> Crystal heart
>  by A pensive Squirrel
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> The choices we make
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“How about the underclasses, how do they like this new vision of yours?”

The stallion tweaked his crown of chrome and looked away from the imposing figure before him. 

The other shadow cast in the grand hall was an alicorn, a being of near mythic appearance. His coat was a cool blue and the miscolouring of white patches made him look rather odd. It struck the tentative stallion as strange that a coat so innocent could wrap a body so mean, and devilish.  He was a visitor to the court of the Diamond Kingdom, and he was not received warmly. His intrusion was unexpected. Sombra eyed his patient bodyguard and bade him to leave.

“Pretorias, the Emperor and I have delicate issues to discuss. Watch the chambers of the queen while I take care of things here.”

The cobalt blue unicorn bent to the will of the king and hurried for the checkerboard hallway, up the endless flights of stairs.

“We were done, Salem, makes no sense flogging a…”	

“We are far from done, Empyrean. Your barbaric law will not pass here.”

“Why must you resist my intentions? I am making these fractured provinces into something workable and you are constantly opting out. Yours is the only kingdom not in my dominion. My baby sister will be royally appalled at this.”

Being an alicorn, it was no wonder that Empyrean was a relative of the princesses. They had lent him something for this attachment, a blind eye, and this attitude wouldn’t change.  He was once a king just like Salem, but now Empyrean answers to no pony, and his greed was thorough and indistinct.

“Your sisters should have known not trust you. You’ve thrown the rights of the citizens to the dogs and now you wish to take my people too? I will not be assimilated like this, and that is my last word on the matter.”

Empyrean raised a wing and inspected the blade-like feathers that dressed every baby-blue inch of his plumage. He scoffed at the king on the modest wooden throne and made appear before his majesty, a foal, too cold to move.

“You no doubt have heard of the thieving rackets that have been forming lately? They are robbing blind the people and so their punishment should fit.”

“Thoughtless aggression will not solve this!”

Sombra refuted. He slammed his steely hoof onto the slattern old throne arm.

“What have you brought into my court, more of your tyranny? This must stop. You are damaging families, damaging pony faiths and you are convicting foals!”

“They will be treated as mares and stallions. This is the age of equality after all.”

“They are poor and starving. They only take what they need.”

Sombra noticeably riled by the insulting sultan, vanished into the mist produced by his horn and emerged muzzle to muzzle with Empyrean.

“Is this the example you wish to make, Elijah? You would see innocent, weak children confined? They have done no ill, only surviving. “

“You say they are innocent, whiter than white? Remove the tinted specs Salem, they are breaking the law.”

“Not my law!”

“So you do not police larceny of any kind?”

“That is not my ruling. I run an open court here. When ponies are suspected of crime then they are stood before me and I have the final word on their sanction, if any.”

Empyrean sneered at the trembling foal, still too frozen to move. He lifted his broad hoof and pressed down upon the child until the struggle was feverish and the breathing more so.

“This inaction reflects badly upon my empire, Salem. Imagine a world where the ponies that work for their keep and pay their taxes are rewarded with safe streets. They could leave their homes unlocked. Ideally, the petty thieves will be shipped off to the warfront and not clog up the prisons.”

“They steal because they have no other means, no other way to get by. We did this, me and you, we did this to them. This is our fault, old friend, for they have no kin to return home to. Do they even have roofs over their heads?”

“Homeless urchins are lazy! They should work for the bits they need, not take them. That is my stance on this ridiculous…”

Sombra’s crooked horn glowed with an intense purple hue. It swirled and grew on the tapered tip until the maelstrom broke apart and the emperor stumbled backwards, his cheek guard all frayed and sooty.

“We wronged them, Elijah. We made all of this pain possible.”

“How dare you?”

He snarled, his own horn dancing with light.

“Their parents would have just been numbers. I say we did this, but you did this all on your own, and you continue to do so. They have no one to go home to because you are a warmonger and their parents rot in unmarked graves. Any that lived were maimed, unable to work, to hoe, to earn. The foals of my kingdom will not be prosecuted. We will provide them with places to stay at night, as we have done in the past, and we will not bow to your will. Is that under…?”

A flash of light so bright it dizzied the king was summoned from the darkest night horn of Empyrean. Shaken by the collision, Sombra crawled from the splintered slats of his throne and fell back on his belly, awkwardly sprawled.

“If you are not with me…”

“I must be your enemy…  Is that it?”

Sombra said as he gasped for air.

“You will not have your way, bastard. My stallions will defend this realm. They are stronger than a thousand of your toys, for they have hearts. Yours have lacked that for years now. That is why… You won’t, you can’t win.”

Empyrean levitated the barely breathing foal; one blackened by the coal coke choke of the factories, and held her precariously by the neck.

“Your kindness is misguided, old friend.”

Empyrean chuckled. His intense amethyst aura became violent with flecks of blood red.

“If you are unwilling to be reasonable and sensible, and just accept my offer, then I have no further use for your friendship. If truly you want to make me a foe, then consider this…”

“Your heartless machines will fail. They’ll rust and fall apart.”

Sombra coughed in the corner where his throne used to be. He saw the anguish on the foal’s muzzle as the cruel emperor twisted her around like a pretzel.

“Leave the child out of this! Your hatred is misguided. If you wish to destroy, then start with me. But know that my people will rise and they will dethrone you.”

Empyrean ignored the flawed breathing noises of the King and turned the foal’s head a little more in his demonic clutches. The little neck clicked, then cracked, and the light quickly drained from the foal’s once bright turquoise eyes.

“If you oppose me, then this will befall…”

Empyrean threatened but his speech was cut short.

Sombra slung a harness of magic around the dying foal and the little thing began to dissolve into the ether. As she became one with the spell, the coating of soot flaked off of her, revealing the terrified filly beneath.
“I will protect them until I draw my last breath!”

Sombra parted his legs as something resisted his magic. He shut his eyes to focus; he shut out the world in some farfetched hope that he would overcome his opponent. Alas, his opponent was a greater sorcerer than he by the virtue of birth. Alicorn magic knew no limits, and when wielded in anger, it was highly unpredictable.

“That can be arranged, Salem!”

Empyrean boasted with glee.

“My armies will eliminate anything and anyone who stands before them. I have warned you time and time again, I don’t make jokes. I don’t make empty threats either.”

The filly appeared back in Empyrean’s damning grip. He twisted her around as if opening a jar. Her eyes bled and soon so did her snout. Tears mixed with blood but the trembling was weak, she wasn’t moving at all.

“You have forced my hoof, Salem. If we cannot corroborate, then let this be my declaration of war!”

He meant only to snap the foal’s neck. That was not the result however. Alicorn magic, when used for evil, is unmistakably unpredictable. What was to be a quiet end was to become a horrific display. Her softest coat of quiet white was a beautiful sight. Her cute little nose had touched Salem’s hoof before she was forced back into the cocoon. Her sweet innocent form bestrewed the court. Her kind heart was no more. Her blood made for nice new paint on the dull walls. Her hair remained suspended in the gloomy arched ceiling of the room and her plush pelt lay in ribbons upon the shiny tiled floor.

Sombra dared gaze from the safety of his ruined throne. What he saw made his legs weak, and his mind break. He nearly passed out as he looked down at his hoof, covered almost entirely in the congealing remains of the filly. He fought back the vomit but it was a pesky child, wanting to break from its crib.

Empyrean was unfazed. He looked happy. His wicked smile pierced the moment as he stared down the King. Around that smile was blood and lots of it. Empyrean ran his snakiest tongue along his face and licked away the mess. He licked his lips for good measure.

“Salem. We once were friends. You wish not for your kingdom’s kindred children to be arrested? Fine, then you will watch as they all die!”

Sombra held his head for the pain that wretchedly plagued him.

“Now, where is that Queen of yours? Your guard went to watch her, that’s right, the one with the hogged mane.”
“You won’t get past Pretorias…”

“I don’t plan to. I’ll go through him if I have to.”

“Why are you doing this, Elijah? We used to justly run this place, now look at us.”

Dark crepuscular embers shot from Empyrean’s eyes and a bolt of pure evil split through the court, throwing the King back into his throne. Whatever beams of chiseled wood remained snapped under the Salem's weight as he fell back to Earth, spittle collecting on his exposed tongue. 

“I will tear out your crystal heart…”

> Kingly Errands
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

One thousand or so years before the inauguration of the Princess of friendship, the lands of Equestria were governed by monarchs and despots. Sombra was a king who hated his riches, hated the servants and mares in waiting, and pretty much everything he was given. This grand Mustang was made popular by his unsurpassed moral fortitude.

He did not antagonise the poor for their worth, he created schemes for them to better provide for their families. He employed the use of dragons for the mining of gems needed for the grand palatial details his daughters demanded. He was a pushover, for sure, but his heart was that of a lion, one that rarely ever roared. 

Speaking of the mines, we join King Sombra as he replies to the worries that surround the subterranean venture.

“I’ve heard some harrumphing in this quadrant. Why? I don’t want a shouting match with you, for I’m far too competitive. Could you please elect a speaker to air this grievance?”

A dusty pickaxe wielding labourer emerged from the bunch picket line. His coat looked grey but it could have been the debris of a job well done. He had an intelligent err about him, as if he was too good for the bed he had made here. He set his pickaxe on the ground and hopped over a stray lantern that nearly had him flat on his partially scarred face.

“Our beef is with the fire-breathers we share these caverns with. They are rude, they stink, and they keep stealing my gosh-darn lunch. My missus makes it special like. All my favourites…”

“And they’re scarfing down the gems like it’s going out of style!”

After hearing the worker’s excuse, Sombra wanted to pull his mane out.

“Have you tried speaking with your co-workers, Mr Umm? Your name, good fellow, what’s your name?”

“Don’t you know your public, son? You know, ponies’ll get mighty grouchy if you don’t fix this. Name’s Caulker, Porter Caulker.”

“Okay, Mr Caulker, have any of your colleagues tried discussing these problems with the aforementioned workers? Surely you could come to an agreement.”

“Yeah, sure, I can just saunter up to one of those cagey blighters and tell ‘em that they wreak of old horse shoes. Don’t make me laugh.”

“Have some respect, good citizen, I am your King. Treat me as such. The smell will cease to be a problem if we enlist help. Remember, it is all down to cooperation. Our community needs to get along and work through any troubles that we may encounter.”

Caulker rolled his eyes and took a second’s recess to bring out his lunchbox, lauding it about as if it were an exhibit in a museum. 

“Darn lizards near ate half my daisy sandwich!”

“I admit boundaries must be set. Do they understand sharing? They are a creature of greed granted, but they are rewarded aptly for their services.”

A labourer from the picket line threw down his mug of lukewarm black coffee and jabbed his hoof at the sundial at the entrance to the tunnels.

“I have foals to feed buddy. I’ve got expenses to handle. Can you hurry it up with the speech already? I need to get more hours in, not less.”

The quiet group around him clamoured in support. They began thrusting their signs to the sky and they demanded a fair deal.

“Can we not accept our reptilian workers as we do our own equine brothers and sisters? They are integral in this operation, as are you. Call a council of the mages, all this needs is a simple shrouding spell.”

Salem paused and gazed back at his shadow, a thin, almost paper thin messenger. He had gold details on his helmet and sandals. He looked to be miles away, and truth be told that was an underestimation.

“Quicksilver, I’m speaking to you my boy. Get the unicorns on side and get this fiasco sorted.”

He whispered to his otherwise on-the-ball emissary.

“Right, a solution is in the works. For now I would ask that you forget your egos at the cave mouth and get on with your jobs. We must all work together good ponies, for progress, and for providence. Also, we have an excellent bonus for whoever locates a vein of moonstone. How my daughters adore the stuff. I have other duties I must attend. I will be sure to speak with the drakes when I get a spare minute.”

Sombra stood still for a moment and watched; waiting with bated breath to see of the workers would break apart their strike and return to task at hand. Gradually the aggrieved returned to the grindstone, each one taking a pickaxe and a lantern in hoof. He saw that all was calm, all was well, so he gave a knowing smile to his audience and left the debacle with his head held high.

The nature of his duty was one he wouldn’t openly share. His eldest, Princess Amber, was still throwing her weight about the palace. She had been sighted speaking with a stallion of low birth and rank. He was an errand colt by all accounts. He had a smug air about him and his eyes seemed too wise for the face that owned them.

As he trotted through the glimmering streets and vales of his wondrous kingdom, Salem couldn’t help but dwell on other issues that flooded his court. There was always uproar about the wars, but these were Elijah’s doing. Some called him a pragmatist, a pioneer. His endless campaign against the southern nests of griffon and the high peaks swarming with changeling pond-scum would make him worldwide known as a megalomaniacal monster.

Salem forced these pointless musings from his mind as he arrived in the howling quarters of his embittered eldest daughter. She was a paler shade of coal than he, more akin to taupe, her mane a manifold of twisting blues and pinks, subtle and enchanting. She been climbed the walls being grounded for an afternoon, but her father wouldn’t clemently coddle her woes.

“Daddy, you promised! You gave me your permission to, what was it, carve my own path? Well? Why were your agents tracking me?”

“Agents, it was an anonymous tip, my Amber.”

Amber climbed from her bed and pouted to no avail, but also to no end. It was clear to the overstressed father that he had given her too much, spoilt her so rotten that the ripe fruit she once was, was now worm-bait, maggot infested and moldy. 

She tilted her head, maybe thinking it would abet her selfish cause. She sat with a huff on her rug imported from Saddle Arabia and blew through her lips making a burbling sound.

“What do you take me for, dad? I may have been besotted with that charming young rogue…”

“Rogue, how do you mean? Are you saying there is unrest in my kingdom? I want to know. Speak girl!”

He bellowed. He emphasised his position on the matter with a hoof waving like he was conducting the orchestra.

“Relax daddy, he’s not part of some plot to overthrow you. In fact, he was asking after you. He wanted to meet you.”

“For what purpose does he seek me? If he wants an audience with me then he can attend the court room along with everyone else. I don’t play favourites, especially with mules I do not trust.”

“Excuse me?”

“Excuse nothing my dear, I will not have a ruffian, a rapscallion uncovering the inner most privacy of my family and my daughter. I am putting my…”

At that moment, a radiant light bleached the dimly lit room. From the doorway an angelic creature walked forth. She was a rare thing in the kingdoms, indeed all of equestria. Her beauty was hard to find, but her breed was on the verge of extinction. Her coat was not fur but a collection of dazzling gems so fine they felt just like it. Sappheire was the last of her kind, the last of a time long forgotten. 

She used her somehow gentle muzzle to interrupt the familial row and cautiously butted the riled child to her bed. She would probably pout some more and wallow in self-pity, but that was what all mares her age did. It was all they did. Celestia forbid one of these princesses lead the kingdom.

“You were once like this stallion she’s courting…”

“It isn’t courting. That tradition died along with Chivalry back before even I was born. She says she’s dating the little menace.”

“Dating-courting, it’s just a word my sweet. You should take him up on his offer. Why not meet the lad? You’re just frightened you’ll see too much of yourself in him.”

Sombra dropped his head forward and as he did, his crown plonked onto the floor. His queen carried the trinket back to him but before he could replace it, he saw his reflection upon it.

“Perhaps I am just old fashioned. Bring him to me at once.”

Sappheire quickly stepped in and set the crown back on her husband’s crest. She patted it down for force of habit and looked back to the daughter, who had fallen back into a whirlpool of things never being fair and the whole world being out to get her.

“Give them time, my sweet. You will see that when something is left to mature, it will become greater and more permanent. Just look at us. If you had been any shyer I would have had to pop the question. It is early yet.”

“And they are rushing into things.”

“She’s a blossoming young mare and she’s found her special some-pony. Why can’t that be enough?”

His queen sat there a while and watched the monarch sweat. His excuses were frail, and his memory shorter than his frequently clipped tail. But, in the end, she had to say what he was not prepared to.

“You don’t want her to go do you? Oh my sweet little koala, you can’t fight true love. You’re afraid that she won’t be your little girl anymore.”

He said nothing. He nodded reluctantly, but he uttered nothing. He said very little for the remainder of the day. As night fell, he let the curtain close on the balcony and crawled into bed. His queen never joined him. She never slept.

> Athwart the waterfall
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few weeks passed and Amber still had not invited her prince to the palace. Salem had his eyes set on the faded mountain on the horizon. He was to attend the peacetime talks held in the citadel of Canterlot. His sweat ran cold however, for his once dear friend Empyrean would be there too.

He planted a kiss on his daughters’ snouts and smiled to his queen before taking a shortcut to the lonely mount. With a flash of rich purple, Sombra appeared in the peaceful grounds of the city state capital of Equestria. He bowed to a couple of passing guard patrols as they performed drills in the early morning. He decided to salute but he wasn’t responded to in kind. He gave a sheepish wave before teleporting away, hopefully this time arriving at his intended destination.

“You’re late.”

An alicorn scolded. She was decedent in her regal attire. She had a coat of fine dark violet, and a mane resembling the night sky, only beautifully so.

“That was my misjudgement. It shan’t happen again.”

“It mustn’t, Sombra. If you give us reason to doubt, then how can you maintain the stability of the northern kingdoms?"

“Again, I beg your forgiveness.”

Salem took his seat at the table. This was most disconcerting for the long serving king, for this was not a function hall, not a drawing room set aside for the deliberations, but the war room. He tried to hide his panic but it was as if one of the two fierce mares on the other side of the table could drag thoughts from his mind.

The paler alicorn picked up on the nervousness of Salem immediately. She had a nose for it. Weakness was not an appreciated odour in the courts of the empresses. They were addressed as princesses but they were of much higher office. Some might have dubbed them as goddesses, in consideration of the incredible power they possessed.

“Do you have anything to disclose, Salem?”

Celestia asked in a sweet yet menacing tone.

“I have. I feel that this change is happening far too quickly. The ponies are accustomed to having separate kingdoms with separate laws and expectations. I run a clean, fair and just civilisation, which is more than can be said for some of the other heads of state.”

“Do you refer to me, King Sombra? I am not amu…”

Sombra turned away from the towering emperor and rubbed his coal hoof against his headdress.

“I keep the peace with the neighbouring principalities and boroughs. I mediate conferences with the barbarian griffon that invade my skies. I won’t be harassed into joining this cooperative. You have said all that’s needed. My decision will not alter.”

Celestia grasped a small wooden mallet in her spell and shoved a few pawns on her tactician board along. She fleered at the sentiment of Salem and cleared her throat in deep disdain.

“My, aren’t we being selfish? I would’ve thought a diplomat would want to resolve this matter intelligently. I appear to have been proven wrong.”

“One doesn’t like being wrong, does one big sister? Watch what you say, shorty.”

The comments bounced off of Sombra’s concrete mind. He was not one to bow to pressure. Respect was given where it was deserved. Being entitled, that meant nothing.

“Your words are true. Yes, I’m a stallion who prides the quill over the sword, but a partnership with this warlord will only lead to disaster.”

“Watch your tone!”

Elijah raged, thrashing his metalled hooves against the board. The pawns were all pegasi for but a moment until they came crashing to the ground, the strategies skewed.

“It shall be a council, much like the one of magic. There is not enough regulation in the north and I don’t want to be proven wrong again.”

“Because you cannot be wrong, isn’t that right sister?”

“Correct. Do continue.”

Emperor Empyrean left his place at the table and made a slow journey to the side of Sombra, his eyes screaming with determination. He pressed his steel hoof on the back of the smaller stallion and stared down at him with the same infuriation of a disappointed father.

“Come-come now Salem, aren’t we forgetting something? You are but a king. You hold the throne for now, but your people will be mine.”

“It’s a cooperative, brother, don’t make this personal. “

Luna sniffed in disapproval.

“Fine…”

He began. He lifted his weight from the lesser being and grumpily made his way back to his sisters. The three of them seemed to be plotting without the use of their mouths. They then looked in unison at Salem and Celestia broke the intense silence.

“If you deny this transformation, this evolution, then you will forfeit your right to the treasury gold and you will no longer be under the protection of the coalition forces. If this is your choice, then we’ll make your name dirt in the almanacs of history. I am not kind, Sombra, I am realistic. An anarchic independent state has no place in my vision…”

“Our vision, remember sister?”

Both Luna and Empyreans added. They were slightly out of sync. The attitude was identical.

“You will be dealt with in time. If you cannot adhere to our way then we have no choice but to proclaim you an enemy to the state, a treasonous criminal, and a wildcard we cannot accommodate. Have you anything to add, dear bother? Sister, do you have a closing statement?” No, I thought not…”

Empyrean teleported to the side of Salem once more and bore his tyrannical teeth so sharp and threatening.

“I have seen your weakness, Salem. It cannot be left this way. It cannot. You fraternise with dragons, our foremost adversaries, the only thing keeping us from conquering the sky, and you even provide them with the gems they seek. Oh I have seen his treachery, his piousness and it will not be allowed to continue.”

He spoke of Sombra as if he wasn’t in the room.

The two sisters pounced upon the table, further dismantling the efforts of the eldest to outthink her imaginary foes. Their horns clashed like sparring sabres, and from their closeness a furious orb of light and inferno grew.

They spoke in total harmony as the cataclysm swelled in the space between their heads.

“If thou doeth protest the doctrine, then thou must be unwelcome in our court, for we are unified under one light, we are humbled by one night! You dare defy the world we have made? Let it be known from now until hereafter that the peasant ponies of the diamond kingdom are forever exiled from our land. Let them not desecrate the pastures new, the dales clean. We will pretend their extinction, and never let them be seen!”

Sombra floated above the ground in a whirlwind of power not of his making. He squirmed and struggle but all efforts were hopeless. He took one last look at Empyrean’s smirking smile before he was sprawled in front of his palace. With what energy he still owned he tried to return but his muscles ached, and his horn burned. It was night once more. It seemed as if most of the day had been stolen from beneath them. His dark horn ignited with flickering, evanescent sparks of power, but the pain was too great a chain for him to carry, too great a weight to lift alone.

Every time he tried to move, the result was weaker, and soon his eyelids plummeted, as did his face.

> By moonlight
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

He had been wronged. Salem knew he was out of options. He crawled, expecting nothing, into the sight of a guard. He was carried to safety as worried citizens rushed towards him. A tyrant like Elijah would be kicked, stoned and trampled for his rule was through fear. Not Sombra however, for he lead with spirit and honesty. His benevolence was not best received among the deistic watchers of the world. At least his people took notice of his polite and sensitive behaviour.

When back in the courtyard of his palace, he could still hear the concerned cries of the masses. He tried to ignore them. He had a terrible truth to tell. They didn’t know that they would never be able to leave the kingdom. There was ample space and trade could easily cease without anyone really taking note. The issue was the wondering eye, the fact that ponies migrate for many reasons, many unavoidable. Salem understood their plight, the one they were yet to be informed of.

They would be prisoners because of his selfish deed. Was that what he wanted to be remembered for? The king was unsure, and for the first time during his reign, clemency wouldn’t solve this.

He woke in his chamber, his bedazzling wife still watching the world as is played out before her. He was deflowered of his usual red cape and showy armour plates, dressed snugly in his silky pyjamas. He heard her crystal toes clink as she returned to the boudoir. Her breath had a somewhat cooling quality to it, as if it remedied everything. Sombra turned to face his queen. He thought to break the news to her but somewhere, in his warring mind, he knew that she had him figured. They were connected. No secrets could be kept.

She probably sussed out the verdict by the sweat running down her King’s clammy cheek, by the straw like rigidity of his usually soft mane, and the unmistakably fake snoring he made. She knew he wasn’t asleep. Even without stirring him, she knew he was wide awake. She didn’t stir him, didn’t make a peep. She watched as he tossed and turned and she imagined what it would be like to sleep. Her kind was not appreciated by the empresses upon the high rise citadel. Luna could check up on every subject’s dreams except for the crystal ponies.

Sappheire left her King to feign slumber on the four poster bed while she ventured back to the balcony. She gazed into the distance, the very same view she usually enjoyed, but there wasn’t something amiss, something not quite right. There was an error in the landscape. It looked like the pieces didn’t perfectly fit together. It would serve no use to force the pieces into order. It would seem as if the realm was out of alignment with the rest of reality.

