Silver

by Stormblessed

Chapter 2

I sat on the bed, holding the book in my paws. The title proclaimed, in shiny gold letters, that it was The Complete Abridged Encyclopedia of Equestria. I had owned the book a long time before I was able to read, and it had been even longer before I understood all of the words on the cover. I’ll admit, to this day I’m still confused as to how something can be both abridged and complete.

The reason that I could even read at all was my father, surprisingly. It had come as quite a shock when I had found out he knew, as most Gem Hounds can’t. Reading is considered a pony activity, something from outside, and is therefore disregarded by many as useless. And indeed, it is useless in the Pack. Reading is only truly useful when there is something to read, and there are not many books in the caves and tunnels.

Despite that, for a reason he never explained to us, my father had been taught how to read, and when we had grown old enough he had decided to teach Rust, Star and me how as well. Rust had always had trouble with the lessons, and I knew he considered them to be a waste. Star had appreciated them, but I could see that words bored her as well. I had been the only one to really pick up on the words, and I had dedicated days to learning what sound each letter made, and then stringing those sounds together into words. It had been the only time I could remember when I had actually been better than either of my siblings at something, the only time when I had felt recognized as a real person by my father.

Part of why I had taken to reading with such enthusiasm was the Encyclopedia. As long as I could remember, I had owned the book, and when I was younger I used to take it out and open it up, to stare at the pictures and smell the paper. When I had started learning how to read, I had realized that the squiggles around the pictures were words, and that had driven me to study in a way that my siblings had been unable to match.

It could be argued that the book was the source of my problems, but I didn’t like to think of it that way. It expanded my vocabulary, my curiosity, my mind. For me, that was well worth the price of being considered different or strange by other Gem Hounds. Even if I hadn’t had the book, if I hadn’t learned to read, I would have been considered different for my height or my father’s position. The way I saw it, the book had shaped me to be who I was, and I wouldn’t give that up for anything.

There was another reason I held on to the book, a secret that not even Rust or Star knew about, because although they had both seen the book before, they had never expressed any interest in it. I was sure my father knew, but I didn’t dare ask him. I didn’t even think of talking about it to somebody else. I was being called a mutt by enough Hounds without them knowing the truth, and I didn’t dare to even think of what they would do if they did.

I opened the book up, taking a bite out of one of the pieces of marble as I did so. I flipped the book open to the first page. On it was an inscription, this one written in a flowing ink rather than the printed text of the book itself. I had read the message a thousand times since I had first figured out what it said, although the way the letters flowed into each other had stumped me for a while due to it being so different from the crisp words formed in the rest of the book. Ever since I could remember, I had always found myself coming back to it and reading it whenever I had a bad day, an occurrence that had recently become more and more frequent.

My eyes glanced over the page once again.

Dear Silver,

If you are reading this, it means your father has kept his promise and has taught you how to read. I hope you enjoy this book and share the same curiosity that I once had. I am sorry that I was unable to be there for you to watch you grow up, but I had to leave before you grew to be two years old. I am sorry for that, as I am sorry for everything. Know that I will always love you.

Your mother,

Willow Tree

Even when I had first read those words, I had known that Willow Tree was not a Gem Hound name.

I had no memories of the name Willow Tree. I had been raised until I was nearly seven by a female Hound named Digger, who had been my father’s mate and my sibling’s mother, and who I had thought was my mother as well. When Digger had died of an illness, my father took over raising us, teaching us to read and teaching Rust and me how to fight. It’s been five years since that day, and sometimes I still had trouble believing that Digger wasn’t my mother.

It made sense, though, I’ll admit that. Digger had never treated me like Star or Rust, her real pups. When she had been watching over us, I’d always felt different, like I didn’t belong like my siblings did. I was so much shorter than everyone else in the pack my age, and I wasn’t anywhere near as strong as Rust. My voice was clear, with no hint of a rocky sound whatsoever. My mind worked differently, too- even when we had been playing together, there had always been some slight difference between me and my siblings. But there was one other piece of evidence that I couldn’t ignore.

I wasn’t completely honest when I said that I had no memories of Willow. I do have a memory a light gray head leaning over me, hair of a dark gray color cascading over a spiraling horn. In fact, that was the first memory I have, the very first thing that I can remember. At the time I didn’t know for certain if it was Willow Tree, of course, but I couldn’t think of what else it could have been.

