Pre-Celestia/Luna Equestria meets an early human society. It goes poorly.
How fragile is a young nation? Discord plays games with the lives of thousands, and in particular enjoys pitting a fledgling Equestria against an equally weak Human kingdom. Between skirmishes, disputes over territory, and raids, is there any hope for either civilization?
Author's Note: This is, initially, a mostly Elsewhere fiction; it progressively becomes less and less so, but nevertheless, this is a warning for those of you who aren't fans of that particular subset.
They were an easily forgotten species, the first inhabitants in what would eventually be called Equestria; they hadn’t endured much conflict, in the beginning, and as such hadn’t cared much to develop. To them, life was simple, and any complication to that was an unnecessary effort. After all, why should they bother to build more than a house and a farm? Their children would inherit it, and the land was, for the most part, peaceful, so there was little need for large communities. It was, for all intents and purposes, a good era, an abundant era, if a bit devoid of artful expressions of beauty.
And so it was that their natural passions were doused into cinders by the monotony of simple living unbroken by strife.
Their existence itself was something of an abnormality; their natural lands were universes away, a realm that contained little magic save for what was made with words or actions, on a planet that had seen fit to make them the only sapient species within their biosphere.
Their adaptation to this utterly alien realm was frankly anomalous, as their new world was sparing with its gifts; magic, for the most part, simply passed them by, thaumological evolution neither aiding nor harming their livelihoods, with perhaps one or two possible exceptions. Their inherent malleability, however, served them well enough.
. . . until the frost came.
They had long since forgotten the chill of a cruel, early, blizzard, and it was quite to their detriment they had become so accustomed to the pleasant evenings and limitlessly fertile lands. The unnatural snow ravaged the spring crops, and whatever semblance of society there was at that point frayed into nothingness when famine struck in the midst of that extraordinarily prolonged winter.
They, at that point an unbelievably languid species, were suddenly confronted with a situation that demanded immediate pragmatism; with heavy hearts, they burned what few structures they had constructed in an attempt to appease whatever chilly god they had offended, then fled to the caves, where, desperately huddled around campfires and tightly clasping each other for warmth, half of the creatures died from either winter’s bite or gnawing hunger.
The rest, however, experienced an evolution of sorts that would’ve made Lamarck proud; slowly, bred within them over the course of those long months, grew a flame within their souls from the few scant embers that remained from before the days of ease. It wasn’t of love, or harmony; it was hot, furious at the past and present, at themselves, at the world, and at the heavens above. It was the sort of blood-pounding lividness that could, and would, inspire a few thousand hungry and weakened individuals to push their way out of those icy caves when the snow finally stopped, if only to deliver a curse ridden oration to the clouds and sun itself. They left those idyllic lands behind, and with barely contained passion they migrated through what would eventually be called the “Ever Free Forest”, into the mountain surrounded land beyond.
It was this new generation that the inheritors of Equestria, the three pony-kinds, would eventually find perhaps a century or so after the first Hearths Warming; while exploring the lands beyond Ever Free Forest, it came to pass that a Pegasus and a Unicorn pony, engaged in some sort of secret tryst, happened upon this civilization quite by accident. There are multiple stories on how the first meeting went, and how the proceedings eventually fell through, but the real story (and thusly the one least told) went something like the following:
“Hey, Smeol, this is some high quality rabbit; you really have to show me how you-”
Gasps of horror emanated from the forest; both Smeol and Turuk turned towards the source, the two ponies, Radiant Shield and Working Gears. The two groups began quietly and quickly whispering amongst themselves.
“Turuk?”
“Yeah, Smeol?”
“What the hell are those?”
“Radiant, they, they… killed a rabbit! And they’re eating its corpse!”
“I don’t know, Turuk, they don’t seem to mean us ill-will. . . I’ll try and, uh, figure out what they want, but if anything happens to me, gut the bastards . . .”
“I know, Working, but right now isn’t the time we can panic; get ready to run, one of them is getting closer. I’ll try to hold them off for a few minutes, so you can get a head start; I’ll meet you back at the fort!”
“I… don’t feel so good…”
Even when the story is told, it’s never made quite clear how first impressions soured. All that is for certain is that it involved a slightly charred rabbit turning on a spit, a great deal of overreaction on the part of either Working Gears or Radiant Shield, and Smeol retaliating rather angrily rather than trying to understand why, exactly, a pair of herbivores might be disgusted at being offered meat.
All that history bothered to note is that negotiations ceased to exist before they even had a chance to begin.
Of course, it’s perhaps best that history didn’t remember that little scuffle accurately; things escalated rather quickly when Radiant struck at Smeol with her wings, and Turuk, somehow, managed to set every individual, including himself and about a tenth of the surrounding forest, on fire from the embers of the cooking pit. It wasn’t quite the proudest day for anyone (or anypony) involved, even though the only thing that received any real damage was both parties’ prides.
And so it was that generations would pass before any meaningful contact (beyond skirmishes) would occur between the two species again, well into the Age of Discord.
In these ensuing years, it would be inaccurate to say that neither side attempted diplomacy with the other; it would however, be accurate to say that neither side tried particularly hard. Neither nation could even agree on what, exactly, was the reason for such high tensions; the Humans said it was the treatment of their then diplomat, Tahulin, and how the food he was served in Equestria was essentially purpose made for human indigestibility (save for apples, of which he gave a glowing recommendation when he finally arrived back home, verging on emaciation). The Equestrians, on the other hoof, maintain that it was the treatment of their own diplomat that resulted in strained relations, as Witty Words had the unfortunate experience of, using his own description (which, for the sake of expedience, is often remembered in a form that excludes his sobs of horror), “Finding the head of a fellow pony in my bed”.
Of course, if there is to be a degree of fairness here, it wasn’t actually a pony’s head; it was a large doll that one of the human children had somehow lost. The tomatoes used to simulate blood, however, are not so innocently explicable. . .
That isn’t to say there was a true war between the two sentient species, far from it; open conflicts have, at the least, easily presentable expectations. Instead, what followed was more akin to a cold war, with border disputes, bickering forts, and food being stolen back and forth, despite (for the most part) the lack of a mutual diet. It was a subtle game of manipulation, coordination, trickery, and, in a few memorable situations, outright idiocy.
***
A pair of mares sat next to an alcove as servants bustled to and fro, the general movement so fluid that it smeared together and, to an unfocused gaze, looked like a river of color.
“Beautiful weather we’ve been having. Shame it’s due to the sun being up for more than seventy hours.” A regal looking unicorn with an ochre coat and auburn mane paused for a moment, glancing at the purple and black unicorn beside her with a frown on her face, before adding, “What do you think, Ms. Neato?”
“I think, personally, Lady Eventide, that the Dusk house will have it sorted out soon enough.” The reply was in the most neutral tone possible without delving into monotone.
Eventide tsked. “Of course we’ll have it fixed. I wasn’t really curious about that nonsense.”
“Sorry, your grace. I’m not much one for small talk.”
“Clearly.”
An uncomfortable silence ensued.
“We’ll have the moon up in no time at all; it’s our specialty, after all,” Eventide said, in an attempt to evict the quietness that had become present.
It failed. The silence stretched uncomfortably long, before, finally, Eventide tried again.
”Are you sure you have to leave?” she asked, her tone tinged with sadness. “She’s taken a shine to you, you know; it’s going to break her little heart.”
“I’m afraid I have to; family business, your grace. I . . . enjoyed my time here, though. Thank you; you’ve all shown me far more kindness than I had any right to expect,” Neato replied, scuffing at the floor for a moment with her hoof.
Eventide felt the edges of her lips twitch upwards. “Then perhaps you ought to expect more?”
Neato frowned, her brow furrowed in questioning.
Eventide sighed. “I suppose what I’m trying to say is, well, we love you.”
An agonized expression flitted across Neato’s face for a moment, and, more like a desperate attempt to expel all air rather than actually communicate anything, she murmured, “Ah.”
“Is everything alright, Ms. Neato?” Eventide looked alarmed, and more than a little concerned, as she watched the rapidly paling mare before her.
“Yes! Yes, yes, everything is fine. I’m just . . . I’m just going to miss everypony.”
The giggle that accompanied that statement was so obviously false, it took Eventide a few moments to realize that, indeed, Neato was trying to conceal something, and that this wasn’t an attempt at some newly found acerbic wit.
“You’re thinking about her, aren’t you?”
Neato’s pained silence was the only reply Eventide needed.
“She’ll be fine; if my useless sister proves to be incapable of raising her, she’ll have the misfortune of being raised by me.” For a moment, Eventide smirked. “I believe her mother’s fear of that particular outcome is more than enough to ensure the dear will be well looked after.”
“I’m worried about everypony here, Lady Eventide.”
“Surely you aren’t thinking Discord will target us, do you?” Eventide asked with an amused tone. “I’ve not had the displeasure of seeing him in some time, yes, but last I heard he was terrorizing the settlements beyond the Everfree forest; he so hardly puts thought into his little changes that I sometimes think he finds enjoyment in us changing some of his designs . . .”
The explosion of air that escaped Neato’s lips would normally be associated with laughter, but her expression was anything but joyful. “It’s not him. It’s not even the humans, Lady Eventide; they’re at least a month’s travel away. I’m more worried about other ponies. Other royalty, if I’m going to drop all pretense of subtlety.”
Eventide spent a moment simply staring at Neato, calmly taking an offered cup of water from a nearby servant and sipping it as she did so. “Who, and how did you find out?”
“Perhaps somewhere more private, your Grace?”
A room was cleared with remarkable haste, and the two mares carefully trotted within, the door closing behind them with reverberating solidness.
Wordlessly, a letter exchanged hooves. Eventide’s magic aura briefly encased the envelope to open it, but Neato’s squeak of dismay gave her pause.
“Why don’t you want me opening this, Neato?” Realization dawned. “You think they’ve got spies here.”
“Relatively certain of it, your Grace.”
“Well, then, nothing-” Eventide grimaced, and blinked unsteadily for a moment. “Strange. Don’t know what that wa-”
She toppled over soundlessly, her eyes rolling up into her head and foam forming at the edges of her lips.
Neato’s trembling grew in severity, until her knees were in danger of knocking together. She almost didn’t hear the door open, behind her. “It, it wasn’t supposed to be until next week. Why . . . how . . .?”
“The servant and the water. It was simple enough,” replied a guttural voice. “I was to keep an eye on you, make sure you didn’t get caught or get cold feet. If you come with me now, I’ll sweep this under the rug; the boss doesn’t need to know about this little . . . incident.”
Neato continued to stare at Eventide’s body, until, finally, the pony behind her sighed and asked with raspy intonation, “Don’t you have a brother to look after? Let the dead look after the dead; the living still have work to do.”
By the Alicorns, this isn’t exactly the most romantic I’ve been, is it? I mean, yes, she did threaten the entire set up simply because she made friends with one of the marks, but, well, I did sort of poison her friend no less than a minute ago.
Oh, Tartarus, she’s crying now. Somehow, I feel that trying to hug her isn’t going to help.
Nope. She’s muttering oaths to kill me now, and is glaring daggers at me. Might be time to just take a few steps back now . . .
Why can’t it be simple?
‘You want some coffee?’
‘Sure.’
Bam, easy. But no, I get to basically poison nearly everypony she cares about as a first date.
. . . I suppose this technically counts as a first date.
Eeeeeehhhhhhhhh . . . no, that’s twisted, even for me. Let’s just get this over with.
***
Deliriously, a stallion stumbled about, his gaze fixed upon the night sky; feverishly, his eyes flicked from the pinpricks of light, to the moon, and back again, almost in sync with his shallow breathing.
Funny how all the stars just sorta swirl together; makes everything look real pretty.
Sort. Of. And Really. Not this ‘sorta’ and ‘real’ nonsense. What would mother do if she heard that little breach of language?
Well, besides lock you inna . . . in a . . . cupboard.
The stallion, Whiskey, stumbled, tripped, and tumbled down a hill, far too distracted in his bleary glances at the sky to watch where he was going.
He slid the last couple of feet, and moaned in pain as he reached the nadir of the knoll.
That . . . doesn’t feel like a mattress. Wasn’t I just inside? Wait. Why would I be able to see stars from inside the fort?
Wide-eyed, Whiskey desperately searched about, craning his neck as far as it could go.
Where . . . is it? Oh . . . oh dear . . .
Seeing a distinct lack of stone walls around him, he slowly trotted to a nearby rock and slumped to the ground beside it, sweating profusely all the while.
“How’d I get outta . . . out of . . . there?” he mumbled, even as his gaze was drawn inexorably towards the full moon. “Where’s . . . ohhh . . .”
The words died, unspoken, as he groaned and felt his empty stomach violently lurch.
By the Alicorns . . . what in the world did I catch?
Distantly, he was aware of shouting, and advancing hooves; regardless, his bloodshot eyes remained affixed to the Mare in the Moon.
There were myths, of course, associated with the pattern; that it was the scar from some great and terrible magic, or that it was a natural formation due to whatever meteorological events happened to occur on the moon, or even that it was the end result of some pompous oaf’s from ancient attempt at historical immortality. They were all lesser legends, though, compared to the one that was running through Whiskey’s mind; it was the bread and butter, the staple of all stories mares and stallions told their foals.
In the beginning, there was nothing. And, and then . . . Alicorns . . .
Alas, your eloquence, it is stupefying, commented a small portion of Whiskey’s brain that wasn’t being fried from fever.
And then the Alicorns came, and made everything. And . . . uhhh . . .
One step in front of the other, my dear synapse; you’ll eventually finish in due time.
It’s said it was a good time, when the Alicorns were around.
The thinking, rational fragment of Whiskey’s mind was silent at that, and subconscious mental cogs began to turn in thought.
And then the shouting voices drew nearer, and Whiskey felt protective hooves wrap around him and pick him up. For a moment, he smiled as their indistinct voices melded into a pleasant, concerned, background noise. He glanced blearily at his blurry friends, and tried to force his swelled tongue to comprehensible speech.
Something that could’ve passed for, “I’m fine, I’m fine,” escaped his lips, before he slipped off into sleep.
--------------------
Slowly, the more regally dressed man’s eyes cleared, and he ceased his trembling; he was consciously aware of having murmured something about a ‘Scalpel’ (whatever that may be), but otherwise shunted the new memories to the side; there was an issue that had to be resolved immediately, after all.
The both of them stared within the storehouses, before, finally, the young lord picked up three apples and inspected them cautiously. “You say this has happened . . . how many times?” he asked, in an attempt to causally sidestep around any mention of his most recent vision.
The other man, wearing a simple yet well cared for tunic, blinked a couple times; a futile attempt to try and forget the strange mood the lord had been in a few moments ago.
“Aye, yer lordship, six times.”
“Six times? Why hasn’t anyone been sent to tell us of this?” the aristocrat looked at his speaking companion with an expression of amazement and disbelief.
“Well, frankly, yer lordship, we need all the help we can get fer harvest season.”
“You were all needed for harvest season?”
“Yessir.”
“Harvest season.”
“Yes, yer lordship.” For a moment, the tone bordered on condescending.
“You felt that growing new crops was somehow more prudent than retrieving old food stores?”
The man grimaced at that. “Like I said, my lord, it’s happened-”
“Six times, no, I understand.”
“We’re really not stupid people, yer lordship. It’s just that, well, Ol’ Coup told us that it was the ponies-“
“Yes, yes, I know that much. He, personally, told you as such?”
“Aye, yer lordship. He said that; thing is, though, is that we didn’t really want to lose any more of the lads to fighting, so we reckoned that replacing the stores was the wisest option.”
“Yes, well, you were right, except for one thing; crops don’t grow faster after a certain point, even if you work on them more. Besides, being robbed six times doesn’t exactly help. Did you or anyone else see where the horses went?”
“Well . . .”
“That’s a no, then?”
“Yessir, but I know where they are.”
The lord blinked, raising an eyebrow in disbelief. “How exactly does that happen, if you don’t mind telling me?”
“Ol’ Coup told me. They went straight back to their encampment, apparently”
The lord groaned and face-palmed.
“Is there a problem, yer grace?”
“I don’t much enjoy getting all our info from that quasi-demonic reality breaker. Well, I’ll tell the King; maybe this won’t go as poorly as I think it will. . .”
“Mankind was crafted elsewhere,” every mother and father would be quick to remind their children. “A paradise, of sorts; given no shell nor hide nor claw to defend himself only because such things were unnecessary. Food wasn’t so much grown as spring out of the earth, mature and perfectly ripe for eating. It was a golden era; an abundant, overflowing, beautiful world.”
And then the conversation would degenerate into one of any number of explanations as to why this was no longer the case. The tamest accounts would typically involve either a series of unfortunate events that would culminate in some bizarre mankind afflicting accident or, most rarely, a simple admittance of ignorance to the subject. The most theologically inclined stories normally painted humankind as having grown some amusing combination of proud, fat, and stupid, and this new world being some form of punishment. Finally, and perhaps the most well-known (even if it was the least believed), were the stories told by siblings, from older to younger; it was a rare day when these didn’t involve monsters or some variety of paranoia inducing freaks, and it was from these stories that the rumors grew, and eventually flourished like some foul crop.
He, it was said, looks into your mind and plucks out the ideas he finds most ripe to eat, and he’s wounded by pure thoughts, whatever those may be. He steals children, looking for the most irksome and devouring those who don’t go to sleep on time, like some male Baba-Yaga without the slightest self-restraint or, for that matter, sense of proportionate retribution. He’s some inhuman thing masquerading in the flesh of a normal person, or he’s some poor abomination, suffering from some spiritual parasite that feasts upon his humanity and directs his every action. Perhaps he’s some splintered fragment of that amalgamation of madness, or, perhaps, he’s some sort of demon the King has imprisoned and bound to serve the land, unwillingly.
The fact the last one, by its very nature, would logically mean the King himself had arcane power was a subject that people found all manner of ways to avoid bringing up.
It didn’t matter, regardless. Some sick truth must be in these accusations, the common wisdom would posit, as diverse and incongruent the conclusions may be; after all, he, the Witch Prince, takes the natural order and subverts it, creating flame where there was none and manipulating objects from afar with a flick of his wrist.
No man, after all, could have that power; that was in the domain of the equines and other loathsome creatures, and some of the darker whispers in the kingdom would hint that, indeed, the Prince had perished long ago and had been replaced, substituted by some spying creature intent on harm.
He has executed people with that unnatural skill as well, some of the elderly shopkeepers might whisper to their patrons as the sun begins to set and activity dies down; yes, true, they were bad pieces of work, the lot of them, and yes, true, he had operated on orders from the King, but the fact remains . . .
He killed them with a touch. Well, a couple of touches; a hand on either side of their temples’, to be precise, but accuracy within a story this juicy was garnish in the best of times, and superfluously detrimental in most.
And the response would always fall into one of three groups: a mildly horrified gasp here and there, meticulously crafted to make it well known that this information was simply terrible, and someone ought to do something about it; some grumbling from the less reserved individuals, mutterings about how it’s all unnatural and how it shouldn’t be allowed; and finally dead silence from the more intelligent persons, who, having just heard a story about how the aforementioned man had stopped a fellow’s heart with a touch, decided that perhaps such a man didn’t warrant bothering.
Of course, this sort of atmosphere made the Witch Prince’s intervention on arcane matters . . . interesting, to say the least. There was a sense of relief, yes, whenever he arrived along with two members of the King’s Guard, and it was complimented by the fact that the Witch Prince always was . . . less, in many ways, than the stories about him would indicate. Slim, short, and tired looking, to such an extent he honestly appeared to be nothing more than someone’s uncle who decided to visit, rather than the man-ogre-demon thing that everyone had crafted within their minds.
The whispering crowds, when they were certain that rumor wouldn’t reach sensitive ears, would nevertheless tell each other that the two guards flanking him were for the people’s protection, and not for the Witch Prince’s.
Sometimes, if the marauding menace to the town was particularly infrequent in its visits, the Witch Prince would become something of a staple for the people he was visiting, and though his intermingling of words both common and unknown was off-putting, it made him a humorous storyteller; it was known, at least in the towns that had received the Witch Prince’s aid, that an optional title of his would be ‘The Liar’; always added playfully, of course, and only when nobody associated with the royal family was nearby. After all, The Witch Prince’s attempts to explain the existence of a metal monstrosity fueled by miniature internal explosions couldn’t possibly be the truth, and this mythical ‘Car’ creature was clearly a fabrication only the most inane of children would find plausible to exist.
This, at least, was what occurred during long, uninterrupted periods of peace; the Witch Prince would adopt a pseudo-storyteller role, and the days would pass lazily as he would spin tales concerning captured lightning and such.
He would simply meld into the background noise of a population, and even his two flanking guards would soon find themselves welcomed into bar games.
And in time, the whispering crowds would whisper no more.
Yet, always, the peace would shatter and the rumors would spread again. Invariably the Witch Prince, when he found the source of the town’s problems, would start flinging crackling bolts of electricity at the local fiendish monstrosity.