The cold wind from the open balcony doors forced Salem to stop his false snoring and he made himself walk to the balcony, joining his beloved thereon. He inspected the streets still partially milling with the concerned paupers, merchants, and clerks. He shook his head, held his brow in his bare hoof and sighed into the night.

“Why do they worry for me, my love? I am their protectorate, not the other way around. They must know. I cannot keep this concealed…”

“If it burdens you, then make it known. How did the peacetime talks…?”

Sombra turned in anger but softened quickly as he noticed how misdirected it was. He looked down, avoiding the reflection of fear in his beloved’s eyes, and tapped his hoof in frustration.

“They speak of peace? I saw none. I heard only vile excuses for genocide. I will not side with that intolerable stallion, I simply will not!”

“I trust this was pertaining to the merging of our kingdoms. Is that the reason for all this discretion?”

“No, no discretion. This is biding time. I’m just trying to get used to it myself.”

“What are you referring to, my sweet?!”

His queen requested in her sweetest of voices.

“I have doomed us all. I rejected the merger.”

“Any sane pony would have done the same.”

“No, I’m not dealing with sane ponies. I have been begging for freedom, for my right to govern my own kingdom, so that my people are not sent into the pointless wars that the emperor wages. We are outcast, forgotten. My love, I have sent us all to Tartarus.”

“Don’t be silly. Tia and Luna must applaud your independent style of governance. They probably admire your perspicacity, your doggedness, and your policies of care rather than cursing.”

Sombra brought his hoof down a little harder and caught the edge of the crystal queen’s shining foot with it. It splintered, and the very tip shattered, and the sleepless mare reared back.

“Come tomorrow, the people will know. You think they gave me a pardon, a certificate of achievement? No, for my disobedience, I have made us ghosts.”

“We are to die, by the order of royalty?”

“We are trapped, my love. There is no means of escape. We are sealed magically within the borders of this kingdom. I fear they may return when they think my will has broken. They will be disappointed, just as they disappointed me.”

Sappheire raised her hoof at mystically the shards peppering the brickwork formed back into her scooping toe. She pulled her King it towards her and embraced him warmly, as warm as a living breathing precious stone can embrace a withered soul.

“We will tell them in the morning. We, not just you, not by gossip, we will tell them all in a rally, in an assembly, we will tell them that we have achieved independence and now we must hoe and ted the fields, excavate the mines, and; if needs be, raise the banner of war.”

Salem staggered back to his inviting quilt, his duck down mattress, and left his shimmering wife to gaze into the pitch blackness that fell over the silver capped towers and the crenulations.

His worries would not go away in sleep however. There was a presence, he felt it as soon as his head moulded into the soft pillow. He was beaten by the day and his magic whined, his resolve waned, and he let the heavy lids rest.

A few images, like photographs, flashed up in a stream of strobe-like adularescence. They were fragments of his foalhood, his trifling in the heraldic sports of yore. He heard his infectious giggle from when he was still nursing. He felt something breathing on him. It was his mother. She had long since passed. It was a miracle Salem was born at all. His mother, Seraphim, was declared barren by the local sawbones yet somehow she gave birth to her beautiful baby colt. However, she was old when this divine joy accoutred. She didn’t live to see him grow. He remembered her eyes clearly, and the lullabies she used to sing. She wore a veil of limpid fur. He missed her more each day.

This made him enraptured. He had accepted the death of his mother a long time ago, thousands of years back. Salem was also of an ancient breed, they were like unicorns but their longevity gave them the reputation of being vampires. It was a silly rumour and one few acted upon. If you were to compare a modern unicorn, and Salem, there would be only negligible differences. 

In the dream, he looked into the hypnotising gold eyes of his mother and watched as they turned to tar and poured onto his sensitive face. He leaped backwards, and covered his face. Tears leaked from the sunken-in dead eyes of his mother. The eyes shone white and the brightness caused Salem’s younger self to look away.

He was no longer in the drawing room. The paintings had vanished. The furniture had evaporated also. He was left in utter emptiness, with darkness infinitely stretching in all directions.

“Your first day of independence tomorrow, oh, I wonder how it will go. We’ll all be rooting for you. She died in the sad thought that you were a little miracle. It makes me sick. You are no miracle; Sombra, you and your encrypted queen should have both been taken care of long ago.”

Salem dared to look back at the figure that once sung sweetly to him. She had been replaced by the younger royal. She would not just watch. She wanted to take part. From where he lay, she looked far away. The world started to shrink, constricting tighter and tighter until they were snout to snout.

“Don’t be nasty to my mommy!”

The young Salem tried to defend. 

Luna revealed a bubble of sorts, the effervescent curtain that kept the king’s men and the kinsmen under wraps. It flared with the same violent violet that burned at the tip of Luna’s horn.

“Your mommy’s dead. You made her die. She was so disappointed with the mess she had created that she couldn’t bear to see another day.”

“You don’t say that. My mommy loved me! She was trying for so long.”

Salem was regaining control of the scape. His older self was piercing through the limelight the insidious veil of Luna’s trickery.

“Why deny the truth, little Salem? You can’t change anything.”

“She would never.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do. I know my mother would never give up. She fought for everything. She fought for me. She’s no quitter.”

Luna assumed the form of Seraphim again. She wretched and curled over in agony only to intimidate the dreamer, for there was no real pain.

“I looked into her head.”

“These things should be private! I don’t want to…”

“A year after you were born, she dreamed of drowning you, tying a brick to your fetlock and getting rid of you for good. I heard her speaking to herself, heard her losing her mind, saying that her foal was pure evil…”

“None of this is true!”

Salem protested. He fell to his knees, now looking like his adult self, and wept silently into the infinite hopelessness below.

“She was so distraught that she removed the horn from her head and drove it through her chest, through her heart!”

Salem alighted on the bed, smashing his skull against the headrest. He rubbed his eyes and plumped the pillow behind him. He wasn’t ready to get up yet. Dawn had barely broken. His queen remained on the balcony, like she always did, never moving a muscle, never losing focus.

He was about to call to her when the invader appeared between them, her wicked translucent tail dragging one if the curtains until the moon was in sight.

“There will be fear. Your people will break apart. Their loyalties will be tested and they all will fail. By my sister’s decree I must let you live, for now, but that doesn’t stop me from negotiating now does it?”

The king was speechless. He rubbed his eyes again and pulled the quilt over his cold hooves. Now she was right beside him, in the bed where his beloved should be. She stroked his tufty chin with her sparkly shoe and pecked him briefly on the lips.

“I’d like to see how you manage this situation. I’m here in bed, with you, and your wife is gormlessly standing around. If it wasn’t for how preposterous this whole thing was, it would be something of a scandal. The papers will go mad for this stuff.”

She began to fade into the dimmest shadows of the room and as she did she whispered so that only the King could hear.

“There’s more than one reason I want her gone…”

> Stand Strong
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Salem stumbled on his quick march down to the rostrum as the fanfare cut through him with ease. He saluted the flags of his kingdom as he passed the procession. He climbed the steps to the old execution stage and used a drop of his magic to amplify his already booming voice.

“Ponies of the diamond kingdom, I gain nothing from lying to you. Our way of life is under threat. If the rulers had their way we would lose everything we have worked for. They’d see to it that our costermongers, our tailors, our sailors, any mare or stallion able bodied be thrown into the firing line in the fascist uniform of their citadel! I rejected this bargain. We are free inside these walls. I have no joy in telling you, that none can leave."

I couple of groans and screeches echoed from the crowd as unicorns tried to bet the system. Their magic was weak in relation to Salem’s so there was no way for them to outplay the game-master.

A carriage towing stallion rolled up and stopped, unhitched his trailer of wares, and jumped up and down at the back of the dense amassment.

“I rely on our trade routes to earn a decent living. How can I live in any sort of comfort if my only means of work are made impossible?”

Salem ground his teeth and a rage he didn’t know began to boil inside of him. It simmered however as his queen arrived on the stage, her mane like a glacial flow.

“Where is your confidence?”

She asked of her husband. She made sure to negate the augmentation spell that he had cast as to not cause alarm. She pressed her godly lips to his ear and whispered something he actually wanted to hear. He still pulled away. The disturbing visit from the night empress had left him emasculated, and frigid.

“Don’t show weakness. That is what that soulless monster wants us to think. He calls it cowardly, and he calls it miserly, but does he know your mind? I think not. Rally them. They’re yours to direct. Give them hope and treat them with respect and the same kindness will be ours also.”

Salem’s horn exploded in a flurry of power as he positioned himself in the centre of the stifled public. He looked towards his guards, ones that stood in alloyed metals, forged minerals and the other spoils of the underground trade. He then looked to his queen and as he took his eyes off of her, he removed his steel shoes. He doffed his dragon scale armour. He dropped his crown and he dropped his head. It was heavy with the doubts it held.

“I will prove that we are all in the same boat. I renounce my seat of power. In due course parliament will be introduced. Times will be tough.”

He began. He took one stride from his central locale before a squealing filly met his eye, but mostly his ear.

“Who is this darling?”

He asked. He feigned a strange little voice as he babied the baby. The mother grasped the baby from the step and shoved her into Salem’s face.
“She gets very ill around this time. She needs the medicine and professionals of Canterlot. Sometimes she is bedbound all day for weeks on end. Who will cure her now? She’ll die!”

“I understand that this is difficult. There are going to be some…”

Salem paused as a buggy escapee began chewing on his bare rear hoof.

“There may be some teething problems.”

He wrapped an arm around the mare and uncurled her ear. He pointed to the coned towers that topped the guildhall of wizardry.

“Her condition sounds serious. We will find a way to obtain the alchemical treatment she requires. Surely the councils still communicate despite the blackout.”

The mother went back for her foal in a harrumphing rush. She grabbed the toddler and placed her on her shoulder before running back towards the townhouses. 

He thought he was in the clear at this point. Any concerns would be raised at the court. He was nearing the magnificent, monolithically huge statue. It was in honour of the first dragon to work the mines, a matter of centuries before the events of that day. He was nearly past the fountain that the statue waded in too.

The stones shook and throbbing crowd of ponies huddled together in pure terror. The dragons had heard the upheaval. Routes of the things, en masse, blocked the route ahead. A huge drake groped the thigh of his ancestor as he straddled the Olympic sized fountain.

“What can stop us from leaving? Dragons are immune to the magic of ponies…”

“This is Alicorn magic. Even if you could flee, where would you fly to? Empyrean wants your kind buried and gone. You are safer here than out there.”

The imposing drake released his firm grip and swam down to the King’s level.

“Our season is soon, oh merciful king. If we cannot reproduce, our race is already doomed.”

“Our will is greater…”

The dragon began laughing, his consecutive pants of air sending flumes infernal into the sky. It singed the tail of the statue. This made the drake laugh hysterically. 

“He has duped you all. Put your hooves up. Anyone who was involved with our banishment, raise your hoof!”

“What if I made it worth your while to stay? Say, fifty gold pieces for each flyer you can convince?”

The dragon ignored the bribe and raised his front claws in triumph.

“Just as I thought, not one of you even knew this meeting was happening. He now tries to sway my loyalty with coin?”

Salem shot back as the tail of the mighty drake flailed athwart his clumsy backside.

“Don’t waste your energy here, Ignatius. You all must prepare for the torment to come…”

The fuming dragon spun to face the undressed king and grinned in discredit to his threat.

“You will force us? Torture, this is your gambit? He will not give you a choice!”

“That is not what I meant!”

Salem shouted but his voice could not best the howl from the drake’s maw.

A couple of rather ashen, greying dragons from the sky intervened. They locked tails before the rampaging giant and snarled and grunted until he backed down. The dragon social structure was a simple beast.

“Why do you defend this pest? He has no control over us. We offered our sensing of precious stone and we helped protect this kingdom, but what do we get out of it?”

“A selfish dragon is a dead dragon, Ignatius. You have misconstrued Salem’s words. Have some humility and let him speak.”

“Artemis, this is treason. You traitor, you’d have us all tied to chains to drive this pointless protest!”

Salem stroked his brow, a look of worry spread across the furrow.

“This will not be a physical assault. The night before today I was visited by Empress Luna. She showed me my greatest fears and made them foment in my mind, breaking my want to live. She will try this again. Her methods are cruel, but sometimes she will tease you, entice you to where you feel safe, before taking everything you love and devouring it. She does not just watch the night, dear drakes. She is the tapping at the door, the footfalls running across the floor. She is forbidden from this errand yet she has already broken that oath.”

The tails parted and the luscious red dragon leaned down to look the stallion in the eye.

“A dragon only dreams of greed, of living alone, and being content. It is what we are destined to do. All dragons will become blithering hermits in the end, thrashing at intruders who aren’t even there and speaking to their loot as if it were their only friend. How can she take that?”

“She listens. If your mind was a safe, she would find the code instantly and crack you. Every memory you have had, every emotion you have felt, anything and everything will be used against you. Steel yourselves, my subjects, for tonight will test us all.”

Salem left the drakes in stunned silence as he left the plaza, the mezzanine, and the royal menagerie behind. His queen was still amidst the panic but Salem worried not for her. She was strong, robust, made of the hardest material in all the lands.

> Hangups
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hours passed and Salem was pacing across the royal croquet lawns. He used to enjoy the subtle pleasure of the sport. He now just glared at the playthings and toys, laughing every now and then, and constantly checking behind him. His encounter with that nightmare had left him on edge.

He told himself to stay strong for the people, ones that looked to him to find the same strength. Still her wicked cackled pounded his mind. He whimpered while alone for a moment before replacing his stony expression.

He heard a throat clear behind him and nearly shrieked in terror. He turned to face the rude interruption to his innermost sorrow. He hoped it would be his queen. He feared that it would be the phantom Luna. He did not want another citizen’s complaint, he couldn’t handle another one.

He found his youngest daughter, Sierra. She was more like her mother, her fur partially glittering with fibres of silver. She placed her small hoof on his shoulder and draped the cape over him to shelter him from the cold winds. He hadn’t noticed. The kingdoms and Empyrean’s Empire all existed in vast tundra. Powerful magic kept the weather fair. The spell had abandoned Salem’s res publica. 

He had felt the cold from the moment Luna trespassed. He was used to it. Being a descendent of the first unicorns, he was bred for winter’s bitter temper. His coat was thick, his mane long and layered.

He shrugged the weary looking cloak from his shoulders and invited his daughter closer. She curtsied and joined him. The gardens of the Kingdom were a place a reflection, not only because of the quartz shards that permeated the ground, but also because they were peaceful. Time was given to step back and absorb the heretical nature of now, a place of misery and shame.

Sierra rapped her hoof on her father’s cheek as he stared blankly into the grass.

“It was a good speech, dad. Do you know what we’re gonna do? Don’t repeat your performance from earlier. Don’t doll it up for me.”

Salem focused back on the radiant mare at his side. He tucked his back legs behind him and snuggled closer to her. He retrieved the cape and enwrapped them both inside its blessed warmth.

“I don’t know. I should have caved. I should’ve let the execs get their way. It’s no use now. The deepest and most private thoughts of our kingdom will be seen tonight. Luna will know if there is any doubt in my vigour, and she will use it against me. The mind is a powerful thing.”

“We have crofters to grow, the tailor and the Frobisher will mend, and we have the alliance with dragons. We can use the very thing they fear to fight them. And we will hear of all the news in the outer Kingdoms and the heartlands through the mages…”

Sierra stopped speaking as a wiry stallion cantered into sight. He had red on his snout and tears in his eyes. He bowed again and again to the king, begging for pardon, until he fell on his face and panted.

“Excuse my barging in sire. I have grave news.”

Salem perked up and climbed to his feet. He nodded to Sierra and with a pale velvet flash of her horn she returned to her sister’s care. Salem gestured to the jousting field and the two of them made haste to the stands. 

“What news do the mages bring?”

Salem demanded authoritatively. He sternly scolded the messenger with his eyes as if vexed by the impromptu diversion.

“The mages, Quicksilver, have they received word from the other unicorn guilds?”

“They say nothing.”

“How do you mean?”

“Tongues were lopped at the base, and their horns had been removed with some force. I thought we were separated, my liege, what will we tell the people? They were counting on this means of communication.”

Salem rubbed his forelock and frowned towards the council building.

“Scour the schools for unicorns, scour the streets. They will learn the spells required so that we may speak to our comrades, though they grow fewer and fewer by the day.”

“All scripture was burnt, my liege. The only texts remaining are in the locked vault beneath the library. But they are of no use. No one can read its words.

“Cease! Excuses are wasteful, harmful for my kingdom. There must be older unicorns, pros that have mastered and memorised the tomes of Starswirl. Gather the unicorn citizens immediately, and find me once you have.”

Quicksilver eagerly nodded and went to his task without a fuss. The Pegasus seemed to relish the mission, as if it were a treat. He kept himself occupied.

Salem turned and nearly shrieked as a mare as his daughter appeared from thin air.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing is wrong, my dear. Fetch your sister and mother and tell them to mingle with the common folk. Help in any way you can, as many as you can. We all have a part to play.”

“Where are you bound?”

“Don’t worry. It’s purely bureaucratic.”

Salem waved as she once more dissolved into the bleachers. The council building was a remarkably antiquated place. Compared to the silver furnished, crystal rendered towers and obelisks; the little brick roundhouse was like a wart.

It was past the Celestial church where Helios Worship took place and it was dwarfed by a twisted and knurled oak tree. Salem scampered up the steps to the establishment and already the smell of death was rife. There was a grieving stallion on the stairs as well. He was inconsolable. He might have needed a caring ear but Salem was not that organ. He left the earth pony to his lament and pushed open the doors already ajar.

Inside, the Princely portraits were ruined by the slaughtered guts of the mages. Their brewing tables and dwellings were coated in blood. In the main conference there lay the disfigured victims, torn asunder, and cold. To the touch, they were lukewarm, as if they had died only recently. How could this have happened?

Salem’s most pensive thought would have to wait. One of the mages was not dead, but she wasn’t far departed from it. Spread across the tables was the pale white mare made scarlet with blood. She had no tongue to speak with and her horn had been plunged through her thigh. The brutality was overwhelming. Salem remained.

She tried to speak but the incomprehensible gargling and barks could only convey the violence she had witnessed and undergone. She reached out with her unsteady hoof and she looked up to the king with hopeful eyes. He checked the doorway to see if he had company. He was alone. No other should have to see his action, though he did it for mercy’s sake.

He struck a flame with his horn and his eyes turned green. Purple smoke leaked from those very eyes as he gazed into the dead eyes of the survivor. Her pain was too great. She could not pass on her wisdom. It was the kind thing to do. But was it the right thing to do? Kind was good enough for the torn King. He closed the eyes of the butchered mare as his spell put her to sleep forever. The spells of life and age were solely reserved for the alicorns of the land. To harness it, Salem resorted to using dark magic, something unicorns could rarely do.

He heard the sound of stomping hooves outside. Past the door, undertakers dressed respectfully in suits climbed the stairs. There was a carriage waiting in the forecourt. A silver-haired stallion walked past the innocuous king and signed a cross on his chest. He whispered Latin prayers and levitated the newly silenced onto his back. He was on his way out but Sombra obstructed him. 

“This, this is a crime. We need to find out who did this. The bodies will be left where they fell and an investigation will be carried out. The families will be sore for it, I understand, but who’s to say that the pony that did this won’t do the same if not caught?”

The smartly dressed stallion lowered the mare back to the table and tipped his hat as he backed towards the door.

“Who’s to say it was a pony? This manner of vicious and frenzied attack could only be the work of one of those filthy fire breathers.”

Salem grabbed the stallion and brought him back to the table, horn glowing and his eyes starting to change.

“They are our allies, sir. The war is not in here, it’s out there.”

“Save your pretty speeches for the other idiots. Those monsters will kill us.”

Salem allowed the undertaker to go and stared back in frozen solitude, fasting through the day, just watching as the carcasses decayed.

> Dead end
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Noon had snuck up on the kingdom. Some things remained the same. Starving workers grovelled for cheaper food at the market. There was the clangour of vendors as they advertised their goods. Most activity had ceased for now. He wouldn’t punish them for the recess. The breath of dragons still billowed from the mining chimneys. Salem forgot his own stomach for he would be unable to eat anyway, and entered the busy pit.

Some of the workers were caught catching a game of cards or lighting barely sticks off of the smelting fires. Some were having their lunch. It was somewhat wholesome to see the sweat clad workers opening their classic iron lunchboxes. He gave a gentlemanly shove to a grazing stallion as he delved deeper into the complex.

The deeper he descended, the more dragons he passed. They were useful for their fire fore no daylight could reach down this far. In shifts the Wyverns would breathe a controlled stream of fire, not enough to hurt or scare any pony passing by, but enough to let them know where they were going.

The lanterns were for emergencies and were usually unlit.

He explored further and further still till he found the frontline of the operation, where dragon and hulking stallion worked closely and the heat was unbearable.

Salem thought he had entered unnoticed, and for the most part he was right. He didn’t see an outcrop in the cave wall and he stubbed his kingly toe upon it. The knock turned heads for the cave made the slightest noise louder tenfold. His whining made eyes roll however.

“King Sombra my liege. You have denounced your title but you cannot be lurking ‘round here. There have been cave-ins, poisonous gasses, falling ceiling rock, you could be killed.”

The concerned dragon was none other than Ignatius, the very fiery tempered drake that wanted to embargo Salem’s law.

Salem smiled and looked around, holding his grumbling stomach as he did so. The scene prior had been gruesome, and his senses were shot, but the primal need to feed overcame all. The king watched as his subjects continued to toil.

Thick-legged earth ponies combated the sheer granite with their rear hooves. Unicorns transported split rock and ore into the awaiting carts, something that Salem hadn’t seen in the dingy tunnels. The majestic conjurers also chipped away at the wall, pickaxes rebounding and glancing off of the stone.

The mine was established very close to the kingdom limit. Sombra hadn’t thought of the boundaries. Past his kingdom’s outer vestiges was a rolling, uninhabited frozen wasteland. He thought nothing of burrowing beneath such barren leagues. Who would want jurisdiction over nothing? 

Apparently, the Empresses had the vast tundra under their thumb, so to speak. A dragon, one much smaller than the spokesperson from the fountain, tore a chunk of chalky wall out and passed it to the waiting unicorns. He brandished his purpose built pickaxe, a truncated log with a head the size of driven plough at one end, and sunk it into the hole he had made. He was thrown backwards and a pulse of pinkish white energy radiated around the room.

The diminutive dragon held his claw as it twitched. He claimed he could not move it. He was in shock and was safely taken from the mine by a couple of Samaritans. 

“We can dig no further.”

Salem whispered. Even in the underground amphitheatre his words were not heard.

He rushed through the gravel of mashed rock and broken steel towards the fault in the wall. A unicorn strained to lift the immense axe before Salem reached her and pushed her out of the way. His horn shone bright purple and he unleashed a powerful deluge of magic. It tore through the rock legendarily. It revealed the field but already accusations were being tossed around.

“If you don’t want us down here, then we’ll leave!”

A labour dragon shouted.

“Nobody here has done anything.”

The unicorn unionists retorted.

“One of ours was injured by magic. So, who in here is itching for a barbeque? I am starving and the menu in this place is far too vegetarian. Push us all you like, ponies, we’ll cook you alive.”

“No one in here is trying to hurt you. You’ve gotten this all wrong…”

“Why is that? Because I’m a savage, a simple animal, is that what you’re saying?”

“No. You are only hearing what you want to hear.”

“Clastic was not long ago a fledgling. He’s only moulted his feathers. One of you stuck up horn-heads has paralysed him!”

Salem flared up his horn again and amplified his voice.

“Quiet!”

Silence filled the miasmic hollow.

“Whether or not your friend has been harmed is not the discussion here. This is not the work of one unicorn, or even a conclave of them. This is no setup. This is an extension of the barrier above. We can burrow no further.”

“So it is true…”

Ignatius pondered. He beat his wings four times and landed at the end of the tunnel. He gently poked the psychedelic field and his claw chipped, the base split.

“This is the doing of Celestia. She has crossed us off of the grid, cancelled our existence. What action do you suggest, sir?”