That was why I hated the name mutt. I hated it because it was true; I was a mutt, a hybrid between a pony and a Gem Hound. It wasn’t so much that I hated myself for being a hybrid as that I hated the term. Carried in that term was the idea that I was inferior, that I was a disgrace, because I was of mixed blood. The truth that my father didn’t even acknowledge me, had barely spoken to me after he had taught me how to read. That one term held all of my father’s shame, and all of my resentment.

I shook my head as if to push those thoughts away, and then turned back to the book in front of me. Slowly, I began to turn the pages, being careful not to rip them. I had read the entire book ten times over, but I still liked to take it out and read parts of it from time to time.

I turned to the section with words that began with the letter C, and began to narrow in from there. Eventually, I found the entry that I wanted: Crystals. I had read the entry before, of course, but I hoped that another reading might provide some explanation of what had happened.

Crystals, I read. Found underneath the ground, crystals are transparent or translucent stones that are generally one pure color, although there are some exceptions to this rule. Crystals are excellent conductors of magic, and in fact conduct magic better than any other known substance. Because of this, they are often used to store and release magic, and as foci for complex unicorn spells.

Some scientists have even speculated that crystals are the solid form of magic, although there had been little substantial evidence to back up this theory.

The entry wasn’t very long, but then again, it was an abridged book. Despite that, it gave me a decent idea of what had happened, like I had hoped it would. Most Gem Hounds barely understood magic, but the Encyclopedia mentioned, described, and referenced magic in almost a third of the entries, and from that I had been able to build up a thorough understanding. The book had made it clear that magic required a source, a conduit, and a will to succeed. In other words, there needed to be a definite source of magic, a channel for the magic to travel through, and a desire for the magic to accomplish something. Even if you had the will, without a proper channel or source the magic was worthless.

All of this meant that I couldn’t chalk up the incident to a random magical occurrence as most Gem Hounds most likely would. In fact, there was no such thing as a random magical occurrence, and although there were magical stones and plants, anything that happened with those could always be observed, studied, and reproduced. There was no way that what had happened had been a random occurrence, which led me to only one other conclusion, although it seemed almost as impossible.

If I had been the source, and if I had somehow been able to channel magic, then what had happened would make sense. Of course, I knew that Gem Hounds couldn’t control magic, but I had no idea as to what a Gem Hound and unicorn hybrid would be able to do. It would make far more sense than some kind of divine magical intervention that saved my life at the last moment. And since I had definitely had a strong will not to die, and the book told me that crystals act as conduits for magic, it would make everything fall into place. I didn’t know the expression then, but I still used the logic of it; when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

But if I had been able to use magic during the fight, then theoretically I should have also been able to use it in my room. I figured that if crystals really were conduits, then the best place to start would be the ruby I had snagged from the kitchen. I grabbed it out of my vest’s front pocket where I had put it for safekeeping.

At first, I didn’t notice anything unusual. After a second, though, I felt my eyes widen as I realized that I could feel the gemstone, the very essence of it, in my mind’s eye. It hadn’t felt strange to me because I had always felt it whenever I had held crystals, felt the connection to the stone itself. It was like being colorblind, but in reverse- I had always had it, but I hadn’t noticed until I had actually concentrated on it. Now that I was, I wondered how I had never consciously thought of it before.

In my mind’s eye, the ruby felt like a massive space, unfolding all around me, with me standing in the center of it all. Extending in ever direction around me, I could feel paths, channels where power could easily flow. From each channel came a different sensation: of growing, of folding, of shielding, of light…

It was at the same time staggeringly complex and remarkably familiar at the same time. There were hundreds of channels, and with each channel I could feel different paths, different modifications that could be made to the flow of energy. And yet, I felt like I had known this place, these channels, my entire life; and in a way, I had. Every time I had touched an emerald, ruby, or sapphire, this place had opened up in my mind without my conscious acknowledgement.
(Technically, they aren’t channels. They aren’t anything really but themselves. They’re… pathways of energy, I guess, although that’s still an approximation. The “sub-channels” or modifications are just that- different ways to change or modify the flow of magic to do a more specific thing within the path itself. I’ve found the whole process to be rather difficult to describe in abstracts, so I’m going to stick with the channel metaphor for now. It’s the closest thing I have to actually describing it, and the association between channels and flows is helpful.)

