Flicker Nicker has joined the Rat Catcher's Guild. He's rather good at it, but wants to be better.
Flicker Nicker has joined the Rat Catcher's Guild of Canterlot, the unsung heroes that keep Equestria from the plague. Changes are upon the horizon as disease becomes an ever increasing threat, and new enemies lurk in the deep, dark places where the vermin hide.
But Flicker isn't too worried about creeping death, the appearance of new enemies, or the coming of new plagues, just so long as he can wear his mask—the mask makes the pony, after all.
For some ponies, it all came down to the mask they wore. Flicker Nicker, a colt, was one such pony. He paused, took a deep breath, and lifted open the heavy wooden lid on his work trunk, revealing the contents inside. The trunk, large, heavy, made of elephant wood and brass, sat in the back of a wagon parked at the entrance to the sky docks. With an almost tension filled slowness, the trunk opened and the first thing to be seen was his mask.
Seeing it calmed him, eased his jitters, it somehow made everything better. Flicker hadn’t told anypony yet, but the mask was his real face. It was how he wanted the world to see him. Sure, some ponies were frightened of the mask, and that was fine. That was how it should be. The masks were made with intimidation in mind, to keep ponies away while the job was done. When ponies saw the mask, they knew to stay away, to give plenty of space, to stay back.
For Flicker Nicker, the plague doctor mask was the symbol of his noble profession, his calling, the whim of his cutie mark, his destiny. Reaching out with a hoof, he gave his mask a gentle caress. It was clean, polished, cared for, and kept in immaculate condition, just as his master, Mister Chandler commanded. The colt took a deep breath and tried to keep the shakes from setting in.
Today, he was being tested.
Moored in the sky docks, an airship containing contagion awaited. The crew was already quarantined, two members had pneumonic respiratory infections upon arrival. They would be treated and they would live. The ship however, had to be purged of vermin. Rats and fleas infested the vessel and it was Flicker’s job to eradicate the disease bearers. He could sense them, feel them, his magic told him that the plague was present and made his skin crawl.
The ship in question wasn’t too far away. He could see the two mooring chains that connected the ship to the dock. Rat shields had been placed on the chains, big heavy disks that prevented the rats from climbing over the chains and escaping from the ship. There would be nowhere to go, nowhere to run, the vermin would be destroyed like rats trapped on a ship…
Which they were.
Lifting his head, Flicker saw that Doctor Sterling Shoe was talking to the harbourmaster about the job. Flicker had met the harbourmaster a few times, but he had trouble remembering his name. The old pony was from Germaney, had a love for hard consonants, talked as though he was always clearing his throat, smelled of strong liquor, and was a kind, generous soul beneath the gruff exteriour.
Sterling Shoe, or Doctor Sterling, was an actual doctor, and not just a plague doctor among the rat catchers. Flicker Nicker liked the doctor and was glad to work with him. Doctor Sterling had a cold, clinical, methodical approach to the job, and Flicker very much wanted to be just like him. Always calm, always cool, always collected, never afraid, never panicked, Flicker strived to copy all of the doctor’s mannerisms and he made it his life’s mission to please the older stallion.
Another deep breath. Flicker lifted up the mask in his telekinesis and with a well practiced motion, he placed it upon his face while fondling it with his magic. There was a moment of powerful suction as the mask’s magic activated. For a few seconds, it was impossible to breathe, but Flicker did not panic, he remained calm, knowing that the mask was protecting him. The mask’s magic activated and he began breathing filtered air.
He began putting on the rest of his gear, an act that he had done a hundred times and more, if not a thousand. It was something he practiced, something he watched himself do in the mirror, putting on his face, putting on his skin, it was how he became the pony that he was meant to be. The mask hissed and chuffed as he inhaled and exhaled. His magic cinched up straps, tightened buckles, and it didn’t take long before everything was in place.
It didn’t take long to become the pony he was meant to be.
The second to last thing to go on was his broad brimmed hat. He began loading up his gear into various pouches and pockets, storing everything away in its proper place. The alchemical candles were the tools of his trade and seeing them reminded him that he had a test coming soon. Mister Chandler would be disappointed if he failed. After stowing away his tools of the trade, Flicker Nicker strapped on his sword belt.
He had a fencing exam coming and he wasn’t looking forward to it. There would be bruises, so many bruises, and after having the stuffing beaten out of him, he would still be expected to do his job, attend to his duties, and work through his lessons. Fencing exams were the worst and he dreaded them.
Unicorn fencing was completely different than say, diamond dog fencing or minotaur fencing. Where they held a sword in the hand, unicorns had no such restrictions. A sword could come in from any angle, from any direction, a sword could even be teleported from one striking point to another in the blink of an eye. Flicker had trouble keeping track of where the sword went and he had endured many, many thumps to his backside as a reminder to remain focused.
Following procedure, Flicker checked over his gear. His protective suit covered every inch of his body, everything was zipped, cinched, and buckled, with no way for rats to get in, save by chewing. His mask was secure, snug, and his hat was at a rakish angle. He had a full complement of alchemical weapons, most of which were magical candles, but he did have one emergency incendiary grenade that he was only supposed to use if he got swarmed. If he used his only incendiary grenade, he was expected to make a new one, and that was difficult, so Flicker was hesitant to use it even if he needed it. He closed the lid of his work trunk and turned to face the ship.
He was ready.
Today, he would go in alone and clear the ship.
Doing so would take him one step closer towards being a stallion.
Flicker Nicker landed upon the deck with a thump after Doctor Sterling had levitated him over. No gang-planks, as rats could escape on those. He took stock of his surroundings and saw that the deck had its own cargo lift. This was a cargo ship that dealt in valuable goods, things too important to risk sending by train or wagon overland. Train robberies happened all the time, but it wasn’t Flicker’s business to worry about them.
That was somepony else’s job.
In the broad daylight, the deck was clear. The wood needed a good scrubbing and maybe some varnish. But that wasn’t Flicker’s job. Moving with calm assurance, he made his way to the door that lead down to the crew quarters, where he would begin. Once he started, there would be nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, there would only be death for the vermin aboard this vessel.
Flicker Nicker was already showing signs of being good at his job, of living up to his flaming rat cutie mark. It was easy to give in to the urges, to hear the call of one’s cutie mark, and do what purpose and destiny expected one to do. Flicker did nothing to resist, he gave himself over wholly and completely. He lost himself on every mission, on every job, when he put on the mask and went to work, he was a different pony.
Wearing the mask, he was free to be himself, without reservation or concern.
Unmasked, Flicker Nicker was just another somewhat confused colt that wasn’t sure of his place in the world, a colt that didn’t quite fit in with other colts his age, a colt riddled with doubts about his own identity. But the mask fixed all of that, it took away his need to think, to reflect, to worry about who and what he was.
Pulling open the door, he stepped inside and had a look around as he pulled the door shut behind him. It was dim, almost dark, but he wasn’t worried, not in the slightest. His mask began to adapt to his needs and his dark-vision kicked in. Making his way into the crew quarters, he saw all of the signs of infestation.
In the magical lenses of his mask, he could see the vermin. Fleas, lice, bedbugs, mites, they all showed up as bright orange dots and most of his vision was orange right now. Rats showed up with a bright red glow, and infected rats looked as though they had red, coruscating steam rising from their bodies. The rats were in hiding, in other places within the ship, and his mask allowed him to see through walls and barriers. He could see plenty of red rats with wavering, shimmering streams of red rising up from them.
Moving to the center of the room where the beds were, he stood in the middle of the bunks, pulled out a candle from one pocket, pulled out a small candle holder from another, placed the candle into the holder, and then put it down upon the floor. With a flick of magic, he lit the candle’s wick and waited.
Nothing happened for a few seconds, but Flicker was patient. When the candle began to sputter and fizzle, one corner of his mouth turned up just a little beneath his mask. A thick billowing miasma poured from the burning candle and began to fill the bunkroom. He stood amid the fumes, a stage magician standing amidst the smoke while performing a deadly trick, and he watched as the bright orange dots in his vision began to blink out of existence. Little by little, the orange dots went dim, then went dark. The infested mattresses and bedding, given a loving caress by the foul murder gas coming from the candle, became killing fields where fleas succumbed to a poison designed to make their chitin dissolve.
Flicker stood waiting, unmoving, unfeeling, watching as the orange dots in his dark-vision cleared one by one. Fleas were the disease and Flicker was the terrible, terrible cure. He was their horrible death-god come to claim their wicked, plague bearing souls. When he was satisfied that one candle would be enough, the colt moved on to deal with the red splotches in his vision.
The job was simple. Get rid of all of the orange dots and red splotches in his vision. It was like a game, a contest, a bit of sport. Flicker had a cold, clinical detachment from his work. He stood in the crew kitchen and watched the shimmering red outlines highlighted in his vision. Rats in the pantry. No, not rats, not with dark-vision, they were little blips of red that needed to be neutralised, made to go away.
He rummaged around in his pockets, pulled out a candle, a candle holder, he socketed the candle, and then just as before with the fleas, he put it down on the floor. For a second, he thought about his sister, Knick-Knack, whom he missed. After a pleasant moment of reminiscing, he decided that this one was for her. Flicker was the dutiful big brother doing what he could to protect his sister.
The candle fizzled to life when he touched it with his magic. After a few seconds, it released a sweet smelling gas as it burned, and Flicker waited as the kitchen began to fill. The gas crept everywhere, under doors, into cupboards, into the pantry where the rats hid. It didn’t take long before the rats got a whiff of the sweet smelling gas and compelled by unseen forces, they came out of hiding, drawn to the candle by powerful magic.
One by one, they gathered around the candle, hypnotised by the dancing flame. They gathered in large numbers, forming a solemn congregation of vermin, there were a lot of rats in the kitchen, and the sparking flame reflected in the mirrored lenses of Flicker’s mask. Mesmerised, the rats gathered, more and more kept coming as the candle burned.
Flicker was patient. This job took patience. Good things came to those who waited.
The candle let out a sizzle, like butter hitting a hot cast iron skillet. Black, greasy smoke rose from the flame, which now burned with a diseased looking green pallour. Good things were about to happen. The candle, having called forth the rats with a mesmerising gas, now issued forth the means to kill said rats. Toxic fumes spewed forth, but the rats made no effort to save themselves. Hypnotised by the flame, they succumbed to the neurotoxin so carefully crafted to kill them.
Flicker Nicker stood amidst the fumes, unphased, unbothered by the lethal gas, protected by his mask and armor. One by one, the red splotches in his vision faded as the rats in the crew kitchen died, but more red splotches remained in distant places. Waiting, watching, Flicker knew he would get to them soon enough.
The candles were his master’s great contribution to pony society. Wick Chandler was a candle making genius and Flicker was expected to learn his master’s secrets. A candlemaker had become the head of the Rat Catcher’s Guild, so a rat catcher was now expected to learn how to be a candlemaker. There was more to life than one’s cutie mark and Flicker was expected to learn this. Killing rats was easy, the colt was good at what he did, but making candles and getting them right took an extraordinary amount of effort.
When the final rat breathed its last, Flicker moved on, a dark phantom moving among the shadows.
One by one, the red outlines in his vision faded away. Death had come to the cargo hold and Flicker was its chosen agent. Down here, he had lit several candles, spacing them out so that every inch of the cargo hold would be permeated with lethal gas. This ship held unseen, unwelcomed cargo, the plague, creeping death, and Flicker did his part to keep his country, his fellow ponies, safe from the unseen killer that lurked in the hidden, dark places.
The rats here were plaguebearers and Flicker stepped over their twisted, contorted corpses as he moved about. His long protective cloak made the lethal miasma around him swirl with each movement. There could be no survivors, nothing on this ship could live. Already he had walked from stem to stern looking for red in his vision, and now, he walked from stem to stern again as one by one, the red faded into the nothingness desired by Flicker.
Little blips of bright orange could be seen in his vision, but they didn’t last long. He had set candles out for them too. When the rats died, the fleas fled. His dark-vision told him that the ship was going dark as one by one, the lights went out. When everything was dead, the first part of his job would be done and the second part would begin.
Cleanup and disposal.
The fleas dissolved from the candle gas, but the rat corpses had to be disposed of. He would have to gather them all up, put them all in barrels specially designed for the job, and haul them back to the guildhall. The rats would be used for all sorts of things; they would be dissected, studied, rendered down to be turned into alchemical ingredients to kill more rats, and the unneeded corpses would be incinerated into harmless waste.
There were only a few red blips in his vision now, rats that had fled to the furthest corners of the ship, those strong of mind and capable of resisting the mesmerising call of the candles. Flicker was a bit worried by the strong minded rats, and he had good reason to be. He knew what lurked in the dark, but now wasn’t the time to worry about that. It almost appeared as though he was dancing as he moved through the whorls of gas, using his cloak to waft the fumes about and pushing the suffocating miasma into every nook and cranny.
As everything around him died, Flicker could not help but feel that this was a beautiful start to what was sure to be a wonderful day. Sure, the cleanup would be boring, but he didn’t mind. It was all part of the job and he was born to do this job. He continued his macabre dance, bringing clouds of toxic death with him as he capered about the cargo hold.
The return to headquarters was unremarkable. Having completed his task, Flicker didn’t expect praise for just doing his job. He knew that he would find out what Mister Chandler felt soon enough. It was enough to know that he had done a good job and had finished everything expected of him. He had purged the infestation, which was the enjoyable part, and he had done the cleanup, which was the work part.
Pushing open the door, he entered his room, and heard a meow. He stopped for a moment and looked down at the hairless, mutant monstrosity looking up at him. Spud, an apt name if ever there was one, appeared to be the nightmarish offspring of a housecat and a bulldog. The cats, bred by the Rat Catchers, were hairless, there were stubs for external ears, they had thick, leathery skin, and were downright psychotic when dealing with rodents. They were smart, far smarter than regular cats, and were bred to resist disease, fleas, and parasites.
Spud opened up his bear-trap like mouth and made his feelings known. “Meow?”
For lack of anything else to say, Flicker replied, “Meow.”
Purring, Spud rubbed around Flicker’s legs for a moment, then returned to sunning himself in front of the narrow window. He lay on the sunny patch on the stone floor and his purr sounded more like a steam engine’s rumble. Standing near the door, Flicker inspected his room, looking for anything that might get him scolded.
Everything was just as he left it, neat, clean, and tidy. His bunk was made, Spud hadn’t messed it up, and there wasn’t much else in his room, other than a training dummy in the corner, a rack with a few wooden swords, and a trunk filled with his few belongings. Flicker had a simple, uncluttered life.
These were the difficult times, the time when he wasn’t working and he didn’t have schoolwork to do. He rather liked working, or at least having something to do, and he detested boredom. He wasn’t dumb, but he was the first to admit that he lacked imagination and creativity. There were books in his trunk and he could pass the time by studying, which he decided to do.
Just as he took the first step towards his trunk, there was a knock upon the door, and then the door opened. Flicker paused, turned his head, and waited to see who was entering his room. The door was pushed open wide and the tall, looming figure of Asterius, the minotaur maiden that was the butler entered. Tilting his head back, Flicker looked up at her. She dwarfed him and he remained in total awe of her.
“You are wanted in the conservatory,” Asterius said in her peculiar accent. It sounded as though she had said conservatree.
“Hi there, Asterius.” Flicker Nicker, raised on a farm in the provincial town of Ponyville, was still mystified when he met one of the other sapient species. He had known her for quite some time now, but remained in awe during every encounter they had. Every part of her was of interest to him, from her horns, to her hands, to her hooves.
Reaching down, the mighty minotaur extended one finger and pressed it into Flicker’s nose, booping him. He went cross-eyed just as he always did, fascinated by her hand as well as her finger, and as he stood there, frozen by the boop on the nose, the minotaur maiden made good her escape, smiling as she departed.
Not only was she the butler, but she served as Doctor Sterling’s nurse.
The glass roofed conservatory served many purposes, it had books, it served as a study, it had a telescope that could be peeped through, and was typically used as a comfortable meeting room, like right now. Flicker stood just inside the door, a little nervous, a little hesitant, worried that he might upset the guild’s most generous patron.
Doctor Sterling was sitting in a high backed paisley upholstered chair, sipping on a rather large snifter of brandy. Wick Chandler stood near the corner window looking out, and Night Light, the guild’s patron, stood looking at Flicker Nicker, who was frozen, his ears drooping, standing just in front of the doorway.
“Don’t be nervous,” Night Light said in a soft voice, trying to reassure the timid colt. “Do come in and be comfortable. I understand that you did very well on your test today.”
“Sir, I do my best,” Flicker replied as he stayed right where he was.
Smiling, Night Light lifted his head. “I understand that you are very methodical and thorough. You are quite good at what you do and you are trusted with a tremendous amount of responsibility for your age.”
“Sir, I am only doing my job. Flattery is not required, I get paid for the services I perform and that is more than enough.” Flicker shuffled on his hooves as his tail swished around his hind legs. He blinked his pale blue eyes, tossed his head back to get his dark blue mane out of his face. “I am pleased that our guild’s patron is happy with my performance.”
Night Light, who glanced at a box sitting on a nearby table, stood there for a moment, one eye narrowed, and that eye’s eyebrow arched in a manner most dignified. “I didn’t come to flatter or to praise—as a matter of fact, I’ve come as a gift horse.” The middle aged stallion chuckled at his own joke and then turned to face Flicker once more.
Sitting in his chair, Doctor Sterling poured another glass of brandy, as he had finished his current. He too, turned to look at Flicker, and he made a gesture with his hoof for the colt to come into the room and have a seat.
“He’s too much like you, Wicked,” Night Light said to the pony staring out the window. “I do believe that his disadvantaged upbringing has left him humble.”
Pulling a pocketwatch from his frock coat, Wicked, as he was known by his friends, eyed the time, slipped the pocketwatch back into its pocket, and began to walk towards Night Light after turning about. “Aye, ‘e’s ‘umble, a’right. Now, Nighty, I’m right curious about the contents of that box.”
“Patience, old friend.” Night Light smiled as Wicked approached and he too, beckoned for Flicker to come closer. “Come here, I have something for you. A dear friend has been working on it for quite some time. I got the Heliophant himself to craft this for you.”
Flicker, afraid of offending the guild’s patron, shuffled forward in a slow and cautious manner. These were educated stallions, wealthy sorts, and he always felt so out of place among them. He felt crude, unrefined, and self conscious. One day, many years from now, after much self improvement, he might feel worthy, but today was not that day.
He would make himself worthy, however.
“Doctor Sterling has nothing but good things to say about you, but he did mention that you have a little trouble with magic.” Night Light’s brows furrowed as his nostrils flared, and the middle age stallion looked Flicker in the eye. “This is nothing to be ashamed of, so please, don’t be upset. I have something that might help you. Open the box, young Mister Nicker.”
Feeling ever more self conscious, Flicker wished that he had his mask. He was in a room with giants, stallions that he worshiped, respected, and desperately tried to emulate. Doctor Sterling, in particular, was his idol. Mister Chandler was his master, the pony that had given him all of this, a chance at a better life. As for Night Light, well, Night Light, as a patron, paid for all of the things that Flicker could not yet afford and he funded the guild as well.
He owed Night Light a great deal and had no idea how to make it up to him.
Licking his lips, Flicker stood at the edge of the table, looking at the well crafted box. The box itself was an exquisite masterpiece and no doubt cost a small fortune. Flicker thought of just about everything in terms of bits, as bits were very, very important to him, bits were near and dear to his heart, as it would be his bits that paid for his little sister’s higher education when the time came.
A few blue sparks flew from his horn as he pulled the box closer to him, the box, though small, had heft to it. The wood and brass were high quality stuff, not cheap, chintzy garbage. Flicker appreciated sturdy things, things like his mask, his armor, and his sword.
It took a few attempts, his telekinesis was clumsy, but he undid the ornate brass latch that held the box closed. Hesitating, he stood there, feeling awkward and insecure. He hadn’t even opened this yet and he felt that this was too nice a gift. The box alone was too much and whatever might be inside could be a king’s ransom.
The lid opened without a sound on perfect hinges and Flicker peered inside. He saw… a stick. It was a nice stick and it was laying on a bed of cushioned black velvet. Something about it made his horn prickle and he wondered what it was. Fearing that he might be ungrateful, he turned to look at Night Light and cleared his throat so that he might speak.
“Thank you.”
“It’s a wand.” Night Light’s voice was a gentle whisper. “I can tell that you’ve never seen one before and that’s okay. Think of it as a tool of your trade. It will help you focus your magic and allow you to cast some spells that you might otherwise not be able to cast.”
This left Flicker curious and he looked at the curious little stick lying on a bed of velvet. The wand was covered in carved symbols and he could feel the magic coming off of it. It had a lumpy knob at one end and at the other there was a brass capped tip. Reaching out with his magic, he lifted it, and when his magic touched it, it felt as though electric current flowed through his body, but in a pleasant way.
“The Heliophant grew the tree that made that wand, he carefully trimmed off a branch, and then he crafted a wand from it after curing the wood and doing whatever it is that he does. Mister Teapot is one of the most extraordinary unicorns I know and his knowledge of magic is matched by few. But he is like you, young Mister Nicker, in that he isn’t very magical, as far as unicorns go. He has found other ways to adapt. Let this be a lesson for you, Mister Nicker.”
Too overcome to say anything, Flicker nodded as he held his wand up to examine it.
“Changes are coming, and I want you prepared.” Night Light looked troubled and his ears angled over his face. “While I would never speak ill about the rat catchers, I will say that many of them are older and set in their ways. Big changes are coming, and you are young—this is an asset. You will learn and adapt to these changes as they happen, as we transition into something new.”
“Changes?” Flicker asked in a subdued whisper.
“This guild is the best equipped to deal with contagion and disease. This has been true for centuries.” Night Light’s head bobbed with a solemn nod. “Princess Luna feels that the Rat Catcher’s Guild is most suited for becoming a force of disease control. Not just with rats, mind you, but dealing with outbreaks as they happen. Hoof in mouth disease, rabies, parasitic infections, there is no finer fighting force against that which is most capable of bringing our great society down.”
Flicker considered Night Light’s words and gave them thought, as he had some doubts.
“It was your mentor, Doctor Sterling that convinced Princess Luna of this,” Night Light added.
Oh, Flicker thought to himself, if Doctor Sterling thought this was a good idea, a good direction, then it had to be. Any and all sense of doubt slipped from Flicker’s mind and he nodded, his thoughts now untroubled. If he needed to learn more stuff and adapt to new job conditions, he could. For a second, he glanced over at Doctor Sterling, and there was an almost fanatical gleam in his eyes. He wanted so very much to be just like the good doctor.
“You’ll also be getting a new roommate, Lad. We’ve found quite a find, ‘e’s a fine lad that can smell disease and ‘e’ll be ‘ere soon. Earth pony by the name of ‘Ennessy Walker. You’ll be showin’ ‘im what to do and I’m planning to send you all on a trip to a little community north of Applewood. There’s been an outbreak and the Las Pegasus branch of our guild is too overwhelmed to deal with it.” Wick watched as Flicker spun his wand in the air and the old stallion smiled.
“Oh dear,” Doctor Sterling muttered to himself, and then he let out a fierce ‘harrumph.’ He finished off his brandy, smacked his lips, and set his glass down on the wooden table beside his chair. “The train will be here soon. I need to go and fetch young Mister Walker. Flicker, you’re coming with me.”
As Flicker placed the wand back inside of its box and closed the lid, Night Light had one final thing to say. “Flicker, I expect good things from you and I know that you won’t let me down. This wand is an investment in your future. There is only one thing I ask for in return.”
“And that is?” Flicker asked in a subservient, subdued voice.
“You must pass your candle exam this time!” Night Light replied as the colt before him let out a groan. “No excuses. I know for certain that you have it in you and if necessary, I will come and help you study. No more failing, and that is final. Are we clear on this issue?”
Ears drooping, tail sagging, Flicker had trouble looking Night Light in the eye. “Sir, I will do as you ask. Thank you for giving me a chance to prove my worth and thank you for the wand. I will not let you down.”
“Flicker, my dear colt, you have already greatly exceeded my expectations…”
When Doctor Sterling Shoe raised an eyebrow, Flicker did his best to do the same, trying to emulate the good doctor’s mannerisms. Everything that the doctor did fascinated him to no end, every twitched ear, every smirk, every wry, dry witticism. Flicker had no hope of ever copying the witticisms though, as he knew that he lacked the creativity, charm, and wit required.
The doctor was everything that Flicker believed that a gentlepony should be. He was the very image of a Canterlot unicorn. In a duel, the good doctor was a dangerous, wily opponent that used dry wit and sarcasm that was just as deadly as his sword. He had the ear of Princess Luna and acted as one of her advisors. But perhaps most of all, the good doctor was kind, generous, and loyal. He was celebrated for treating orphans, widows, and the poor.
Below him and all around him, Flicker could sense rats. It unnerved him, but there was very little that he could do at the moment. Soon, there would be another purge and he would be free to let himself go. The sewers were dangerous, full of gasses, volatile gasses, and all of the hazards of living in a magical city where ponies flushed alchemical waste down their toilets and drains. It was a direct violation of the law, but since when did most ponies obey the law?
The careless disposal had quite an affect on the denizens of the sewer.
“Eh, more talk of democracy,” Doctor Sterling grumbled as he read his newspaper.
For a moment, Flicker wondered what he was supposed to feel about democracy, as he didn’t quite know how the doctor felt about democracy. He felt a moment of panic as he wasn’t quite sure if this topic was something good or bad. Rather than fret, he tried the direct approach, and just asked. “Doctor Sterling, is democracy good or bad?”
“When done well, democracy is the greatest thing our society has to offer,” the doctor replied, “but when done wrong, it becomes the tyranny of morons, imbeciles, and idiots. For a democracy to thrive, it depends upon a well educated populace. Too much talk of democracy, not enough talk of improving education standards. How worrisome.”
Confused, Flicker still wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel about it. Then, much to his horror, some unbidden words crawled out of Flicker’s mouth. “Am I stupid, Doctor Sterling?”
Eyebrow arching, Sterling Shoe lowered his newspaper and focused his full attention upon the colt beside him. The older stallion’s mustache quivered as he chewed upon his lip, and it was a few seconds before he replied, “Son, you’re not stupid, not by a long shot, but you are very, very focused. We just need a little more time to educate you, to awaken your interests, perhaps cultivate an appreciation for art, music, or the equinities.”
Ears drooping, Flicker thought about these words. Music baffled him and did nothing for him. He didn’t see the point of art. As for the equinities, he thought most of them were a waste of time. He couldn’t stand his classes on culture, he found them boring, and sometimes they were frustrating as he just didn’t get them.
Feeling somewhat angry, Flicker didn’t understand why a guild member had to be cultured. Try as he might, he couldn’t see the point in it and he didn’t make the connection that it was the doctor’s well cultured demeanour that allowed him to bend the ear of Princess Luna and have influence in high society. These connections escaped the young colt, who believed that being good at your job should be enough.
“Good heavens, the train is late today. If this keeps up, society will collapse. Ponies have to be to work on time and get home at a reasonable hour.” The doctor, annoyed, folded up his newspaper, slipped it into his bag, and then adjusted his sword belt as he said to Flicker, “You there, colt, recite to me the articles of militia.”
Commanded to perform, Flicker sat up straight, his head high, and his ears stood erect. He blinked a few times, cleared his throat, and placed his right hoof over his barrel. “For the guilds sporting an offensive nature involving combat, said members shall maintain training in all matters martial, shall keep all skills honed, and shall at any time be ready to be called into service by the Royal Pony Sisters, should a militia be needed.”
Sterling nodded and let out a pleased sounding sigh. “Close enough.”
Just as he was about to celebrate the doctor’s praise, Flicker felt something unpleasant. Something foul was close, just nearby. Something he didn’t like. Something was bold, appearing in the daylight. Saying nothing, he drew Doctor Sterling’s sword from its sheath and with the rapier drawn, he bounded away.
With an amazing dexterity, Flicker lept over a six foot privacy hedge, landed, and with the doctor’s sword held ready, he concentrated upon his rat-sense. No excessive thoughts cluttered his mind, no worries about democracy or his own stupidity. Even maskless, he was a clever, cunning, and capable killer. With a catlike fluidity, he took off at a run, his hooves tearing divots in the lush green lawn of the park, and he took off towards the fountain.
A black shape scurried away from the water, dragging with it a yellow duckling. Seeing his hated enemy, Flicker’s speed doubled as a burst of adrenaline took over and he bore down upon the bold rat that dared to show itself in daylight. As he tore through the park, ducks quacked and scattered. Almost a year of training had turned Flicker into a hardened lump of muscle, gristle, and mean.
The rat never stood a chance. Flicker skewered it on the doctor’s rapier, held it aloft, and then set it on fire as the duckling bounced down to the grass below. The colt, the corner of his eye twitching with a dreadful facial tic, watched as the rat burned to death, and the flames reflected like phantoms trapped in his blue eyes. The duckling scurried away as the stench of burning hair and flesh filled the air. Several park visitors scattered, some screaming, and Flicker let out a low chuckle of triumph.
It wasn’t often that the colt laughed and his eyes had a maniacal glee that gleamed within.
There was a quack from nearby, and for anypony that spoke duck, it was clearly a quack of gratitude. Flicker didn’t speak duck and he didn’t need gratitude. He was content to watch the rat stuck on the end of the blade burn. Blackened charred bits fell away and the sound of a steam whistle could be heard through the park.
The train, off schedule, was arriving.
“Hennessy Walker?” Doctor Sterling asked.
The colt in question was a rich, reddish brown, tall, and thin. Flicker couldn’t stop himself from looking, as the colt was striking. The breeze tugged on a mane the colour of golden baked bread. All thoughts of the rat fled from Flicker’s mind as he stared at his new roommate.
“Ayup, I am Hennessy Walker,” the colt replied in a slow molasses drawl.
“I am Doctor Sterling Shoe. This is Flicker Nicker.” The good doctor lifted his head as it tilted off to one side. “Am I to understand that you can smell disease?”
“Ayup.” The colt looked up at the doctor with curious amber eyes. “I got a sister that can sniff out truffles.” Turning sideways, Hennessy showed off his cutie mark, which was a skull and crossbones with green stink lines rising up off of it. “I was trying to sniff out truffles like she do when I got a whiff of something else. I didn’t know what it was, but it was a right powerful stank, so I followed it. Led me to our mail carrier, a pegasus. My cutie mark showed up and caused a commotion. Our mailpony had a case of the feather flu and ‘cause of me, it was caught early.”
“Astounding.” Doctor Sterling chewed upon his upper lip, causing his mustache to dance. “Do not be offended, but I shall be thoroughly testing this phenomenon under rigorous lab conditions to verify the validity of these claims.”
“Oh, there ain’t much that offends me.” Hennessy flashed the doctor an easy going smile.
“Very well then, let us collect your luggage and be going.” The doctor returned the smile and asked, “Do you have a claim ticket?”
“Oh, I ain’t gots nothing. All I gots is me. I’m as poor as the day is long.” Hennessy’s smile never faltered. “I’m poor, but I’m as honest as the night is dark, and my word is good.”
“A pony’s word is his most valuable asset,” Doctor Sterling replied. “Don’t feel bad, young Mister Walker, many of our esteemed members arrive here with nothing. With hard work, a great deal of effort, and dare I say, a stiff upper lip, one day, you will have everything your heart desires.”
“My heart desires a long stroll. I sat on the train for too long. After that, I think I’m set on things desired by needy organs.”
Doctor Sterling let out a dry chuckle as Flicker just stood there with wide eyes. When Henessy turned to face him, Flicker took a step backwards, blinked, and looked quite alarmed. Hennessy took a step forwards and Flicker took a step backwards. This ended up repeating itself a number of times, Flicker retreating as Hennessy advanced.
“You shy or something?” Hennessy asked.
“No.” There was a drawn out pause as Flicker thought about Hennessy’s slow, almost sticky southern drawl. “I’m just quiet. Where are you from?”
“A poor, poor patch of dirt spread out between Baltimare and the Druid’s Grove, just north of the Hayseed Swamps,” Hennessy replied in a long, drawn out drawl. “It ain’t special, but we grow the fixins for corn squeezings and the like. My mother, Southern Comfort, she’s got herself a good thing going, or she thinks she does. We all go hungry while the still gets fed. Daddy goes to gamble and keeps telling us that we’ll be rollin’ in bits if he can just hit a lucky streak. I’m sure it’ll happen soon.”
Doctor Sterling scowled.
Flummoxed, Flicker didn’t know what to say, what to think, or how to respond. He too, came from poor parents, they had a farm, and while they were bits poor, there was almost always food. Frozen in place, blinking, he stood staring at the cognac coloured colt standing before him at a total loss for words.
“Here, we eat well, but you have to work for it.” Flicker fell back on the only thing he knew, rules and regulations. Order and organisation, the things that made the world go round. “For us apprentices, the meals we get are determined by our grades, our effort, and the number of chores we do in a day. If you want to eat more, do better on your lessons and do more chores.”
“No offense, but you is so skinny that you look like you don’t do much of anything at all. You is what we call a pole bean back home.”
Chortling, Doctor Sterling covered his mouth with his hoof.
His face darkening, Flicker didn’t know how to respond. Flustered, his ears, cheeks, and the back of his neck burning, he had no witty remark to put Hennessy in his place. He stood there, stewing, hot and flustered, wishing that he had something to say. Trapped in silence, Flicker glowered at the colt standing before him.
Head turning, Hennessy looked up at Doctor Sterling, cocked an eyebrow, and with a drawl thicker than a boiling pot of grits he asked, “He’s kinda cute when he’s all tongue tied, ain’t he?”
Confused, Flicker felt his guts clench in weird ways as Hennessy’s words lingered in his ears. The muscles in his dock tightened and he backed away, alarmed, confounded, and uncomfortable. Eyes narrowing, he continued his retreat as Doctor Sterling chuckled. Something was happening, but Flicker had no clue what was going on.
“Why, young Mister Walker, you are the proverbial southern dandy.”
“Ayup.” Hennessy stood there with a coy expression, and he batted his eyelashes.
Now some distance away from the doctor and the new colt, Flicker tried to figure out what was going on. It wasn’t just the situation, but the reaction of his own body that confused him. Something about how Hennessy had batted his eyelashes. The strange feeling of jealousy that he now had, because Doctor Sterling and Hennessy were getting along. It took several long seconds for Flicker to realise that he was angry.
A born stoic, he showed no outward signs, but struggled to understand why he was feeling this way. He just about worshipped the doctor and now there was this strange colt and he and Doctor Sterling seemed to have this rapport that Flicker didn’t understand.
It enraged him and he seethed inside.
“Come, Flicker, Hennessy, it is time to go home. There is much left to do this day. Do hurry…”
The room he lived in now seemed just a little bit smaller with Hennessy in it and Flicker stood near the training dummy while staring at his earth pony roommate. Spud was under the bed, hissing at the stranger invading his space, and as for Hennessy himself, he stood in the middle of the room looking around, trying to get a feel for the place.
“They use the word ‘mister’ round here a lot,” Hennessy remarked as he glanced at Flicker for a moment.
Flicker remembered his own time of adjustment here and his lingering anger towards Hennessy cooled off to a dull resentment. “Mister Chandler, whom you will be meeting soon, he’s not too bad about enforcing the rules, but for a lot of the guild members, if you fail to address them properly, you’ll be punished. Harshly. We deal with a lot of high society types in Canterlot, so etiquette and decorum is very important.”
“What’s… eti—eti—that word you just said?”
Beneath the bed, Spud let out an exasperated meow of disgust, then hissed again.
“Etiquette,” Flicker said, his body adopting better posture as he spoke the word, “is the currency of civility, according to Doctor Sterling. It is part of a fair exchange. One says ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ at all of the right moments. One offers his cloak to a mare or a filly when it is raining. A mare or filly is allowed through a door first. All of these polite acts are like spending bits, which gets you politeness and respect in return for your investment.”
“Ah, I know what it is now, down south, where I live, we call it being genteel. Most ponies don’t bother with it, I know my Daddy don’t. Ain’t expected of him, so he don’t bother.” Hennessy’s eyebrows bounced up and down a few times, and then he took a step away from the bed when there was another hiss. “I try to act genteel when I can, but my brothers say I’m putting on airs and then they beat the stuffing out of me.”
“That’s… awful…” Shocked, Flicker just stood there, not knowing what to say.
“Oh, I do lots of things that make my brothers angry. I learned how to read, I got smart, and there is the way I am… they don’t like it. It’s part of the reason I was sent to live in Canterlot, to be around other ponies like me.”
“Polite ponies, with etiquette?” Flicker asked, feeling as though he was missing something.
“Yeah…” Hennessy’s lone syllable was stretched out like taffy. “Polite ponies. With etiquette. That’s a good way of putting it. Daddy seems to think that Canterlot is full of nothing but… polite ponies.”
The feeling that he was missing something persisted, but Flicker said nothing for fear of being thought stupid. He wasn’t quite sure of what to do or say next, as he didn’t have a list of orders or instructions to follow, just the command to show Hennessy around the place and make him feel welcome.
After turning the problem over in his mind for a time, Flicker realised that while he didn’t quite know what to say, he knew that there was a way to show Hennessy what he was in for. Flicker’s ears stood up, then drooped, and then stood up again as he tried to discern if he was having a good idea, a worthy idea, if his idea had merit.
“Come with me, Hennessy, and I’ll show you why we fight…”
Mouth dry, Flicker stopped at the door to the laboratory, turned around, and looked Hennessy in the eye. “We can’t talk about this out in the public… nopony must ever know. If you blab about this, I’m pretty sure that you’ll get a beating and it’ll be a bad one. Beatings don’t happen often, but when they do, they’re deserved. I’ve never had one.”
“I get it, guild secret.” Hennessy nodded and shuffled on his hooves. “This laboratory… ain’t that a fancy word for the shitter?”
Flicker stood there, blinking, not sure how to respond to that. He hated feeling stupid, and he didn’t want to make Hennessy feel stupid. It took him several seconds for his brain to form a worthwhile response. “This is a laboratory. You’re thinking of a lavatory. Don’t worry, common mistake.”
Turning, Flicker went to open the door and he heard Hennessy say, “Thank you, for not making me feel ‘tarded. Country don’t mean dumb. I tried real hard to educate myself and you is real nice for not making me feel stupid.”
His magic lingering upon the lever to the door, Flicker nodded.
“You had a chance to talk down to me there and you didn’t. That makes you a good pony, at least, I think so. I done been talked down to all my life. I don’t want to be an ig’nant know nothing hick, which is why I came here.”
Closing his eyes for a moment, Flicker nodded, then opened his eyes back up as he stared at the brass door lever. “I grew up on a farm and I went to the Ponyville schoolhouse. I wasn’t bright enough to go to Princess Twilight’s school. When I had a chance to come here, my mother was real happy. If you work hard, you’ll be treated as an equal here. We’re all brothers and sisters united by a common cause. Come inside, I’ll show you.”