Finding the town’s boastful liar suddenly hurling fire from his fingertips was a jarring experience. Doubly so when he would scream all manner of strange obscenities as he did so.
“Selim, what are you waiting for? I told you no less than an hour ago to retrieve those rations!”
Selim knelt, affixing his gaze to the floor in a desperate attempt to avoid locking eyes with his brother: he may have been, via technicality, a ‘Prince’ of sorts, but his status as the societies first (and thus far only) ‘Witch’ more than compensated for whatever favor his other title may have earned him.
“Bilgames, brother,” said Selim, half to remind himself of his own right to speak, “I feel concerned at taking Ol’ Coúp’s words with any degree of value; I fear he is simply driving us to-”
“Selim, while I bear you no ill will-” a bare faced lie if Selim were to judge, “-I feel as though you are resisting a royal command; kindly indicate this is not the case by doing what I said. Post-haste.” And then, as an afterthought, Bilgames added, “Bring about five men. Due what you feel is necessary.”
Bilgames paused for a moment when he realized that his words were falling on deaf ears; somewhere in the midst of the final sentence, Selim had adopted a rigid stance and had begun trembling like a leaf. Bilgames sighed, and waited until his brother had finally relaxed.
“Anything useful in this latest vision?”
Selim shook his head for a moment, then muttered, in the tone of one experiencing an incredible migraine, “No, my lord. Just. . . seeing some metal spires. And glass. And the god-beings, the ones that look like us, wearing clothing vastly more intricate than ours and using strange objects to do wondrous things.” He shrugged, before reaffirming, “I’m to do what I feel is necessary?”
”Yes, Selim, you are to do what you feel is needed to get the food back to its appropriate granary in, what was it . . . Sargon. Do you have a problem with that?” This response was, to Selim’s ears, barbed in tone.
The reply from Selim, of course, was an forced ‘No’, and it was only as he was getting ready to depart from the capital city Akkadia that he allowed himself the pleasure of thinking, rather emphatically, Yeah, actually, I think your statement is frankly idiotic. What kind of fool says, and I quote, “Do what you feel is necessary”? We’re not even close to being prepared for any sort of offensive action beyond skirmishes, and you want me to provoke a full-blown war?! Arguments between populaces are one thing, but to have a leader order such an attack. . .
And so Selim found himself with four soldiers looking over the nearest pony-held fortification from the forest, though ‘soldier’ is perhaps an exaggeration; they were really just kids who had been handed poles with gem spearheads. Perhaps, had they all been covered head to toe with armor of some sort, they could’ve passed as a proper force, but metal had always been scarce.
Well, damn. Can’t say I’m too surprised, though; Bill’s got a couple of new mines up and running, but finding anything besides gems is hellishly difficult. At least one of the poor bastards has a crossbow; I mean, it’ll be about as effective as a Q-tip if we run into an actual military force, but at least it’ll make them think their safe until such an occasion occurs.
“Uh, sir, we’ve been watching the encampment for the last few hours; shouldn’t we attack?”
Ah. Damn. Apparently the kids knew what Bilgames’ had said. This is going to complicate matters.
“…No, we’re not going to attack.” Selim quickly gave his explanation when he saw the expressions flit across the collective spear-holders: “Think about it like this; it's a big fort, and there are at likely least a dozen and a half of them in that area. Some will probably have armor, and considering that we have to bring back what is estimated to be roughly half a storehouse, we need everyone to live through this.” What Selim didn’t add, but was clearly felt among the collective group, was, “We are not here because we are incredible at our jobs; we’re here because we are all very much expendable. Now, shut up if you want to live.”
One of the quieter spearmen, whom Selim concluded to probably be the most intelligent, said, “So. . . do we strike with an ambush? Because that’s the only way we can do that.”
Selim shook his head, but it was the first spearmen, the one whom Selim had incorrectly surmised to be the most bloodthirsty, who replied.
“No. Won’t work; they might lose three, four tops, but the rest wouldn’t enter like a bunch of buffoons. Right?”
“That’s true, but what if we-”
Selim interrupted, though he felt somewhat guilty in doing so; they were just now starting to think logically, after all, and in a manner that might be useful to cultivate in the future.
“Nope. I’m thinking of something else, a plan where we can get the food without losing anyone.”
“How’s that?”
Selim patted the speaking spearman on the shoulder and, with a smile that looked more fabricated than some plastic goods, said, “Simple. I’ll talk to them.” And when he saw the expression on their faces, he sheepishly added, “And, uh, if I don’t signal to you guys within a few hours, go back and just tell Bilgames I fell into a trap or something; no point dying over my stupid ass.” And then, because he couldn’t help himself, he pasted a grin on his face that was only definable as an indescribable mixture of utter terror and cheekiness and said, “It wouldn’t be that far from the truth, after all. He’ll, uh, probably understand about the food situation, if you tell him that.”
And with that, Selim got up and walked, with barely concealed horror, out of the foliage and towards the encampment.
***
Mercy watched as the birds swooped back to their feeders, the sparrows twittering rapidly when they weren’t busy gorging themselves on the seeds; a good sign, if she were to be any judge. Nothing was emerging from the forest, or, at least, nothing that could potentially destroy an entire fort. If something like that were stepping out of that wall of trees, the birds would have begun tweeting Beethooften’s fifth symphony, just as she had trained them.
Perhaps, she reflected, she had grown up a bit more cultured than most other Earth ponies. And ever since Cloudbreaker and Spinning Gears had been caught in, ahem, improper circumstances, and thus removed from the fort, there was no one else who appreciated the more refined side of life. Then again, what could she expect? There were only three other ponies with her, and the likelihood of shared interests probably decreases the small the population number becomes.
Not that she didn’t have any other friends at the fort; it’s just that the ones still present would more readily engage in a discussion about bawdy campfire songs than discuss the musical nature of great pony composers.
But only four ponies? For a fort meant to house an upwards of twenty? Perhaps, Mercy thought to herself, there are a few problems with having three different leaders; left hoof not talking to right hoof, that sort of thing…
“Anything going, Sergeant Root?” came a shout that sent every avian within half a mile into flight. Mercy sighed to herself, quietly half-wondering what she had done wrong to deserve this particular assignment; nopony other than Captain Staunch could’ve mixed that particular cocktail of demanding, inquiring, and well-intended gruffness into a package that would unintentionally conflict with whatever needed being done. That must’ve been why he needed the volume; it was the only way to have enough space to fit all of his tonal intentions.
“No, Sir, the birds haven’t seen anything,” Mercy replied, in a much more subdued voice; she carefully strangled the urge to shout back, but the stallion was, at most, two yards away, and covering one’s commanding officer in spittle tends to result in unpleasant punishments. Of course, Staunch didn’t have it in his heart to do much worse than making the offending pony forgo dinner for a day, Mercy knew, but it’d still be rather stupid to force his hoof. “How’s Whiskey?”
“Whiskey’s… not been doing too well.” Same loudness, but this time tinged with a significant amount of worry. “Remedy’s doing all she can, but we might lose him to whatever bug he’s got. We’ll need to get another Unicorn if he doesn’t pull though… We have to be able to send messages, after all...”
What remained unsaid was heard loudest; of the two stallions’ foalhoods spent together, of both of them enlisting deciding to try and defend the border from the human menace together, of training and fights and talking to mare’s together, trying desperately to be the other’s wingpony despite not having a clue they were simultaneously trying to aid each other. It was an entire life spent together, sometimes with vitriolic moments but mostly of good times.
The stallion, slowly, sank to his haunches and sighed.
Mercy silently trotted over to the captain, sat down beside him, and head-butt his shoulder, gently, like how a human may try to comfort a friend with a hug. They both remained silent for a few minutes; scenes like this were frowned upon in more formal situations, but out on the frontier, with no pony to judge every little exchange, it was common practice.
“Ahem,” came a dry, somewhat amused voice from behind them. Mercy and Staunch flinched for a moment, before looking back at the speaker in synchrony. There had been a moment where they had felt the urge to leap away from each other like embarrassed foals, but that had swiftly passed when they realized they had nothing to be ashamed of. Their expressions, Mercy’s bored and Staunch’s worried, had askance written upon them.
“Well,” Remedy said, clearly tickled to have elicited even such a tame reaction, “shall I ask when the nuptials will be?” She shook with laughter when Mercy shot her a look of disgust before she continued speaking in a more subdued tone, “Well, I have good and bad news.”
“Bad first,” Staunch said in a croak; it had been an unfortunate trait of his, ever since a military prank involving crushed pebbles, twine, and some sort of spicy plant had gone wrong, that, should he say anything in a manner that wasn’t several decibels above the tolerable limit for indoor speaking, his voice would be reminiscent of gravel and sandpaper.
“Well, we’re going to need a replacement for Whiskey.”
All the air in Staunch’s lungs escaped in the moment Remedy said that.
“Hey, I didn’t say he was dead, did I? That’s the good news. Because he isn’t.”
There was a pregnant pause as both Mercy and Staunch simply stared at Remedy, before the stallion coughed with a hint of insistence.
“What, you want more? Sheesh. I got him to send a letter a few minutes ago, during one of his more lucid moments. His fever is broken, but he needs to be elsewhere, somewhere with real stuff to treat this.” Remedy looked archly at her two listeners, before she continued, “Neither of you better have the flu as well; I gave strict orders of non-visitation.”
This time Remedy glared pointedly at Staunch, who, desperately, tried to avoid meeting her eyes.
“You’re getting a checkup next, Captain. You too, Sergeant Root, since the Captain can’t seem to follow medical advice!” Remedy’s last three words were delivered with all the force and fury of an exploding meteor, and while most military ponies wouldn’t have escaped some degree of punishment for this insubordination, Remedy and Staunch seemed to have an agreement of sorts; the doctor didn’t tell the captain how to do his job, and the captain would follow, without question, every bit of medical advice Remedy would provide.
Except for now, evidently.
Mercy, in perhaps one of the wisest acts of her life, carefully backed away from the fuming doctor and silently went back to tending to the birds; she had been present at more than one of Remedy’s tongue lashings (and once been the target of the doctor pony’s ire), and the end result could only be described as akin to being burned. Based on the tone of Remedy’s words, Mercy estimated that the captain was going to undergo a class four; the doctor would leave nothing but ashes once she was done with him.
It was for naught, however, as, just on the verge of perception, everypony heard the opening notes to Beethooften’s fifth symphony chirped. Frozen by instinctual, stupid reflex, there was a moment where they did nothing but stare at each other with a great deal of blank terror, before their brains reactivated and they sprinted to their various stations. Mercy bolted up a series of stairs facing the Everfree forest, Staunch clambered atop the makeshift holding pen they had built off the fort’s wall to face the mountains that would, in later years, contain Canterlot, and Remedy flew inside the fort’s medical center to awaken Whiskey, so that in the case of everpony’s unfortunate demise neighboring forts could nevertheless be informed of whatever had arrived.
They all felt rather foalish when they only found one human, trudging across from the forest to the fort, his gait betraying the outright dread he must’ve felt.
“Strange,” Mercy muttered, eyeing the bird’s that continued belting out the rest of the symphony, “I thought I had trained them to only respond to something dangerous…”
“You can’t win them all,” came the bellowed response from Staunch, who had taken a few minutes (along with Remedy) to clamber beside Mercy, viewing the advancing dot with no small degree of confusion.
There came a sigh, and then Remedy muttered, “Shall I get a brew going? I think we still have a bit of coffee left. Humans can drink coffee, right?”
“I’m not quite certain, little pony. Aren’t you the one who studied medicine?”
“Well, yes, but-” and then the realization that there had been a fourth voice hit the collected ponies like a war-hammer. They spun around only to find nothing, and it was as Remedy frantically looked around that a certain mismatched being popped into existence before her, poking her and Staunch’s noses with a swift jab before they could reel back.
“Normally I would do this over the course of a day, but I’m rather short on time,” said the grinning Draconequus, a greyish tint spreading from his fingers over the two ponies. He turned towards where the third pony would’ve been, had she not dived off the battlement and begun sprinting away, and chortled as he gave chase.
Mercy rammed through the makeshift medical bay’s doors and slowed to a trot next to the only occupied bed.
“Whiskey,” she gasped, “you need to send a letter now, now, NOW! Discord’s here and-” Mercy noticed the distinct lack of movement coming from the bed and roughly shook the still figure, wrapped entirely in blankets.
“Whiskey! WAKE UP, DAMNIT! Discord is-”
The only thing to roll out of the bed was a pony sized chunk of cheese, which Mercy stared at with horror.
“I was originally going to turn him into a watermelon, but I feel as if that joke had already been done,” came a voice, drifting nearer and nearer as Mercy desperately looked about the room for something to fend against the Draconequus with, futile though it may be.
It must be said, however, that for a being that controls chaos and the forces of anarchy within the palm of his hand, Discord looked remarkably nonplussed when, coming through the door, the first image he saw was a brandished cheese-pony. He caught it with one hand, clearly amused, before turning it to stone with a flick of his wrist. Mercy dropped it with a thud, before slowly backing away.
“Now, now, that was hardly nice, was it, little pony? You just tried to use your friend as a, a. . .” he burst into a fit of laughter (Mercy tried to capitalize on this distraction by sneaking through the window, only to realize it was now sealed by bars of iron) before saying, after several minutes of trying to regain control of himself, “. . . an ad-hoc piece of weaponry, if weapons could be sliced and put onto bread and . . . I get the feeling this has suddenly become an over-extended metaphor. If it was one in the first place, which I doubt.”
Discord sashayed over to Mercy, casually winking at the trembling pony playfully.
“Oh, surely you don’t mind being another actor in this play, do you? I spent a great deal of time waiting for something amusing, and by all rights, I will have entertainment.”
He paused before Mercy, and, leaning down so their eyes were equally far from the ground, conspiratorially said, “Besides, this is just a little dabbling of chaos; if I had really wanted to, I could’ve ripped this entire world apart several times by now. But that’s hardly fun; really, it’s more to your lot’s benefit I’m so easily diverted. It’s just that, well, some ponies go through the mill so others can have glue. It’s just your bad luck that today it’s your bones being grinded.”
And then, grinning maliciously, Discord poked Mercy on the forehead.
***
To be succinct, things became rather dire within a short period of time: a rather musical alarm was raised the instant he was spotted (about three minutes after he had exited his cover), and it only took an additional two minutes or so until he was halted, circled by a pair of Earth Ponies and a single Pegasus, all of whom had evidently taken the time to clad themselves in something resembling bronze horseshoes with cleats.
Unbidden, the first thought that rose to Selim’s mind was, Minute-ponies. Huh. Why do I feel the only thing missing are muskets?
And then the second thought, What the hell is a musket?
“So, uh, how are you chaps doing?” There was a moment of utter silence as Selim digested the fact two of the three surrounding him were, if the shape of their jaws were any indication, female, and then he attempted to rescind his earlier comment with the grace of a socially incompetent lemon. “Er, Chap-ettes? Ladies and Gent? The equine equivalent? …please stop glaring at me…?”
The second largest, a dull bluishish mare who appeared to possess, for her particular flank-image, several broken blades, said in a barely restrained tone, “State your business, human.”
The stallion, a dulled ruddy sort of color that made the marks on his flank blend in perfectly, spat upon the earth with such perfect timing with the phrase ‘human’ that Selim contemplated, just for a moment, that perhaps this entire situation had been elaborately planned, with stunning theatrical precision. And then Selim remembered how irate the human settlers had been when the foodstuffs had gone missing, and the fantasy of a play evaporated.
“One of our storehouses suddenly lost about half its food, and, uh. . .”
And here was the tricky part, Selim thought to himself. How does one, with all innocent intentions, declare that, perhaps, one’s food somehow got from ‘point a’ to ‘point b’ without essentially proclaiming the person owning ‘point b’ a thief? Oh dear . . .
While his brain was mostly focused on how to continue his sentence, a couple of Selim’s synapses, running around demanding attention but not quite getting any, were noting how strange it was that all three of the ponies had a slightly dull, greyish tint to their coats. ‘I wonder if they’re family’ was the closest those cell got to being a fully realized thought.
Unfortunately for Selim, the ponies caught onto the reason for his hesitance faster than he would’ve given them credit for.
“Unlike you human,” again, another spit, “we don’t rob others of their work. Now, you can either come with us quietly, or you can try to resist.” There was a pause as she grinned with well calculated malice, and then she continued, “Of course, I hope you resist; it’d be quite a bit more fun.”
“Uh, I’d rather-”
And then Mercy Root struck him in the face with a horseshoe.
***
There was a knock at the door, and then noises of a short scuffle.
“What’s the problem?” Bilgames shouted, after a moment passed in silence. His hands lingered, hovering an inch below his work table, where there was a hidden dagger; in a softer, very much unamused tone, he finally added, “. . . If you just assaulted the courier, you may want to excuse yourself before I punish you.”
Perhaps half a minute ticked by, quietly, before the door slowly creaked open. The courier, a somewhat svelte man with a serious gaze, entered, his progress encumbered by the box he was carrying.
“You’re injured,” Bilgames said with some surprise, once the man set down the box and was in the process of bowing; the man looked up, questioningly, as Bilgames gestured, vaguely directing the man to feel around his eyes.
“Nothing to worry about, my lord,” the man replied, shaking his head rather than feel around his new black-eye. “The idiot guard is my nephew; he’s likely still jittery from trainin’, if you don’t mind my observations, lord.”
“Are there some intra-family issues?” Bilgames asked, quirking an eyebrow in some amusement.
“There sure as hell will be once his mam hears about this,” the courier replied off-handedly. A moment passed before he remembered he was speaking to his ruler, and he hurriedly added, “My lord. Please, I never intended to insult-”
“No offense was taken. And perhaps, while family can likely punish him more properly than a King can, it’d do him some good to realize the gravity of the situation. Tell him, once you see him again, that he’s now on potato peeling duty for a month for assaulting a servant of the throne.”
The messenger nodded, internally grinning at the thought of the private hell his nephew would go through once the rest of the family realized what had been done.
“Now, let’s see what Uruk gave us, shall we?” Bilgames said, clapping his hands together in anticipation.
The box was ripped open, and inside was revealed to be-
“A tunic. What in the hells is a tunic doing in here?” Bilgames lifted the garment in question and looked at the courier in bemusement.
“Erm. . . Lord, he didn’t tell you the contents of the shipment?”
“I fail to see how that has any bearing on the current situation.”
“He said, Lord, that these were, ahem, flawed magical items-”
Bilgames threw the shirt across the room with alarming force, and the box was swiftly kicked into a somewhat charred corner of the room with a degree of urgency rarely seen in people who aren’t disabling bombs. The courier, much to his surprised chagrin, was bodily hauled by Bilgames to the other side of the room.
“Lord?!”
“Shut up!”
A moment passed as Bilgames crouched protectively in front of the courier. A moment passed in utter silence before, finally, Bilgames rose from his hunkered state and carefully walked towards both the tunic and the box.
“I thought I told him to never send defective. . . products ever again.”
“To be fair, lord, you specified that he was to bury potentially dangerous items. You never included a caveat for flawed, yet non-dangerous, objects.”
“Be that as it may. . .” Bilgames muttered, before nudging the box hesitantly with his foot. It appeared to be filled with a variety of shaped stones, the only different one a grey metal and red gemstone amulet of some sort. “What are these?”
“I dunno, lord. All he said was that they were made from jewels, but sometime during the actually creation process they turned into granite.”
“Well, we can keep them in deep storage. Maybe we’ll find a usage for them as paperweights or something. What about the tunic?”
“Erm, he specifically said that donning it might inspire panic amongst viewers. And that you may want a mirror if you do decide to test it, lord.”
“He said all that?”
“No sire. He, uh, simply grumbled a few words to that effect, lord.”
“Ah. Typical. Well, thank you. I suppose I’ll see more of you later if we have need for you. You’re dismissed.”
I hope this doesn’t turn out like the flaming sword that ignites the handle. I still have scars from that. . . Bilgames thought, as he slowly withdrew the various rocks from the box. He placed them around his table, glaring at them cautiously, but they remained resolutely granite. The final object withdrawn, the same grey and red amulet he had first seen, however, he spent a further minute simply looking over.
It was. . . strange, to say the least. It had some sort of horse figure shaped on the upper half, but it appeared to be some sort of strange winged Unicorn. It couldn’t have been made much more menacing, with its red-eyed, angry looking countenance, but Bilgames continued to fiddle with the object stubbornly, trying to find some sort of switch that would activate. . . whatever it was supposed to do.
A few minutes experimentation turned out to be ultimately fruitless, however, and it was with an annoyed grunt he tossed the useless jewelry back into the box.
He played around with the other objects for a moment, one by one simply pitching them into the box with rapidly growing abandon. Useless. . . useless. . .What the hell are these supposed to do? These are just worthless rocks. And we can’t just break them, or it might end up killing someone with the backlas-
There was a red flash when he tossed the final rock back into the container, which was followed by several seconds of muffled cursing as Bilgames gripped his eyes.