Salem walked back to where the cave narrowed and to where the smell of barely smoke was everywhere. He turned back and addressed the workforce.

“This will end today’s shift. We will start anew in the morning. This has been a setback but we will not be beaten by it. For now, find nourishment in the town, and relax. Try to sleep in the day so the witch can’t enact her awful tricks. Progress has been uncompromised by recent atrocities. You all have pride in what you do. I will see if Clastic is okay.”

The king was on his way to fresh air when a wiry stallion puffed and panted into sight.

“Sire, sire there is unrest. There is rumbling about revolution.”

“Quieten down, Silver, this is not the best time.”

“Umm, as you wish sire. Why are the miners leaving?”

“Never you mind, return to the surface and rest. You have earned it. Oh, and before I forget, how’s that little job of yours going?”

Quicksilver tried to trip his master. Again, the King found censure with the holdup. He glowered unremorsefully at the termite.

“Remove yourself.”

“It’s just, well, you know, keeping mum about the council has been eating away at me. I’ll surely crack. When do we tell the families? We can’t keep…”

“We aren’t speaking of that in front of all these people. I’ll ask again. How many unicorns have you selected? Are they bright witches and warlocks, maybe even wizards? We could do with a caster specialising in pyromancy. Have you seen to this?”

A dashing young unicorn came barrelling out of the woodwork, a charred stem of barely hanging from his lip. He spit it out and prodded the messenger sharply with his horn.

“What’s going on here? You said sommint about families. My ma’s a chancellor in the mages circle thing. She usually comes visiting around lunchtime. What’s keeping h...?”

The colt went pale.

“It was the mages wasn’t it?”

Salem vehemently gestured with his head to the messenger, begging him in pig-Latin to say nothing more. The mouthed words were ignored.

“It’s your mother, she’s…”

Before Silver could say another word, a distraught stallion tackled him as he sped through the cave. He coughed as his unaccustomed lungs drank the polluted air.

“Copper, copper, I’ve been looking everywhere for you! I was visiting her work and, there was so much, just everywhere, it was terrible. Cops, your mom is gone, but you still have your dad. What are you doing in this hole? You’re working with your mother’s killers. These creatures are not to be trusted!”

The father and son clung to each other and wept copiously, their many woes echoing along the lodge paths and rat runs. The two of them left and the dragons said nothing. Salem thanked them for their tolerance before ascending the numerous tunnels, greeting the workers as he did.

> United Front
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

He breathed in the fresh air and this tame savoured it. He had been breathless and gasping since he exited the mine. The motherless son and the widowed stallion had been left to their own devices down in the darkest depths of the mine for too long. They were in the way. Yes, their plight was unsolvable and their lives were irrevocably crippled, but it was no excuse for laziness. 

Salem enjoyed the solitude while it lasted. He put his hooves up as he watched from the castle rooftop, observing his ants as they went about their business. He enjoyed the loneliness that is until his two darling daughters turned up unannounced.

They were dressed in dungarees and had caked their royal slippers in mud. It might have been mud. They were pouring sweat from a morning serving the fields. They however were unabashed and seemed happy to lend a helping hoof. 

The father smiled as they curtsied in return. It was the usual faff, this convention of exchanged gestures. He was about to invite them down to the walkway below. He had opened his mouth to welcome them when the scene of comfortable grazing below became poisoned with controversy. The incident at the council building appeared to be the cause.

In their thousands they flocked into the square before the castle where dragons accused the magical steeds of harming the young drake, while the unicorns alleged that the dragons were responsible for the bloodbath at the council HQ. Revolution was in the air. The stench of mutineers in the pipelines was beginning to creep up Salem’s nose before he turned from the commotion and tightly embraced his daughters. 

“How can we be safe with these scaly freaks around? They are working with the sun Empress. That is why they dealt with the mage circle. We are running low on options not because of dumb luck but because we have traitors in our midst!”

Salem recognised the troublemaker. It was none other than the stallion he had seen crying at the stairs and recently in the pit. He and his vainglorious followers marched in formation towards the enigmatic statue of the first dragon to align with the King’s cause. Their chants were unrepeatable. They involved forced castration and kitchen utensils.

Baldhart was the dragoness depicted in huge slabs of stone and etchings of pewter. Her face had cracked from ears of weathering but Salem refused the magical restoration of it. He said it would stand as long as the ponies and dragons could live harmoniously. Great fissures formed that day.

“I was at the scene myself. I can tell you all that my details are not modified or exaggerated. The bodies were torn into slithers and wrapped around the legs of chairs and tables. Disgustingly the horns had been wrenched from the skulls of the unicorn nobles. Their tongues had been cut as some sort of message!”

The stallion proclaimed. He did not drag his heels.

Dragons and Wyverns alike perched upon the stone and marble plinths of the buildings which viewed the castle fortalices, and they stonily waited like menacing grotesques frozen in time. They were calm however. Despite what the hoofed party might’ve thought, the dragons were staying their claws.

Ignatius however did respond. He was reasonable, diplomatic, as he abseiled down the pillar and confronted the mob.

“Why would my kinsmen see any benefit in harming your kind, to further damage the foundation upon which our treaty is based? The answer is that we would never do such a thing. However, I cannot speak for all the flyers here…”

Ignatius’s words were knocked flying by the roars of dragon and wyvern. Some crawled down or swooped to the floor, with teeth exposed and eyes hungry.

“I would ask that our errant king find a way to find the culprit. This slander will solve nothing. If a civil war were to erupt in these close confines, the death toll would be unconscionable.”

Salem realised he was being drawn from his family ties and he left his bedraggled daughters to their own devices. He teleported into the beating heart of the riot and he stood with the posture of a raring wildcat.

“Becalm yourselves!”

He ordered. A gust of silvery air rippled through the crowd until the disgruntled and disenfranchised followed his order and wound their necks in.

“I am aware that this is an awful predicament, but we will pull through. As Ignatius here has already stated, he does not speak for the entire dragon workforce. The investigation has already begun and as far as my barristers are aware, there are still many unknowns to consider. So, consider this, over the next few days there will be interrogations following this atrocity. Both pony and dragon will be mandated to provide a statement.”

“This is nonsense!”

A voice called from the enlivening crowd.

“We all have things to do and we haven’t got a safety net anymore thanks to this clumsy-hoofed fool!”

It was the voice of a dragon, and the heated breath of a dragon. 

“Do not criticize me, I am your king.”

“Weren’t you giving the power to the people? Where did that idea go, huh? Face it unicorn, you are nothing but a fraud!”

“This has been an act of subterfuge and it will be treated as such. I may have stripped my royal apparel but I am still in charge. Any noncompliant subjects will be executed.”

Salem decreed.

“And what if we all refuse, what say you then? Could you sleep at night knowing you had slain innocent ponies? Who will remain by your side?”

Salem turned his back from the crowd and once more applied the loudspeaker to his voice.
“If insubordination is your tactic, we will target the vulnerable people of your families. We will hit you where it hurts most. If needs be, I shall make an example of your insolence so the whole kingdom can see that I am not a joke, and you all should listen to me.”

Salem panted and let his horn dull as he walked back towards the portcullis of his home. The sentries began to crank the mechanism to raise the heavy gate as they spotted the King from the ramparts.

“Salem my sweet, please leave me to sort this out.”

It was Sappheire, and he whisper was laced with harshness. Salem disappeared through a spell he knew oh so well and returned to the balcony, the one facing the ruination below.

The queen abandoned her quiet tone. Now was not the time for subtleties. She swept the rabble of rogues with a shockwave which left them unsteady, and some partially deaf.

“What is all this about? There was mention of the mages. What has happened?”

Ignatius bowed to the level of the queen. He had the utmost respect for her. He pointed a claw at the picketing ponies and sighed longingly.

“Has your husband not told you of the mages? That is truly underhanded of him. There has been mass murder at the council building, no survivors. It was an unprovoked attack and the murderer remains a mystery. However, your beloved subjects have placed the blame squarely on those baring my likeness.”

The enchanting queen took position floating midway between the line of the rooftops and the line of the ground. She confided in the tramping tumult.

“This is the first I have heard of this terrible outcome. I see no motive for dragon or pony to enact this vile crime. It doesn’t matter what creed or colour you are. What matters is who you look to when you pledge allegiance. Now, your king is trying to reason with you but your efforts to work together have thus far been marginal. Sombra will be president on the moonlake arch this evening and you all will honour him there.”

There was no argument. Sappheire’s word was law.

“I know that the questionings will be finicky and tiresome, but this is a precaution that must be taken. If truly there is a traitor who is capable of this magnitude of violence, then they must be found. I am a caring and sympathetic soul. But when this blowhard is found, I shall crush them into a diamond and wear them as a trophy!”

Quietly the masses left, signs discarded. The dragons left their positions upon the rooftops and they soared off into the sky. Only one dragon remained.

“If we fight amongst ourselves, then those bitches of privilege will steamroll right over our kingdom, and she will crush anyone not massacred in the civil disputes. Ignatius, you seem to have the correct skills for the roll of advisor. This place is becoming a cooking pot and my subjects are turning against one another.”

“Thank you for the opportunity, your majesty, but I cannot accept. No single dragon or pony should be made exceptional for it will breed contempt. Once the traitor is found, things should return to normal.”

Sappheire bowed to the fine drake and then gazed gloomily back to the castle, through the closing gate.

“I understand your consternation; a supervisory role can be stressful. For now your brothers are dealing with this incident famously. However, if clouds of doubt do form I have something that might fix it. We will incentivise fealty by tapping into the royal gem reserve. The ponies will be harder to control.  Their food grows from the ground and they have the advantage of numbers. Hopefully this rat is found before we have a repeat of today’s theatrics.”

Ignatius nodded in agreement and set off into the skies to join his brethren. Evening was upon them and hunger pangs were setting in. Even for a transcendent being like Sappheire, there was no higher priority in her mind than supper. Wingless she might have been, but as she made haste for her home and her unkempt balcony, it looked as if she was floating on a cushion of air.

The chef had made a buffet of all the family’s favourites. There were rhubarb pastries and little cakes and salads of every leaf with every kind of dressing. Candles had been lit and a string quartet accompanied the meal. Salem was at the head of the table. None of the food had been touched. They had waited. Sappheire was glad.

She took a seat next to her youngest charge and immediately grasped a napkin and started cleaning Sierra’s dirty muzzle.

“Mom, quit it!”

She protested.

The queen giggled and used a spoon to flick a dollop of pureed potato onto Sierra’s snout. It was taken in good humour and finally the highly strung king relaxed. He slouched in his rather fancy chair and nibbled on a spring onion, something he found most delectable.

Conversation was minimal as the royals tucked into the prepared dished. There was beetroot and samphire and saffron all laid out on the tablecloth soft as chiffon. There were rare petals and tasty seeds and a tankard of locally soured mead, but that was reserved for the king. They enjoyed pak-choi and other exotic dishes, as well as anything to serve their wishes. 

They ate well. Sombra feasted like a king, a fat happy king. Sappheire was more tentative with her food. She didn’t really need the sustenance so much, but she enjoyed the taste. She yawned and nodded to the band. They left the family but left the bass, the cello and violas were they had played them. The chef come to check all was to their liking and some friendly words were shared.

Amber and Sierra started making their way to their cambers and Sombra quickly followed them, overtaking as if he were entrusted with their lives.

“We know the way, worrywart.”

“I know that. I just want to make sure you are tucked in and cosy. You know what might…”

“Relax, daddy, we’ll be as vigilant as can be.”

He tucked the sisters into their beds and blew out the candelabras as he left. He called for his dear wife and heard no reply. It wasn’t odd. She was probably stargazing as she usually did when night was spreading across the land.

He reached the giant doors to the boudoir and they were carefully pushed open by the pair of attendees that stood guard. He thanked them with a firm hoof shake, as he usually did, as he normally did, and flopped into bed, his head on one pillow and the rest of him on the other.

Celestia’s sun fell and the eerie glow of the moon bled from behind the great dragon monuments. Salem closed his heavy eyes and landed back in the clutches of the poisonous nightmare.

> Petty and proud
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

At once his childish tendencies rushed to the surface. All at once he was enveloped in the dark void he had seen before, and the dreaded dream eating mare was knocking at the door. He had no option. She was already inside. He was young, small again. He trembled in anticipative fear. The gremlin that had walked his mind before was near.

Her teeth were sharp now and her tongue forked. There was not even a semblance of the virtuous mare that once stood in the starlight slippers. That mare was gone and wasn’t to be found. She approached the tearing foal that shivered in horror. He had nowhere to run. This was her playpen, and he was powerless.

She removed her slipper and tapped at Salem’s horn. She grinned widely and circled the infant.

“First day difficulties, they were dealt with I assume? How perfect is your kingdom now, imbecile? This is what you wanted is it not? Tell me, what did you think of my little prank? It was just a friendly jape, a jab in the ribs. I meant no malice by it.”

Salem looked up to the jagged form of Luna’s white teeth and he shied away. He back up towards the wall but he could never reach it.

“That was mean.”

“Aww, did I hurt your little baby feelings? I’m so sorry.”

The sarcasm in the cynical mare’s voice was boastful and obvious.

“They didn’t do anything to you! You’re a meanie and I don’t want to speak to you. Go away! I’ll get my mom and then you’ll be sorry!”

Luna veered to the side and shielded her eyes with her blade-like wing. Everything about her was becoming venomous and monstrous. As time went on, her form manifested as putrid and malignant, like an unwanted growth.

“Oh please don’t call mommy! Mom! Mommy Sombra, where are you Sapphire? Ah, just as I predicted, she’s ignoring us. She was selfish. She was worthless. Don’t take it from me, sweetums. Hear it from the horse’s mouth!”

The portrait of his magnificent mother aided Luna’s trickery as she stole its likeness once more. Only, this time she didn’t look peaceful or kindly. No, she seemed distracted, and her hoofs shook with fury. Her mane was a mess and she had a book firmly held in her teeth.

It was a book about ancient spirits. Upon its cover was a marquee of calligraphic print, probably the work of a steady hoof and a phoenix quill. A finer feather could not be found. It was said back in those darker times that with the use of a phoenix borne pen, the user could not make a mistake. It had images of dark beasts also. They were shadowy figures, with horns and snaggleteeth.
The imposter dropped the book in front of young Salem. It fell open on a particular page, one marked with the dampness of tears and the ravages of grief. Hooves had tried to rip the page. It could not be removed.

There, under the caption the young colt was yet to be able to read, was an example of the corrupted stallion. It was fiction to begin with, the stuff of horror stories and camp fire tales. The demon had eyes glowing green and purple streaks exploding from those very eyes.

Salem identified himself in the picture, it was him. He snapped out of his childlike state and lifted the book with his magic. Luna continued her rouse and grasped her slender horn with one hoof while the other wielded a cleaver.

Salem looked up to the repulsive creature and then dropped the book, closing the page and hopefully losing it in the process.

“Is this me? Was she right to fear me?”

Luna took a mighty swing at her horn. The blade embedded inside the tissue of the horn and it Luna made several attempts to free it with force. She tried to saw through it but the material was strong, very strong.

“You think yourself a god, Sombra? The mare mage from the council, you decided her fate for her. Was that your say, child? She was a wise mare, your mother, for she tried to forestall your malevolence by drowning you. You don’t remember, do you? She tried. She failed. You wouldn’t die.”

“I will not listen to your lies.”

“Block my voice out all you want, I control reality in here. You appear to have lost control, King.”

“Get out! Stop this!”

“You had one day to protect your subjects and be the leader they need, and you let them all down. We should have given you what you wanted in the first place. You have done more ill to this place in a day than we could do in centuries. You’ve lost their love, Salem, and now you will lose this bet.”

“This is no bet!”

“You profess just and ordered reign but your own wife doesn’t believe in you. She made promises to the people and you never showed up at moonlake did you? She was bribing the dragons to play nice. She was taking a friends and family discount and taking the property of the crown. Were you even aware? Did your stallions not inform you? Tsk-tsk, Salem, this is very sloppy.”

She finished the sentence with throaty groan as she freed the cleaver from her horn. She struck the thing again and again it became entrapped in the fibres tougher than diamond.

“You make many promises. Do you actually keep any of them? I’m sure you’re desperate to meet your daughter’s love interest. I know his name and I know his history and his future. There is nothing I cannot unearth.”

The blade scraped free once more. This time she drove the knife point first into the gauge and it followed through to the other side. The noises she made afterwards were something like laughter only it was muted and broken. It was as if more than one voice was speaking and they weren’t the best rehearsed.

“I’ve been very busy. I had a little lookie in little Amber’s head, didn’t find much to be perfectly frank. Then I went and had a look in Sierra’s mind. She is a horny young thing. I have seen some things in my line of work but the fetishisms and desires that wonder through this mare’s mind tested even me.”

Salem began regressing back to his younger self. He fell on his tummy and yelped but there was no soul to help. He shrieked as Luna thrust the knife handle skywards and the horn detached from her head. There was so much blood.

“You eat like a fat king while your subjects starve? You are no saint, Salem.”

She began as she collected the bloody shell husk from the floor. She held it facing her chest and contently closed her eyes. Little Salem could only crawl towards the imposter as the life drained from her face. He would never reach her.

She held the implement further away from her body and let her arms hand loose, as if she wasn’t going to go through with it.

“He’s evil!”

She screamed a banshee scream.

“He is blackest night and he bites me during feeds! Like a witch he won’t drown, he won’t stop breathing. His breathing, his breathing, it won’t stop, his breathing, it won’t stop!”

Luna fell to her knees and fastened her hooves around the horn, straightening her arms as she did. She closed her eyes and prayed.

“Tell me what to do, Oh Empresses. He is not my child. This is a doppelganger, a shape shifter! His birth is an affront to you both! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

The horn pierced Luna’s chest and she fell dead, blood spewing from every part of her. The blood spread. It filled the void, and then it kept on spreading. Soon the floor was congealing and scabbing over and young Salem was feeling smaller and smaller by the second.

Salem looked at his miniature hooves. They were doused in blood, her blood. He didn’t understand the difference. This was his weakness. This was how she would cut him down. Luna, now herself again, opened her mouth and said.

“Their blood is on your hands…”

> Uncertain times
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Morning struck as Celestia hauled the great star into the sky above. Sappheire looked glamorous as she stagnated atop the crow’s nest. The morning was beautiful, and it hurt how much the kingdom relied upon this ability of the Empress.

The morning as beautiful as it was, was covered by a great scaly mass of impressive build. It was Ignatius and his usual machismo was replaced with panicked breathing and pinpricked eyes.

“We are not immune, Salem. I saw things from the nesting grounds, from when I was with my other hatchlings. It was good. I was happy. She took it all. She has ways to make us break.”

Unafraid of the surprise guest, Sappheire petted his warm steaming snout with her cold glassy one.

“Was it restless, your night?”

“It was, your majesty, it was. I heard other dragons crying in their slumbers also. Can she be in multiple dreams? Why does she haunt us so?”

Sappheire bowed to the adviser and returned to the patio doors, the satin curtains nipping at her fetlocks.

“Be brave, good knight. We have much worse in store. Comfort your brothers wherever they may sleep. Gather them when they wake and bring them to moonlake. We must reveal our own doubts to the people, to show them that we are as mortal and as fragile as they. Quicksilver should be able to draw the ponies there too. Stay strong.”

Ignatius bowed to her and then scowled down to the council building, the one forever scarred by the unknown killer.

“There is one other way for you to reach the outside world. I’m unsure whether the powers that be can detect it, but we could send letters by dragon fire. We will need to find a dragon on the other side that we can trust. With our minds vulnerable to attack, a suitable candidate will be hard to locate.”

Salem kissed his wife as she walked back into the bedroom. He planted his hooves on the banister. He ushered for Ignatius to come closer. The drake lowered his head and pricked-up his spiny ear.

“Ignore what she shows you. And one more thing, leave hints about a war effort. Celestia is not patient. Empyrean craves war and what he coins retribution. We have only one choice, to beat them at their own sick game. We must be prepared.”

“I will. And king, what will happen if we go to war?”

“It will claim us. Innocence will be a thing of the past. We will stand against an army, a hundredfold the strength of our own. Be tactful, good dragon, for there isn’t room for error.”

“Before I return to our fields, I must go and check on the fried fledgling; make sure hasn’t chatted up too many of the nurses, that sort of thing. By the by, how has he been faring? I’ve been so caught up with calming my brethren that I haven’t had a chance to see him.”

“Pardon, you mean you are tired too? I second that motion. I might catch a couple more winks.”

“You did visit the brave little tyke didn’t you?”

“Of course, grand dragon, why would I lie about such things?”

“Then how is he?”

“He’s doing remarkably well, should be just peachy before the week is up.”

“That is good news. I’ll keep him company when the wards open. And thank you, I don’t know how you can possess such kindness.”

Ignatius released his grip on the walls of the tower and glided down towards the waking encampment.

Salem too left the balcony. His queen was no longer in the room they shared. He transported himself to the hall that housed his daughters’ chambers and thrummed the door that belonged to Sierra.

“Are you okay?”

The only answer was a muffled sobbing. It sounded like a heartbroken teen crying into a pillow, bottling up the emotions they themselves couldn’t fathom. There was still no reply, only sadness. Salem opened the door regardless and found his daughter in a rather compromising position on the bed.

Her legs were splayed, her undercarriage displayed. He approached until he saw her eyes, still shut as if she were still sleeping, still dreaming. He remembered what Luna had said about her curious mind, about the fantasies that existed therein.

What if this was another illusion created by the mental mare? He had made certain his sweetest child had not been exposed to the world of adult themes and mature thoughts and feelings. She wouldn’t have those thoughts. She was ignorant of it.

Her pupils were active beneath her eyelids. She was still under Luna’s sadistic power.

Salem kicked an ivory table at the wall and his horn imbued with magic. A sphere grew from the point of his inbuilt catalyst and it swelled until it engulfed Sombra’s face.

“Be gone!”

The glowing sphere grew unstable and imploded, sending any loose or light furniture careering into the ceiling and walls.

Sierra stopped what she was doing. She fell from her sheets. She looked ashamed. Salem tried to make eye contact but it could not be maintained. She grasped her hoof and whimpered for the pain that coursed through it. It ached. Oh how it must’ve ached.

“I am here, Sierra, it’s your daddy. Please don’t block me out. What you did, what you were doing, it’s perfectly natural for a mare your age. You needn’t feel self-conscious.”

Sierra said nothing. She dropped on to her side and remained absolutely still. Her father tried to rouse her from the trance but she was absorbed in a pit of self-pity and guilt. The usual pith of her personality was nowhere to be seen.

Salem took the quilt from the wreckage of the bed and loosely folded it over the shamefaced mare. He went to kiss her before leaving but she avoided his lips. He vanished and left her alone once more. Her room was totalled. It was nothing compared to the condition of her mind.

He reappeared in Amber’s room but there was no lump under the quilt. The linens had been scuffed and tucked messily aside and the window was open wide. Sappheire wiped the pure filtered tears from her eyes as she stared forlornly out into the castle grounds. Amber was gone.

“She’s out there all alone…”

Sappheire cried.

“She would have sought her colt-friend. She will be safe, my love, don’t fret. Our Sierra needs her mother right now. She is discovering things and she is unsure of what they mean. Be with her; let her know you are there for her.”

His queen held her head in contemplation of what her husband’s words meant. She figured it out soon and she rushed past the threshold towards the ruined room down the hallway.

“I will inform the guard and the watchmen, tell them that she is to be retrieved. I will see you later.”

The guards were already assembled in the foyer. Cavalrymen were backlogged as far as the gatehouse. Some nervously paced while others chewed at their hooves in anxious fits. Most of the cherry-picked soldiers were brawly enough to stand still in the courtyard. The ones that did break the norm were roped back in line by the ones in control. The outliers were no doubt the work of Luna.

Regardless of their mind set, the cavalry turned and saluted as Sombra trod on the obsessively mown grass.

“Which of you feel able to perform revelry this morning? I think it would be of great import if the brass band could play outside the castle walls, to invigorate the people.”

The errantry had been summoned by the King’s messenger, the young Quicksilver. They didn’t answer to the nimble Pegasus however. They may have been the King’s stallions, but their master was a soldier, one of prestige and prominence.