Tugging down on the lever, Flicker pushed open the door.
The laboratory, down below ground, was dark and had no windows. Flicker hit the light switch and the overhead lights let out a crackle, began to hum, and one by one, they sparked to life, dim at first but growing brighter with each passing second. The colt was somewhat surprised that the lab was empty.
“The light,” a voice hissed.
Pausing near the door, Hennessy shivered, shuddered, and let out a fearful whimper.
Looking back, Flicker recalled that had been his reaction too. He took a deep breath and began fortifying his mind so that he wouldn’t lose his temper. Having dealt with what was kept in this room, he knew all of its tricks, he knew how horrible it was, but then Flicker realised that Hennessy didn’t.
“He reads minds,” Flicker whispered to Hennessy. “He’ll know about you. Your secrets. He’ll say things to get to you. Don’t let him—”
“One day, I will chew the face off of your sister.” The voice spoke with a demonic hiss. “I will raise my brood in a burrow made from her rotting, festering carcass.”
“Don’t let him get to you,” Flicker finished as he crept forwards.
The two colts approached the corner where a cage was, one looked fearless, bold, the other was hesitant, fearful, and cautious. Sparks trailed from Flicker’s horn and his eyes had a fierce inner-glow. A few feet away from the cage, Flicker stopped with an abrupt suddenness that caused Hennessy to bump into him.
“We call him the Rat Bastard,” Flicker whispered to the colt beside him. “He’s big and smart. He talks. Mister Chandler found him in the caverns below the castle and he was reading the minds of the ponies in the castle. He commands other rats, tells them what to do, and they obey.”
The two colts and the giant rat regarded each other. The rat peered out of the fine, unchewable mesh that made up the front of his prison, squinting in the bright light at the two colts. Hennessy, visibly terrified, pressed up against Flicker and shivered with fear. Flicker didn’t notice Hennessy though, as all of his attention was focused upon the Rat Bastard.
“I will feast upon the eyes of your mother,” the Rat Bastard promised.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before. Let’s see you get out of this cage, first.” Flicker’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the switch that would deliver a painful electrical shock to the prisoner and he felt tempted, so tempted.
“My time is coming… my Master comes soon.” The rat’s whiskers twitched and his beady eyes focused upon Flicker. “You and yours will pay for your crimes against my kind—”
“Your master, whomever he is, is just using you. You mean nothing to him.” Flicker’s words were cold, calm, and collected.
“My Master has given us the cure… the plague no longer kills us. Soon, we punish you.”
“I’ve heard this all before.” Flicker gave a nod to the rat. “I’ll be waiting. I’m more than capable of killing your kind by the score.”
“Always killing, always burning, always pain, you make war against us! You are the aggressors! Murderers! Killers! Cruel, horrid pony-spawn!”
Angered, the corner of his eye twitching, Flicker responded with anger, “You attack foals in their cribs! You kill our livestock! Everywhere you go, you bring contagion and disease! Killing you is the only option we have to keep ourselves and what we hold dear safe!”
Hennessy, trembling, gave Flicker a nudge. “I wanna be going now, I don’t like this. Can we please go? Please?”
Lifting his hoof, Flicker pointed at the Rat Bastard. “One day, we’re going to be done studying you, and I’m going to enjoy throttling you… I’m gonna do it real slow and I promise, your death will be a long one!”
“Flicker, please, I don’t wanna be here no more! I’m scared! I’m ‘bout to piss myself!”
Hennessy’s words took several seconds before they reached Flicker’s brain. The colt began to back away from the cage, never taking his eyes off of the prisoner, and Hennessy moved with him, almost glued to his side.
“One day, Rat Bastard… one day…” Flicker grimaced at the rat in the cage. “And I’m leaving the light on. I’ll take my punishment just to know that you’ll suffer!”
Hennessy looked shaken and Flicker didn’t know how to make him feel better. The earth pony colt was shivering and was clearly terrified. Flicker too, was shaking, not from fear, but from rage. Flicker looked over at his companion and felt pity, but he didn’t know what to say to make him feel better.
The last of the sunshine of the day poured through the narrow window. The scent of afternoon tea was heavy in the air, letting Flicker know that the evening approached. Smelling it gave Flicker an idea of how to make his new companion feel better, so he tried thinking about what to say.
The words came slow, but with some time, a rough idea of what to say formed in the back of his mind as he thought about everything that Hennessy must be enduring at the moment. He had left his home, his family, traveled to Canterlot, and seen a giant talking rat, all in the same day. That had to be a little trying.
“We’re working stiffs,” Flicker said in a low voice to Hennessy. “We have high tea at about five or six o’clock. I’ve been the only apprentice around here for a while, so I usually eat alone, but sometimes Wicked or Doctor Sterling eat with me. It’ll be served to us and the food here is usually pretty good. We have staff and servants who feel privileged to work here, so they do what they can to keep us happy.”
Hennessy’s amber eyes focused upon Flicker, and his ears, trembling, stood up a bit. “That thing… down in the basement… down in the lavatory—”
Flicker did nothing to correct Hennessy, as he didn’t want to make the earth pony colt feel stupid after his trying ordeal. Corrections would come in time and Hennessy seemed smart enough. Flicker was certain that Doctor Sterling or Wicked would set Hennessy straight.
“—are there more of them?”
Flicker shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s the only one we’ve found, and Princess Luna gave orders to study him. Wicked says that the rats are growing smarter, but he doesn’t know why. Wicked thinks that it might have to do with the alchemical waste that ponies dump down their toilets—”
“I ain’t never even seen a toilet,” Hennessy remarked.
“Oh.” Flicker paused for a moment before he continued, “The idea that alchemical waste is causing this doesn’t seem likely, and Doctor Sterling says so himself. It seems to be happening in all of the cities, and the alchemical waste is inconsistent. Doctor Sterling thinks it has something to do with the Master mentioned by the Rat Bastard, but he and Wicked won’t talk to me about who or what the Master is. I think Night Light knows too.”
“Ain’t you scared?” Hennessy asked.
Taken off guard, Flicker thought long and hard about Hennessy’s words. After several seconds, he replied, “No. My purpose is to kill them, not be afraid of them. I’ve spent the past year learning to fight them. Fear would hold me back from my intended purpose, the calling of my cutie mark.”
“A pony is more than their cutie mark,” Hennessy said to Flicker.
Shrugging, Flicker didn’t know how to reply, but he notice that Hennessy seemed a lot calmer now. It occurred to him that Hennessy’s cutie mark was for sniffing out disease, not fighting rats. This presented a problem of sorts, as Hennessy did not have the sort of cutie mark that made him bold against the rats. Just as he was starting to settle in for a deep think on the subject, a bell rang, and Flicker knew that it was time for high tea.
“Come on, it’s time to eat,” he told Hennessy, “let’s go.”
Nose buried in his alchemical textbook, Flicker listened as Hennessy struggled to read aloud from a reading primer. The colt knew how to read, but needed practice. His efforts were halting, hesitant, and he stumbled often, but something about the sound of Hennessy reading made Flicker happy. It was the sound of progress and determination.
His ears were wary for any sounds of displeasure from Mister Balister, who was standing in as a teacher while Miss Tweeny was away. Mister Balister, a smart pony if ever there was one, normally taught the use of firearms and crossbows, standard weapons of the guild, but he made for a passable substitute teacher in a pinch. One had to watch one’s ears and backside though, as Mister Balister was fond of motivating students with a swagger stick.
Flicker was stuck studying the nauseating subject of rendering animal fat. It was vile to even think about, but rendered rat fat was one of the primary ingredients in the alchemical candles that made rat killing safe and easy. There was also rat ash, which was mixed with many things to make other things, and Flicker had trouble remembering them all.
“Very good, Mister Walker, I am impressed,” Mister Balister said in a voice softened by a few early morning nips of gin. “You have lifted yourself out from your woefully ignorant backwoods upbringing and your reading skills are passable.”
“Thank you, Mister Balister.” A broad, laid back grin spread over Hennessy’s face.
“I didn’t tell you to stop!” The irritable old pony brought his swagger stick down on Hennessy’s neck, causing the earth pony colt to yelp in pain. “Praise, no matter how delightful or satisfying, is not a reason to stop. Now continue, so that we might purge your hickish ways, Mister Walker!”
Becoming a gentlepony was a painful process, a fact oft lamented by Flicker.
“And you… Mister Nicker, I want you to tell me what you get if you mix an infusion of mandragora officinarum, aetherial infused salts, crushed frost cloves, and garlic grown in Ashland’s ash?” Mister Balister stood with his swagger stick ready.
Lifting his head, Flicker knew he had this one. He cleared his throat, looked his instructor in the eye, and replied, “You get a salve suitable for treating rat bites or bites from other animals with filthy mouths. It has powerful antibacterial and antiseptic properties, and the numbing effect from the frost cloves will ease the pain. The mandragora should deal with any lingering hostile magical effects that the bite might carry, but one should still hurry to a doctor to get the bite treated.”
“Very good, Mister Nicker. Do carry on with your studies.”
Heaving a sigh of relief, Flicker stuck his nose back into his book and continued reading.
Taking the stairs two at a time, Flicker hurried to Mister Chandler’s office. It would soon be lunch time and it smelled like there would be curry today. Flicker didn’t really care about what he ate, so long as there was a lot of it. Behind him, Hennessy followed along, grumbling every step of the way.
“Sumbitch hit me in the same spot three times.”
Three times was getting off light. Flicker knew for certain that Mister Balister was going easy on Hennessy, because Hennessy was new. But the grace period would wear off soon and then things would become quite different. One had to be motivated, or else others would have to motivate you.
“You didn’t get hit once, that ain’t fair,” Hennessy whined in a slow drawl.
At the top of the stairs, Flicker paused and Hennessy almost bumped into him. He turned to face his companion and in a low voice he said, “If you get thumped and you don’t like it, don’t do whatever it is that gets you thumped. I used to think it was unfair too, but then I found out how to make it stop. Now, I don’t get thumped often, but when I do, I deserve it.”
“And I suppose that when you grow up and start teaching the new colts in the guild, you’ll be a thumper?” Annoyed, Hennessy squinted one eye and glared at Flicker as his nostrils flared.
“Probably,” Flicker replied without hesitation. “If it worked to straighten me out, why change it? If it isn’t broke, why bother fixing it?” After a moment’s pause, Flicker added, “If you keep saying ‘ain’t’ around certain ponies, you’re going to be thumped a whole lot more until it stops.”
“That ain’t right, I can’t help the way I talk.” Hennessy’s tail swished from side to side and he shook his head. “Why should it matter how I talk?”
“Because, we are consummate professionals and sometimes, we go into the homes of the wealthy and well to do. They have certain standards and we are obligated to hold ourselves to those standards. We are part of a proud and noble profession. We might slog through sewers, but we are learned ponies.”
For a second, Hennessy appeared as though he was going to unload an angry retort, but he remained silent and held it in. After a time, he nodded, and then in a frustrated voice he said, “That I understand. It’s like how I want ponies to know that country don’t mean dumb. If I do something dumb, I want you to kick me.”
“Okay.”
“In a friendly way.”
“Okay.”
“I’m starting to have second thoughts ‘bout what I just said.” Hennessy, standing on the edge of the stairs, now looked apprehensive. “Now that I’ve had myself a chance to think about it, you strike me as the type that would kick the crap outta me and call it friendly, ‘cause it was for my own good.”
Flicker did not respond.
“I dunno what to make of you… you ain’t like other ponies.”
Without further ado, Flicker kicked Hennessy and almost sent the colt tumbling down the stairs. It was for his own good, saying ‘ain’t’ was only going to get him trouble, and before Hennessy could take a tumble, Flicker grabbed him with his magic. Fearing for his own hide, once he had Hennessy on his hooves, Flicker hurried off to Mister Chandler’s office.
“Oy, ‘Ennessy, Flicker, so glad you finally decided to show up. ‘Ave a nice ‘eart to ‘eart in the ‘allway?” Wicked had a wicked grin upon his face as he faced the two colts who stood in his doorway. He took a few steps towards them, stopped, and cocked his head off to one side. “There’s been a change in plans and I’m about to give ye two an assignment.”
Looking solemn, Flicker lifted his head high and stood there with an expectant expression upon his face. Beside him, Hennessy had an easy going smile upon his face. The difference between the two colts was as plain as night and day.
“Now, normally, I’m not too much of a stickler or a 'ard one, but I need to make this clear right up front. If you mess this up, I’m going to ‘ave ye flogged and I’ll be doing it myself.” Mister Chandler’s brows beetled and several deep wrinkles appeared around his muzzle. “We’ll be getting a new apprentice… a filly, and I don’t have space to put ‘er in her own room unless I want to keep ‘er in a closet. She’ll be bunking with ye lads, and so ‘elp me, if ye do anything to ‘er, I’ll give you such a doing!”
“Wicked, it won’t be a problem—”
“Quiet, Sterling, and let me make my point!”
“Wicked, I assure you, it will not be problem.” Standing up, Doctor Sterling crossed the room while making relaxed strides. “You’ll just have to trust me on this one, Wicked.”
Scowling, Wicked turned his heated gaze upon Doctor Sterling while the two colts shuffled. The two older stallions sized each other up, stared each other in the eye, and a silent contest of wills was engaged. Flicker watched it with an impassive stare, while Hennessy tensed up and appeared uncomfortable.
“Wicked, I give you my solemn word as a gentlepony in good standing with the guild that these two colts can be trusted.” Doctor Sterling cleared his throat and then looked Hennessy in the eye for a moment before returning his attention to Wicked. “Should anything happen, which I am confident that it will not, you may have me flogged instead.”
“Aye, I’ll do that. The three of ye.” Wicked coughed and backed down from his friend and associate. “She was supposed to go to the Manehattan branch, but Princess Luna overruled that. The wee lass is to study ‘ere, with us. She’ll be ‘ere later today and she’s to go off with ye lot on yer mission.”
“Wicked, I understand your reservations. I know there have been problems in the past and you want to keep the guild professional. You need to relax and trust me.” Doctor Sterling once more focused a stern gaze upon the two colts that stood waiting nearby. In a much lower voice, he said to Wicked, “Mister Nicker is an honourable sort that will follow any order you give him without question, and Mister Walker is, well, Wicked, he’s like me.”
“What?” Wicked took a step away, gave himself a shake, and then squinted at Hennessy. The old stallion stood there, silent for a time, and then he turned his wary gaze back to Sterling Shoe. “I see. Well then… carry on.” Saying nothing else, Wicked pushed past the two colts, threw open his door, and stormed out of his own office, leaving two colts and one doctor behind.
Flicker, mystified, had no idea what was going on or what the good doctor meant when he said that Hennessy was like him. The doctor was a unicorn and Hennessy was an earth pony. He was certain that there was something else, but he was missing it, which made him feel just a little bit dense.
“Now, both of you, listen to me, and you hang upon my every word or I shall hang you both by your balls, do you understand me?” Doctor Sterling towered over the two colts with an uncharacteristic sternness.
Both colts nodded as their ears drooped.
Grimacing, the doctor began to pace, but never took his eyes off of the two colts. “In Baltimare, there was an incident with a young female guild member and one of the older apprentices. He took advantage of her. It reflected poorly upon all of us and the head of the Baltimare guild was asked to step down. Wicked doesn’t want the same thing happening here.”
Waiting, Flicker stood as still as a statue while he thought about what the doctor said.
“You are going to treat her with all of the respect that she is due as a member of the fairer sex. You are going to keep her safe. You will treat her like a sister, your baby sister, and if any of the older apprentices or guild members even look at her in a way that makes you feel squirmy, I want the two of you to kick the stuffing out of whomever does it.” Doctor Sterling pointed his hoof at Flicker. “You, especially. You hold nothing back. Since passing your last test, you’ve earned the right to bear arms. You may now carry your sword with you at all times, and you will be receiving firearms training soon enough. I want you to keep her… and Hennessy, safe.”
If Flicker felt anything, his face didn’t show it. He stood there, stoic, and still as a statue.
“Am I in danger?” Hennessy asked. “This is Canterlot…”
Still silent, Flicker began to wonder why Hennessy would be in any sort of danger.
“Hennessy, not all of our esteemed members come from Canterlot, and even Canterlot ponies can be bigots. Just be careful, okay? Stick with Flicker and you’ll be fine. Just be cautious, that’s all.” Doctor Sterling’s face contorted with worry. “Boys, we have to protect Mister Chandler’s reputation. We can’t have him stepping down. The guild needs him.”
“I can carry my sword around now,” Flicker murmured to himself.
Clearing his throat, Doctor Sterling shuffled on his hooves and then let out a little sigh of relief. “Come on, both of you. Time for some instruction in the equinities. Let us retire to the gallery so that we might discuss the nourishment of the soul.”
“What’s this ‘equinities’ stuff?” Hennessy asked.
“Culture,” Doctor Sterling replied. “Music, art, and theatre.”
“Boring stuff,” Flicker grumbled.
“Quiet, you.” The doctor’s voice was cutting. “I will make a gentlepony and a scholar out of you if it kills me, so help me.”
“Sounds a whole lot better than a boring reading primer.” Hennessy smiled, relaxed, and looked up at Doctor Sterling. “I love to paint, but I didn’t get much of a chance to do it often. Sometimes, I’d draw in the dust or the mud with a stick.”
“Wonderful!” Doctor Sterling’s face lit up with his smile. “Perhaps together, we can convince young Mister Nicker the value of art…”
“Mister Nicker, have you found your muse?” Doctor Sterling’s voice was quite amused and as he spoke, one of his eyebrows lifted in a gentle expression of hilarity. “You’ve been staring at young Mister Walker for a good five minutes.” Coming around, the doctor looked at what Flicker had been painting, and then clucked his tongue.
The assignment was to paint a bowl of fruit. Flicker had painted a crude red circle and a dab of brown paint served as a stem. As far as apples went, it wasn’t much to look at. Upon seeing it, Sterling Shoe shook his head and his mouth made a moue of disapproval beneath his mustache.
As the doctor peered out from beneath his bushy eyebrows, some tinny sounding music came forth from an antique phonautograph, accompanied by a warm, fuzzy crackle. Distraught, Flicker stood there, blinking, not quite knowing what to say. Try as he might, painting eluded him and music never made him feel much of anything. Opera bored him, modern music aggravated him into an irked state, and classical music did nothing for him.
“Tell me, Mister Nicker, when do you feel emotion? What makes you happy?” Doctor Sterling took a step back and waited for a response.
“I like killing things,” Flicker replied right away, “I like gassing things, setting things on fire, and watching rats die on the end of my sword.”
Clucking his tongue, the older unicorn turned a look of pure exasperation upon Hennessy, who shrugged in return, but kept painting. The doctor’s mustache quivered and his thoughtful gaze lingered upon Flicker as he tried to get inside of the colt’s head. His silvery mane slipped down over his forehead and a curl of his forelock tangled around his horn.
“You are too much like my niece, Silver Spoon.” Sterling made a sour face, like he was chewing a lemon. “She’s a lovely girl, she started off a little rough, but she straightened out for the most part… she’s a thickheaded boor when it comes to culture. She thinks that pulp nouveau romance novels are the height of literature. Oh, this is intolerable.”
Stewing, Flicker remained silent and he just stared at his attempt at an apple.
“Mister Walker, tell me, what awoke your sense of culture?” Sterling asked.
Startled, Hennessy almost dropped the paintbrush held in his mouth. He recovered, set down his brush, and then stood there, looking thoughtful. “I was about nine years old or so. It was a few years ago… I done heard it told that Princess Twilight Sparkle was coming to Baltimare Downs University to give a speech.” The colt with the magnificent reddish-brown pelt blinked a few times and looked the doctor in the eye.
“I walked almost fifty miles to hop a train and I made my way to Baltimare. I wasn’t allowed into the building where she was speaking, you had to pay to get in, it was some kind of charity or something… so I found an open window in the back and I sat down under it. I was able to hear everything just fine. And she talked about the importance of being yourself. About being true and honest about the sort of pony you were. Up to that point, I’d been trying to hide the sort of pony I was, on account that folk hated me.”
“I’m really very sorry,” Doctor Sterling said in a soft voice.
“After hearing Twilight talk, I had this new sense of courage. I started being the pony I was meant to be. I suffered for it, I got hurt a lot, and for a time, I was getting beat up almost every day, but at least I was true to myself. I think I done started to grow as a pony. Music sounded sweeter, paintings looked a whole lot prettier, and every chance I got, I hopped a train to go to Baltimare and visit the museum when I had a few bits.”
“I don’t feel like my real self unless I am wearing the mask,” Flicker blurted out, possessed with a sudden need to be honest and reveal his soul. He could never put it into words, but he felt inspired by Hennessy’s words, he felt emboldened, he felt as though he was one step closer to the truth about himself.
“I suspected as much.” The doctor’s words were gentle and sincere. He turned to look at Flicker with soulful grey eyes and let out a sigh. “You know, Flicker”—the doctor paused after using the colt’s first name—“perhaps an experiment is in order. Maybe someday we’ll have you try painting while wearing the mask, just to see what happens. There is no shame in being the pony you were meant to be. You would be wise to listen to Hennessy, I think he will be a good friend for you.”
Not knowing how to respond to the idea, Flicker offered a noncommittal shrug in return.
“Okay, boys, return to your painting. Discussion over. It’ll be lunch soon, let us be productive…”
Feeling nervous, Flicker whipped his sides with his tail, swatting at flies that didn’t exist. He stood in the lower entry office with Hennessy, waiting, worrying, and wondering. While Flicker stood in the corner like a soldier standing at attention, Hennessy sat on the floor and was drawing something with a charcoal pencil held in his mouth.
In a somewhat beat up looking chair, Doctor Sterling was reading the newspaper with an occasional harrumph. Flicker could make out the headline, but he didn’t understand much of what it meant. Prince Gosling had angered the bureaucracy, leading to some manner of revolt. Flicker, a simple, uncomplicated sort, understood how to deal with revolt against the ruling family of Canterlot, but he wasn’t supposed to say it aloud, or the good doctor and Wicked would take turns tanning his hide.
Neigh-sayers and shirkers were best put to the sword, just like rats, before they spread their disease. The ruling family was the ruling family for a reason. Princesses became princesses for a reason. The princes, few though they might be, had the job for a reason, and by extension, they knew best. Flicker lived in an uncomplicated black and white world, free from the burden of complicated thought and moral quandaries. Flicker couldn’t even begin to imagine why anypony would resist the desires of the ruling heads of Equestria. It would be like disobeying your parents, who knew best, and that was wrong.
Flicker knew the name of this disease—sedition—and he knew who carried the disease—rats—and he knew how to cure this disease, but he couldn’t understand why both Doctor Sterling and Mister Chandler became angry when he said something about it out loud. Like democracy, it remained a very confusing subject that Flicker didn’t know how to talk about.
The door opened and Flicker’s breath caught in his throat. He went rigid and didn’t move, while Hennessy just lifted his head, his charcoal pencil dangling from his lips. Mister Chandler entered, stepped aside, then a tall earth pony mare entered, looking fearful, and she was followed by a unicorn filly.
“Lads, this is Mrs. Cashew Pie and this ‘ere filly is yer new companion, Piper Pie.”
Peering out from behind her mother’s hind legs, the filly looked around the room and said, “My name is Piping Hot Pie, but after my cutie mark showed up and my talent manifested, ponies started calling me ‘Piper.’”
“Piper, these two are going to be yer guardians. Yer to be with them at all times. The starchy looking unicorn cuss, ‘e’s named Flicker Nicker, and on the floor over there, that’s ‘Ennessy Walker. I give ye my word that ye can trust those two.” As Chandler spoke, he cast a hard, flinty glare at Doctor Sterling. “And that over there, ‘e’s Doctor Sterling Shoe.”
With slow, almost jerky movement, Piper’s mother crossed the room, stepped past Chandler, and moved towards Flicker. She paused for a moment, as if sizing him up, and then she continued towards him. She stopped, lowered her head, and looked into his eyes.
“You there,” Mrs. Pie said to Flicker as he stood stock still. “You look like a mama’s colt.”
Hennessy began sniggering and covered his mouth with his fetlock.
“My daughter is very, very dear to me and I am very, very nervous about this whole venture—”
“Mama, don’t ‘barrass me!”
“—she is the most precious thing I have and you… you”—she reached out and touched Flicker on the neck with her hoof—“you would never let your mother down, would you?”
“There she goes again, ‘barrassing me.” Piper’s cheeks bulged as she held her breath in contempt of her mother’s actions.
Flicker looked into the mare’s eyes, and then looked over at Piper. He studied the filly, she had a pelt the colour of pie crust and her mane was the colour of lime meringue. Flicker had a thought that he had never had before. Every filly was some mother’s daughter. For him, it was mind blowing. He thought about his own mother, and his baby sister. He was jealous sometimes of how much his mother loved his sister, but he got over it.
“I have a baby sister,” Flicker said in a solemn whisper to the mare. “She is very dear to me. Ma’am, I will look after your daughter to the best of my abilities.”
“Thank you.” Mrs. Pie backed away, tears in her eyes and a smile upon her face.
“Mama, stop using your earth pony sense on other ponies.” Standing near the door, Piper squirmed. “It gives me magic tickles and I can’t hold still. I probably look like I have cooties!”
Whirling around, the mare faced her daughter, the corner of her mouth twitching as she fought to keep her smile. “Piping Hot, I still don’t agree with this, but I am not going to hold you back from an opportunity to have a better life. I would be a terrible mother if I did. I don’t have to like this, and I will take any piece of mind that I can get, young lady.”
“Oh, there we go with the young lady… Mama, please... I have to work with these ponies.” Piper turned her pleading eyes upon her mother.
“I’ll be staying in Canterlot with my cousin, Derby Pie overnight, just in case you change your mind.” The anxious mother cast a pleading, hopeful glance upon her daughter, and stood there, waiting, no doubt praying for Piper to change her mind. “I’ll be taking the morning train home. I could come by in the morning and say goodbye—”
“No!” Piper’s voice was a nasal whine. “‘Barrassing!”
“Okay, Piping Hot, I’ll go.” Ears drooping, Cashew Pie blinked a few times, let out some snuffles, and somehow managed to smile through the pain.
“Mama…” Piper’s voice was hesitant.
“Yes?” Cashew looked hopeful, but guarded.
“I love you, Mama. I wanted to leave home, but I didn’t want to leave you and Daddy. School is expensive and I want to be a wizard. I know that you and Daddy don’t understand, because you’re earth ponies…” Piper’s words trailed off and she was unable to finish what she had to say.
“No, Piping Hot, I don’t understand… but I do want you to be happy. I’m going to go now, so you can get to know your new friends and your boss. Do well, be well, and please write home regularly.”
“I will, Mama…”
“Mrs. Pie, if I may.” Folding his paper, Doctor Sterling stood up from his chair. “Your daughter will get the very best magical instruction here. I daresay it will be better than most schools, as we can work on a one to one basis here, face to face. In a classroom, students have to compete with their fellow students for a teacher’s attention.”
Cashew Pie looked thoughtful as the doctor said his words.
“This is a working apprenticeship. Everything she learns will be rooted in the job. She’ll get to practice on a daily basis. In some ways, our apprentices have more advantages than students in some overcrowded school. There is danger, yes, Mister Chandler’s wooden leg is a testament to that, but danger motivates a pony to be at their very best.” Doctor Sterling gestured over towards Flicker with his hoof. “He’s a fine example of what we do. A poor colt that lived on a farm in sore need of a fine education. He now makes more bits than his parents do in a year. He is meeting the movers and shakers in Canterlot. Mister Nicker is gaining wit, acumen, and the etiquette required to function at the highest rungs in society.”
Bowing her head, Cashew Pie blinked once. “That I understand. Thank you. Please, give my daughter what I cannot.”
Piper, with a nervous glance at the two colts in the room, hesitated for only a moment before she ran over to her mother, grabbed her mother’s foreleg, and gave it a fierce squeeze as tears trickled from her eyes…
The training dummy had been moved and that bothered Flicker more than he cared to admit. In its place was now a third bed, a plain spartan thing with a thin mattress that matched the bunk beds already in the room. Laying on the bed in a sparse patch of sunlight, was Spud.
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeee! What is that?! It’s so cute!” Piper rushed forwards into the room, shoving past Hennessy, and she lifted the mutant monstrosity known as ‘Spud’ with her magic. Oblivious to the danger of his inch long claws, his tusk like teeth, she held him up and started rubbing her cheek against his hairless, wrinkled, leathery skin. “Kitty!”
“Meow?” Spud cast a pleading gaze upon Flicker, the only pony present who spoke Spud. “Meow. Meow? Meow… meow!” The expression upon the bulldog-like face of the hairless cat became one of longsuffering sorrow as Spud realised that Piper was going to be a permanent pest. Spud flexed his claws, wiggled his toes, but did nothing to bring harm to the filly dismantling his dignity with reckless abandon.
“That’s Spud.” Flicker tried to control his feelings of annoyance that his training dummy had been moved. “Spud can’t talk like you or I can, but he can understand every word you say. He’s smart like us. I didn’t choose Spud, he chose me. It’s complicated.”
“He’s so cute!” Piper squealed as she swung Spud around in her magic, her cheek still rubbing up against him. As she gave him a loving squeeze, Spud yowled in protest, revealing multiple rows of teeth.
Spud and his species had hyperdontia.
The storm of affection passed and Piper put Spud back down upon her bed. She began looking around her room, muttering about how it needed wall decorations, curtains, and rugs. As she did this, Hennessy looked to Flicker to check for signs of discontent, but Flicker was oblivious.
“Spud,” Flicker said to his hideous companion, “we’ve been given a job. Keep Piper safe. If anything or anypony tries to hurt her, gnaw their leg off… or better yet, go for the face.”
Whirling about, Spud cast a baleful glance at the filly that had robbed him of his dignity and then gave Flicker a seething look of righteous indignation. His stubby, almost nonexistent ears twitched, and his fat sausage of a tail slashed through the air.
“You don’t have to like orders, Spud, you just have to follow them. Go for the face.”
“Meow.” It was a very dismissive meow, but Spud acknowledged the order he had been given. Disgusted and put out, he flopped down upon the bed and resumed his power napping in the sun.
“This place almost looks like a prison cell,” Piper said as she tried to conjure up a conversation. Turning about, she faced the two colts that were her roommates. “Both of you seem nice.”
Flicker, who had a baby sister, a little yearling named Knick-Knack, thought of her with a warm sense of fondness. He stood there, silent, and Hennessy pushed past him. The older earth pony colt crossed the room and went to where Piper stood. He studied her, and she studied him back, and after a quiet exchange, the filly smiled.
Shuffling on his hooves, Hennessy said to Piper, “You’re gonna hear Flicker talk about how he is, and it’s gonna be creepy, and he’s gonna talk about how he likes to kill stuff, gas stuff, and set things on fire. He can be a bit much to take, but make no mistake, he’s a good sort of pony. I don’t know if I’d call him nice, but he’s professional and he strikes me as the sort that’ll make a loyal friend. He just really loves his job, that’s all.”
Intrigued, Piper tilted her head off to one side and peered over at Flicker, who was now staring at Hennessy with a blank stare. Hennessy sidled around until he stood side by side with Piper, and then the two of them stared at Flicker together, who stood like a statue near the door.
“He kinda strikes me as being thick headed,” Piper whispered to Hennessy.
“Eh, maybe,” Hennessy replied, “but the way I see it, from what little I know of him, Flicker’s mind moves like a train. It’s slow to start, but once it’s moving, there ain’t no stopping it. It’s all power and motion going forward. I think a lot of ponies might mistake him as being stupid.” The colt’s slow drawl made Piper’s grin widen with every word he spoke.
All too aware that he was being studied and sized up, Flicker just stood there, thinking about trains. He liked trains, he liked what they represented, the economy and efficiency of movement, and most of all, Flicker liked it when the trains were on time. What was the point of a train schedule if the train was always late?
“You know, I think I can see why my mother went to him.” Squinting, Piper continued to study Flicker, and she gave Hennessy a nudge with her foreleg. “I think we’re safe with him.”
“I’m gonna go take a shower,” Flicker announced. He gave Hennessy a stern look. “Don’t let Piper out of your sight.” His brow furrowing, the wheels of Flicker’s mind began to turn. “We need to figure out how she is going to shower and stay safe. One of us will have to stand guard.”
“Wait, he’s really serious about this, isn’t he?” Piper asked.
“Ayup.” Hennessy nodded his head. “I think Flicker is what you call ‘book-smart,’ ‘cause he takes everything all literacy like.”
Giggling, Piper stuck out her tongue and made a funny face at Hennessy. “That isn’t what book-smart means, you silly-head.”
“Well, what does it mean, then?” Hennessy demanded to know.
“While you two sort this out, I’m going to shower.” Turning about, Flicker slipped out the door and was gone.
Somewhat damp and smelling of pine oil soap, Flicker picked up his spellbook for a bit of study. He wasn’t very good at magic, he lacked power and creativity. Once he learned a simple spell, he could use it, but he had trouble combining them with other spells or making an old spell work in a new way.
Piper was trying to help Hennessy with his reading and that was a mild distraction, but Flicker would just have to deal with it. They were reading a dictionary, and Flicker approved of the venture. Dictionaries were marvelous books, full of rules and order. Flicker liked dictionaries, they offered clarity of language and brought understanding.
With an emotionless calm, he lifted up his new wand and flipped his spellbook open to a spell that had long plagued him. He could cast a light spell from his horn, but that took continued effort and magical drain. There was a conjurable orb of light that would burn for a time, but up to this point, it had eluded him. It was just beyond his abilities to cast, even though plenty of other unicorns cast it with total ease.
Unaware that Piper was now staring at him and his wand, Flicker tried to focus the spell that was the bane of his existence. It was just a common light spell, but for him, it represented something that was just outside of his reach. Even with the available verbal component for focusing magical energies, he had failed time and time again.
Holding the wand, summoning his will, Flicker made yet another familiar attempt and he spoke the words that he had spoken so many times. “Luceat lux vestra!”
As was the case so many times before, nothing happened. Flicker stood there, stubborn, and somewhat peeved. He did it again and this time, gave the wand a little wave. “Luceat lux vestra!” Much to his frustration, nothing happened. Well then, he could do this all day and all night if he had to. He had done it before, so doing it now was no big deal.
Stabbing the air with the wand, he said the magic words again. “Luceat lux vestra!”
“You’re saying the words right.” Piper’s voice was a little shy as she approached Flicker, and she appeared apprehensive, unsure how Flicker might take her intrusion. “I’ve cast this spell before. It’s tricky, and I’ve seen it done without the verbal component. I’m not good enough to do that just yet, but I think I can help you. That’s a wand… I’ve never seen one, but I’ve read about them. Might I see it?”
Flicker, slow to respond, gave thought to her words. As Piper stood there, patient, Flicker came to the conclusion that there was no harm in letting her help. Saying nothing, he offered his wand to her. For a moment, their magic intermingled, and for Flicker, it was like standing in the noonday sun. Piper’s magic had warmth and power.
“To use a wand, I’ve heard it said that it is like pushing ink through a quill. You focus your magic into the wand itself, charge up the wand, and then push the magic through. Now that I think about it, I would imagine that it would be like shooting a spitwad out of a straw.”
Flicker, listening to every word, couldn’t help but notice that when Piper said ‘straw’ or any other word with a ‘w’ in it, there was a faint ‘r’ sound to how she said it. “Strawr.” He understood how to shoot spitwads out of a straw, as he was learning how to use a blowgun as part of his training. One had to inhale a mighty amount of air if one hoped to get the dart free of the gun.
Piper, her horn glowing, made a fluid flourish with the wand and said, “Luceat lux vestra!”
A weak orb of light fizzled into existence, then floated up over Piper’s head, looking very much like an incandescent soap bubble. Piper looked impressed by her own magic, and she returned the wand to Flicker with a relieved smile.
“Now, you try.” Piper’s voice was both joyous and prim at the same time somehow.
Nervous, though not showing it, Flicker held his wand and tried to think of his magic as taking a deep breath. He allowed it to build, his wand and his horn glowing brighter with each passing second. Piper’s glowing orb fizzled out of existence, but he didn’t let it distract him. Right now, Spud could start gnawing on his leg and Flicker wouldn’t let it distract him.
With a jerk of the wand, Flicker shouted, “Luceat lux vestra!”
The brass tip of the wand spat out sparks but nothing else happened.
Well then, he was just going to have to keep trying. Undaunted, Flicker allowed his magic to build again as Piper took a step back to give him space. It was just a simple light spell. Doctor Sterling could cast it without even saying anything, and he could spit out dozens of orbs in seconds.
Perhaps he just wasn’t waiting long enough. Flicker allowed his magic to build and he waited, allowing for several seconds to pass. The wand was vibrating a bit now and Flicker could feel his still somewhat damp mane standing up in a few spots. Spud yowled and then darted beneath the bed, but Flicker wasn’t distracted.
Hennessy lifted his dictionary up in front of his face like a shield.
“Luceat lux vestra!” Flicker cried as he stabbed the air with his wand. There was a brilliant flash of light that was blinding and he couldn’t see the end result of what he had done. Balls of light danced in his vision and Flicker blinked a few times to clear the dazzle from his eyes.
Over his head, a tiny orb of light hovered in orbit around his horn. It was weak, it flickered, and would die any second, but it was a persistent light orb. Feeling pleased with himself, Flicker prepared to celebrate by trying again. He lifted his wand and began to charge himself with magic…
With a kind, almost paternal expression, Doctor Sterling looked down upon the three faces looking back at him. Flicker had his usual look of cold disinterest, but that was his normal expression, Hennessy had a look of warm, worshipful adoration, and Piper was just too eager. She was bouncing in place, which caused her ears to flap up and down. The doctor thought that she rather looked like an overexcited puppy.
“We’ll be taking an airship to our location,” he said to the foals hanging on his every word. “My airship. She’s not very big, but she’ll sleep six, she has an onboard lab, and she’s comfortable. I will expect the three of you to obey every word I say and I want you to remember to be on your best manners when we are in public view.”
Flicker nodded, as did Hennessy, but Piper was just too excited, so she kept bouncing.
“On location, there will be a focus on stilt training. Young Mister Nicker is already a master and the two of you would do well to pay attention to any advice he has to offer. Stilts allow us to travel rapidly overland and offer us some means protection from being swarmed should we encounter groups of vermin out in the open wilds. Stilts also offer a degree of protection from wild animals.”
“Stilts!” Piper squealed.
“Yes, Miss Pie, stilts. They are very practical tools of our trade, as you will learn in time.”
“When are we leaving?” Flicker asked.
“Within the hour,” the doctor replied. “On ship, you will be my first mate and you will be responsible for keeping the crew in line.”
Flicker, who didn’t see the humour in this statement, gave a solemn nod.
The doctor, who saw that Flicker didn’t see the humour in his statement, chuckled and added, “Any infractions will end with walking the plank.”