“To hell with this. . .” he grumbled, as his vision slowly returned. I’ll have Selim find someplace to bury this nonsense. Damned magic and damnable magic items. Why can’t the world be simpler? Work with obvious rules? Bah. . .
Bilgames grabbed the tunic, stumbled over to his personal mirror, glared at his own reflection, and shrugged the shirt on. All he felt, for a moment, was a slight tingling sensation at his fingertips, and suddenly even that ceased. And then he glanced at his likeness.
He stumbled back a few steps, looked down at himself, then looked back at the abnormal reflection. Slowly, a grin stretched across his features, even as he touched at his chin and experimented for a moment.
Huh. This might be useful. The jaw might be a bit of a problem, same with the sides, but overall a fantastic illusion. Maybe Selim can tinker with some of this stuff; he’s the only one who even has a slight understanding of magic out of the three of us. . .
Mood quite improved, Bilgames took off the tunic and tossed it onto his desk, still eyeing the box in the corner with disdain.
***
There remained a dream. A basic one, built more from memories than anything truly original, Selim knew. It had been. . . simple, to say the least. There had been four of them, all Unicorns; they had put a blanket sleep spell over a quarter of the city, and it was only Selim’s inherent magical talent that kept him just this side of consciousness.
He had confronted them, somewhat nauseated from his body’s valiant efforts to dissipate the Sand-Man (Sand-Pony?) spell.
It had been a confusing moment, neither side knowing what the other wanted, and then he was engulfed in magic; a barrier, to be precise. He remembered that moment.
He also remembered pushing, using his own magic, fueled by terror and hatred and gods know what else. He remembered the barrier distorting, bending, tendrils extending beyond the hemisphere with a casualness that was utterly in contrast to their user’s own mental state.
He remembered his own primal scream of rage.
A barrier is a useful thing, true, but there he was, incapable of the ponies’ own formalized magic system, turning the shield into a weapon. Minutes passed as they desperately tried to reform their barrier, and yet one by one they died, their own force field distorted into a potent spear, one that would puncture their faces and then be expanded rapidly.
He remembered how they died, terrified to the last. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go, their eyes said, before being gouged out and then violently bursting, along with the rest of their features.
And then it was his own dark imagination that was being worked, for no memory of his had gone this way. . . some of the blood vessels in his eyes had burst after that particular show of might . . . blindness for months . . . but the dream didn’t end with darkness . . .
And then dream-Selim crept, crawled, into the building they were trying to break into, and what should he find but a couple of foals, no older than a few weeks. . .
And then the old words came back, screaming in his mind as if they were bellowed by a wounded banshee.
What have I wrought?
And then, mercifully, the memories faded and his dream became a vision, this time of some sort of strange construct that had four spinning wings, all separated by ninety degree angles.
And Selim’s unconscious mind spent the next few hours memorizing the wonders of windmills.
There comes a time in every foal’s life where his or her parents will sit him or her down and have a nice long talk. On the occasion where the discussion isn’t about the birds and the bees, it is almost unanimously about the creation of Equestria, and of the world entire. And at that point, the talks would cease to exist in the realm of philosophy or biology, and instead enter into theology, a touchy subject at the best of times; many a young pony has been sent to bed without supper simply for asking the wrong questions, simply because they didn’t know they were being offensive.
Thankfully, this was not such a time.
“The Alicorns?” the filly asked, with bated breath, as she lay curled up beside her mother.
“Exactly, sweetie,” the mother replied, nuzzling the young pony, “In the beginning, there was nothing but barren earth. But the Alicorns decided that-”
“What does barren mean, mom?”
“It means empty, dear. The Alicorns decided that a land with such potential should-”
The younger pony again opened her mouth to ask the obvious question, but her mother, with great foresight, quickly added, “Potential means what something might be able to do, if tended with love.”
“Oh.”
“You understand now, sweetie? Now . . . where was I . . .? Ah, yes . . . So, the Alicorns used their magic to make the world green, springing forth plants and water with their talents. But they were just starting.”
“Oh?”
“Yep, they were simply beginning. They went on to make a number of other things, such as the mountains, the forests, and even the deserts, before finally putting all the living things on the earth.”
“Even ponies?”
“Especially ponies, sweetie.”
“Even humans?”
Ah. This was always the trickiest part for a parent; the mother wanted to face-hoof in shame, as she had considered asking her own mom how she had handled this issue when it had cropped up for her, but had dismissed the likelihood of the question being asked, particularly by the little filly curled up beside her, as nil.
She really should’ve asked, in hindsight.
“Humans, well . . .”
And the speech formed, unbidden, from the darkest recesses of her hate. They’re aberrations. Monsters in flesh. They need to all die, burned and cut down to the last, and for their homelands to be salted with their own blood.
She looked at her daughter, whose eyes were wide and innocent, and the words died in her throat.
“Even humans, sweetie,” the mother said, lying through her teeth.
“Oh.”
The little filly snuggled closer to her mom, rested her head on her mom’s barrel, and sighed.
“Where are the Alicorns now?”
Ah. Back to significantly more solid theological ground. That was good.
“Well, you see, sweetie, after they finished their work, they returned to their homes to rest. They watch over us, though; when we really need them, they’ll appear and aid pony-kind.”
The filly merely nodded tiredly at this; she was already past most of the stages into drowsiness, and was on the precipice of nodding off.
Lethargically, in a half mumble, the filly asked, “When’s dad coming home?”
The mother’s expression hardened, only to soften a moment later as she gently said, “He’ll be home soon, sweetie. It’s just that he’s . . . got a lot of work to do, you understand?”
The filly merely mumbled something in reply, nestled closer to her mother, and started to snore.
It was . . . difficult, at times, the mare reflected as she looked her sleeping daughter, to believe in most of those things. Religion it may be, but those stories had essentially become little more than fables, myths at most.
She looked down again at the filly, peacefully slumbering, and felt her lips quirk upwards, just slightly.
It didn’t really matter, she thought as she slowly leaned over and sleepily closed her eyes, if Alicorns were real or simply the byproduct of an over-imaginative pony of a bygone era; this, here and now, was enough.
“Ah, ah, ah,” said a voice to Selim in the moment that took place between regaining consciousness and opening his eyes. “You did quite well to not lose an eye there. Or your life, but that’s less important.”
Selim wrenched his eyes open, the caked blood and agony in his skull making even this simple action herculean in difficulty. Everything hurt more than it should have; he must have been beaten long after the point of unconsciousness as several of his ribs felt cracked or bruised, and his left forearm had a bone poking under the skin in an unnatural and quite painful location.
“Ol’ Coúp,” Selim said, his misery catching up to him faster than his suspicion. “Why’re you here?”
“Oh, well, you know how it goes,” said Ol’ Coúp, before tapping quite cheerfully with a bird-like talon on the stone bars separating the both of them from each other; in this moment of contact, the bars shone brilliantly for a moment, before dimming into an entirely different substance: iron, if Selim’s fuzzy mind was to be believed. “I felt compelled to do something, when I realized you were going to go for the,” he stuck his tongue out in disgust, “boring option.”
“No,” Selim said quietly, unused to this degree of mugginess in his thoughts.
“Oh, don’t say it wasn’t the boring option! If everyone solved everything with words, well, there’d be nothing for me to watch!” Ol’ Coúp said, in a mockingly petulant voice. “Though, since you did try it…” and with that, Ol’ Coúp disappeared liquid-like slushing noise only to reappear on Selim’s skin as a moving tattoo, “…I will say this; you goofed.” And with that, Selim’s skin rippled like a stage canvas and again Ol’ Coúp was elsewhere, this time sticking his head through the gates to the outside. “I hadn’t taken you to be another bleeding heart-“
“I’m not, no thanks to you. What right-”
“-but you think everything is ‘poor put upon you’ and like to whine. You’re completely neglecting the fact that some of us get bored easily. And right to rule? You speak as if there’s some sort of objective qualifier to all of that bunk; well, at least my throne wasn’t built upon corpses. Who are you again?” The monstrous amalgam paused for a moment, but before a reply could be substantiated, Ol’ Coúp simply chuckled and muttered, “Clearly no one particularly interesting. You’re just as boring as whoever is leading you lot right now, you know that? Though, to be fair, if you were in charge, you’d probably be trying to implement a different system, one with more checks and balances than a bank registry. You’d also be failing, more likely than not, because that’s your natural state of doing business, but trying nevertheless. Impulsive. You might turn out to be fun, with a bit of time and effort.”
Selim opened his mouth to retort, but found, quite inexplicably, it was filled with some form of custard.
“Goodness, aren’t you a gabby jaws?” Ol’ Coúp slid between the bars and poked Selim’s nose, grinning the entire time. “Perhaps you lot are a bit irksome, but at least your lot aren’t bothered about all the nonsense these equines tout. But, sadly, I can’t help you escape.” Ol’ Coúp winked conspiratorially at Selim before slapping the human across the face cheerfully. “Too troublesome and not entertaining enough. I’m more interested to see how you get out yourself. If you do, of course.”
And with that, Ol’ Coúp disappeared in a foul smelling cloud.
Selim took a few moments to pat himself down, making sure that everything was in its correct place and that he hadn’t somehow grown a third eye from his physical contact with Ol’ Coúp; some of Ol Coúp’s visitors considered it good fortune to only endure having all of their body hair turned into some sort of brittle toffee, or only growing a second nose on the top of their head.
As it turned out, Selim did note one minor alteration; evidently, the chaotic god had seen fit to give Selim fingernails made of, and here a vision-memory substantiated the word, 'chocolate'. Otherwise, however, Selim counted his blessings to not be the like the person who grew a second head or had a hand replaced with some sort of crab-like claw.
The moment Selim finished his self-examination, he glanced around his cell for a moment.
What he found was disquieting; heavy metal bars to his front (courtesy of Ol’ Coúp), stone walls to either side, and logs of wood behind him. He took a moment to contemplate how idiotic it would be to die of smoke inhalation, compared it to the idea of being tortured to death by a pony, realized how stupid it was to even try and liken the two, and with specter of agonizing suffering urging him on, turned to face the wooden wall.
Selim had always contemplated how strange it was that humanity had only produced one ‘Witch’ thus far, oftentimes concluding that perhaps more people possessed the same abilities as him but simply maintained their silence before any and all inspectors. It was in that rather dank jail-cell, however, that Selim was struck with a profound sense of possessiveness.
As he felt preternatural energies flow through him, the only thing he thought was, I’m the only one who can do this right now, and it feels great.
There was a sudden rush of ozone, an immense increase in pressure, a hint of a translucent disturbance in the air, and the wall was suddenly hit with a wave of flame.
Yet Selim was in no mood to enjoy his success; he was, instead, in the fetal position, as if trying to shield his hands from the entirety of the world: he had, with great skill no less, successfully charred most of the skin on his palms.
It was an interesting tableau for a few moments, the whimpering human on one side, an unnaturally large and roaring flame on the other; sadly, however, it had all the durability of a soap-bubble, as the instant Selim heard a pony voice shout from within the jail complex he was on his feet, fueled by a combination of fear and rage. He hoped, desperately and full well knowing it was impossible, that the fire would devour the wood faster than the equines could arrive at his cell.
Making a quick mental checklist, Selim realized (with no shortage of joy) that the only way to access him (and thus stop his escape) would be via the jail doors; making a snap judgment, he valiantly leapt to the bars in an attempt to stall whichever pony sent to investigate.
Unfortunately for all involved, that pony was Mercy, and she was holding onto a spear quite gamely.
What followed was a series of movements that would’ve put an Olympian’s reflexes to shame; a flurry of blows to the mid region, all of which were dodged by pure luck, followed by an angled strike that sliced one of Selim’s calves into a bloody mess, finally finished by a short lunge intended to puncture the human quickly and remorselessly, which, luckily for Selim, instead simply tore through his left forearm and was caught on his broken bone when she tried to retract the spearhead; ‘luck’, here, being a relative term of course, as it was exactly as agonizing as undergoing a surgical operation without anesthetic, perhaps somewhat more so.
Selim, adrenaline pumped to the point of twitching, grabbed onto the spear shaft, hauled it sideways until it was levered between two bars, and snapped it with a reptilian hissing noise emanating from his clenched teeth. Finally, in the midst of ignoring his higher level thinking, he gripped what remained of the spear shaft and ripped the weapon from his arm, only to drive it without hesitation in between the bars and into one of Mercy’s front legs.
Selim knew he would remember that noise until his dying day, though he was fully aware there was no real way to describe it. The closest description he could come up with could basically be summarized thusly: take a person, strap the poor fool to a chair or something, get a hammer and chisel, and simply start smashing off fingers with the tools that were, as the case may be, handy.
Organic sculpting, as it were.
They both toppled backwards away from each other, both gasping in some twisted mixture of surprise, pain, and horror.
“I…” Selim said, his words slurred from both his physical and mental agony, “I did not want to do that... why couldn’t you have just let me talk when we had the chance?!”
He tried to continue his diatribe while glaring at Mercy, but was stricken silent when he realized all that dull greyness from her coat and mane had simply melted away, leaving it a resplendent blue and green, respectively. She was still alive, though clearly fading, and appeared to be trying to say something (likely a curse mocking Selim’s very existence) but it was something Selim felt compelled to hear before it was too late. What’s the worst she could do anymore, after all?
Angrily trip on him?
Selim carefully tightened what clothing he could in attempt to staunch his bleeding, the fingers of his left hand entirely unresponsive as he performed this laborious process, and with a few moments of deliberation carefully crouch/limped towards the stricken pony.
It did not look good.
The spear had neatly carved through the joint of her knee, and Mercy’s collapse had only served to tear tendon, muscle, and nerve, the levering action of the spear shaft taking the pony’s leg apart in a remarkably horrifying yet neat fashion; the only thing keeping the foreleg attached to the cannon were a couple of flaps of skin.
“I’m sor-sorry,” Mercy said, gasping out the words between her clenched teeth.
Selim, doing some quick mental arithmetic, estimated he had roughly three more minutes before the wall would finish burning to the extant where he could simply escape. He glanced down at the stricken pony, and several unsavory thoughts raced to be first implemented, guising themselves as reasonable enough considerations; if he took her head back to camp, he’d likely be renowned for his escape, or if he rather messily spread her organs about the room it’d shatter the morale of the ponies within the fort, or if he…
The list went on and on, to the extent that he was feeling faint at some of the suggestions his own subconscious was making. He grabbed the stave-like half of the spear not buried in the pony’s leg, and leaned on it like a walking stick to keep himself upright.
“Sorrysorrysorrysorry-”
And the damned horse wouldn’t shut up long enough to let him think in peace.
He had come there to avoid bloodshed, maybe just discuss getting the food back without much of a conflict. But no, that would’ve been the simple thing, wouldn’t it have? So now, here he was, standing over a previously murderous mare that had been a whole hell of lot less pastel just a few minutes ago, with a hand that likely wouldn’t function ever again thanks to her, desperately trying to drive himself into recreating the grisly actions that were taking place in his mind upon the canvas of reality; He wanted to put her head on a spike and parade it around as a personal trophy, partially as revenge but also because it might, might just get him some much deserved respect…
Might get him some respect…
Selim nearly choked on his own tongue when he consciously realized that he was contemplating savage murder simply for a cursory bit of acknowledgement.
That . . . seems like something I’ll have to keep an eye on, if I get out of here alive, he thought to himself, before glancing at the dying pony.
. . . Though, why couldn’t I have had this little moral revelation after I was already fucking gone?
Selim relaxed the death grip he had on his stave and quickly brought the midriff of his shirt up to his teeth. As his bit into the cloth and tore it from his body, he calculated both his and the pony’s odds of survival; considering the likelihood of eventual infection and sepsis, he estimated that each of them, he and the pony, had roughly fifteen and five percent odds, respectively.
Gangrene is a bitch to deal with, Selim thought, offhandedly, trying to distract himself from the pain.
Selim, biting his stave to keep a grasp on it, wrapped the cloth around Mercy’s leg, about four inches above the actual injury to prevent the cloth from slipping off from the blood. Having only five functioning fingers made the job take three times longer than it should have, and it was with incredible reluctance that Selim knelt down to apply the final touches; there was a tricky moment where he had to simultaneously spit out the stave, keep the cloth from unraveling by pinching it with his pinky and ring finger, and catch the stave with the three fingers of his right hand not occupied with holding this entire satire of a surgery together.
“Sorr-”
“Shush,” Selim said offhandedly, placing a rudimentary knot above the placed stave; all that would remain would be to tighten his jury-rigged tourniquet. “I’ll be honest here; this is going to suck worse than anything else in your life. But, uh, think of it like this, if it makes you feel better; I’m giving you your life, in exchange for, uh . . .” And, without any warning, he quickly rotated the stave, wincing slightly as the charred portion of his hand finally cracked and bled.
Selim was, lamentably, correct in his assumption. Surprise and haste got him about five full rotations into tightening the cloth when, finally, the shocked pony began spastically jerking her limbs and screaming; there was a blur of hooves, an agonized human feebly clutching new bruises, and a sharp intake of breath, though from pain or apologetic instinct it was unknown.
“Fuck it,” Selim said, before carefully placing the chunk of wood into Mercy’s mouth like a bit and forcing her jaws to close around it; there was a moment where he nearly worried about the lumber splintering, but after the initial creaking his fears remained only in the realm of speculation. “Keep that steady if you want to keep your insides, uh, inside. And, uh, keep looking at the roof…”
All she felt was a slight tugging sensation, almost painless in comparison to what she had just experienced, and Mercy saw, barely over the edge of her vision, the man stagger away into the smoke and fire, carrying something that looked strangely blue.
And then she shuddered when she remembered his words: ‘Something about an exchange, Mercy thought, desperately averting her eyes from her limbs, hoping that he had simply been trying to intimidate her.
Yes, a part of her mind rationalized, the damage had likely been bad enough to warrant an amputation. The irrational part, however, the part that was fully in the reigns of her physical responses, was instead reduced to screaming incoherently around the bit and sobbing in pain.
It was in this state that the rest of the fort’s ponies, the Draconequus’ magic thankfully spent, found Mercy, about ninety seconds later. It would be said, for the several days it took before she recovered enough to be counseled, that it was good fortune for her to have all the supplies needed to make a tourniquet for herself, and the common-sense and dexterity to use them all.
***
Selim staggered away from the smoking fortification, carrying a rather grotesque club and possessed by the quietly desperate and incoherent thoughts of a man who has inhaled far more smoke than is healthy for him; Mercy’s sudden alteration from homicidal (Xenocidal? He could never quite remember how to define it if he was the target) maniac to remorseful tripedal equine had been stranger than any other emotional shift he had seen in his entire life. True, he had seen the various masks some human murderers had worn and discarded during some of the trials he had attended as a Royal Executioner, and while he hadn’t quite attained mastery of piercing the various lies people could concoct, Selim thought himself at least a tolerable lie detector, even if he was occasionally off on some of the details.
Why the hell did I bother taking the leg with me?
The only problem was, the murderous glee and heartfelt apology had appeared equally honest in the face of Selim’s amateur analysis.
“Now, why was that?”
A good question, but I think the bit about the leg also needs to be answer-OOF!
And then he stumbled into a pile of meteorologically inappropriate snow. For one, it was warmer than the surrounding air, and it was the dead of summer.
“Ah, of course there has to be magic. Wouldn’t have made sense if there wasn’t.”
And if anyone or anypony had passed by, that would’ve been the extent of Selim’s elucidation, a simple attempt to explain abnormal weather behavior. However, these words stuck in Selim’s head far longer than most of his grumblings, and gears and cogs turned as his brain stumbled its way to a far more important answer.
Magic. Adjustment in behavior. Alteration of coat tint, potentially a side effect.
But the amount of power to do something like that would be phenomenal, far greater than any pony sorcerer Selim could think of, akin to making rocks weep or, or…
“Changing reality,” Selim said, under his breath. Ever since that mish-mashed creature, Ol Coup, had suggested his namesake, Selim had distrusted Ol Coup’s allegiance as an uninvolved party; this particular revelation, however, went far beyond Selim’s capacity to consider Ol Coup with disgust, even beyond marking the amalgam a simple target of malice, and well into Selim’s definition of ‘incorrigible bastard’.
“You called?” Ol Coup said, rising out of the snow at a geometrically impossible direction with a bag of popcorn. “I must say, you’ve done quite well for yourself today, haven’t you? You’ve been beaten within an inch of your life, burned half a fort to the ground, narrowly avoided being skewered, played doctor…” The last phrase was accompanied by a suggestive waggle of the eyebrows that Selim would’ve normally found somewhat embarrassing, had he not taken the moment to fling a bolt of conjured lightning at Ol Coup.
What followed was Selim toppling over, rigid, as the electrical current left his body; there was a moment where he dared hope that he had struck his target, but Ol Coup, well out of Selim’s snow-filled sight but well within hearing, simply chuckled at this attempt.