My curiosity demanded that I pick a channel and see what happened. I picked the channel closest to me, the one that gave me the feeling of light. As I reached towards it, I felt another part of me awaken, a well of power that I had never noticed before. I could feel some of the energy leave my body in a stream and flow into the ruby I was holding in my paw.

Despite on some level expecting it, I was shocked when the jewel lit up with a red glow. I had read about magic, of course, and I had heard stories of unicorns, but I had never actually seen it for myself. Still, there was no denying that the red crystal was lit up, or that I had been the one to make it happen.

Slowly, I took my paw off the jewel, expecting it to fade out as soon as I let go. To my surprise, the ruby continued to shine with a red light even after I released it from my grip. I realized that I could still feel it in my mind; not the space that I had felt before, but a sense of light coming from around my neck. At the same time, I felt magic trickle from my body into the ruby, flowing into the gemstone and illuminating my room far better than the meager light coming from the lamp.

Instinctively, I stopped the flow of magic, imagining one of the dams I had read about in the book coming up around what I quickly recognized as the source of the magic. The feeling of the magic had always been in the back of my mind, and it was that constant presence which had kept me from consciously noticing it, similar to the feeling that came from gemstones.

As I blocked the flow, the light slowly died out from the ruby, and the feeling of light drifted to the back of my mind until I hardly noticed it. As soon as I thought about it, though, I was suddenly able to feel the gemstone and its potential.

My mouth went dry as I stared at it. If I had magic, then that could change everything, from my uselessness to my fighting to even the other Hound’s picking on me. I shook my head, stopping myself from thinking too far ahead. Before I could even think about any of that, I had to be sure that I could even do magic more than once.

I let some of my magic flow over the “dam’s” walls and into the feeling of the ruby. As the magic was channeled into the crystal, it lit up again, painting the walls of the room red once more. The dam came back up, this time with barely any conscious thought, and the glowing stopped.

The ease by which the magic came to me was astounding. Everything felt like I had done it thousands of times before.

I reached for my magic again, this time concentrating on pulsing it. I watched as the jewel flickered on and off, making movements look like they were far faster than they actually were. I let out a laugh, not just a chuckle but an honest to goodness laugh, something I hadn’t done since Star had first become Prima.

I let the jewel die out, cutting off the flow of my magic. My magic. There wasn’t any doubt anymore- I definitely had magic. I knew, at that moment, that things would never be the same.

~&~

An hour later I had completely devoured the marble slabs, and I was still experimenting with the jewel. More specifically, I was exploring the sub-channels within the channel for light. There was a sub-channel to control the color of the light, one to control its brightness, one to control its size, and even one for its shape. I was currently experimenting with the color, and the jewel was producing an eerie dark green glow instead of its natural red. As I watched, it progressed from green to a light blue that reminded me of what it looked like when I had stuck my head beneath the surface of the stream into the central hub. At my mental command, it changed from blue to a purple, darkening and gaining back some of its true red color.

It seemed to be able to produce any color of light, although it took more energy to do colors that were more different from the color of the original ruby. Green, for instance, was the hardest to produce, while purple was much easier since it was closer to the original color. I was even able to produce light that was a pure white color, although that had hurt my eyes and left me seeing spots for nearly five minutes afterwards.

The shapes and sizes had by far been the most fun to play with. I had been able to create something in the shape of a spear, a rock, the book, and the gemstone itself. Interestingly enough, the gemstone had been the easiest shape by far, taking far less energy than any of the others except for the pure light.

I had come up with an idea that the ruby took less power when what it was doing came closer to matching itself. For instance, it took less energy to glow a red color because it was itself a red color. Since green was the opposite of red, it took the most energy to produce, although it still didn’t take much energy. Even after experimenting with the jewel for over an hour’s time, I barely felt a difference in my magical energy, in the well of power. So far, all of my experiments had backed up the theory, although I knew that that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

In addition, I was starting to understand how the various sub-channels worked together. If you were skilled enough, you would be able to create an illusion by changing the various sub-channels to all line up, in the shape and size and color of a certain object. I could see already, though, that it would take hours of work just to create one illusion, especially if you were working from memory. Even if you had an object to base it off, you would have to have an insane level of attention to detail to pull it off, matching every part of it to create a convincing decoy. Of course, once you had created it, you could always use it again later… The thought was intriguing, to say the least.