Again there was a solemn nod from Flicker, but both Hennessy and Piper looked alarmed. Sterling’s eyebrow arched and a wry smile crossed his muzzle. He knew for certain that Flicker would look all over the deck for the plank and then complain when he couldn’t find it.
The deck of the Don’t Panic wasn’t very large and it didn’t take long for Flicker to inspect it. The ship part of the airship was about nine feet in height, about eight feet in width, and a little less then twenty six feet in length. It was a small vessel, little more than a private yacht. Flicker, after his inspection, returned to the doctor and offered an awkward salute, which he felt was the right thing to do.
“Is there a problem, First Mate Nicker?” Doctor Sterling, who was enjoying this joke at Flicker’s expense, somehow held his composure and kept himself from smiling. He rather enjoyed watching Flicker squirm.
“Doctor Sterling… Captain Sterling?” Flicker paused, unsure of what to say. “Captain, there seems to be an issue with the plank. I cannot find it.”
“You mean you didn’t bring the plank?” The doctor made a special effort to look bothered, very bothered. “The First Mate is responsible for remembering the plank. How could you forget?”
“Now we have a bigger problem,” Flicker said, looking dejected and ashamed.
“And that is?” Doctor Sterling asked.
“I have committed an infraction and through my own failure, I do not have a plank to walk myself down. I have failed you, Doctor Sterling. Should I throw myself over the rail?”
Realising that the colt would, in fact, throw himself over the rail, Doctor Sterling’s mouth pressed into a tight, puckered line beneath his silvery mustache. There was just no joking with some ponies. The doctor was both distressed and relieved. Flicker took his duties so seriously, and because of this, the doctor knew that Piper would be safe, but the doctor did worry about the fact that Flicker was oblivious to when a joke was being played on him. The poor colt had been born with an unfortunate condition—no sense of humour to be found anywhere, and the doctor had spent a great deal of time looking. Piper and Hennessy both were going to have no end of laughter at Flicker’s expense.
“First Mate Nicker, as captain of this vessel, I issue forth a formal pardon for your failure.” Try as he might, Sterling could no longer find this funny. “Go and enjoy yourself. See the world down below. Relax on deck. Perhaps spend time with Miss Pie and Mister Walker.”
“Perhaps a plank could be fashioned from something?” Flicker offered.
“Flicker...”—the doctor hesitated after using the colt’s first name—“keep the ship safe from any roving bands of air pirates.”
It took a moment as the wheels in Flicker’s head turned over to process this new information. “Aye aye, Captain.” Adjusting his sword, Flicker turned about and then began to pace the deck, leaving the doctor dumbfounded.
“You do good work, First Mate Nicker… keep us safe.”
Looking into two bright and eager faces, Doctor Sterling held up the mask that was the symbol of his profession. His keen eyes observed their reactions, their curiousity, and in the case of Miss Pie, a keen sense of desire. Like Flicker, she would be a natural for this career, and he had no doubt that she would make for a fine working wizard.
Some wizards lazed about all day in towers, sometimes discussing theory or cracking open dusty old books, other wizards actually went out and worked, making the world a better place. He was determined to make certain that Miss Pie turned into a working wizard, and not some lazy old crackpot, frittering away her great potential.
“The masks weren’t always magical, but they became that way over time.” The doctor had taught this history lesson a thousand times or more, and he still loved the romance and the history of his craft. “In the olden days, the long beak part was filled with aromatic herbs and alchemical talismans that would help to balance the four humours of the body. Also, an orange spiked with cloves was common to help keep out the stink. We’ve come a long way since then, and now the beaks are filled with delicate crystal batteries that hold spells and spell energy.”
“It’s a little creepy,” Hennessy said as he averted his eyes, fearing some act of reprisal. When nothing happened, the colt held his head up a little higher and focused once more upon the mask. “I done reckon it has to be creepy though, and there’s a reason for it. I don’t think a gas mask would get the same reaction from the public, right?”
“Correct, Mister Walker.” Pleased with his student, Doctor Sterling beamed. “These masks carry with them the weight of tradition. Mister Gallows, who ran the Canterlot guild before Mister Chandler, he tried to change the design to something more modern. Princess Celestia herself made a strict ruling that prevented any change. These masks are our history, our culture, the symbols of our profession, and the centuries of use have left an impression upon the public at large.”
“Sort of like how wizards wear big floppy conical hats.” Hennessy took a step back, then sat down upon the floor. “How long will Flicker keep pacing the deck?”
“Until such a time that he is relieved,” Doctor Sterling replied. “It’s good for him. He’s a purposeful type and he needs something to do.”
“So these masks are like a police officer’s badge or a firefighter’s helmet. They’ve existed for so long that any attempts to change them would be met with an outcry.” Following Hennessy’s example, Piper sat down. “And no doubt, they create a sense of unity and uniformity, as guild members from any major city would all be wearing the same mask, the same mark of brotherhood.”
“Correct, Miss Pie.” Sterling gave the filly a nod of approval and was rewarded with a warm smile. With a mindful flick of his magic, Sterling kept the ship on course and looked after supper, which was simmering in the galley. “Now, a word of warning… when first putting the mask on, there will be no air to breathe and you may feel like you are going to suffocate. It can take ten to twenty seconds for the air scrubber to kick in. Remain calm and do not panic. The mask will keep out disease, toxic fumes, harmful magical miasmas of most types, and in an emergency, will allow you to breathe underwater for extended periods of time, but the batteries will eventually wear down.”
“Mister Sterling, if I may ask, how much does a mask cost to make?” Eyes glimmering with curiousity, Piper waited for a response, but then posed another question, “How come firefighters and the like do not use magical masks like these to keep themselves safe? I am assuming there is some cost issue responsible.”
“Ah, there is the question hardly ever asked in orientation.” Mustache quivering, Doctor Sterling smiled. “Each mask costs about twenty thousand bits in materials, alchemy, and enchantment. Good ponies, like our guild’s patron, Night Light, he makes some of our masks and only asks for the cost of materials, but does not charge for the alchemical reagents or enchantments required. Some of our most skilled working wizards also make the masks. It is a very involved, very complicated process, and if there is even a minor imperfection, the wearer might die or be compromised.”
“Could I learn how to make the masks?” Piper asked.
“Of course,” Sterling replied. “I shall ask Night Light about it once we return. He might allow you to watch him work so that you might learn. The masks do get damaged from time to time, and sometimes need replacing.”
“Is it true that you can see through walls with them?” Hennessy’s face contorted with incredulity. “That almost seems like a superpower, like something in a comic book.”
“I assure you, the masks allow you to see through walls so that you might find where rats and other vermin are hiding. Dark-vision will allow you to see in total darkness, you will be able to peer through walls, and things like rats and fleas will show up with colour coded signatures. Rats are red and fleas, mites, and lice will be orange. Specialised masks will allow you to see invisible creatures, Night Light is working on perfecting those, as we have had disturbing, troubling reports of invisible rats on the west coast. I have yet to see a confirmed report of this, so I doubt that it exists. It’s probably just some new apprentices panicking and covering themselves for a screw-up of some sort. Still, Night Light believes the technology is worth pursuing.”
“The mask will block out my ability to smell disease, won’t it?” Hennessy gave the mask held in Sterling’s magic a squinty look.
“Mister Chandler is going to speak with Night Light about custom enchantments. I don’t know what is possible, but I do know that we want your talent to be fully exploited.” Doctor Sterling felt a magical tug upon the mask he was holding and he let go of it so that Piper could examine it. He marveled at her sense of wonder, her curiousity, and her glee. She reminded him of a much more animated Flicker. He saw all of the makings of a good soldier in the fight against disease.
“After supper, we’ll try the masks on. Mister Walker, please, go and relieve Mister Nicker from his duties, as he has kept us safe from air pirates long enough. Tell him that it is time to eat. Thank you.”
“I can do that.” Rising up, Hennessy took off, his hooves clopping upon the wooden floor.
“Miss Pie, please, help me serve dinner. Thank you.”
“Right!” Motivated and in a hurry, Piper gave the mask back to Doctor Sterling, and then sprinted for the galley.
With a satisfied sigh, Doctor Sterling placed the mask back into his trunk, shut the lid, and then with a smile, he joined Piper in the galley.
Flicker seemed more subdued than usual and he watched every move that Piper made. Supper was over, the dishes were done, and the galley was ship-shape. The excitable filly had a dishwashing cantrip and had made short work of the cleanup. For Hennessy, living with unicorn magic was a miraculous thing and he needed time to adjust.
“So, I just put the mask over my face, it’ll grab me, and then I won’t be able to breathe for a few seconds.” Piper blinked and her excited face showed signs of fear. “I guess the mask is making a good seal and getting its protections up and running.” More fear showed up and her ears drooped. “I almost drowned once in a vat of molasses. Please don’t think less of me if I freak out.”
“No one will think less of you,” Flicker said in a flat voice that held no trace of feeling.
As it turned out, Flicker’s cold reassurance was just what Piper needed. She turned to look at him, saw her own reflection in his eyes, and without knowing how she knew, she knew that he would save her. If there was trouble of any sort, he would save her. He wouldn’t panic, he wouldn’t hesitate, he would act.
And that was very reassuring to the worried filly.
Sucking in a deep breath, she pulled the mask from Doctor Sterling’s magic, held it in her own, and after closing her eyes, she slipped it over her face. Right away, her heart began pounding as the mask formed a vacuum and all breathable air just vanished, leaving nothing for her to take in. She was even smart enough to understand why the mask did this, as it was purging any bad air that might’ve been taken in when the mask was put on.
Feeling a sense of creeping terror, she waited for life giving air, and as she did so, she reached out her foreleg as the seconds stretched into an eternity. She felt a strong fetlock close around her own and she guessed that it had to be Hennessy that was holding her hoof. Just when she thought she could bear it no longer, there was air, sweet, wonderful air, and she sucked it into her burning lungs. Her own panic had robbed her of precious oxygen.
Now, everything was fine. She blinked and peered through the lenses of her mask, looking at her companions. Where Flicker had felt purpose, Piper felt power. Wearing the mask, she would be free to fling out dangerous spells like confetti without fear of reprisal. She would be able to wield hazardous life snuffing magics, and thinking about this made the little filly shudder as shivers ran up and down her spine, running from her dock up to the base of her skull.
For Piper, staring through the mask allowed her to see a whole new world, a world full of endless possibilities, a world where the only limits would be her own potential. The mask gave clarity to her vision, her own special view of what she wanted her future to be. For the first time in her life, she had tasted the sweet, sweet nectar of power, and she wanted more.
The price of power was a few moments of suffocation, which she could live with.
There was something peculiar about Piper after the mask had been pulled off, but Hennessy didn’t know what it was. The filly was weird and she didn’t make much sense to him. The colt looked up into the kind face of Doctor Sterling, who held the mask. Hennessy didn’t have any fancy unicorn magic to help him put the mask on, so he had to do it with his own two hooves.
Flicker was looking at him in a way that made Hennessy feel faint. He liked the heavy, blunt stare of Flicker, and something about his companion made Hennessy’s belly feel warm. Distracted, the colt thought back to what his life had been like back home, and for a brief second, a fantasy tickled his mind, a dreadful, wonderful fantasy of Flicker defending him from the taunts and jeers of his family, his neighbors, and the ignorant hicks that had tormented him all of his life.
No doubt, Flicker would rip them a new one, and that made Hennessy feel good.
For Hennessy, the mask represented escape.
With the mask on, he would be a rat catcher, a plague doctor, he would be one of the faceless few that worked in the shadows to the betterment of society. He would no longer be Hennessy, the effeminate colt that was beaten almost every day, or stuffed into the outhouse basement, or having his tail set on fire, or the colt whose father had once in a drunken, bellicose fury, tried to ‘beat the queer outa him for his own good’ while his many brothers cheered him on or joined in.
The mask would make him faceless, hide him, the mask would make him just another pony. Hennessy, feeling a tightness in his chest, looked over at Flicker, Flicker who was very much like a knight in shining armor. Flicker, who didn’t seem to care or even notice that Hennessy was the way he was. Flicker, who stared at him in a most marvellous, alluring way while trying to paint. Flicker, who really wasn’t handsome, not in the least, but there was something attractive about his ferocity and his blunt, direct approach to everything. With Flicker, you knew where you stood, there was no duplicity, no pussyhoofing around, no say one thing but do another.
Reaching out, Hennessy took the mask in his hooves, sucked in a lungful of air, and without further ado, he crammed his face into the mask. Right away, the lack of air was alarming, but he knew that it would pass. He waited in the vacuum, he could feel his eyes going dry in the airless environment, and he began to count just like he would when a thunderstorm started to roll in from the swamps.
One one thousand… two one thousand… three one thousand…
When he reached nineteen, the cold sensation of air graced his face and he inhaled, filling his lungs with much needed air. After a short season of suffocation, being able to breath once more, it was like being born again. Hennessy felt his spirit soar as he embraced his new life, his new opportunities, with each breath he took, filling his lungs, he felt hope returning, he felt like he could have dreams again, and he knew that he could be himself.
For the first time in his life, Hennessy felt as though he was able to breathe free air, air that was free of the bigotry, hatred, and willful ignorance, the miasma of reprehensible foulness that permeated the land of his upbringing. Gasping, he filled his lungs with sterilised air, thankful for the opportunity he had been given.
“—we faceless few, we whom hold back the black tide, we band of brothers that labour in the darkness to keep the world from consumption and ruination.” Holding his sword, Flicker’s gaze fell upon Piper as he opened his eyes. In a rare moment of creative inspiration, he added, “And sisters. I have always felt that we should make a change to add our sisters.”
“It’s really weird to see you passionate about something.” Piper’s voice was a low whisper and her eyes remained upon Flicker’s sword as he slid it into his sheath. “You do have feelings.”
Glancing once at Hennessy, Flicker thought about Piper’s words for a short time, then replied, “I was once just a colt. I was scared all of the time, and whiny, and I worried about everything, about all of the things that could go wrong, and I was constantly living in terror. I was scared of everything. I worried about everything. Now, I am part of something greater. I know my purpose. My fears have gone from me. I have grown up. I have learned to calm my mind from worry.” The colt blinked once. “I am part of an organisation whose purpose is to keep the light of civilisation burning. How could I not be passionate about that?”
“I get that, I think, but it is still kinda weird to see you have… well, feelings about it.” Piper’s expression became one of gentle concern. “Since I’ve met you, you’ve, well, you’ve struck me as being a little, you’re rather, uh, um, how do I say this politely—”
“Cold?” Hennessy finished, saying the word that Piper was hesitant to use. “Distant. Detached.”
“Clinical and calculating,” Piper added as her head bobbed up and down.
“Maybe I am.” Flicker shrugged. “My mother says I’ve changed since I’ve left home. I am just really happy with what I do. I’m proud of it. I have given myself over to what I am and I’ve kept nothing of myself for myself. I don’t know if that makes sense, but it sounds good in my head.”
“Actually, I understand that.” Piper leaned forwards. “I want to be a wizard more than anything. I didn’t get a talent for magic, I got a flute for a cutie mark, but I didn’t get discouraged. I know that I can become a powerful wizard, but I’m going to have to give myself over wholly and completely if I’m going to match somepony born with a knack for magic.”
“Yes.” Flicker’s voice was a hiss in the dim dark of the bunkroom. “Wholly and completely. Give yourself over and lose yourself in purpose. Become one with destiny and know the joy, the bliss, of never doubting yourself.”
“There he goes again, being creepy—”
“Shut up, Hennessy!” Piper gave the earth pony colt a stern look of disapproval.
“Well he is—”
“Hush it!”
“I am in a place beyond fear and doubt, where worry cannot reach me. I am one with my purpose.” Flicker seemed unconcerned that Hennessy and Piper were having it out for dominance and he didn’t seem bothered that they were giving each other fierce stares at the moment.
“Country bumpkin!”
“Piping Hot puke puddle!”
Mouth open in a perfect round ‘O’ of shock and surprise, Piper stared at Hennessy for several long seconds before she began to snigger, then giggle, and then she began laughing. Hennessy did the same, big belly laughs, and Flicker continued thinking about his purpose, his glorious purpose, with a blank stare upon his face. Even though he did not show it, Flicker, surrounded by friends who shared his purpose, was happy.
Looking at the map, Flicker studied his location. They were just a ways north of Applewood, just east of the Ashlands, Mount Maud, and the Even Ghastlier Gorge. Further north was the White Tail Woods. The community sat upon the edge of a river that carried runoff from the Ashlands and the Froggy Bottom Bogg. Looking even grimmer than usual, Flicker understood that all of these factors contributed in some way to the potential danger of the area, even if he didn’t fully understand the reasons why. He was learning though, and one day, he would know.
Doctor Sterling seemed to know. The doctor too, was studying the map, and Flicker had no doubts that Doctor Sterling was taking into account all of these variables. The colt’s mind lapsed into thinking about the doctor’s purpose. Doctor Sterling’s cutie mark was a silver syringe and Flicker recognised it as the symbol of a weapon against disease. Doctor Sterling was one of the most important doctors in Equestria, one of the most knowledgeable, a pony greatly respected by the Royal Pony sisters, a pony loved by many, a pony that could have had a job doing anything, with fabulous wealth and recognition.
And yet he chose to work with the Rat Catcher’s Guild.
The good doctor didn’t have to get dirty and mucky crawling through the sewers. He didn’t have to put himself at risk down in the dark. The doctor was beyond all of that, and yet, he chose this life. Flicker admired that, drew inspiration from that, and this was the reason why the colt worshiped his mentor.
“Okay, here is the plan, such as it is,” the doctor announced. “We go in, check with the community, give Hennessy a chance to use his nose, and then once we clear the community, we begin the rat hunt. This is a farming community, with lots of irrigation canals where rats can swim, and granaries for the rats to hide in. We have a lot of ground to cover, so we’ll be using stilts as we sweep through an area.”
“No gas,” Flicker said, his voice sounding just a little sad.
“No gas around food or the ponies of this community. If we find a burrow or a warren and I deem that it is safe, you may gas it.” Doctor Sterling ignored the manic gleam of fervour in Flicker’s eyes. “Piper, we’ll be using your talent a lot here. Wicked wants a thorough field test to see what you are capable of. Now is the time to pull out all of the stops. If you wish to impress me, this is the time and the place. What you do here in this place determines your future within the guild. Are you a major resource or just a curiousity?”
A fearful expression took over Piper’s face as the doctor’s words settled in. She nodded, swallowed with a gulp, and then a look of steely resolve flared up in her eyes as she looked over Flicker. Continuing to nod, Piper looked her future in the eye and did not flinch.
“Hennessy, when we do the meet and greet, you are to remain glued to my side. Follow my lead and use your natural charm. These are earth ponies for the most part, farmers, superstitious sorts that are both scared and suspicious of magic and unicorns. You’ll have a connection to them that we will not have, and I plan to exploit that for all it is worth.”
Licking his lips, Hennessy looked at the doctor and nodded.
“We are no good to a community if they can’t trust us and we can’t help them.” Doctor Sterling’s words became hard and harsh. “It is very difficult for them to trust us, we represent the unknown, we represent death and disease. We are plague doctors… rat catchers… ponies in general don’t like killing things, they’re a squeamish lot, and we kill for a living. We slaughter on a scale that most have a hard time imagining. If any of you do anything, commit any infraction that causes mistrust, if you besmirch our reputation and our good name, your punishment will be a flogging or walking papers.”
“Uh…” Piper, looking a little scared, looked up at the doctor. “What does that mean exactly?”
“It means,” Flicker replied in a flat monotone, “that you have freedom to choose your punishment. If you commit a major infraction, you can take a flogging and earn the forgiveness of the guild, or you can walk away in shame, stripped of all rank, titles, and privileges as a guild member.”
“Thank you, Mister Nicker, for your succinct summation.”
“If’n I screw up, I’m taking a flogging.” Hennessy’s eyes narrowed. “I ain’t no quitter.”
Silvery, bushy eyebrow arching, Doctor Sterling gave Hennessy a nod.
“Well, I’m certainly not about to throw away my life’s aspirations if I make a mistake. A flogging will be over soon enough, I suppose. Of course, I don’t plan on making any mistakes. I seldom do. Rules are easy enough to follow.” Piper sidled up a little closer to Hennessy and with her ears drooping, she met the doctor’s gaze. “I think I understand Flicker’s devotion.”
“Mister Nicker,” Doctor Sterling said, correcting Piper. “He is your associate and you will address him as such. He is your esteemed colleague and his devotion is extraordinary. Miss Pie, you would do well to cultivate his devotion to you.”
“Yes, of course, Doctor Sterling.” Piper bowed her head and her ears drooped in supplication as she sought the doctor’s forgiveness.
“You’re a fine filly, Miss Pie.” The doctor, who felt his praise was warranted, let out a sniff and then smoothed his mustache over with magic. “Now, come on, all of you, we have work to do. It is a little past dawn and we have a full day ahead of us. Mister Walker, Miss Pie, you will soon discover that we keep long hours. Pace yourselves, it will be a long day.”
Stepping away from the map, the doctor turned his full attention upon Flicker. “Mister Nicker… today, you are to be more than an apprentice. Today, you will teach. You will instruct. You will aid Miss Pie and Mister Walker. You will answer their questions. And… should the situation take a bad turn, you will act as their first line of defense, as you have earned the right to bear arms, so more is expected from you. My boy, you are one of the youngest to have earned this privilege in a long, long time. You’ve shown potential, so now, we demand more of you.”
“Yes, Doctor Sterling.” Flicker bowed his head and then looked the doctor in the eye.
“Very good.” Doctor Sterling smiled. “Let us get to work.”
Looking around, Flicker saw a paradise for rats. Thatched roofs, wooden buildings, stucco, all of these things were practically an invitation for vermin to come and make themselves welcome. He himself prefered stone, hardened clay, and metal. Tin roofs were fine roofs, and made a nice sound when it rained. Stone walls were secure walls.
And the canals. He understood the importance, canals provided irrigation and allowed for ponies to move goods with great ease. A few tons of goods could be loaded onto a barge and then pulled by just a few strong draft ponies of stout stock. But the rats. The vermin. He could feel them all around him, in the homes, in the granaries, in the storehouses, Flicker could feel them and he didn’t like them.
This place was crawling.
“Doctor Sterling,” Flicker whispered, “it is worse than you know.”
“Duly noted, Mister Nicker.”
“This place needs to be purged.”
“And that is your professional assessment, Mister Nicker? Is your rat-sense giving you trouble?”
“Doctor Sterling, it is with great regret that I must report to you that it is currently taking all of my willpower to restrain myself.”
“Oh my.” Doctor Sterling paused and gave careful, thoughtful consideration to Flicker’s words. “Change of plans,” he announced. “Mister Walker and I will draw away the residents of this settlement over to the Don’t Panic, where we shall begin our inspection and examination of them. With the village cleared, Miss Pie, you will demonstrate your talent to Mister Nicker, you will lure the rats out of hiding so that he may deal with them, and you will obey his every instruction. Mister Nicker… prepare for a purge. Help Miss Pie suit up and show her what needs to be done. If she receives so much as a single nip, Mister Nicker, you will find yourself down in the castle middens, earning your forgiveness.”
“Doctor Sterling…”
“Yes, Mister Nicker?”
“If I do well, if everything goes as planned, may I please go into the castle middens… as a reward?”
“Mister Nicker… you are dreadful pony.” The doctor suffered a very visible shudder that he could not prevent. “We are blessed to have you, but sometimes, you scare me. That was intended to intimidate you, so that you might do the best job possible and have a fear of failure.”
“But… I like the middens.” Flicker almost looked like a kicked puppy as he spoke.
The doctor, looking shrewd, eyed Flicker with a squint. “Mister Nicker, if you fail me, I will withhold you from the middens.”
There was an audible gulp from Flicker, whose ears drooped. “Doctor Sterling, I will purge this village like no village has ever been purged before. I understand that gas is restricted, but what about flea candles?”
“Those will be fine, Mister Nicker. I’ll tell the residents to prepare for a day away from the town. Perhaps have a picnic or some such social activity. I’ll give you and Miss Pie plenty of room to work and I’ll join you later after my examination should I deem it necessary.”
“I will not fail you, Doctor Sterling.”
“No, Mister Nicker, I do not think failure is in your vocabulary or realm of possibilities.”
“Come, Miss Pie.” Flicker turned his steely gaze upon his companion. “We must conduct a purge. You have an exciting day ahead of you and there is much to do.”
“Okay, I’m game, but I’m not coming with you to the middens, whatever those are. Do I even want to know what the word ‘middens’ means?” Piper gave her overzealous companion a concerned, almost sisterly stare. “I’m almost terrified to think about the sort of place that would make you happy, Mister Nicker…”
“Ooooooooooooow!” Piper whined. “That’s a bit snug, Mister Nicker, do be careful! Be mindful that I’m a filly!”
“Only snug?” Flicker gave a merciless tug upon the strap around Piper’s middle, and she let out a pathetic, mewling whimper of pain. “Tell me, Miss Pie, do you want a rat crawling inside of your suit and settling in for a fine meal of Pie?”
“Pull tighter, Mister Nicker, pull tighter!” Piper cried in alarm. “Also—ooof—I am pleased to see that you have a sense of humour!”
“I wasn’t being funny,” Flicker deadpanned as he continued securing Piper’s suit. “If the rats get inside of your suit, they will eat you. I’ve seen it. One cannot be lax when gearing up.” With a harsh yank, he pulled up the rear leggings and secured them to the fitted croup panel of Piper’s barding. He ignored her yelps, her whimpers, and her shrill squeaks. All of this was for her own good.
“How—ugh—do you do it, Mister Nicker? How do you feel comfortable in this suit?”
Without even pausing to think, Flicker replied, “It is my skin. My real skin. The suit and the mask make me whole. I only feel like a complete pony when I’m wearing them. They are me.” He held up the heavy protective rubberised canvas cloak. “Mask on, Miss Pie. Take a deep breath and do not be afraid.”
“Right.” Lifting her mask, Piper sucked in as much air as she could with her tight-bound body while Flicker waited beside her. It was difficult to breathe, her suit was tight around her, and she tried not to think about the fact that some of it was made out of thick leather, which she knew had been boiled in wax to make it tough. Piper realised that she had read far too many books for a filly her age about far too many gristly, ghastly subjects. Her mother had not approved, but it was an asset now.
Impassive, unmoving, Flicker watched as Piper waited for air. After several long seconds, his ears perked when he heard the faint mechanical sounds of her breathing. Sliding the cloak over her back, he secured it in place around her neck, tightened the straps and buckles, and then nodded. The broad brimmed hat went down upon her cowled head and he slapped at it a few times until it was at a jaunty angle. There was one last thing.
Pulling back her cloak, he slipped a sword belt around her middle, slid it back to just behind her ribs, drew it tight until she squeaked loud enough to be heard through her mask, and then he slid a somewhat worn but well cared for sword into her scabbard.
Piper was beautiful, so beautiful and Flicker could feel tears coming to his eyes. He blinked them away, they had no place here, and he reminded himself to be professional. Still, the feeling lingered. Piper, now and forever his sister, now dressed in her suit, she was a figure of great beauty. He kept his adoration to himself and refocused it, repurposed it, he would use it to motivate himself and keep her safe.
Things could go wrong.
In silence, Flicker began to put on his own skin, and soon, he would be free to wear his face. Today, he would be free to be himself, the pony that he truly was, the pony that destiny had chosen him to be. This day was going to be perfect, and Flicker intended to make the most of it. He wanted it to be a special day for Piper as well. He had things to show her, such wonderful things, and he wanted her to be impressed with him.
“So much red in my vision!”
Flicker didn’t stop to think about how terrifying this might be to Piper. He stood close to her, sizing up the situation. There really was a lot of red. This village was infested. The granaries in particular worried him, but the houses, the storage buildings, and the warehouse on the waterfront were veritable hotzones.
“Flicker, I have a confession,” Piper said in a low whisper that was difficult to hear through her mask.
“Yes?” Feeling concerned, Flicker did not correct Piper’s little slip up.
“I just peed myself… I feel so ashamed… I’m sorry.”
“I’ll help you get cleaned up later,” Flicker replied in a flat voice. “Think nothing of it. Don’t be distracted, just be.” He continued to size up the situation and realised that this was a problem that should have been dealt with a long time ago. A keen simmering sense of anger developed within him, the Las Pegasus branch should have done something, or should have called in for help sooner. This was disgraceful and there was no excuse. He was going to have a talk with Wicked, and he knew that Wicked would listen to him.
Wicked always listened.
“Where do we start?” Piper asked.
After a good look around, Flicker replied, “That swarm in the storehouse right over there. Think you can call them out with whatever it is that you do?”
“Yeah.” The brim of Piper’s hat bobbed up and down as she nodded. “So much red and orange. These ponies must be eaten alive with fleas.”
“We’re here to cure.” Flicker’s voice was cold calm. “This is a disease, and we are here to cure. Miss Pie, think of the village as a patient. We’re here to cut away diseased flesh, infection, and rot. The village, our patient, shows sign of sickness. The rats are germs… contaminants... impurities in the body. You and I… we’re like white blood cells. We keep the body, the village, healthy. We’re just here to do our job, and our job is to cure.”
“Thank you, Mister Nicker, that is somehow very reassuring and also so very you.”
Standing still, Flicker waited for Piper to do whatever it is that she was going to do. After a few seconds, a glowing flute appeared in front of Piper, glowing as yellow-green as her eyes. The flute shimmered, sparkled, and then it began to change shape. The flute morphed into a rat with a long tail, it became a rat-flute, complete with holes.
Piper’s pipe became a rat-pipe.
Flicker, impressed, began to hear music, weird music that unsettled him, made him twitchy, and awoke some need of violence within him. He liked the feeling, he liked it a lot. It awoke his primal instincts and he loosened his sword in its scabbard. The music was haunting, discordant, and it gave Flicker chills.
One by one, the red dots, some of which had shimmering outlines indicating they had the plague, they began to bob about, almost as if they were dancing. They formed a little line, a little rat conga line, and Flicker watched as they poured out into the open through a neglected crack near the foundation. They moved in time to the music, doing a disgusting little rat dance as they came to Piper, compelled by her music, drawn to her in an irresistible compulsion.
Flicker, who had once heard a song about some conflagration at a discotheque, drew some inspiration from his memory. Pulling out his wand, he reasoned that if he could set a rat or two on fire with his rat burning spell, then he should be able to put a whole conga line of rats on fire if he used his wand.
He built a charge and gave his wand a flick as he directed his hatred and loathing at the rats, which were no more than red splotches in his vision. The entire line of them burst into flames and much to his surprise, the fire was short-lived. They incinerated into ash piles almost right away, so great was the intensity and heat of the flames.
Just as he was about to give the order for Piper to summon more rats, he discovered that more were on the way. They came out of the warehouse, they came out of the boathouse, and they came out of tool sheds that dotted the waterfront. Rats came up out of the river. Flicker began to calculate the situation—he determined that there were a lot of rats and that, perhaps, Piper had bitten off more than the two of them could chew.
Well then, they needed bigger teeth.
His slow but methodical mind took up the task and he looked around to see what he had to work with, he spotted shovels, rakes, some scythes, which had potential, and then his eyes fell upon a piece of farming equipment that he was familiar with—a soil aerator. It was big, about ten feet wide, and was a crude iron cylinder with iron spikes all over it. It was pulled like a plow over soil and it made lots of little holes in the dirt.
The colt turned his cold, homicidal stare upon the swarm of rats approaching. It didn’t take him long to decide. He slid his wand away in a pocket and gritted his teeth together. Using his telekinesis, he strained and tugged on the aerator, discovered that the brakes were locked to keep it from moving, and he cursed his own thick-headedness. He smacked the brake lever with his telekinesis, the supporting wheels on each end of the aerator squeaked as it began to move, and Flicker steered it in the direction of the rats.
“OH I AM GOING TO BE SICK!”
Teeth bared beneath his mask, Flicker pushed the soil aerator towards the incoming swarm of rats. He could feel the resistance of the aerator as it rolled over the first ranks, there were a lot of little bodies in the way, so he pushed even harder. Rats popped like pimples, were skewered on spikes, and the aerator made short work of them. A dreadful sound could be heard, a sickening slick, squishy sound, and the rats squealed as Flicker crushed them to death with the cold, unfeeling farm equipment made to move by the power of his will.
Mutilated beneath the aerator, rats became so much mincemeat, actual mincemeat. Flicker regretted his choice of weapons almost right away as he saw the puddle of rat jelly, he was going to be out here for hours with a shovel, cleaning all of this up. Good thing he had Piper to help him clean this mess. She was going to get a real feel for the job today.
“More rats incoming!” Piper shouted.
Turning his head around, Flicker spotted them, quite a number of them came pouring out of houses, out of granaries, and out of burrows in the ground. He wasn’t sure, but he suspected that Piper was calling all of the rats in the area, and that was fine, Flicker was totally fine with that. Using his telekinesis, he tugged the aerator around, rolling it over the carpet of ratburger on the ground, and more sickening squishes could be heard.
With stoic resignation, he set about his grim task, feeling very much like a farmer once again. It was just like being at home with his parents, but this time, the harvest tended to squeak a bit, not that he minded. He was the Reaper of Rats, and it was now the autumn of their existence. He shoved the heavy aerator forwards, and his mask hid a terrible grin that would freeze the blood of Nightmare Moon herself.
“OH ALICORNY PORNY, I CAN’T WATCH!”
What a peculiar expression, Flicker thought to himself. There was a much larger mob of rats this time and he really had to throw his willpower into his telekinesis to keep the aerator moving forwards. He was going to be tired later, but that was no excuse to do a poor job.
“OH STARS, IT SOUNDS LIKE SOMEPONY CHEWING WITH THEIR MOUTH OPEN!”
Flicker took a grim sense of satisfaction from his work and he was positive that the doctor would praise him, not that he needed it or expected it. He was getting the job done, and in record time too. Piper’s magic was wonderful, it was the most wonderful magic ever, maybe even better than Princess Celestia and Princess Luna’s magic. And the music wasn’t bad either, but he had a hard time hearing it over the sound of so many little bodies erupting like overstuffed pus-laden boils. Pop—pop—POP!
Little tails, still attached to little wriggling backsides, squiggle-wiggled and squirmed like worms, twerking away the final moments of their tortured existence.
The red dots were diminished, very much so, and with each passing second there were fewer and fewer. Feeling proud of his efficiency, Flicker continued to grind the rats down into a fine red paste with the aerator. This was turning out to be the best day ever, it was even better than the time that his mother had Pinkie Pie throw him a birthday party.
“I’M NEVER GOING TO STOP HEARING THE SOUND! NEVEREVER!”
Ignoring Piper’s girly theatrics, Flicker found he liked the sound, it was an exciting, almost industrial sound. It added something to the music. The sound of the rats being crushed and mulched was the sound of efficiency, of progress, it was the sound of civilisation being preserved.
Where once there had been hundreds of red smears in his vision, now there were very few, and Piper continued to call them in. Flicker had expected this job to take hours, culling the rats in bunches without gas, but this was almost too easy. He regretted the shoveling that he was going to have do though. Shoveling rat paste into a barrel was going to suck.
Would rat paste render down into usable rat fat to make candles? Flicker paused and considered his work. It should, if it didn’t, he was going to be in trouble, big trouble, and he didn’t like being in big trouble. Big trouble was bad. Real bad. There was a lot of rat paste though, rat goo, rat jelly… liquified rat remains.
“Miss Pie, mind if I ask you a question?” Standing outside of the door to a house, Flicker kept his eye on a bright red spot in his vision, a rat that had resisted Piper’s alluring music. There were a number of rats that had paid no mind to the siren’s call of Piper’s sweet, sweet music. It bothered Flicker more than he cared to admit.
“Well, truth be told, you just asked me a question,” Piper replied.
So he had. Flicker kept his eyes locked upon the red soon-to-be nonentity. “Miss Pie, when your mother singled me out, why did she do that?”
“Oh, that.” Piper’s deep sigh within her mask came out as a mechanical sounding wheeze. “My mother, like most Pies, has a Pie sense. She says that she can find good, trustworthy ponies, and it seems to be true. She used her earth pony sense to find my father, she’s always found the help she needs when she needs it, and she found you.”
“I see.” Flicker didn’t know how else to respond to Piper’s words, but he was flattered. “Miss Pie, the rat in here, he’s resisted your magic. He’d probably resist a candle too. He thinks he’s safe under the floorboards, ‘cause that is where he is, but he’s not safe from us. We’re going to go in, you’re going to pull up a few floorboards, and then before the rat can escape, I’m going to do the standard grab and stab.”
“Right, Mister Rat Mulcher.”
“This is why we have swords. This house is a tinderbox. The wood is old and kind of rotten. There is a thatched roof. Setting the rat on fire is too dangerous, so stabbing him will have to do. In the sewers, flame is also very, very dangerous.” Flicker allowed his words to sink in for a moment before he continued, “But I think you’re smart enough to know that. Do you think you could use your sword if you had to?”
Piper’s expression was unseen behind her mask. She stood there for a time, unmoving, and then after several long seconds, she replied, “Sure. I’ll just think about that bratty bully that constantly pulled my tail in school… I think after I do that, it should be easy.”
“Miss Pie… Piper, killing doesn’t come natural or easy for most ponies. Sure, you think it feels easy, but thinking about it and doing it are two very different things. I’m a killer—”
“So I’ve noticed!”
“—and at night, I sleep like a yearling. Well, most of the time. I have bad dreams, but I don’t feel bad about what I do. Look… what I’m trying to say is, if you are feeling doubt, or worry, or you feel fearful, don’t risk your peace of mind. Let me do it.” Turning his head a bit, Flicker tracked the movement of the rat hiding beneath the floor.
“Thank you, Mister Nicker, I shall keep that in mind. Now, let’s go and get that rat, I feel as though he is mocking us, and I don’t like it!”
This house, like the others, was a palace for rats. The floor was bare boards over dirt, and there were gaps in the floorboards that allowed food to fall through. The thatch roof was bright orange with fleas and no doubt other parasites as well. The beds were mattresses stuffed with straw.
Killing the rats here almost felt like a pointless task, but Flicker was going to do it anyway. The rats would return, they would come by the waterways, by ship, they could come in cargo, and soon enough, this tiny village would be infested again. The Las Pegasus branch would no doubt to be too busy to look after these ponies, so the cycle of disease would begin anew.
How was a poor community supposed to protect themselves? Flicker didn’t know. For a brief second, it almost felt hopeless, but then he knew that he would return if he had to so that the rats could be purged again. This was a never ending war, but Flicker was ready and willing to fight it, right to his own bitter end if necessary.
Piper pulled up the floorboards and he reacted, moving on instinct. Grabbing the rat in his telekinesis, he lifted it up and then ran it through with his sword. He watched as Piper put the floorboards back down and then pushed the nails back into their holes. As he stood there, as the rat was dying, he saw Piper’s masked face turn towards the disgusting, greasy looking rodent.