“Oh, silly, silly ape, with your shenanigans I shall never grow bored. Again and again you manage to harm yourself with each and every magical attempt, and yet you never cease. By the way, nice job with the lightning; it added a good lemon twinge to my popcorn. But, truly, you’d improve magnificently if you could only stop thinking about magic like a pony. They blather incessantly about harmony, surely you understand, and if I’m to judge I think their magic relies on there being some sort of universal way things are supposed to function.”
Ol Coup, perturbed to have even admitted that much, stuck out his tongue defiantly. A moment passed before he realized Selim vision was filled with too much snow to see this, whereupon he continued his rant, his pace accelerating.
“It’s not how we do things, is it? And always, you try to reject a fact you know in your heart.”
Ol Coup dramatically stood up and proclaimed, “Selim, I am your father.”
There was a moment as Selim considered the possibility, and within that moment every functioning neuron in his brain, save one, confirmed the appropriate response to Ol Coup to be “bullshit” within record speed. The brain-cell that hadn’t asserted that to be the appropriate response, however, went rogue and took over his mouth to supplement a significantly more polite negation to the Chaotic god.
“That seems highly implausible,” came the muffled, snow-blocked response.
“Oh, not literally,” Ol Coup said, clearly disgusted that one of his comments should be understood in such a manner, “but from an ontologically level, you, and others like you, you hyper-evolved simian, are basically my brats; where one of those ponies sees something boring, practical, simple, harmonious,” Every word was spat out with increasing venom, until he grinned savagely (another meaningless expression when the listener is essentially blind). “You lot, you see art, and stories, and insane happenstances, and twist reality around your finger until it caves in to your demands. And, in that way, you and I are rather alike.”
Ol Coup coiled around Selim a few times in a mockery of an embrace before pulling up Selim’s head and poking the immobile human on his nose, uttering a “Boop” noise as he did so.
“The ponies gain strength by surrendering to the world’s demands; we gain it by challenging what should happen with what we want to happen. Food for thought, isn’t it?”
Ol Coup nonchalantly examined at his claws before snatching Mercy’s limb out of Selim’s grip.
“Interesting escape, by the way. It was quite fun to watch, anyway. Two and a half stars out of five, though, because I had to give the rest of them a bit of story-time while you waited for the wall to burn down. Try better next time; an audience doesn’t normally want to participate in the story, after all.”
Selim felt compelled to walk away at that point, if only because the mad god had begun playing with the leg as if it were a doll and was cheerfully giving compliments to whoever crafted it in a Basso Profondo voice, but Selim was forced to suffer this indignity for an additional thirty minutes until he could feel his legs again. It was an effort, however, as his mind caught up with the concept of oxygen deprivation, and his brain blearily painted the world in smears of color as he eventually rose and stumbled, unseeing and unthinking, into the EverFree forest.
***
Discord stared after Selim for a few moments, then offhandedly tossed the leg over his shoulder and grimaced, brushing his hands against his chest almost as if he were trying to clean them off. It was fun, after all, to see conflict. It was fun to see two groups fight and drink and peruse all the miserable little enjoyments that enabled mortal life to be tolerable. It was fun to see friends break apart, or to play with the little ponies and make them do things they would normally never even think of, the stuck up little twits. There were many things, Discord felt, that made life quite amusing for him.
This, however, was most certainly not entertaining. Oh, it had been, when the pony and the human had fought each other and danced around like drunken ballerinas; the end, however, with its brutality and swiftness, had left the Draconequus feeling somewhat. . . empty. It wouldn’t be fair to call it guilt, really, but that hint of fear he had felt when he realized his toys were breaking each other, if looked at under a distorted microscope, might have been perceivable as such. It was the reason why Discord had specifically refrained from inducing outright war between the species, or degrading himself to simple murder; it was the sort of greed that might eventually be trained into a conscience, that his enjoyment would suffer if others were removed from the game.
He shook his head for a moment, then disappeared; left behind was a startlingly blue field of flowers, no trace of the leg remaining. . .
“You know, Neato,” said a particularly deep shadow in a mock-jovial tune, “It doesn’t truly reflect well on any-pony when I’m forced to take action.”
“I got you the information,” replied the Unicorn mare, bitterly. She was the only individual in the room who had the unfortunate fate of being in a well-lit, clearly visible location; having an uncomfortable awareness of the possible futures this conversation could foretell for a particularly unlucky pony didn’t help, either.
“Yes, I will concede, you did. You found out the various schedules of the members of Dusk House. Congratulations, indeed, would be in order, had it not been for one insignificant-” the shadow bobbed nearer, and in the darkness a set of grit teeth flickered ominously, illuminated by the glow of a horn, “-thing.”
Silence reigned in the room as the hidden speaker composed himself, and with a quiet chuckle he continued, saying, “Nopony remembered you, which, I must say, is a fantastic talent to have. Unfortunately, you left some documents behind that linked me to your . . . shall we say . . . endeavors. Which, sadly, rather forced my hoof rather ahead of schedule.”
Slowly, each trot deliberately with enough force to make a loud clack noise with every step, a Unicorn walked out of the shadows and approached the now visibly terrified Neato with a hollow smile.
“Did you want to get out of our little contract so desperately? Because you could’ve simply talked to me. I would’ve made the extermination of our little agreement essentially painless,” he said, the lighthearted tone never leaving his voice. “But I can’t believe that, can I? Because if you DID do something that silly, well, there’s no telling what I would do. But it’s a non-issue, isn’t it? Because it wasn’t on purpose at all, or so my associate tells me. Is he . . . correct?”
“Right,” Neato muttered back, her throat bobbing up and down as she swallowed air nervously.
“Fantastic! I would’ve been disheartened to learn it was otherwise,” the Stallion said, loudly and with a grin on his face. “Of course, seventeen other ponies would’ve been pleased as punch to hear the contrary, but they’ve all caught something awful, isn’t that right, Shade?”
“Sixty four, and all but one of the main family. The documents they sent to the Council were all located and destroyed as well,” said another shadow huskily, one that Neato had completely overlooked.
“All but one?” The stallion’s smile froze for a moment before re-thawing, and he said, his tone chipper, “I’ll have to talk to you about this mysterious one, but that’s nothing dear Neato needs to hear right now, is it? No, it isn’t. Shade, if you would be so kind as to give Neato her obligatory tonic,” he murmured, before walking back into the shadow’s nonchalantly. When finally enshrouded again, he concluded, saying, “Ah, yes, and Neato? I want some blueprints, next. The humans are building something, as some recently wealthier Pegasi have told me, and not only do I want to know what, I want to know how. It shouldn’t be difficult; I know you have sources everywhere . . .”
A door opened and closed, somewhere in the darkness.
“Here are the components,” uttered the same guttural voice from earlier, before a package was slid from the shadows across the stone floor with remarkable smoothness. “Follow the instructions and it should prevent buildup in the lungs; basically, it’s a tea. Only give it to the sick pony, clearly; don’t drink it yourself.” For a brief moment, the hidden Shade cleared his throat hesitantly, before tentatively finishing with, “If you pull off what the boss wants, he said I can stop giving you things to treat the symptoms and just give you a cure.”
“Well, doesn’t that make you a good pony?” Neato lashed back, venom and sarcasm dripping from her tone in equal measure.
Shade was silent.
“Am I allowed to leave?” Neato finally asked, growing more and more nervous at the sudden cessation of sound.
“Yes. Good-” Shade started to reply, but Neato was gone long before the final word could exit his lips,”-luck . . .“
Well, he thought for a moment, this sort of work isn’t exactly favorable to attempts at a budding romance, anyway.
With a sigh, Shade turned around and trotted deeper into the shadows.
And inevitably ended up face-planting into a wall hidden in the gloom.
I get why we have ambient darkness, he thought to himself even as he gingerly rubbed his nose, Tartarus, we’re a part of the Nocturne House, but, surely, we can afford some torches or something for practicalities sake; this is the third time this morning!
Finding the door in the darkness was difficult, but after a few circuits around the room in general Shade eventually found it, and with a sigh of elation walked through into a significantly brighter room.
The stallion from earlier was sitting at a table, a look of well-intentioned bemusement playing across his face.
“Did you lace our dear associate’s potion with the requisite amount of, ahem, cure, Shade?” he asked, in a tone of voice that would’ve been more at home discussing the weather.
“Yes, sir,” Shade replied.
Well, he thought, depends on what you mean be ‘requisite’; I mean, yes, there is poison in the mix, and yes, it will continue emulating the effects of a bad bout of pneumonia, but it’s not even close to the amount needed to kill somepony, if that’s what you mean by ‘requisite‘. When her brother stops taking the, ahem, ‘medicine’, he’s going to start feeling better. Oh, Tartarus, you’re talking right now and I’ve been just buzzing you out while I think . . .
“So . . . what’s this about one remaining?” the stallion murmured, quietly, before drinking from a steaming cup of tea.
“A filly, no more than a foal. I spiked the water-supply, but the child survived. Poison will have deteriorated at this point, though,” Shade replied, only pausing momentarily to try and process the question for any hidden meanings.
“A filly. And how exactly did this . . . foal stop you from completing your objective?”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, surely it would’ve been simple enough to just drop the little thing in the well after everything was said and done.”
There was a long silence before the stallion simply sighed at the mute Shade, and muttered, “Your soft heart is going to get you killed someday.”
“Be that as it may, I don’t kill foals. Anyway, for all intents and purposes, all that will be identified is that a mysterious disease struck the family, and now . . .” Shade moved to the opposite side of the table and sat down, “. . . now only a young, uh, Moonshine, I believe her name was, has survived. Not even their papers endured, once we finished the search. The Council of Three will be deciding where she goes. Since, technically, she’s not even in the modified family’s will, in all likelihood she will be raised by either the state or by one of the other Houses. She’s a non-issue.”
“Maybe,” murmured the other stallion, “maybe. Nevertheless, I don’t enjoy having a legitimate inheritor around; perhaps if she had been a bastard, I’d be more at ease.”
“You mean if she had been more like me.”
“Don’t make me regret your moment of mercy, Nightshade,” the stallion continued, blithely ignoring the comment. “I’ve heard of far too many myths where these situations are reversed upon the foal reaching adulthood; I will not be pleased if she grows to become a thorn in my side.”
“She won’t,” Shade replied.
“Good,” the stallion muttered, before he happily asked, in a far more familial tone, “So, I want to know; how’s little Penumbra doing? I hear he’s started levitating objects . . .”
The days had been long, yet mostly painless if one wasn’t at all connected with the royal family.
Bilgames wrote upon the page with exaggerated care, each letter a miniature masterpiece from the effort put into it. Then he would take a few minutes to simply walk around his work quarters, looking at the various paintings and carvings decorating his office with a desire for distraction only found in the recently bereaved, only to quickly sit back down and continue his measured script. His letters were impeccable, yet utterly thrown off the instant when, just outside his room, he heard a shout of surprise followed by a loudly uttered curse from his guards; Bilgames mumbled an oath of his own as the page mysteriously became slightly more damp, before grabbing the concealed dagger he had placed under his desk and sliding with practiced ease beside the entrance to his room.
There was a trespasser about. Bilgames was no stranger to attempted assassination, having survived five thus far in his twenty year reign, but this one was rather strange for three reasons; the guards sounded more alarmed than actively angry at whomever it was intruding, Bilgames was certain he had located and otherwise pacified everyone who could’ve gained something from his departure from the living at least a half a decade ago, and the assassin was apparently trying to converse with them, albeit with a rather soft and choked voice.
And then, as Bilgames finally associated the distant voice of the intruder to a family member, an unbidden smile cracked his face and his eyes sparkled with tears of joy. It was only for a moment, however, and then he summoned what felt like a painful amount of resolve to slowly slide his expression back into that of disinterested curiosity; it was unbecoming of a king, after all, to show any degree of weakness before any of his subjects, family or otherwise.
Especially, as painful as it was to admit it to himself, this particular one.
Bilgames tossed his unused weapon on the desk, somewhat relieved, before taking a moment to straighten his clothing and ensure his appearance was as impeccable as it could get; he had become well aware of his guard’s capacity for gossiping, and leaving in a rush would only give the impression of softness that would inevitably be heard in every corner of the kingdom within a week. And besides, Bilgames reasoned to himself, if Selim had survived this encounter, then he likely wasn’t in any need for immediate care. And yet, he felt a slight amount of doubt remain.
Perhaps another minute passed, as Bilgames glanced between the now obsolete letter he had been working on (Uruk had wanted to know how the progress of the mines were going, as he was running out of material; both brothers, Uruk and Bilgames, had felt that letting a Royal member be buried in a simple wooden casket, even if it were simply a symbolic ceremony without a body, was unacceptable), the mirror, and the door, before he felt the slightest prickling of fear develop within him. Perhaps, Bilgames thought, it would be acceptable for a King to simply look out of his office to see what was occurring. Surely that couldn’t be construed as weakness. . . And with that, Bilgames cracked open the entrance slightly and peeked through the crack.
And then he rushed through the gate and sprinted towards the barely recognizable heap, which one of his guards was trying to treat.
***
Selim awoke, his first thought being, I feel like a smoked pig.
Blearily, he tried to rub his eyes, but instead blinked in surprise when all he could bring to his face were a pair of bandage swaddled clubs. He blinked again, and at this point his brain engaged and he found himself actually coherently thinking for the first time in nearly a week. He remembered the days that had passed while he had been lost within EverFree, and then with a grimace attempted to localize and terminate the memories of everything had passed after wandering blindly into the forest.
Certain recollections proved more difficult to excise than others.
That was astoundingly stupid, he thought to himself, wincing as pain finally caught up to him. Well, at least I can say for certain that there are some things that are best left unseen in that forsaken… his mind fumbled for a moment, trying to contemplate an appropriate insult for a forest, before finally settling, unhappily, on, ‘. . .orchard’. I don’t know how I got through that unscathed.
And then, because his mind evidently enjoyed being proven incorrect, Selim glanced down at his body and found, instead, a wreck.
His upper body was slightly burned and very much bruised around the ribs, but mostly untouched save for a thin layer of water that had likely been applied by some sort of quack doctor. His arms, however, were the result of a craftsman; wrapped in bandages that extended from his elbow to his fingers on his left hand, and from his wrist to his fingers on his right. His lower body, particularly the legs, had been more severely burned, apparently blistering quite badly if he were to judge, but again, nothing terrible. His right leg, however, had endured a beating, evidenced by the wrappings that were around his calf. Add the curious padded feeling Selim had around his skull that suggested significant medical attention, and the only mental image Selim could conjure up of himself was more reminiscent of a mummy than of a patient; he would’ve laughed, but it hurt to breathe.
“I see you’re awake,” said a speaker just out of Selim’s view; this didn’t, however, prevent Selim from sighing angrily when he realized who he would be forced to speak with.
“Hey, Bill. Guess what I’ve learned?” said Selim, a deadpan expression on his face.
“That you’re a fool, Selim? Because, truly, your lack of foresight is frankly staggering; how you survive in day to day life is a persistent miracle, if you ask me.”
There was silence for a moment as the both of them glared at each other.
And then Selim, grinning viciously, muttered, “I don’t recall trying to provoke my brother into starting a war with species that possesses a greater baseline physical strength, while we are lacking any significant weaponry. Maybe because the only one to do that was you, you thrice-blighted idiot.”
Selim, breathing deeply, paused to observe the momentary flash of shock flit against his brother’s face, only to continue on his verbal war-path, rising slightly from his bed and increasing in volume.
“Ol’ Coup is playing everyone like a damned fiddle and is getting a hell of a kick out of it, we lack any particular edge against the horses you seem to want to fight against, I’ve been fucking crippled while escaping to give this little nugget of knowledge to you, and you have the nerve to treat me like some sort of fool? You may be a king and I a servant, but that won’t stop me from getting my broken ass out of this bed and beating the hell out of you, brother!”
Rage utterly spent, Selim flopped back onto his back, involuntarily squeaking when his body displayed it’s disapproval of such roughness.
“…What’s this about Ol Coup? What can you tell me about the-”
“Of course that’s the first thing you think about. Not about how your brother can’t work the fingers of his-“
Bilgames loomed over Selim, and intoned with all the tact and sympathy of a descending knife.
“You are acting pathetic. Half a million people, brother, some of whom have been hurt a great deal more than you, I have to look after. Your info helps their lives; it hurts me, Selim, to see you wounded, but being bitter about how I can’t spend hours bemoaning your fate is stupid and childish, so cease with the idiotic lamentations. I’ll cry for your agony when I’m not busy treating an entire nation’s. I’ll talk to you later, when you feel more capable.”
And with that, Bilgames turned and stalked out of the make-shift hospital room. Even Selim winced, however, when the heard the dull thud a few moments later; most of their meetings tended to culminate in Bilgames leaving the discussion to engage in an impromptu boxing match against a wall, and if the thud were any indication, he likely broke the skin of his knuckles with that particular blow.
***
Hours passed. Bilgames reflected. Subjects were mulled over, and conclusions made.
“That was really damn self-righteous, in hindsight,” Bilgames thought aloud to himself, as he looked over the intra-city taxes. He hadn’t, really, wanted to sound so, so. . . domineering? Something about that struck him as off, as he had meant every word he had said; he just hadn’t intended to verbally attack his brother in such a blatantly, well, bastardy way. But by that same token, Selim had always refused to contribute as much as Bilgames knew he could, and while there was the fact Selim had, by all medical accounts, likely lost the use of his left hand, Bilgames couldn’t help but feel Selim was simply trying to pity himself most of the time.
It's frustrating, and, if I'm going to be honest, it drives me to the edge of sanity.
Add his bleeding knuckles on top of that, and Bilgames was not a happy man.
He set down the paper with a sigh, as he realized he had done his job too well; normally the taxes and spending would’ve taken hours, days, to calculate as hundreds of forms would be reluctantly processed. Working for the last three days tirelessly, however, had greased the wheels of bureaucracy significantly.
Once, his popularity with the people and his servants had left a younger Bilgames incredulous, before he realized, many years into his reign and with some embarrassment, that he was soaking up some of the approval that Uruk and, yes, even Selim, had rightfully deserved. It had been one of those realizations that sometimes left him staring at a wall for a few minutes, unable to function efficiently as he considered how unjust some aspects of monarchy were.
“Perhaps we’ve both cooled off enough now,” Bilgames muttered to himself, before getting up with a grunt and heading over to where his youngest brother was, with any luck, recuperating.
The first words he heard upon brushing through the entrance of the room were, “-and this is where the gears go, so the wind-” and then immediately following that, in the same voice but in a far more irritated tone, “What the hell are you doing?! You’re going to mess up the sketch! Why did you bow-”, and then, finally, realization.
“Brother.”
“Selim.”
There, in the few moments that followed where they stared at each other in abject silence, Bilgames correctly assumed Selim was dreading whatever would next be uttered. Bilgames raised an eyebrow into an almost amused expression, before, with mock cheerfulness, saying, “Yeah, we’re going to have a discussion.”
It was clear to everyone in the room, even the still bowing architect, that the tone had been intended to be regal and otherwise unflappable; however, it was also equally clear to everyone that the tone must have become lost in the transition from brain to mouth, and had been instead replaced with the tone a father may use when scolding a son and is otherwise contemplating a punishment as banal as going to bed without supper.
A long, long minute ticked by, as all three parties uneasily glance at one another, unwilling to speak due to embarrassment. Finally, in a move that should have had the man remembered as a hero, the architect, head still bowed respectfully, cleared his throat and spoke with all timidity of a mouse.
“Shall . . . shall I leave, lords?”
Both of the brothers snapped their gazes towards him, before finally slowly relaxing and looking back at each other, far more sheepishly than before.
“. . . Have you finished everything you need to with him, brother?”
“No, I’m afraid,” Selim said, intently focusing on his bandaged arms as if they now held the key to hiding the flushed embarrassment reddening his face. “I still need to finish telling him about this mechanical windmill thing.” Selim glanced at his brother, quietly measuring the likelihood of being shouted at for a few hours, before eventually coming to a conclusion that was amenable to him and adding, “It should only take a few more minutes, if he stops inclining his head like a prospective ostrich.” The last few words were tinged with a rare amount of amusement, considering their speaker, and his next few words continued this anomalous trend with, “Come on, now, either bury your head or get up; we’ve got work to do.”
Bilgames, smiling softly, took a seat and simply let the next hour wash over him; it was, he thought, perhaps somewhat unfair to not be working right now, but he didn’t particularly care. He had distinct memories of watching waves of people swirl around in his little prepubescent world, each individual self-involved in their own personal little universe; it was fun to get even the slightest peek into another’s life, to see how they saw and live how they lived. While Bilgames had mostly grown out of this habit of people watching (being stared at by a king tends to halt most individuals, and leads to far too many troublesome issues to be worth doing anymore), he was still enthralled with the little interactions people had with one another.