Lord Martingale was the commander in arms. He had a moustache with a face barely visible beneath. It was something of an inside joke when he sat down to supper that most would go missing in the great furry caterpillar.

The silver stallion stood before the roaming remiss of the royal guard and produced a cane from his ceremonial coat.

“I thought I built an army of intelligence, mental fortitude, and brilliance. What do I see before me now? Have my regiments been replaced by changelings? Celestia as my witness, you will assume formation and you will stop your bloody whining. It is not real.”

“I respect your leadership, master Martingale, but must you be so brusque?”

The commander stared basely at the interruption.

“I have the utmost respect for you too, dear King. However, you are being soft and these stallions need structure and discipline.”

Slowly the disorganised mishmash fell into line, forming into rows of single file with their heads held high.

“You see? All they needed was direction. Give them the stick, Sire, not the carrot.”

Martingale gave his sage advice freely. He faced the correctly positioned soldiers, nobles, knights and knaves. He walked among them, checking their posture, their teeth, anything he could get a hold of and inspect without deviating too far from the path he had chosen. Some blushed as they were essentially violated by the officer. Others shrugged it off. But they didn’t appreciate the attention, which was clear.

He continued to patrol, as if he needed to keep tabs on his subordinates. In the rare instances where the stallions lost focus or didn’t remain statuesque, his reaction would be swift and acute.

“Thank you for your professionalism, Officer. Could you please select a company to go to the streets of residents, and yes, that does include the slums.”

“You would mollify your subjects, Sire? I do not wish to speak out of term but your people are workshy. Have you not seen how the Emperor drives progress? Have you not admired the hive-mind camaraderie that his army exhibits?”

“These are not soldiers, officer. We are not yet at marshal law.”

“But how long, King, how long until our enlisted stallion ranks thin and all that remains are these wimps? They will be soldiers.”

Salem tapped his rear hoof feverishly on the ground as he passively willed the old-hat stallion to flop down dead. He had no concept of choice, only logic. War isn’t one by numbers alone.

“Even if you conscript every last one of my subjects, we will still be miniscule in the shadow of Empyrean’s legions.”

Martingale hadn’t listened to a word his king had said. He had been separating the band members from the interchangeable grid of grit and guile. He gave a lazy farewell to the monarch and marched the merry buskers out of the gate.

Salem relaxed, his h=rear hoof stopped flinching, and he sat casually before the remaining forces.

“As to the rest of you, I ask as not only your ruler but also as a concerned father that a sharp eye is kept for my eldest daughter, Amber. She is absent and her whereabouts is not known. Don’t be alarmed. She was frightened by the night invasions, as I’m sure most of you were. Don’t pretend, what’ve you to prove? I was devastated by what she showed me. Don’t make it obvious. Resume your normal duties and return to your posts. Be ready to coral the citizens to Stetson Bridge. All will become clear.”

Argument, why? For what purpose would they not obey? With a unified salute and a thunderous clap of thousands of hooves slamming into the ground, the knights, knaves, pages and archers left the gates. All but two left. They were by far better armoured and better muscled than the others.

They were wise and dutiful, faithful, and proud. One produced a scroll from his person and a quill quickly popped into existence. The cobalt stallion drew a hoof pick from the air and began scoring his lamina.

“We were looking for your messenger, Sire. He has been most elusive.”

“You speak of Quicksilver? Perhaps he is bedridden.”

“That might be plausible sir. It’s just, there was supposed to be a meet of sorts with the unicorns, and he hasn’t done anything to aid this. We might’ve overheard your conversation.”

“Don’t apologise. Good thinking, actually. Having one envoy did seem a little naïve. Well, the crime is known of now. I hope it is not an imposition for me to pass this task to you two. Actually, scrap that. In the assembly at the strike of noon we will disclose this. Then, hopefully, none of my subjects will be left in the dark.”

“What about the messenger? He might be trouble.”

“You are stalwart in your method, Pretorias. It appears that something untoward is happening under my nose. Keep an eye on our mutual friend; make sure his activity is not secret anymore.”

Pretorias held his hoof to his chest and the other paladin did the same. They bowed subtly in reverence and vanished uncannily in the way that unicorns do. After the cloud cleared, Salem watched as the winged mare soared into the morning bright.

> Shoot the messenger
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As promised, the brass band stirred the sleepy streets, and whisked the mix that made the pancakes of the new day. Martingale led the musically talented specimens of Salem’s horde through the rows of terraced homes and avenues of tall bright green trees and sublime suburban stately homes.

The guards disbanded from the castle gate and did as they were ordered, returning to their patrols, their posts and vantages, their overlooks and observation points.

Let us not dither the days away with the King. There are other key faces and minds to learn in this tale. One of which will live to be Salem’s closest friend. Pretorias and his female compatriot Macedia were watching the mages guild from afar. Macedia was a rather rustic looking creature, her coat a tapioca brown and her eyes a bluish grey. 

“I hate how we must stake him out.”

Pretorias turned to the fetching mare and sighed.

“Our King is unsure of Quicksilver’s allegiance. He was the first to know of the murders, and that makes him a curious prospect.”

“How so, you doubt his loyalty as well?”

“It is suspicious that there has been no progress made with the rebuilding of the council. It is as though our svelte friend is purposefully avoiding the chore. It is speculation, thinking aloud, but he has been hard to track lately. We cannot rule it out.”

Macedia was a divine creation if ever there was one. She had curves in all the right places and her muscles were toned and sculpted. Her wingspan was wide, and she locked strong, but at the same time delicate. This marvel of a mare flew from the perch where she had watched. Something had slipped by Pretorias’s radar, but not Macedia’s.

He saw her midmorning sky coat fading into the cover of chimneys and rooftops and transplanted himself to where she was bound to land.

“What’s the hurry, Macey? We’re monitoring his activity, not confronting him about it. If he’s up to no good then he won’t practice it if we stuff out noses in.”

The Pegasus stopped in her tracks and hovered momentarily. She was after something, but what?

“Has something got you antsy?”

“Nothing of the sort, I was exercising.”

“Oh sure, like when do you do anything without needing a reason?”

“All the time, you just don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

“We’ve been doing the same thing day in, day out. Do you really think there’s anything about you I don’t know?”

“Seriously Pretor, what’s my birthday? Where was I born? What pet do I have? You should know these ones, they’re easy.”

Pretorias studied the scene before him, the cordoned guildhall and the soldiers that trawled the area for trouble. Something attracted his piercing green eyes however; a colt was passing the guard detail without issue. It was no child. He had the stature of one.

“I take it you sighted him too?”

“Pardon me? Yes cousin, I believe I may have spotted our tail.”

“What do you make of this coup?”

“Enough of the conspiracies, it’s not so straightforward. He is still the messenger of the king; perhaps he is running his own enquiries.”

She preferred Macey, her official title was dull. The pair of them ambled past the still grim innards of the building as they approached the checkpoint guard who had let the meagre colt through.

“Cavaliers, front and centre!”

Pretorias barked.

“Uh, what are you going to get from this? This is routine, normal. Why must you be so paranoid?”

Now peeved by the ignorance of the stallion detail, Pretorias made them bow with his superior sorcery. He gleamed as they bent down and begged at his hooves. 

“Guard, you are here to ensure the security of this site. Why have you let that stallion through without question? Our investigation is far from over. No one is exempt.”

The stallion with the coat of paler grey grimaced as he fought against the spell. He forced his head around and craned his neck to face the paladin.

“Why would the king’s serf do anything to harm the kingdom? I did not stop him because he is not a dragon.”

“Racism is an unattractive thing to be, guard. Until all alibis are confirmed, we cannot be so flippant.”

“What he’s trying to say…”

Macey tried to correct.

“Don’t undermine me. Okay, this is how we’ll sort this out. Have you let the messenger through before? You know, he was the first to discover the dead bodies. I do sincerely hope your loyalty is unwavering. Among our troops there has been talk of execution for the perversion of justice. Is a few back-payments here and there worth that much to you?”

“I am sorry.”

“For what, you admit to treachery? I’ll have you before a firing line.”

“I am not sorry for that.”

“Then why are you being so peculiar? I haven’t the time to waste with this. Macey, follow our friend and see what he’s up to. I’ll stay here.”

The elegant Pegasus launched into the sky and trailed the target unseen. The guard broke free of the spell; his partner still enwrapped in it, and drew his shined spear in defence.

“Commander Martingale had us posted here. We were meant for the perimeter but he charged us with safeguarding this place instead. He said that Salem’s…”

“That’s King Sombra to you, worm.”

“Regardless. A blind fool could figure this out. The deep lacerations, the violent self-destructive use of the victim’s own appendage dealing the final blow, and the doubtful statements of our scaled neighbours have led us to only one conclusion. This was either the work of dragons, or the work of our King.”

“You retract that allegation! You will not castigate the face on our coin! I will be speaking to Martingale before today is done. Now answer my question, how many times?”

“He was liaising with the forensic teams. He always rushed off, always had somewhere else to go. Said he was reporting to the king, that is was urgent, that we weren’t to ask why.”

Pretorias pondered a moment and let the sequence of untruths filter through his mind. His lengthy horn vivaciously came alive with colours as he struck the unspeaking member of the duo down.

“You repeatedly avoid the question at hand. How many times has he been tampering with the dead elders inside?”

The guard bowed of his own volition and nodded in registering his mistake.

“We were on duty last night. That was the first time. Since the break of dawn he has been visiting the scene, every time forbidding our curious natures. We wanted to know. He said that any disruptions with his work might impact the health of our families.”

The paladin stopped and froze. A tear bade him cry but he fought it back, he stayed demure. The look of sadness still creased his perfect features, his mathematically tuned jawline and brow. He was beautiful to behold, but he was faulty like the rest.

“Let this not leak. Quicksilver is a wanted stallion. He is the prime suspect in this case. He has been acting out of sorts and we have been unable to find him. Sorry, I’ve been unable. I forget myself when I’m alone. I just now spoke with the King, and he too hasn’t seen the messenger since yesterday noon.”

Pretorias’s horn dimmed as he mercifully caught the wounded guard.

“Forgive my preclusions gentlemen. Remember, this stays under wraps. You are to tell no one.”

“We will do our utmost.”

The guards responded in eerie symbiosis, as if two parts of the same organism.

“What was that?”

Pretorias demanded. 

“Mum’s the word.”

The misunderstanding ended with the shaking of hooves. The injured guard brushed himself off and saluted. Through it all, the hierarchy stood.

Pretorias trotted past the dawning din of the noisy things held by soldiers fat and thin. He left the grumbly commander in his wake as he tried to remember where his partner had flown. In some good fortune, the errand colt had not eluded them once more.

> Dragon fire
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The King was thanking the marching band for their cooperation and was digging through his mind for a way to thank them better, some sort of token. He could think of nothing. He couldn’t play favourites, not now.

It was time. The dragons and ponies would soon be arriving at moonlake. Salem was passing by the mine entrance when he happened upon Ignatius. He was stooped over and his wings were limply folded behind his back. Salem crept up behind the solemn drake and tugged at his dragging claw.

“Are you alright, Ignatius? You seem a little down in the dumps…”

“Oh, do I? I’m sorry for not conforming to your warped view of the world.”

“Would you mind rephrasing that? Have you informed the others of the assembly commencing soon?”

“I have not.”

“And, will you get around to this?”

“I will not.”

Ignatius sighed. Black soot poured from his maw as he gazed into the mine.

“Can I ask why? I’m sure in your mind this is acceptable, but I was counting…”

“The fledgling didn’t make it. Were you not told? Your diminutive helper was there, said he would divulge the outcome with you when he had the chance.”

“My helper, you speak of Quicksilver I trust? He is no longer a member of my court.”

“I couldn’t care less about the ponies of your employ. The young dragon, Clastic, he died painfully on the surgeon’s chopping board.”

“He died?”

“Like you care, what does it matter to you if it isn’t your own kind?”

“Of course I am hurt by this, this is truly awful news.”

“Then why did you never visit him? You make all these promises. I question your conviction. My confidence in this futility that you call a plan has shrivelled up and died. Why would you fight to keep us on side anyway? The Princesses can render us grounded, cripple, and maul us and there isn’t a thing we can do!”

Salem retreated up the ramp of the mine until he bumped into a worker, casually wolfing down his lunch. It was the disgruntled fellow from the day before.

“Sorry there, your highness, I was miles away.”
Salem turned and saw the stallion eating what he had described to be his favourite foods. He bowed humbly and shook his head.

“No need, no need. How has work been?”

“Changing the subject now are we?”

Ignatius fiendishly whispered.

“I had prior commitments!”

Ignatius’s mouth lit up with hungry fire.

“What, serving your family the banquet of Gods while the rest of us make do?”

“Our working relationship isn’t a bumpy one. Quicksilver is a danger to the lives of our people. He is the traitor, no doubt about it. He never told me about the bereavement, and for that I can only give my most heartfelt condolences.”

“You think your empty words can heal the family that was torn apart by this injustice?!”

“This was not my doing!”

Salem refuted. A pillow of scintillating purple blossomed from his horn as the mighty drake drowned him in flame.

“You made the decision! You put us in this position! Why should I bring my brothers of wing, their children and their kin to your speech? You will fool many with your lies. I never want my kind, as so many have so eloquently put it, to be subjected to that same indoctrination.”

“My word is law, dragon! I expect you to learn that lesson well. It was an unfortunate accident. The late adolescent was overtaken by greed, the very greed you and your brothers share. He wanted the precious jewels so badly that he put his own health at risk. Now he pays the price.”

Another surge of brutal flames swept across Salem’s protective spell. Ignatius unfurled his wings and lifted up to the sky. He took a deep breath and scorched the mine entrance, reducing it to firewood and charcoal before flying higher into the air.

“Thank you. Thank you for telling the truth for once. I see through you now, through that mask you always wear. You don’t respect or appreciate us for being different, you merely exploit us. I will bring my brothers, but we will not be there to listen.”

How could he have been so selfish? Salem turned to the harsh wheezing of the charming miner. His head was now bald, his grey mane scattered about the burnished sand. He approached the writhing stallion and caringly grasped his wrinkled hoof.

“You fuddy-duddy old thing, if only you had gone to lunch later. This will be the spark that invites rioting, vigilantes, and if worse comes to worst, fighting and revolution in the streets. You will not be the example they use.”

The stallion was finding it nearly impossible to breathe, let alone plead for his life. He coughed up blood as he opened his crisped eyes to look at the king, his king.

“Will I die?”

“I cannot trust you to keep your mouth shut. My kingdom will burn for one senile steed? I think not. There will be nothing to find.”

Salem left the mouth of the cave in a plume of purple smoke. He set the frail frame of the stallion in front of Martingale, who had finished his morale coaching and was tucking into some vintage brandy.

“A martyr for their cause, get rid of him.”

Martingale swilled the odious concoction in his hoof and slung a leg up on the table, lazily moving it as if not at all surprised by the news.

“It was bound to happen. What happened?”

“A dragon was grieving for the loss of another. He blamed me, said that I was responsible.”

“Yes, you can throw away some of the preamble. Get to the good part.”

“The stiff was a worker in the mines. He was at the wrong place at the wrong time. The dragon made attempts at my life and in one final tantrum he embalmed the ground in fire. Caulker was a victim of this. But if this gets…”

The esteemed commander placed his glass on the desk. He crossed his legs and tilted back on his chair.

“I concur. His life does not outweigh the lives of many. If he is reported as missing there will be questions. We’ll say he was a rambunctious libertine, and was deep in a sordid relationship with a dragoness. That should stifle the spies, don’t you think?”

“If it is what must be done, then do what you have to. I have a public to address; again, I hope to see you dressed for the occasion.”

“What are you getting at, Salem?”

“Chew some mint and drop the booze.”

Martingale faked a smile as Salem vanished. He let the corners of his mouth droop and his ears flop down as well as soon as he was sure Salem had gone.

“Telling me to ditch my cosy afternoon tipple, spoilsport.”

> Come one, come all
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Moonlake was a pristine park on the border of the Diamond Kingdom. There was a narrow stone bridge across a sparkling body of water, not looking too much different to good quality champagne.

This was known as Stetson Bridge, after the architect that established it centuries ere. Upon the stage were Salem’s youngest, Sierra, his beloved, Sappheire, and a stallion he had been looking for intently.

His figure was gaunt, and his tail scraggly. His straggly mane was worn, withered and sad looking. When looking at the pure perfection and poetry of the mares beside the messenger, it was hard to believe they were the same creatures at all. 

It was Quicksilver. He had picked the wrong time to reveal himself from beneath the woodwork. Perhaps he was unaware that the King and his highest order of knights were now apprehending him. Either way, his expedience was to come to an end.

Upon the bridge another figure appeared, one well known. The King arrived as understatedly as he could for he didn’t wish to enrage the crowd that waited for his ode to ardour. But when he looked out onto the sparkling lake of fine glassy grasses and soft natural ambiance, he didn’t find any ponies at all. He looked again and it was clear that his words were falling idly. There was no one there.

Salem gawped in awe at the vacant assembly. It took him a minute or two to get his mind around the odd turnout. He gazed a little longer at the substance of his failure before turning his back on it all. His heart sank and fell from his mouth. He had tried wearing it on his sleeve but his trusted people had developed a lust for it, a taste for his kindly manner. They would only squander it.

The first friendly face he saw was his daughter’s. Sierra looked sort of awkward, framed in the distorted glamour of the lake. She pretended not to notice the folly of the people. She and her mother feigned disinterest in the aloofness of the masses. They knew it to be true. Faith was lost. Hope was fiction.

He then turned a few more degree and finally found the stallion of his employ. Plain as day Quicksilver stood unmoving at the lip of the rail, his hoof squishing slightly his straggly tail.

“You swore an oath. You signed a contract. Get away from my girls you charlatan. My paladins were chasing you, what has become of them?”

The Pegasus was mentally sharp. He didn’t stick around to listen to the King. His wings outstretched left and right as he took flight. He was almost clear, barely within range of the King’s extensive influence. Close wasn’t enough. Salem caught the fleeing pest with his impeccable magic skill and dragged the accused back to terra-ferma.

“You’ve incited militancy in my Kingdom, you horrible being. Tell me, by whose command do you do these awful deeds?”

Salem demanded. He dragged the grounded wingman across the stone and his own mottled scraggly tail hairs until he was left to catch his breath.

“The guilders, you were the one that killed them are you not?”

“Even if I had motive sire, there is no physical means by which I could subdue and execute all 9 of the cows!”

The messenger seemed to laugh in the face of danger. He threw out his wings and beat them rapidly, skimming past the face of the gemstone queen as he did.

“I am not a pawn in your game, silver. I am not playing cat and mouse either.”

Salem conjured a miniaturised bronze French horn and played a note.

Six of the royal cavalry, unicorn division appeared on the bridge with the royal family, well most of them. In robotic motions they saluted, turned and stood ready for combat.

“What’s the emergency, your highness?”

Salem placed his hoof on the knight’s shoulder and pointed towards a shrinking dull fleck in the distance.

“He is the traitor. Quicksilver is the traitor. Have at him!”

As quickly as the reinforcements had appeared, they vanished to never be seen again. Soon the trill of a bell filled the snow globe which once resembled a kingdom. The alarms had been raised. Pegasi shot up into the sky at the instruction of the King as he played another note on his musical thing.

The Queen, princess and King watched, mesmerised by the sheer intricacy of the capture. Quicksilver fit his name to the ground. No other flyer could match him in flight.

The noise died down and the trio turned back to the quiet simplicity of the lake and its love affair with the moon. They couldn’t believe their eyes. They didn’t comment on it either. The tract of glassy grasses was coloured every colour of the rainbow. It was no cosmic event. The subjects both equine and reptile had kept their end of the bargain. All were present and accounted for. Only one dragon was missing.

Ignatius.

Salem swallowed a heavy lump that had formed in his throat. He composed himself upon the uneven stonework of the bridge and clapped his hoof against the wall.

“Doubt is a seed fertilised by hatred. The more we water the soil, the more of it grows. I have not been entirely truthful with you, and for that I am sorry. I have told you to carry on as normal but you can all see that this scheme is failing astronomically. There is a harbinger in the air, and it is watching us. Celestia’s Valkyrie squadrons will pepper our realm with arrows and payloads made of poison joke. Luna’s Night Guardsmen will swarm our villages and hamlets and abduct the foals from their beds. The Imperial Unicorns of Canterlot will supress us with their collective might. And then there is our greatest adversary. Empyrean commands an army so vast, so ruthless, that he has never lost an engagement. This is his forte. We are rank amateurs.”

A filly sprung from the amassment and waved he hoof in the air. Salem noticed the tiny detail and pointed the eager young mare, urging her to speak.

“You have a question?”
The filly stopped jumping, and apparently stopped breathing all together. The crowd split like the red sea as the darling budding child faltered and fainted on the spot.

Salem snatched the babe from the floor and supported her against the bridge wall. He felt her forelock. She was boiling hot. She was running a fever so high the stoic King jittered in discomfort. 

“What did you want to ask, little one?”

Sappheire softly and sensitively asked. She placed her cool hoof on the hellish brow of the filly and cradled her carefully in her arms.

The crowd hadn’t broken down into savage and reckless rivalries for their attentions were drawn to the struggling filly. What had taken her ill so suddenly?

Salem strode to his wife and stroked the clammy forelock of the hindered child. She was burning up. He felt her chest for a heartbeat. It was faint.

“You mustn’t. It will consume you…”

Sappheire said as she sheepishly pulled the fill out of the King’s reach.

Salem stole the filly from his wife. It wasn’t for safety but because her maternal instincts would endanger the unconscious bairn. His eyes bloomed with purple smoke and his irises turned red. His magic took on a darker hue, more black than anything, as he sent a salvo of amethyst into the filly’s body.

She didn’t move. Blood began to spill from her moth and her vibrant coat pink changed to pale eggshell. Salem sobbed briefly in despair, before pulling himself together. He opened the eyes of the catatonic filly and let her head rest against the floor. She was lost.

“Wolf’s bane, this was no accident.”

Salem hid his face as another tear dared burst through his watertight face. He scaled the wall of the bridge and his horn burnt purple as he performed his audacious spell once more.

“A deadly pathogen has been released into our enclosed world. It has many names. It can be translated in many ways. Firstly, monitor closely your children for they will be the most vulnerable. There is no cure. We don’t how they have come into contact with the herb but I know for certain that it does not grow here. In small doses it is fine. It usually thrives in mountains. We live in the lowlands. If any of you and especially your young exhibit confusion, loss of motility or numbness in the extremities, or bowel upset of any form, then you are to quarantine them. This can be managed.”

The crowd animated with justified uproar. They threw their limbs in the air in protest, stamping hooves, cheering chants of abdication. They blamed him.

“You’ve tainted our food! The King is in league with the Empresses! They promised him a seat in their new world order and he is stepping on all of us to reach it!”

“He hates our children! He’d see them locked away or culled for his filthy lies!”

“He struck her with dark magic! He killed her! The King killed the filly! Filly Killer, you’ll find your reward in Tartarus!”

“Rapist! Sodomite! Our queen should have never fallen for you. The king is evil! He is wrong for the Kingdom. He is poison!”

The berating caused Salem to back away from the misinformed mobs and miscreants. He shrunk towards the far side of the bridge dropped his head. He couldn’t reclaim them. They weren’t his instruments anymore.

“Enough! This is an outrage!”

It was a familiar voice, and not one the King thought he’d be hearing again. He thought his time was up.

Upon the bridge landed the mighty drake of scales rouge. He clinched the wall in his massive claws and roared at the ponies and dragons alike.

“I have been short-sighted, my King. Thankfully I was given this opportunity to mend my errors. I have noticed these symptoms in the hatchlings as well. They are overheated, delirious and stuttering. They complain of weakness. There is nothing we can do. Hatchlings do not graze on petals and fruits. We eat gems and wild boar meat. Let us not fall into these old patterns. The feuds can wait. Our little miracles are in jeopardy. This is trivial. They are not.”

Sappheire pranced up the pulpit and dragged her divine child with her. She held Sierra still and sang to the scared parents and siblings.