“I hope it hurts.” Piper’s voice was a menacing, mechanical sounding thing of malice. “Die in pain.”
“Miss Pie?” Flicker stood there, holding his rat-kebab, which squeaked.
“In my mother’s bakery… I could hear them sometimes, sometimes I saw them, and I was always so scared of them when I was just a little filly. I’m not so little now. I see the threat they represent to us. It’s us or them, isn’t it?”
Flicker nodded.
“That one has the plague.”
Again, Flicker nodded, as he did so, his rat-kebab stopped wiggling, and the slashing tail went still. It had the plague. Now it was a contaminated corpse in need of disposal. It was now just so much flesh and bone, alchemical ingredients, it was a thing, an object. It was past tense. It was an ex-rat. It had gone on to join the squeaking horde invisible.
“Let me kill the next one.”
“Of course,” Flicker replied, “follow me.”
When Doctor Sterling saw the carnage all around him, he turned tail, ran, and when he was a good distance away, he jerked his mask off. A second later, he spewed forth a geyser that was the remains of his breakfast. The good doctor had survived much, seen much, but all of his experiences hadn’t prepared him for a village square filled with mulched rat.
Flicker and Piper moved among the mangled, mutilated bodies, which squished beneath hooves covered with thick protective rubber. The doctor recovered, wiped his muzzle, and put his mask back on as Flicker and Piper entered another house to hunt down a surviving rat.
The doctor shuddered inside of his protective suit, shivering at the holocaust of rats. Flicker had the right cutie mark, he was the walking, talking rat apocalypse, he was the death-god of rodents. This was going to be quite a story to tell Wicked, a story told over brandy, or maybe whiskey, or maybe brandy and then whiskey.
Flea candles burned in every house and every building. In the immediate area of the village, there were no more red splotches, but there was still a good bit of orange. Flicker surveyed his work, feeling very much like the lord of his domain. Beside him, Piper stood in silent celebration, having killed a few rats with her sword.
Doctor Sterling, who had left Hennessy with the villagers, pulled Flicker’s wand out and then stood there, staring, trying to understand the immense bloodbath all around him. Flicker had used an aerator… an aerator to turn rats into pulp. The bloodied farm machine stood in the middle of town, a silent testament to the horror that had taken place here.
Using the wand, the doctor began conjuring water from the river, he drew in great amounts, and using the water, he began to freeze the mulched rats all around him, turning them into bloodied blocks of meat, bone, and ice. With his telekinesis, he stacked the blocks in neat, organised rows, and he fought against the urge to throw up again.
This cleanup would take hours, maybe even days if done in the conventional way. He thought long and hard about the frozen rat cubes, and decided it wasn’t worthwhile to save them. The barrels would leak and his ship would have a terrible stink on the way home. Waving the wand around, the doctor focused his powerful magic upon the task at hoof.
As the fleas all around them began to dissolve, Doctor Sterling made a terrible decision. He began flinging frozen rat cubes into the river so that they could be washed out to sea. Never in his long career had he ever seen anything like this, and he wasn’t sure if Wicked would even believe him.
He pitied Princess Luna, who would know the horrors in his mind, Flicker’s mind, and in the mind of young Miss Pie, who could not possibly be considered an innocent any longer. She had seen the horrors of war, and Flicker had shown her such wondrous things, such great and terrible sights. The doctor felt a sense of melancholy; the filly was okay, fine even, she had witnessed the rat holocaust first hoof and seemed no worse for wear.
She was a natural and she was going to go far, but the doctor had a hard time feeling happy about it as he flung frozen rat cubes into the river. Most ponies who joined the rat catchers had rather standard talents. Wicked made candles. Balister had a crossbow cutie mark. Some had talents for fencing, some for alchemy, some for tracking, but Flicker’s sole purpose, the reason for his existence, the very reason why he had been born, was to kill rats.
And here, in this backwater, this little hamlet in the middle of nowhere, Flicker had come into his own. Doctor Sterling could not help but feel a grim sense of pride. The village had been purged in record time, and now, it was time to go and thin out the population in the surrounding countryside. It was time for him to bring the supernatural horror that was Flicker to the rats, so that the rats could face judgment.
It was time to exterminate the little brutes.
As Hennessy stood watch over the villagers, he could not help but notice their suffering. Some had bald patches. Many had flea bites. Some had notched ears where the rats had nibbled them. A few were sick, and of those few, some had the plague. The doctor had already begun to treat them. Hennessy had sniffed them out.
His entire life was changing and he didn’t know how to feel about it. He had saved lives. He had helped to stop disease in its tracks. The colt didn’t know how to react to it. His upbringing had not prepared him for this and his many prayers, he had not expected them to be answered.
The villagers eyed him with a mix of reactions, some were curious, a few were fearful, but many were thankful. Because of him, sons and daughters would live, fathers and mothers, families would remain together. That meant something. That was no small thing. He looked at the ponies that the doctor had given the first dose of treatment to. Some of them were nauseous, some were sprawled out in the grass, soaking up the sun, and all of them were drinking water, lots of water, because they needed to drink water. Doctor Sterling had said so.
At some point during his contemplations Hennessy realised that he would do this even if he wasn’t getting paid. This was good work, this was the will of the alicorns, this was the path of righteousness. Bowing his head, he began to pray, just as he had always done, only now, instead of deliverance, he was going to offer a prayer of thanks.
He had an obligation to deliver others, so that they too, could have their prayers answered.
“The village will become infested again.” Flicker’s voice was a mechanical monotone because of his mask. “This place is a rat paradise. Some of the houses have dirt floors. The outhouses are breeding grounds for pestilence. Something needs to be done, but I don’t know what.”
The doctor nodded, let out a resigned sigh, and said nothing. Flicker was absolutely right and he felt as though he was going through the motions here. If there was ever another massive pandemic of plague to break out, it would happen here, in a place like this one. These little backwaters would be the birthplace of something that could cripple civilisation. Modern sanitation helped, but it was no guarantee.
“How do we make things better if we cannot deal with the cause?” Piper asked.
“We can’t.” Doctor Sterling felt bad for being honest, but Piper needed to know. “At best, in situations like this one, we can go through the motions to ease our consciences, but we’ll be back out here before the fall harvest. We can do our best to help them, but no, we are powerless to treat the root cause here.”
“What’s this about some root cause?” Hennessy’s slow drawl sounded funny when it was filtered through his mask. “I don’t understand.”
“Poverty.” There was anger in Flicker’s voice. “I grew up poor.”
“That is certainly a part of it,” Doctor Sterling agreed. “Yet the ponies of Canterlot are plagued by rats too, even with their stone towers and grand rowhouses made of brick. Poverty certainly makes this much, much harder for these ponies.”
“Wouldn’t some cats help, perhaps?” Piper’s masked face turned to look at the doctor.
“They had some cats,” Hennessy replied, “but they got sick and died. I think the plague got them. Dogs too. I done talked to them ‘bout that.”
“Then how do we win this?” Piper’s voice was now an upset whine. “This just feels so hopeless… I can’t bear this feeling!”
“There is little we can do,” Doctor Sterling replied, “but to keep doing what we are doing. It is the only recourse we have. We have a terrible, thankless job. The best that we can hope for is to treat outbreaks as they happen. We try to keep areas of advanced civilisation as well defended as possible, and do what we can for backwaters like this one. This is our way of life. We fight an endless struggle, from which we will likely get no reprieve. Is this the life you want?”
Flicker made no reply, as he had already chosen his path. He had chosen perpetual war.
Hennessy, after a moment of thoughtful consideration, nodded.
“If it is the last thing I do, I’m going to find a way to keep all ponies safe,” Piper said. “I’m going to make this better somehow. I’m going to find a way. It doesn’t feel right to give up, but it feels dreadful going forwards.”
“Such is the life we have chosen, my apprentices…”
“Miss Pie?” Doctor Sterling paused as he looked at his eager student.
“Even one unicorn could make a difference.” Piper took a moment to look at her surroundings and then she ate another bite of lunch. “Look at this place. Look what the lack of magic has done. These earth ponies live the earth pony way all by themselves and just look at what it is doing to them.”
“Back home, where I’m from, it ain’t no better. We has us malaria ‘cause the swamp.” Hennessy said the word ‘malaria’ as ‘mah-leer-ee-aah’ and it caused Doctor Sterling’s ears to perk as the doctor tried to figure out what the colt was saying. “A group of unicorns showed up one day to help us with our skeeter problem. My father and a bunch of others, they done got together and they accused those ponies of creating the malaria, so that they could exploit us earth ponies and extort us for our bits.” Hennessy paused and an almost sleepy expression of calm was upon his face. “They never did ask us for money, of course. My father and the others, they done run them outta town. When another group came back, my father openly accused them of coming there to spread unicorn faggot disease.”
Doctor Sterling almost dropped his sandwich.
“So, these ponies here, they’re right nice. They’re letting us help. As bad as it is here, it could be worse.” Hennessy, who had already finished eating, let out a wistful sigh. “We earth ponies, we can be a stubborn, superstitious bunch. These ponies here, they’re good folk.”
“Ponyville has a unique harmonious ideal.” Flicker tore off a bite of his sandwich, chewed for but a second, and then gulped it down almost whole. “Twilight preserves all aspects of the cultures there. The earth ponies get to have their earth pony way for a number of festivals and celebrations. The unicorns get to celebrate their magic and their art there, and her school has many powerful unicorns attending, but you’ll find all types of ponies at her school. The pegasi rule the skies and do so without the earth ponies or unicorns telling them what to do. Everything works out and Ponyville flourishes.”
“Ponyville is indeed, a good place, but those thatched roofs are just asking for an outbreak.” Doctor Sterning nodded his head at his students. “Hurry up, daylight is burning, we have much I wish to do today before the sun goes down. Less talking, more eating.”
As Flicker was checking over the gear that they would need for an excursion into the countryside, another airship came into view. It drifted through the air, a craft much smaller than the doctor’s yacht, and it appeared to be little more than an open rowboat suspended beneath a gasbag. An airship, any airship, fascinated Flicker to no end, and he supposed that it had something to do with him being a unicorn.
Or maybe he just liked skyboats.
Already, the doctor was moving to greet the visitors, and Flicker continued his task. This gear wasn’t going to sort itself out or check itself off of a checklist. Stilts, gas bombs, candles, sticks of dynamite, Flicker had a warm spot in his heart for dynamite, and various first aid supplies just incase things went wrong. Things did go wrong. One only need to look at Wicked and his wooden leg to know that.
Flicker didn’t know it, but help had arrived.
Two strangers had come to town, an earth pony mare and a unicorn stallion. Flicker studied them, curious, he stood as still as a statue, wondering why they were here. Beside him, Hennessy had an easy going smile upon his face and he waved at the strangers. Piper looked excited, but Piper was an excitable sort.
“Greetings… Doctor Sterling, correct?” the earth pony mare said as she approached.
“Ma’am, you have me at a disadvantage.” Doctor Sterling bowed his head. “I am Doctor Sterling Shoe and these are my esteemed apprentices. And who might you be?”
“I am Doctor Flannel Nightgown”—the mare’s smile became infectious as she said her name—“and I am a Doctor of Alchemy in good standing from the Royal Academy of Science. I am also a druid, as is my young but able bodied companion, Phyllo Dough. The Heliophant gave us orders to come here and conduct a study. We are to stay for ninety days and see what we can do to help these ponies.”
“And you, Mister Dough, what is your background?” Doctor Sterling peered at the quiet unicorn behind the chipper earth pony mare.
“I am a servant to the Herald of Selene and wizard in training. It is my job to keep Miss Nightgown from all harm so that she might work in safety. My master, the head of my order, she made it clear in her letter that she would have the Heliophant turn me into a tree if one single hair upon Miss Nightgown’s body was harmed.”
“Mister Dough…”
“Yes, Doctor Sterling?”
“I have seen the Heliophant’s collection of trees in the grove.” Something that was almost a smile lurked beneath Doctor Sterling’s heavy mustache as Phyllo Dough gulped. “See that Miss Nightgown is kept safe.”
Flannel Nightgown began tittering as her companion stood there, flustered.
“Ah, such is the pleasures of tormenting the young, eh Miss Nightgown?” Doctor Sterling’s charm made the mare blush and she nodded, causing her forelock to bob up and down in a manner most fetching. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have some young, over-eager students of my own to have sport with. Perhaps we shall talk later, when we return from our excursion into the wilderness.”
Sitting on his haunches, Flicker secured his stilts to his legs. Getting them on and then standing up was the hard part, but he was getting pretty good at it. The stilts, in their current form, were about a yard long and could extend to about three yards. There was a disk near the hoof support to keep rats from climbing up and a curved spring at the bottom to aid propulsion. The stilts used the magic of geometry to increase movement. A pony’s hoof only moved so much during their forward gait, limiting speed, but a fully extended stilt traveled entire yards with each swing of the leg.
A skilled wearer could surpass sixty miles an hour.
Gritting his teeth together, Flicker braced his front stilts into the dirt, and then using his hind legs, he launched himself up into the air. He wobbled for a bit, his legs were now over a yard longer, and the curved springs at the bottom of the stilts bounced a bit as he tried to find his balance.
If the plague doctor mask made him look like a nightmarish boogeypony before, the effect was even stronger now. Flicker looked like a nightmarish black-clad scarecrow brought to life. He bounced and pronked around, getting a feel for the springs, and then, feeling secure in his skill, he extended his stilts, using his telekinesis to release the locking latches.
The stilts had three sections, two of which telescoped out of the first, each of them about a yard long. Flicker now stood tall and he bounced around to get a feel for his balance. With the stilts, he could wade through rivers, run through the countryside, and walk through mud without much hindrance, Flicker loved wearing his stilts.
But by the looks of it, Piper and Hennessy were going to have a hard go of it. Piper tried to heave herself up just as he had, but she went too far forwards and would have landed mask first in the dirt had the doctor not caught her. Hennessy did a little better, but now that he was standing, he couldn’t move and wobbled in a manner most unsteady.
“This is impossible!” Piper cried as the doctor set her upright and she began a crazy dance as she fought to keep her balance. “No no no!” She teetered about like a drunken scarecrow and squealed in alarm as she tried not to tip over.
Meanwhile, Hennessy almost looked like he was dancing a jig as he tried to remain upright. Flicker grabbed him a few times to keep him from falling over, all while showing off, standing on his two left legs, then his two right legs, then his front right leg and rear left leg.
“We’ll keep things short, for now,” Doctor Sterling announced. “Now, come on, all of you, let’s go for a walk. Mister Nicker, if you would please show them how it is done and lead the way…”
The four of them made for a macabre procession on their stilts. Flicker led the way, walking along the edge of an irrigation canal. Every now and then, he would pull a rat up out of the water, stab it, set it ablaze, and leave the ashes in the dirt beside the canal. Behind him, Piper and Hennessy struggled to keep moving, but were making a valiant effort. Bringing up the rear, Doctor Sterling kept Hennessy and Piper from falling into the water.
Ahead was an abandoned farmhouse that the earth had already started to reclaim. The roof had collapsed in, the walls were buckling, and the wood had turned grey. Creepers climbed the walls and would eventually pull down what remained.
“Who came up with this means of travel?” Piper asked.
“We learned it from watching circus ponies,” Flicker replied. “At least, that’s how Mister Chandler tells it. During the Plague of Weeping Autumn, when about a tenth of the population of Equestria died, the plague doctors and the rat catchers struggled to get from place to place. Transportation came to a grinding halt. Much of the country was paralysed. One of us watched the remains of a circus troupe that had holed up in some distant valley, and realised that stilts could allow for a greater stride. Soon, we were crossing the country again, moving from town to town on long wooden legs, able to travel vast distances with little effort.”
“It also allowed us to step over the piles of corpses piled outside of the villages, towns, and hamlets. Those were grim times.” Doctor Sterling gave Hennessy a sharp yank before the earth pony colt pitched into the river. “The Weeping Autumn Plague struck mostly foals. Adults got sick, but it was primarily a respiratory infection. They would cough for two weeks or so and many recovered. But the foals didn’t. They died by the score.”
“That’s awful.” Piper, mindful of her stilt-legs, stepped over a dangerous looking hole. “I suppose that learning history is a big part of our education.”
“Patterns repeat with time,” Doctor Sterling replied. “We had another pneumonic plague that was similar almost fifty years later. This time, we were better prepared. We knew the history, we knew the symptoms, we knew what to expect. When we faced it again, there were still many deaths, but nothing like the the Weeping Autumn Plague. Many, many lives were saved because each of us, from the lowly floor sweeps and apprentices to doctors and ponies of great learning, we all knew our history.”
With a mechanical sounding snarl, Flicker yanked a squirming rat out of the canal, skewered it on his sword, and set it on fire.
“The Rat Catcher’s Guild was born out of our first organised efforts to fight the plague.” Doctor Sterling kept his two students upright as Flicker lead the way. “We started with superstition and folk remedies. In time, through observation, we became ponies of science, of learning, we studied the disease, the cause, the symptoms, we created entire new schools of thought, of learning, we pushed the very boundaries of what science and magic were capable of. Our work refined the scientific method. In time, we harnessed science and technology in new ways. We looked at the disease through microscopes and for the first time, we saw the true face of our enemy.”
Cleaning off his sword, Flicker added, “And this the reason why Princess Luna now wants us to fight all diseases, right?”
“Correct,” Doctor Sterling replied. “We are the agency best equipped to do so. We study disease. We know patterns and history. No other group has pushed science and magic as far as we have. And now, we transition into a glorious new era, keeping Equestria safe from the unseen threats that could decimate us all.”
“We are the face of disease control.”
“Thank you, Mister Nicker, I could not have said it better myself.”
When Flicker stopped, the entire group stopped. Ahead was a seething mass of red buried in the ground. What had once been a warren for rabbits was now a den for rats. Mixed in with the red splotches were pinpricks of bright orange. This horde of rats would give birth to an army of invaders that would return to the village.
“Mister Nicker, I trust that you remembered the dynamite?” Doctor Sterling asked.
“Yes, Doctor Sterling, and I took the extra time to inspect the fuses as well.”
“Methodical as always, Mister Nicker. Good work. Now, Miss Pie, Mister Walker, pay attention, and watch what Mister Nicker and I do…”
Two sticks should do it. Flicker worked with fantastic calm for a pony carrying old, somewhat sweaty dynamite. Old dynamite sweated droplets of pure nitroglycerine, or so Flicker had heard. But like with almost everything he did, Flicker was fearless in his endeavours. He hadn’t been blown up yet, so why worry now? If he did get blown up, he wouldn’t feel very much anyway. Plus, he had life insurance. It cost him a fair bit because of his profession, but he had glorious life insurance. If he died, his family would get one million bits, and that was after taxes, due to the arrangement made with the insurance company.
So sweaty dynamite wasn’t something to fear, it was a wonderful opportunity waiting to happen.
Having borrowed Flicker’s wand once more, Doctor Sterling was freezing the water around the den, closing up the entryways down in the water. Skilled with water magics, the doctor found them useful for his trade, as a doctor could always use a source of clean, purified water. At a safe distance, the doctor worked with a quiet sense of calm as he prepared for the detonation.
“Mister Nicker, relevant facts about the Beggar's Plague, if you please.”
“A plague with a high infection rate and a prolonged dormancy. Ponies could go for months after having been infected and show no signs or symptoms of being sick. When the plague did manifest, it was swift and brutal. Survivors would flee to other cities and beg for sustenance, bringing with them the pestilence that would soon infect that city. There seems to be only one instance of it in history and nothing quite like it has appeared since.”
“Very good, Mister Nicker,” Doctor Sterling replied. “We are a society that has been shaped by plague. For all of its awfulness, it has brought us enlightenment. It has given us science, reasoning, it has given us motivation to become learned ponies, and not ignorant louts that mewl and whine with superstition. Mister Nicker, get to a safe distance, if you will.”
Making a grim expression behind his mask, Doctor Sterling teleported the two sticks of dynamite inside of the old rabbit warren, sending them into the very seething red heart, the central mass of rats. He too, began to back away, mindful of where he put his stilts.
“Fire in the hole!” Doctor Sterling shouted as he touched the fuses with his magic and set them alight.
Nothing happened at first, the world continued as it was, with relative quiet in a state of non-explodiness that ponies found ideal and conducive to life. But this ended with an abrupt suddenness when the den exploded. The dirt rose up, carried by smoke and fire, and it came back down like rain. A deafening bang could be heard, one muffled by earth and made just tolerable. One by one, most of the red splotches were snuffed out. The few survivors could be dealt with. The doctor knew how to cure them.
“Mister Nicker, one heavy gas grenade should suffice. Right into the center of the crater, if you please.”
The long brass and steel cylinder was pulled out of a pocket hidden beneath Flicker’s long, heavy cloak. Along the steel portion, the words, “Wick Chandler’s Patented Formula,” could be read, engraved into the steel. This was heavy gas, which displaced the air around it, it sunk into holes in the ground like magic, bringing with it suffocation and flesh melting fun for all ages.
Flicker pulled the pin out of the brass end and using his magic, he sent it flying for the smoking heap of debris that had once been home to rats. It landed in the center of the crater with a metallic clatter against bits of stone, and then some rather cheerful looking bright and sunny yellow gas began pouring out, which did not rise into the air, but settled over the ground.
The group did not have to wait very long. The gas crept down into the depths of the borrow, slithering through the surviving passages like an unwanted serpent. The surviving rats, little red spots in the vision and nothing more, were extinguished one by one. The fleas were dying too, the bright orange pinpricks in the ground faded into nothingness.
The gas was very thorough.
Satisfied, the doctor returned Flicker’s wand to him and then watched as the last of the lights went out. There was something satisfying about watching the little lights die one by one. One less pocket of disease in the world, and for this, the doctor was thankful. One had to be mindful, vigilant, one had to remain on constant guard or these pockets of disease, if left unchecked, might very well mean the end of their beloved society.
For Doctor Sterling, the mask represented hope. Each time he put it on, he was doing his part to ensure the survival of civilisation as a whole. Not just ponies, but everyone and everything. The doctor had chosen to be a front line soldier in the war against disease. Sterling Shoe was a doer. He might have had a fantastic career in academia discussing theories about disease, safe, secure, and locked away in a sterile classroom, but he had chosen to go to the front lines. He was a plague doctor through and though.
There was just too much at stake.
After the destruction of the rat burrow, Piper and Hennessy seemed a bit subdued, or maybe they were just tired. Perhaps they weren’t used to working a full day. Flicker regarded his companions in stony silence as they moved along, trying to guess what they might be thinking. The afternoon was warm, perhaps too warm, and the spring was starting to feel more like summer.
Flicker was hot and sweaty inside of his suit, but so was everypony else. Things squished and rubbed in all the wrong places, but there was nothing he could do about it. All that could be done was to endure. When the day was over, he would be able to stand in the cool evening breeze and enjoy it, but for now, he would be miserable.
All around him, he saw evidence of a shrunken community. There were old houses out here along the canals, but they had been abandoned. The ponies now lived together in the village for safety and no doubt, the needed sense of togetherness. Most of the fields out this far were fallow and were now returning to prairie.
There was a hillock out this way, a pile of boulders and earth, perhaps left over from some ice age. Somepony had built a shelter with a ramshackle silhouette up near the top, and Flicker assumed that it would be the the place to go if this area flooded, because it could flood. This whole region was part of a vast floodplain. But with dams and ponies controlling nature, this place had not flooded in a long, long time. Now, instead of floods bringing nutrients to the soil, ponies had to apply fertiliser to the ground to get things to grow.
Flicker thought of his father, a farmer and an earth pony. He had learned much from his father and everything his father had taught him still rattled around inside of his head someplace. Flicker could pull it out at will, should it be needed. His thoughts were distracted by Hennessy, who shouted something that sounded very much like, “BAR!”
Again, Hennessy shouted, “BAR!”
Turning about, Flicker tried to see what the big deal was and his eyes focused upon what had to be at least one thousand pounds of bear lumbering right for them. As he looked at the charging super predator, Hennessy shouted again, “BAR!”
The colt’s southern drawl turned the word ‘bear’ into ‘bar.’
The doctor wasted no time, he lifted up both Piper and Hennessy in his telekinesis and took off at a run, extending his stilts to full length as he went. Flicker ran with them, his slow but steady brain analysing the situation. The bear had red, weepy eyes, was foaming at the mouth, and was no doubt, rabid. A bear at full run could hit forty miles an hour, which was pretty damn fast by Flicker’s accounting. The doctor was struggling, trying to carry two ponies, and running over rough, uneven, stony ground with loose soil.
Flicker ran the algebra of survival through his head and didn’t like the end sum.
“Please forgive me, Doctor Sterling, but survival necessitates my actions.” As Flicker spoke, he drew the doctor’s sword from its scabbard. “Tell my parents and my sister that I love them—”
“Damn you! Run! That’s an order!” Doctor Sterling bellowed.
Flicker obeyed the doctor’s orders. Pulling out his own sword, he turned and ran at the charging bear, his stilts making long, effortless strides. A disgusting foamy lather covered the bear’s muzzle and dribbled down in long, yellowish ribbons. The bear was massive, huge, and blackish-brown. Flicker didn’t know what kind of bear it was, nor did he care. The bear had to be slowed down, if not stopped.
As he and the bear drew nearer, Flicker undid the latches on his stilts and lept free, launching himself through the air, his heavy cloak fluttering out behind him. Almost twenty feet up into the air, he soared, a figure in black with a macabre mask—he was flying like a bird. Thinking of his mother, a pegasus pony, a pretty, patient, wonderful pegasus pony, he tucked his legs in and he flew.
He flew over the bear, which had reared up to meet him.
Landing, he tucked and rolled, spreading out the energy of his impact over a wide area and saving himself from injury. Every last bit of his training mattered now. Before he was even on his hooves again, he used both swords to slash at the bear’s hind legs. Much to his disappointment, the swords were woefully inadequate and had trouble piercing the thick hide of the rabid ursine monster.
The bear lunged, now on all fours again, and Flicker dodged away, all too aware that if he made a mistake, he was dead. As he moved, he stabbed his sword and the doctor’s sword into the bear’s shoulder, drawing blood, but doing very little harm to the monster. Flicker, who wasn’t stupid when it came to combat, saw that there was a very real problem.
His sword and the doctor’s sword were long, thin, narrow blades meant for stabbing or slashing a target with no real protection—a rat. The thin, rapier-like swords weren’t very good at stabbing enraged bears. Flicker moved laterally, forcing the bear to turn, which it was slow to do. The two blades scissored and swiped, and Flicker wished that he had spent more time learning the dimachaerus fighting style.
The colt had a very grim thought. He didn’t need to fight long, just long enough. Right now, the doctor was still sprinting away with Hennessy and Piper, getting them to safety. Again, he slashed and stabbed, drawing ribbons of blood from the bear, but not doing much in the way of real hurt. In desperation, he thought of the emergency incendiary grenade he carried, but with the bear in such close quarters, it would mean setting himself on fire, and that would suck.
Flicker didn’t quite move fast enough and the bear’s claws raked his sides, tearing through leather, rubber, canvas, flesh, and right down into his ribs. He staggered away and in a moment of desperate creativity, he caused a bright flash of light to appear in front of the bear’s eyes, blinding it for a few precious seconds.
It was difficult to breathe now, it hurt a lot, but he had no choice but to keep moving. He continued to circle, forcing the bear to turn with him, and Flicker’s own blood now stained the grass beneath his hooves. Risking his own hide again, he went for the eyes, the left eye in particular, since he was heading left, it would make it harder for the bear to track him.
He stabbed and slashed with cruel, vicious cuts. The bear’s heavy skull was very resistant to his blades, which inflicted superficial wounds. But when he had a chance, he took it. He slipped his own sword blade into the bear’s left eye, and tried to jab it into the monster’s brain. In his telekinetic grip, he felt the blade strike bone as the monster roared with pain and fury.
As the bear whipped his head around, Flicker’s blade broke off in its eye socket.
Now, Flicker had one sword and a hilt. The bear was down one eye, but such was its fury that it hardly seemed to notice. Flicker kept his hooves moving, always going to the bear’s left, dodging, leaping, and forcing the bear to keep turning. Stabbing the bear wasn’t working. He needed a way to cause an immense amount of harm so that the bear could be dropped.
When faced with such a dreadful task, his brain offered him a solution. A terrible solution. Flicker worked to make it happen. Ignoring his own wounds, he began to leap around, expending more energy than might be wise, and he kept stabbing at the bear’s legs, hoping to cut a tendon. With the doctor’s sword, when he had just the right opportunity, he stabbed it deep into the bear’s side, making a tiny hole just behind the bear’s ribs.
The giant bear howled with murderous fury as it tried to catch the much smaller creature tormenting it with painful pinpricks. Flicker, focused upon his task, hadn’t stabbed the bear to cause harm, but to create an opening. He was overheating now, he was dizzy, losing blood, and in pain. He pulled out two sticks of dynamite and the bear’s claws almost connected with his fragile body once more.
Flicker let his heavy cloak fly free to distract the bear and buy him precious time. The bear swiped at the cloak and Flicker jammed a stick of dynamite into the hole in the bear’s left side, and then while the bear was trying to maul the cloak, he jammed the second stick of dynamite into the bear’s ruined eye socket, getting it in just deep enough to make it stay.
Using his magic, he lit the fuses, and then ran away like there was an angry bear armed to explode just behind him…
The world around Flicker roared with a great and terrible sound, then went silent. There was nothing that could be heard. At the same time this was happening, a mighty invisible force slammed into him, picked him up, and sent him flying. The shockwave and the resulting impact smashed into his body, he felt it in his balls, through his bowels, through his organs, the wind flew from his lungs, his heart stopped beating, and for a dreadful moment, he was almost certain that his eyeballs were going to pop right out of his skull.
He ragdolled through the air, wrapped in a shroud of silence, a silence as profound as the grave. As his insides rippled and jiggled, Flicker thought of his little sister, Knick-Knack. He loved her a great deal, and in what was sure to be his final seconds, he took solace in the fact that even now, he was providing for her. It was impossible to breathe, inside of his barrel there was a stillness that might have troubled him, had he thought about it. A roaring inferno of pain blazed through his groin and it felt as though his dock was being smashed with a hammer over and over.
All around him, the world was on fire and he flew through clouds of flames.
End over end he tumbled, but he had no presence of mind to determine how far he had been flung. There was no longer any sense of up or down, no feeling of dizziness, there wasn’t much of anything but pain, pain and regret that he would not see his sister ever again. In that moment, as he tumbled end over end, cannonballing through the air, his final thoughts were of love.
He loved his sister, she was his princess, and he was her knight. There was a fond memory of his sister just after she had been born, when she was still wet, still damp with afterbirth, when she still smelled of his mother’s blood, and she had been placed into his forelegs so that he might hold her. In that moment, he had changed, and was no longer a son. He had become a brother. Looking back on it all, it was a moment that defined not just his life up to that point, but his whole existence. From that moment to this one, everything he had done was to keep his sister safe, to ensure that she could grow up happy, secure, and free from worry.
At the long end of his parabolic arc, still hurling end over end, Flicker’s head smacked into a stone sticking up out of the field. There was an explosion of stars that blinded him, and then he knew no more, having sank into the merciful embrace of the void.
Using his magic, Doctor Sterling snuffed out the fires all around him and extinguished Flicker’s body. Some of the rubber on his suit had melted from the immense heat, but Flicker’s armor had held up rather well, given the circumstances. The doctor could only assume that the incendiary grenade that Flicker carried must have gone off during the big explosion that he himself had witnessed.
“He’s not moving.” Piper’s voice was a shrill whine that got on the doctor’s nerves.
Ignoring Piper, Doctor Sterling went to work, casting a spell to detect broken bones and severe trauma. Lots of trauma detected, but no broken bones. Smothering the last of the flames, he moved close to Flicker, and with a tug of his magic, he pulled off Flicker’s mask. He peeled back the colt’s eyelids and saw no signs of consciousness.
“There’s so much blood coming out his ears,” Piper said as Doctor Sterling began to peel away Flicker’s cowl.
The doctor nodded. There was also a lot of blood coming out of the gash just behind Flicker’s left ear. The doctor touched the wound with his magic, trying to get a feel for what he was dealing with. When the doctor realised that he had competent help, Piper was peeling off Flicker’s suit, he felt a rush of gratitude. Her movements were careful, ginger, she was mindful of her actions.
“Why is so much of his hair gone on his back half?” Piper asked as she peeled away Flicker’s leggings.
“Explosions cause funny forces,” Doctor Sterling replied. From the looks of it, Flicker’s entire back half was going to be one giant bruise and yes, most of Flicker’s coat was now missing from back there. The doctor’s concern grew and worsened.
The doctor paused when he saw Flicker’s ribs. There were three long gashes in his side, terrible gashes, lacerations that had gone right to the bone. He began pulling out the first aid supplies. His ears perked at the sound of Flicker’s shallow, almost nonexistent breathing.
With his magic, he passed Piper a wad of gauze and said, “Press and hold this to the wound just behind Mister Nicker’s ear. Steady pressure. We have to stop the blood from pouring out or he’ll exsanguinate.” Much to Doctor Sterling’s relief, the filly was good in a crisis and did as she was told. She didn’t seem squeamish either.
It was amazing that no bones had been broken and the doctor counted his blessings as he began to apply a field dressing to the stomach churning lacerations on Flicker’s side. For now, Flicker needed to be patched up so he could be carried back to the Don’t Panic. More work would have to be done later.
There was the sound of steel hitting the ground and Hennessy said in a slow, sticky drawl, “I done found your sword, Doctor Sterling. Flicker’s lucky it didn’t go sticking into him, ain’t he?”
“Mister Nicker is an extraordinarily lucky individual, but he is going to regret living through this!” the doctor snapped, his emotions getting the better of him. He loved Flicker like a son, and like any father, he was stricken with worry.
“There ain’t much left of the bear. I went and had a look when I saw your sword flashing in the sun.” Hennessy’s slow drawl was comforting to his companions, but he had no way of knowing. It still sounded as though he was saying ‘bar.’
A growing sense of the jitters was taking over the doctor, and he struggled against them. Nothing felt right and it took effort to keep his telekinesis steady. In his mind's eye, he could see the explosion, he had dropped Piper and Hennessy a safe distance away and had come charging back just in time to see the massive detonation when the bear had gone from a solid state to a cloud of molecules flying off in each and every direction.
“I ain’t never seen no bear get blowed up before,” Hennessy remarked, “I done reckon that’s an image that’s gonna stay with me for all my days.”
The doctor frustrated, angry, seething that his orders had not been obeyed, tried to calm himself. Sweat poured down his face and into his eyes, so he ripped off his mask. He needed air and he sucked in the warm, humid air that reeked of black powder as he secured the dressing on Flicker’s side with tape.
“You… you devious, demented little shit!” Doctor Sterling’s face contorted with frustration and his anger grew as sweat stung his eyes. “You just wait, I’m going to tell your mother what you did!”
Piper, holding a bloody wad of gauze to Flicker’s head, gulped.
“Doctor Sterling, I think he’s suffered enough—”
“Hennessy, he has only begun to suffer!” The doctor sucked in a deep breath and continued, “Never, ever disobey my orders! Now I am going to be in trouble! I might get flogged for this, because I’m not taking my walking papers! This is why it is so important to obey me. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Doctor Sterling.” Hennessy nodded.
“I understand.” Piper pulled off her own mask and began to suck in a few panicked breaths. She looked at Hennessy, who wasn’t wearing his mask, and she guessed that he had pulled it off when he had gone to retrieve the sword.
“I am going to dress the wound on Mister Nicker’s head, and then we are going to carry him back to the Don’t Panic. I’ll make a stretcher from our stilts so the two of you can haul him back. It falls on me to keep us safe from any hostile wildlife. It’s going to be a long, slow walk back because we can’t jostle him too much. He has a dreadful head wound and I don’t know how bad off he is just yet.”
With an ever growing sense of worry, the doctor went to work, trying to make Flicker ready for travel.
Doctor Sterling felt an immense amount of gratitude when Phyllo lifted Flicker from the makeshift stretcher and set him down upon a folding table. Doctor Nightgown moved beside the table and began looking over the limp body of the colt with a well-practiced eye. She was an alchemist, and no doubt, a healer.
“I have some alchemical body spackle,” Doctor Nightgown said. “That’s a lot of bruising and he’s missing a lot of his pelt. Might I ask what happened?”
“Mister Nicker done blew up a bear,” Hennessy drawled in reply. “He done blew himself up real good too. Miss, have you ever seen what a few sticks of dynamite will do to a bear?”
“No, I can’t say that I have.” Doctor Nightgown’s ears bobbed up and down and she looked a little queasy. She didn’t know what a bar was, not exactly, but whatever it was, it had been blown up. With dynamite. And from the looks of things, so had the colt on the table.
Humming to himself, Phyllo began pulling off the bandages from Flicker’s side, peeling away the tape and the now bloodied gauze. The unicorn was smiling, calm, it was as if he had done this every day, and he didn’t seem the least bit bothered by the sight of Flicker’s ribs. With his telekinesis, he pulled over some jars from his supplies and a black satchel.
“Doctor Sterling, we’re druids and we know quite a bit about healing. Please trust us. We’ll get your colt patched up in a jiffy with a bit of body spackle and then you can look after him as he recovers. Phyllo seems to be in a fine mood, so I think everything will be okay.”
Grateful, exhausted, Doctor Sterling sat down in the grass and he could feel eyes upon him. Some of the villagers were watching, fearful, he could hear their worried murmurings. He looked at Piper, who stood near the table, and then at Hennessy, who was watching everything Phyllo did.
“I have to ask, what on earth is body spackle?” Doctor Sterling blinked and shook his head. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“Well,” Doctor Nightgown began, “The Heliophant, he gets hurt a lot. Bad things happen. We druids tend to go into some very dire situations, it’s kind of what we do, but Tarnish especially. After a particularly messy adventure, he comes back covered with lacerations, and he’s got this idea that there needs to be some kind of skin replacer in emergencies. So, he talks to his friends, and he floats this idea for a body caulking compound to plug up the leaks when they happen.”
As Flannel Nightgown spoke, Phyllo began to apply a foul smelling grey paste to Flicker’s side, slathering over the lacerations and daubing it into the wounds.
“From what I understand, a few of his associates, led by one Black Briar, developed a synthetic protein compound that bonds to and gets absorbed by equine skin. I don’t know what’s in it, but I know the primary ingredient comes from some kind of cultivated fungus, there are toxins from a special type of jellyfish, which I assure you are quite safe to use, and a myriad of other compounds. It forms a protective film over the wound, acting as a bandage, and gets absorbed as it heals. Healing is very rapid, due to the jellyfish venom, which triggers an explosion of cellular growth.”
“I see.” Doctor Sterling’s mustache quivered as he listened.
“All of this was tested on the Heliophant, until we had a worthwhile remedy. Soon, we will be submitting it to the Royal Academy of Science for analysis.” Doctor Nightgown turned and watched as Phyllo continued the application of the grey, foul smelling goo.