The hapless architect, however, was having what must’ve been among the worst days of his life; not only had he been privy to a royal argument, he was also being forced to finish his work before they would consider letting him leave, which could only mean they intended some terrible fate for him when they finished using his talents; worse yet then that, the king was staring at him with a faraway smile that could only foretell torture, and the architect could almost hear the snapping of limbs and dear gods the next few years of my life are going to be an utter hell and what did I do to deserve this ohgodohgodohgod-
“You can leave now. . .?” Selim said for the fourteenth time, staring with a degree of confusion at the mentally broken man before glancing at Bilgames and raising an eyebrow; Bilgames, for his part, merely shrugged, before hurriedly summoning some guards to take the nice yet slightly deranged man back home for some soup. There was a harrowing moment where they had to pry the papers from the architect’s death grip, but it was a simple enough process with six people collaborating.
“Well,” Bilgames said when he finally returned, smiling lopsidedly at Selim, “that was a hell of an icebreaker as far as conversation was concerned, eh?”
They both forced a chuckle, before Selim cleared his throat and grimaced, replying, “I don’t disagree with the whole ‘need to show strength before the people’ part of ruling philosophy, but I think some of them fear us to the point they’re becoming ineffective at their jobs.”
Bilgames grunted, neither affirming nor denying, and the two brothers simply sat in the room for a few minutes, letting the time pass by peacefully as if in preparation for the havoc their eventual, inevitable argument would do.
“. . .so. . .” Selim said, resigning himself to his fate, “. . . this talk of ours. . . How much of it is going to be you shouting at me?”
Bilgames bristled, apology forgotten, replying, “If you weren’t such a caustic little shit, that wouldn’t be such a frequent problem, would it? Now, what was it that that you wanted to tell me about our local spirit of chaos?”
“. . .crazy bastard’s manipulating both sides. He probably messed with their minds before we arrived at the fort, maybe even forewarned them of our arrival,” Selim said, chuckling mirthlessly. “The ponies probably don’t have a singular unified command structure like we do, probably more of an oligarchy if I were to estimate from the general haphazardness of the locations of their forts; you know what that means. . .”
“Left hand doesn’t know what right hand is doing. . . huh. Well, that’s interesting.”
“Yeah, and it’s pretty bad for communication. Worst thing, though, is that Ol’ Coup is basically untouchable.”
Bilgames’ head perked up slightly when he heard this, and with a dire expression asked, “What makes you think that?”
“I hit him with a bolt of lightning. Most things sizzle after that, or maybe end up twitching for a couple of minutes if they were particularly lucky. I’m pretty sure, however, that he ate it.”
“...Yeah, that sounds pretty unassailable to me. What should we do?”
Selim looked pensive for a moment, before he eventually sighed with defeat.
“I don’t think there’s much we can do. I mean, just knowing helps, but. . .” Selim sighed again, before continuing. “. . .if he half wanted to, brother, he could’ve turned me inside out and played my arteries like a banjo. I mean, even within the forest, where we’ve gotten reports that the ponies’ locating magic becomes obscured, I’d be nothing more than a sneaky solitary mosquito annoying what is essentially a giant. And that’s assuming his magic plays by the same rules theirs’ does.”
Bilgames glanced at Selim, before raising an eyebrow and muttering, “Surely you don’t think surrender is acceptable, do you? Because I refuse to grovel before that thing.”
Selim glared at his brother, before spitting, “Of course not; just because I can’t think of a way to circumvent Ol’ Coup doesn’t mean that others haven’t. If worst comes to worst, we could just interrogate a horse; before that, though, it’d be wise to first check with our other channels of info. You think we’re able to trade a couple of books from them? I know for a damned fact there’s some sort of black market style trading going on, and now might be the time to exploit it. . .”
Bilgames stroked his chin for a moment, then shook his head in negation before stating, “I think your idea is sound, but I’d rather we find out all of the above as soon as possible; I’ll send some messengers, but. . .” He trailed off, staring at Selim’s bandage bundled, paralyzed, hand, before shaking his head and adding, “I’ll have to send Uruk the good news; I’ll have him start work on a gauntlet for you.”
“You know,” Selim stated wryly, “being ‘damaged goods’ isn’t exactly something I feel I need to cover up; I’m not ashamed of being maimed, brother.”
“Selim, you may not think it, but I’m not just King because of my good looks; I do, believe it or not, have a brain as well,” Bilgames said, chuckling slightly. “You have magic, yes? Hells, that’s why you’re our Witch. . .”
Selim nodded, interested how this line of logic would conclude, despite himself.
“So, Selim, what I was thinking was that you could use your magic to manipulate each of the digits of the glove.” Bilgames rubbed the back of his head, as he awkwardly realized that his assumption that magic could work in that manner may have been erroneous. “. . . You can do that, right? . . . in hindsight, I’m not quite so sure this was as smart of an idea as I thought it was. . .”
Selim nodded, slightly, as he processed the presented idea: it was a remarkably mundane usage for his power, and it likely wouldn’t require much effort to wrangle the magic necessary into something that wouldn’t blow his fingers off. Of course, there were downsides; just because he couldn’t feel any damage to his hand didn’t mean it wouldn’t still be present, and his grip wouldn’t be as flexible as most other peoples’, but even just having a semi functional hand was superior to a lump of immobile flesh. . .
Selim’s lips twitched upwards into a momentary smile before he asked, “Why didn’t I think of that first?”
Bilgames grinned, replying in a ribbing manner, “Because you prefer doing the blatantly impossible rather than the more readily available practicalities, if I may make an observation.”
Selim grunted in response; if Bilgames had experienced some of the backlash of those spells, Selim was certain, he probably wouldn’t have made such blanket statements. ‘Not that he is completely wrong, of course,’ whispered a traitorous thought, before Selim executed whatever synapse spawned that notion with extreme prejudice.
“I’m glad we could talk,” Bilgames said, rising from his seat before adding, “If you need anything, ask. I’ll see what I can manage.”
“Thank brother, but I don’t-” Selim said, automatically going through the socially accepted motions before pausing and actually contemplating his situation; he was basically on bed-rest for at least a few days, perhaps even weeks or months, and by all rights, it would be fine if he spent that time trying to figure out the why behind some of his more magic related concerns, right?
“. . . actually, do we still have those Unicorn horns on storage? I remember for a while that we were stockpiling the damned things like squirrels; if I could be brought about. . . six of them for starters, I might be able to get some work done, even in my current state.”
“Didn’t you consider keeping those things unethical?”
“Oh, so we buried them like I suggested, Bilgames? Because I must’ve missed that part during our discussion on how you were going to keep them regardless of my objections: if I remember your words correctly, it was so ‘someone could study them later’.”
“. . .I’ll have them sent up to this room immediately. Don’t hurt yourself, please; I’d rather not have fate flip another coin for your life.”
“No promises, but I’ll try not to accidently kill myself.”
“Promise, or I’ll have you chained to your bed.”
“. . . I promise.”
***
A letter was sent and received, though only the unknown gods knew how long it took; in the slightly orange glow of the workshop, time condensed into a meringue-like substance, and only the craftsmen working there could decipher the distortions the metal tinged air had upon minutes and hours. Even then, however, it was only with the vaguest of estimations: it was not an irregular occurrence for a smith to become possessed by some strange mood; to work, the duration of which to them felt like only hours, upon a single object with the care of a master; and wake from this unique form of madness a week later, a completed item before them that would sometimes possess some sort of arcane capability such as preternatural sharpness (if a weapon) or capacity to be locked by the simple utterance of a phrase (if a clasp).
It was reasoned, with the sort of logic people use when they wish to avoid becoming societal pariahs, that this was simply the result of the land’s magic working its way through them into their craft. This was, of course, a unanimous conclusion, and one that remained one of the most tightly kept secrets among the craftsmen. Even if it was one’s mortal enemy, it was expected of everyone, from the weavers at the looms to the blacksmiths at the forge, to jump through hoops for whomever needed it; they looked after each other so they themselves were looked after.
Such was the state of affairs when Bilgames’ message, now heavily smudged by fingerprints of coal, was opened by Uruk.
The short, heavy-set man took his time reading over the paper, at some points sounding out a word aloud to try and remember its exact meaning; his voice, as rough as an unshaped stone and used so infrequently that a patina had likely formed on his vocal cords, made a few of the nearer craftsmen pause in astonishment; to some of them, this was the first time they had heard Uruk’s voice. This lull in activity was only momentary, however, as they were for the most part practical people, and work still had to be done.
It took Uruk a few minutes of carefully tracing along the text with his finger, surmounting each word with a slight yet cumulative difficulty, but when he completed his reading, the effect was dramatic: the paper was folded up, and a small smile crinkled his features. To most, this change would be equated with finding a couple of dollars, or finishing a difficult job easily; the amazement that flitted across the faces of the other, less stoic workmen, however, betrayed that notion rather quickly.
Uruk gestured, grabbing the attention of some of the silversmiths nearest to him, before waving his hand in a dismissive motion; years of being forced to read the subtle expressions of their boss aided them, and with a significant amount of relief they wandered away from the various forges they had been asked to work at (an embarrassment and a source of slight pride in it of itself; Royalty had asked them to make the casket for a fallen brother: it’d have been simpler if the smiths had simply been ordered, as at least then the craftsmen could’ve cursed someone other than themselves for the situation they were placed in), back to their normal work stations.
Uruk glanced at the paper once more, before casually tossing it into the flames of a furnace. A gauntlet, he thought, hobbling to an anvil and picking up a hammer. Tis’ simple enough, I suppose. I wish they’d tell me what style they want, though; I assume they want me to do plate, but the wrist should be scale if he actually wants to have a degree of flexibility, probably padded on the inside as well so it doesn’t skin him from extended wear. . .Iron rusts too easily for this . . .What sort of metal should I use?
At this final pondering, it was only years of practiced silence that prevented Uruk from bursting out laughing; he gripped a chunk of the partially shaped silver, concentrated upon the concept of a gauntlet, and . . . let the fey mood overtake him.
***
Mercy sat in the medical bay, occasionally glancing at her leg; it had been a minor miracle she had survived at all, the doctor had wasted no time in telling her, particularly considering that joints in general are quite high on the list of things that shouldn’t be removed from the body.
She, with considerably less tact than normal, had asked if there was anywhere that was actually low on the list; when she finally stopped cursing, the working doctor at the time deigned to simply retreat with a far paler face than be forced to reply.
She still felt more than a little guilty about that entire situation, but it was buried under several layers of simmering loathing.
I hate this place, Mercy thought, gripping the linen blankets that covered her with ire, before her eyes slowly settled on the letter next to her; she unconsciously tried to reach over for it with the closest leg, only to mutter some foul curse under her breath when she realized, indeed, she no longer had that hoof: it took a few seconds of carefully inching closer to finally grab it.
It had been interestingly constructed; it was a letter within a letter, the outermost (and longer of the two) clearly intended to be the beginning of a correspondence. This letter had all the typical well-intentioned meanderings of friends trying very desperately to not mention the elephant in the room, while still trying to project concern for the aforementioned elephant, while still yet attempting to be supporting and not insultingly upbeat, and finally being quickly enough done so there wouldn’t be too much of a wait for it to be received. As such, it was a horrid mess of scribbled out words, poorly used phrases, fractured sentence structure, misspellings, and barely comprehensible hoof-writing.
Mercy cherished it.
The second letter, however, was (while still dreadfully rushed) far more comprehensible, if only because it was only a few sentences long. It read thusly:
Need 5 4 powerful semi-decent Unicorns by the 27th of next month. To meet near EverFree, 5 near the base. with them. Thank you.
So, they managed to reverse the petrification, huh? Normally Discord makes it difficult to undo his spells . . .
Whiskey’s prose was rarely so trimmed down, and seeing it as such forced Mercy to read the letter twice, if only to make certain that there weren’t spiraling columns of semi-colons and hundreds of words hidden somewhere in the text. She carefully scanned the letter one last time, then very carefully placed it into her saddlebag. She grinned nearly imperceptibly; Whiskey only made statements like this when he was certain results could be produced.
Though, what those results could be, she thought wryly, was another question entirely.
And it made sense why she, Mercy, would be an ideal courier: as an Earth pony, she’d be more than fit for travel; she knew how to fight, and could likely hold her own against others, even with only one hoof; and finally, the injured tend to be given a wide berth by almost all adversarial creatures save for the mindless predators, as even the most idiotic diamond dog would know better than to bother somepony who’d be less than useless in mining operations, to say nothing of the honor-driven Minotaurs or the rarely seen dragons.
If she didn’t know him better, Mercy would’ve entertained the thought of Whiskey finding this situation perfect.
She again glanced at her bandaged leg, this time seeing, in perhaps a few weeks or so, a functional peg-leg, and frowned slightly; it wasn’t ideal, perhaps, but what was, in life?
***
Days passed, if the orange and the pear that had replaced the sun and the moon were any indication.
“You’re taking your situation with considerably more grace than I would’ve expected,” Bilgames said dryly, leaning on the doorway to the medical room—now also known as, if the gossips were to be believed, as Selim’s makeshift laboratory.
“Uruk’s only got one foot after that whole dust explosion incident, and you’ve held your own in-errr. . . you’ve had to deal with shit like this before as well,” Selim said, dryly for the most part save for the brief interlude in the middle of his statement.
“Ah, I believe you’ve found the remarkable delaying effects of keeping yourself busy. Enjoy it while you can.”
“I plan to. How’re the kids doing?” Selim said, as he carefully split the a horn in half to get a side-diagram.
“Eaban is doing well; he’s a bit too much like his father though.”
“Ah, so the little bastard is getting into fights, eh? Don’t worry too much about him; if you need any help teaching him otherwise, I don’t mind. What about Lilim?” Selim said, as he delicately carved away at the bone-like shell; one slip-up, he was aware, and any info gleaned from this particular horn would be suspect at best.
“Lilim has got some sort of lung sickness,” Bilgames preemptively moved to restrain Selim, who had already flung away both the horn and the shimmering brass dagger he’d been using to dissect it, “but it’s not that bad and she’s getting better!”
Selim struggled pathetically for a few moments against Bilgames’ grasp, before eventually slumping back down onto the bed and glaring at his brother.
“Look, Selim, I know you want to help, but-”
“’But’, nothing!” Selim said, momentarily spluttering with rage. “Family’s family! You don’t fucking keep that sort of thing a fucking secret, especially from someone who can fucking help!”
“How, exactly?” Bilgames countered. “I remember what happened last time: you caught the sickness from Eaban, and you got hit with it twice as bad! Five months, brother!” Bilgames sighed, before covering his face in exasperation. “I know you want to be a good uncle, Selim. But you’ve got to trust me to know when we need help; if it were really a life or death situation, I would’ve told you.”
Selim sat on the bed, on the verge of either sulking or sobbing angrily, before finally saying, more tremulously than he would ever admit, “. . . just . . . don’t leave me out of the loop again, okay?”
“It won’t happen again. I’m sorry, brother.”
They was a period of little talking from either of them, not even interrupted when Bilgames handed Selim the horn he had been dissecting as well as the knife he had been using.
The silence, however, was eventually broken when Bilgames cleared his throat and said, “You know, Selim, have you ever thought about having kids?”
Selim glanced up at his brother, before smirking and continuing his work. He replied, “I’m going to admit I’m utterly disturbed at the prospect, brother; after all, we’re siblings.”
“Look smartass, that’s not what I meant and you know it. You ever consider settling down with someone, starting a family?”
“I’d be lying if I said no, brother.”
“But. . .?”
“Firstly, frankly, our family has an abysmal survival rate when it comes to giving birth to children. I don’t believe I could let someone I loved enough to start a family with potentially die in the process. Secondly, I don’t really think I could do the actual parenting bit; hell, I’m only really decent for the doting and punishment parts. Finally, we both know the only way I could ‘settle down’ any further would be in a grave; I think some of the dead do more than I do. . .”
“So. . . no children of your own?”
“I’ll be blunt here: to hell with that prospect.”
“Heh, can’t say I’m too surprised. How’s the, ahem, research coming along?”
“Painfully,” Selim muttered, before picking up half of the Unicorn horn he had been working on and tossing it into an unfilled corner, a difficult feat considering that most of the room was now occupied with a variety of differently dissected horns; some parts had been crushed into a fine powder, some had been carved into smaller and smaller pieces until they looked no different than colorful chunks of gravel. “But it’s coming along. I think I’ve learned two important things, but nothing for certain unless we had a live specimen, and even if we did, I frankly don’t feel a moral obligation to vivisect anything, even if it is for science.”
“Anything useful? Or just facts?”
“I endeavor under the illusion, brother, that facts are useful. Anyway, I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to do half as complicated stuff as--” here Selim pointed in a corner off-handedly, “--they can. They’re like rockets, while I’m like dynamite.”
“Not all of us understand your references, brother.”
“Right, right. Uh, it’s like I’m pushing in all directions at once while doing magic, meaning that I can’t hit something with all I’ve got, while they can channel it in a specific direction, and direct it, thus being more effective. Their horns somehow make magic flow more easily; maybe it’s a focusing point or something like that, letting them take magic and shape it more fluidly. I don’t know, really, but it’s a guess. And I can’t just pick up a horn and try to manipulate magic with it myself because. . . I don’t actually know why, but I think it has something to do with how they’re more connected with the world’s magic than I am. Perhaps-”
“Selim. Focus. Is there anything we can use to help against them? Magic is a hell of an asset for them, brother, and not all of us have your . . . unique gifts.”
“Yeah, yeah, let me get to that. Anyway, the horns are hard, like a bone, right? But the stuff inside them is much softer; it’s like a bug carapace, in a lot of ways. Anyway, if you hit them on the horn, it should make magic difficult for them. I don’t know what’d happen to the bastards if you hit them while they were casting magic, though; I’d imagine it’d be worse than what happens to me most of the time, though, since I at least don’t focus through something directly next to my brain.”
“So. Hit them on the horn.” Bilgames raised an eyebrow in amusement, before continuing. “Just how, pray tell, do you imagine someone could do that?”
“Don’t look at me; you wanted to know shit, and I told you. It isn’t my job to run the. . . ‘military’.” At this point, Selim set down what he was working on and looked concernedly at Bilgames. “Brother. We’ve never quite recovered from that situation with the, erm, Wendigoes. I’ll be honest here-”
“Oh, just now?”
“This is no joking matter, Bill. We lost-”
“-quite a number. I remember. I was there, Selim; two groups of us were sent off to the north to bring back one of those damned creatures, dead. Well, we did just that, and its remains are being used to keep our food fresh!”
“We’ve all heard this before, brother, and while I commend you for your prior military service, the fact remains that we’ve still not completely recovered from that; oh, mostly, true, but I don’t think we should continue our rather. . . daring skirmishes with so few actually trained military men,” Selim said, carefully substituting in the word ‘daring’ where normally he would’ve placed ‘stupid’.
“Again about this? And it’s only partially about us, isn’t it? I understand your theory, Selim, but even if the equines are, to some extent, being mind-controlled, we still need to defend ourselves.”
“If I had any love for our enemies, Bill, I’d think I would’ve lost it by this point,” Selim said, flopping his paralyzed hand before Bilgames as a twisted presentation of proof, before continuing with, “But I do care for our people. So-”
Selim froze, his eyes filming over as he muttered disconnected, nonsensical phrases.
Bilgames leaned forward, momentarily worried, before sitting back with a sigh. “Another one of these,” he muttered, his rigid sitting posture slowly slumping into a more natural position. “Damned inconvenient; what if one of these things happens when something urgent is present?”
A minute passed before Selim, blinking away the remnants of whatever he had seen, asked, “What’d I miss?”
“Nothing; you were the one talking before it happened. Anything of note within this most recent vision of yours?”
Selim sighed. “It was like the majority of them; interesting, but ultimately of no use. And the visions in general are getting more frequent; I think it’s because I’m up to do anything like . . .” he pointed his fist at a random corner and splayed his fingers as if he were about to do something magical, “. . . but I don’t know.” He gripped his forehead before concluding, with more than a hint of worry, “What if the visions get more frequent than my lucid moments, Bill?”
“They won’t.”
“And how are you so certain?”
“You’ll think of something, or I will, or Uruk will make something that’ll surprise us all. Don’t worry; the future is malleable, and we’ll twist it into a form we find most acceptable.”
“If you say so . . .”
“I do. Now, what was this useless information about? Was it more nonsense about those strange ‘engine’ things, or books, or what?”
“Well . . . it was about some twit named Jonathan Swift; you wouldn’t begin to believe what he recommended people eat . . .”
***
It’s difficult to balance, were the first words Mercy thought as she left the hospital. And it was true; despite the supposedly ‘sufficient’ amount of physical therapy, the small bag she had one of the orderlies tie around her had thrown off her normal center, and now she was finding each step to be an adventure into the realm of drunken stumbling, minus the alcohol. She took a moment, however, to rub the verdant field around the hospital with a distinct amount of joy.