“This can wait another day. This gathering might have already spread the horrid venom of the flower. I am going home to spend as much time as I can with my beautiful daughter. I welcome you all to do the same.”

With that the assembly disassembled. Dragons flitted one way and mares and stallions galloped the other. Soon the glassy grasses were bare again. Salem turned to the towering fiery giant and called for his ear. The dragon obeyed and lowered his head.

“I cherish this bond, grand dragon. You have no idea how much I needed a friend. You came to my rescue. You aren’t beastly or monstrous as I have been made to believe. No nobler an ally could I find. None exists.”

Ignatius was blushing but it was undetectable on his scales. He silently stayed with the king under the swollen sun. He said nothing, didn’t even move until the royal mares had safely adjourned. He sat down and coiled his spiky tail behind him, not entirely fitting on the bridge. It dangled into the champagne lake. It was a pleasant temperature, and it cooled the searing heat in the drake’s soul.

“I was wrong to cast aspersions. What was I thinking? Please tell me, because I am still none the wiser. I don’t want this utopia to crumble. This is a mere island of paradise within an ocean of controlling autocracy and despotic waves. I want to help preserve this. I want to be able to say that I tried, that I was pivotal in our resistance. But we are outnumbered, my King. We are a stain and they will not hesitate…”

Salem peered across the lake and took a deep breath. It calmed him greatly. He squared up to Ignatius, his new found chum, and clapped his front hooves together.

“Would you in their position? I am spending the rest of the day in the farmlands. You are of course free to do as you wish, but I would strongly recommend you catch a nap before nightfall. We have irritated the Night Empress and her vengeance will be incomparable.”

“I should catch up on some shuteye. I’ve been losing track of hours.”

“Good. Hopefully my subjects have returned to their homes as my beloved wished. I’m going to run thorough searches of the florists, confectioners and allotments. I am unsure of the ‘banes’ origin but it could be contaminating our food, being sold by mistake or be illegally harvested in our virile fields. All I know is I cannot sleep until I have eradicated it.”

Ignatius bowed, his wings folding out as he did. He left the bridge and so did the king. The tract was left sparse once more.

> Death's bouquet
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The ploughed miles of fertile land were empty for the most part. A couple of pegasi circled above. They were spraying the crops. Perhaps they hadn’t families to care for.

A force of stallions, thirty strong, arrived at the stretching trenches and saluted as was the convention.

“You asked for us sire?”

One quizzed.

“This is a wild goose chase, chief. We don’t know for sure it was the bite of bane.”

“Nonetheless, I want to prevent this pandemic, not cure it.”

The rude stallion took a stride towards the king and dug his hoof into the dirt.

“One death is not reason for concern. We could be doing things advantageous for the kingdom. We could be policing the threatening conflict between the dragons and our own. We could be forming a posse to find the missing paladins. Have you forgotten their wellbeing so quickly sire?”

Salem forced the stallion to take a knee with a hex of disarming. He went to trample the foolhardy donkey but he stayed his sword another day. He did prise the quill over the sword after all. He dragged the dimwit to his feet with another manipulative incantation and held him there for a few moments. All that remained of the search party designated themselves quadrants to explore while their friend gazed into the red glazed eyes of the king.

“They understand the importance of this. Wolf’s bane is incredibly potent. It poses a great risk to every last civilian, clergy member, royal and guard. We would be incapacitated in hours, mounds in the boneyard soon after that. Now forget yourself for a second and search!”

Again, the stallion defiantly smirked at Salem. He stretched his neck until it clicked before rotating his hooves, all four of them.

“We could be making a difference, not doing your bucking gardening!”

“What is your name, knave?”

“Like I’d let that slip. I’ve got a new born foal and my love is at home alone nursing her.”

“If you fear for your child then you will be more inclined to find and destroy every last root, leaf, and flower of that plant. Notice something else? I’m here. I’m the king. My own daughter ran away from home and I don’t know if she’s alive. We can’t have an encore of the mining fiasco or the murder of the mages. This isn’t about fairness and who’s getting what and for why. If a city slicker like you can’t rough it out here with us, then join the urban search.”

The knave ground his teeth as if ready to spit insults once more. However, his mouth stayed closed. After a fashion, he vanished from view. Salem left the loose tilled soil behind and started for the avenues of freshly baked something. As he imagined the spectrum of flavours and aromas to tickle his fancy, a wobbly stallion bumped into him.
“Pardon me, lovely nags. I was too busy admiring your astonishing rumps.”

Martingale slurred. He had skipped the assembly by the sounds. His breath could rust iron.

“Firstly Vincent, I’m not a she, and secondly, there is only one of me. How much have you had to drink? You look like a propaganda poster for why not to trust the heraldry. What possessed you, Vincent?”

“How I wish to spend the final days of my life is my flaming business.”

“That’s rather defeatist of you.”

“Well, your face is ugly. There I said it. Your horn’s all bendy and weird.”

“Granted, it was a birth defect. Just get your head down and sober up. I don’t want you inadvertently spreading the bane in you drunken stupor.”

“What did you call me, a lightweight? It takes more than a few tots to blunt this sharp mind.”

Salem swatted Martingale’s offensive breath from his nose. He nearly passed out it was heavily laced in liquor.

“Be that as it may, commander, you are a role model, unfortunately, for these recruits and I don’t want them to get into any of your habits.”

“I’m going to the watering hole. I’m all out of drink.”

“Listen to me, Vincent. I am biting my tongue here, and you are setting a terrible example. Get clear of the streets, shower, bathe I don’t give a damn, just don’t be seen until you are decent and sound of mind.”

Salem ordered as he grasped the paralytic stallion’s throat.

“I mean it, commander. This may be how you relax, but it will not be explicitly practised while on duty. Make yourself invisible.”

Martingale broke free of Salem’s clutches. He growled and tucked his tail between his legs. Salem watched as his once glorious officer staggered down the road, making awkward passes at things that vaguely resembled the fairer sex, and weaving haphazardly towards his home. Hopefully he wouldn’t take a detour to a local tavern.

There was a carriage, and one of the passengers looked far too familiar. Salem needed a double take to be sure, but there wasn’t a shred of doubt. It was Amber. He broke into full gallop towards the awaiting transport but it pulled away from the kerb before he could flag it down. The fit young stallions easily outran the King, still exhausted from troubled sleep. 

He had forgotten about his ability to simply teleport to the carriage and instead fruitlessly pursued it. He forged on until he was red in the face and sore in the back. The other passenger must have been her lover, that puckish young rogue she had mentioned. He had given everything he could muster and his vision was turning blurry, his stomach turning south. He wasn’t the most athletic of mustangs.
It darted around a corner ahead of him and the racket of metal horse shoes died down. He puffed and panted and fell on his muzzle. His face contorted as he fought for stability. His horn shone purple and he disappeared in a flash of light.

Amber looked to her sweetheart and pecked him on the cheek. He respected her reservations on the matter of intimacy and togetherness. She still wanted him to meet her father before anything really happened between them.

That wasn’t to say that the colt-friend was frigid, or even timid. He was an energetic fusion coil of unchained emotions and hormones and the lovey-dovey rut he had found himself in was making him rancid with lust.

Salem reappeared only he didn’t just gently step onto the ground. No, he emerged in a spiralling vortex of blackest light. He smashed into the road ahead of the carriage and the marble yielded. A crater formed. The engine of stallions skidded to a halt, nearly overturning the cargo they freighted.

The driver dropped the reigns and slung a sack of wheat to the harnessed slaves below. He hopped from his perch and bowed as soon as he saw the King’s reddened horn project from the ground.

“Is there a parade scheduled for today?”

Salem crawled from the hole and shook the marble dust out of his sleek black flowing mane.

“You don’t have to answer. Did you forego my speech?”

“Lots of ponies didn’t go your eminence. They must have thought it was a total waste of time and resources just like I do. Forgive me for being frank, but I have a fare to deliver.”

“You are not. Carry on though. Who’s the happy couple?”

“Master Lotus made it clear that he was not to be delayed.”

“Ah, finally we have a name. I heard you wanted to meet with me, colt. Now, if it’s not too much of a complicated procedure, please bring yourself before me. And Amber, you aren’t off the hook yet.”

Lotus was dressed in a plain unimpressive shirt and a neat little bowtie. He vaulted the driver’s stool and landed a few feet short of the crater. It was still glowing intensely.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, the father of such a beautiful thing. I can only assume that you are as lucky as I for her mother must be most ravishing.”

“Do go on. What is your occupation, Master Lotus?”

“I’m a florist. Actually, my mum runs the little flower shop on Winder’s street. I help out where I can.”

Salem nodded and made a face as if he was satisfied with the answer.

“And my daughter, what designs do you have on her?”

“Sorry, designs?”
“Do you have cotton wool in your ears boy, what do you intend? Do you want to be wed, father children, elope?”

“Oh no, I would never leave. I can’t leave. I adore your daughter sir. She is smart, and funny, and she has the most infectious smile. I couldn’t live, knowing she wasn’t happy…”

Salem gestured for the stallion to follow him. They ducked down a nearby ally until Salem dragged the smartly dressed colt by the tufts of fur on his ear and slammed him against the wall. He knocked the flowers from his hoof.”

“Are you blind, boy? This chattel contains wolf’s bane. How can you work in a flower shop and not know this?”

“It’s a pretty purple flower; I thought she’d like it. And I’m not a botanist, I’m a handyman, do odd jobs around the place, fix the odd leaky pipe, decorate houses, that sort of thing.”

Salem thrust his fore hooves into the shoulders of the stallion and raised him off of the ground.

“My mum was always saying how dads protect their daughters. She wasn’t wrong. My name’s Tiger by the way.”

“Had you been at my so-called wasteful speech you would have learnt that a filly no older than four was ended by that very plant. Where did you get it from, Tiger?”

“My mother arranged them especially to give to your daughter. We were going to have a picnic today.”

Salem released the runt but didn’t let him scarper. He stamped on his tail and yanked him back towards him.

“You are her rogue? I’ve had bowel movements more unpredictable than you. You are safe. Why would she have me believe you were a bad egg?”

“Beats me, I don’t know what she’s thinking most of the time.”

“Hmm, humorous, I shall have to remember that one when I’m next at the gala. You beat an egg, funny right? Have you touched any part of the purple bloom? If so, my daughter might already be sick.”

“She hasn’t touched the flowers…”

“Unlike you, I can see perfectly fine. You think I didn’t see you two smooching?”

“Ah, right-right, that could potentially be bad right?”

Salem released Tiger’s tail and started followed a few paces behind. The spritely young stallion bounded out of the ally whereas Salem took his time, plodding in the dark refuse of garbage and overspill. He didn’t see that the bouquet had rolled and he didn’t see where it now rested. 

His hoof compressed the sentimental gift into a colourful gunge. He shrieked as the bindings of the stems came apart and he saw that he had touched the lethal plant. He backed away until the cloud overhead passed and the ally was drenched in sunlight. They were plastic. The purple petals had snapped and, going back to feel them, Salem discovered that they were ductile and smooth. They weren’t real.

Quick as a whip he appeared back at crashed carriage and handed the crudely squashed together bouquet to Tiger.

“It turns out the bane was an imitation. I suppose they do have a certain royal flair to them. By all means, give them to her.”

“I don’t know the first thing about flowers, but my mum does. I tell you, she could cater for any occasion, weddings, funerals, you name it she can do it. She says different flowers mean different things. It’s all gibberish to me. I might not give these to her now.”

“But they’re harmless, don’t be such a prude. She’ll appreciate the thought, not the appearance. She’s courting you after all.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“Clever boy, you’ll go far. You kids run off now, have fun. Be young before you get old.”

Still no closer to finding the root of the wolf’s bane problem, Salem tipped the driver and when ready, made for the ramparts.

> Above it all
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Canterlot glittered under the sun Empress’s golden gift. Below, the chiefly unicorn populous enjoyed the entrées of restaurants dotted about the cityscape. Love struck couples wined and dined in the lux of the fortress impaled upon the huge apogee of MT Cantus. Great cataracts spilled from the bluffs and carried the sewage away from the sweet smelling superficiality of the golden gabled, patchwork painted idyll. 

Indeed, all might seem calm, and at rest, but there was no such dormancy in the sky spiting tower above. Luna paced and her sister yawned, they were growing weary of the Arcady in the north. Luna lashed out at the stained glass window and shattered it into millions of pieces. Celestia didn’t look away from her book. She was a fastidious thing.
“Brother will be here tomorrow and we still have nothing to show for this campaign. He will not surrender his kingdom! He is nearly as stubborn as you!”

Celestia cocked an eyebrow and made a rotten face at Luna from behind her book.
“Who is as stubborn as me?”

“Sombra, that bigoted idiot stuck in his archaic world. I’ve been mocking them in their dreams, trying to make them snap. His people are strong. They are doughty and strong willed.”

Celestia left her bed; more a sun-kissed cloud draped in many expensive rugs, and fixed the window with ease.

“Oh please, sister, don’t lose your tiara over it. You have oodles of time to destroy them, leave them as blithering wrecks. Do so, and Sombra will admit defeat, and Empyrean will have his victory.”

Luna’s face creased with displeasure. She stomped upon the monochromatic tiles until a divot formed.

“I push him to the brink. I broadcast the filthy secrets of his daughter, and still he defies us? I agree, he is resolute and his subjects would be highly valued for subjugation under our new ethos. He cannot be broken, sister. For every mortifying memory I drag up, his insipid witch queen consoles him.”

“You speak of the last crystal pony, do you not?”

“Yes, my sister. She evades us. She is watchful of our presence.”

“She sees you when you are haunting? There are many things I do not know of these relics. It’s said that their race were the howling wendingo that nearly bought about eternal frost. All I see is a tired old mare with an impotent mate.”

Luna picked a grape from the vine, one held by the steward. The stallion complimented the Empress on her elegance and poise, but she was far too taken aback by the sleepless mare.

“Make yourself useful, worm. With the absence of the mages to receive news, they will likely resort to the telegraphy of dragons. Round up the wild specimens and even the ones kept in slavery and see that they are not selling our strategies or any information to the Diamond Kingdom.”

“Your holiness, I would, but it seems inhumane to belittle and torture the drakes further.”
“I did not stutter, worm.”

Luna hissed.

Celestia procured the bunch of grapes and the perfectly yellow plantains and towed them under her bed, since the two were pontificating in Celestia’s room.

“Please, your grace, see sense. Your sister’s judgement is clouded…”
“You pustule, how do you see yourself worthy to subvert my name? Get to your appointed task, worm, or there will no longer be space for you here.”

“Empress Celestia, I beg of you…”

“Don’t bring me into this. I might sit and watch, depends on what other entertainment I can find.”

The guard launched his helmet against the doorframe with a sudden burst of light, and a sudden lapse of thought. He busied himself with unbuckling the golden peytral and letting it fall to the ground.

“I am the head of your elite guard, and I find myself being bullied and downtrodden. As always your wish is my command, and I will convey the order to the stallions I outrank. The dragons will be caged by tomorrow morning. I will forbid my inferiors from sleeping tonight in aid of this. Goodnight.”

The guard left his removed plates of bard in the threshold and conformably shut the ostentatious doors on his exit.  

“Tsk, what a drama queen? So, where were we?”

Celestia giggled. She lay back on her bed and savoured a juicy grape. It hung on to her lip for an age.

“Your regalement of equestria lore has in no sense of the word helped me. How can we get through to that empty-skulled abomination?”
Celestia didn’t seem at all bothered by the complications in her and her sibling’s plans. She facilely stretched out on her vast bed and digested the thought of the hectares of land that would be hers very soon.

“Okay. You sleep dear sister, I will take charge. They all resist our power. Sappheire must die. I’ll force her suicide. That will work. It should…”
“If you are going to talk to yourself till the wee hours of the morrow, could you leave? Not a question, I’m telling you; leave.”

Luna screwed her face up at her older sister and took a brisk exit through the open balcony. The colds of the north were given only a season to play. Once far enough away from her sister’s arrogance, Luna perched upon the highest point on the tallest tower of the citadel. She looked down at the clean shapes of opulence and then stared at the bowing head of the sun. It was on its way to bed, like Salem soon would be.

At the apex she watched in sweet anticipation, sweating so copiously the evening was moist. She felt the cool of a kind breeze brush through her ghostly hair. It nearly tipped her but she wasn’t scared. Her eyes boiled white as she called in the night.

“Your military misfit will be the chink in your armour. I may not be able to derail you, but your inebriate will prove a willing host.”
Luna quietly whispered to herself.

She disappeared in the blink of an eye and arrived seconds later in the gallery leading to the King’s quarters. She would hound him first. He was a tough nut to crack so she needed to set aside extra time to properly panic him. She fazed through the door ordinary in comparison to the one barricading the room of her sister, and crept along the floorboards in a manner most stomach churning and clandestine.

At the balcony unmoving was the sleepless queen of the Kingdom. She was in deep mediation. She exuded calmness. It was out of place amongst the havoc, the mania.

Luna’s bold physique faded until barely seen. She looked down at the drawling monarch and turned the key.
Inside it was the void once more. Salem’s inner self was sitting in silence in the centre. He wasn’t crying. He wasn’t laughing. It was somewhere in between. She approached him unperturbed.

“You found our scout then?”

Salem turned and smiled evilly at the apparition.

“He was a liability long before you sunk your claws into him.”

“What will be the punishment for this heresy?”

“He is captive now. He’s no heretic. He’s just greedy, confused, scared, like I would be if I didn’t know what was happening. Naturally there will be upheaval. He’ll stand trial in the morning.”

Salem gave the unwelcome mare an unsettling stare. Behind her, he could see the darkness, the emptiness becoming vulgar. What once the opaque illusion of the unknown, became steeped in blood. It ran down the sides of the imagined dome until it began to spread along the moody floor.

“This trick you play, should I be frightened? Your trick with the wolf’s bane killed a filly, a young one at that. Tell me, ghost, is this what you wanted?”

Luna rubbed the side of her head with her hoof, knocking her curving crown to the ensanguine depths of her creation. She nodded her head from side to as if trying to retrace her movements over the previous days.

“Actually, that’s news to me. It might have been something my sister cooked up. She can be a wily old nag when she wants to be. I kind of wish I had come up with it. I bet she suffered till she drew her last undeserved breath.”

“Have you been on speaking terms with your prodigious brother? I’m sure he misses your soothing voice.”

“Condescend to me not, mortal. We are a close family and we keep nothing from each other. What about your litter, how have they been keeping? Did Sierra’s innermost obsessions not repulse you?”

Luna punctuated her most gruelling attempt by making an effigy in the image of Sierra, every last detail exact and accurate.

“That whore will feel my wrath as all of you will. Will you still love her when she flies the coop? It’s bound to happen. Your eldest fell head over fetlock in love with a commoner, one not fit to shovel shit!”

“Stop this! I won’t hear it!”

“I’ll be watching in rapture as your precious baby fornicates with multiple partners, partakes in drug taking, when she disobeys you. She won’t be little Sierra anymore. Witness as she transforms, knowing there’s not a damn thing you can do to help her.”

The demonstration was brutal. Metal rings pierced Sierra’s ears, snout, brow and other places better left for the imagination. Salem couldn’t look away. She had found yet another missed stitch in his Kingdom’s fabric, one she meant to unpick. Slowly the suspended mare was vandalised by needle ink, tattoos of obscenities, visceral skulls and intricate spiralling thorns and barbs scarring permanently her innocent flesh.

Her eyes once alive with youth and vitality were dull, clouded and shrunken. A scene began to form around her. It was a sad looking hallway in an intercity hostel of some kind. She was slumped against the wall, a sack of garbage to her right. The refuse looked more sentient than her. Empty bottles piled up on the landing. Her horn was chipped and beginning to swell from infection. She was shaking like a leaf.

“What is this?!”

Salem begged as he tried to look away, to close his eyes. He could not avoid the composition.

“You can’t turn away because this is reality, her reality. When you disown her to save face amongst your contemporaries, she will fall onto a slippery slope which only ever gets steeper. There is no bottom. Do you want your darling daughter to go through all of that?”

“I’d never abandon her. Whatever she chooses, whichever path she follows, I will support…”

“You kid right? Your mulishness will be what sends her over the edge. Our prison will become the crucible of her ruination. It’s simply delicious.”

Salem struggled free of the encapsulating fear that froze him and darted towards his steadily weakening daughter. He leapt through the figment of his imagination and landed in the boiling blood beneath him. He slid until he was facing the apparition again. She was delighted.

“We’ve tried to haggle with you. We have tried. You can’t say we didn’t try. We have been benevolent and divine. You are the demon we sought to slay. You may have the gift of the gab and be able to curry favour with the vermin of this cess pit, but your card is marked. Tomorrow our treaty ends. The shields will fall and you with them.”

Luna let the tape roll. She left the head of Salem in the same condition she had found it, jumbled. 

She got a kick out of watching him roll in difficult sleep and even remained when he woke, sweat pouring down his muzzle. Sappheire had returned to the bedside unbeknownst to the midnight intruder. She comforted her husband for he was a mess. She then looked directly at Luna. She stayed that way until Salem fell back onto his goose-down mattress and curled up into the foetal position, falling back to sleep.

“Spirit of the night, you are wasted here. We will not be bludgeoned by your filthy trick. You are a clown, and one with no audience. Everyone rejoices in the sunlit summers and dew drip mornings, and they sleep when you take over. Scurry back to your big sister, Luna. This Kingdom is diamond, and she will not crack.”

Luna drifted down to the floor and smacked her lips. Sappheire’s interest had left her parched. She went to the balcony where often Salem’s bride would sulk, and gazed dreamily over the quiet rolling hills and pastures drying, dead.

“Positively enthralling, Sappheire. You should write literature. I am no dunce. I can see that he’s not crying from my teasing anymore. You have thousands of individual minds, dreams to observe, fears to feast upon. Goodnight. Oh wait, you don’t sleep do you? Stale old witch…”

Luna hopped over the railing of etched mahogany and hurtled towards the courtyard below. She was untraceable after that, just a voice in the mist.

How words could control us. 

> Free no more
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

With the recent disparity between the dragon kind and those equine, it was unusual to see them in synod around the accused Pegasus.

The king had slept in but he refused to say why. Sappheire already knew. It was impolite for her to speak out when he must be outspoken.

He mounted the executioner’s stage and used his magic to steal a tomato from the crowd’s arsenal, a putrid one at that. He hurled the diseased fruit at the disgraced messenger. He sat upon his laurels, affronting of his statesmanship, and plucked some orange rind from Quicksilver’s long face.

“You actually believed you could outfly my squadrons of the sky? I will give you a chance, one chance, to explain yourself, to appeal to my better nature. This is your moment, Quickie. Don’t waste it.”

Salem’s voice was emotionless, as if he didn’t care for the destination of his loyal serf’s soul.

Quicksilver shook the pickling of rotten foodstuffs from his face and tried to flick his sodden mane from his eyes.

“We don’t join, we don’t continue! Our children will be bucking slaves. Our grandchildren will have no chance to learn, no prospect of ever accomplishing anything. This egalitarian frame of mind cannot go on!”

“Do you propose the sisters’ plan is sounder?”

“It will be a struggle at first. A great divide will form between the noblemen and women and the peasantry. But we will live on. Our legacies will be ink on scrolls, and perhaps we won’t be heroes, but we won’t be villains either. That is the smut of comic books, glittery idealisms that drive the sagacity and narcissism of our once great leader!”

“You are here today accused of espionage, providing classified information to our enemies, multiple counts of homicide and to top it all off, you vehemently denied it. How do you plead?”

The sickly looking Pegasus went quiet. He wriggled and squirmed in his bindings like a slimy maggot. To no avail he fought for the cuffs to loosen and the stock to release him. He spat out a wad of mucus and let his head limply hang.

“I’d plead insanity but you have that base covered.”

“How do you plead?”

“With my mouth, bloody moron…”

“Where are my paladins? How do you receive orders? How long have you been lying to me?”

“You won’t find them. They should’ve mind their own, and not dallied in my affairs.”

“You’ve been made, Quicksilver. The jig is up. The people cry execution. The hooded steed has been practising his swing. I am not one to be swayed by public opinion. But today I’m feeling rather vain. The popular choice might be spiffing good fun.”