“What a marvellous age we live in,” Piper remarked.
“Ayup.” Hennessy took a step back to make sure that he was out of the way.
“He’s got some burns, some severe bruises, and a whole lot of swelling in his nether regions,” Phyllo said as he made a few casual observations. “His soft tissues got quite a shock, no doubt, but he’s young, solidly built, and I think he’ll recover just fine. His ears worry me a bit, but I’m not a doctor.”
“You look dehydrated.” Doctor Nightgown moved closer to Doctor Sterling and frowned. “Take off all that heavy gear, strip down, and start drinking. You’re no good to anypony if your brains get scrambled from dehydration or heat stroke.” She turned to look at Piper and Hennessy. “You two as well. It’s warm for a spring day, unseasonably warm. Get that body armor off and start drinking.”
“Yes, yes of course.” Doctor Sterling nodded and then began peeling off his gear as Piper started undressing Hennessy. “Thank you, Doctor Nightgown, I don’t know what I would do without you. Your help is appreciated.”
“Less talk, more naked.” Doctor Nightgown looked somewhat annoyed.
Even though Doctor Sterling would never admit it, it was nice having somepony care for him for a change…
Piping Hot Pie, known as Piper by her new friends, paced along the narrow floor of the bunkroom on nurse duty. Piper, a filly from Vanhoover, wanted to be a wizard more than anything else in the whole wide world. At least, up to this point in her life, that was what she wanted. Earlier this day though, she had watched a pony fly without wings. She had watched him charge at the bear, swords drawn, and he had launched himself from his spring loaded stilts. He had flown. His cloak had billowed out behind him in the most magnificent manner and he had soared through the air.
Piper had witnessed a hero, and now, she too, wanted to be a hero.
Flicker didn’t have a tragic backstory, both of his parents were still alive, he had a sister, he wasn’t the suave, sophisticated son of some millionaire, he was nothing like the heroes in the comic books she obsessed over, no, Flicker was real. He put on the mask and his suit and he gained honest-to-alicorn superpowers. Piper was very, very taken with this idea that common, salt-of-the-earth ponies could be real, living, breathing, actual superheroes.
It was a romantic notion, one that most ponies might make fun of, or put down, or maybe even ridicule, but she had watched a pony wearing a cape and a mask go flying at a rabid bear. Even more, he had won—sorta. Victory had a price, but heroes always came out on top, right? They just got really big booboos. Flicker had some very big booboos. At least half of him was a sickening purple-green at the moment.
Piper, for the first time in her life, began to believe that she lived in a world where anything was possible, and she began to dream. She would have to train, she would have to fight, she would have to suffer, sweat, and struggle, but she too, would be a hero. A wizard hero. With a sword, a loaded tool-belt, and her wits. Her wits would be important. She wasn’t so sure she could fight a bear in the same way that Flicker had fought a bear. Dynamite and brute force could only take you so far.
“How is he?” Hennessy’s voice was soft in the dim dark of the bunkroom.
“Still asleep. He hasn’t even moved since the doctor injected him with morphine.” Piper turned and focused upon Hennessy, who seemed a bit more subdued than usual. “Are you okay, Hennessy?”
“No,” Hennessy admitted.
“What’s wrong? Heat rash? Did you get galded somewhere? I know I did, but I’m not saying where…” Piper flicked her tail to allow a cooling breeze to caress her where she had been galded. Hennessy seemed hesitant to say anything.
“It’s nothing.”
“It has to be something,” Piper said as she took a step closer to Hennessy.
“I feel like this is my fault. ‘Cause of how I talk.” Hennessy’s words came out sounding like, “Cuz uv hoow Ah tawk.” The colt crawled up into an empty bunk and laid down. “Had everypony understood what I was saying, this might have gone down different.”
“Do you need some help with your diction and your enunciation?”
“My dick end is just fine, thank you very much, and it most certainly didn’t rub against my suit!” Hennessy squirmed in the bed, pulled himself into a pony-loaf position, and then gave Piper a defensive glare. “And I don’t know what else you said, but if it is what I think it is, I didn’t do that in my suit either, no matter how much my dick end was rubbing.”
Piper’s mouth fell open into a little round ‘o’ of astonishment. She took a moment to recover, then said, “Right. You and I are going to spend more time in the dictionary, Mister Walker, you are not going to feel ashamed about it, and you are not going to give me any lip, or I shall yank your ear.”
Eager to change the subject, Hennessy squirmed around in his bunk until he was comfortable, and then he poured his heart out to Piper. “I feel good about today. Maybe not about the bear part, but these ponies here, I helped them. I was an asset to Doctor Sterling. I was an earth pony, just like them, and when I had my mask off, it seemed like it was real easy for them to come up to me and talk. Doctor Sterling said it was easier for him to get information he needed, symptoms and such. The doctor said I’ll make a good public face someday. I don’t reckon I quite know what that means, but I like the sound of it.”
“Well, we certainly wouldn’t want Flicker to be a public face, not with his ‘Oh, let’s gas this,’ or, ‘Hey, let’s set this on fire,’ or, ‘Is that heavy farm equipment?’ Don’t get me wrong, he’s very good at his job, I saw that today, but he’s not the talk to the public type.” Piper turned to look at Flicker, whose barrel rose and fell with his slow but steady breathing. “What’s the doctor doing right now, Hennessy?”
“He’s helping those nice druids. They’re looking at something under a microscope. They been drawing blood from the ponies in the village.”
“Hennessy, have you thought about what you want from all of this?” Piper asked as she thought about being a hero.
“What you mean?”
“The education you’ll be getting, the chances you’ll have to become a pony of greater learning. You’ll have access to everything.” Piper’s brows crinkled just a little bit. “You’re not stupid, Hennessy. You’re uneducated, but you’re not stupid. You have a chance to become anything that you want to be.”
“I ain’t got no idea what I want to be, right now, I’m right happy where I am. I got myself to Canterlot, the great shining city, I have a roof over my head, I got a steady paycheck, I get hot meals, and I sleep in the nicest bed I’ve ever slept in. I’m the luckiest hick that’s ever crawled out of the backwoods.”
It was at that moment that Piper realised the great fundamental difference between her and Hennessy. She said nothing, but resolved to help broaden his horizons somehow, without making him feel stupid or diminished. Something, perhaps her own Pie sense, told her that there was something wrong with Hennessy, some great hurt, and she wanted to help him.
She would lead Hennessy along, with carrots if necessary, and help him be the very best pony that he could be. Exhausted, she couldn’t stand on her hooves any longer, so she crawled into an empty bunk and flopped out. Yawning, Piper realised that she could use a little rest. She grabbed a pillow, fluffed it, and placed her head upon it.
It had been a very long day.
Stepping into the bunkroom, Doctor Sterling stopped and listened to the sound of his three apprentices breathing. Piper was out cold and so was Hennessy. He moved down the narrow aisle between the bunks to Flicker’s bedside to check on the colt. The doctor stood there, silent, examining Flicker, and he noticed the colt’s eyelids fluttering a bit. After some effort, they opened.
“Flicker, can you hear me?”
With slow, almost drunken movement, the colt reached up and rubbed his ears, but he did not respond. His eyes were glassy, unfocused, his movements were sluggish and uncoordinated. He lay there, on his back, looking up at the doctor with a confused, befuddled expression upon his somewhat swollen face.
“Thankfully, your eardrums weren’t ruptured, but the blood vessels at the root of your ears were blown out and the thin skin tore open during the blast. A lot of the blood vessels just beneath the skin were ruptured. You’ve suffered quite a bit of bruising. Try not to move. You can’t hear a word I’m saying, can you?”
Flicker shook his head.
Sighing, the doctor kept the rest of his diagnosis to himself.
With a poof of glittery magic, the doctor conjured up a drinking glass, he filled it with water pulled from the air around him, and he made not one, but two ice cubes for good measure. Lifting Flicker’s head, he held the glass up to the colt’s lips, and let him drink. The wise doctor kept the glass at just the right angle to keep the colt from choking or sputtering.
Four glasses of water later, Flicker didn’t seem to be thirsty anymore. Worried, the doctor noticed that the colt kept trying get up and out of bed. There were other needs that had to be taken care of, he supposed. Using his magic, he slid Flicker out of his bunk, flipped him over, and set him down upon his hooves. The colt wobbled a bit, but remained upright.
The doctor felt a perverse sense of pride. He had helped to shape this colt. Flicker had come to the guild as a formless lump of clay and now, well, it was as Wicked said, Flicker would be the guild’s best weapon against rats and the spread of disease. Oh, he was still angry that Flicker had disobeyed him, and when the colt could hear again, the doctor intended to let the colt have it.
But that would come later. For now, the colt probably needed to relieve himself, and maybe eat. Punishment could be dealt with later, and Doctor Sterling knew that he had his own punishment coming. Wicked was going to rip him a new one no matter what sort of excuses might be offered.
Bells rang in his ears and Flicker couldn’t hear much of anything. Above him, stars twinkled and the night sky was like a shroud of purple-black velvet festooned with sequins. The night air was cool and felt good against his skin, which burned with heat from within. His back half was on fire, but the shot of morphine was helping. The worst pain was in his balls, which had swollen up to what felt like two or three times their normal size. His dock was so swollen that he couldn’t move his tail.
Worst of all, he had no cutie marks. Flicker found this quite distressing. He was bald back there, completely bald, and his skin had turned a dreadful shade of greenish purple from the bruising. The grey goop slathered over his wounds burned a bit, it stung, it did, but he didn’t dare complain about it.
Looking out over the rail, he saw smoke curling up from chimneys. The ponies here were a little safer, a little more comfortable, but more had to be done to help them. The rats would return and soon. Not too far away from where the Don’t Panic had put down anchor, the other two visitors to the village had set up camp.
They had a peculiar raised platform for their tent and Flicker understood the gist of it. The long metal poles that held up the platform had disks near the middle to keep rats and other vermin from climbing up. A simple tent sat atop the platform and he could see the glow of a lantern from within the tent. He could also see the outlines of the two ponies. One seemed to be hunched over a low table, maybe reading, and the other was laying down, perhaps also reading.
One pony was out enjoying the night, at least one pony that Flicker could see. A young mare frolicked beneath the stars, dancing with herself, pronking around the field near where the two ships had been anchored.
Flicker felt a touch, a light soft touch, and he turned to see the doctor. There was a plate of food and a bottle of ice cold Luna~Cola. The plate was set down on the wide deck rail and Flicker eyed his options. Potato salad, another salad with pickled beets, cherries, chickpeas, and mint. It was Canterlot food, but he liked it, and there was a cold cheese sandwich loaded down with what appeared to be spring greens. He began salivating at the sight of food.
The doctor’s lips were moving, but Flicker couldn’t hear anything. He shook his head to let the doctor know, and he saw a look of keen worry in the doctor’s silver-grey eyes. With a nod of thanks, he took a sip of the soda, put it down upon the rail, and then tore into his food starting with the sandwich. Canterlot ponies ate different foods than Ponyville ponies, but that was fine by him.
It wasn’t bad food, just different.
In the end, Flicker felt this had been a good day. He had purged a village, gone for a long walk, seen the countryside, blown up a rat den, gassed the survivors, and then he had saved his co-workers and himself by blowing up a bear with dynamite. This qualified as a good day, an interesting day, and Flicker was grateful that he was still drawing breath.
Beside him, the doctor stood, looking up at the stars, and Flicker hoped that the doctor wouldn’t be too angry with him. He idolised the doctor, adored him, worshipped him, and wanted so very much to be like him. Doctor Sterling was noble, self sacrificing, and Flicker had no doubt that the doctor would have sacrificed himself to the bear, had it come down to that.
More than anything, Flicker hoped that he had earned the doctor’s praise. He couldn’t wait to hear it. He felt as though he had done an act of extraordinary valour, surely that would get him the doctor’s attention and perhaps a commendation. Flicker was no longer a foal, at least, he believed this to be the case, and he desperately wanted the acceptance and approval of the adults in his life.
Hearing was a precious thing, and Flicker was sad that his seemed to be messed up at the moment. It was sunny, a bit too warm for spring, he was used to cooler Canterlot climes, and the doctor had forbidden him from being out in the direct sunlight because half of him was bald. He stood on the deck of the Don’t Panic, feeling a bit petulant, and was having himself a foalish moment of bad temper.
Doctor Sterling, perhaps sensing an opportunity, was helping the two druids. Hennessy and Piper were sent to fetch alchemical ingredients, flowers, roots, certain types of bugs, all of which were indigenous to this area. Flicker was just a tiny bit jealous that they were allowed to work and he wasn’t. He was stuck on deck, waiting for the hour of departure.
The grey goop burned and itched in a most awful way, but it had closed his wounds and kept him from bleeding. More had been applied, a thick second layer had been slapped on this morning, and truth be told, Flicker would rather be dipped in a sewer than to have more goop slathered on.
It wasn’t often that a pony was truly naked like this, with no protection from their pelt. Flicker could feel every breeze, which was delightful, the burning touch of the sun, which wasn’t so delightful, and the painful bite of flies, which pissed him off and made him feel mean. In what he felt was a remarkable display of telekinesis, he had taken to pulling their teeny, tiny little wings off and then leaving them to walk the deck for a time, before he flicked them overboard.
According to his mother, he didn’t magic stuff, he flicked stuff. He could flick things with telekinesis and send them flying. Flicking a candle would set it alight, and as far back as he could remember, his parents used him as a living match to set things on fire, such as the fireplace, candles, autumn leaves, the kitchen stove, pretty much everything. Just a little flick and flames would appear.
And then one day, that fateful day, he had flicked a rat.
Heaving a forlorn sigh, Flicker Nicker missed his cutie marks. Both of them. He had a bare, bald backside. Even worse, it looked like he had a rat’s tail, as most of the hair was missing from his own tail. The explosion had done some peculiar damage to him, but he was alive. Next time, when he fought a rabid bear, one stick would do.
It had taken him a lot of thought and consideration, but he decided that he could expand his repertoire to include rabid bears and the like. There was no good, reliable cure for rabies, only magical healing, which was rare and not something that could be counted on. Rabies destroyed the brain, and once a pony got it, there wasn’t much that could be done.
The official policy on rabies was to put the victim down as an act of mercy. Rats carried rabies and the disease was a very real danger of his job. Getting bit was a real risk, which was why the protective gear they wore was rat-proofed as much as possible. Wasn’t bear proofed though, nope. Flicker had learned that lesson the hard way.
Turning around, Flicker was very surprised to see Doctor Sterling standing on the deck with him. He hadn’t heard the squeak of the lift. The doctor was smiling a bit, he seemed to be in a good mood, and his lips were moving.
“—can you hear anything at all, Mister Nicker?”
Flicker, relieved, could hear the doctor just a bit. He sounded very far away and his voice was faint, more like a distant whisper, but Flicker was glad to hear it. The colt smiled and nodded to let the doctor know that he could hear him.
“YOU DAFT LITTLE CRETIN!”
That didn’t sound good.
“YOU THICK-HEADED LITTLE SHIT! YOU NINCOMPOOP! THERE WILL BE WORDS LATER, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”
Trying to swallow the lump that just appeared in his throat, Flicker nodded.
“THERE IS A GOOD CHANCE THAT WICKED IS GOING TO KILL BOTH OF US BECAUSE OF WHAT HAPPENED!”
Oh… that wasn’t good at all. Flicker’s moment of heroism wasn’t going quite as planned. The reality of his situation began to permeate his brain, and he didn’t like this new world he was living in, a world with an angry, pissed off Wicked. Whimpering, Flicker didn’t like this at all.
“What were you thinking?” Doctor Sterling demanded with a stomp of his hoof.
“My life for yours,” Flicker replied, his own voice sounding like a stranger’s in his messed up ears. He saw the doctor’s hard expression soften, his anger melted away, and he saw the doctor shaking his head.
“No, my boy, it doesn’t work that way.” The silver stallion shook his head. “My life for yours. If you had died out there, it would have been a failure that would have reflected poorly upon me. I am supposed to die for you, if necessary. If we are ever in such circumstances that death seems likely, well, it is a teacher’s job to die so that his student might live and go on, having learned a terrible lesson. Such is the natural order of things.”
Even though he had a hard time hearing, Flicker got most of it. He nodded, but he didn’t agree, not at all.
“If you ever disobey one of my direct orders ever again, it will fall upon me to have you flogged or otherwise punished. Please, please don’t ever do that to me. I couldn’t bear it.” The doctor’s eyes glazed over with tears, which he tried to blink away, but failed to do so. “I would find myself detestable should such a thing ever happen.”
“Forgive me, Doctor Sterling.”
“Flicker, you’re like my own son… I’m not in a position to have foals.” A very real look of pain crossed over the doctor’s face for but an instant, and then it was gone. “I have become very fond of you. I have very high expectations for you. But if you ever disobey me and my orders again, I will flog the willfulness out of you myself.”
Feeling a strange, terrible pain emanating from an unknown, unmentionable location, Flicker nodded. With the pain came a severe confusion, a sense of conflict, as he had expected a very different outcome from this situation. He stood rigid, stiff as a plank, and bowed his head to Doctor Sterling as bells continued to ring in his ears.
“Give me a chance to earn your forgiveness, Doctor Sterling.”
A look of raw, terrible cunning flashed in Doctor Sterling’s eyes. “Pass your candle exam, and I might consider the option of forgiveness.”
Oh, that… that was dreadful. Flicker’s rigidness gave way to fearful, worried squirming. So much was riding on his candle exam. His tension caused his stomach to start doing flip-flops and sweat just poured from his frogs. At a loss for words, Flicker couldn’t even say anything, for the fear of failure and the very real chance that he might make a mistake made it very difficult to make a promise that he would do well.
Defeated and half deaf, he hung his head and stared down at his two front hooves.
The little hamlet on the side of the river shrank in the distance, and Flicker watched as it became smaller and smaller. The Don’t Panic was a swift vessel, small and light, and its stem began to turn towards Canterlot. The coal burning engines built up a good head of steam, allowing the ship to go faster and faster.
As they gained altitude, it became considerably cooler, which was nice at first, but then Flicker began to shiver when the wind turned chilly. Piper and Hennessy pressed in against either side of him, mindful of his injuries, trying to keep him warm. For this, Flicker was grateful; friends made excellent barriers against the cold.
When they broke through the clouds, Doctor Sterling appeared on deck with a faded pea green woollen frock coat. He crossed over to where Flicker was, and in total silence, he helped the colt put the coat on. When the coat was on, he stepped back to survey his work, nodding his head in approval.
To Flicker, the coat was a little too big, he didn’t mind. It was warm, if a bit scratchy, but it was also dashing. He wished that he had a sword to go with it. In Canterlot, frock coats were still the height of fashion, and were in no way considered old or out of date. He mourned the loss of his blade, and had a nagging suspicion that Wicked was going to take the loss out of his hide.
“You look very handsome,” Piper remarked, and she gave Hennessy a kick in the leg. “He’s very handsome, isn’t he Mister Walker?”
Blushing, Hennessy nodded as he sidestepped away from Piper and her overenthusiastic kicks. “Ayup. The green is a good contrast with his blues.”
“Were you referring to his coat colour and his mane, or his bruises?” Doctor Sterling’s face was utterly unreadable as he looked Piper in the eye.
“The bruising and its location sort of make it look as though he’s been spanked by alicorns,” Piper said to Doctor Sterling, changing the subject, as she felt as though it was prudent. “I would imagine that an alicorn would give a body a good, thorough spanking with a terrific amount of force.”
Watchful for further kicks, Hennessy began to snigger.
“The two of you did very well for your first excursion.” Doctor Sterling’s words were flat and held no emotion, he spoke as if he was diagnosing something. “Miss Pie, Mister Walker, the two of you will get glowing praise in my report.” Pausing, a sour look crept over the doctor’s face. “However, you, Mister Nicker, it will go down upon your guild record that you deliberately and willfully disobeyed my orders.”
“He’s a little thick, isn’t he?” Piper asked.
Doctor Sterling’s hard expression softened. “It is very difficult to be angry with him. This is the very sort of self-sacrificing attitude that the guild wishes to cultivate. Mister Nicker… Flicker… he has the right attitude, but he needs to temper it with wisdom. If not wisdom, at least a predisposition to follow and obey orders.”
The air became thinner and everypony’s ears began popping. There were yawns, many yawns, as the group adjusted to the higher altitude and thinner air. Even with his frock coat on, Flicker began shivering hard enough to make his teeth clatter; he became the very figure of misery as his stoic mask melted away to reveal a very foalish expression of discomfort.
“Come, come inside with me, let us go belowdecks and we’ll begin our lessons. I have much to teach you.” The doctor gestured at the door. “Mister Nicker, once again, you are my First Mate. Please, do remember to follow my orders. Thank you.”
Many, many hours later…
The first streaks of rose, gold, and orange appeared in the eastern skies of Canterlot. They had made good time, flying high above a patch of storms and avoiding turbulence. The sky outside of the window was still very dark, and Princess Luna’s night still held dominion in the west. Spud, laying upon Piper’s bed, couldn’t be bothered to greet his returning roommates.
Still wearing the pea green frock coat, Flicker went straight to his bed and laid down. He curled up, pulled his pillow over his head, and then just lay there like a lump. Hennessy moved and stood beside the bed, then just stood there, staring at Flicker, not knowing what to say to comfort his friend.
“Surely Wicked will understand that you’ve suffered enough.” Piper’s words sounded as though she was trying to convince herself of their truth. “It feels good to be back, or it should, I’m having a hard time feeling enthusiastic about it though.”
“We’re not going to get much rack time,” Flicker mumbled from beneath his pillow. “Rest if you can, you’ll start training soon.”
“I’m exhausted and sore from our little adventure.” Piper’s voice was a somewhat annoying nasal whine. “I’m still rubbed raw all over my backside from having an accident inside of my suit and then walking around all day.” Pouting, her lower lip protruded and her slender hoof stomped upon the floor.
“If you show any signs of weakness, they’ll only push you harder for your own good. Expect to be broken, especially if they send you to the gymnasium.”
“Piper, what did we get ourselves into?” Hennessy asked.
“I am feeling a bit concerned, Henessy. I suspect that we’re going to find out how Flicker got his superpowers. Oh, this is going to suck mightily, my backside is so tender. I can’t even sit down without wanting to cry.”
“There is some parts of me that is sore, real sore, rubbed raw even.” Hennessy had himself a drawn out slow blink. “Parts of me that rubbed in the wrong way inside of that suit. Next time, I’m gonna be a lot more mindful about what I tuck and where I tuck it.”
“Well, it certainly isn’t much better if you are a filly… one might think it would be, but that is a very foolish assumption, as I have discovered.” Piper let out a wordless whine, and then looked at Flicker in his bunk. “Here we are, complaining about our discomfort, and Flicker is just lying there, looking miserable. This feels like it is going to be a bad day.”
There was a soft knock upon the door, which then opened, and Asterius, the minotaur butler stuck her head in. “Mister Nicker, you are wanted in Mister Chandler’s office right away. Miss Pie, Mister Walker, you are wanted in the gymnasium.”
“What about breakfast?” Hennessy asked.
The minotaur cow’s face scrunched up in a most unpleasant sort of way. “Oh no, you wouldn’t want to eat before going into the gymnasium… that would be foolish. You will be looking the grim spectre of death in the eye within the hour.”
Both Hennessy and Piper gulped as Flicker pulled himself out of bed.
The worst thing about all of this was that Wick Chandler was so calm. Angry, yes, but calm. Flicker sat in his chair beside Doctor Sterling, marvelling at how calm Mister Chandler was. His accent was even somewhat neutral, which was always a good sign. Astounded and a little afraid, the colt watched as Mister Chandler rubbed his temple.
“So, ye thought it would be a wise idea to pick a fight with a bear… not knowing that Doctor Sterling ‘ere wasn’t going to run far, just far enough to give ‘imself some room to fight the bear. For whatever reason, ye thought that ye would give yer life so that the doctor and yer new friends might live.”
Flicker nodded.
“Yer a blithering idot, and alicorns bless ye, ye thick-headed little shit—”
“Wicked?” Doctor Sterling leaned forwards in his chair and baffled, he looked at his friend.
“Oh, shut up, Sterling! This is all yer fault, ye know!”
“My fault!” Sterling looked wounded.
“Yar, yer fault! No offence, Sterling, but ye’ve let all those romantic notions ‘bout what it means to be in the gentry go right to yer fool ‘ead! Ye and yer noble ideas! Don’t get me wrong, Sterling, all of the nobles and the gentry should be like ye are, but yer in a damn ‘urry to die because of yer fantastical, romantical notions and yer sense of ‘onour. Now ye’ve gone off and infected Flicker with it! The two of ye deserve each other! Ye have nopony to blame for this but yerself, yer Lordship!”
“So that’s it, then?” Doctor Sterling sat there, blinking, confused, and uncertain.
“Are we to be punished?” Flicker asked, daring to speak without first being spoken to.
“Ye bet yer bald ass yer gonna be punished!” The corner of Wicked’s mouth twitched as he tried not to laugh. “Because of yer carelessness, a sword given to yer care was broken. Yer gonna pay for it, Lad, and the guild will never again give ye another sword. So ye’ll be buying yer own from ‘ere out. Also, the two of you, yer gonna go and sacrifice together, and I expect that ye’ll be weeping great bloody martyr’s tears!” Wicked went silent and squinted at both Flicker and Doctor Sterling.
“Wicked?” Doctor Sterling looked puzzled.
“Aye, the both of ye need to ‘urt… ye need yer bloody sacrifice… yer bleeding, bloody self-flagellating penance… yer both gonna give so much that it’s gonna ‘urt!” Wicked lifted his wooden leg and pointed at both Doctor Sterling and Flicker.
Admonished, abashed, Doctor Sterling sank down in his chair, while Flicker dropped his gaze to the floor.
“A fine, both of ye! A big bloody fine! Five hundred gold bits… each! And the two of ye are gonna march over to whatever charity ye fancy and yer both gonna bleed together like the two great louts that ye are! Ye’ll be giving yer fine to the charity and this will be over! Am I understood?”
“Yes, Wicked, you are understood.” Doctor Sterling’s words were little more than a scolded foal’s whisper.
Nodding, Flicker said nothing. He understood that there was a lesson here, and he needed time to think about it before he had something worthwhile to say. The punishment fit the crime, well, maybe it did, and it felt fair enough. Flicker felt that he was getting off light, but this was also his first serious infraction.
“Charging a great bloody rabid bear with two rat stickers…” Wicked’s eyes bulged in their sockets and his ears pivoted around. He jammed his wooden leg in Flicker’s direction a few times, stabbing at the air, and he snorted as he tried to think of the right words to say. “Get out of my office, ye mealy, pudding ‘eaded ‘alf-wit!”
“Sir, right away!” Flicker wasted no time getting away while the getting was good.
“And don’t call me ‘sir,’ or I’ll ‘ave ye ‘ided!” Sucking in a deep breath, Wicked turned on the doctor too. “Get out! Get out! I can’t even look at ye right now, ye hoof-rag!”
As Flicker retreated through the door and down the hallway, all he could hear was the sound of Wicked’s roaring, riotous laughter. It confused him, unsettled him, but he didn’t dare question it. The best that could be done in this situation, Flicker felt, was to be grateful for such a kind and charitable resolution.
Feeling just a little bit dejected, his ears still ringing, Flicker huddled inside of the woollen frock coat. He was feeling just a little bit stupid at the moment, with hindsight being what it was, and he understood that the doctor could have dealt with the bear with magic at a distance. Of course, Flicker had not thought about that at all when he calculated the means of survival.
Sighing, he resolved himself to bear the financial loss. He had to pay for one training sword, not too big of a deal, he needed to purchase a brand new sword, that was going to be expensive, and he had his fine to pay. That was going to sting a bit. Punishment had to sting a bit so one would learn from it. Trying to cheer himself up a bit, he reminded himself that he was coming away from this a better pony.
Moving aside, he watched as some of the older apprentices moved on for their training. He didn’t get along with them, they saw him as a baby and spoke down to him. Soon, they would graduate and be fully fledged guild members. Watching them, Flicker wondered, had any of them killed a rabid bear?
A wonderful smug feeling warmed the colt’s insides, but no sign of emotions could be seen on his face. One day, he would be like them, but he resolved to be somewhat nicer to the junior apprentices when they joined the guild. One day, he would have their respect, it was just a matter of earning it.
With the crowd gone, Flicker continued on his way to the gymnasium. The morphine was wearing off, he could feel it, he could feel everything, but he wasn’t going to ask for more. It was good to suffer, suffering brought growth. Pain was progress. Piper and Hennessy were about to discover that. They were weak now, but one day, one day, they would know strength.
But first, they had to suffer, just as he had spent the past year suffering.
Standing near the doorway, Flicker examined the situation before him. Piper lay in a miserable heap in the far corner, out of the way, and Hennessy was being made to leap from post to post, which Hennessy wasn’t very good at. As Flicker watched, Hennessy went down in a tangle of legs and smashed into the floor, which was four feet down.
Hennessy’s mistake was that he had stopped. Leaping from post to post, there was no time to stop, it was all about balance and momentum. The top of each post was just large enough for about one and a half hooves to be placed on. Pausing for any reason, like trying to get your balance, catch your breath, or figuring out where to leap to next, it meant a fall, most of the time. Flicker had learned to stand one legged upon the top of the posts and keep his balance.
Ears pricking, Flicker heard the sound of Hennessy bawling as Mister Pepper berated him for being worthless and weak. White Pepper was actually one of the kindest, most soft spoken individuals that Flicker was acquainted with, and he knew that Mister Pepper hated being mean in any capacity. The fantastic Mister Pepper was a gentle sort with a soft spot for fuzzy, wuzzy kittens.
“Meow.” Spud rubbed up against Flicker’s left front leg for but a moment, and then went over to where Piper was sprawled out on the floor. The lumpy, wrinkly, misshapen, Tartarus-spawned cat climbed up onto Piper’s back, circled three times, and laid down upon the prone filly.
“How did they do, Mister Pepper?” Flicker asked.
“Miss Pie survived for a good forty five minutes,” Mister Pepper replied. He looked down at Hennessy, who lay on the floor, his sides heaving. “Mister Walker managed to make it to just a little past the hour mark, but I think he’s done for. Earth ponies.” The stark white unicorn snorted.
“I didn’t make it to the half hour mark on my first day,” Flicker looked around the vast gymnasium and was filled with fond memories about all of the time he had spent here, the endless hours invested in making his body stronger, better, purging all weakness.
“Miss Pie shows promising signs of being nimble, like you,” Mister Pepper said to Flicker. “Mister Walker shows signs of having great endurance, as expected, and I do believe he will be nimble with time and effort. He’s not nimble now.”
This was good news, and it made Flicker happy.
“I understand that you blew up a rabid bear with dynamite.” Mister Pepper’s eyebrow arched and he gave Hennessy an absent minded prodding with his hoof.
Sighing, Flicker nodded, not knowing how he should feel about it at the moment.
“I can deal with the plague,” Mister Pepper remarked, “but rabies scares me. Lost my friend that way. He was my fellow apprentice. We trained together, he and I. It was quite a long time ago. He was bitten by a bat, you see. His ear swelled up, turned black, and rotted off. Farlow started showing the signs… we tried some experimental zebra stuff, but it didn’t do no good. I was there when Mister Chandler and Doctor Sterling put him down. I held his hoof as he drifted off. Dosed him up on morphine and he just slipped away, all peaceful like. ‘Twas a mercy, it was.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Mister Pepper.”
“We’ve lost more guild members to rabies than to the plague.” Mister Pepper let out a sad sounding sigh as his horn lit up, and he grunted as he picked Hennessy up from off of the cold, hard floor. “Come on, Mister Nicker, if you would please fetch Miss Pie, I do believe they have earned some rack time.”
Bowing his head, Flicker nodded.
Piper was almost weightless, or so it felt, and Flicker put her down upon the chilly tile floor of the shower room. She was frothy with sweat, her pelt was matted, and as he stood there, watching, she puked up a puddle of yellow bile. Beside her, Hennessy lay groaning. Mister Pepper had already excused himself, and was gone. The pea green frock coat hung from a brass hook on the wall.
With a flick of magic, the levers for the shower were turned on and Flicker let the water flow. The water, cold at first, made his companions squirm, but the sooner they were used to discomfort the better. They had a lot to learn and a long, long way to go. The water, still icy cold, caused the bile on the tile floor to go swirling down the drain, which was between Piper and Hennessy.
Fetching the bottle of liquid pine oil soap and arming himself with a brush, he contemplated who his first victim would be. After a time, he chose Piper. It was no different than bathing his sister, Knick-Knack, a task he had done hundreds of times, but he did feel a little apprehensive about it. He didn’t have to do this, this was a kindness, but he wished that somepony had done it for him. The memory of being miserable and crusted with sweat was unpleasant.
Staring at the wall, Flicker lifted Piper’s back end from the floor, squirted a healthy dollop of pine oil soap onto his brush, and went to work. She squirmed, kicked a bit, and resisted, but it was easy enough to overpower her, just as it had been for Knick-Knack. This was a chore like any other, and he would just blank out until he had worked through it.
“Too rough,” Piper whined as her legs flailed about in a useless, ineffective manner, “it’s so tender back there! Too rough!”
His blank stare focused upon the wall while he worked, he ignored Piper’s whining and continued to scrub. There was a groan from Hennessy, who somehow managed to roll over and was now letting the hot water pour down upon his stomach. Piper floundered, still trying to resist, but then went limp as the last of her energy fled from her.
A sulky, exhausted expression was on Piper’s face, which was framed by her soaked, waterlogged mane. After a few moments of mental resistance, which was all she had left, she closed her eyes and just tried to bear Flicker’s not too gentle ministrations, trusting him to do right by her.
When at last, Piper was scrubbed from one end to the other, and still covered in soapy lather, she was dropped to the floor and left under the showerhead to rinse. Flicker still staring at the wall like a dim-witted dullard, grabbed Hennessy by the back end, and, ignoring Hennessy’s whiny drawls of protest, he began scrubbing the squirming earth pony colt.
“Ow!” Hennessy cried. “Ow! Hey! Oow! Ooh! Stop! Stop, now I understand what Piper was going on about—hey! Ow! No, don’t pull my tail! Ow!”
“I think he scrubbed the skin right off,” Piper whined as she tried to rinse the soap from her mane and keep it out of her eyes. “If you squirm, Hennessy, he’ll just scrub harder… hold still!”
“You don’t know what he’s scrubbing! OW!”
“Oh, yes I do!”
Flicker ignored them and continued his task, unfeeling, uncaring, and his eyes almost vacant as he did what was best for them. His thoughts turned to his sister, whom he loved. Flicker missed her something awful, and he longed to see her. He gave a stern yank on Hennessy’s tail as the colt tried to wiggle away, and he continued his ruthless, relentless, hygienic assault upon his companion.
Engrossed in study, Flicker focused the entirety of his mind upon taking in information. Hennessy and Piper, after having themselves a light meal, were both asleep. Flicker had been given free reign to do whatever, so he had chosen to study, and study hard. He approached study like he approached everything else; he threw himself at it and would smash himself against it until he succeeded.
Unbeknownst to him, the door opened and a lone pony entered. Flicker remained hyper-focused upon his book on chemistry and alchemy, fearing that he would fail his candle exam. There was just too much pressure and Flicker was beginning to feel a little worry. He had a lot riding on this, his entire future, and after many, many failures, he had to do better.
“Hello Flicker… need some help?”
Lifting his head, it took Flicker several long seconds to process what he was seeing. He gave Night Light a blank stare before he responded, “Uh, Mister—”
“Night Light, if you please. Mister Light sounds so ridiculous, don’t you agree?”
“I was just starting to study,” Flicker said to Night Light as the middle aged stallion sat down on the other side of the table.
“Well then, I arrived just in time.” Night Light smiled and looked very pleased with himself. “I have a gift for alchemy and I know that I can help you. So, what are we studying, Flicker?”
Flicker’s brain took several long seconds to organise all of the relevant facts and get them ready. “I was just starting to read about pyrethroids.”
“Ah, yes… and where does one find the pyrethroid compounds that Wicked uses in his candles?” Night Light leaned forwards over the table and there was an intense look of concentration in his eyes. “Come on, Flicker, don’t disappoint me. There are many who believe you are stupid, I am not one of them. You are methodical, Flicker, slow, careful, calculating, but not stupid.”
When his mouth went dry, Flicker licked his lips and wished that he wasn’t in so much pain. It made it very difficult to concentrate and his slowness seemed even more pronounced. “We harvest chrysanthemums and extract the compounds we need. Botanists have grown special chrysanthemums with mild, but useful magical properties, making them both chemical and alchemical in nature.”
“Very good, Flicker.” Night Light looked pleased. “Now, tell me, Flicker, why are the pyrethroids important in the creation of pesticidal candles?”
Blinking several times, Flicker’s brain pulled up all of the important information requested, but it took a while. He was good at killing things, gassing things, and setting things on fire. This fell under the category of ‘gassing things’ and was valuable information. Somewhere in the depths of his brain, in the deep, dark places where Princess Luna might be amused or terrified to go looking, construction was taking place on a filing spot for ‘exploding things.’ The first entry was filed under B, for bears.
“Excitotoxins. Pyrethroids are excitotoxins that affect the axons. They force the voltage-gated sodium channels in the axonal membranes to remain open in an excited state. It’s a membrane protein with hydrophilic properties. It breaks down partially charged water molecules from a sodium ion, allowing the sodium ion to enter the axon and aids in action potential.”
“Okay, keep going.” Night Light gave the colt a broad smile of encouragement.
“Under the effects of an excitotoxin, the channels are forced to remain open, they cannot repolarise, leaving the membrane depolarised, which causes paralysis in the affected organism.” Flicker sighed—gassing stuff was a very detailed file—and he was certain that he had most of the right information. His suspicions were confirmed by Night Light’s pleased nodding. “The fleas and other insect pests stop moving and can’t flee from the gas filled area.”
“It occurs me to me that you have the knowledge. I can tell that you’ve been studying under a doctor.” Night Light looked into Flicker’s eyes and continued, “You have an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of toxic compounds and poisons. You hold a remarkable wealth of knowledge for any age or standard. So I don’t think that’s the problem. Chemistry and alchemy… there is an art to them. Cooking up a candle is more than just book learning. How about you and I go to the laboratory and cook up a few single purpose candles just to see how you do? Paralytic agents, dissolving agents, and let’s see if we can make those work. Does that sound good, Flicker?”
That sounded good. Flicker liked the idea. Breaking it down to manageable tasks seemed like a reasonable thing to do. He nodded. “I’d like that. Thank you.”
“Very good, Flicker. Come with me…”
Opening the door to his room, Flicker paused as he looked inside. Piper was awake now, but bleary eyed, and eating an apple as she read a book. He watched as she stopped reading and looked at him. Glancing around the room, he saw Hennessy, also reading a book, a dictionary. Spud was doing his best rug impression on the floor in front of the window.