I almost forgot how nice the grass feels against the hooves, and with that pleasant thought, Mercy started walking home.
Being the embodiment of chaos isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be; oh, the onlookers may see a cackling demi-god of madness and conflict, but if they knew the amount of havoc his life was, simply on a day to day basis, those who claimed that he was ‘evil’ would likely silence themselves.
Probably with stitches, if the last pony to ‘hitch a ride with him’ with one of his teleports was any indication. And, honestly, Discord felt that being blamed for that one would be quite unjust; he had, in all fairness, warned the pony quite some time ago.
Of course, since his experience of time was just as disjointed as everything else he endured, he might’ve warned the pony to let go several years before the warning would prove needed, or several years afterwards; he had tried to coerce a prior self (future self?) to do the warning, but he didn’t have any recollection of the event from the other side, as it were, so he didn’t know if he had actually succeeded or not. And even if he had warned himself to do so, it wasn’t like he could actually make himself do it.
Because, seriously, that other guy is a jerk. Or was. Will be? Temporal chaos made tenses difficult.
And, of course, every day was a balancing act. Too little chaos and entropy and the second law of thermodynamics was little more than a suggestion, too much and he’d notice, several Big Bangs later, that perhaps he had made a mistake. And a boring one, at that; an entire universe of chaos was ultimately just as predictable as an entire universe of order, and if the eons had taught him anything, it’s that entertainment reigned supreme as the most desirable result.
And he couldn’t just make singularities out where no one could see them, either; oh, he could, and it would technically work just as well, but tending to the whole dreary business of chaos without even a single onlooker was simply too boring to comprehend. It would be akin to the universe spontaneously generating the most magnificent story only to have the only copy cratered deep within the moon; nothing, pony or otherwise, could appreciate it if that were to happen (and it had, all too frequently).
Not that he was appreciated anyway; all he ever got were ponies whining about how ‘the doors are stuck’ (pudding) or ‘what have you done with the mountains’ (copious amounts of pudding) or, perhaps the most common and honestly the most irksome complaint, ‘I don’t know which way is up’ (pudding avalanche, or perhaps it was ice-cream; honestly, by the end of that particular day, he couldn’t be bothered to care).
And then he found the humans, and for a brief shining moment thought he had found some company; they possessed, quite unlike the Equestrians, a chaotic disposition by and large. Not to the same extant that he himself had (nine-tenths of his total selves doubted the universe could spit out another creature half as insane as himself), but even something simply leaning towards an unhinged state of mind would’ve been a blessing.
It would’ve meant someone, something, could potentially share his insane thoughts, or at the very least appreciate them; at the least, he was certain he was no longer utterly so alone.
His first impressions were less than stellar; their initial leaders tended towards the rotund and forgettable, and frequently thought to impose rules and order upon their underlings. The next few generations of rulers were frankly overrated, and the populace as a whole seemed rather boring, leading lives of repetitive farming and overrated security. He hid himself away for the most part, as if their monotony was infectious, only appearing in infrequent circumstances to feed the spark of madness in the rare few who had potential: artists and madmen, he opened the door for them regardless. Though, if his own history was any indication, some other timeline must have been quite busy instilling discord elsewhere while he was busy dealing with the humans.
But then there was something interesting; the first remarkable occurrence, in his eyes, in a long time. One of them could use magic. With a degree of power as well, if the subtle warping of reality was any indication; of course, whoever it was wouldn’t likely to be good at it, without a teacher. Discord thought, for several subjective minutes, about who might be able to teach the human scamp; it was a long, long thought objectively, lasting several eons and across several different timelines as coherent moment was tied to coherent moment, but eventually one conclusion was reached.
Kid was out of luck, frankly. A shame; the fact the magical environment was beginning to have noticeable effects on the human’s evolution was a minor miracle, in more ways than one.
But still, it would be intriguing to see how his life would turn out, Discord reasoned to himself. So began his rather frequent visits to the human royals.
Any potential for friendship was utterly destroyed when Draconequus, quite jokingly in his first visit, told the magic human to ‘take his king-brother out with his favorite meal,’ possibly as a way to smooth their rather bumpy relationship; it would only be years after the initial uproar (which the magic-man decided, strangely, to keep secret from everyone else, even if it made explaining the new, impromptu sun roofs much more difficult) that Discord would learn that phrase has a far darker colloquial meaning than ‘have a delightful supper with your brother.’
Even gods have off days, apparently.
Still, compared to the ponies, the bipedal apes were a god-send; it was fun, yes, to play off the inherent insecurities of the Pegasus, Unicorn and Earth nobility, and while they had indeed created one hell (or Tartarus, if he was to use their lingo) of a web of intrigue strung together by innumerable lies of omission and well-intentioned duplicity (Discord was certain the various ruling ponies knew of his existence, and was sure the only reason he hadn’t actually been attacked with anything resembling an army was because, while he was a bit of a rogue agent in their governmental machinations, he was equally troublesome to their political foes), the humans had recently spawned an utterly sane man who, without any interference by Discord, had attacked his king with a roast duck.
Well, sane in that the man hadn’t been ‘Discorded’; the whole ‘frothing at the mouth and attacking the vast majority of tablecloths for sending his thoughts to world devouring planetoids’ parts indicated the man was hardly healthy.
Besides, the whole ‘Discording’ process worked different for the humans than it did for the ponies. Ponies would gain negative aspects, by and large; humans, however. . .
Humans were weird. Some would go utterly insane, but others would . . . also go utterly insane, but in a different way; they’d do things no one else would even think about, and while they would fail in whatever they tried nine out of ten times, the tenth time would work magnificently. And then the rest of the human society would have to play catch-up with this new discovery, like the idea of perhaps sterilizing equipment before using it to seal open wounds.
And best of all, most of the ones who were ‘insane’ didn’t even need ‘Discording’ in the first place. It was like a self-perpetuating machine of, well, chaos.
Selim knew most of the steps required, but the process as a whole remained elusively out of reach; what he did know, however, only intensified his surprise and appreciation, both of which were clearly written across his face. Still, however, there remained statements that needed to be said.
“Uruk, I’m lost for words. Thank you.”
The only response from Uruk was a nod and a nearly imperceptible smile. A few seconds passed before Bilgames coughed, and Uruk motioned for Selim to actually put the gauntlet on.
“Ah, uh, yes, one second,” Selim muttered uncertainly, before looking quizzically at the metal glove; there were straps, he knew, that were intended to tighten the thing to his arm, but even a cursory glance indicated that, indeed, he was going to have difficulty putting on or pulling off this damnable, albeit beautiful, bit of armor.
Carefully, he placed both the glove as well as his hand upon the table they were all standing beside, before slowly unhooking and untying every part that could be loosened. He placed his hand into the gauntlet like one would a normal glove. Then, gracelessly, he fumblingly tried to re-hook and re-tighten the gauntlet back into its former glory; Uruk and Bilgames, an armorer and a warrior-king respectively, looked vaguely amused by the entire situation as Selim struggled to place the armor on, before, finally, Uruk took pity on the youngest brother and assisted wordlessly.
A few more clumsy minutes passed, during which Bilgames excused himself, his shoulders shaking from contained laughter; Selim botched every step imaginable in putting on a gauntlet, as well as a few mistakes that would be inconceivable to a person with a sane mind; and Uruk momentarily considered clubbing his youngest brother over the head, if only to simplify the entire process. But eventually, the final hook was placed, and Uruk and Selim simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief as a laborious process was finally concluded.
“Jeez, that was difficult, eh? Thank you, again, for helping me, Uruk.”
Uruk glanced at Selim; quite a lot can be said with a look, and this one could only be interpreted as saying ‘One of us made this entire process difficult, and it sure as hell wasn’t me. But you’re welcome, brother.’ And with that, Uruk walked to the door and rapped it sharply, and Bilgames reentered, looking far more composed then he had when he had left.
“So. . . I see you two managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. For a while, I thought it was to be the opposite,” Bilgames said, smirking slightly at his two younger brothers.
“It wasn’t that hard!” Selim protested, bristling with indignation.
Both brothers glanced at Uruk, looking for support in their argument; Uruk glanced at the both of them before casually shrugging.
It’s like they’re children, Uruk thought as Selim and Bilgames got into yet another petty argument. It’d be nice if they could be quiet. He wandered over to the window, leaned against the sill, and stared at clouds, letting the squabble turn into background noise behind him. I wonder if there is going to be some decent food today. I hope whoever’s cooking doesn’t try to sneak peppers into it like last time. Wait. I almost forgot. . .
Selim was in the midst of gesticulating angrily when Uruk was suddenly there, grasping Selim’s left arm and turning the gauntlet so all three of them could see what was about to be done. Uruk, with an expression of boredom never leaving his face, casually pressed against the middle knuckle of the armor before jerking his hand away with considerably more haste than the other two brother’s would’ve thought characteristic for him.
As silent as a whisper from death, a blade sprang out of the gauntlet.
Selim and Bilgames looked first at the armor turned punching-dagger, then at Uruk’s blank look of innocence, then back at the knife; all three of them simply stared at the honed blade, now making a shaky figure eights, for a few moments.
Bilgames cleared his unaccountably dry throat for a moment, before saying, “You’re taking an interest in becoming a criminal mastermind, Uruk?” He was very clearly trying to eradicate the last few minutes of bickering from his mind, if the pallor in his face was any indication; Selim had, more than once in the last few seconds before the demonstration, tried to punch him.
Uruk shrugged in response.
“Erm, well then. Uh. . .” Bilgames said, floundering for a moment; he thought himself rarely flustered, but Uruk was, more often than not, something of an anomaly. The man would rarely bother showing up for functions, and when he did, it’d typically be with something that’d eventually either spew fireworks everywhere or do something utterly nonsensical, like the trumpet that’d make notes like a piano. . .
“Food’d be nice,” Uruk rumbled, speaking for the first time that day.
“That sounds fantastic,” Bilgames muttered.
Uruk and Bilgames glanced at Selim to get his opinion.
They stared for a bit longer.
“You think we should leave him a note?” Bilgames said uncertainly. “He hasn’t moved in the last few minutes.” Not that I blame him. Damned thing was pretty close to his face more than once. Mine too, for that matter.
Uruk shrugged again; Selim’s eyes swiveled towards this movement, and if the slight twitchiness of his eyes were any indication, he had quite a lot to say, and had to work himself up to actually spit it out.
Eventually, with deceptive calm and a grin that would’ve looked more at home on a serial killer’s face, Selim said “What. If I. Had decided. To rest. My cheek. Against. My. Knuckles?” It was not an exaggeration to say he was actually shuddering from contained rage.
Uruk replied, with an impressive lack of emotion, “It’d have made you more handsome, for one.”
Selim and Bilgames stared at Uruk for a moment, the last of whom, after scratching his nose, added, “What? T’was a joke. Didn’t happen, so ‘tis not a problem to worry about.”
And so began yet another Royal argument.
***
Home was a mixed bag; there was the family, yes, and knowing they would almost always have one’s best interests at heart made most burdens easier to bear, but at the same time one would have to endure their pity, and that in it of itself could make even the lightest of afflictions become almost intolerable.
Such was the situation when Mercy arrived, slightly bedraggled, at her sister’s house.
Honestly, the look on her sister’s face had been worse than the stay at the hospital.
“Mercy! Oh my goodness! I didn’t know you were going to arrive today,” Ginger said quickly, clearly embarrassed to have been caught off guard. Her gaze latched onto the false-leg and stayed there; tact had never been the yellowish pony’s forte, and it showed.
“Nothing to worry about,” Mercy said, smiling wanly. If she doesn’t stop looking at my leg in the next few seconds, I’m going to smack her.
A minute passed in dead silence, both of them still standing at the doorway.
Yup, any minute now. . .
“So, how about we talk more when I get inside?” Mercy said, hinting quite sharply that this staring, if Ginger knew what was good for her, shouldn’t become a habit.
“Huh? Uh, yes, right, that’s a good idea. . .” Ginger said, her gaze only slowly peeling away from the wooden replacement. She glanced up at Mercy’s face, put on an unconvincing smile, and stepped to the side.
“Thank you,” Mercy muttered, as she trotted inside.
The smell hit Mercy like a wall of glass; wherever the source was, it was overpowering. It hinted at everything made of ginger, from ginger ale to gingerbread cookies, and in this quantity it actually made her slightly nauseous.
“So, uh, how are you doing?” Ginger said, in a tone befitting of her name.
‘As well as can be expected’, Mercy wanted to reply, even if it would’ve sounded half-hearted. Instead, however, she said “How the Tartarus do you expect? My hoof’s gone, along with the leg it was attached to; you just don’t walk that sort of thing off.” Mercy stopped for a moment, her brain catching up to her mouth. Then, significantly more thoughtfully than before, she added, “Actually, it’s really not something anypony can walk off, if we’re going to be literal here.”
“Uh, yeah, sure. You want something to eat or something?” Ginger said quickly, her reply’s swiftness betraying her desire to stifle this line of thought in the bud before Mercy could actually pick up enough steam to discuss this for hours on end.
Mercy stared at Ginger for a moment, before, again, the house’s ambient smell struck her; it was enough to make small tears form in the corners of Mercy’s eyes, and if the growing unease in the pit of her stomach was anything akin to a botanically induced augury, she suspected that, yes, ginger would somehow find itself in any dinner made within her sister’s house.
Mercy’s mind, along with her taste-buds, revolted.
“How about we get something from the shop? It’s still around, right?” Mercy asked. Of course, she already knew the answer to the latter question; she had checked the moment she entered town to make certain there was an escape option as far as eating was concerned.
“Uh, yeah, I think so. But I don’t know if it’d still be open at this ti-”
“How about we check, at least? I mean, it’s not right for you to have to cook, considering I dropped in somewhat, er, unexpectedly,” Mercy said, having memorized the closing times of Mollitrot just before arriving at her sister’s house.
“But I’ve already got something cooking in the oven-”
“Then it’s a shame I didn’t tell you earlier I was coming in,” Mercy said, rallying magnificently. “I don’t want to impose, and you probably didn’t make enough for tw-”
“Mercy,” Ginger said, clearly feeling hurt. “If you don’t want to eat what I’ve cooked, just say so.”
Well, no, I don’t really want to eat anything made out of ginger; I mean, I suppose it doesn’t taste too bad in small doses, but you insist in shoving the stuff into every meal you can, particularly in foods that don’t fit it. Do you remember that time you tried to flavor potatoes with that blasted plant? And that’s not even the worst! Remember that one fiasco with the town’s water supply? Of course you don’t, Mercy thought, with increasing anger. But it was a defeated angry; Mercy already knew what she would say, even as her taste-buds wanted to strangle her.
“No no no, not at all! Your food is delicious; I just thought it would be rude if I just barged and started eating your stuff. Plus, well, I thought you enjoyed that place, considering that you sent a letter last time talking about how there was a new cook you liked. . .” There, an acceptable mixture of white-lies and the truth; it was a skill Mercy had become quite proficient in, from months of trying to gently break bad news to the families of injured recruits.
Of course, you could just come out and tell her that you hate having ginger in every dish, but that’d be too simple, wouldn’t it? No, can’t be assertive, might hurt someponies feelings. You wimp. It’s just a dratted plant; you seriously think your sister can’t take a bit of critique? She may be called Ginger, but that doesn’t mean you need to treat her gingerly. Fate already determined, Mercy neatly set her saddlebag down in a corner of the room, with exaggerated care derived from not wanting to break something; she didn’t want to damage any of the notes she had.
Ginger smiled for a moment, evidently unaware of Mercy’s inner turmoil, and replied, “Well, fortunately, most of the time I have enough left-overs for two meals, so that’s not a problem; then, tomorrow, maybe you can meet some of my new friends, and I can show you around town. You wouldn’t believe it, but Crack Pot actually purchased a house. . .”
Mercy simply nodded, her face, though somewhat blank, carefully made to look interested and a half smile that made her appear as if delighted at this outcome. It was only while she was eating that a vein, pulsing in her eye, could’ve betrayed how she truly felt about the situation, but at that point she had taken to bolting down the food (some sort of stew, which, to Mercy’s utter lack of surprise, likely had copious amounts of ginger) so she didn’t have to savor its pungent taste.
***
Rations, whatever the recruits might say to the contrary, didn’t taste particularly terrible; perhaps, to those who had so recently been spoiled by home cooking, that may be the case, but to a soldier with Whiskey’s years they simply tasted bland.
Except the dried mushrooms. Those never tasted good, and Whiskey was beginning to think that whoever decided they should be sent to the troops was, in a very subtle manner, committing treason.
He very carefully scrapped the fungal flakes into a square shape, then, using a dribble of water, compacted and crushed the mushroom flecks into something resembling a curved rhombus. A slightly bluish aura surrounded the shape, and steam gradually rose from it; about a minute later, almost in synchrony with him turning the page of the book he was reading, Whiskey absentmindedly picked up the newly hardened block and carefully placed it into a pile of similarly colored tiles.
There were quite a number of them.
His hoof, almost as if on its own accord, slowly traveled downwards, towards the bottom drawer of his desk; he got as far as touching the handle before his conscious mind noticed. He grimaced momentarily, before relinquishing the metal clutch.
Whiskey, seemingly drained from this simple action, slowly rearranged the tiles before him into small groups: the shapes formed, reminiscent of houses with flat roofs, were soothing to him, though he’d be hard pressed to explain why, exactly.
He continued to read.
His ears twitched, and before the pony on the other side of the door could even knock, the door swung open.
“Salutations,” Whiskey said, before clearing his throat. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Remedy stood by the doorway, her expression making clear she was not amused. “Who told you you could leave the sickbay? Because it sure as Tartarus wasn’t me.”
“Well, I suppose the answer to the question is. . .” Initially quite self-righteous, Whiskey’s speech slowly petered down in volume before eventually silencing when the Unicorn realized that getting sassy with the only pony with both medicine (IE, sleeping agents) and an inability to comprehend proportionate retribution (IE, a sterilized pin with plenty of tattoo ink) was, just perhaps, unwise. Many a recruit had woken after making enemies with Remedy, most of them surprised by how, after a short nap, new messages and unpleasant symbols had mysteriously become permanently affixed to them.
“You were saying?” Remedy asked quite cheerfully.
“. . .sorry,” Whiskey mumbled. “I didn’t feel ill after that whole . . . ordeal, and I thought that I might get something done. . .”
“It’s pretty common,” Remedy said, sitting down on a spare chair, “for most ponies to be perfectly healthy after petrification; I don’t know all the little details myself, but apparently the whole ‘being stone’ bit does something to starve the disease.”
“Then why’d you get upset I was working?”
“We all have our jobs, Whiskey.” Remedy glanced at the pile of tiles for a moment, before continuing. “You were in danger of dying for the longest time; did you really think you could just go back to working without at least a checkup?” Then, laughing, she concluded “Besides, your expression a few seconds ago was priceless; seriously, it deserved to be immortalized.”
“Is that it?” was the grumbled reply.
Remedy stared at Whiskey, before saying, “No. You should eat with us more often; until they send us a replacement, it’s just us three. It’d do Staunch some good to chat with you.”
“I’ve got work to do.”
“That’s a lie and don’t even pretend it was a good one.”
“I didn’t lie.”
Remedy shot an inquisitive glance at Whiskey, replying, “We haven’t been sent anything from higher up. How . . .?”
“Just because it’s work doesn’t mean it’s part of the job.”
They sat together in silence for a few seconds, before Remedy said, “So, you going to tell me or what?”
Whiskey sat, his face turned towards the window, clearly torn.
By the Alicorns, I can tell them; I mean, they may think I’m a bit of a nutter, trying to summon old fairy tales, but they wouldn’t actively attack my idea, would they? They’re friends after all. . . He realized the fallacy in this theory almost immediately after thinking it. They’re my friends; of course they’d try to stop me from doing so idiotically stupid. If Mercy wasn’t a bit. . . off right now, she’d have probably already tried to contact them. Even if they didn’t think I’d gone mad, even if they wanted to help, even best case scenario, they could get hurt. . .
“It’s personal,” Whiskey said, his face carefully blank of all expression. It took him a moment, however, as Remedy glanced at the spell-book he had been reading, to realize that had been error in it of itself.
“Clearly,” Remedy said, in a tone that really said, ‘We’re going to have words about this, because I know for a damn fact you’re lying. Hope you enjoy being watched, because we both know this is how it’s probably going to end. Should’ve just told me the truth when you had the chance, you dope’.
“Sorry.”
“Yeah, I know you are.” Remedy got up from the seat, trotted to the door, and at the last moment paused, looked back at Whiskey and said, “You know we’re your friends, right? And that you can tell us anything.”
“Yes, I know. I’ll talk to Staunch later; thank you for the chat, but I really must get back to work . . .”
***
‘Tis passive-aggressive, Uruk thought as he stared forlornly at his plate; it was absolutely stacked with bell-peppers. He spared a glance at both Selim’s and Bilgames’ plates: fish and rice, the both of them. I wonder if I could steal some of their food without them noticing?