“This is why she wants this place levelled! You hear him preaching, right? This pit is stuck in the past. There are mechanisms steam driven, assisting peripherals for the disabled, and heavy machining and industry. Just outside those walls, the walls he put around you, is the future!”

Salem could feel the favour of the public leaning right from its leftmost coordinate. He could taste the savagery of the headsman’s axe, whittled by age and dulled by use.

“Your modern swamp is flawed! It may be basic here, and the hygiene may not be as good as it could be, but the model cities and donjons that pollute the once untainted lands of my father’s father are run by companies. They are directed by whoever signs the biggest cheque. Is that progress?”

Salem stumbled over to the executioner. He was slow and his route there was clumsy and meandering. Even when he slept the fatigue wouldn’t lift. He placed his lips near the steed’s large fluffy ear and whispered.

“I have no more words for this waster. Separate his head and body and be done with it.”

“He is yet to give an answer my King. I can’t end a stallion’s life without first knowing his response. Is he guilty, or are you barking up the wrong tree?”

Salem had had enough. This was the straw that broke his back, his back being his pacifism towards his own. With this reserve broken, Salem threw the bulky earth pony against the block and purloined his weighty axe.

“Insolence is no longer tolerated. I have given you all many chances. You will remember that I am the King, the only King in this enclave, and I will not be humiliated by hoof-dragging imbeciles! What say you all, my subjects, what will be the fate of this insubordination?”

Salem saw his daughters in the crowd and his heart grew heavy in his chest. He dropped the axe which took a wedge of the black with it, and held his head in shame.

There was a long silence. No one made a sound, not even a sneeze. Those who could help it didn’t even breathe. The quiet swilled about the courtyard, circumventing the congregation with its eerie kiss.

“Do not forgive me. This has all been too much. One head cannot process all this hate, all this loathing. From here on there will be a government, a system of jurors, magistrates and ministers to spread the weight of responsibility. I will leave this to a vote, to be adjudicated upon completion by my decorated commander.”

Salem left the stage and then cynically stared down the streets that lead to Martingale’s abode. He tucked his chin into his chest and mumbled.

“If he’s awake…”

Salem had exchanged platitudes with gatekeepers and was well on his way to his seat by the pond in his private garden when a huge scaly something landed next to him.

“Sire, you abdicated your throne? Is it official?”

“Worry not, grand dragon. I am becoming more and more susceptible to Luna’s comings and goings. It is better this way. She will overwork herself trying to corrupt the senate, and the many governing bodies. She’ll burn out. I have a plan to catch her.”

“Do tell.”

Ignatius said. His voice was laced with enthusiasm.

“Don’t be upset, but I cannot hinder you with this knowledge. It is my artifice and mine alone. Oh, and call off the search for the wolf’s bane. It wasn’t Luna’s handiwork.”

Ignatius took off to the skies and left Sombra to mull over his options. He put his hooves up on the bench and watched a frog as it leapfrogged across the lily pads in hot pursuit of a fly. Nature was weird. Had the flies not the ability to recognise the amphibious totalitarian world they lived in? How could the rules of the mannered and magnificent be attributed to the short lifespans of insects?

“How would I get her to stay?”

Salem asked the deserted garden. The trellises didn’t honour him with a reply and neither did the daffodils tantalisingly hanging in baskets.

A few solutions reared their fetching heads, but they were probably too ambitious to work. Did she find him attractive? He thought back to one of the first nights of her visiting, she said she wanted the queen gone for more reasons than one. Had she feelings? Had she feelings for someone besides her charming self or her wretched family?

Questions, more questions, they swam around in shawls but now answer was heard. Eventually Salem left his puzzlement in the picturesque pond and set course for the home of Martingale. Not before nabbing a bloom from the hanging baskets, he was missing breakfast every day.

He nearly stopped to think about the use of food as armature on the sculptures of buildings, but he had a drunk to awaken.

> Martingale
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The door was wide open. The pretty cottage estate was overgrown with thistles and brambles and all genus of vine. Salem entered the main foyer; a low-ceilinged oaken area filled with bespoke drawing tables. There were more tables than there needed to be.

He sniffed the air and it was feculent. There were traces of vomit slicked over the entrance to what looked to be the lounge. Salem grimaced and stepped over the porridge-like puddle. The lounge was typical in appearance, more low ceilings, a roaring fireplace, and small ornamental owls watching from the tops of display cabinets, which in turn were overflowing with even more owls.

It just went to show how very little Salem knew of his commander. He couldn’t see the insensibly plastered officer anywhere in the room. The house was completely silent, that is until there echoed a disquieting moan from the landing.

Salem snuck into a nook before the rickety staircase and put a hoof to his mouth.

“Martingale, are you functional?! I told you to clean up your act.”

A glue coloured zombie wallowed down the creaking steps, tripping before he was on solid ground once more. He pretended it didn’t hurt. It was likely the lush had drunken himself into a state of analgesia. The strong smell of cheap spirits wafted into Salem’s nose and it made him lightheaded.

“And I told you that this was how I kept my head straight.”

“Keep your head straight? You can’t look me in the eyes you’re so far gone! There is to be an election. You are to tout up the votes.”

“You lost them then? Serves you right, hobbyhorse, it’s about time things changed around here.”

“Precisely, and you are going to help with that. Ballot will be taken this afternoon. Change is swift. Can you handle this duty?”

Martingale clung to the bannister as his legs decided to fall asleep. He picked a bottle up off of the step and wearily gawked into it.

“Who are you to be bleating orders anyway? You gave in the sash, Salem, so no one has any obligation to you.”

Salem freed the squared bottle from the goon’s hoof and set it down far from the avaricious stallion that sought it.

“I’m surprised you managed that statement. Just look at you, you’re a shadow of your former self. I remember a dutiful, charismatic commander at arms. Where is he now? How we have fallen.”

“You judge me? I’m still the controlling force behind the cavalrymen. What will you do now? You had a Kingdom, your lovely castle, all your smuggled riches, you will have nothing.”

As the stallion stared at the ground to correct his footing, Salem pounced on him and drove him into the bottle, the resultant shards shredding his back and neck.

“You’re insane!”

“Ponies change. You changed. I inevitably have changed. That looks sore.”

“I’m losing my eyesight, Salm…”

“I will heal you, but only if you do one teeny weeny little thing for me. Is that fair, you scratch my back, I stop scratching yours?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, don’t pander me with your empty apologies. Lunatic thinks I’m out of the picture, that I’ve resigned my post. Yes, you are still the voice they obey, but I will be speaking through you.”

“I’m not your puppet!”

The gored stallion refused. He tried to slither across the slime of his own blood to the lounge but his body was weak.

“Puppet, that’s an interesting analogy. You’d be my dummy, and I’d be the ventriloquist. Don’t feel bad. I am the only unicorn skilled enough to bring you back to health. So, there’s your dilemma. Do you sulk with your Applejack Daniels in arm and die on your own, or do you do the smart thing and be my dummy?”

There was no clever reply, no banter. The faint nodding of Martingale’s head was enough to appease Salem. His eyes became red and they leaked shadowy purple flames. His horn grew redder at the tip and onyx arcs of lighting struck the foyer that engirdled them.

Glass blades pealed from the lower lumbar of the petrified pony and gradually the colour returned to his face. He was lifted to his feet and allowed to stand. He was steady now. He was no longer drunk.

“I’ll do whatever you want.”

The commander grovelled.

“Wonderful.”

Salem seethed as his eyes slowly normalised. He floated back to the ebony floor and made appear a scroll from thin air.

“These are the candidates that will be elected. Rig the ballot. This fundamental decision cannot be left in the hands of those plebeians.”

“A little harsh don’t you think? What happened to your views of equality and parity? This is…”

“I’m sorry, Victor, did you enjoy having that half bottle jutting out of your back. Its insertion can be arranged. I know they are poor because of the high taxation that I championed, but that won’t be a hiccup for much longer. The namby-pamby public will vote for lower tax, better living conditions, even safe drinking water! This isn’t Mesopotamia. We’re stuck in a snow globe.”

“Read you loud and clear. What’s going to be done about the snitch?”

“That’s no longer my business. But I want him found and I want him tortured. He was communing with the Lunatic somehow.” 

“I shall set up a search party. Even if they have been killed, they will still be in the walls.”

Victor claimed. He stamped a hoof to punctuate the motion and stiffly saluted.

“These ponies are curious. One of them must have noticed the smashing glass and loud exchanges. I cannot get involved with anymore peacekeeping rigmarole. Ensure that my favourites win. If you do find Pretorias, I will be the first to know, understood?”

“Yes sir.”

Salem promptly absconded and vanished into the obscurity of normal life. He headed straight for the café he liked; they had a special way of making the Viennese swirls that he was particularly partial to. It was his cathedral, his mecca. It was a rather strange addiction. It was better than sugar cubes.

Vincent Martingale was a long serving officer of the crown. His mane had thinned over the years, his poll nearly naked. It was usually secreted under his uniform beret, but in his recent tumbles he had lost sight of it. He crawled into the lounge and clambered upon the waiting settee. He saw his diluted reflection in the cabinet mirror and bashfully flattened his few rebellious hairs.

“What’s gotten into him? Maybe the pressure has been too much. He is right though, I must kick this habit, and for good. I’m getting old. He didn’t seem like himself, he was someone else. In that brief moment when he was resurrecting me from my grave, something dark read in his eyes. Still, he intends for me to fix the election. It can’t hurt. He’s a wise leader after all…”

Vincent knocked over a photo as he rolled onto his side. He lurched up to reclaim it but the photo was free of the frame. It was black and white, and somewhat out of focus. Nevertheless, the griffon shown holding a parasol was very dear to him. He wiped a tear from his deprived eye and safely slid the photo back into the casings.

“If you could see what he’s trying to do, you’d be so proud. It’s true. Things change. Friends move away.”

He tucked the last corner of the photo in and calculatedly replaced it on the table. He reached for the last dreg of sauce in his entire house but he snatched his hoof back.

> Devil's in the detail
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was remarkable how quickly one regime was kicked to the kerb and another sidled in its place. The government was headed by an old school friend of Salem’s. He was a rakish gelding with tape wrapped around his spectacles. He was a tall bald-faced fellow and his coat was a sickly pea green.

Beneath him was a system of chancellors, officiators, secretaries and pen-pushers. A majority of the work they did was totally fantastical. It didn’t exist. They didn’t appear to be doing much of anything. More nights of troubled sleep passed and still the spy was unharmed.

Salem gazed into the morbid creation that was him in the pond. He could tell something wasn’t quite right. He would never seek to injure or placate his people. Who was this, what was this thing he was becoming?

His daughters had been voted into office as well. They were somewhere amongst the officiators, basically umpires for the sports. They were tiny gears in the smog chugging machine of plutocracy. His wife had been offered a chair in the Chancellors circle but she had declined it.

A dragon was a senator. Ignatius was responsible solely for the safety of the southernmost regions of the Kingdom. His roar was law in the sparsely populated boondocks of the state. Another dragon, the sensible one from the first assembly, achieved a spot in the new parliament. Artemis and a select group of intellectuals, scholars, and parents, formed the group. Their sole role was to scrutinise the drafted bills of the government, and to approve them if applicable. 

It was very confusing.

What was wrong with one pony’s word being law and everyone following that law lest they hang for it? Salem didn’t know either. It had been several weeks since the torch had changed hoofs and the kingdom, rather state, had fallen into a standstill.

Salem had been using this time constructively. While the simple farm folk ran around like headless chickens and the Dukes and Duchesses of nobility stuffed their faces, he had been pulling all-nighters in researching dusty old spell books. The state had a cosy library. The true treasures were stored in the dingiest corner of the cellar. Amid the spider webs and lint, there was a volume of Starswirl the bearded; the finer points of dream weaving.

He had been undisturbed by the moon Empress for nearly a fortnight now. His daughters were not so lucky. They were harassed by the witch every moment they slept. For this reason alone, Salem forwent his slumber and tried to translate the ancient dialect.

He however was stuck. He had managed to read up to a section containing incantation but something in the preparation had sent him off kilter. He wasn’t sure if it was a mistranslation but in order for the spell to work, a flesh sacrifice was required. The exact number of willing participants he would need was unclear. That part of the page was singed.

He still visited the secret garden despite the sheriffs insisting that he didn’t. The castle was no longer his home. That was all part and parcel of his peerage but now he was a jobless old fool. His eldest offered to be the chief breadwinner and to provide for the family but he had refused. He had too greater pride. 

The castle grounds were to be bulldozed to make room for the buildings of congress, the executive, and the legislature. He and his girls had been staying in the attic of the inn. He had not a bit to his name. Usually everything he wanted was his. Things were ‘on the house’ or the ‘least they could do’. The gem reserves and bitcoins of the once king were now the property of the many.

He lurked a few moments longer. The wall had come down but nothing had happened. There wasn’t a sudden raid, ponies torn and pared in the wake of Empyrean’s armada. What really happened was not a whole lot. As a good will gesture grain and medicine were delivered by the consorts of Celestia. Was it all over? Was there to be no victor?

Salem shrieked as a sort of clamp fastened around his horn. He was dragged through the building site by the lawmen, and tipped away like yesterday’s mouldy pizza.

He landed on his face but he didn’t retaliate. There was no use. The state’s growth was due to a venerable donation from Empyrean’s pocket. His face was pasted across every bulletin board, every lamppost, every picket fence, and every shop window. He was a celebrity here.

Salem stood up straight and nodded to his oppressors. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. His inner demon tried to make him euthanize the lawmen. He didn’t let it. His eyes were refulgent in purple flame.

Lately he had been unable to fully return to his normal self. Whatever possessed him, had gained a greater foothold in his metaphorical aiguille.

He hid his face in shame, in shame of the monster he had become, and morosely walked back to his loving and ever supportive wife.

Wings beat loudly behind Salem. They nearly washed him from the path. It was a friendly face at least.

“Majesty, I have received word from our correspondent in Ponyville.”

“Pony-ville, are you not making this up?”

“Why would…?”

“And I’m not that anymore. I’m regular, dull, and boring.”

“First off, I am your subject, not their employee. Ponyville is a small township overlooked by Canterlot, you can’t miss it.”

“Evidently I have. Well? What does it say?”

Ignatius formed the scroll in his claw and delicately passed it to the little monochrome speck on the road.

“It says.”

Ignatius obnoxiously cleared his throat and licked his claw.

“Long live the king. I cannot express how deeply honoured I am being your choice of ally, your choice of friend. You are an example to us all. You stood against odds that would make others flee. You didn’t. You remained. Blah-blah-blah, you get the picture.”

“Is there any news then?”

“He wrote that Empyrean is set to visit in a week’s time. Is this the truce we dreamt of? Have we been granted our independence?”

“No, smoke for brains. Read between the lines. It may seem that we are unattached but we have been hustled. Empyrean sponsors our growth, he’s cultivating the advancement of technology; so no, Iggy, we are far from freedom.”

Ignatius closed his eyes in frustration. He rubbed his temples in angst.

“You’ve been spending a great deal of time in the wholesome spine, care to tell me why?”

“I’m reinventing myself. I’ve been reading the classics, brushing up on humanities and sciences. I didn’t know you were my shadow.”

“Okay, I was just curious.”

“What’s it like in the government then? I don’t see the point.”

“It was your royal proclamation that the running of the Kingdom change drastically, and that is what we have done. We are now part of the Equestrian Federation. War against us would serve no purpose to the Imperials.”

Salem’s horn flashed briefly and the grassy footpath awoke with vicious vines. They bullied the dragon and made him malleable before pinning him to the ground.

“There need be no war because it has already been won, by them! We aren’t a kingdom. So they win there. We aren’t separate anymore, so again, bully for them. We are parasitic, nursing off of the wizened teat of Celestia.”

Ignatius tried to cut the ropes that bound him but they reformed every time he tore at them with his claws. A thinner vine covered in thorns looped around the dragon’s neck and tightened until the reddest hue was looking awfully blue.

“You would benefit greatly from this state returning to a monarchy, having me at the helm. As my royal advisor you would be paid handsomely for your sagely advice. You would have more gems than you knew to do with. The Emperor has taken much of our dignities, but he has given us efficient means for digging deeper into the earth’s crust. We have a surplus of the stuff, more than enough to keep every dragon here happy and hoarding till the day they die.”

Ignatius choked and tried to speak but the vine only grew tighter with his movement. He looked drained. The garrotting vine receded and the drake was allowed to breathe.

“Better? Now, I am aware of my somewhat crude technique for piloting this coup-d’état. I needed to be utterly and unimpeachably sure that you wouldn’t run away. With that out of the way, what do you say old pal? Join me.”
“The people are happy. Is that ever adequate? They are contented by this shift of power and they haven’t been enslaved or imprisoned for their defiance, rather they have been accepted into the warm bosom of Equestria Massif.”

Salem let the demonic plants shrink away and let the ruddy drake stand. He summoned a page of propaganda from the nearby pottery shop and stabbed at the image of the frightening alicorn with his hoof.

“This is the maniac you want to please? He wants rid of your species as well as the griffons…”

“I don’t care at all for those embellished chickens. They’re a primitive and frolicsome wart on our collective back end…”

“This is the teaching of our former oppressors, Ignatius! Wake up and smell the fascism. We never got along with the griffons, but that isn’t the point. Elijah will exterminate anything that stifles his imperialistic bandwagon. There would be a pogrom.”

“Oh, spare me the lecture.”

“Why do you not listen? He will kill you all!”

As Salem’s fury cantered out of the bounds of logic and reason, great nebulae of starless night shone from his eyes.  The immediate vicinage of the pair fell into the impugning hell of Salem’s spell. Things lost their lustre and mutated in the dark embers of his anger. Things became twisted, remodelled after the tumult of the once King’s mind.

Salem forced his eyes shut and inured the searing pain that followed. Beneath him small stalagmites of blackened crystal had broken the Earth. They bathed in the insidious atmosphere. They photosynthesised in the light of the darkness. They too diminished and returned to whence they came.

Salem’s horn was untreatably marked by his dabbling in the dark arts. It had only taken him six solid days of research to reach the roadblock. He had already begun bloodletting for the sake of declension. Volunteers they were not. His expeditions into this most decadent world had left a permanent scar.

“I will know if word leaks of this. I must be able to trust my fellow mutineer. If you can cajole your kinsmen, we will march against the executors and knock down their walls of propagation!”

Ignatius flinched as the maddened mustang deftly pranced across the street towards him. His poise was perfect, his conformation impeccable. The mighty dragon turned tail and made for the skies. He made sure not to look back.

> Cold steel
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Elijah’s homestead was a monolithic tower that stretched high up into the sky. The very tip, the zenith of the tower was fashioned with stone touches that resembled claws and wings, and the spire above was topped with the desiccated skull of a dragon.

The thralls below could not see this cynosure. It was fogged by the emissions of factories. What they crafted in these production lines was not spoken of much.

Within this bedizened tower fretted a frantic sky-blue-coated stallion. The look on his face was that of regret. He was elated. His cheeks were high and the corners of his mouth were twitching he’d been smiling for so long. He turned as a rainbow of floating pastel light gracefully tiptoed into the room.

“You are doing well I trust?”

Celestia asked. She too was glowing with joy.

“Why wouldn’t I be, my sister? Salem’s subjects have adapted well to my stringent laws. They enjoy the franchised eateries I create, the innovative inventions I provide. Some saw fit to join my legions.”

“Riveting, I’m sure. What about Salem, is he still living and breathing?”

“I believe so. Last our informants told us he was dossing in the attic of the tavern. What a tragedy. My spies in the guard report no further action has been taken against Master Quicksilver. Should we not dispose of him?”

Celestia giggled and fluttered almost sweetly to the window and stood up against its sill. 

“Ellie, there’s some sort of armed escort happening down there. Are they troublemakers?”

Elijah made a tiger’s growl and joined her at the window ledge. He stared aimlessly out of the window, pointing at different points of interest before self-censoring and saying nothing. He muscled into the side of his sister and pinched her wing, reinforcing his role as the annoying baby brother.

“What?”

“Those prisoners, who are they?”

“I don’t take prisoners. They just prove to be trouble, can be later used as leverage or as a bargaining tool. They are just vagabonds from that cancerous state next door.”

Celestia pulled to the heavy iron shutter on the window frame. She gave her brother a soul-rending glare and wondered over to a snooker table in the centre of the room. Only, it wasn’t for the sport at all. It was a miniaturised battlefront complete with artilleries, balustrades, defensible positions and so on. He had taken great care assembling the project. The tiny figurines were all painted by his hoof and their corresponding raiment. 

There was something hidden under a black cloak. Celestia moved her hoof to uncover the thing that intrigued her but was promptly intercepted by a blast of Elijah’s magic. She pulled her hoof back and snivelled slightly. It really stung.

“And we are no longer yearlings. I don’t like being called Ellie anymore. More to the point, I won’t ever be libelled like that again.”

“You seem to have forgotten your position in the pecking order. I’m the mastermind; I’m the brains and orchestrator. You are just my pawn. I needed a face the people could hate and I couldn’t think of a better substitute. You are the poster child for this takeover. You’ve already made a reputation for yourself with the guerrilla invasions of the formers monarchies of the north and your sortie in the heartlands has been most unsanctioned.”

“But sister, all these acts have been in the interests of the family, for prosperity, and the future. I have secured more lands, annexed tiny villages and random hamlets, and I have brought them into line with your plans.”

Celestia levitated one of the shimmering soldiers to her snout, her horn brimming with light pink beauty. She inspected the way the plating curved and undulated around the brawly physique of the figurine.

“Your army, I wish to see it.”

“You’ve seen it before. There have been no major developments.”

Elijah challenged. He pinched the silvery soldier away from his sister’s nostrils and placed it back into the battalion at the top of the miniature fen. He grabbed a tiny brush from beneath the table and swept the dander from the soldier she had held.

“Colts and their toys, you’ll never grow up. I want to see your infantrymen, every last one. Long gone are the days of knights and chevaliers. Show me what you got.”

Elijah knew he couldn’t win. His older sister could talk the hind legs off of a donkey. She was psychologically unsound and a narcissist, but she also the greatest logical mind in all of Equestria. 

He bent his forelegs and bowed before her. He then transported them both to the dried up estuary now frozen a bleak, no space for foals to play hide and seek. With another pulse of his horn the rut was warm with the millions of bodies of plate armoured stallions. They stood unshaking in the blizzard breeze. Even Celestia fidgeted as the cold chewed at her very bones.

Elijah conjured a conical cosy and shuffled it nicely onto his sister’s horn. She smiled but again only briefly. Emotions were baggage, and this Empress always travelled light.

“Soldieries of the Celestial Empire, salute.”

In a mechanical cacophony the throngs of hardy stallion picked up their gauntleted hooves and pressed them to their forelocks.

“Impressive. How have you trained them so well?”

“Hold on, let me show you something far more stupendous.”

Celestia pulled a confused smile but she kept her mouth shut. She was excited to see what the rhythmically excellent stallions would do next.

“Inhume the frontrunners!”

As if a switch had been flicked, the larger stallions at the back made silent progress through the inferior ranks until their blades could smell reward. In one rehearsed motion, the frontline stallions were assassinated.

Celestia clapped. She smiled only on one side of her face however. She must have not been completely won over by the theatrics. She shut her eyes for but a second and when they reopened one of the stoic lieutenants was staring her in the face, his body steamed and his coat cleaned in the vortex of pale pinkish magic.

She took his hoof, the size of two of hers, in her forelegs and tapped the metal exterior.

“Are they all machines?”

“In some ways yes, in other ways, they are as equine as you and me.”

“I’ve been deporting and transferring trainloads of prisoners to you so that you had numbers to work with. Are these robots, and if so, what has become of my inmates?”

“They are flesh and they have beating hearts. They are the culmination of your scientific advancements in steam and hydraulic precision. The plating can intelligently shift to bolster spears, bolts and shrapnel. Sadly, they are entirely redundant.”

Celestia let go of the cold metallic hoof and took the helmet off of the stallion. His mane was hogged and his coat was a cobalt blue.

She circled the stallion, checking his undercarriage, his hooves, the angle of his ears, and his undercarriage again. She sniffed his face, then licked it and then chewed at his short mane.