“There was a fire,” Flicker said and he did not go into further details, he just shut the door behind him. In pain all over, he staggered over to his bunk, crawled in, and then lay in a heap as he wished that his mother was here to comfort him. She would know how to make all of this better somehow.
“Ugh, you stink!” Hennessy peered down at Flicker from the top bunk.
“I’m not toxic,” Flicker replied, “I was detoxed and Night Light used neutralising magic on me. The stink will wear off in a few hours, or so I was told. The stink of my failure will remind me to do better next time.”
“Just thought you should know, you should check the lost and found for your missing eyebrow.” Hennessy grinned even as his nose crinkled, and his ears perked when Piper started giggling.
“Oh, I know where my eyebrow went.” Flicker, who didn’t get the joke, closed his eyes and let out a sigh. His whole body ached and he was tired.
“How do you do it?” Piper asked. “Half of your body is a bruise and it is clear that you are in terrible pain, yet you go off and study?”
“The plague never takes a day off.” Flicker rolled over, kicked around, and managed to pull his blanket over him after pulling it out from beneath him. Yawning, he closed his eyes and hoped that his companions would be quiet, so that he could sleep.
Spud, who noticed that his favourite pony was in a warm, comfortable bed, lept up to join him.
Reaching out his forelegs, Flicker pulled Spud closer and cuddled his not-so-cuddly feline friend. Spud’s purring sounded like a chainsaw’s upper limit rev cycle and his fat, club-like tail thumped against the mattress. Flicker, in a rare display of affection, muzzle-nuzzled the mutant almost-cat-creature he held in his warm embrace.
In her bed, Piper somehow managed to look both disgusted and sappy as she watched Flicker and Spud exchange affection.
The dull, throbbing ache in his dock and his testicles made it difficult for Flicker to sit down. He was groggy, disoriented, and no doubt, dehydrated. There were a lot of things that Flicker didn’t know, like what time it was, how long he had slept, or what sort of mood Doctor Sterling was in. If he had to guess, it was sometime after the noon hour.
The frock coat was now a comfortable companion, even if it was just a little too big.
Piper, who was sitting to his left, was reading a book, and Hennessy, who sat on his right, was drawing something on a sheet of yellowed parchment paper. Doctor Sterling, who sat across from him at the table, was reading the newspaper. The four of them were waiting for tea, and Flicker hoped that there would be food as well.
Blinking, Flicker read the newspaper headline, which was in big, bold letters. BRAT PRINCE BATTLES BUREAUCRATS! CROWN GOVERNMENT BROUGHT TO A STANDSTILL! Something about the headline annoyed him, irritated him, no, even worse, it made him angry. He felt it was disrespectful, rude, and there was only one way to deal with rudeness and disrespect.
A good hard slap across the muzzle and a demand for satisfaction.
“Mister Nicker, are you okay?” Piper closed her book and put it down. “You’re breathing heavy and you look quite put out.”
“I don’t like what I’m seeing,” Flicker replied.
Confused, Piper began to look around, she looked at Hennessy, who was harmless and inoffensive as far as she could tell, she checked herself, and then she looked over at the doctor. Her brows rose as it dawned upon her that it was the newspaper that was the source of Flicker’s seeming distress.
“Ponies have the right to protest—”
“No, they don’t.” Flicker turned his heavy gaze upon Piper, who shrank back. “The Crown knows best. Ponies need to do as they are told, when they are told. If everypony did what they wanted, civilisation would fall. There would be anarchy. The Crown are our parents and we are very much like their offspring. We must respect, honour, and obey.”
The newspaper was closed, folded, and Doctor Sterling’s mustached face appeared. He focused upon Flicker for a time, and then looked over at Piper as one eyebrow rose. Piper, under the doctor’s serious scrutiny, squirmed in her seat and stared down at the floral printed tablecloth where her book rested.
“I never said that ponies had a right to protest in a way that brings harm to others,” Piper said in a squeaky, fearful voice, “but they do have a right to protest peacefully. And… and I bet I could change your mind on this issue, Mister Nicker.”
“This I’d like to see,” Doctor Sterling remarked.
Flicker, glowering, said nothing at all.
“When a foal cries, it is because they can’t always say when something is wrong, like if they need a diaper change, or they are hungry, or if they are just in need of comfort.” Piper gulped and with a slow turn of her head, she looked Flicker in the eye. “A foal has to be able to communicate with their parents somehow, even if that communication is crying, which grates upon the nerves and causes no end of frustration.”
“Hmm.” Hennessy, looking thoughtful, continued drawing.
“Now, when a foal is older, they can talk. They can reason. They can expressly communicate when something is wrong. To continue the parent to foal analogy, Mister Nicker, imagine if you will a parent tells a foal to go to bed. The foal does so, but after being in bed for a time, they are thirsty. We’ll go even further and say that there is something wrong with the foal, perhaps they have a mild fever, or a tummy ache, but something is wrong. Now, if they were to lay there in bed, doing exactly what they had been told, their condition might worsen… they might become even sicker… but if they get up out of bed and tell their parents that something is wrong and that they need a drink of water, is that so terrible? In this instance, disobedience is warranted.”
Flicker’s mind took in this information and began to processes it. Relevant files were called up from the depths and he thought about all of the times that his little sister had come to him for a drink. She wasn’t being willful, or disobedient, or disrespectful to her parents—she was thirsty, and sometimes she was scared, because it was nighttime and nighttime was scary time.
Foals needed a way to express when something was wrong and parents had an obligation to listen. Flicker’s mouth opened in preparation for something, but his mind was still dealing with Piper’s words. Flicker’s hard expression softened as he looked into Piper’s yellow-green eyes.
“I agree with you on principle,” Flicker said in a slow, halting voice. “Asking for a glass of water is fine. Throwing a temper tantrum however, is a whole ‘nother issue entirely and foals that pitch a fit need their ass beat.”
“I… I don’t know if I agree with that.” Piper shook her head. “Maybe the lines of communication broke down. Maybe somepony didn’t listen, and having a tantrum is the only way to get the attention needed on the issue. Maybe something really unfair is going on—”
“Miss Pie, you’re not going to change his mind any further today.” Doctor Sterling reached out and placed his fetlock atop Piper's foreleg, which rested against the table’s edge. “Give it rest and think of another convincing argument if you wish to stand a chance.”
Biting her lip, Piper nodded.
“Order is all we have. Order and organisation is how we hold back the plague. Order must be preserved at all costs, because it has been during times of anarchy and dissent, the breakdown of our valued social order, that the plague has hit us the hardest.” Flicker took a deep, calming breath and thought about pleasant, wonderful order.
“He is correct, Miss Pie. During our last civil war, there was a plague outbreak, and we were unable to combat it properly, due to the danger posed to our agency. Many died needless deaths, from both the war and the plague.” Doctor Sterling pulled his foreleg away and gave Piper a nod. “Just something for you to think about, Miss Pie, so you can understand his perspective.”
“I am telling you, Wicked, the colt is a sign of things to come. Any time a great disturbance or change happens, destiny adapts. Flicker is what he is to deal with whatever is coming.” Doctor Sterling cleared his throat, threw back a gulp of brandy, and stared at his longtime friend and companion. “Wicked, he mulched those rats into a fine gruel with heavy farm equipment. He cleared the quarantined ship in record time and killed everything. If fate has given us him for a reason, well, I fear what is coming.”
“Aye, I too, find myself a bit worried,” Wicked admitted. “All these rumours, Sterling. Invisible rats. Smart rats. And the not-rumours, like Rat Bastard.” Wicked stabbed his wooden leg in Sterling’s direction. “One of our Fillydelphia members is in the nuthouse right now, nattering on about smart talking rats and how they all piled together, formed a body, and with each rat added to the body, they got smarter and smarter. Poor old nutter claims the rats were casting spells.”
“Any evidence?” Sterling asked as his brandy snifter trembled in his telekinesis.
“No,” Wicked spat. “Not a damn thing, but a story like that one, it puts me on edge, ye ken? Poor bastard, ‘e shows signs of having been in a magical battle, a real nitty-gritty one. Fillydelphia members have been purging the sewers, looking for anything that might back up ‘is claim. Nothing.”
“Well, something injured his mind,” Sterling said to Wicked.
“Most likely some unicorn using bad magic to make ‘is nightmares come true and the poor sod was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“That does seem more likely than what you describe… yet… we have Flicker. He is a worrying sign, even Princess Luna thinks so. Flicker and his cutie mark are a warning sign, a portent of things to come. Maybe we’re seeing the reason why Flicker exists.”
“Sodding buggery!” Wicked bellowed. “I won’t believe in a damn thing until I can see it with me own two eyes… still, it never hurts to be on alert. Be watchful. Be careful.” Wicked’s eyebrows beetled and he refilled his own brandy snifter. “Princess Luna and one of her Wardens are going to Fillydelphia to see if any useful memories can be pulled from the poor nutter’s mind.”
“Anything else I should be made aware of?” Doctor Sterling asked.
“Rats are somehow passing through the rat-proof meshes and grates down in the sewers of Manehattan. Nopony knows ‘ow.” Wicked took a long pull from his brandy glass, and half of it vanished. “There’s an investigation, but even their best minds are bloody baffled.”
“The Heliophant sent two druids out to the place where we just were to do a study.” Doctor Sterling stared down into the depths of his brandy, perhaps looking for the meaning of life. “Officially, they are there to help the ponies of that poor backwater. Unofficially, they are there to observe the rats in the wild and search for mutations. The Heliophant is worried that the Ashlands and the Froggy Bottom Bogg might be mutating the rats into something worse.”
Shuddering, Wicked let out a long, low groan, then said, “We’ve seen what the Ashlands did to the parasprites.”
“Ah yes, the infested parasprite… it eats diseased creatures, seeking them out, and then at the end of their life cycle, they explode into clouds of virulent pestilence. Infected ponies have brand new, tiny infested parasprites come crawling out of their skin in no time at all and the circle of life continues.” Doctor Sterling shook his head. “We’re responsible for dealing with those now.”
“Still not as bad as the voracious parasprites of the Froggy Bottom Bogg… Sterling, they eat metal… they can chew right through armor and they become what they eat… one day, when ye get a chance, ye should see them in action.”
The next morning...
Flicker wished that Hennessy would stop yawning, because it made him want to yawn. Yawning at the wrong time could get you lectured, or worse, popped on the neck or some other tender place. Plus, there was something distracting about Hennessy when he yawned, but Flicker couldn’t figure out what it was.
Lifting his empty bowl, Flicker licked it clean as his two companions kept eating. The meal, though small, was enough to keep him going for a while. Flicker suspected something with lots of exercise was coming, small meals were often a dead giveaway. When his bowl was licked as clean as it would get, Flicker put it down and looked across the table at Piper.
She had bedhead something awful and Flicker knew that she was in for a lecture for not meeting grooming standards. He went back and forth on warning her, but feared that a gentle warning from him wouldn’t be as effective as a good dressing down from Mister Balister.
“The foosh heresh ish greatsh,” Hennessy said around a mouthful of oatmeal and dried fruit.
Piper’s eyes met with Flicker’s and the two had a silent exchange. The oatmeal wasn’t anything special, it was rather bland and unappealing, but both were aware that Hennessy had come from very different circumstances. As Flicker sat there, staring at Piper, her horn glowed and her mane snapped into a state of perfection.
Oh, that just wasn’t fair, not at all.
Shivering in the chilly morning air, Flicker wished that he still had a tail. Oh, he had a tail, but it was rather naked at the moment, almost hairless. His frock coat was buttoned up because it was a chilly spring morning, brisk, with cold, invigourating air. Doctor Sterling had said nothing about the agenda, nothing at all, so Flicker just tried to enjoy the walk and tried not to think about the ponies staring at him as he passed.
Piper, walking along Hennessy, had her nose in a book and relied upon Hennessy to act as her seeing eye companion. For Piper, this was efficient, as walking was just a waste of time otherwise. The book she was reading was one of Flicker’s alchemy textbooks and she was already trying to understand the magic of the alchemical candles.
The best thing about frock coats were the pockets. Flicker had his wand tucked into one of them, some bits, a small book, and a few hard candies in another. Having pockets was nice, and it saved one from having to carry saddlebags, which tended to slap the sides. Breaking away from the group, Flicker hurried over to a street vendor, which had a bright, colourful wooden cart with rising clouds of steam.
“One breakfast burrito, please,” Flicker said to the mare minding the cart. “I’m in a hurry.” He fished out several copper bits from his pocket, one silver bit, and plunked them down upon the ornate wooden edge of the cart. “Also, slather it down with some of that salsa de asesinato. I’m feeling delightfully suicidal this morning.”
Amused, the mare smiled as she went to work, filling a giant tortilla with eggs, onions, peppers, black beans, olives, both black and green, red beans, some pale white cheese, guacamole, and of course, salsa de asesinato. With a few well practiced movements, she had it wrapped up and placed inside of a foil tube.
Bowing his head, Flicker accepted his food, then hurried to catch up with Doctor Sterling.
“Stay away from me,” Piper whined, “the fumes are making my eyes burn! You’ll be gassing us later, won’t you? This is intolerable!”
“Smells kinda good, actually.” Hennessy let out a wistful sigh and watched as Flicker gobbled down the delicious, greasy looking burrito. “Unicorns have it really good, ya know? Able to walk around and eat at the same time. It ain’t fair.”
“Doctor Sterling, where are we going?” Piper asked.
“Running errands,” Doctor Sterling replied, “and getting our exercise of course.” The doctor paused in his speech but kept walking while shaking his head. “That garbage smells monstrous, Mister Nicker, oh, that is positively ghastly.”
“I know, right?” Piper’s voice was annoying and chirpy, a common trait among Pies. “I can’t even read, my eyes won’t stop watering. How does anypony eat that? Why not just get a sweetroll? A cupcake? A cinnamon roll?”
“You never said where we’re going.” Hennessy gave Flicker’s burrito a longing, lingering look and then hurried up to walk beside the doctor. “So, what are we doing?”
“Well, Mister Nicker and I have to pay a fine, I thought I’d stop by my house and check upon my housekeeper, and then we need to stop by Mercenary Alley.” Doctor Sterling looked at a big brass clock that stood on a street corner, and then coughed because of the fumes coming from Flicker’s toxic second breakfast.
Flicker, his mouth full, had fond thoughts of Doctor Sterling’s housekeeper, Lentil Pakora. She was a curious, older, almost elderly mare with an eyepatch, a strange accent, and even stranger magic. Doctor Sterling told a story that Madam Pakora had once been tried for attempted murder because of her curry, but Flicker couldn’t tell if the doctor was joking.
“What’s Mercenary Alley?” Piper asked in a voice that was far too chipper for this time of morning.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Doctor Sterling replied. “I’ll explain the rules before we enter, and there will be rules. Break the rules and there will be harsh punishment from the city guard. I will not be able to save you.” As the doctor spoke, he adjusted his sword that hung from his side and blinked away a few tears as his eyes watered. “Damn everything, Flicker, go stand downwind or something!”
Savouring his burrito, Flicker ignored the doctor’s complaining. The doctor just did not understand Flicker’s one true love or their complicated relationship that was centered around pain. Flicker’s eyes were watering, his nose was running, and his snoot had turned a bright, cherry red. Slipping his bright orange tongue into the steamy folds of his burrito, the colt felt his way around for a time, found an olive, and licked it out.
“You and Wicked both! I swear, those disgusting piles of hot garbage are the reason that you and Wicked can stand in the middle of a cloud of tear gas and feel nothing!” Doctor Sterling doubled his pace and cast an annoyed glance back over his shoulder. “It’s unnatural!”
Sniffling, Flicker came to a complete halt and looked up at the statue of Princess Celestia. She stood, wings out, head bowed, and weeping. Droplets of actual water fell from the corners of her eyes and into a reflective pool below. Ears drooping, he bowed his head in reverence. The Weeping Sister Hospital always left him feeling troubled.
“Mister Nicker, is this place suitable?”
It took Flicker several seconds to figure out what the doctor was saying and his brain dredged up the fact that he had to pay a five hundred bit fine. Five hundred gold bits. It stung a bit, but it wasn’t the end of the world. Going inside of this place always chilled him. It was a dreadful place, full of misery and pain. It was a charity hospital, for the poorest of the poor, and they treated foals exclusively.
The last time Flicker had been here, it had been on business, and he had killed rats down in the morgue that had been nibbling on corpses—corpses which made him think of his tiny little yearling sister. Corpses that had suffered so much in life, and had indignities heaped upon them in death as the rats had feasted. He stared up at the weeping statue of Princess Celestia, his mouth hanging open, thinking about how the rats couldn’t even respect the dead.
“Mister Nicker, are you okay?” Doctor Sterling’s voice was soft and rather worried. “You look troubled.”
“They desecrated the dead,” Flicker replied, his troubled expression becoming one of anger. He took a few steps forwards, closer to the weeping alicorn statue, and watched as the princess wept. She wept for him, because he had trouble weeping, his sorrow had become rage. Trembling, Flicker felt a soft touch against his uninjured side.
“It’ll be okay, Flicker. Take a deep breath.” Piper’s eyes glimmered with concern and she remained close to her friend. “It’s hard, seeing you like this… I didn’t expect this of you.”
“That was a troubling day for you,” Doctor Sterling said to Flicker. “I’m sorry, but it is a part of our job. You were bound to see it sooner or later. The rats… they get into everything and cause ruination. Stiff upper lip, son.”
“I’ll kill them all.” Spittle flew from Flicker’s lips as he spoke and his whole body shook.
“There are aspects of this job that are very unsettling… and some things, some things you will never quite adjust to.” Doctor Sterling’s expression was one of wise sadness. “Let this be a lesson to the both of you. The rats will respect nothing, hold nothing sacred, and if given a chance, will violate everything you hold dear. We fight a silent never-ending war against the rodent menace… come, Mister Nicker, let us do what needs to be done.”
The Weeping Sister Hospital was a little over nine hundred years old and one of the oldest buildings in Canterlot. It had been named during a time when ponies still remembered Princess Luna, whom ponies believed had died that fateful night when Nightmare Moon had attempted to overthrow the Royal Pony Sisters. Over time, over centuries, Princess Luna’s memory faded and it became a great mystery as to why this place of medicine was called ‘The Weeping Sister Hospital.’
This was a place of hope, a chapel that could renew the fading spirit of equinekind in a body. This was a place where miracle workers resided. The staff that worked in the hospital lived here in exchange for the care that they offered and there was no pay to be had, only room and board. Flicker had heard Doctor Sterling say that this place was a bastion of decency, a fortress where the finest, most selfless souls of ponykind could be found.
Doctor Sterling himself volunteered here when he was needed.
Flicker looked around the lobby, there were a lot of guards here, and Flicker wondered about the reason why. The sound of all the armor jangling made his ringing ears ache just a little. He followed after Doctor Sterling as the doctor wove through the crowd, marvelling at the guards and their majestic bearing. A charcoal black mare with a dark green mane stopped and stared at Flicker with wide eyes.
“We have an admission!” she cried in alarm.
“No, no, he’s fine, I assure you,” Doctor Sterling said to the mare, who was now in a panicked state.
“He doesn’t look fine!” The mare’s lips puckered and she blew her mane out of her eyes so that she could get a better look at Doctor Sterling.
“I was blown up with two sticks of dynamite,” Flicker said, offering up information to be helpful. “I had a big fight with a rabid bear and I blasted him into smithereens. When it was over, I was put back together with body spackle.”
“Mister Nicker, do shut up, you are not being helpful, not at all.” Doctor Sterling gave the mare a sheepish grin after speaking and backed away a few steps.
“He’s just a colt.” The mare got up into Doctor Sterling’s face and she looked more than just a little cross. “Is this your son? How could you let this happen? What sort of father allows his son to be menaced by a bear? And dynamite? Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t get in touch with Twilight Velvet and report this!”
“He also mulched hundreds of rats with heavy farm equipment, I was there,” Piper said, sounding cheerful and upbeat. “Then we gassed a bunch of pests. Later, we blew up a rat burrow and we gassed them too. We went on a spree of murder across the countryside and Mister Nicker set many of our victims on fire after running them through with his sword.”
“So not helping,” the doctor muttered.
“You poor babies! What has this awful fellow done to you?” the mare demanded.
“He turned me into a hired killer,” Flicker replied, never once thinking about what his honesty might do to this situation. “I’m getting a gun soon and later today, I’m going sword shopping, I think.”
“Guards! Guards! Do something! Foal abuse! Foal abuse!”
Flicker heard the sound of much metal clanking, and became aware that the entire lobby was now staring in his direction. Something felt wrong about his situation, and a dull sense of worry crept through his mind. Flicker began to wonder if perhaps he had spoken out of turn. He began to wonder how far he might make it if he ran. Running seemed like a fantastic idea. A great idea. Unless of course, he was given the order to stop, and then things would get confusing. Flicker didn’t like confusing, not at all. Confusing was, well, confusing, and was always difficult to sort out once that state was reached. Try as he might, Flicker could never find the great state of Confusion on a map, but Wicked assured him that it was there and he had to keep looking. Perhaps someday…
“Doctor Sterling!”
Turning, Doctor Sterling saw a familiar face and he let out a sigh of relief. “Doctor Gambol! You have no idea how relieved I am to see you.”
“I see you’ve met Miss Risotto.” Doctor Gambol came closer and smiled. “Miss Risotto, this is Doctor Sterling, from the Rat Catcher’s Guild.” He turned and looked at Doctor Sterling. “This is a big day for us, Prince Gosling and Princess Luna are here, visiting our precious little ones. So, why are you here, Sterling, and why have you set our greeter into such a panic?”
“I came to donate a thousand gold bits,” Doctor Sterling replied, “and I just don’t know what went wrong.”
The donation was painless and made Flicker feel good about himself. Five hundred gold bits was almost two weeks pay and he could afford it. He had many, many bits saved, so he would still be able to send bits home for his sister’s education fund and for his parents to live more comfortably. The transfer would be cleared in three days through his bank. The marvels of living in the modern era. He didn’t even need to carry that many bits around.
The burrito was assaulting his insides like a back-alley thug and he wished that he hadn’t asked for the salsa de asesinato. He could feel it, the bad, bad burrito, moving through the neighborhood of his guts, mugging his kidneys, extorting his liver, and shaking down that bad side of town that existed between his stomach and his bruised, battered tailhole.
It was almost a perfect day. The one thing spoiling both the day and Flicker’s mood was his rat-sense, which wouldn’t stop tingling. Rats were everywhere in his fair city, above, below, all around, and just knowing they were there made Flicker a sour pony. It was difficult to walk the streets and know that his hated enemy was all around him.
At least there were fewer rats here in the posh residential district where they now walked. There were a few rowhouses all tucked together, a few townhouses, with a little bit of space in between them, but not much, and the towers favoured by the wealthy old blood of Canterlot. The towers in particular were well protected, full of magic, dimensional pockets, and protective charms, some of which were laid in place by the Rat Catchers Guild themselves.
The group, lead by Doctor Sterling, stopped in front of an imposing townhouse, tall, square, and topped with a dark blue slate roof. The townhouses along this street weren’t quite old money, but neither were they nouveau rich either. It was a sign of an established family that had been around for a century or two. The good doctor did not go to the front door, but trotted down the walk between his townhouse and his next door neighbor. The apprentices followed as the doctor made his way to the back door, where the kitchen entrance was located.
Lentil Pakora stood in the middle of her kitchen, giving Doctor Sterling the stinkeye. Having one eye intensified the effect, and she was a fearsome, matronly mare with a few extra pounds here and there on her frame. Scowling, she did not look pleased to see the doctor and drew in a deep breath in preparation for what was to come.
“You have not been home for a while,” the old mare said in a cross-sounding voice.
“I’ve been rather busy,” the doctor replied.
“I’ll forgive you if you give me the handsome earth pony colt.”
At these words, Hennessy looked quite alarmed, and for good reason. The doctor’s housekeeper was looking at him with one greedy eye and keen, unwavering interest.
“Madam Pakora, I know you mean well, but in this country, many would see that as being terribly tribalist—”
“I don’t care… how much for the colt? He’s very handsome, sturdy, and has bright eyes. I am old and my back is going out. I need a housecolt and that is all there is too it.” Turning her head, she focused her one eye on Hennessy. “You there, I would feed you well, give you your own room, and give you cookies on request.”
Hennessy’s ears perked up. “Uh… um… hey, Doctor Sterling, I think I’m okay with—”
“No, and the answer is final!” Doctor Sterling’s mustache quivered as he looked at his housekeeper. “This isn’t Windia, Madam Pakora. Look, I understand you have a custom of buying and selling unwanted foals, but you can’t do that here.”
“Selfish, backwards barbarian!” Lentil cried as she conjured a long handled metal spoon into existence. “Have at thee!”
Without warning, the old mare lunged at the doctor with surprising speed. Flicker, who had seen this before, scrambled out of the way as the doctor snatched up a ladle from off of a nearby rack to defend himself. The clang of metal on metal filled the kitchen and Piper dove beneath a wooden chopping block table. Hennessy remained by the back door with a blank stare, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. So much had gone wrong as of late that it was now difficult to keep track of everything.
The ring of metal on metal made the bells in Flicker’s ears go crazy. Lentil’s assault was brazen, skilled, and she had the doctor on the defensive in seconds. She swiped at his legs, forcing him back, and making him block her swings with his ladle. Flicker watched every move, hoping to learn Lentil’s terrific technique. The doctor, wide eyed and wary, picked up a stainless steel pot lid to use as a shield and he went on the offensive.
“For once I would like to come home and not be assaulted upon entry!”
“But then your life would be boring!”
“Indeed, it would… do you think you could fix lunch?” The doctor made a calculated swipe with his ladle as he blocked the incoming spoon with his lid, but Lentil was quick and she almost smacked him on his nose. “You may fawn over them and feed them, but that is the best I can do for you.”
“Accepted.” Madam Pakora withdrew her spoon and stood down. She laughed a bit, then turned to face Flicker. “He’s getting slow. You need to keep him on his hooves, Flicker.”
Flustered, wishing the mock-sword fight had continued, Flicker nodded as something dreadful pummeled his spleen. Not knowing what else to do or say, he fell back on being polite. “That’s Piper under the table, Piper Pie, and the colt you wanted for hauling stuff around town is Hennessy Walker. They’re new and very, very green.”
Piper emerged from beneath the table, looking shaken, and she moved to stand beside Hennessy, who had a wide, sheepish grin. Flicker tried to relax, but failed, as his spleen was being thrashed to within an inch of its life. Doctor Sterling moved around the kitchen, fetching what was needed to make tea as Lentil studied the two foals by the door.
“You have loving parents,” Lentil said to Piper, “but you”—she turned to look at Hennessy and her single eye had a strange, swirling glow to it—“you have parents that do not deserve you. I do not care about what the doctor says or the rules of this strange land full of backwards ponies, I am keeping you. You may continue to do your job, but I demand that you come home on a regular basis so that I might check on you. Your chakras worry me. You have known only guilt and shame, you live with a cloud over your head.”
“I… wait… how do you know this?” Hennessy asked, looking bewildered.
“Never mind how I know this, you are mine now. Madam Pakora has claimed you, urchin. Do not test me or try my patience.” Lentil rushed forwards, moving with surprising speed for her age, and she embraced Hennessy in a hug. “Mine now. I give you my mark.” Without further ado, she pressed her horn to Hennessy’s head, right between his ears, and there was a blinding flash of light. “Mine.”
“I don’t understand what is going on. I feel funny.”
“No more shame, no more guilt. As your keeper, I get to determine what you may posses. I give you all of the world for you to have, but your guilt and shame is forbidden to you. Now go and sit down.”
“Yes ma’am,” Hennessy drawled as he shuffled away sideways towards the table, looking very confused and out of sorts. “I don’t mind being owned if I can get cookies.”
Piper, who followed Hennessy, didn’t take her eyes off of the strange one eyed unicorn mare. She looked bewildered, and she had good reason to be, as there was strange, unknown magic in the air. When Hennessy sat down, she sat down beside him, plopping her plush rump down upon a cushion on the floor.
Flicker, feeling a great deal of intestinal discomfort, also went over to the table and sat down. He wondered what the dynamite blast had done to his insides. His ribs hurt a great deal, and his head throbbed in a most unpleasant way. Just as he started to get comfortable, he felt powerful magic grab him. Blinking, he realised that Lentil was examining the wound on his head, and he could hear her clucking her tongue.
“What happened?” Lentil demanded.
“Oh, only a very amusing story involving a bear,” Doctor Sterling replied as he prepared tea.
A low equine rumble of concern came out of Doctor Sterling’s housekeeper and her eye narrowed as she continued her examination of Flicker. After several long seconds, she pulled her head away and let out an angry snort. Flicker tried to relax a little and get comfortable, but it hurt to sit down.
“I will hear your story about the bear, for I am curious…”
Lunch was a mild glazed carrot and cauliflower curry, eggplant steaks dipped in a lentil flour batter, fried to a delightful golden brown, and served with fragrant saffron rice. Piper was slow to try it, worried that curry meant heat, but was won over with one cautious bite. Hennessy had no such hesitation when he dug in, and neither did Flicker. Doctor Sterling, not a fan of too-spicy food, was thankful that his housekeeper had shown mercy and had spared them all.
Green bean tarts had been served for dessert.
Alas, the delightful meal could not last forever, and the doctor hurried his apprentices through the meal, reminding them that there was much to do. Lentil tried to shush him, but had no success, as Doctor Sterling was very stern and straightforward about getting things done. Even relaxed days had a schedule to follow, and the doctor made that clear. Everything was washed down with pomegranate juice, which caused Hennessy to pucker, and made his ears waggle with every swallow.
Then, with much sadness and dragging of hooves, goodbyes were said; the four companions left their warm, gracious host, the ever so delightful Madam Pakora, having full bellies, lifted spirits, and in the case of Hennessy, a strange, mysterious connection that left him wondering what had just taken place with the enigmatic housekeeper from the subcontinent of Windia.
And so, they departed through the kitchen door…
Moving at a swift trot in a two by two formation, the four companions passed the fortified tower that housed the Royal Academy of Science. Statues of an earth pony, a pegasus pony, and a unicorn pony all stood rearing up together, forming a triangle with one another. In between them was a glowing, crackling orb of magic, the symbol of the fearsome magical might of Equestria and the unified three tribes.
In Canterlot, there was old money, the wealthy noble families that had existed for centuries, and there was old learning, noble families that had dominated the fertile fields of science for centuries. These families, using these fertile fields, had cultivated some strange, and some might even say, weird fruit. It could be argued that old learning had more prestige than old money, and it was a matter of endless debate among equine sociologists found within the Royal Academy of Science for the past two centuries. Science was might, and might made right.
In Equestria, science was its own religion, and its fanatical, overzealous devotees could be found inside of the massive, imposing tower that the companions now passed. Scholars from all over the world came to study here, and it could be said that the tower was a lighthouse, a beacon for scholars to come and find refuge after sailing the high seas of ignorance.
It was also a very dangerous place to enter, as there was always some manner of experiment going on that one might have to defend themselves from, or even worse, spirited debate, the sort of spirited debate that involved dueling, deciding the hard way who was right, and who was wrong. One had to keep their wits about them before entering the front door, or even the back doors, or the doors that randomly appeared throughout the day—those doors could be the worst.
Flicker, still new to Canterlot at the time, had gone through one of those doors, lured by the promise of free cupcakes. The cupcakes had been a lie and nothing but an army of giant preying mantises could be found beyond the door, along with a cadre of cackling scientists armed with clipboards and ink pens of various colours to grade performance.
It had taken hours to hose away the bug guts from the hallways after Flicker, who had armed himself with a wooden mallet, had given a good accounting of himself against the endless swarms of cat-sized preying mantises. The scientific hypothesis that the dim witted and the brave could be lured in with cupcakes to fight armies of giant preying mantises had been proven with rousing success, and there had been much self-back patting that day.
Within the hyper-dimensional hallways of the fabled tower of learning, it was said that anything was possible. Even Death herself could be cheated, as she had no doubt become lost from the misleading signs and lousy directories written by lazy interns who slacked off on the job, but meeting her in the hall was no doubt one of the many hazards that one had to account for when traversing the tower.
As Piper passed by an inviting looking yellow door, she read a cheerful looking sign aloud: “Free cupcakes, available for a short time only.”
“‘Tis a lie,” Flicker muttered, still bitter that he had never received his promised cupcake.
Hennessy, who had stopped in front of a bright red door, stopped to read the sign. “This one says to give over all killers, thieves, bureaucrats, and lawyers… what goes on inside this place?”
Doctor Sterling, who paused to look at the red door, replied, “Clearly, rats aren’t vile enough for some experiments. Come, let us be away from this place, we have much to do.”
“Hey! Hey!” A breathless looking green unicorn wearing a lab coat came running up to the foursome and came to a skidding halt, his eyes were wide and he panted a great deal. “Have you lot seen a giant talking strawberry with big, sharp, pointy teeth? His primary means of locomotion are a cluster of vines growing from his top.”
“No,” Piper replied, “I can’t say that I have.”
“Oh bother.” The unicorn wearing a lab coat looked worried and he let heave a shuddering sigh. “Right. Well then, I suppose I’ll keep looking for a while before I sound the alarm then. No sense causing a panic until there actually is one.”
“Best of luck,” Hennessy offered.
“We really should be away,” Doctor Sterling said in an urgent voice, “come, come with me now, and don’t dawdle!”
The doctor came to a halt between a tavern and a pub. Between them, there was a narrow alleyway, a mob of royal guards wearing armor, and a heavy spiked gate. There was no sign announcing this location, as those who needed to be here already knew where it was. The guards watched Doctor Sterling, and one of them saluted, extending a wing.
“Lord Sterling Shoe, welcome. What business do you have here?”
The doctor cleared his throat and then stood tall, lifting his head high. “I have come with Flicker Nicker to purchase weapons.” Doctor Sterling gestured at Flicker, who stood beside him, and there was a feverish, manic gleam in the colt’s eyes that alarmed the doctor just a little bit.
“And he’s earned the right to bear arms?” The guard focused his hard gaze upon the frock coat wearing colt beside the doctor. “He’s very young.”
“He’s very capable,” was the doctor’s dry reply. “The other two are still untested.”
The guard scowled as he stared at Hennessy and Piper. “The rules here are very strict. Touch anything, anything at all, and things will go bad for you. Looking is fine, but touching will get you locked up for a minimum of thirty days. Am I understood?”
Both Hennessy and Piper nodded.
“You there,” the guard said to Flicker, “come forwards and submit.”
Without hesitation, Flicker, his eyes still filled with a feverish gleam, came forward. He was surrounded on both sides by pegasus pony guards, and a unicorn wearing golden armor surrounded him with magic. Flicker did not panic, as he knew that he had done nothing wrong, and therefore, had nothing to worry about.
“This’ll sting a bit,” the unicorn said to Flicker, as he lifted the colt’s right front hoof. The unicorn produced a rolled up sheet of parchment and a bright steel pin. Squinting with concentration, he unrolled the scroll, put the flattened parchment down upon the ground, stabbed the steel pin into Flicker’s frog, and then pressed the colt’s hoof down upon the parchment as the blood flowed like scarlet ink.
“Say your name, colt,” the unicorn commanded.
“Flicker Nicker.” As the colt spoke, his name burned onto the parchment with indigo flames and he watched as more of his own blood soaked into the fine, ivory paper. It was all so enchanting and he was enraptured, taken with this magical moment that marked his continuing journey into adulthood.
Saying nothing, the unicorn lifted Flicker’s hoof away from the parchment, he rolled it up, and then, with a flash of his horn, the parchment, now a neat-rolled scroll, vanished from view. He focused his hard looking flinty eye on Flicker, and nodded.
“Welcome to Mercenary Alley,” one of the pegasus guards said to Flicker. “You are free to pass this gate at any time on your own. Good luck, Mister Nicker, and may your career be as illustrious as it is prosperous.”
“Thank you,” Flicker replied in a hushed whisper as the gate opened, revealing a truly magical place beyond.
The narrow alley had shops on either side that held every type of weapon imaginable. Flicker stepped out of the way of the gate, he didn’t wish to be rude after all, and then stood there, trying to take it all in. Not far away, there was a diamond dog sharpening a sword on a grinding wheel. A griffon was hawking vicious looking steel darts. A team of minotaurs showed off a display of hammers and axes.
The alley was secured and covered, no pegasus ponies or flying creatures could drop in. Guards were everywhere, watching, waiting for trouble. Everypony, everyone present, all were on their very best behaviour and no one dared to be rude for any reason. Haggling was done in a calm, cool manner.
“If you are rude or disrespectful, the mercenaries here have a right to cuff you. Even worse, they have the right to challenge you to a duel of first blood, so be on your very best behaviour. I don’t want to have to fight any duels on your behalf.” Doctor Sterling looked at his three apprentices. “Mind your manners and for you, Miss Pie and Mister Walker, it would be best if you did not speak until you are spoken to. Being untested, you are here under my good graces. Your poor behaviour will be a source of trouble for me. Do you understand?”
Piper nodded, and so did Hennessy.
“Mister Nicker, you are one of us now, congratulations.” Doctor Sterling smiled and gave Flicker a fond look. “You’ve worked very hard to get to this point. There are many older apprentices that still have not earned this right. Wicked and I both are very, very proud of you.”
Flicker, who did not expect such praise, stood there, silent, solemn, and after a moment, he nodded, but said nothing. He just stood there, wide eyed, his swollen ears drooping a bit, and his breathing became a little heavier, but not by much. For a brief second, it almost appeared as though the colt might smile, but that moment vanished in an eyeblink.
“Come, Mister Nicker, let’s go sword shopping. I know a place…”
The shop was very, very narrow, as space was at a premium, and it was maybe three yards deep at the very most. At the far end of the shop, there was a counter, and behind the counter, there was a grizzled old diamond dog wearing spotless bifocals. His apron was clean, white, and his bright red jerkin showed no signs of lint.
“Lord Sterling Shoe,” the diamond dog said in a muted, dry, Grittish accent, “how do you do?”
“Mister Blackmoor.” Doctor Sterling bowed his head. “I have brought you a first time customer, my apprentice, Mister Nicker. Do with him as you will.”
The diamond dog, upon hearing these words, looked very solemn. “Well, you only get one chance to earn a lifetime customer, as I always say. Hello, young Mister Nicker, and welcome to my shop. Do you know what you want?”
“I need two swords,” Flicker replied, thinking about his encounter with the bear. He heard a gasp from Doctor Sterling and the diamond dog, Mister Blackmoor. Feeling a little nervous, he licked his lips so that he might continue, “They can’t be too long, as I do much of my work in the sewer. They need to be suitable for stabbing, as that works well against rats, but I want something with sturdy blades for scissoring, just in case I run into a rabid bear ever again.”