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Selim said, glancing at Uruk, “How are the weapons coming along? I mean, not just the weapons, but the metal and stuff as well?”
Uruk shrugged in reply; Why do they always ask me questions like this? Blades come along when they want to; you can’t rush a fine edge any more than you can hurry a harvest. And again with ores; I’m not a miner, how should I know?
“We’re estimating roughly another week for the next shipment based upon last month’s delays; you know as well as I do, Selim, that we’ve resorted to jury-rigging gems as spearheads.”
Uruk let the conversation drone on in the background, carefully transferring chunks of fish from their plates, sneaking the food to his own dish with remarkable sleight of hand.
Wonder if they used. . .yes, yes, they did. Damn, this is delicious. Why the hell’d they stuff the fish with quail, though? Why not just have it be a separate dish? Oh, this goes well with vinegar. Are they really still talking? Yes. They still haven’t even glanced at their plates. Shame. Well, no sense letting good food go to waste. . .
Some time passed, and logistics talk became scarcer and more interspersed with small-talk until, finally, Bilgames leaned his elbows against the table and said, with little warning, “I’m thinking about having you visit the military hospitals. You know, keep morale up and what not.”
Selim’s face blanched for a moment. “You’re not serious, are you?”
“Deadly so.”
“You’ve gone mad, utterly, utterly mad. I know where this is going; you’re going to spin this like ‘look at Selim, he’s got a non-functioning hand, but he still contributes!’ Bilgames, brother, that’s sick.”
“But is it false?”
The utensils rattled when Selim slammed his working hand onto the table. “The spirit of it is! We’re not inspirationally disadvantaged, brother; we specifically avoid what our disabilities make difficult! Uruk here isn’t a scout, I, well, I don’t think I have a future in metal crafting, and you don’t donate organs! It’s a carefully maintained ecosystem of avoiding shit we’re bad at! And you think we have something to show off?!”
Gods, they enjoy arguing, Uruk thought. Tis only a matter of time before someone says something they regret, though, and like every other time, they’re just going to leave each other in a huff. Tis method acting, it is; thinking they dislike each other so much that they convince themselves of it. Idiots.
“Then perhaps that should change; I’m trying to make the best of a bad situation, and it’s not right for us to simply take the easy way around our. . .problems. Perhaps it might brighten up some poor lad’s day if you had a chat with him? We’re the face of humanity, for all intents and purposes; we’re honor-bound to show our resilience to woes, Selim.”
Selim gripped his forehead and murmured, bitterly, “Did you really only lose a kidney? Or were the men mistaken? Was that shriveled lump of flesh your heart?”
There was silence for a moment, as Bilgames’ face darkened and Selim realized he had spoken aloud. Only the sound of Uruk’s chewing persisted, and even that was nearly imperceptible when the blacksmith mentally re-wound the conversation he’d only been half listening to and realized what had just been said.
Yes, more predictable than sparks from a forge. If others were privy to this nonsense, I could make a small fortune on tickets alone. Dramatic sods; next time I think I’ll just bludgeon them both to sleep the next time they interrupt dinner. I say, this trout is delicious with this spice. Ginger? Huh. . .
“Selim,” Bilgames said, his countenance paling from sheer rage.
“Lord?” Selim said, hesitantly; there were some lines that should not be crossed, and it was clear Selim knew, in his heart, he hadn’t just leapt beyond what was acceptable: no, he had, for all intents and purposes, sauntered over the line, before casually setting it ablaze and urinating on its burning remains. So, in perhaps the wisest choice of the day, he defaulted to being as respectful as possible.
“You’re going to meet the fucking wounded.”
“Yes, sire.”
“More fish?” asked Uruk.
The tension snapped for a moment, and Selim and Bilgames glanced at Uruk in utter bewilderment.
“I enjoy eating more than bickering.”
***
Thank you for the meal. No, I quite sure I’m full. No, I’m quite certain I don’t want seconds. Look, I’m going to go visit around the town, nostalgia, you know, that sort of thing. Believe it or not, having three legs doesn’t automatically make me defenseless. Look, I’m quite certain I don’t need an escort. . . Would you kindly stop? Yes, yes, I’ll be back by sundown. No, I don’t think I’ll be back in time to meet your friend tonight. Yes, I love you to.
But I really hate your cooking.
Mercy shook her head, before continuing her walk: it was always the same thing whenever she visited, and every discussion and thought played out in a similar manner every single time. The one major advantage, she had to admit to herself, was that trotting had proven significantly more simple without the saddlebag throwing her weight to one side, so going home had been a small blessing in that respect.
This, however, is unlikely to be simple, Mercy thought as she gazed at the raggedy-house-turned-fortress; Crack Pot, kindly though she could be when she was certain one wasn’t an evil insect-like alien only wearing the skin of a pony, was difficult to approach on the best of days. If only, Mercy thought as she carefully stepped over a small crater in the road leading up to the house, that were purely in the social sense.
There really was no proper way to do this, unfortunately; back when Crack Pot had been, for lack of better words, a socially accepted beggar, it had been simple enough to get her attention without potentially getting blasted in the face by magic.
However, Mercy thought as she looked at the house, with its metal door and unwelcomingly barred windows, something tells me that merely knocking would be an exercise in suicide.Let’s just take a few steps. . . a few dozen steps away, pick up this handy pebble, throw it at the door and-hit-the-ground-oh-Tartarus!
There was a roaring noise closely followed by utter silence.
Shakily, mane smoking slightly, Mercy righted herself, glaring at the building for a few moments. Or rather, what we left of the structure; the doorway, once a proud metallic portcullis, had been converted into a molten shuriken that was now embedded halfway into the earth twenty feet behind her. The rest of the building, primarily wooden, had somehow fared better; there was a bit of an ember-like glow where the wood met the utter destruction, but otherwise there was little that was actively burning.
And there, at the edge of the devastation, standing just before the smoldering gate of the house, was a grey pony wearing a saucepan on her head as a makeshift helmet. She blinked unsteadily for a few minutes before turning slightly and muttering something about “Little bugs, listening everywhere. . .”
Mercy caught Crack Pot in a flying tackle before she got too far back into the house.
***
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re not getting out of this.”
“Never expected to. I’m sorry.”
“. . . we’re brothers. It’d be unnatural to not expect a jab or two.”
“Still. It wasn’t right. I’m sorry.”
“Lots of things aren’t, and stop saying that.”
“. . . sorry.”
“Enough! Think nothing of it! It’s fine! You still aren’t getting out of this!”
“Stop assuming I’m so shallow!”
“Fine.”
“. . .”
“. . .”
“. . . I don’t know what to do or say to them, Bill.”
“Neither do I.”
“How am I supposed to help them?”
“Just be there. Talk with them, treat them like normal people. Shouldn’t be that hard.”
“. . . sounds simple enough, I suppose. . .”
“Just be sure to leave in time to look unflappable.”
“Why’s that?”
“You don’t want to vomit while speaking to them, do you? It’s the smell, really, that gets to you, you know? When the rot sets in.”
“. . . what?”
“Oh, look, we’re already here. I’ll see you later.”
To his credit, Selim remained quite in control of his stomach for roughly two hours. His evacuation from the hospital was made quite casually, and he managed to coolly walk halfway to the palace before carefully sidestepping into an alleyway and being ill loudly enough to draw a couple onlookers.
***
Dear Whiskey,
Got one.
She also knows some ponies who know some ponies who apparently know some powerful stuff, and she sent a note to them, so that’s settled.
Expect them to be on time.
It was a short note, admittedly, but it got the message across. Besides, it had disappeared in a poof of magic sparkles less than ten minutes ago under the jittery eyes of Crack Pot, so there wasn’t much that could be done to revise it.
Mercy felt somewhat . . . awkward . . . about having Crack Pot be one of the ponies present for whatever Whiskey was planning. By that same token, though, Crack Pot’s sheer magical prowess would be something of an asset to all but the most specific of magical incantations, so perhaps it was nothing to worry about.
Silently, Mercy pushed open the door to Ginger’s house, carefully sidestepped a rogue chair, and realized halfway through the main room that her bag was on the table.
Strange, Mercy thought, as she trotted over and tossed it onto her back. I. . . guess my memory is failing me. Still, I suppose I should Ginger about this when it’s morning.
And with that, she carefully entered her room, unhooked her false leg, stumbled into her bed, and slumbered.
The diagram had been nice. No, really, it had been; Arwia, at the least, had been forced to admit that to herself. The chief engineer had outdone himself this time . . . mostly.
Arwia spent a moment just looking at the colossal framework before her, before glancing down at the paper she was holding; the core of the building was the work of some sort of genius, and the thought of using the power of wind to power an internal mechanism would’ve seem impossible had she not read into the specifics of the design. But the rest of the building . . . it was . . . superfluous. There really was no other way to describe it; the core of this so-called ‘wind-mill’ was functional, but the other notes were the work of either a madman or an idiot.
Why should we bother placing living rooms in the bottom floor? No one would want to live in a place that was perpetually cracking and crushing wheat into flour; far too loud. And pretty much everyone has some type of housing, and if they don’t, they damn well can make one. It’s not that hard. . . four walls and a roof. And trees are hardly in short supply. . .
Her thumb scuffed over the paper as her eyes ran across the windmill diagram again. Her brow furrowed as a number of thoughts ran through her head.
It still needs the same height, something about wind getting more powerful the higher you go or something. . . Perhaps we could make the entire structure into a pseudo-silo? Only problem there is getting the flour afterwards, and having an explosion here would be bad. Well. . . an explosion anywhere would be bad, but I’d hate to see how far a machine like this can spread destruction when ablaze. Eh. Smartest choice might be to build it mostly to specifics, but to make a few adjustments so it can easily be converted into a storage space.
Arwia carefully rolled up the paper, tying it closed with a bit of twine she had made a habit of carrying with her, and passed the scroll to the foreman with a nod that portrayed considerably more vigor than she actually felt. It wasn’t until she had walked the distance back to the hastily constructed lean-to cabin that had been her temporary home for the last few days that she allowed herself to slouch.
Something is fishy about all this. I know Harris. I was educated alongside that nosey little bastard; he’s smart, but he’s not the sort of person who’d really be capable of just creating something like this, especially not in such an off-the-cuff way.
He knows something.
Or someone.
Or something about someone.
She paused for a moment to chuckle at her own thoughts. What in the hells am I thinking? Harris? Extorting info from people? A noodle could be more intimidating. Besides, there aren’t that many other architects, and I know exactly zero who’d let another person hog all the credit. Next thing I know, I’ll be saying that The Witch-Prince is making those blue prints, or that pigs fly, or something else equally absurd . . .
Not that any of that really matters right now. . .
Arwia watched the woods for a moment, carefully wiling the minutes by. Her contact had said this week, at around midday, but time was rapidly passing and she had yet to so much as see this particular person.
Er. . . person might be a bit of a stretch. Perhaps. . . ‘Individual’ might be a better phrase, she thought, as she carefully tended the fire and threw a small satchel of ground coffee into the pot to boil. I forget her name, but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. I mean, how many horses can a single person run into in a single day?
“Looking for me?”
Ah.
Arwia turned around slowly, both to carefully remove any surprise from her face and to not worry the . . . informant.
“Hello,” Arwia said, coolly, into the forest.
Where in the hells is this one?
“You’re looking in the wrong direction, but that’s not really important. What is, however, is that I happen to know some important information. Do you happen to have the payment?” the voice from the forest asked, gravelly, before coughing violently for a few seconds.
In reply, Arwia withdrew a small cylinder from her bag and shook it; it was a hefty price for information, she knew, but if the king had been willing to parley with. . . whoever this was, even indirectly, it was far above her pay-grade to refuse.
“Open the container and show me that the contents are in order.”
Arwia grit her teeth as she did so, and it was with great vexation that she unraveled the scroll and revealed a copy of the windmill diagram to the unseen speaker.
Well. It looked like a copy, at least.
A moment passed where the invisible informant mumbled some words under her breath. Then, finally, there was a short cough, and she said, “That seems to match expectations. Toss the scroll to me and I’ll-”
“Like hell. Tell me what we need to know, then you get the scroll.”
There was an uneasy moment as both of them considered the pros and cons of how the next few moments could go. Arwia was finding, with each passing silent moment, greater and greater regret in only bringing a throwing dagger, and the informant was realizing, perhaps, it wouldn’t be wise to irk a human while in human territory.
The full extent of their deliberation took a few minutes, before both realized that, frankly, neither had a winning hand and both were in no position to really argue over something that’d inevitably end with both getting what they wanted to some extent.
“Here,” the unseen speaker finally said, breaking the silence, before a small parcel was chucked towards Arwia’s feet.
Arwia opened the package, read the note, and cracked a grin.
Simple.
“Now, the blueprints. Toss them into the. . .” a few seconds of violent hacking passed before the informant was able to continue, “. . . into the forest.”
A simple baton throw later, and Arwia was happily humming as she started the long walk back to Akkadia.
Perfect.
And the note, carefully tucked into her pocket, simply read:
27th. Meeting of Unicorns. Near the Everfree edge/fort.
“Well, this could hardly have gone better,” Whiskey muttered to himself, as he finished reading Mercy’s note. “A lot quicker than I would’ve expected a three-legged pony to go about doing things, though . . .”
That ‘three legged pony’, as you so eloquently called her, is your friend. You know, the one who, in all likelihood, saved your dumb life when you collapsed from whatever sickness you had? The same pony who made sure you, drunk as a monkey, got back to the fort when you wandered off that one time? Seriously, can you stop thinking of ponies, ponies who are your friends, no less, as pawns? Or are you always going to be like this, Whiskey?
Whiskey sighed as he slowly sank his face into his hooves; the horrid little voice that worked in the background of his mind, constantly judging, always made itself heard. It would never pay attention to his justifications, on why, yes, he had to divorce from personal relationships when constructing these sorts of ideas: after all, his rationalization went, one can’t afford to think of individual soldiers when fighting a war. Same principle applies here, too. . .
Not that the excuses helped alleviate the pings of pain on Whiskey’s conscience. Everyone was a critic, even himself.
Especially himself.
His hoof wandered, on its own accord, to the bottom shelf of his desk. Slowly, hesitantly, as if it were weary of getting caught and punished, it slid the drawer open and withdrew a clear bottle filled with an amber liquid. It was at this point his mind became conscious of what he was holding, and with a raised eyebrow he considered the liquor.
“No time like the present to celebrate,” he eventually grumbled, circling to face the door as he bit off the bottle’s stopper off and spat it to the ground. “What’s the worst that could-”
Happen, Whiskey finished in thought, as the door to his study slammed open. He reflexively dropped the bottle, and when it shattered upon the ground his sorrow was comparable only to a grieving widow’s. And then he was confronted by a close up image of Staunch’s face, which, unfortunately, is not something one should be forced to endure without the considerable power of alcohol.
Whiskey nearly tumbled out of his chair, his legs getting caught with each other as he tried to rise to attention.
“What in Tartarus do you think you’re doing?” Staunch bellowed, glancing from the shattered bottle to Whiskey’s face.
“At this particular juncture, sir? Mourning the loss of a good malt,” Whiskey said in dead seriousness, his face still somewhat forlorn from this deprivation.
“You’re late for wall duty,” Staunch said in a gravely tone, after spending a moment giving Whiskey an uncomprehending look.
“What are you talking about?” Whiskey said, taken aback. “That’s tomorr. . . oh. Oh.”
Well, that’s a first, Whiskey thought to himself. Late for duty? What would your mam say? Well, besides throw the book at you? And possibly the entire bookshelf? Well, admittedly, she’d have done that regardless, since she was honestly a bit of a terror, but that’s beside the point. . .
Staunch’s eyes softened for a moment, before he growled, in a far more sympathetic tone, “You forgot to take your petrification into account, didn’t you? A day of yours is gone.”
Whiskey groaned for a moment as he mulled over the issue; he hadn’t been on wall duty for a while, if only to solidify Remedy’s belief in the curative properties of granite, but to first complain about being cooped up in a hospital room and about being under constant supervision, only to completely forget the one time where he could just stretch his legs and just think about where to plan this great big project of his without someone tagging along like an over-insistent nanny . . . the actual mistiming was merely embarrassing, true, but the shame of blundering like this on such an important topic . . .
Whiskey raised a hoof to his forehead and sighed angrily.
“It’s just a drill, really. . .” Staunch said, clearly trying to relax his voice, and achieving, with great effort, the softness of sandpaper. “I could take your shift for today if you still don’t feel good,” he continued, clearly misunderstanding the reason behind Whiskey’s consternation.
“No! No, I just . . . don’t like being off. You understand, surely? Be fine for the most part, but flub the time where you’re needed. . . Yeah,” Whiskey said, glancing at the ground to hide the self-loathing that he was certain would be betrayed in his eyes, “I’ll get right to it, Captain. Sorry.” He took a few steps to the door before his path was blocked by Staunch.
“Hey, it’s not your fault Mercy got hurt. No one could’ve predicted what could’ve happened, and, by the Alicorns, Whiskey, you were stoned for that particular misadventure! Er. I mean-”
“I know what you mean, Captain.”
“And enough of that ‘Captain’ nonsense! We’ve been friends since we were colts; I’m just Staunch.”
There was a lull in conversation as Staunch glanced at the significant pile of tile-mushrooms stacked in the corners, and he stared at Whiskey for a moment, who simply shrugged.
“And how about we eat together, all of us, like the old days?”
“Half of us are gone, Staunch.”
“Just means we have to be together all the more.”
Whiskey opened his mouth to reply with something like ‘I’ve got some work to do, but maybe next time’. He had long since determined that was what he would say, if this situation should ever come up. Thus, it was to his great surprise that he instead said, “I’ll see you all after my shift.”
For a brief moment, Whiskey considered recanting his promise, but the thought swiftly withered into ash when he saw the grin on Staunch’s face.
Just like old times, eh? I really hope not; most of our little escapades ended rather poorly from what few I remember. . .
And for a moment, as Whiskey exited the rooms and walked towards the walls, a part of the mask cracked, and he smiled briefly despite himself.
***
There were just some odors that are good to have around: the gentle baked-good sweetness of cinnamon-rolls, the savory smell of spaghetti, or, to some ponies, the sharp clean smell of crushed mint. Everypony has their own preferences, of course, but there was no denying that sometimes, there’s just a rightness about a particular aroma.
For Ginger, that was, well, the rather pungent tang of freshly grated ginger. There was no real reason behind it, no subtle nuance in her life that compelled her to grind a little chunk of the plant every day to maintain optimal scent saturation; it just smelled good to her, and frankly, no pony really complained about it.
Well, no pony except Mercy. She thinks I don’t notice her tone of voice or the way she looks at my food, Ginger thought, as she calmly withdrew a bulb from her pantry. I wonder if I should break it to her that I had, instead, used Turmeric in the last dish. Her head would probably explode from that revelation; I think she actually tastes spices that aren’t there. . .
The only noise in the entire house, besides the muffled snoring of Mercy somewhere back in the guest-room, was the gentle crunching of Ginger shredding the plant. And even that ceased, as Ginger dropped the grater with a click into the sink.
I’ll have to clean this soon, won’t I? She thought, as she grimaced at the built up pile of dirty dishes. She spent a moment simply measuring the sink, before finally shaking her head and heading towards the communal watering hole, snagging a couple of buckets as she left the kitchen. She spared a glance at the backpack that was resting on the table, something of a discussion piece when Ms. Neato had visited while Mercy was off walking around town, before trotting past it blithely.
It was early, that strange time where stars begin to fade yet the sun has yet to appear. Or orange, or whatever abomination of food and nuclear fission Discord had altered the star to. He’d change it back, eventually, when he forgot whatever had made it funny in the first place, just like he had with the moon.
Probably.
One could hope.
Ginger held her breath as she saw the light begin to reach from below the horizon. Surely, today, today the sun would-
Nope. This time it was an onion, shedding sunlight in a manner only possible by preternatural means. Ginger tore her eyes away from the celestial vegetable, her eyelids watering slightly, and continued her walk to the well.
I should’ve, Ginger thought as she hooked one of the buckets to the rope and started spinning the crank, really just let Neato help me with this. Of course, it’s not really right to let visitors do chores around the house.
She tugged the first bucket free, placing it on the ground carefully so it didn’t spill. The second bucket was sent down into the darkness of the well.
And she’s kind of a slob, which means she’d probably be of no help anyway. You’d think, with a name like her’s, she’d learn the basics or something. . .
And then the second bucket was up, and it only took a few minutes for the newly ladened Ginger to trot back to her house.
Where Mercy was frantically looking through her bag.
Ginger spared her agitated sister a glance before sliding past the mumbling pony into the kitchen. She glanced once more at the pile of dishes, sighed, and started to work, carefully using the water she had so she wouldn’t have to make a second trip.