Of course, the entire business was intriguing to me. I had only been working with light, which I later learned was by far the easiest of the channels. Still, I could feel the other channels, even if I hadn’t worked with them, and I wondered what they did. I could feel the sense of a shield, of an attack, of movement through a fabric of some kind. I didn’t know what they all did, but I wanted to find out. The one that was most interesting to me was the one that was furthest away, and the deepest, requiring more power than I thought I had for even the simplest of tasks. When I had reached for it, it had given me a sense of creation, of making something from pure energy. I had seen thousands of sub-channels, although I hadn’t been brave enough to try and touch any of them. It was incredibly complicated, more complicated than any of the others by a magnitude of a million, but it was at the same time by far the most beautiful, carrying some sort of divine majesty.

Needless to say, I stayed away from that one.

I was working on trying to control the brightness while I cycled through the colors. The tricky part was not letting it get too bright or too dull on certain colors. The problem was that any overflow from the color channel was automatically diverted into brightness. For instance, if I switched from green to red without changing the flow of my magic it would become far brighter due to the lessened resistance. It was a problem, one that I was having quite a bit of trouble with.

Finally, I was able to make the gemstone cycle through all of the colors I could picture without changing the brightness, although it took all of my concentration to keep completely focused on the magic flowing into changing the color to make sure I didn’t use too much power. By the end of it, I was sweating from the anxiety of trying to avoid making a mistake. I let out a sigh of relief.

Suddenly I heard somebody knock at the door of my room. Once again, I was grateful of having a room to myself and a solid metal door. I didn’t know what would happen if the rest of the Pack knew I had magic, but I wasn’t convinced it would be entirely good. I stopped the flow of magic, turning my head to look at the door, although I already knew who it was. The gem faded back to its original red color.

As I had expected, Star was at the door, holding it open hesitantly. She stepped clear of the door, letting it swing shut behind her, and then stopped. I’d known it was Star before I’d even seen her, though, since she’s the only one who actually knocks before entering.

“Star!” I cried out, acting surprised. Well, it wasn’t entirely an act- I was surprised that she had decided to visit me. Normally she spent all of her time in the kitchen, since it was her job to oversee all preparations. “What are you doing here?”

“What, I can’t see my little brother?” she asked with a pout. My eyes widened as I realized my mistake.

“No, I was just, I was just wondering why you weren’t in-” She smirked suddenly, and I realized she had been messing with me. She laughed and I glared at her in return, pretending to be angry. I couldn’t hold it for long though, and it quickly slipped into a grin.

“So, seriously, what are you doing here?” I asked her.

“Well, remember what I said about father having a guest? It turns out that it’s actually the Ruby Senator, all the way from the capitol.”

“And father wants me to serve them?”

“Well, yeah.” She sounded a little disconcerted at my flippant tone, but she didn’t say anything. “You know the tradition. The host’s family is supposed to serve, especially for something as important as this.”

I did know the tradition, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. As the Runt, I had always been assigned to serve whenever we had had a guest over. I could also tell that Star was a bit put out about how casually I had spoken of the Senator, but she decided not to mention it.

Instead, I changed the subject. “So, why did you bring the message? Why not somebody else?”

“Well, father let everyone in the kitchen take the night off, and… I really was serious about wanting to see you. I feel like ever since I’ve become Prima, all I do is run around and take care of everyone else. I haven’t had much time to talk to you.”

That was an understatement, and we both knew it. I only ever saw her when I snuck into the kitchen to get some food. Otherwise, I stayed in my room reading the encyclopedia, when father wasn’t in the mood for extended practice sessions between me and Rust.

We were silent for a bit after that. I knew I wasn’t seeing Star as much anymore, but I didn’t know how to fix the problem. Finally, I spoke.

“When does he want me there?”

“Preferably, five minutes ago.”

“I guess I should get going soon.”

“Probably.”