Saying the word ‘scissoring,’ Flicker thought of what he knew, how metal and friction pulled flesh in two different directions, ripping and tearing, creating life threatening trauma. Lost in his own thoughts, he was unaware that Mister Blackmoor was now peering at him through his bifocals.
“I don’t want double sided blades, I want something sturdy that I don’t need to worry about breaking. They need to be light, but not too light, as I need some weight to keep up deadly momentum when I do flurry attacks. Also, something with a high intimidation factor might be nice.”
“Well…” The greying diamond dog adjusted his glasses with his paw. “I think I have something that might interest you… unicorn swords, made by unicorns, for unicorns… they’re kind of unusual, but I think they might be just what you need. Let me go into my vault and get them for you. Just one second.”
And then, Mister Blackmoor vanished through a tall, narrow door behind the counter.
“You’ll have to pull these out to have a look, I have no desire to cut my fingers off.” Mister Blackmoor set down two leather sheaths upon the counter. There were no visible grips, no pommels, no crossguard, just some brass snaps holding one end of the sheaths closed. “These are unique and none too popular, but the smith that produces these keeps making them, insisting that they’ll catch on eventually.”
Almost breathless, emotional, Flicker popped the brass snaps and opened the end of one of the leather sheaths. He saw the glint of fine steel, and an angular chisel-point, made for penetration through almost anything. With his telekinesis, he pulled the blade out and held it up for close examination.
It was curved somewhat, but not too much. Just enough for good edge-friction during a swipe or slash. The back of the blade was thick, and the edge was keen. Both ends had chisel-points, for stabbing and penetration. Said chisel-points could also be used for slashing, and Flicker knew that these would punch right through bear hide and bear fat with relative ease. Steel plate wouldn’t be much of a problem either, he reckoned.
The blade was about twenty four inches long, so it had some length, but it wouldn’t be ungainly in tight quarters. He held it up to his eye and peered down the length of the edge. It was straight and true, beautiful, and the young colt felt the first blushing heat of infatuation. The blade could be held anywhere, at either end, or even in the middle. With his telekinesis, he didn’t have to worry about things like sharp edges, and this sword was all edge.
Holding out his foreleg, he shaved off a patch of hair and let out a low whistle.
“There are also two smaller daggers tucked into semi-concealed flaps in the sheaths, miniature versions of the blade you hold. I think you’ll find them useful in your profession. I know that Doctor Sterling keeps a baselard stowed away upon himself for emergencies.”
Flicker nodded and got down to the dirty business of buying. “How much?”
The diamond dog looked thoughtful in reply, and his eyes narrowed. “I’d need at least five thousand gold bits to make a fair profit—”
Flicker let out a disappointed groan.
“—but, this is your first purchase from me and I want you to come back. I will let them go, the two swords, the two matching daggers, and the custom made sheaths… all of it for three thousand gold bits.”
“Flicker,” Doctor Sterling whispered in a low, tremulous voice, “he’s selling them to you practically at cost. If you wish to cultivate a professional relationship that will benefit you for the entirety of your life, I would suggest that you accept and make this purchase.”
The colt realised that he was being given an opportunity, that a door had been opened for him, that he was being given the chance to be outfitted like the wealthy and the privileged. His mouth was dry and there was a rushing down in his ears. The burrito from earlier was still behaving in a monstrous manner in his hindgut, and being a pony, he was a hindgut fermenter.
“I would be honoured to accept your offering, Mister Blackmoor. Thank you, for giving me a chance at such a deal, and with these blades I will be the envy of my peers. Thank you.” Flicker bowed his head, and he saw a glimmer of emotion in the old dog’s eyes.
“One day, son, you’re going to bring your own apprentices here, and they will buy blades too… if not from me, then from my own son or my daughter. When Doctor Sterling was but a wee apprentice himself, his master brought him here to me, and he purchased his first real weapon from me… that baselard I mentioned.” The old diamond dog looked wistful, and a bit sad. “Doctor Sickle was a fine pony. I miss him terribly.”
“As do I,” Doctor Sterling said to Mister Blackmoor in an almost inaudible whisper.
“If I might inquire, what happened?” Flicker asked.
“Rabies.” Mister Blackmoor looked pained from saying the word. “Being a good doctor, Sickle wrote down his every symptom, every ache, every pain, and when his mind started to go, he kept writing for as long as possible, so that others might learn from his passing. He provided a tremendous amount of learning to the medical community and his painful sacrifice brought much understanding.”
“I’m sorry, Doctor Sterling.” Flicker looked up at his mentor.
“We’ll have a reliable cure someday.” The doctor cleared his his throat and when Piper brushed up against his side, he gave her a warm, grateful half-smile.
“I’ll need your account information, son. In three days, once the transaction clears, I’ll have the blades delivered to you.” Mister Blackmoor gave the colt a nod. “I look forward to a long and prosperous relationship between the two of us. I thank you for your patronage.”
“And I thank you for the fine deal that you have given me,” Flicker replied. “I’m ready to give you my account information…”
After emerging from Mercenary Alley, Flicker felt different. He had grown up in some way, he had endured some fundamental change, but he couldn’t quite figure out how or why. He suspected that his mother and father would be proud of him, as he was investing in his future, his career, himself. His mind wandered back to the day that his mother had brought him to Canterlot by train. Such a scared colt he had been, so full of uncertainty, so timid… so weak.
But then he had found his true face, and his true face had set him free.
Distracted, he fell into line beside Doctor Sterling, with Piper and Hennessy walking side by side behind him and the doctor. Piper had pulled a book out and was reading, while Hennessy was doing a bit of sightseeing. The doctor seemed pleased and walked with a noticeable smile.
Pulling out his wand, Flicker decided it was time for a bit of practice. He concentrated, allowing a charge to build, and when he felt that he had a sufficient charge, he shouted, “Luceat lux vestra!” Much to his surprise, he had success on his first attempt, and a tiny glowing orb orbited around his horn, glowing with a warm, yellow light.
“Nice work,” Doctor Sterling said as they walked.
Taken with the doctor’s praise, Flicker tried another spell that he had never been able to cast on his own, a practical spell for any unicorn. He allowed a charge to build and thought about the spell inside of his head. This spell was more mental than anything, and could be performed without words, but Flicker was going to try it with words, just to see what would happen.
Whispering, he said, “Quiete pedes.” This spell was all about quiet, so whispering felt appropriate somehow. Ears perking, he realised that his hooves no longer made a sound as he walked. Fizzling, the glowing orb circling around his horn died in a shower of sparks. That was fine, he could summon another. He felt alive with the heady rush of knowing that he was using magic, spells that had previously been out of reach for him.
Magic was all about confidence and self assurance, and right now, Flicker had a surplus of both. Now that he had successfully cast a few spells, he swelled with confidence and his spirit soared. This magic thing wasn’t so hard and he felt that he could get the hang of it. With this wand, he could be a wizard, sort of. There was no shame in using a wand, after all, Wicked had a wooden leg. It was just a prosthetic, something to aid him.
Flicker paused and thought about Wicked’s wooden leg. It too, was wood, and had a brass cap at the end. Wicked was a scary good wizard… the wheels inside of Flicker’s head began to turn and he wondered… was Wicked’s leg a wand? It might explain a few things. It might explain a lot of things. If this was true, Wicked had a secret.
“RATS!”
Ears perking, Flicker’s whole body jerked at the shouted word, and then he heard it again. “RATS! RATS EVERYWHERE!”
Rats were everywhere, and he didn’t have a sword. This was very, very bad. Flicker, his rat-sense tingling, began to look around, his eyes narrowing, and he spotted his most hated foe—rats. A brazen mess of them right out in the open, spilling out of a pile of grain sacks loaded into the back of a wagon.
“Miss Pie, your rat pipe! Play it, play it now! We need to lure them away so that we might dispose of them safely and away from the public!” Doctor Sterling’s voice was one of seasoned command and he snapped Piper from her moment of alarmed panic. “Mister Nicker, no fire!”
Scowling, Flicker held back, but remained ready. His eyes fell upon a true monster of a rat, a grizzled creature at over a yard long. It stood up, its beady eyes blazing as Piper’s piping started and the rats around it began to sway. Spellbound by Piper’s music, the smaller rats began to shuffle along, obeying Piper’s will, but the big rat resisted.
With a snarl and a hiss, it took off, shrugging off Piper’s influence with ease.
“Mister Nicker! Run him down, if you please!” Doctor Sterling commanded.
Only too happy to obey, Flicker took off down the street after the monster rat, with murder blazing in his eyes. If only he had a weapon to subdue the horrific mutant rodent. Had Flicker been in control of his senses, he might have used his wand, but he had already slipped it away into his pocket.
The rat was just out of his magical reach. Flicker tried several times to grab it in his telekinesis, but his magic had a limited range—beyond a certain point, his telekinetic grip was nonexistent. This rat was fast, too fast, and with these mutations, they kept getting faster and smarter. This one had to be moving at a good twenty five to thirty miles per hour down the street.
Flicker, under optimal conditions, could match the rat for speed, but with his ripped open, body spackled side and his current state of being, he was slowed a bit. As such, the rat was getting away, and it infuriated Flicker, whose body flooded with adrenaline. The rat scurried up a six foot garden wall with ease, and disappeared over the top.
Under normal circumstances, Flicker could make such a leap, but he was not in peak condition. As he jumped, his front fetlocks smashed into the top edge of the wall instead of clearing it. The rough bricks sliced him open, drawing blood, and peeling away skin. He somehow managed to clear the wall and had a rough landing on the other side.
The rat was getting away, looking for a hidey-hole that it could slip inside.
Spitting with rage, Flicker forced his body to perform, pushing himself to the very limits of what he was capable of in his current state, with two battered front fetlocks and body recently exposed to the forces of a powerful explosion. His hooves clattered over cobblestones and he tore through the park after his prey in relentless pursuit, a tireless rat assassin.
“Rat!” a maintenance worker wearing an orange vest shouted as he danced around.
It was then that Flicker saw it—right there in the back of the parks and recreation maintenance wagon. The chainsaw… he lifted it in his telekinesis and as he passed, he grabbed up some safety goggles… as one had to follow proper safety procedure. There had to be order or everything would be chaos. He put the goggles on, as one had to follow the rules of safety.
With a few yanks of the pull-start cord, the chainsaw came roaring to life, buzzing, and smoking. Flicker held it overhead and ran after the rat, determined to catch it, and then he was going to give it a little chainsaw loving. Ponies in the park screamed and ran for their lives, and Flicker pitied them, they lived in such fear of such a wretched, hateful little creature—the rat.
The crowd was worthless and weak.
Flicker had no idea that the crowd was running from him.
Flicker endured another rough landing as he lept over the wall. He had kicked away from the top of the wall with his hind hooves, and he had flown, just as he had been trained to do. Flying through the air, one could catch up to a running rat, one could gain ground, and Flicker was doing just that. If he could just get close enough, he could get a good grip on the rat with his telekinesis, and this would all be over.
“Die!” Flicker bellowed in the most fearsome pubescent voice he could muster. “DIE!” He revved the chainsaw for punctuation and kept running, ignoring his pain, and unaware of the growing crimson stain on the side of his coat, where his side had once more torn open. He was oblivious, he was a pony with built in blinders. All he could see was the rat, and the rat had to die.
He ran down the cobblestone street, the crowd fleeing, and the rat ran down the center of the lane, no doubt looking for a drain to slip into. The drains on this street had iron grates over them, good luck for Flicker, bad luck for the rat. Flicker ran down the narrow street, his frock coat now bloodied, missing most of his tail, his back half was bald, and he looked very much like a pony that just escaped from the sanitarium.
The rat scurried up another wall, and Flicker made himself ready for another leap.
Landing, Flicker interrupted a garden party. He heard the cry of, “Tally-ho! Rat!” and Flicker realised that he knew that voice, that was Fancy Pants, a very kind and genteel individual. He liked Fancy Pants, and considered it a privilege to do work for the good-hearted noble. He had cleared rats from Mister Pants’ polo clubhouse.
“Une tronçonneuse!”
And that would be Fleur Dis Lee. He had no idea what she had just shouted, but it must have had something to do with the rat, as now the guests were all fleeing, screaming, and stampeding away. Flicker demanded more from his body, and his hooves tore divots in the fine lawn. The rat was almost close enough now, if only he could gain just a little bit more ground on his prey.
The chase needed to end, and quick. Flicker saw where the rat was heading. In the rear corner of the wall, there was a low patch of land with a drain pipe, to keep the walled in yard from filling with water and flooding. Reaching out with as much will has he could muster, Flicker discovered that he could grip the rat’s tail.
Had he pulled out his wand, he would have been able to crush the rat with his telekinesis.
Flexing his mental muscles, he grabbed the rat by the tail and squeezed as hard as he could to get a good grip on the fleeing mutant rodent. The rat was yanked backwards with a squeak, and Flicker crowed in triumph as he revved his chainsaw in anticipation. It was time to make ratburgers again. But something went wrong with his vicious yank, and the rat let out an agonised squeal as its long, scaly tail was torn off from its patchy, balding, diseased backside.
Left holding a bloody, squirming tail, Flicker watched as the rat slipped into the narrow iron pipe, escaping, and fleeing from reach. Trembling with rage, Flicker stood there, still holding the rat’s tail, spitting out incomprehensible curses by the score. He killed the chainsaw motor and lowered his weapon as Fancy Pants approached.
“Good show, my boy, good show. The rat got away, but that’s okay. There’s always tomorrow and there are plenty of other rats to be caught. My goodness, my boy, are you bleeding?” Fancy Pants’ voice became worried. With a look of concern, Fancy Pants sent up an emergency flare to call for help as the crimson stain on Flicker’s side grew ever larger. “Good heavens, my boy!”
Snarling, Flicker stuffed the bloodied rat tail into a pocket in his coat so it could be disposed of later. As his adrenaline coursed through his veins, he could hardly feel anything at all. Sucking in a deep breath, he turned to look at Fancy Pants, and tried to calm himself. After a few more deep breaths, Flicker felt some of his senses returning, and with them, pain. Intense pain, right in his side, and it wasn’t a stitch from running, either.
“Mister Pants, you’ll need to excuse me… but I’m feeling a little lightheaded…”
Flicker tried very hard to make sense of what was taking place. He remembered pressure on his face, a suffocating darkness, a sweet smell, and then… nothing. There was a vague memory of blood, lots of blood, and anger, so much anger. Help had come, hadn’t it? The world had become such a confusing jumble of slowed time and dulled senses. And now, he was at home, in his own bed, back inside of his family’s farmhouse in Ponyville.
His body felt very light as he got out of bed, almost as if he would float away. The wooden floorboards beneath his hooves were cool to the touch, almost pleasant, and Flicker wobbled as he got out of bed. He was home, and he was glad, because he had missed his sister, and his family. With as much quiet as he could muster, he crept for the door, not knowing what time it was, or why he was home.
His bedroom door opened into the farmhouse kitchen, and he peered around, wondering what his mother had done to the place. It seemed off somehow, as if something was amiss, but Flicker couldn’t quite put his hoof on what it was. The zebra sipping tea at the round kitchen table might have something to do with it though. She looked old, a little wrinkled, and her mane was all, what was the word again? He struggled to recall the right term—dreadlocks? Yes, her mane was all ropey dreadlocks that reached down to the floor and then some.
Very much to his alarm, the dreadlocks began writhing and wriggling like snakes, coming right for him, and in seconds, Flicker found himself grabbed by a swarm of nightmarish zebra dreadlocks. He was lifted, hauled around, and pulled right in front of the old zebra mare’s face. She was terrifying, and looking into her eyes felt a lot like dying. Yet, she had a pleasant smile, full of life.
Hᴇʟʟᴏ Fʟɪᴄᴋᴇʀ… ʙᴇᴇɴ ʙᴜsʏ ᴍᴜᴄʜ?
The sound of her voice made his ears feel strange, as if they might leap off his head at any second and flutter away like birds. Still held in her dreadlocks, which had coiled and curled around his various extremities, Flicker asked what he felt was a very relevant question for his situation.
“Who are you and what are you doing in my mother’s kitchen?”
The old zebra mare chuckled, reached out her hoof, and booped Flicker on the nose. For a second, he felt his heart stop at her touch, but then when his heart started beating again, he felt so very much alive. Her eyes were an impossible colour to describe, it was the colour of a million years of soul crushing sorrow, and one year of intense joy. The closest that Flicker could come was the mess of colour when his sister glooped all of her watercolour paints together in one spot. He had never quite understood art.
I ᴀᴍ Dᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜɪs ɪs ɴᴏᴛ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴍᴏᴛʜᴇʀ’s ᴋɪᴛᴄʜᴇɴ.
Flicker’s ears bobbed; there was a strange, sibilant hiss to the sound of her spoken ‘eses.’ A natural skeptic, Flicker resisted this new information, that this zebra mare was somehow Death. He accepted that this might be a dream, as the evidence suggested that it might be. Being held in zebra dreadlock tentacles was pretty convincing for a dream-like environment.
“Who are you really? I don’t think I’m dead, so why would Death come to visit me?” Reaching for cold, unfeeling logic, his best and most practical ally, Flicker added, “I think you’re the burrito, come to haunt me. All those beans, Doctor Sterling is always warning me about what I eat.”
I ᴀᴍ ᴀ ʙᴇᴀɴ ᴏғ ᴀɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ᴛʏᴘᴇ. Iɴ ᴍʏ ɴᴀᴛɪᴠᴇ ᴛᴏɴɢᴜᴇ, I ᴀᴍ Lɪᴍᴀ Mᴀʜᴀʀᴀɢᴇ. Iɴ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴛᴏɴɢᴜᴇ, I ᴀᴍ ᴄᴀʟʟᴇᴅ Lɪᴍᴀ Bᴇᴀɴ. Aɴᴅ ʏᴇs, I ᴀᴍ Dᴇᴀᴛʜ.
Confused, Flicker shook his head. “Why would Death be known as Lima Bean?”
Nᴏᴘᴏɴʏ ʟɪᴋᴇs Lɪᴍᴀ Bᴇᴀɴs.
Well, that was a stunningly logical reply and Flicker had trouble countering that. The zebra mare’s dreadlocks were cradling him now, holding him like a foal before her, and he felt a bit naked and vulnerable, though he could not say why. This was a dream, and the zebra was probably Princess Luna, or one of her devoted minions come to test him, so it was best to just go along with it.
“So, uh, Miss Lima Bean, what brings you here to me?” Flicker asked, not knowing the proper way to address the equinification of death. Or in this case, the zebrafication? This was difficult, and complicated. Flicker had no idea of what Doctor Sterling might do in this situation. He felt that he was a little bit closer to locating the great state of confusion on a map.
I ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴀ ʀᴀᴛ ᴘʀᴏʙʟᴇᴍ.
“A rat problem?” Flicker had never contracted with a supernatural entity before, and he was intrigued. That was, of course, assuming that this was real.
I ᴅɪᴅɴ’ᴛ sᴛᴜᴛᴛᴇʀ.
Death had the ultimate deadpan, Flicker discovered. He relaxed a little as some of her dreadlocks were now stroking his back and his neck. It was soothing, and felt rather good, but also made him feel sleepy. “Well, you’re in luck, because I’m in the rat exterminating business.”
I ᴋɴᴏᴡ.
This was starting to feel awkward and Flicker felt a keen sensation that he wasn’t smart enough to deal with this properly. “Well, what can I do to help you?”
“So, there are a bunch of rats that I guess should be dead, and aren’t, and I guess I am supposed to act as some sort of repossession agent? Look, I’m just trying to understand what is going on. You need to be clear with me and just come right out and say things. I don’t deal well with metaphor or cryptical riddles.”
“Well, I was going to kill rats anyway, so this is no big hassle. Just don’t ask me to do anything bad to my fellow ponies and everything will be copacetic.” Flicker couldn’t see the harm in agreeing, if this was a dream, no harm would come. If this was real somehow, he saw only gain. So, what did he have to lose?
“Piper was bit?” Flicker felt an almost painful sense of worry and he knew what had happened. Sometimes, when using magic to control the rats, they went beserk and swarmed. Flicker had seen it a few times with candles. Swarming was bad, and the phenomenon remained unexplained as to why it happened.
Sʜᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ʀᴇᴄᴏᴠᴇʀ.
Flicker felt relieved, but also a little confused, as he still wasn’t sure what he was dealing with. This was something beyond the scope of his understanding, but he did understand what was at stake. He didn’t want life to end, his sister’s life most of all. Or Piper’s, for that matter, as he was already attached to her and held fond feelings for her.
“Okay.” Much to Flicker’s alarm, he saw the old zebra mare leaning in, and her wrinkled lips were puckered. Uh oh, he didn’t like where this was going. Muscles tensing, he cringed, and thought about his intense dislike of lima beans for some reason. When her lips touched his nose, there was a burning sensation like no other and Flicker squirmed from the pain. The kiss was like being touched by a branding iron, somehow made worse by the fact that he had just been smooched by wrinkly, sagging old-pony lips. Ick.
The hospital bed was somewhat uncomfortable and Flicker was both far too cold and far too warm at the same time. His limbs were freezing, but his barrel felt as though it was on fire. There was a throbbing ache in his ribs and the sounds of bandages crinkling made his ears twitch. Much to his surprise, Hennessy was beside his bed.
“You had a muscle in your side, it was damaged, and when you ran, it tore completely.” Hennessy leaned in a little closer. “They just did some surgery to put things right. You okay, Flicker?”
“I’m fine.” Flicker marvelled at how scratchy his voice was.
“There was a swarm, Flicker, and it was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen… the rats went all mad all of a sudden and they started attacking everypony after you ran off. Piper got chewed up pretty good. She’s in the room right next door. Doctor Sterling saved everypony and right now, he’s looking after Piper.”
The door opened and a pale yellow unicorn mare entered. Flicker could see the worry upon her face as she approached his bedside. After a second, she moved away, and he could hear the sound of water and ice sloshing together. Water sounded wonderful, as he was really thirsty.
“I hit the call nurse button when I saw your eyelids a fluttering,” Hennessy said in a soft voice.
“Care for some water, Flicker?” the nurse asked. “My name is Pastel Peony. If there is anything you want, just ask.”
The nurse loomed large in his vision as she returned to his bedside and Flicker felt the end of a straw press up against his lips. After fumbling around a few times, he got his lips around the straw and started drinking. The ice water felt good to the parched flesh of his throat. As he lay there, flat on his back and drinking, the door to his room banged open.
“Aye, Lad, yer awake. I thought I was gonna ‘ave me a stroke from worry!”
“Keep your voice down, Mister Chandler,” Pastel said, making a gentle demand of the blustery pony that had just come bursting in.
“Bloody shut it! I’m worried about one of my own!” Mister Chandler made his way to Flicker’s bedside and stood there, looking down, while Flicker looked up. “Aye, yer a sorry sight, Lad.” His voice now lowered, Wicked blinked a few times while his worried expression intensified. “I’m gonna send ye ‘ome, Lad, as soon as yer fit to travel. I’ve already sent a telegram to your mother and yer father. Piper and ‘Ennessy will be going with you. You’ve earned a bit of downtime, Lad. Ye need to be well if yer gonna be able to do this job.”
The straw fell away from Flicker’s lips. “Will Piper be okay?”
“Aye, Lad, she’ll be fine. She got chewed on a bit, but it’s not too bad. Not as bad as I am, any’ow.” Wicked shuffled around on his hooves and his brass capped wooden leg clicked against the tile floor. “Yer mother is a right good mare for agreeing to look after ye lot. I’m going to pay her for her 'ospice work.”
With a sigh, Flicker thought of his mother, Twister Tracker, and his father, Buckeye Conker, or as they called one another, Twisty and Conk. It would be nice to see them again, and he had thought about going home. The thought was soothing for some reason, and he missed Knick-Knack.
“I want to go home,” Flicker said in a dry, scratchy voice. “When can I leave?”
“As soon as your doctor clears you,” the nurse replied, “but for right now, you need to stay for observation. You had a troubling reaction to the anesthetic, your heart stopped for quite some time. You seem to be okay now, but all of us were very worried.”
In the wee hours of morning, the darkest hours just before the dawn, a skywagon bearing precious cargo took off from the roof of the guildhall tower. It’s three passengers were pulled along by a swift pegasus wearing night vision goggles. In silence, the skywagon gained altitude to fly over the city of Canterlot, and then began the long descent down to Ponyville, circling down in slow, almost lazy spirals.
The air was cold, chilly even, the nip in the air was a suggestion that winter was refusing to let go, like a jealous lover with a frigid heart that needed the warmth and life of spring. The scent of smoke rose like perfume, the scent of lovers in passing, in no time at all spring would begin the grand affair with the coming summer, and the sweet perfume of smoke would be forgotten, replaced with the heady aroma of glorious summer wildflowers.
Such was the way of the seasons.
The skywagon veered away from Ponyville central, and headed in the direction of the White Tail Woods. Below, most of the city of Ponyville was still asleep, and Twilight’s castle was a great, glittering jewel that was a beacon of light in the night. The lights were on in Sugarcube Corner as they began to prepare for another long day. Pegasus ponies gathered near the newspaper distribution office, making ready to do their rounds
Near a farm on the far side of the river, the skywagon began its final descent.
The farm looked a little different and it took Flicker, groggy on morphine, a bit of effort to figure out why. The thatched roof of the farmhouse was gone, just as he had suggested, and it had been replaced with tin. It was hard to see in the faint light available, but it appeared to be green tin. He didn’t have much time to think about it though, as Piper was limping on all four legs, which were wrapped in bandages.
Heavy stones had been piled all around the foundation of the house, forming a protective barrier against vermin. Much to Flicker’s relief, his rat-sense told him that nothing was here, but he could feel his hated foes in the distance. He did his best to ignore it and focused on the fact that he was home.
Home was an odd circular building, a section cut from an old wooden grain silo, brought here, and repurposed. A few extensions had been added, and there was an aerie for his mother atop a squat tower that had once been the bell tower on the old schoolhouse. His parents, poor, were practical sorts, that used almost anything for construction.
“I’m home,” Flicker said, more to himself than to his companions.
“This place is amazing.” Hennessy’s mouth fell open as he looked around and took everything in.
“Just a farm, and not a very fancy one.” As Flicker spoke, he held Piper upright with his magic.
“I grew up in a rotting shack with a dirt floor, so shut your darn fool mouth.” Hennessy’s ears perked at the sound of a door opening, and he turned to see what it was.
Moths circled around the porch lights and Flicker could see a heavyset earth pony coming out to greet them. He felt a powerful rush of emotion and it was a struggle to keep his eyes from betraying him. The chestnut brown stallion looked worried, fearful even, and even at a distance, Flicker could see the glimmer in his father’s eyes, the suggestion of tears. Flicker remembered that his father had once suffered a compound fracture on his leg and there hadn’t been so much as a single sniffle.
“Father…”
“Son… I was expecting you… I was just getting up to start work and heard ya’ll landing.”
“Father, this is Hennessy Walker and Piper Pie, my fellow apprentices. I think we need to get Piper off of her legs. Hennessy, Piper, this is my father, Buckeye Conker.”
“Right, of course.” The chestnut brown stallion pointed at the door. “Call me Conk. Go on inside, and do keep it down. Knacky is still asleep, for now, and if you wake her up, she’ll be all over you like flies on stink. Twisty is still sorting herself out, she had a hard night after she got the news, and couldn’t sleep.”
“Whatcha grow here, Conk?” Hennessy asked with a great deal of warm, sincere interest.
“Hemp.” Conk’s mouth pressed into a straight line as Flicker shambled forwards, pulling Piper along with him with his magic. “The fibre is used to make rope and fabric, the seeds are used to make flour, and we get oil from ‘em too. Gave up on growing potatoes after the bottom dropped out of the market last fall, due to that Mariner fart sniffer. Princess Twilight made me a fine deal with a guaranteed price, so if she wants hemp, I’ll grow her some hemp.”
“Hemp is used to make duck cloth and canvas, both of which are needed for the war effort.” Piper’s legs wobbled and she would have went down in a heap if Flicker wasn’t holding her up. “The oil is used to make soap, and soap is always needed.”
“Yep.” Conk nodded, grunted, and flicked his tail as he let go a trumpeting blast of flatulence that shattered the early morning stillness. “Smart filly.”
With a great deal of effort, Flicker made his way up the porch steps, feeling a dreadful pain in his side. He had to take it slow and steady. When he started to lose his balance, Hennessy nudged him and kept him upright. Conk stepped aside and held the door open for the trio.
It felt good to be home.
The scent of coffee and buckwheat pancakes was like a hard slap in the face for Flicker, for those were the smells of home. He eased Piper down onto a threadbare sofa and then stood there, looking around. This place was a lot nicer than he remembered, there were a lot of new things, nice things, and the walls had what appeared to be a fresh coat of paint. The old stone and clay fireplace had been replaced with a beautiful wrought iron wood burning stove.
In the doorway stood his mother, who was teary eyed, and looking hesitant. It was clear that she wanted to tackle him, but knew better. Flicker stared at her and realised that he was now larger than she was, but not by much. In the back of his mind, he remembered the days when he was smaller, small, helpless, and weak, and he had taken refuge beneath one of her wings on many occasions. Beneath those wings was a safe place, a warm place, and there was nothing quite so comforting as a fierce mother pegasus.
“Flicker… I’ve been so worried.”
“I’m sorry, Mother.” Flicker bowed his head a bit, it felt wrong to look down upon his mother. “Mother, this is Piper and Hennessy.” He paused and looked at his companions, Piper, who was on the sofa, and Hennessy, who was looking at pictures in wooden frames. “This is my mother, Twisty.”
“All of you look like soldiers coming home from the front.” There was a dreadful catch in Twisty’s throat and her wings hitched against her sides as her breathing quickened.
“There’s a war right here at home too,” Flicker replied, keeping his voice down, “things are getting bad in my business.”
“I’m sure they are.” Almost stumbling, Twisty came forward, out of the doorway, she wrapped her wings around her son’s neck, and leaned into a gentle embrace with the colt that she herself had birthed. “Almost every day I think about that day I took you to Canterlot and I keep wondering if I made the right choice. I can’t bear to see you like this.”
“We all make our sacrifices,” Flicker whispered as his mother hugged him. “A life of service is never wrong, Mother. I’m glad you took me to Canterlot. I am becoming what I am meant to be.”
“My son is going to be a soldier and I’m very proud.” Sniffling, Twisty tore herself away from her son and retreated into the kitchen, backing herself through the door as tears streamed down her cheeks. “At work, we talk about what our sons and daughters are doing for Equestria, about the sacrifices we’ve made, and just about everypony has a son or a daughter that is off doing something dangerous… and I always feel so proud to talk about you… and my friends, they know… they know… and they’re all proud of you too. You’re in Canterlot, becoming a soldier and a gentlepony, and you’re not going to be poor. It’s what all of us want for our foals.”
Stricken by his mother’s words, Flicker was at a loss for how to respond. He stood there, his side aching, having only a small amount of understanding of his mother’s hopes and dreams, her fears and doubts, and the strange dualism that she had, wanting a better life for him, but dreading the cost of said life. Truth be told, he hadn’t given much thought to how his work in Canterlot affected his mother back at home.
“The money you send home, we’ve used it to fix up the house and rat-proof it just as you said to do. We’ve been able to buy new furniture and Knacky has a brand new bed. We got a real mattress, and not a straw one, just like you said. We don’t want fleas or vermin infesting the house. You send home so much money that your father and I don’t know what to do with all of it.”
Still silent, Flicker couldn’t think of anything to say. He glanced at Piper, who was pulling the heavy saddlebags off of Hennessy with her magic. Sniffing, his mouth watered a bit, and he was hungry. The picture frames were new, fancy wooden frames, with glass and brass. There was a new sofa that was the same make and model as the old, threadbare sofa. The living room now had more shelves, some of them fancy. A fancy wooden clock with lots of brass was mounted on the wall. There were rugs on the floor that he didn’t remember being there.
The money he sent home made a difference.
“Come and eat,” Twisty said from the kitchen.
Hennessy didn’t need to be told twice and he took off for the door, leaving Flicker to help Piper. He pulled her up and his ears twitched when she whimpered. The poor filly needed to harden up, life could be cruel and harsh. Still, he felt some small amount of sympathy for her. He held her upright as she swayed and pulled her into the kitchen so they could have breakfast.
The buckwheat pancakes were just as he remembered them, and served with applesauce instead of syrup. Applesauce was cheaper than maple syrup by a good bit. Flicker realised that something had changed, that some fundamental aspect of their relationship had been forever altered.
His mother was serving him coffee.
Coffee was for grownups, for ponies who worked hard, for ponies that broke their back to have the privilege. Coffee was an expensive luxury, one that his father treasured and held dear. It was a sign that one was doing something right, as one could afford the luxury that was coffee. Yet, here she was, pouring him some coffee in a rather new looking coffee cup. As with everything else, Flicker didn’t know what to say about the issue, but took it as a sign that things would never be the same. As he sat there, stupefied, his mother served Piper and Hennessy coffee as well.
Shivering, Flicker wished that he had the green frock coat, but it was gone, soaked in blood and cut away from his body upon his hospital admission. Later, perhaps, he might go into town and purchase himself another coat. Ponyville had a couple of shops that sold clothing, and he knew of at least one place where he might find the quality that he would find in Canterlot.
Lost in his thoughts, thinking about coffee, Flicker was unaware that he was staring at Hennessy, and watching him eat. The reddish-golden-brown pelt that Hennessy had was almost hypnotic, it was a fine thing, a beautiful thing that caught his eye, while his mind wandered.
“Thank you for having us here, Twisty,” Piper said as she added sugar to her coffee.
“Oh, don’t mention it, I’m just glad to have my son home… and the two of you as well. I’m proud to do my part, however minor it might be. We all have to do our parts these days.” Twisty sat down and looked at her son, who was staring at Hennessy, and then she returned her gaze to Piper. “I would imagine that your mother is having fits, dear.”
“Oh, no doubt,” Piper replied, shaking her head as she lifted up her coffee cup, “my mother would be beside herself right now if she was here, treating me as if I was some helpless foal and ‘barrassing me. She wanted to send me off to some boarding school that was safe, but she couldn’t afford it. I wasn’t exactly prepared for scholastic aptitude being raised in a bakery, so I had trouble getting scholarships. My mother and father did their best, they did, really, but they wanted me to be a baker. They’re both earth ponies and they don’t understand how important magic is to me.”
“Flicker never had much in the way of magic,” Twisty said as she looked at her son again, who was still staring. She returned her attention to Piper and smiled. “After some testing, it was shown that he didn’t have a whole lot of magical potential, but he did have above average telekinesis, which was promising.”
“Oh, Flicker is quite good at telekinetic manipulation, I’ve watched him. There was a heavy aerator and he…” Piper’s words trailed off and she sat there, wide eyed.
“He did what, dear?” Twisty asked.
“Oh, he has a marvellous familiarity with farm equipment too,” Piper said, looking distressed. “Flicker can make a remarkable mulch. Do you think he learned it from his dad?”
Twisty smiled. “Probably. Conk can grow most anything. My husband is very good at planting seeds and making things grow up strong and healthy.” Again, Twisty’s eyes wandered over to her son, who was eating now, but still staring at Hennessy. “I was told that Flicker’s telekinesis probably got so strong because he would help his father pull plows and heavy equipment out in the field. Flicky would worry because his father had to work so hard to get so little in return and sometimes he would have himself a good cry about it.”
“Flicky…” Piper began to giggle and she looked over at Flicker, who was absentmindedly chewing.
“He’s my little Flicky-Nicky-Wicky-Woo.” Twisty laughed a little and then looked Piper in the eye. “I can’t wait for Knacky to grow up a bit so I can have a daughter to talk to about stuff, but I don’t want her to grow up just yet.” The maternal pegasus paused, pondering, then continued, “You know, I don’t think that Flicker can hear a word we’re saying.”
“Hennessy is very handsome,” Piper whispered to the mare sitting beside her. “So much so that it is distracting.”
Knick-Knack, it seemed, had moved into his old room, but liked to sneak back into their parent’s room whenever she got the chance. It was hard to believe that she was two now, and Flicker wondered where the time had gone. He was another year older himself, and hadn’t celebrated his birthday. He had forgotten about it, but it didn’t trouble him too much. The past year had been a busy one.
She was two.
Flicker felt a strange pain in his barrel that had nothing to do with the fiery ache in his side where he had been raked open and then had surgery for a torn muscle. The sound of his mother’s voice as she talked to Piper was somehow soothing. Hennessy had gone outside to offer some help to Flicker’s father, Conk.
Afraid, without knowing why, Flicker pushed open his parent’s bedroom door. This was an odd place for him, a strange place, comforting, but there was the knowledge that his parents had made him in this room, which left his mind feeling unsettled for some reason. There in the bed, he saw her. All that was visible was a few strands of muted melon-coloured mane that had a few degrees of variation from strand to strand.
It occurred to him that his sister would be pretty one day, and that worried him. She was chestnut brown, like his father, except that her back was a faded, creamy patch of yellow-white. A fond memory fluttered through his mind, of combing her mane and putting it into two long braids, obeying his mother’s request. She hadn’t wanted to sit still so that he could finish his task.
“Knacky… guess who…”
The filly beneath the heavy quilt and blankets jerked, snorted, farted, startled herself, squealed, and opened her eyes. She looked around, blinking, and then focused upon the tall figure beside the bed. It only took her a few scant seconds to guess who stood there beside the bed, waiting for her to wake up.
“UPSIES!” she cried as she pronked free from the blankets and the quilt. She began to bounce on the bed, using it like a trampoline. “Flickery-Dickery-Dock! Upsies! Upsies now!”
“I’m sorry, Knacky, I can’t carry you on my back right now. I’m hurt.”
The little earth pony filly stopped in mid-pronk and came crashing down to the bed in a heap of tangled legs. Ears waggling, her lower lip quivering, she looked up at her big brother, seeing for the first time his condition, the bandages on his side, and in her eyes there was a terrible squall building. She bleated a bit, trying to hold it back, but then the levee broke, and the flood came forth.
She bawled for all she was worth, letting go a wounded squeal that could be heard throughout the house. Sitting on her tiny little bum, she thrust her forelegs up into the air and waved them around as she pitched a fit. Being the dutiful big brother that he was, Flicker didn’t flinch or hesitate, he picked her up in his telekinesis, held her close to his neck, and carried her out of the room, as his mother was the only pony that could fix her current state.
Dabbing at her daughter’s eyes, Twisty gave her son a reassuring smile as he sat at the table, looking rather dejected. Knacky was wailing and continued to pitch a fit, she kicked and thrashed in her booster seat, and banged her front hooves against the edge of the table. It was tough, being two, when one had the emotions, but not the control to deal with them.
Sunlight flooded in through the kitchen window, which had an eastern exposure. Flicker shivered and wished that he had a coat, or something to cover up with. He was tempted to go and pull a blanket off of a bed. At the moment, he was a bit more vulnerable than he liked, due to blood loss and medicine. Piper was trying to coax a smile from Knacky, but she had no such success.