The worst part is the brush, Ginger thought as she scrubbed with the afore-thought-of instrument. I always get a crook in my neck when I use the darn thing. She dipped the brush into a bucket, swirled it around for a moment to get loose bits of food off it, and craned her neck to continue her cleaning. A few moments passed, and gradually Ginger unconsciously settled into a routine, blithely ignorant of the growing desperation in the next room over.
Until a scream of absolute rage rang through the house, and a saddle bag was hurled from the living room into the kitchen. The sack, barely in one piece after the savage assault Mercy had levied at it, hit a wall and exploded. Papers fluttered in every direction.
The effect, however, was rather spoiled when Mercy, in the process of walking into the kitchen, caught a loose bit of paper with her false leg and slipped.
“Are you alrigh-” Ginger began, but she took a surprised half-step back when she saw Mercy’s expression.
Slowly, like some terrible creature from a bygone era, Mercy arose, twitching slightly. Her eyes, bloodshot, looked on the verge of murder, and the countenance on her face was something that only a mad artist could ever hope to replicate, and even then only when particularly unhinged.
“What happened to my stuff?” Mercy seethed, her words bubbling out in a nearly incoherent mess even when she was able to force her mind to function beyond a high-pitched keening rage. “You. Your friend. My saddlebag. Where. Is. My. Stuff?”
Ginger blinked for a moment before her mind assembled the garbled noises into words, and blinked again as she stared down at Mercy’s wooden leg, which was now pressing against where Ginger’s breast met her throat. She looked up at Mercy and raised an eyebrow.
“You’re going to calm down right now, Mercy. No pony is going to hurt you . . . unless you don’t get your leg away from my throat. Then we might have some problems.”
Mercy stared at Ginger for a few moments, her eyes bleary and slightly confused as she stared first at Ginger and then at her false-leg. Then, slowly, Mercy’s eyes focused, and she retracted her wooden leg carefully, a look of shame clear on her face.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”
“You were angry and irritated. I’ll live, so everything’s fine. You said a paper was missing? How about we both look for it?”
“I think I checked pretty thoroughly earlier . . .”
“Well, then this is nothing more than an excuse for you to help me pick up your garbage. It’ll give you a second chance to look over everything, at least.”
“But-”
“You live in my house and, even if it’s with great reluctance, eat my food. You’re helping me pick this up, now.”
***
“. . .and that, evidently, is how bats and dolphins see in the dark,” Selim finished, his arm tired after gesticulating wildly for several minutes from crudely drawn diagram to crudely drawn diagram.
Bilgames, to give him credit, was trying to look attentive. His eyes, however, had started to droop comically by the end of the lecture.
“Interesting, Selim. However. . . this . . . ‘echolocation,’ as you call it. . . why’d you bother telling me about it?” Bilgames shifted his weight in his seat slightly, with the same look of unease that always followed Selim suddenly, and enthusiastically, talking about a subject no one had any knowledge about.
“Hey, you said you wanted to know if I had any recent visions, and I told you the most recent.”
“But it’s frankly not useful at all.” Bilgames paused for a moment, then smirked as an opportunity for teasing came up. “Much like your visions as a whole, actually. . .”
“Excuse me?” Selim shot back, incredulously. “Crossbows, anatomy, trebuchets, learning how fire and lightning aren’t the same thing at all, and how people need to wash their damned hands before treating sick or injured people; you’re calling my visions useless?” By the end of his list, Selim appeared on the verge of either hyperventilating or bursting an artery.
“True, true. But what have they done for us recently?” Bilgames replied, with a barely concealed smirk.
“Oh, so now the windmill is no longer recent?” Selim paused for a moment, reading Bilgames’ expression carefully. ”. . . you’re trying to get a rise out of me, aren’t you?”
“No, no, of course not, that’d be immature and wholly unprofessional,” Bilgames’ said, with a goofy grin that was the very definition of immature.
“. . .”
“Okay, that was a barefaced lie. I can’t help that it’s fun to heckle you.”
“Was there anything you wanted, or did you come here simply to torture me?” Selim asked, sighing.
“Well then, straight to business then. I need you to take care of two things for me; firstly, bury some magical artifacts-” Bilgames started, before being cut off by Selim.
“They’re reactive, aren’t they?”
“Most of them are simply stone, brother. I mean, one is most certainly reactive-” Bilgames tried, again, before the inevitable interruption.
“You’re going to be the death of me one day, you realize that?” Selim interjected. He breathed deeply to continue on his tangent, before, Bilgames, looking slightly worn, cut him off.
“Shut up and let me finish. I want these things buried as far away from here as you can comfortably wander. The second thing is that I want you to look at another artifact Uruk got us, a tunic, and see if you can fine-tune the magical effect.”
“Wait. You want me. . .” he paused to let Bilgames speak.
“Yes?”
“The fire and lightning thrower of the family. . .” again, there was a pause from Selim.
Bilgames’ expression of irritation was nearly priceless to Selim, and the younger brother grinned when, yet again, he spotted it on Bilgames’ face. “Look, Selim, just spit it out if you want to say something.”
“Fine, fine. You want me to try and fine-tune something Uruk made? I’m relatively certain, just from what I’ve heard thus far from this batch, that if I so much as sneeze at it, this magic tunic of yours will catch on fire. And I’m not exactly that good at controlling what I do. . .” Selim gestured for a moment, before continuing with, “I basically do lightning, fire, and moving things. I’m not so hot on the actual magic bit; best I can do is warp already existent fields, but even then, a hard push does mostly the same thing . . . albeit not to the extent I can do it, but still. I’d probably destroy this garment of yours.”
“Luckily, it’s resistant to most types of harm; it stitches itself back together.”
“Oh.” Selim gave it some thought, before asking, “Is that the primary effect?”
“Absolutely not.”
Selim rested his chin on his hand for a moment, looking contemplative. Finally, after roughly ten seconds of silence, he spoke.
“Ah, the primary effect must be where it launches a pair of hidden blades into my eyes.”
“Quit your whining.”
“I can’t help but notice you didn’t refute my point.”
“Just trust me, Selim. I’m not going to put you in a situation you can’t get out of. Worst case scenario, I’ll probably get as hurt as you.”
There was a moment of silence as both brothers thought about that particular statement. Both came to the same conclusion; it utterly failed to be reassuring.
“Frankly, Bill, that’s not exactly how I want to die.”
“And here I thought you were such a death seeker,” Bilgames said, sarcastically.
“Well, there’s a hell of a lot better ways to go then ‘die next to dying family member’.”
“True enough.”
“As a matter of fact, I can think of one right now. It’s called ‘old age.’”
“Look, if you sincerely don’t want to help, you don’t have to. But I’d appreciate it if you did.”
“. . . fine. Any order you want this done with? I mean, I personally would love to go for a walk, seeing as how I should’ve been discharged about a week ago. . .”
“Well then, first take care of the reactive artifacts. Gods forsaken things might kill us all if we don’t dispose of them soon. . .”
“Delightful. And then the tunic?”
“And then the tunic.”
***
Neato.
Mercy didn’t recollect that name from her childhood; they must’ve been a new family that moved in, after she joined the military.
Strange. If one were going to become a thief or a spy, there would have to be better locations to go than a backwoods little village like this one, she thought as she advanced upon the house carefully. This logically doesn’t make any sense. Though . . . I can’t say I expect much in the manner of brains from a pony like this; left a trail a mile wide, to say the least.
Still, a degree of prudence had been trained into Mercy; discretion was the better part of valor, in these situations, and if her lack of haste were any indication, she didn’t envy the idea of dealing with a cornered and desperate traitor.
For a brief moment, she pondered aloud, “Why don’t I grab a couple of others? Storm this place in force?”
And just as quickly, she shook her head.
Might be others in town, and even if there aren’t other traitors, I don’t really enjoy the potential for frontier justice, she thought as she crept closer to the ramshackle building. And who knows? This might be a simple, funny mistake.
A simply, funny mistake where somepony decided to rifle through my bag and procured a, in all likelihood, incredibly vital document, before fleeing the scene of the crime back to his or her house. Yeah, something tells me that’s not the case.
A moment passed before she made a slight addendum to her thoughts.
Assuming I didn’t just forget the dratted letter somehow back at the hospital. That’d be really embarrassing.
She paused before the doors, and hesitantly raised a hoof to knock, the ‘Crack Pot Incident’, as it was to be remembered for the rest of her life, still fresh in her mind. Finally, with more reluctance than was typical, she rapped the door sharply three times and waited for a reply.
It came in to the form of whooping hacks and coughs.
Mercy waited a few seconds for the noise to subside, and then several more when it didn’t.
“. . . Hello?” said a Stallion’s voice from within, as scratchily as sandpaper. “I really can’t get up right now to answer the door. Sorry.”
“Oh. Uh, is Neato home? Or did I get the wrong house?”
“Neato? You mean . . .” it took him a moment to regain his voice after this particular bout of hacking, “you mean Incog? Yeah, no, she’s not here right now; I think she’s out . . . doing something. I . . . dunno what, really.”
“Damn,” Mercy muttered under her breath. Then her brow furrowed in confusion.
“Who are you, then?”
“Cobbler, her brother. She’s visiting me cause I got Pneum-”
Both his own illness and Mercy interrupted him.
“Do you know when she’ll be back?”
“Dunno.”
“Alright, thanks for your cooperation. I’m sure you’ll get better soon.”
Mercy shook her head sadly as she departed.
What sort of luck is that? Well. . . if she’s around because her brother is ill, she’s probably not going to be around for much longer; maybe for the funeral, but otherwise . . . I almost feel sorry for her . . .
And then the righteous surge of anger returned . . .
. . . if she hadn’t stolen my stuff! When I get my hooves on her . . .
. . . only to swiftly depart.
. . . I probably don’t know what I’ll do with her. I don’t really know anything about this, do I? Spying for either the Chancellor, the Unicorn Princess, or even the Pegasi Commander isn’t exactly traitorous behavior; sneaky, spy-like, and definitely uncaring, yes, but not really traitorous . . .
How’d I get embroiled in all this, anyway?
She shook her head for a moment, and considered her options.
One, I can assume the best case scenario and go on my merry way. Unacceptable, that’s a terrible idea. Two, I could assume the worst, wait for her, and be incapable of stopping whatever she’s going to do while definitely stopping her. Unacceptable; can’t leave my friends in a lurch like that. Three, I could try and get Crack Pot to . . . okay, I’m not even going to finish that thought, because it’s already unacceptable. Finally, I think, I could probably get back to the fort in time if I started going now; plus, I can probably get Ginger to stick around and watch over this . . . Neato.
Almost imperceptibly, Mercy nodded to herself, before heading back to Ginger’s house.
There was a lot of packing to do, after all.
***
And this goes there, but turned perpendicular to this . . . Whiskey thought to himself, arranging a series of differently hued (and hewed) rocks into a haphazard circle, a series of symbols dug into the earth being his only indication of where to place each stone.
Wait. Eclipse’s Second Law of Thaumological Progression means . . . ah, Tartarus. It’s backwards!
Needless to say, it wasn’t going as smoothly as he would’ve preferred.
“I wish complex magic like this didn’t need so many prerequisites,” he grumbled angrily, his horn glowing again and rearranging the stones yet again into a marginally more correct set.
Of course, it really doesn’t. But even with a few associates, this is amongst the highest level sort of magic imaginable. And I don’t think, even if we had the luxury of a hundred Unicorns, we’d have enough energy to simply power through the spell, murmured a quiet yet logical voice in the back of his head. And, worst of all, we’ve only got one chance to get this right; I am loath to think about what Discord would do if he were to find out what we are doing . . .
He couldn’t help it, once he thought that. A moment was spent speculating.
Then several more, as beads of cold sweat formed on his back.
It doesn’t bear thinking about, he thought to himself, in an attempt to banish the thoughts back into nothingness. He won’t find out, and even if he does register anything out of the ordinary, well, there’s a good reason I’m getting set up so near to Everfree . . .
Does he even know what ‘ordinary’ even is? Ah, cease with the tangential thinking, you just etched Flitters’ Sub-Infinite Equation of Exponential Magic rather than her Theorem of Linear Decline. Focus before you make a mistake you won’t live to regret.
Finally, hours later, he collapsed against one of the larger stones, his breathing heavy yet clearly tinged with a significant amount of elation. In turn, Whiskey’s eyes flicked from boulders to rocks to stones that bordered on being pebbles, carefully judging the size and color of each as well as the symbols that had been carved into them.
That should help with the channeling, he thought to himself, as he busily gulped in air like a dying fish. I’ll need to maintain it, make sure pieces don’t get broken or lost, but that should be most of the heavy lifting out of the way.
Slowly, irresistibly, Whiskey felt drowsiness tug at his eyelids, and his lips twitched upwards for a moment as he thought, Yes. Enough for today; I’ll just take a quick nap, and I’ll just kip over to the fort before anyone notices I’m gone . . .
I wonder if this is what it feels like to be a part of something bigger than yourself? Goodness . . . I hope they’re willing to look past our issues. I mean, they should be able to; I just can’t . . . really comprehend the idea that Alicorns could possibly have ill will towards us. I mean, they made us, didn’t they . . .?
Whiskey’s surprisingly restful sleep was filled with winged Unicorns, and it would be with a start he’d wake up, hours later, quite late for Wall duty. . .
***
“Damnable trinkets,” Selim grunted, shrugging his load, a ladened backpack, as he advanced further into the forest. There’s always one in particular, Selim thought to himself, which always, always, digs into my back. . .
A few more moments were spent cheerlessly shifting his burden in a fruitless attempt to somehow rearrange the contents enough where the unknown spiny object in question would cease to irritate him.
Finally, with a sigh, he stopped in his trek, took off the bag, reached inside, and withdrew the only non-stone amulet. He spent a few minutes simply staring at it, watching the light reflect off the ruby segments, before carelessly chucking it behind himself and continuing onwards, now significantly more cheerful considering a chunk of metal and crystal was no longer stabbing him with every step.
It likely won’t matter that much in the grand scale of things, anyway, Selim figured, as he tremblingly pushed aside a curtain of brambles and ivy from a cave entrance with his gauntlet. Gods, I wish I could stop the twitching when I manipulate that hand . . .
It was, however, but a passing thought, and he slowly trudged down into the cave proper, towards the crystalline tree deep within.
I wish I knew how this thing formed in the first place . . . it’s not using . . . photography? No, no, the word was . . . photosynthesis? Something like that. There’s no sunlight in this place, so it clearly uses something else for energy. Maybe it eats magic? It doesn’t feel that way, though; if anything, magic is . . . richer, here. Still, it might be leeching off the magic objects I’ve been burying here; damned tree used to be made out of wood, and since Ol’ Coup himself would probably have some issues trying to find this place, I don’t think he could’ve made this thing the way it is now . . .
The bag was tossed to the earth, where it flattened into almost pancake-like dimensions silently. Selim, not noticing this, took a hand-spade from his belt and dug for perhaps ten minutes before nodding with satisfaction at the hole.
It was only as he poked through the clearly empty bag that doubt and fear percolated in his mind, and as he frantically searched throughout the entire chamber an icy sweat formed on his spine.
“Okay, okay, this isn’t too bad,” Selim muttered to himself, as he slowly patted down the backpack. “Basically still got the same job done. Yeah. Yeah, let’s . . . let’s just go with that. Magical items are gone, so it all works out.”
He thought about the implications for a moment, and whimpered softly as he realized what this job’s completion entailed.
“I don’t want to start messing with that tunic . . .”
He turned away from the tree, breathing heavily from both guilt and fear, utterly failing to notice in his haste to depart, hanging from the branches like ripe fruit, ornate crystals in the shape of the granite stones . . .
An elderly, corpulent Earth pony stared from heavily armored Pegasi to the clearly scholarly Unicorn uneasily; while, yes, the times of pony conflict had ended at least a century ago, well . . . it was simplest to say that while forgiveness and friendship had formed between the various races at large, forgetfulness from the three leading families was rare, even for a conflict that had been resolved for centuries.
Besides, the Commander and Princess were arguing, which is never a good sign; invariably, they’d try to drag him into it, and the only thing he really was in the mood to be dragged into was a buffet . . .
As one, the Pegasi and the Unicorn turned their glares from each other to her, and the only noise the Chancellor could hear besides her own juddering heartbeat was her unconscious, uneasy, swallow of air.
“Well?” the Unicorn asked, impatiently.
Distinctly, even for her failing eye sight, the Chancellor noted the . . . slight uptick to the Commander’s eyes.
“I’m afraid I lost track of the conversation-” the Chancellor paused as the Commander’s eye twitched once, twice, then finally rolled dramatically, almost perfectly in sync with the Unicorn’s sigh, “-between you both recommending I draft even more of my ponies into a conflict that hardly even affects them in the first place, the recent war between the Griffons and the Zebras, and the inevitable argument that spawned when the both of you decided the other wasn’t pulling their weight in border defense.”
Her words, dry and caustic though they were, were quickly brushed aside as two-thirds of the Oligarchy degenerated back into arguments. She sighed for a moment, grimacing as she slowly came to the realization that, even with the individual deaths of previous members, the confrontational attitude would always be present. It had been so with the previous Commander and Prince/Princess, it would likely be so with everypony’s descendants, and eventually they, Commander and Princess alike, would argue themselves into an early grave. The Chancellors, of course, would rapidly become deafer with each ensuing generation, if only as a coping mechanism.
This must’ve been what mother was talking about, when she was still alive, she thought to herself, darkly, as both the Princess and the Commander metaphorically went after each other’s throats.
This somber realization was almost happily dismissed when, while in a fit of rage, the Commander knocked aside a teapot with a careless wing. The porcelain exploded against the wall in, not tea, which would’ve been expected, but instead confetti and marshmallows.
The three ponies, stared at the pile for a moment, processing what they had just observed. The Chancellor was the first to speak.
“Oh Tartarus . . .” she muttered under her breath
“Language, my rotund little pony,” the marshmallows said, opening and closing like a two dimensional mouth. They sharpened after a moment into fanged teeth, before sardonically muttering, “Well, most rotund, I suppose; the only things you magnificent leaders must have liberated are the larders . . .”
Spiraling out from the marshmallow jaws, a Draconequus emerged, a self-satisfied grin literally plastered on his face.
The Commander rose from his chair, wings flared, several small metallic glints hidden within his feathers hinting that he had decidedly ignored, perhaps unwisely, the ‘no weapons’ ruling for this meeting. This was in almost perfect antithesis to the Chancellor, who, feeling that pragmatism was the better part of valor, rather unheroically dived underneath the table for this particular issue to pass. The Princess, in some unconscious effort to be in median with both parties, continued to sit; only the slight glowing of her horn betrayed any sort of consternation she felt.
It took a moment for Discord to peel the paper-mache smile off, but the smirk that its removal revealed was, if anything, even more disconcerting.
“Oh, delightful! A couple of heroes. I haven’t had the pleasure of dealing with anypo- . . . anything. . . stupid enough to try and harm me in the last, oh. . .” Discord tapped his jaw for a moment, bemusement flitting across his face as he slowly started counting out on his fingers, before finally shrugging and asking, “What month is it?”
A second Discord, this one wearing some sort of demented white rabbit costume with matching waistcoat and pocket-watch, burst from the doorway that lead into the meeting room. Without pause, he ran headlong into the glass window that overlooked a significant drop.
Distantly, as beautifully tinted glass tinkled all around them, all the parties present in the meeting heard this second Discord shout, “Oh dear, oh dear! I shall be too late!”
The first Discord grimaced as, on the edge of perception, a distant splat was heard, before muttering, “That stung. Stings. Will sting?”
A smile swiftly grew across his face a moment later, however, as he realized something aloud.
“Ah, yes, now I remember; it’s been . . . an admittedly short while since anything has bothered trying to, well, bother me. Do you two wish to tr-” he said, before stopping himself as he noticed the empty spaces where there was once a Pegasus and a Unicorn. He grumbled some incoherent words angrily, most of which sounded similar to the phrase ‘boring’, before casually turning most of the room into toffee in an effort to vent. Chaos done, he disappeared in a pop of watermelon scented fog.
Perhaps half a minute passed, before finally the Chancellor felt it was safe enough to relinquish her uncooperative equals and stagger upright from beneath the table, pausing only to grimace at the off-putting noise her hooves made when stepping in and out of the slightly sticky candy-substance that was now the meeting room’s floor.
A moment passed before she realized, much to her chagrin, that she was the only pony to actually rise from underneath the table. Half anticipating, half reluctantly, she glanced under the furniture, before groaning when she found both ponies out cold, a hoofprint that was inexplicably identical to her own on both of their faces.
“It’s going to be a very long day . . .” the Chancellor murmured, before unceremoniously dragging the mysteriously unconscious Unicorn and Pegasus out of the room (and if luck was on her side, it’d remain mysterious as to the cause of their sudden departure from land of the conscious), making a mental note to berate both of the younger ponies on why, exactly, one doesn’t openly try to assault a god.
When they wake up. Which, based on how poorly this evening is going thus far, is going to take a while.