“Oh my, where did you get this stud?”

“He’s a mercenary. He just agreed to wear the necessary bard and shaffron.”

“If you don’t need your army anymore, can I keep this one?”

“His credentials lead me to believe he is an effective bodyguard and sentry. Are you hiring for your personal guard?”

“Something along those lines, yes. Does he have to wear all the armour?”

Elijah shook his head and spat dryly as if an acrid flavour had entered his mouth and insulted his tongue. He ushered the fine specimen out of the way, out of the range of sister’s leering eye. 

“Your promiscuity aside sister, I hope you are satisfied with my end of the agreement. These stallions will do anything you tell them. Soon, I shall have them take up posts and patrols in that dragon infested sewer. I will take every last shred of evidence that Salem ever ruled there. I will vanquish all the non-equine filth of this coil. I’ll be celebrated in museums long after I am dead and gone!”

Celestia had been mouthing the words to tease her older brother as he preached his head off. She continued to mimic him even when he turned and basely stared at her. She blew a kiss to the cobalt stallion and bit her lip.

“What’s his name?”

Elijah collected the doffed helmet and tossed it to the respective soldier.

“His handler was adamant, said he was only to be addressed as the executioner.”

“I love a bit of mystery. Though, some things are a little more poignant than others. Do you know if he’s clipped?”

“Why would I know that? Look, we aren’t discussing this. You must be failing miserably in the bedroom if you have to prey on my brainwashed soldiers. Can you go and brood somewhere where I can’t see or hear you? Thank you.”

Celestia truly had no love for her brother. She openly mocked him in front of his millennial army. The gumption, the chutzpah that this mare possessed was inspiring. She however, passively bowed repeatedly, minor shallow bows meant for dignitaries to prevent strenuous injuries. She opened her wings and soared up into the cloudy azure of the afternoon.

Elijah tracked her through the ascent until the star of her making made his eyes water. He turned and winced for the sting and turned back to his hundredweight of metal things.

“To war, if we must, we shall ride. For now, you are all on leave but you are not to procrastinate when the drums do thrum. Our battle cry will be legendary. Be prepared, my mechanical marvels, for soon I will have my excuse.”

> The counsel of dragons
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The bickering swarm of drake, wyvern sky warm, broke down into formed lines as Salem arrived. His eyes still pronounced his waning lighter side, and how his soul was all but pure. The ominousness of his purple eyeliner was difficult to miss in the perdition of the drowsy night.

“Salutations, dragons, I appreciate your punctuality.”

Ignatius landed quietly on the field before the once king and gingerly invited he come closer. 

“I have done as you asked sire.”

“That does have a nice ring to it. Sire, it just fits me so well. Who here disagrees? I’m sure you’re probably wondering why I have asked you to come here today. It’s a good question. Perhaps another question your forked tongues should be tipped with is; when will my hatchlings and fledgling offspring be eviscerated? You see the banners that pockmark my kingdom? You see the face of the Plutarch that watches from every street corner? He will be the undoing of everything we have toiled for! He will bring about the Armageddon of dragon kind! He has manipulated our friends, our countrymen, our lovers, to believe his fakery! Cosset not his dogma of mechanisation and industrial power! His sadism will know no end. When Alicorn magic is wielded in anger, it becomes unstoppable.”

Only now that the rush of his speech had passed did the consults notice the aristocratic livery of the king. He wore a new cape, black with oil from the factory. His armour was chinked, and chipped, damaged, in homage to the disorder of the realm. Down his coaly neck grew a vein of pulsing lilac. His mane was enshrined in a helmet of broken steel. His visor was furbished with the feathers of the Pegasus dead.

Ignatius and Artemis were by the far the most talkative of the accruement. They settled at the flanks of the redoubtable messiah. Ignatius relit a brazier as they passed it and crouched down to the king’s level.

“Do you think we can overtake? We are so few.”

“Yes, this is true. But if Elijah is allowed to carry out his future evils, you will be only fewer. We light the depths of the mine with your fire, that’s our edge. They’ll want to keep their unintelligent menial slave labour nice and safe. What happens when the lights go out?”

“They would use their lanterns, wouldn’t they?”

“Once the torchbearers have plunged the pit into total darkness, they will maul a few unsuspecting scabs, and then the rest will be held hostage. Soon my rather flaky old roomie will send negotiators to make a deal. Our terms are simple. Succumb to my higher worth and submit the rule of this place to me, or watch your so-called state burnt to cinders.”

“You want us to harm the very subjects you wish to rule? I don’t know if I can…”

Ignatius said. His voice trailed off towards the end as he had seen the king’s short temper before.

Artemis placed the flat of his palm against Ignatius’s jaw and shoved him aside.

“Is this the only way we can surmount the state? I am assuredly your tool to use, sire. I am an old and creaky dragon but I will do everything in my ability to see the rightful stallion returned to his former glory. I was one of Baldhart’s last born, the runt of her sizeable litter. We owe our very existence to the generosity and hospitality of this remarkable king. Who is with me?”

The meeting place used to be untouched meadow used to grow heather in the hottest reaches of summer. It was developed upon when demand for housing outstripped the room available. Refugees from former nations and provinces begged for acceptance and shelter in the kingdom. Salem granted them this as it was their right, not their need.

Turrets of clay brickwork and slate ornate roofs stood out from the hasty constructions of the early unicorns. Wyverns and dragons dug in and garrisoned these structures for they had long been derelict and abandoned. Work was to start on their usage as crèches and nurseries for yearlings and hatchlings alike. There was no discrimination. Of course, back in the opening decades of the Kingdom, the fair treatment of all creatures was commonplace. It took centuries of hostile forced occupation and invasion before the current status quo was thoroughly embroiled into the collective’s mind.

After a lengthy pause the forum cheered in exultation. Dragons dived from the rooftops and wyverns performed aerobatics above in a phosphorous fuelled orgy of presupposition.

It was in favour of revolution and its cologne was irresistible.

Dragon fire spouted into the night sky like shooting stars. Their wings flapped in eagerness to start the operation, but it would have to wait for the mine to open. Come morning, the king would retake his thrown, with or without the nod from the powers that be.

Salem stood on his hind legs and tried to hush the enlivened crowd. They were tireless. Eventually the dramatics ceased and the legends of brimstone and might flew effortlessly into the night. Salem snapped his foreleg against his lips with enough velocity to cause injury.

“Shush my beautiful kites, time is now for rest. Sleep well. Tell your young stories yet to happen, the awe-inspiring fiction of what tomorrow shall bring. Act normal. Be patient. Make sure that you are well rested. Our mettle will be tested. You all know what Elijah will bring if his authority goes uncontested. When the sun rises our wardens will be bested!”

> Holding out
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

All but tranquillity ebbed through the mountainside citadel. The welcoming balcony of Luna begged for company. Celestia landed before the pair of gold-clad sentries and ruffled a wing or two. The density of Canterlot security had increased by a factor of umpteen.

Usually the Valkyries would only dare linger in the becalming night if there was threat of air assault, be it by griffon, dragon, or perhaps even a breezy assailment. Luna was usually at the lip of the balcony, broodily counting the heavenly bodies that danced above. She was not there tonight.

“What’s the crisis? Sister…?”

Luna turned but looked away as soon as she met the lordly countenance of her older sister, her superior in every contest.

In her hooves, clamped tightly, so much so the parchment had crinkled and the ink had smudged, was an official-looking letter. The scroll was waxed in the insignia of the Diamond Kingdom. The tocsin of the inscription was well heard. Celestia beckoned for her brother at once.

Not a breath could be taken before Empyrean collided with the mitred contemporary art plastered wall. With seeming servility, the frantic emperor scrambled from the ruins of art and bowed pathetically to his sisters. Luna was quiet. Celestia laughed so loudly the citadel might’ve woken from its sleep.

Along with the lumpish sibling, a detachment of his metallic army blundered through the room.

Celestia bit the bullet. She snatched the scroll away and unfolded its screwed pages. She would never ask for anything.

“What’s this, Luna? I thought we had the dragon mail on lockdown. How in my name did this manage to slip under our radar?”

“It proved difficult to doctor every piece of sent post. Not through lack of trying…”

“Where was this found?”

Celestia grilled. She shafted the unfurled message into Luna’s snout and asked again.

“It has been weeks, months, and you have not managed to stop the rudimentary exchanges of dragons? How can I trust you? Where was it found? Who found it? Do you know who the intended recipient was?”

Luna receded into the corner of her room, lifting her hooves up over the sullied frames as she tried to become small and untouchable next to her window.

She shivered there for a while until she could bear it no longer. Celestia crushed the frivolous furniture underfoot and stared deeply into the fear dilated eyes of her sister.

“Was it found close, close to here? Has this been happening under my nose? It mentions rebellion. We should have killed that insufferable king! Ellie! Since you have been so accommodating thus far, the populous of his state have faith in you. Drive up the number of stallions per patrol. Crackdown on anything that looks even the slightest bit fishy…”

“And sister, what would you like me to do?”

Celestia snarled as Luna broke her thought process, snapped it in two. She squashed her head up against the panelling and flicked nastily at her horn.

“You will enter Salem’s grotty, syphilitic mind again, and this time you will warn him that his uprising will be for nought. Offer him one last opportunity to give in and just play ball. But if he contradicts our clemency, or contravenes my pride once more, I will quit pacifying Ellie and let him do whatever he wants. He is quite imaginative.”

Luna nodded furiously and set about her task at the double. She vanished from sight, her room left in tatters.

> Unclean
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It had been hours since the committee had disbanded. Salem was at the midpoint of his amble home and his spirits were inexplicably high. 

He had buried his head in a few more antiquated texts in the library basement before heading for home. The information they obtained was invaluable. His reason for gaining such a wealth of knowledge was entirely disingenuous. Ingrained in his mind was the scripture so valid for the moment his world could be turned gruesome and squalid. It was near, this moment, the moment when he would have to put his study into practice.

He reached the tavern. The moon was full. It looked heavy in the sky. Salem stopped before opening the door. He was a monster, no denying it. His face was misshapen. His horn was an aberration on his skull. He hadn’t bothered stripping off his new outfit either. He would look like a total stranger. Even he didn’t recognise the stallion that stared back from behind the mirror.

It was for the good of the many. He enthused himself with this lie and opened the door.

Inside the carousing of patrons was precocious, and unwelcome. Spirited nags necked cider as they leered at the serving mares. One patron was at the throat of the landlady, arguing that his tab was settled. He chucked bits at her and made a real scene. Salem tried to hide his most telling face behind the invagination of his cape. He was noticed all the quicker though.

“Celestia help, it’s a freak!”

One yelped.

Salem soldiered on. He thought to himself that he would see the belittlers were crucified for their ill-will. He moved towards the bar and a rather irate mare gestured at his cowl.

“Take it off. We don’t serve shady stallions here.”

“Please, have a heart.”

Salem defended. He pulled his hood down only further and tried to ignore the prattling wench.

“Are you hard of hearing? Hey, I said ARE YOU HARD OF HEARING? Bucking creep, get your mopey maw out of here.”

Salem slammed his hoof on the table top and looked deeply into the scowling eyes of the serving mare with his iridescent globes. She wasn’t a spring chicken, the mare. She looked about middle-age and her cosmetically engineered eye makeup was smeared down her cheek. Had she been crying? Once Salem would have stuck his neck out, made a point to coddle the victim. However, this was no longer Salem. The gloomy-eyed stallion that made the densely packed public house evacuate was someone else entirely.

“Mister, off with the hood? You got a goddam death wish, wisenheimer?”

Salem was in the right mind to sweep the glistening shot glasses to his right and pummel the unstifled oaf to his left, but he did neither. He held in his innermost desires.
“I am the head of the household, I’m Sombra.”

“Another late night, is it? Most nights we don’t see you. You got another mare on the go or what?”

“With a face like this, I very much doubt it. I have not been canoodling with common tramps. I want to see my family, you harridan!”

One of the shots disappeared beside Salem and the hoof that returned was adorned with feathers silver. It was Sierra.

“Oh, you want to see us now do you? What if we don’t want you back?”

“Don’t speak of such things. Your best interests were always my first thought. You never left my mind. I couldn’t risk…”

“Couldn’t risk what? Feeling vulnerable is natural. That’s something you’ve been regressing from for months now. Tiger’s upstairs, as is his blushing bride…”

Salem’s ambivalent gaze became twisted and cold. He swung his head around to see his daughter but in the process his concealing cowl fell off, coating his neck like a deflated balloon.

“Repeat yourself!”

Sierra looked at the scarred visage of her father. He seemed so distant to her. He had been neglecting sleep for days and days yet his face didn’t demonstrate that wear.

“What, what are you? Who are you?”

Salem faced his daughter no matter how much it pained him to do so. Any semblance of his former self was absent; his soul felt like it was writhing and growing weak. Its struggle was futile.

“I did this for the Kingdom.”

“What is ‘this’? What have you done? Mum needs to know!”

“She will only panic. You are the smartest of my herd; can you not see the damage this news will bring?”

“There’s intelligence, father, and then there is emotional disconnection. Why do you want to hide this, this, mutilation from mother?”

“This is not as bad as it looks!”

Salem barked in response. Before he could think of other ways to save himself, he was doused in stale cider and shoved from the bar.

The distraction was enough for Martingale to drag the ardent innkeeper from behind the bar. He successfully landed a volley of punches to the terrified mare’s jaw before he was tackled by the sickly sweet-smelling shadow of Salem. 

They fell to the floor and Vincent tried for Salem’s throat in the heat of the moment. Salem’s armour covered most of his body, his flank, tail, croup, neck and chest. Vincent’s hooves could gain no purchase. Salem wrestled the other to the ground and straddled him. He was about to out his lights for good but a last ditched protest foiled him.

“This isn’t you, Salem! I was scared okay. I’m not drunk. I haven’t had a drink in weeks.”

Salem applied substantial force to the commander’s throat and hissed until drool dripped from his sharp predatory fangs.

“I’ve been busy. You’ve been utterly useless. Do you want to quietly die again? I was trying to contact you, to tell you to thin the guard detail of the mines. Why have you disobeyed me?”

“I had no choice! I’m just a placeholder. Empyrean makes all the decisions! You hear that? It’s him, he’s the one throwing you out of your houses, forcing you to beg in the streets or starve. They called this better? I can only laugh!”

“Why did he not delegate work to you? Who tipped him off?”

“Luna! It was her. She had visited my dream the night before. She made me promise…”

“You can break a promise.”

“She made a compelling argument.”

“She does. I’m sorry.”

Salem removed his bulk from the other stallion and settled on his rump against the caparisoned rack of saddles.

“I haven’t been sleeping, can’t risk my plans getting out…”

Vincent cleared his throat and joined Salem on the floor. He produced a smoking pipe from his leatherette waistcoat.

“You’re not in this alone, Sire. There are those who still believe. The reason I was harassing the staff was because I was looking for you. I’ve been worried sick. I thought you had been abducted.”

“Why hit a mare?”

“That was careless on my part. Shan’t happen again, my word as a soldier…”

“You don’t raise a hoof to mares.”

“I was being irrational.”

Salem climbed from the fixture and stretched his caning torso.

“Too right you were. Think before you act. I don’t want to be seen mothering you, but it seems I don’t have any other course of action. Can you speak to my daughter? Just tell her I’ll explain everything once I’ve put my hooves up, can you do that for me?”
Vincent gave a perfunctory nod and shimmied along the counter to sierra, who was busy ordering a replacement phial of poison for the one her father thoughtlessly launched.

There was a dialogue of mumbles but before too many heads turned, Sierra was skipping over to her pater and leading him towards the dormitories upstairs. She must have assumed he was drunk for his ponderous gait. Soon they were out of the public eye and the crystal-detailed mare prised open the doors.

“Salem? It is you. Where have you been?”

“Where is Amber? Her concubine, where doeth he slumber?”

“You really are an outmoded thing, aren’t you? They are sharing the same bed. We haven’t been able to reach you for weeks, my love, what in Equestria have you been doing with your time?”

“Questions, questions, what purpose do they serve? Come on, I’m famished; I’ll see what I can rustle up from the pantry. You gals stay put here. I won’t be a moment.”

Salem was reserved, some might say withdrawn in his method of coping. He avoided the suspicion on the faces of his loved ones and trotted into the kitchenette. He stood in the galley kitchen, a sore thumb amongst the chromic touches and festoonery. There was he, a grotesque relic coated in arms of slattern mock steel, and then there was the shined, reflective stove and cupboards. His oddness was fathomed and challenged far too quickly for his liking.

Sappheire eased around the arced roof of the kitchen and shut a shroud of beads behind her.

“I do find your new style refreshing and funny, but why the medieval apparel? It’s modern and new out there. Perhaps you wouldn’t garner so much female attention if you just tried to blend in.”

“These are a symbol of status.”

“I’m not too fussed about the clothing, really. Your face, my koala, you’re all different.”

“I want only to explain this once. Where is my eldest and her stallion? I will not replay this. Fetch them.”

“Are you going to make dinner? It’s just; I do still have to run a household and raise a family and keep our affairs in order… Do you know how much work it takes to keep on top of this?”

“Umm, I’d hazard a guess at…”

“That was rhetorical!”

She harshly whispered.

“I still have to face the people you let down. I have been rejected from the mothers group since rumours of your philandering broke out. My problems can wait, just as they always do. I’ll be an attentive, subservient wife that you want me to be. They’ll be down momentarily.”

With that, Sappheire left her gobsmacked husband to loom. She rammed through the beaded curtain and walked the narrow hallway to where the newlyweds lay recumbent. She never let him down. She had roused and prepared the wallowing honeymooners and sat them in the sitting room. It was a small, constricting setup and the carpet was skinny, the termite hollowed boards peeking through the gaps.

Amber, her sister, and her lover were ready and waiting on the sofa and a second later, Salem had been turfed out of the kitchen to join them.

“I’ll get dinner as per usual, my love. Be sure to speak loudly so I can hear you while I keep the family fed and…”

She didn’t finish speaking. Salem just edited it out. It was all white noise anyway. He stood in the strangely damp middle of the room and cleared his throat. Sierra drew the blinds and dimmed the lights. She did this partly for atmosphere, but mostly to ward-off curious ears, and adventurous eyes.

In the sepia unsettling tone of the room, now could be seen Salem’s eyes enviously green. From the corners the smoke purple leaked in whispers, swallowed by the darkness that had become the father’s soul. When once he was modest, now he would boast. His body yearned for idolisation. 

“Sitting comfortably? It’s so very nice, that’s a good word for it, nice. It’s nice to see you two again. As for you, you spunky spineless excuse for an heir, I’m not convinced. I don’t want you to know. This is none of your business, just like my daughter.”

“But I thought you were cool with…”

“I beg your pardon? I am neither cool nor lukewarm with any such topic! Leave my home this instant lest you are willing to be used as cannon fodder!”

The strikingly handsome yet frightfully weedy stallion accepted his novice position at the family table and decided to leave without a fight. Amber tried to reconcile him and gave chase but Salem soon netted her and allowed her to flump back onto the unforgiving sofa.

“Have you ever heard of Starswirl the bearded? He was a reverential figure in the world of thaumaturgy. He wrote many inspiring tomes, most of which have been boiled down and diluted for the tutelage of today’s unlettered halfwits. One of his obscurer works was written in a dialect no longer spoken. Sure there are some experts, but who can find them?”

Salem’s enchantingly gifted wife poked her head around the corner. Her prismatic skin refracted and redirected the light in a stunning array. The greens and purples and reds as well swirled in a torrential downpour of brilliance.

“Does this story have a point to it? I know who the bearded druid is. Just get to the bit where you explain your facial changes, okay?”

Salem mimicked the nagging of his wife, pretending his metal-plated hoof were a sock puppet of her.

“Before I was so rudely interrupted… His pioneering work in the occult had mostly been unnoticed. It spoke of a spell, an old incantation, older than the mountains of the north. It is a rite of blood. He wrote extensively on the theorem of immolation and how one being can harness the essence of many. That is my explanation. I have taught myself, trained myself in his unspoken art and the results have been outstanding.”

At this point Sappheire left her stewing greens and stormed into the sitting room. She pinched the cracked skin beneath Salem’s eye and dragged it earthward. It broke under her mere touch. She backed away, horror showing deep in her eyes. She was so downhearted her normal effervescence failed. She plunged the room into darkness. The eyes were the only way to see, those nightmarish jealous apparitions.

Then she spoke.

“I should have stopped you. You have taken this too far. The spells of life, giving and taking away, I have seen him abuse them all. When you use the texts to take life, you stain your soul. When you used it to revive you gave up part of your soul. Your father isn’t there, children. He died along with his spirit.”

“This is nonsense!”

Salem growled. He gnashed his fangs and gleaming white canines together. It was animalistic, primal.

“You will all love me as you did come tomorrow. I will have my kingdom back even if I have to ensnare and impale every last bureaucrat that scuttles and skitters through my homeland! It will be an event of biblical proportions. I will be the foundation of religions. Cults will worship me! Pacts will be made to me. Soon I will transcend logic and I will make every sleeping fool dream of me!”

Sierra jumped up and lit the room with a tremendous spark of her near transparent magic. She went to the blinds and tweaked a slat, looking out into the damask of dusk.

“How many have died in aid of this? You’ve been sacrificing the innocents of this state, but how many?”

Salem cheekily looked at his daughters. He put a hoof on his chin and stroked the black scar tissue that enveloped his craggy hide.

“Don’t go to the library. I always say, the quill is mightier than the sword. Now for sleep, see you all very soon…”

His voice fizzled out as he transported from the sitting room to the master bedroom. He needn’t eat, for there was no corporeal necessity for it. 

> To maime a maniac
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Falling to sleep was harder than usual. Sappheire hadn’t come to rest beside him. Rather she had bunked with Sierra. Without this warm thing beside him, Salem was frigidly cold and his spin rattled from his feverish convulsions. It hurt also to close the bawling energy from his eyes. It burnt him and his skin wouldn’t heal.

He tossed and turned on what might as well have been a bed of nails. Each head drilled into his ribcage as he tried to sleep on his side, milking him of his darkest blood. It was almost prophetic, how his nights of slaving, poring over the writings of prehistoric philosophers were coming to a climax. His meddling in the forbidden science of necromancy and mysticism would culminate in that one night.

His sleep was more the beginning roar of battle than the entry to serenity. He would struggle with the savoir faire crooning of the nightmare. He would tussle with her overbearing magical wit and tenacity. Her venom would be swift if it prevailed. It would debilitate, emasculate and finally castrate any bitten.

These worries only proved a hindrance for the foretold king of the land. He breathed deeply and clung onto his downy pillow for comfort and security. He missed the warm mass dearly. He missed the debacles and constant vindication she ignited. It was a level playing field in the respect of domestic dispute, but in his eyes, she was usually the one with little inhibition. 

Through the cold and loneliness, there was this slim hope that he would taste victory and be the king he knew he was fated to be. He was no-one’s footstool. Abdication was a rash decision, it was clear now. Hindsight however was pointless, for he hadn’t the means to thread the weave of time.

He had of course read up on the subject. He was diligent in matters of academia. He was a vacuum devoid of lustre and beauty, but he was still a brilliant tactician and leader. There were risks involved in time travel. It was a backwater branch of magic and its used was quite understandably taboo among the unicorn authorities and so on and so forth.

He didn’t dwell on the past all that much anymore. His mind was focused forward, on the quiet before the storm.

The worries niggled less and finally the king slept. Before his consciousness completely went, Salem could smell the most repugnant scent. It was deadly nightshade, or at least the aroma of it. It had been applied liberally.

He was not alone in the room.

Deep inside his disjointed dreamscape, Salem saw only random colour, strands of glistening blood reds and puss greens stretching across the abysmal cataclysm that was now his mind. There was no plot piloting the escapade. There were fractured memories interspersed in the spectrum of dancing nothingness, times when Salem was young and his mother’s sentiment was unloving, regretful.