I looked up, swallowing as I did so. I’ve found that to become at ease with someone, you have to spend a while talking, finding interests. Star and I didn’t have much to talk about anymore, besides our mutual past or concern for our brother. Outside of that, I didn’t see Star enough to know anything else. Our memories were all we really had left.

I moved forward, and Star stepped aside, letting me grab the door handle in my paw.

“Silvie-” I turned around, looking back at her. She moved her mouth for a bit, but no words came out. It looked like she didn’t know what to say. For that matter, neither did I.

I gave her a tiny wave, and then pulled open the metal door and left.

~&~

I stood in a small tunnel, the entrance barely noticeable in the central hub. Unlike most of the other tunnels, its design was actually, well, designed, made to be inconspicuous and elegant at the same time. The tunnel itself was well lit, with torches lining the walls every ten body lengths, burning smuggled oil.

At the other end of the tunnel was a small room, although what it lacked in size it more than made up for in opulence. To start with, the room itself was completely square, something that was incredibly uncommon among Gem Hounds due to the extreme difficulty involved in creating anything with right angles. Every other room, tunnel, cave, or mine in the Pack had rough, rounded walls, except for this one. Instead of the smooth transition that I was accustomed to, the room had sharp cut-offs between the floor and the wall. Every inch of the angle had to be scraped into the sharp angle by an expert stone worker. In fact, my father had had to hire one to come from the Capital just for the construction of the room.

In addition to the straight edges, the room also had three pieces of wooden furniture. Two pieces of polished wooden chairs sat at either side of a wooden table of a deep golden color. The table held two glasses, made of actual glass, which held a strong wine that had been quite expensive to buy off the smuggler, if father’s bad mood for the next two days was any indication.

Next to the glasses were two piles of jewels and gemstones, each highly prized and very valuable. There was a mound of emeralds, a small pile of amethyst, a smattering of diamonds, and even an egg sized star sapphire. And, of course, there were Rubies of all sizes, from gems that could almost be swallowed whole to larger ones that took three or four bites to finish.

I knew what all of the gems were because I had served them, holding them out and setting them on the table while my father explained to his guest which mine each gemstone had come from and the care that had been taken to extract each and every one. That wasn’t entirely true, since most gemstones were taken from the wall around them by a sharp claw or, if that failed, a strong jaw, with little regard for damage to the gem itself. Fortunately, gemstones are much stronger than the surrounding stone, and they usually survive the harsh treatment. And if they did break apart, then that just meant more small gems.

I was familiar with father’s guest routine, though. After having me display the food, he would make me stand in the hallway, in case his guest wanted something, while the two of them chewed their way through the gemstones and talked about various topics. Usually the guests were travelers, skilled smiths or healers, and occasionally pack leaders of the different Ruby packs. This was the first time that the Senator had paid us a visit.

I suppose now would be a good time to explain the hierarchy of Gem Hound society. As I mentioned before, each Pack is led by a Packleader, someone who directs the activities of an entire Pack of Gem Hounds. The size of a Pack ranges between forty and four hundred Hounds, of which usually about twenty percent are Alphas. As I said before, Packleaders and their families wear red vests, and the Packleaders themselves wear golden gemstones from their collars to show their status.

Every pack is part of one of five tribes: the Ruby Dogs to the north and northwest, the Emerald Dogs to the northeast, the Sapphire Dogs to the south and southeast, the Diamond Dogs to the west and southwest, and the Coral Dogs to the East, on the sea coast. Every tribe is named for the gemstone that is found most abundantly in their area, except the Coral Dogs who are named for the coral that they collect from offshore reefs.

The Pack that my father led was to the northeastern section of Gem Hound territory, and more specifically to the northeastern section of the Ruby Tribe territory. It’s pretty far away from most of the other Packs, although there is one other Pack a bit to the southeast of our tribe that is about the same distance away from the rest of the tribe.

As I mentioned, each Pack is part of a larger Tribe. The Tribes were in turn represented by a Senator, differentiated from a Packleader by the purple vests that they wore, and the purple jewels that hung around their necks. The Senator is chosen from the leaders of each Pack after the previous leader died. The five Senators acted as both advisors and heirs for the leader of our entire nation, the Stonelord. The position of Stonelord had come into existence a few hundred years ago, when one Hound had managed to unify the five warring tribes into one coherent nation. The Senators acted as representatives of their tribes when advising the Stonelord, and as representatives of the Stonelord himself when talking to their tribes.

