confidence and warmth, but did not appear immature or silly. I could not help but wonder why all these beings seemed to have so much respect for Star. He was not much older than they, nor was he much larger. I envied that innate quality of his.

Perhaps he was of a higher standing than they, then? That would make sense. It would explain why everyone in the room looked proud just to be near him, and why he carried himself the way he did.

So now I knew (maybe) that I was with a high ranking member of an organization. It was still an organization I knew nothing about, not the location, not the purpose, not the structure, not even the name. I could only make idle conjecture as to what a mysterious organization could want with an undeniably useless orphan such as myself.

Hopefully this wouldn’t end in my life being sucked away in a blind fury by vile beasts who’s very image would drive me past the brink of insanity...there was nothing quite as treacherous and perfidious as my imagination. A young mare stopped Star before we reached the double doors.

“Hey Star, is this her? Is this the one you found in Baltimare?” The mare had a vanilla coat accented by a wisteria mane. Her eyes were orange, like citrus, wide, and curious. They looked me up and down, trying to place a value on me.

My shade simply rolled his eyes. “You know very well that it is, Pulse.” So I was an it. Wonderful.

“She doesn’t look very strong.” I saw a great amount of doubt lining her features. A great amount of doubt. “But I guess looks can be kinda deceiving.”

“They can be, but they are not in this case.” The vanilla mare looked confused by Star’s words. I felt confused by Star’s words. “She is not strong, but tough. And smart enough to survive.”

Star continued walking past, ignoring any other words the mare wished to share with him. Another griffon spoke louder than the rest but was ultimately ignored. He ignored everyone who tried to speak with him, opting to surround us both with a soundproof bubble.

His shifty black aura reached out, firmly grasping the handles of the doors. Rather than turn the handles, however, Star held them. He stood stock-still, face becoming expressionless. He took one deep inhalation in preparation for...something.

“Be ready Lulamoon. I know I’m not.” He mumbled the last few words quietly. The handles turned without a sound.

It's funny to think what lies behind a door. It's a wonder a simple gateway could let you in, and block you out of, anything. They lead to such interesting places and now I can't help but wonder, what's behind my door?

Author's Note:

I love cliches. I absolutely adore them. Well actually, that's a lie. No one likes cliches. No one. Not even Mother Teresa.

Comments

[Leviathan]

2095526

A bit late for that.