Eventually a williwaw of Luna’s night guardsmen filled the sky and the spasmodic assortment of colour was replaced with a jagged misty skyline, mountains dark azure and light ebony thrusting into the sky as if to purify it of unknown sin. Amidst the chaos, Luna manifested herself as a gargantuan dragoness, with golden epaulets across her sharply pointed wings, and volcanic scars running down her sweeping back and tail.
“Long time no…”

She was cut off, not by interruption, but by a sudden shift in the world around her, the hypnotising brew of her malevolent magical and mental agility.

She was not a dragon for long. She was a mare once more and her fortifications of vitiated vampires were expunged in an engirding veil of thick tarry darkness.

And that is all that remained. Luna fought for stability in the world not of her own simulation. She faced the malfeasant monster and she gulped. She was afraid. This nutrient quenched the begging hunger in the sleeping stallion’s mind. It brought him succour.

“…this isn’t right…”

Luna shrieked after some delay. She tried to flee, to bold, to hide, but she could not move away. All she could see, in every direction, was the stoic expression that Salem made.

“I… This is my sole talent! No one else can have it!”

She scanned the isolated darkness for something, a silver lining. She was never given one. The light was created by the very thing she didn’t want to see.

“This… It isn’t fair. You tricked me sister! You knew, didn’t you? Help me! I don’t know what to do.”

Salem leapt from the bed with Luna’s ample frame embraced in his muscular chest. He threw her into the dresser, the cabinet, and finally through the wall where she came to an unceremonious landing in the crumpled remains of the sofa.

Sappheire jumped up into the air, nearly taking the light fixing with her, and haphazardly hid in the beads of the kitchen veil.

“What in the…?”

She didn’t finish her statement. She couldn’t believe her eyes. An alicorn was pinned against the mangled springs and raptured cushions of her second-hoof sofa. Her continuation balanced on Salem showing mercy, something of late he rarely exercised.

His purple eye shadow was darker and more distinct than ever. His irises were a permanent green, a limey saturation to never return to the normal white. He hammered the mare into the musky carpet, spitting with each successive blow.

And disgustingly his words followed.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news… Actually, I kind of love it. I think I understand why you torment and trick us in the night. It’s fun. It’s ever so satisfying. I have unquestioned power over you. You have no one to turn to. Such a shame…”

His warped horn shone rays of darkest amethyst as he dragged his crystalline wife through the wall. He sat her on the unscathed armchair and held her there for a spell.

“You wanted her gone and I know why. You know, the more I delve into your territory, I have been gaining greater insight into you, how you tick, how you get your kicks. I’m rather specific with my niches, my vices.”

“Let me go, you nutcase! I’m warning you. If my sister ever…”

“Firstly, she’ll never become privy to this meeting, because who would that serve? She doesn’t care about you or your night. She is vastly more impressive in her taming of the sun, of her conducting of the day. There is no longer any chemistry…”

Sappheire’s stunted breathing turned to hysteric sobbing and she heaved her body over and hid her head in the creases therein the chair. 

“Your chemistry, trouble in paradise I assume?”

“Paradise would entail happiness, something neither of us has been able to feel for decades, centuries. No. My ephemeral courtship with Sappheire has been eating away at me for ages. She is dull. She fixed me in more ways than one. I felt being at her side I was a eunuch, no gonads, no gumption, no compunction to function. I’ve been coasting but no more. We’re too different, two artistic pallets so to speak. We are quite alike though, you and I…”

Luna squirmed and tried to avoid the salacious way Salem stared at her. She tried to counteract the paralysing spell she was under but she couldn’t. She was stuck.

She decided on a new attack, duplicity. She took the stallion’s hoof in hers and let it travel across her divinely tailored velvety coat. Before his hoof could go too far, she kissed him on the snout and smiled warmly, lustfully.

“So you don’t love her? I’m no-one’s second pick. I can be your mistress if you like but how can I make love to you if I am unable to move?”

“Good point. Ever heard of necrophilia? It would be something along those lines.”

Salem throttled the mare against the glass of the scuppered coffee table and in the thickened glass thereupon it he saw his most ghastly features. They were severed into sections augured by the uneven and erratic array of shards.

Again his spit made contact with her pleading lips. He’d seen through her ploy. In seeing his horribly disfigured maw, he knew all too well that the loving undertone of the scene was a mirage. He scoffed.

“It would be perfect. Yes, it might’ve been. Only, I have given myself a face that not even a blind mother could love. My motive is simple. I have you here enchained, when do you think your soulful sister will come to your rescue? No answer? Thought as much, typical of the egotist.”

“Nay, she will botch your flimsy plans and be home for tea! That’s not considering my stature. I am the second in command of Equestria! Harming, nay keeping us here is heathenism…”

She was quietened by Salem’s cruellest chinked shoe. She tried to speak some more but her rant only betrayed as spluttering and muffled inaudibility as she sucked upon the hoof, polishing it. He let her jaw loose and snatched his leg away before her teeth could clash upon it. His horn shone a dreary dark purple and a pebbling of arcane scabs began to grow along Luna’s royal horn.

“What is the meaning of thi…?”

She just about garbled. She was smothered with the sunken cushion from the sofa. She had the prowess to dissolve it into dust, to transport it heavenwards or sideways from her person, to scatter it amid the stars, but she was too weak to make it shiver.

There was the sound of a door closing behind and two shadows stretched across the room. One belonged to the elder daughter, her coat mild taupe blushing and bare. It wasn’t always a must to wear clothes in the safety of home, but the dashing young colt was there as well.

Salem turned on a penny and stared straight through the unsolicited houseguest.

“Master Lotus, I believe I bayed you leave?”

The smaller stallion tugged at his bowtie, loosely slung over his neck, and took a stride backwards towards the door. Amber hooked her leg around his and dragged him back into the limelight, foisting him meanly centre stage.

“Our family meeting ended. And he is my lover, my one true love, and I want him to be included whether you like it or not!”

“Amber, it’s fine, I’m overstepping the mark as it is.”

He muttered. His confidence decisively knocked.

“Stand up for yourself, Tiger. He’s just barking, barking mad if you ask me. If you are to be my betrothed then present yourself as such. I will not do as you order, father. Tiger is my future.”

Tiger busied himself with the fiddly task of his tie. He had the bow straight and true when Salem thieved him from Amber’s stern pastern and plonked him on the floor before the front door.

“You besmirch my good name. You are a common colt, nobody, accepting you would be like signing my Amber’s release to a whorehouse where her virtue will be raped in the name of vanity and avarice! I give you one chance. Leave. Leave or suffer.”

The trembling colt steadily got to his hooves and bore his teeth at Salem. He snorted to show his chagrin and adroitly removed the cushy blockade from Luna’s face.

“You don’t have a leg to stand on, sir. You renounced your royalty, decreed this kingdom become a sovereign state. The chief breadwinner here is your lovely, beautiful daughter, and she lets you skulk here for no rent…”

“I’m her father. I am otherwise disposed. I cannot work. How positively beggarly would it be for a stallion such as I to lower himself to such a degree that he works for nothing in an unrewarding, under stimulating packhorse role?!”

Tiger’s sigh filled the room. He however was not a sufferer of hubris. He reached to the knob and opened the door. He took one last look at his beloved and pulled the door open.
Salem cracked. He mashed the colt’s hoof in the door with but a fraction of his magic before brashly dragging him inside. He placed him next to the wheezing mare. She was spent. On her belly she tried to slither to the minimal crack of solace in the doorframe. She made it no two yards before her body shook intensely and her horn sparked effetely with showy streams of light. It was as if she had blown a fuse.

Salem gently kicked her away from freedom and hauled the whimpering whelk onto his back. He deposited Tiger on the sofa by the writhing nightmare and conjured an acrid smelling starter into his hooves. He set the bowl down and lifted Tiger up by his nostrils, flared due to his rage.

“This is a peace offering, son. Take a bite.”

Salem chortled as he tugged the snout of the stallion painfully towards his poll.

Tiger forced his eyes open and the moment the noxious perfume reached his snout he teetered on the edge of passing out.

“That… That’s ragwort. This is prohibited. How did you get this?”

“Never mind how I came about attaining this. It’s a healthy nutritious meal, from me to you. Now, don’t be an ungrateful guest and finish your greens!”

Tiger arched his back and craned his neck to get as much distance between him and the pernicious weed as possible. He closed his mouth and folded his top lip over his chin, hoping to block any of the frilly; yellow-flowered leafs from entering him.

“Why are you doing this, Mr Sombra?”

Salem didn’t reply. He took the entire rancid plant in the hand of his magic and jostled it into Tiger’s mouth, near enough bypassing the teeth altogether.

It wouldn’t take effect straight away. Salem threw his hoof towards the door and just intently sandblasted the colt with his eyes.

“I gave you a choice.”

Amber was distraught. Salem clutched the enfeebled alicorn by the ear and dragged her towards his bedroom. She was still restrained by the disabling spell cast by the stallion. She had never known such wild, unrefined talent.

He didn’t check to see if his wife was alright. He didn’t care for the comfort and nurture of his daughters either. He was transfixed. As he closed his eyes to sleep, he wrapped his arm around his lucid hot water bottle and snuggled deeply into her firm ethereal mane.

> Monica
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The training programme of the Imperial army was nothing less than unadulterated torture. The kempt stallion wasn’t subject to sloth; neither had he opted out of any physical activity in his life. This however was a guideline, not a rule, and his outgoing attitude was catching its breath abaft the changing rooms.

It was gruelling. Hour followed hour of unforgiving physical challenge, calisthenics from the break of dawn, running drills till noon and no breakfast, assault course till the sun was setting in the west, until they were finally given grace to cook a meal.

Pretorias had only been enlisted in the guard for fewer days than he had feet, but the fallout was as severe for him as it was for the seasoned veterans of Empyrean’s march of malpractice.

It was a cool evening where he shuddered in the icy stare of the commander and chief. Empyrean clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he entered the common tents of the outfield encampment. The stallions were ruined and bullied by the day, their only respite in the form of the slurry stewing in rusted old caldrons.

The spryer studs of the bunch had already eaten and were busy getting their bunks in order. The camp was an ascetic locale, running water, working latrines and even the basic sundries of razor and soaps a joke among most. Each of these camps was overseen by an appointed quartermaster, a trusted corporal or private commissary with what the officers would call ‘the right stuff’.

This duty had been assigned to the newest greenhorn in the camp, the jaded old paladin with the piercing laminitis. He hid his malady well but when push came to shove, he could do neither.

He was dressed accordingly. His fatigues matched the sad monochrome drabs of his compeers, only his had hastily embroidered accolades up one sleeve and a rather nifty beret.

Empyrean sniffed the stagnant air of the irrigation ditch and tugged the ear of the quartermaster for attention.

“You’re a promising asset to my forces, you know that?”

Pretorias uttered no words. He pawed the brownish ooze and splashed it in his face to cool it. It had been a taxing day.

“There is threat of rebellion in our new conquest. I know who leads them. My sister tonight will be ensuring his sleep is short, and his dream portentous. I am to visit soon and my reason is for the extirpation of this ridiculous uprising. The demagogue wishes to compensate for his backwards methodology. Let him grovel I say.”

Empyrean hoofed a flask of something strong, something warming, a brandy perhaps, to the mute swan before him. He parked his rump in the grime and dirt of the fen and moved closer to his soldier.

“Things are heading south already. I need a sensible stallion to manage a small bisection of my army when the once king throws a royal tizzy. We are in principle there to make official the armistice of our true, thoroughbred brothers at arms, and the savagely sprawl of the griffon. There will be no such declaration. You will operate along with a quintet of my finest, of your choosing of course. You will move with the shadows and secretly control the situation in Salem’s state. Be they disciplinary measures to thwart misdemeanour or righteous acts of heroism to derail Salem’s sortie, you will be my…”

“Your spy, is that what you’re implying?”

“Sharp as a tack, I knew I had a winner when I handpicked you.”

“Am I supposed to be flattered? Sorry to dash your fool proof endeavour, but I think you’ve settled for the wrong guy. I make a good scapegoat, is that your angle?”

“I don’t much care for your tone, maggot. I chose you for this because of your determination, your unflappable drive for retribution. Spies report a certain stallion spending far too long in the state’s compendium. There have also been unexplained absentees from jury, and missing from the workplaces. Even soldiers have been going AWOL, no sense to say why, or to where.”

“You are mistaken. That gelding is so far engrossed in his own body odour and reflection that I doubt he’s had the time to read, or the other sketchy things you accuse him of. What else do your informants observe? Sounds to me that they’re investigations have led them to the tavern. Sounds like the pickled prose of Martingale to me.”

Empyrean fondled his woolly chin forest and looped his foreleg around Pretorias’s shoulders, leading him towards his half star accommodation.

“I’ve heard a fine yarn or two about the salt. He is of no consequence. We knew the ex-king was his chum, and we couldn’t leave his allegiance to chance. We have his estranged lineage in shackles. We’ve promised them freedom for his compliance. He has no influence in the critical parameters of the paramilitary therein, but he’s wonderfully charming. We let his forsaken sprogs free years back.”

The emperor and his lackey interrupted a riveting tourney of backgammon, the players infused with peevishness. Pretorias respectfully removed his cap and made for his bunk, duking under Empyrean’s foreleg.

“Before I begin my routine inspection, you flock of fillies, I would like you all fully dressed and armed for my associate here.”

A sea of laughter accosted the stallion. His comrades were none too concordant with the call to arms. Pretorias gripped the post of his bunk as his brain did a full somersault. Dehydration left him a wrinkly husk, a vacuous vanguard. He received further heckling from the partially dressed majority as they fell off of their bunks and began tightening and righting their neoteric costumes.

Empyrean plucked a soldier from the ground and snapped the fastenings of his garb.

“You will be undercover. Open conflict is not expected. Leave your panoplies in your trunks. Leave your uniform too. I have enough eyes in the forces. I want to see what the common pony sees. This is who that firebrand will isolate, and in time cannibalise. Take humble posts, in the paper mill, join the Samaritans, work as a teacher and become part of a quango. Detect his bedfellows before he can gain any sort of leverage, and he will have no choice but to be acquiescent when I offer him an exit.”

One saluted reluctantly and scratched the fleas from his forelock.

“You think he’s up to something then?”

“I am unsure. What would he call them, the yeomanry? That is the caste he would galvanise. The executioner here will elect a small subsidiary of five competent and loyal stallions. You will route out the festering underbelly of that diseased stump of an orchard, and bring the agitators to justice!”

“You didn’t actually answer my question…”

The dull gunmetal stallion began.

“Did I ask for an opinion? Now, I have to prepare for my scheduled neutral visit. I mustn’t be cranky. The quartermaster will clue you in on the finer details.”

Empyrean flung open the tent door and spread his wings so fast they nearly uprooted the stakes. He turned and winked to the cobalt blue stallion and vanished from sight.

Left alone, Pretorias summited his bunk and buried his head in the synthetic pillow. Nothing but the finest for the servicemen…

Not before long he felt a warm breeze on his eyelid; it was one of the woken privates.

“I don’t fancy being court marshalled, sir. I was just wondering. Well, we was just wondering… What I’m trying to get at…”

“FNG, you will be the death of me. Let me get my faculties straight. I’ll be right back with you.”

He yawned and stuffed his muzzle back into the foam cloud.

“Are you a hundred percent sir? W… We’re meant to be planning, yah know, for the incognito hoojamaflip?”

Pretorias tore his maw from the pillow and rubbed his eyes in dismay. The dismay only doubled as he realised the incoherent newbie was a little too close for comfort, his knee fast pressed against the paladin’s groin.

“Were you recruited? Did you sign up?”

As the blur of Pretorias’s vision lessened, a blotchy, ginger haired colt came into view. 

“Runs in the family actually, can’t you tell?”

The colt pointed to the similarly coloured corporals and privates of the tent. They had the same slightly plaited scheme to their manes and tails, and their faces were just as gormless and vacant.

“I’m sure your parents are ever so proud. Have you seen a mare, about my height, a Pegasus, and a radiant one at that?”

“I can’t say I have, boss man.”

The closer of the inbred pack replied. 

He screwed around and patted the bunk railing curry the limited attentions of his brothers.

“Any of you happened on this mare he’s clucking about?”

An unsettling cavalcade of shaking heads made the quartermaster flop back on to his back and strangle the pillow for comfort.

“Never mind then. How many of you can read? No hoofs? How many can write? Not so many either. Is anyone of you multilingual? No? You twits would be outwitted by diamond dogs, how did you pass the exams?”

“Exam, what’s that?”

Pretorias released the pillow; its sides permanently dented by his crushing embrace, and flipped over the side of the bunk, landing in a fashion demanding of scoring and kudos.

“Oh, I see his game.”

“Game, you think it’s a betting one? I love those!”

“Reinforcing my point effectively, more constructive noises could be gleaned from a sack of potatoes. You aren’t his best, are you? You clearly haven’t the cognition to open a stubborn jar, let alone legitimately pull off this caper. You’re expendable. Do you understand? You don’t matter.”

“My ma says I’m a special flower. I can do ice sculpting with chainsaws and no pony looks down on me when it comes to skiing.”

Pretorias held his head as though the growing whirlwind of stupidity was decapitating him. He shoved the closest red-faced, red haired colt backwards before grasping the nametag and peering closely at the insufficient stitching.

“Backfire, that’s your name? Well at least they had a sense of humour. In downhill skiing you only win when every other racer is looking down at you. Interesting titbit about the chainsaws though, that might prove handy in a pinch. Hey, the foul picking his nose, come over here.”

The smallest of the lads careered through the tent, upending his own footlocker as he went. He shoved his brother out of the way and crimped the material around his sigil.

“Path funder… That’s an unusual name. I don’t think it’s mine. Yo decoy, what’s my damn name?!”

“How am I sposed to know, you freaking loon?”

“Pathfinder, your name is pathfinder. Actually, you five could possibly be so inept that you’ve inadvertently switched clothing. You could be anyone. You’re certainly all stupid.”

The scrawny colt reached his rear hoof to his face and scratched as if he were a midge-ridden animal. He gargled and spat some left over broth from his tea and gazed fixatedly at his nametag again for clarity. 

“What did sis say I’m good at? Wait, I remember. They say I got a nose for this stuff, say I can find anything so long as I get a nose full first.”
“Much like a dog, that could be useful. Having a bloodhound on the team might tip the odds when rifling through the litter of Salem’s state.”

Pretorias gently keelhauled the dancing monkeys from his feet and magically dragged the remaining cronies to his bunk.

“You two are very quiet, is that your special skill? How do I identify you? Ah, I know. Which of you owns the bunk literally spangled in suggestive posters?”

One of the two, indistinguishable from his identical twin, giggled and gave himself away.

“I’m your man, sir.”

“Excellent, Master Clay Turner… What’s the jig? I thought you were all of military pedigree…”

“Cousin Steeplechase and I never quite fit in with the family profession. But, we got drafted, so thank your lucky stars we’re sober as vicars.”

“Speak for yourself.”

The other hiccupped.

Pretorias composed himself and whistled shrilly. The five maladroit blockheads, only three being true jarheads, assembled and saluted, one ripping a suspender strap as he did so.

“It appears this is a foal’s errand so I guess it’s fitting that we send the toddler brigade in arse first pissed as sailors. Steeple and Clay can ply their trades. They have proven acumen. We will have to look into roles for the rest of you. It looks as if my pickings are slim and you are the only ones I have to choose from. You have quite a broad range of talents, English enunciation not being one of them, so we’ll just see how this pans out shall we?”

> Early bird catch'eth
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Salem woke with a foetal mass of shivering Empress held in the convexity of his body. He rolled her across the hard mattress but stopped her before she could roll of the side. He leaped from the bindings of bedding, stuffing his hooves into his grieves and boots, fastening his rustic dragon mail. His armour was forged of dead dragon scale, not to mock or spite his allies, but because it was by far the most lightweight and durable fabric known to equine kind.

He grasped the ghostly mane at the back of Luna’s neck and lugged the deceivingly weighty mare down the stairs and into the bar where soaks were still sleeping from a night’s dogged drinking.

“Your minds are safe just as long as she is grounded. Tie her wings and gag her.”

The poor stallion seemed to have forgotten himself. He was bottom rung now, so low down he was touching the floor. The lubricated whelps and whelks managed strained chortles.

“Thinks he’s all that and a sack o’ oats, this braggart does! I didn’t even like yah when you were king, so why would I give a crap when you’re poorer than me?”

Salem’s latescent agenda was about to be revealed in a cinematic display both gregarious and vain, two things of which would his day bane. His phosphorescent eyes glinted madly in the dank inn. Dark scarlet arcs of lightning travelled along his distorted horn and in an instant, the rancour of the denizens became stiff servility. They bowed, spilling their pints of proper dry cider, and they saluted, elbowing fellow patrons in the chin and eye.

The boozing bandits quickly mobbed the second seed of Equestria and hauled her over to a pillar. One secured her with a length of rope he wore as a belt while another spread drool on the floor from his cadaverously loose lower lip.

Then they hogtied the mare and escorted her unwillingly into the early morning song.

Salem gulped, thinking perhaps his speech had been overheard. He had thought the bar empty after his brawl with martingale. There was no keeping an addict from his vice. This Salem was familiar with. In a little sequestered island in his mind, he knew the diminishing morality and efficacy of his modus operandi. Eventually there would be no more willing participants in his arcane game.

He had stared long enough at the landlady for her to clip him around the earhole.

“Jokes like him should be locked up. Damn near blinded me. Are you taking the mick as well? Why don’t you take a picture? The bruise will fade!”

“Good morning to you as well, Ms Foster. Your mane is looking as grey and tatty as usual. I hope you don’t mind the impromptu tenant. This won’t show on our rent will it?”

“I’ve seen nothing.”

“Good answer. I let loose last night, really opened up to my family. Were any of your customers passed out in here? If so, give me their names and addresses and I will be quickly out of your frizzy hair.”

“I sent them packing when you and that crook started trading blows next to my antique saddle collection.”

“That’s a relief. There’s a bit of a warzone upstairs, better fetch the handyman. I know one, he is my daughter’s husband, but he is also dying from colic.”

“Why would I?”

“The flat’s a bit of a state. Send a quote under the door. After today I won’t be living here anymore.”

The mare buffed a pint glass ready for its incoming shelling. She wiped the bar down too, turning the strong spirit optics so that the fancy lettering of the labels faced the clientele.

“Where are you off to now?”

“Thought I’d potter about the place, take in the sights, visit the museum, have a bite to eat. Maybe I’ll look for a job to pass the symptoms of my syndrome- four walls syndrome that is. You know I have to say, what Empyrean lacks in finesse, he more than makes up with eccentricity. He has transformed this little sideshow amusement part into something liveable, somewhere to thrive.”

The mare despondently looked away, her mind entrapped in different schemas. She rubbed her blackened eye to soothe it and downed a shot of something potent.

“I’ve been robbed three times, and that’s just this last week. It’s different, aye, but it has no heart, no soul. It’s like an inhuman framework of obscene taxes and gendarmerie whose only loyalties are to the bourgeoisie. Coin speaks loud around here.”

Salem leaned over the bar and stoked the purpled cheek of the mare, her eyes obstructed by the bulbous swelling around it. 

“You’ve been good to us. Admittedly our holdings are vastly under code. I am sorry for my conduct the night ere; I was testy from fruitless hunting for employment. I was brushing up on my mathematics and English, I thought perhaps a career as a schoolteacher or even the headmaster would serve the people well.”

“Think nothing of it. Thanks for stopping that rumpus.”

“It’s what friends are for. Our mutual relationship is built upon tenderness and compassion, is it not? You scratched my back. I will return the favour. I will cast a charm over this building, make it so the cullies have no amorous thoughts whatsoever, no libido whatsoever, I’ll take away every scrap of self-control they have. Better I hold the strings.”

“I don’t know, Mr Sombra.”

“You don’t want calm? I’ll give you profit. I can make them generous, charitable. I can coerce them to drink water and think it’s the best damned pint they’ve ever had. I can make them your slaves, make them worship and praise you. How does that sound?”

Foster rested her hoof on the bar and looked away, hoping the kitchen staff might notice and help her. Her hoof was soon encased in Salem’s. He concealed his face beneath the cowl of his cape and spun around in a cascade of gleaming tarnished silver and ravishing rouge.
He left the mare to pensive thought while he broke into canter for the first step of his plan.