With the exception of the Senators, no one really knew what the Stonelord looked like, or even what kind of clothing he wore. There were rumors that he wore an all black cloak and an obsidian pendant from his collar, but they had never been confirmed. Even travelers who passed through the capitol had no idea what he looked like.

There’s one more thing I feel like I should mention, although it’s difficult to truly understand until you live in a Gem Hound pack for a while. Almost every single Gem Hound that I’ve met has absolute loyalty to the Stonelord and, by extension, the Senators. If I had to guess, I would say that it was a trait that dated back to the time when Gem Hounds were little more than dogs or wolves that hunted together in packs. The strongest dog would take the position as alpha, as leader of the pack. That mentality still exists to this day, and in everybody’s mind the Stonelord has taken the position of the ultimate leader. They give him their undying loyalty because they know on a subconscious level that without him they would be leaderless and ultimately helpless. And for all I know, that’s completely true. Without a leader, it’s entirely possible the Tribes would just go to war once more.

For whatever reason, though, I didn’t seem to have the same instincts as everyone else. I didn’t feel the need to worship at the feet of some Senator I had never met, and didn’t know anything about. It had puzzled my sister when we were young, and we had gotten into quite a few fights over it. We might have gotten in a fight when Star had fetched me if we’d had more time, although I thought that Star trusted me enough to behave myself in the Senator’s presence, even if I didn’t have the same devotion for him as everyone else seemed to have.

“So, Senator, how’s life in the capitol?” Father schooled his face into a look of interest as he asked, so different from the actual interest he showed in Rust during our practices. It was one way that I could tell he was just trying to be polite, and wasn’t actually interested in the answer.

For those interested, the capitol is the network of caves and tunnels where the Senators, the Stonelord, their family, and their servants all live. It’s a large complex with tunnels stretching out between it and every Pack of every Tribe. It’s also a rich place, filled to the brim with expensive gifts from Packs to their Senators as a show of their loyalty.

My father shifted in his seat, giving me an unobstructed view of the Senator. I had been forced by tradition to look down while I had been serving, for fear of offending the powerful Hound, but now that I was in the tunnel outside the room I finally had a chance to observe him for myself.

The Senator did not live up to my expectations, or rather the expectations of everyone in the pack who talked of him. He had a large belly that wobbled around as he talked, and what I counted to be at least three chins. His mouth was smiling, but it wasn’t a smile that reached his cold, calculating eyes. His purple vest barely fit around his body, and it was covered with glittering stains of gems long past.

“It’s fine, the food in particular is most excellent.” He finally answered my father’s question, after a pause that had been just a few seconds too long. He had a high, whining voice, like the sound made when a Hound cut through a shale slate with their claws. “One of the Stonelord’s servants came up with a particularly delicious mix of corral dusted with diamonds. Quite excellent, if I may say so myself.” He made a high, obnoxious sound that I came to recognize as a laugh. I could see in his face what he thought of the food in front of him, and in his voice I could hear what he thought of father. Neither of those opinions were pleasant, and neither of them slipped by father’s notice.

Suddenly I remembered a conversation that had taken place a few months back between my father and a traveler, a Hound from our tribe, though not from our Pack, who had just been in the capitol a few months ago. He’d talked about how the other Senators had recently been displeased with the Ruby Tribe and in particular our Senator. At the time, the traveler had passed it off as a slight against our tribe, but now I wondered if it really was simply due to how unlikeable the Senator was.

“Any news of the other Tribes?” Father’s face had the same look of polite interest on it, as if he hadn’t even heard the contempt in the Senator’s voice.

“Yes, the Diamond Dogs got into some trouble a few months ago. Did you hear about the rogue group, the three simpleton Alphas that left their tribe and took a number of the Betas with them too? It was quite the scandal about five years ago, as I recall.”

“Yes, I remember. Caused quite an uproar, didn’t it?”

“Indeed it did, and we didn’t let the Diamond Senator forget about it soon. Caused her to lose a lot of her standing with the Stonelord, as well. A pity, that.” He smirked at that, and father gave a polite smile, but I knew him well enough to know he was growing angry with the Senator. I was a bit irritated at the pompous twat as well, and I wondered if he ever thought about anything except himself. “The senator stepped down a month or two later, and her successor was- is, I should say- rather naïve. I doubt that the Stonelord is going to be putting much trust in the tribe for a long time. Especially not after what happened two months ago.”

“And what was that?” Father played along, but I could tell his patience was wearing thin. He had never been one to suffer fools, not with myself and not with the others in his Pack.

“Well, they found the rogues, hiding out inside the borders of the Pony country. They were out of gems and slowly starving themselves of resources, as we had expected. But they had the most incredible story to tell.”

He paused, but this time my father just nodded. It was clear that this Senator was used to Hounds hanging on to his every word, and it was irritating me to no end.

“Apparently, the rogue alphas had stumbled across a pony, a female unicorn I belive, that could locate gems with its… magic.” He waved his paw in the air to indicate his opinion of said magic. It was one reflected by most Gem Hounds. “They captured it, and were able to fill up six cart’s full of jewels. But then- and this is the worst part- they let it go. Because it was whining, or some nonsense like that. And what’s more, it took all six carts with it.”

Father gained some real interest at that, sitting up a bit straighter in his chair. “And how did the Stonelord react?” he asked.

“Well, he was furious, of course. Letting it slip away like that, with six carts no less! But letting something that valuable get away at all… well, there’s only one way he can react. The entire Pack (if you can really call it a pack) was executed last week.”

My father nodded again, accepting the answer. Out in the hallway, though, I felt almost sick to my stomach. Taking slaves isn’t exactly endorsed by the Stonelord, but it isn’t prohibited either. If you can get away with it, and you can feed and house your hostage, then you’re free to go. But culling twenty hounds for failing to keep hold of a single pony, no matter how valuable she was, made me feel nauseous. Sure, I didn’t agree with taking slaves, but it seemed to me that taking lives was worse.

“A fitting end, though. Imagine what we could have done with a tool like that. If one of my tribe let something like that go, I daresay that mere death wouldn’t be enough.” He looked at my father, as if he was warning him not to do the same thing. My father looked down, trying to appear scared and failing at it. From the way he held himself, I could tell that he wasn’t frightened in the slightest. Fortunately, the Senator didn’t notice, too absorbed in trying to be an intimidating presence.

“And, in the other Packs?” my father asked, looking up.

“They were doing fine the last time I did the circuit,” the senator replied, taking a large bite out of a ruby. “That must have been, oh, five years ago or so.” He finished the ruby off with a second bite, his other paw reaching towards the smaller pile of sapphires. “Packleader Coalfur visited about two years ago and informed me of a shortage of gems, but I think they were able to build another mine before the problem became large enough to require my intervention.”

I remember my father discussing Coalfur with one of the other Packleaders about a year ago. His tribe had completely run out of gems and had completely disbanded, the Hounds leaving for other Packs. Nobody wanted to live in a Pack that was unable to trade with other Packs or smugglers. Apparently, Coalfur and his family were still there, living off a vein of granite they had found in the rocks, too proud to go from Packleader to an ordinary worker.

There was silence for about a minute after that, my father looking into his glass of wine, the senator slowly making his way through the mound of gemstones in front of him.

My father was the one to break it. “I noticed that you didn’t bring any guards with you, or anyone else. Tell me, why aren’t you afraid of me?”

The Senator swallowed the ruby he had just popped in his mouth, then let out a guffaw. “Afraid? Why would I be afraid of you? A Packleader from my own tribe, and a cripple at that.” He chuckled again. My father gave a polite laugh in return, before responding.

“You know, I’ve been talking to some of the other Packleaders. They come here sometimes, to discuss trade agreements and that sort of thing. I’ve been asking some of them about you, as well. And do you know something they told me? They said that you never visited without at least twenty guards. So that makes me think that you aren’t afraid of me because of my limp.”

The Senator’s eyes shifted around the room, trying to avoid the accusation, but his silence spoke for itself.

“And, quite frankly, that makes you a fool. A gimp leg does not change my ambition- or my power. I am a Packleader, and what’s more I lead one of the largest Packs in our tribe. As such I have access to more than twenty trained Alpha soldiers, and a little under a hundred Betas who know enough to stab you. I could have had you killed five hundred ways before I even brought you here. But I didn’t. I wanted to meet you, to see if what the other Packleaders have been saying is true.”

The Senator seemed glued to his seat as my father stood up, gripping his spear shaft in his hand to support his right leg. I could see the scar, running across the upper part of the leg, where a unicorn had sliced him across the leg with his own spear. It made it difficult for him to even stand, making walking an impossible effort without an aid.

“This dinner was a test. I wanted to see if you really were as lazy and self-centered as I suspected, from listening to travelers and the other Packleaders. I hoped you would pass the test, but you didn’t. You failed.”

This seemed to have the effect of bringing the Senator out of his state of shock. He opened his mouth, starting to stand up as well. As soon as the Senator started to move, my father came into motion, jumping off his left leg and using the pole to launch himself over the table. He landed on the Senator feet first, breaking the chair and knocking the other Hound to the ground. As the Senator crashed to the ground, my father landed on his left leg, bringing the staff around just in time to keep himself from falling over. I felt my breath catch.

“Now, I want you to listen closely to what I’m going to say here. You’re greedy and you don’t care about the tribe. You failed the test. Do you know what that means?”

“Packleader Graystone, what is the meaning of this? What do you mean to do to me?”

“It’s simple. I’m going to kill you.” As he said this, I saw the Senator’s face grow ashen. “Once you’re dead, I’ll become the new Senator. Every Packleader that’s come here to visit has come away with a favorable trade agreement and a good impression of gimpy Graystone. Nobody wants to sacrifice their precious raids, not if they don’t have to. I’m just the perfect canidate. I’ve got enough Hounds who pledged their vote to me that even if you die while in my care, I’ll still be chosen.”

“And, from what I hear, nobody in the capitol would miss you. And nobody would suspect me. Especially,” he paused, reaching into his pocket, “after they see this.” He held up a two-sided metal blade, the end of each side glistening with some kind of green liquid. “Cost me a fortune to get one, or rather it cost me a fortune to buy their silence. You know who I’m talking about, don’t you?”

I looked at the prone Hound, and saw recognition in his eyes. I was completely mystified, and although I had realized that the liquid must be some kind of poison, I had no idea who “they” were, or why their silence was so important.

The Senator started to scramble backwards, but once again my father was too fast for him. In a second, the Senator was motionless once more, and this time my father had his staff pressed against the Senator’s neck. In his other hand, he still held the poisoned blade, holding it over the Hound’s chest. He smirked at the figure on the ground, the first real emotion he had displayed the whole dinner.

“Goodbye, Senator,” he said, dropping the double-sided blade. It slammed into the Senator’s chest with a dull sound, and blood immediately began to well up around it. A few seconds after it landed, the senator gasped, a long drawn out sound. His body began to convulse as a foam began to form at his mouth. Suddenly, he was still. The blood flow slowly came to a stop.

I must’ve made some noise then, because my father turned to look at me, almost as if he had forgotten I was there. He met my eyes for a second, and I saw pain flash across his face for a moment. Then he turned away, going back to ignoring me. He reached out, grabbing the former Senator’s wine glass, then downed the liquid in one gulp. He slammed the glass back down onto the table, then went to the other side and sat back down in his chair, staring at the dead body.

The last thing I saw as I backed away down the tunnel was my father staring pensively at the Senator’s dead body, dead in a small pool of his own blood.

Author's Note:

Hey guys! I made some changes this time around. First of all, sorry for not sticking entirely to the schedule I set last time. I am working on chapter 3, but school, life, and books got in the way for a while there. I'm updating the character tags to include the "diamond dogs" tag, although those three aren't actually going to be in the story. I felt like I should do something to indicate that this isn't just a completely OP OC.
In addition, I'm going to be sending this in to EQD this week. Hopefully I'll get approved, but if that doesn't work out, at least I'll get some helpful edits. Speaking of edits, if there are any editors out there who want to help, I would be happy to have someone else to look these over before I post them.
Again, thanks for sticking with this story this far. It really means a lot to me, and I want everyone who's reading this to know that I'm writing this for you. Thank you all.

Comments

[Pupsrus13]

I sense much travel in Silver's future, oh yes.....

[Stormblessed]

2322225 Indeed. I almost feel bad about what I'm going to put him through...