“She’s adorable,” Piper said to Twisty, having to speak up just a bit to be heard.
“Thank you.” Twisty smiled and then tried to tempt Knacky with food, which was already all cut up into bite sized pieces.
His ears aching, but his patience nowhere near depleted, Flicker decided that it was time to end his sister’s tantrum. Leaning over just a little in his seat, he lowered his head until his nose was just inches away from her face and he said in a very stern voice, “I’m going into town later, and if you don’t stop crying right now, I will not bring you any candy back. Now eat your breakfast.”
In two shakes of a filly’s fluffy tail, Knacky’s waterworks dried right up, she sniffled a bit, her barrel hitched, and she looked at her brother with wide, wounded dark brown eyes. “No candy?”
“Not. One. Piece.”
Knacky realised the gravity of her situation, and she let out an urgent, frightened whine before she said, “Okay, I’m good. Bring back candy.” She gave her brother one final, worried, fearful glance, dropped her muzzle down to her plate, and began to lap up applesauce from her cut up buckwheat pancakes while letting out soul-crushing whimpers of remorse.
“I still don’t know how you do that,” Twisty said to her son. “If I do that to her, she just cries more. It drives your father crazy because he can’t do anything either.”
“I think I see a tear.” Flicker tried to raise an eyebrow, but it was currently missing in action.
“Nuh-uh. You don’t see nuttin.” Knacky wiped her eyes with her stubby little foreleg as she om-nom-nom-nomed her applesauce and buckwheat pancake bites. “You shu’p.” Realising what was at stake, the sulky filly began to gobble down her breakfast at a reckless pace as she eyeballed her big brother.
Twisty began to laugh and she leaned back into her chair, glad to have her son home.
Sitting on the floor, Knacky, who had finished her breakfast, now played with her collection of stuffed viruses, microbes, bacteria, and parasites, all things that Flicker had purchased for her to aid in her brain development. There was mange, toxoplasmosis, rabies, a heartworm, the black death, typhoid, malaria, and a whole host of cute, cuddly, plush diseases. At the moment, the common cold, whom Knacky called ‘Princess Snuffles,’ was holding court over her subjects.
Held in Flicker’s telekinesis was a steaming cup of coffee, which wasn’t tea, but would do just fine. The hot liquid was soothing and made him feel better. He was in a bit of pain at the moment, but managing. Piper, who lay on the new sofa, looked to be almost half asleep after taking a half a tablet of morphine for pain. The bandages around her legs still looked white and new.
On the wall, the clock ticked away the pleasant minutes, the treasured time when there was no hurry to do anything. Flicker’s mother was knitting, or trying to, as there was now enough money for her to take up a pleasurable hobby. That was the thing that Flicker couldn’t help but notice; just how much things had changed around here.
A fire crackled in the wrought iron wood burning stove, leaving the room a little warm for the others, but still a little chilly for Flicker, though standing next to the fire would warm him if he chose to get up from where he sat. It seemed that his mother had the day off from work and Flicker wondered if she had requested personal time or a vacation.
“You’ve gotten so big.”
Ears pivoting, Flicker listened to the dulcet sound of his mother’s voice, adoring every spoken word. His mother wasn’t looking at him, she was focused on her knitting, and her face was scrunched up in concentration. In her features, Flicker saw a bit of himself when he looked into the mirror.
“You’re bigger than I am and you’re all muscle now. I can’t get over how different you are. Flicker, sometimes, I look at you and I have crazy thoughts about the special little colt I created. When you went away to Canterlot… I never thought you’d turn out like this.”
Taking a sip of coffee, Flicker allowed it to swirl around inside of his mouth before he swallowed it. Ignoring the ache in his side, he replied, “I spend a lot of time training and I’ve worked very hard to become what I am. I spend ten hours a day in the gymnasium sometimes, preparing and training. I’ve done twenty four hour endurance runs through the sewers. I’ve given myself over to my training and I hold nothing back. Wicked says I hold a lot of promise, but I still have a long way to go. I still can’t make the standing leap over the eight foot wall, and I’ve been trying for months. It’s very frustrating. Sometimes, I can almost get my front hooves to scrape against the edge.”
“Why would you need to make such a leap?” Twisty asked, still focused upon her knitting.
“Garden walls,” Flicker replied. “Rats scurry up and down the walls, and we have to follow them. Most garden walls start at six feet, because the ponies of Canterlot like uniformity. So, garden walls, privacy hedges, fences, almost all of it meets the six foot marker at minimum, because a short fence looks out of place. And Canterlot is all about fences, because good fences make for good neighbors. There’s not a lot of space, like here in Ponyville.”
“Seems like the job would be easier if you could fly, Flicker.”
“Mother, I do fly. That’s what we’re taught to do to gain ground. Jump to a high place and then leap away using all of the strength in our hind legs. Some of us”—Flicker thought of himself in particular—“have a limited range with our telekinesis. So we have to run the rat down and that means gaining ground in any way we can. So we learn to fly… my best measured leap was a little over twelve feet from the top of a six foot wall. Doctor Sterling can clear over twenty feet from the same height, so I have a long ways to go.”
“That’s insane.” Twisty looked up from her knitting and stared at her son with a wild-eyed look of disbelief.
“Also very useful if the rats swarm. If that happens, you have to run, or leap up to high ground where the rats can’t reach you somehow. Swarming is bad and we’re still trying to figure out how and why rats do it.” Flicker looked over at Piper and her bandaged legs. “When swarming, the rats get stronger, faster, and they gain a bit of magic resistance, meaning they can shrug off telekinesis sometimes. Doctor Sterling believes that the rats are evolving magical defenses to protect themselves from us and if this continues, one day they may become a much greater threat than they already are.”
“That’s horrifying.” Twisty began to recount her stitching and she shook her head.
“Mother, you have no idea what’s out there, and I can’t talk about some of it. But the danger is growing. This is why I have to train, endlessly, and work so hard. A war is coming, Mother, and I intend to fight it.”
“Flicker, we’re already at war—”
“And another one comes at us from below. I don’t say this for the sake of hyperbole. The enemy is already among us, all around us, living in our shadow. I have seen the face of our enemy and I—” Flicker cut himself off, as he had almost said, And I have heard his voice. He thought of Rat Bastard and felt a spike of rage go through his heart. “Mother, please, remember to do everything I say to try and keep this place somewhat secure from vermin. I worry all the time.”
“Conk and I, we do our best, Flicker. You’re a good colt for worrying about us. Thank you.”
“Mother, I am going to go for a walk.” Flicker gulped down his hot coffee and grimaced as the hot liquid flowed down his throat. After taking a few seconds to recover, he added, “I promise I’ll be careful and not strain myself, but I need my constitutional. Plus, I need to get candy for Knacky.”
“Candy!” Knacky squealed as she hugged her adorable red rabies plushy. She turned her wide, expressive eyes upon her doting brother, knowing full well the power she had over him. “Honeydrops!”
“I’ll get you some honeydrops,” Flicker replied.
“Gummy boogers?” Knick-Knack asked.
“No!” Twisty cried in disgust, causing Piper to snort in her half-asleep, drowsy state.
“Maybe.” Flicker gave his sister a nod, because he didn’t want her to start crying again. He had no intention of disobeying his mother.
“Lavender licks?” Knick-Knack squeezed her red rabies plushy in anticipation for a major haul, and the toy squeaked. “Can you come home with a toy for me?”
“Knacky, I don’t know—”
“Just a wittle toy… pwease?”
“What do you want, Knacky?” Flicker knew he was being worked over, but he didn’t care. He was the Big Brother and this was his trial to endure. It was his sacred duty, his burden to bear. If he couldn’t be here to care for her, at least he could buy her nice things to keep her happy.
“A fart whistle!”
Twisty rolled her eyes and shook her head, facing a mother’s dilemma, regretting that she had wasted her power of denial on gummy boogers. She should have waited, and she knew it. Saying anything now would just make her sound mean and might cause Knick-Knack to melt down. The twos were terrible and mothers were right to live in fear. She let out a sigh of annoyance, wondering how long it would take before the fart whistle broke, or if her or Conk might be able to cause it to get ‘lost.’
“Well, we’ll see on that one,” Flicker replied.
“Thonks!” Knick-knack began to bounce and place, which caused her red rabies plushy to squeak over and over. “Youda best! Youda best!”
Under the guidance of Twilight Sparkle, Ponyville had prospered. As Flicker crossed the stone bridge that lead into town, Flicker had a good view of the bustling city of Ponyville. It felt good to walk this road again, to come out of the White Tail Woods and into the city. An old, battered school satchel hung from around his neck and banged against his front legs. Wearing it made him think of Cheerilee, his old schoolteacher.
In the far off distance, he could see Twilight’s castle, and right in front of it, the bustling heart of Ponyville, which was roomy and expansive compared to Canterlot. He stopped in his tracks to have a better look, and to keep the ache in his side from becoming worse. He had to take it slow, because he needed to heal so he could do his job.
As he stood there, resting, a unicorn stallion wearing black eyeglasses emerged from the nearby trees. That was puzzling and Flicker couldn’t help but feel that something was out of place. A tall earth pony stallion seemed to materialise out of nowhere, and then a pegasus mare just dropped out of the sky. All of them were wearing black shades.
More ponies arrived, and two of them Flicker knew. The candy maker, Bon Bon, and her always present companion, Lyra Heartstrings approached, along with an unknown unicorn stallion. Flicker began to feel a growing sense of worry as he realised that something was up. As she drew nearer, Flicker could see that Bon Bon was smiling and she moved with a carefree gait.
“Flicker Nicker, of the Canterlot Rat Catcher’s Guild.” The unicorn that approached with Bon Bon and Lyra bowed his head. “My name is Special Agent Furlong. This is Special Agent Sweetie Drops and Special Agent Lyra. Gathered around you, those three that you first noticed, are Special Agents Foxtrot, Tango, and Bravo.”
“We’re from S.M.I.L.E.” Bon Bon lowered her black shades to reveal her eyes.
“I’m sorry, what?” Confused, Flicker took a step backwards. The world was full of weirdos and one had to be careful.
“S.M.I.L.E.” Special Agent Furlong gave Flicker a grin. “The Secret Monster Intelligence League of Equestria. We’ve developed a keen professional interest in you, Flicker Nicker.”
“I have no desire to leave the guild,” Flicker said, thinking of his loyalty. The guild had been good to him.
“We have no desire for you to leave the guild,” Special Agent Furlong said to Flicker in a soft, reassuring voice. “Special Agent Heartstrings, Mister Nicker’s dossier, if you please.”
Clearing her throat, Lyra conjured up a pale yellow folder, opened it, and then began to read it aloud. “Flicker Nicker. Joined Canterlot Rat Catcher’s Guild at nine. Showed a far above average amount of ambition and desire for the job. Excelled at training and has seen the horrors of the sewers. Two months into his training, encountered a pack of giant tentacle slugs and killed them—”
“I was with Wicked, I had help.” Flicker took another step back.
“—about a month later, encountered an acidic stench wisp in the lower Canterlot sewers and killed that too—”
“No I didn’t, Doctor Sterling used me as bait!”
“—a month and a half after that, while helping a one Limestone Pie and her mining outfit, you encountered a ravenous swarm of splat-bats, which were killed with an improvised solution of sodium hypochlorite and azane, which you released after they followed you into the mine.” Lyra paused, pulled off her black shades, and squinted at Flicker, studying him.
“Those were horrible and they projectile vomit dangerous stomach acid to start digesting you so they can gobble you up better. They were vile and disgusting and I killed them all.” He didn’t know why, but Flicker felt the need to justify his actions.
“While on a job clearing rats from a lumber camp, you encountered a swarm of twittermites. Using the gasbag of a cargo airship, you improvised a cloud bomb and detonated it in the middle of the swarm, electrocuting them in the moist, ultra-compacted clouds that burst forth and killing most of them—”
“I didn’t think that would work, actually. I got lucky.” Flicker took another step backwards.
Flipping through several pages to the back of the file, Lyra continued, “On a recent job, did battle with a rabid bear and killed it with not one, but two sticks of dynamite. This was after mulching a hoard of rats with heavy farm equipment.”
Flicker sighed, feeling bothered that his reputation had caught up to him.
“The heart of the matter is, S.M.I.L.E. could use a pony like you,” Special Agent Furlong said, his voice flat and emotionless. “Nothing would change. You would continue to work with your guild, which already has several of our agents. The only noticeable difference would be that your pay would increase, and you will occasionally be offered special jobs. Killing monsters will net you a bonus.”
“That’s it? Nothing else changes?” Flicker gave Special Agent Furlong an incredulous stare.
“Just a bigger paycheck, the occasional special assignment, and a big fat bonus for killing abominations.” Special Agent Furlong pulled out a few papers from the folder that Lyra was holding. “You have a gift, Mister Nicker, and it must be used for the good of Equestria.”
That did it. Flicker’s ears perked. “Anything for my country. Anything.”
“Very good, Junior Agent Lima—”
“Lima? As in the bean?” Disgusted, Flicker’s lip curled back and he shook his head. “Nopony likes lima beans. Is this some kind of sick joke? I’ll have you know, I don’t have sense a humour.”
“Sorry, it is the only callsign currently available. The previous Special Agent Lima was rendered into a puddle that resembled earwax but smelled like banana taffy.” Special Agent Furlong cleared his throat for a moment and his ears bobbed. “Nasty business, that. One of the ravenous bugblatter beasts of Traal came through an unlicensed portal. Special Agent Lima was either very, very brave, or very, very stupid. Which is fitting somehow, because we see something similar in you.”
Scowling, Flicker said nothing in his own defense, as the evidence was stacked against him, and he didn’t want to upset his new boss. When the pen was offered, he took it, and with a few smooth strokes, he signed his name on the paper, then on the next paper, a few more papers after that, and at least five more times, and the last time he had to press down hard because of triplicate.
“We look forward to working with you, Juniour Agent Lima.” Mister Furlong smiled at Flicker. “You will be contacted by one of our agents soon. We are very excited about this, Juniour Agent Lima. Be well.”
And just like that, the entire group was gone. Flicker blinked once, and when he opened his eyes again, the crowd was just gone. Stunned, not knowing what to say, he began to wonder if perhaps he had taken too much morphine, or if this was a symptom of hitting his head too hard. The world felt very surreal at the moment, and surrealism wasn’t Flicker’s cup of tentacles.
Perhaps it was better to just pretend that it hadn’t happened. Resuming his walk, he left the scene of the bizarre interruption at a brisk trot, off to visit Ponyville with the hopes of finding himself a nice new coat and to get some candy for his sister, Knick-Knack. He also had to find something called a fart whistle, and he hoped he wouldn’t have to ask around too much.
Pushing open the door to Carousel Boutique, Flicker tried very hard not to feel out of place. He was having a weird morning, he was in pain, and he just wanted things to work out without a headache for once. This was a refined place, and at the moment, Flicker did not feel like a refined pony. He was a walking, talking bruise, with bald patches.
“Welcome to Carousel Boutique, where every garment is chic, unique and magnifique—oh my, you poor dear, what happened to you?” Heartfelt concern made Rarity’s eyes glimmer on the verge of tears. “You’re a soldier, aren’t you? I’ve been seeing a lot of your kind in Ponyville… you came here to convalesce, didn’t you? You look young… oh, you poor dear.”
“I was blown up,” Flicker said in a low voice, “and I sort of did it to myself.”
“Oh, how dreadful!” Rarity batted her eyelashes and her lower lip began to quiver.
“I need a coat.” Flicker drew in a deep breath and settled into being practical. “My name is Flicker Nicker and I live in Canterlot, but I’m here in Ponyville while I recover. I’m cold all the time, for obvious reasons, and I think I might have had too much sun walking into town. Being a Canterlot pony, I don’t want to walk around with a blanket draped over my back and look like a hobo.”
“That I completely understand, darling.” Rarity moued and began to study Flicker. “Have you any ideas for materials?”
“Well, I was thinking about something with some leather—”
“Leather! Oh, how positively ghastly!”
Disappointed, Flicker sighed. “I understand if you can’t do it—”
“Darling, I never said that I couldn’t do it, I just said that it was ghastly.” Rarity’s entire demeanour changed. “I cater to clients with certain… how shall we say, fetishes. I get my leather from approved sources and I have a leatherworker’s license. If there is something you want, all you need to do is talk to me, okay, darling?” Again, Rarity batted her eyelashes.
“I need a coat. It needs to breathe and to allow full flexibility of movement. I want something in black… something with a sense of drama to it… something almost like, I don’t know… the reaper’s image. It needs to have some flow to it, but not get snagged on things. It needs pockets. And the high stress areas need to be reinforced with leather.” The wheels inside of Flicker’s head made many slow revolutions as he tried to think if he needed anything else.
“The reaper’s image, eh?” Rarity’s lips pursed into an almost duck-like expression. “Tell me, Mister Nicker, what sort of business are you in?”
“The rat killing business,” Flicker replied in what he felt was a very professional deadpan.
“Oh, you’re in the Rat Catcher’s Guild… I’ve worked with them before.” Rarity began to size Flicker up and she walked around him in a circle, squinting at him with one well practiced eye. “The reaper’s image is an unusual request for a rat catcher. Most of your kind want to look like gentleponies… very fancy mercenaries.”
“I have my own sense of fashion,” Flicker replied.
“That you do, but ‘drama and the reaper’s image’ are very unusual requests. You’re bound to scare away potential clients.” Rarity stopped and looked at the bandages on Flicker’s side, shook her head, and clucked her tongue.
I ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴠᴇʀʏ sᴘᴇᴄɪᴀʟ ɴᴇᴇᴅs ᴀɴᴅ I sᴇʀᴠᴇ ᴀ ᴠᴇʀʏ sᴘᴇᴄɪᴀʟ ᴄʟɪᴇɴᴛ. Tʜᴏsᴇ I ᴅᴏ ʙᴜsɪɴᴇss ᴡɪᴛʜ ɴᴇᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴋɴᴏᴡ I ᴀᴍ ᴄᴏᴍɪɴɢ. I ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛʜᴇɪʀ ғᴇᴀʀ ғʟᴏᴡɪɴɢ ᴏᴜᴛ ʙᴇʜɪɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇᴍ.
Flicker was startled by the sound of his own voice and he felt his nethers clenching.
“I’m sorry, darling, but I had trouble making out what you were saying, would you mind repeating that?” Rarity, looking puzzled, stared at Flicker.
Wʜᴇɴ I ᴀʀʀɪᴠᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴅᴏ ʙᴜsɪɴᴇss, I ɴᴇᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ʟᴏᴏᴋ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴀʀᴛ.
Again, Flicker was terrified by the sound of his own voice. He coughed, cleared his throat, and began to worry about his own ears melting right off his skull. His voice sounded terrible, almost sepulchral. Much to his chagrin, the flowers in the vase about two yards away had wilted and Flicker had no idea what was going on. He didn’t like it, not at all, this was turning out to be a weird morning.
“I do beg your pardon, darling, but your voice sounded very peculiar there for a second. If you wouldn’t mind, could you please communicate your desires to me once more?” Rarity leaned in a little closer and gave Flicker a timid smile.
“Basic black is always in style and I like my clothing to look a little old fashioned. Canterlot has rubbed off on me.” Relieved, Flicker sucked so much air that his injured side now had a stabbing pain.
“Oh… that… I can understand that. A little old world charm. Well then, Mister Nicker, let’s see what we have to work with. Oh, this is exciting. I get to make something dramatic!”
Rarity’s splendiferous work was very much like magic. In fact, it was magic. She worked with confidence and poise all while maintaining a soft touch, and never losing her patience when Flicker didn’t move in just the right way for her. The coat came together in sections, being made of black wool, matte black leather, and black hemp. It was sleek along the body, had a rain cape that covered the croup and hind legs, and the sleeves were a special design that Rarity had that allowed for full flexibility of movement.
Rarity’s sewing was a sight to see, where many seamstresses worked with a single needle, Rarity maintained dozens, all while chatting and never losing track of the conversation. She improvised on the fly, adding pockets to imaginative, unexpected places. Rarity was, perhaps, the finest fashionista of her era, and her career was only just starting.
“Image is everything, darling,” Rarity said while she worked. “Do keep in mind, your co-workers are a big part of that image. If they look good, you look good. There is a lot to be said for working together as a team, and not striking out on your own, leaving them to fend for themselves.”
Nodding, Flicker committed these words to heart. Rarity was an older voice of experience and she was the Element of Generousity. Flicker’s sense of order left him with no choice but to obey her.
“One pony on their own, in a professional environment, that pony is a target. Others will plot and conspire against you with the hopes of replacing you, or using you to climb the ladder of success. But a group of competent friends that present a united front, that work together, and more importantly, they work together to make each other look good, that group is so much harder to approach and overcome. Ladder climbers will find some other way to clamber up to where they wish to be that doesn’t involve so much work.”
Again, these words were committed to memory. Flicker had to make Piper and Hennessy look good somehow. Already, Flicker’s slow, but powerful intelligence began to think of ways to accomplish this, it was a job like any other and any job could be done, and done well, if one broke it down into the simple, most easy to manage pieces.
“It occurs to me that the Rat Catcher’s Guild involves so much more than dealing with rats. I’ve been to some of the soirées that they throw. There are a lot of very influential ponies within the guild and they shape much of our social policy. The nobles are content to give over their middle foals to the guild, as that is the thing to do. It is a sign of prestige among the upper echelons of society to say that one of your sons or daughters works for the guild.”
This was true. Right away, Flicker thought of Moonlit Gambit, from the Gambit family. Moonlit was five years older and was one of the middle foals of his family. The firstborn would get the inheritance of course, because that was the way it was, and Moonlit was expected to provide for his family in other ways. Having a son or a daughter working at the Weeping Sister Hospital, that was a good way to get social prestige, or joining one of Canterlot’s many guilds.
Moonlit and Flicker were evenly matched, often dueled together as sparring partners, and Moonlight was one of the few older apprentices that would willingly talk to Flicker outside of professional obligation and guild business. There was a fencing exam coming up soon and Flicker knew he would be facing Moonlit in open bloody combat.
“The guild takes anypony,” Flicker said in a low voice, “rich or poor. We do not discriminate. Many a poor soul has found themselves among the nobles after a lifetime of service to the guild. We are a society based upon merit and we are technocrats. If you wish to move up in the guild, one must build up a worthwhile skillset or develop a specialised niche that only you can do well.”
“Technocrats.” Rarity said the word and reacted as if she was sipping a fine wine for the first time. “Technocrats. I must say, this is the first time I am hearing this word. It is a word heavy with implications and fraught with meaning.”
“The most qualified are put in charge. We base everything upon merit. We don’t care if you are a prince or a lowly beggar, you will earn your place and your standing in the guild. Nothing is given. In our ranks, anypony can rise to the top, all one has to do is work for it. Become an engineer, become a doctor of some sort, become a scientist, become a wizard, develop a highly technical and specialised skillset that very few ponies can do. Talent is recognised and rewarded. Mediocrity is drummed out and hammered down. Mediocrity is just another form of the plague that cripples society and holds it back. Mister Chandler said that mediocrity is bureaucracy, a coalition of the moronic and the perverse that retards the growth of society, and we technocrats must hold ourselves to a higher standard to allow society to flourish.”
“So, a society that holds you accountable and requires that you educate yourself to advance… fascinating, simply fascinating.” Rarity pulled out an assortment of antique brass buttons, snaps, rivets, and studs. “It becomes easy to see why the nobles use the guild as a sort of finishing school. Do hold still, darling, I’m worried about bumping your side.”
That was easy enough to do. Flicker became a statue and didn’t move. It was the simplest of all commands, yet so many apprentices failed at it.
“And you, what do you plan to do with your future?” Rarity asked.
“Kill rats,” Flicker replied without thought or hesitation. “That’s my skillset. It’s what I do. You can’t see it right now, for obvious reasons, but my cutie mark is a flaming rat.”
“I approve!” Rarity’s voice became shrill. “Filthy, disgusting, horrible little monsters… ugh!”
It was at that moment that Flicker realised that he liked Rarity. He liked her a great deal. Rarity was a wonderful pony, a white pony in Flicker’s black and white world. Ponies placed into the white category, ponies such as Fancy Pants and Fleur Dis Lee, these were ponies to be protected and respected, without question or doubt.
Almost as an afterthought, Flicker realised that he needed to pay, and he and Rarity had never discussed price. Feeling a bit alarmed, he decided that it was time to make a polite inquiry into the cost of his coat, but he wasn’t quite sure how to do that and Doctor Sterling wasn’t here for guidance. Flicker realised that he was on his own, and it unnerved him.
“Ma’am, about my payment for this coat…”
“No payment required,” Rarity said in a dismissive voice as she made a gesture with her hoof.
“What?” Flicker blinked a few times as his brain tried to process what had just been said.
“I’m going to write all of this off as research and development and as a materials exercise. Twilight will get a bill that she won’t mind paying, I get valuable experience for working with exotic materials, which is something difficult and costly to come by, and you get a nice coat. Everypony goes home happy.”
“Okay.” Flicker tried to think of what to say, and could only come up with one thing. “Thank you.”
“Oh, don’t mention it, my darling colt. I’ve been getting bored with my projects lately, and this was just what I needed, a breath of fresh air and some inspiration. This has given me ideas, and one cannot put a price on how valuable ideas and inspiration are.”
Rarity really was the Element of Generousity, Flicker realised. She was a pillar of equine society, and after a few minutes of intense thought, he aspired to be more like her, deciding that she was worthwhile role-model material, like Mister Chandler or Doctor Sterling. Not only did he have a coat, but now he had a sense of gratitude to keep him warm.
“Almost finished, darling… you do a remarkable job of holding still!”
Where did one buy a fart whistle? Standing just outside of Carousel Boutique, Flicker didn’t know. A toy store perhaps? There was a shop that specialised in prank goods. As he stood there, trying to think of what to do, a group of unicorns passed and he watched them go by. They were lead by a blue mare with a dazzling smile, and at her heels was a little pale, cream coloured colt. Walking just behind was a lemony yellow mare, also smiling, and laughing as well. Bringing up the rear was a pearlescent mare that did not smile, she looked fierce and stern.
An idea germinated in his mind.
“Excuse me, Ma’am…”
The procession of mares and one little colt stopped, with the lemony yellow one bumping into the blue one, and then blushing. Flicker was aware of how he looked, and the pearlescent white mare was sizing him up to see if he might be trouble. Making no sudden moves, Flicker smiled and did his best to look friendly.
“My little sister wants a fart whistle.” Flicker could hear the lemony yellow mare giggling as he continued, “As you have a colt, I thought that you might know where to look for such things.” As Flicker watched, the trio of mares moved into a protective formation around the little colt in their midst, and he had the feeling that he was dealing with overprotective mothers. Three of them. Now was not a time to make sudden moves.
It was the lemony one that replied. “Oh, I don’t think our little guy would play with a fart whistle much, but now I want one—”
“Lemon, don’t even think about it!” the pearlescent mare said in a grumpy sounding deadpan.
“—but I think the best place to look would be Frazzle Dazzle’s Prank Palace.”
“Lemon, why?” the blue mare groaned.
“What’s a fart whistle?” the colt asked, looking owlish with his round eyeglasses.
Flicker shrugged, he didn’t know, all he did know was that his sister wanted one.
“Even if Frazzle doesn’t have them, he’ll know where to look and can tell you where to go.” The lemony mare beamed, buoyed by her own helpfulness, and she ignored the eye rolling and groans of protest coming from her companions. “Best of luck, we must be going.”
“Thank you.” As Flicker watched, the mares departed, surrounding the colt, and the lemony yellow one was giggling as she teased the white one. The blue one said a sharp word to quiet the yellow one, but it was ignored. The exchange was continued and the colt started laughing.
Flicker thought they looked happy together.
Frazzle Dazzle’s Prank Palace was a place of horror that Flicker never wanted to enter ever again. Adjusting his collar, he moved away from the shop in a hurry with his sister’s fart whistle stowed in a pocket. He hoped that his mother would forgive him and it occurred to him that he should get her something nice as well. Now, he had candies to purchase, and he decided that he would get some for Piper and Hennessy as well.
The streets of Ponyville were wide, meandering, and made of dirt for the most part. There was a feeling of openness here, as Ponyville had plenty of room to spread out. As he passed in front of a row of shops, he saw a wooden sign with a big coffee bean on it. Upon spotting it, he veered for the door, knowing what to get his mother and father. Gourmet roast coffee. Perhaps something Canterlot styled, something exotic and different.
It was at that moment that Flicker’s brain smacked him with an important fact. He might have been born and raised in Ponyville, but he was a Canterlot pony now. He was a pony with disposable income, a desire to spend, and he was engaging in conspicuous consumption, something he had learned about in one of his classes about the social behaviours of equines.
He could buy regular coffee from the market or the grocery store, but he was choosing to go into this shop, which would no doubt be very expensive. Flicker became the victim of his own education and had something of a brain meltdown as he understood the why of what he was doing. Was the truffle infused coffee from this shop better than the truffle infused coffee from the market?
Standing in front of the window, he looked in and sniffed the air, which was filled with the heady aroma of toasty-roasty coffee. In the window display, there were signs promising exotic blends from Windia, the Grittish Isles, and other far off locales. Drooling just a little, he thought about all of the wonderful flavours that could be had in here. The hot, moist air from his nose fogged up the window just a little bit as he stood staring at the display.
Would his parents even notice the difference?
After a few seconds of intense thinking, he decided that his parents were worth the difference and as he took a few steps towards the door, Flicker had one final, curious thought about life and its strangeness:
The coffee bean had won the popularity contest, much to the dismay of the lima bean.
Returning home, Flicker could not help but notice that there were rats here in Ponyville. He could feel them, sense them, they existed in the edges of his perception. If left unchecked, this would become a problem. The guild needed to come here and conduct another sweep. Piper’s magic would be useful and safe. Flicker had a fond memory of the last sweep, they had come in under the cover of darkness, aided by Princess Luna’s magic, and there had been killing while the ponies of Ponyville slept soundly in their beds. When they woke up in the morning, they were none the wiser.
Flicker had been new then, and his role had been a simple one—roam the outskirts of Ponyville on stilts and keep an eye out for fleeing vermin. Fluttershy, the local animal handler, had kept a viable population of squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, and the like safe and secure in a remote location. When the sweep was done, the healthy animals were released to repopulate the area. It was a very efficient operation and a real eye opener for Flicker.
As he approached the bridge on his way home, he saw a remarkable sight that caused him to come to a complete stop. He stood there, staring, having trouble believing in what he was seeing. There, resting in some shade near the bridge, was…
“Spud!”
Flicker hurried forwards, mindful of his side, and looked at his charming mutant companion. He knew that the guild cats were loyal creatures once they picked a companion, but he wasn’t sure how Spud had made it down to Ponyville and found him. But that didn’t matter, as Flicker was very glad to see his roommate and partner. Not far from Spud was a beheaded dead rat.
Looking around for witnesses, Flicker lifted up the rat remains in his telekinesis, set it ablaze, reduced it to ash, and then let the ashes blow free in the wind after making certain that there were no live cinders that might cause a wildfire. Spud looked unconcerned about the fire, he couldn’t be bothered by such trivialities, and he let out a disinterested meow.
“Spud, I don’t have cat food.”
The mutant cat-bulldog creature did not look amused, not in the slightest.
“Look, I didn’t know you were coming. There are fish in the river and lots of cute, fuzzy little rodents in the woods. If you want to eat, catch your own dinner and don’t give me no sass. You be nice to my sister, no hooks no matter what she does, she’s two and she can’t help herself. If you hook my baby sister….” Flicker left his threat unsaid.
Spud looked up at his equine companion, and then, very much to Flicker’s surprise, Spud nodded.
That was a bit peculiar, Flicker thought to himself. Spud was smart, so he just dismissed it, as there was no sense being surprised by it. “I mean it, Spud. Knick-Knack is very dear to me. She is my reason for living and doing what I do. Don’t be mean to her.”
“Meow.”
“Come on, Spud. Let’s go home.”
“Meow?”
Had Flicker not been so dense, he might have taken a moment to marvel at the fact that he understood Spud. “No, Spud, not Canterlot. Here. Home. My parent’s farmhouse.”
“Meow.”
“What do you mean, that’s not very cosmopolitan?”
“Meow…”
“It’s home to me, Spud. At least, for now. I’ve really missed them.”
“Meow?”
“I’ll tell my mother to let you on the furniture.”
“Meow.”
“You’re welcome.”
In sight of home, Flicker paused a bit, his steps hesitant, as it seemed there were visitors. Everypony was in the front yard, relaxing a bit, and having a nice time. There was a bright pink pony and it took Flicker a moment to think of who it was, but the answer was obvious to anypony looking. It was Pinkie Pie, and she was having an animated conversation with Piper Pie, by the looks of things.
Knick-Knack broke away from the group and started running over to see him, and for this he was glad. He had all kinds of goodies for her, and a fart whistle. But then, something went wrong, and adorable little Knick-Knack came to a skidding halt, so much so that she almost tumbled over when she saw the mutant monster by Flicker’s side.
“Not-kitty!” Knick-Knack howled and then she took off lickety-split in the other direction as fast as her little two year old legs would carry her. “Boogey-kitty!” And then, perhaps because her adrenaline kicked in, Knick-Knack scrammed, leaving her BBBFF with his mouth hanging open as she rocketed away.
The fuzzy little cannonball almost took the front door off of the hinges, leaving the crowd of witnesses all blinking in astonishment. Conk, a brave and rugged sort, got up and came over to have a better look at what had scared his daughter and left her in such a state. He moseyed over, as farmer ponies were prone to do, and he had himself a gander at the ‘boogey-kitty.’
“Son,” Conk said as he looked at Flicker, “there is something wrong with that cat.”
“This is Spud… he’s… well, he’s hard to explain, but he’s a rat killer. He is my associate. Somehow, he came down from Canterlot to be with me. He’s very loyal and his kind pick my kind. I didn’t adopt him, he adopted me.”
“Oh my goodness, that’s hideous and it’s not coming inside!”
“Mother, he has feelings and he can understand every word you are saying. They’re very smart and can obey complex commands.” Flicker looked down at Spud, who was rubbing up against his front legs, looking a bit a wounded. “Spud, go to Hennessy and smack him three times. Three times. No hooks!”
Annoyed, but willing to prove himself, Spud sauntered through the yard, weaving past Conk’s legs, and smacking Conk once with his fat, sausage tail. He stopped to meow at Twisty, then walked away, ignoring her, as if she was beneath his notice, and then he arrived to where Hennessy was sitting. Reaching out, claws retracted, Spud smacked Hennessy on the leg three times. Then, turning his head to look at Twisty, he smacked Hennessy on the leg three more times.
“Meow.”
Twisty let out a harsh snort, shook her head, snorted for a second time, and then, saying nothing, she went inside to look after Knick-Knack, who was no doubt in hiding somewhere. Conk watched his wife go and when she had gone through the door, he turned to face his son, looking a bit confused and just a touch bewildered.
“That meow struck me as being a little rude,” Conk muttered.
Pinkie Pie was unusually subdued and it caused Flicker no end of worry as he unsnapped the short cape from his coat. In moments, he had something that almost resembled a frock coat that was much, much easier to wear around the house and to sit down in. With a few flicks of his magic, he removed the sleeves, and had himself a comfortable woollen vest that he could relax in. He folded up the cape, did up the snaps, stuffed the sleeves inside, and then tucked that away.
He put his satchel down on the floor and then began to pull his haul out from the bag and his many pockets. His mother and his little sister still had not emerged and Flicker felt a little bit bad about what had happened. Spud was just about the same size as Knick-knack and Flicker was willing to admit that his cat could be a little scary.
“I remember you,” Pinkie Pie said to Flicker as she tapped her chin with her forehoof and closed her eyes. “I threw you a birthday party—”
Flicker froze.
“—you didn’t do much, you just sort of sat there.” Pinkie opened her eyes to give Flicker a smile and a stare. “Flicker Nicker… kind of a party pooper but likes fireworks. You value the happiness of others over your own. A bit of a mama’s colt, is a secret philatelist, and is a confirmed arachnophobe.”
“A secret what?” Hennessy asked.
“You’re afraid of spiders?” Piper, wide-eyed and incredulous, stared at Flicker. “You… Lord Death of Murder Mountain, you’re afraid of spiders?”
“Too many legs,” Flicker replied in a whisper that was almost a whine as he shook his head. “Not natural. Little… hairy… too many eyes… look, it’s a phobia, I can’t help it.”
“I’m gonna go cheer up somepony who needs me!” Pinkie Pie vanished from out of the room, streaking through the kitchen door to get to the other side of the house. “The itsy bitsy spider went crawling up the water spout…”
In a hurry to change the subject, Flicker began showing off his loot. “Chocolate covered espresso beans, not for Knacky. Lavender licks, some honeydrops, nosegay nougats, and a whole bunch of other candies. I wasn’t sure what to get so I got a little bit of everything. Also, I picked up some wiggly gummy slugs for Knacky, they move and everything as you try to eat them. She likes gross stuff.”
“Magical candy…” Hennessy moved a little closer to have a better look. “I can’t get over what ya’ll have and how ya’ll act like it’s just normal stuff… I ain’t never even seen this much candy, ever, in my whole life.”
Flicker, who felt bad, but couldn’t say why, stared at Hennessy, trying to understand his own feelings. He pulled out a wiggling gummy slug and held it out to Hennessy, who stared at it, wide-eyed, amazed that such a thing even existed.
“Go on, take it, Knacky won’t mind sharing, there’s over a dozen more and she won’t miss this one.” Flicker took a step forwards, and without warning or reason, his heart started thudding inside of his ribcage in a most alarming way. He held up the wiggling red, green, and yellow slug that was starting to dribble a little gooey candy slime.
“It’s been magicked,” Hennessy said.
“It’s safe to eat.” Flicker bobbed it up and down with his magic.
Moving closer, Hennessy sniffed the offered candy, and then with a swift movement of his head, he snatched it up in his mouth and began chewing it, his eyes glimmering with amusement and curiousity. As Hennessy stood there, chewing, Spud made himself at home on the sofa, plopping down beside where Piper had sat down.
“It’s strange, seeing this side of Flicker,” Piper remarked.
“He wasn’t always like how he is now.” Twisty stood in the kitchen doorway and stared at her son. “He used to laugh… he used to be more expressive. He had such warmth and kindness. But then his cutie mark came along and almost all of that just went away.”
“I grew up, Mother—”
“No, you got self absorbed!”
“No I didn’t,” Flicker replied, defending himself from his mother’s words. “I just put away foalish things that I didn’t need any more. I embraced what I was meant to be—”
“And everything else was just tossed aside!” Twisty’s raised voice caused every ear in the room to perk. “Sometimes, I feel that your cutie mark took you away from me, and I don’t mean sending you to Canterlot, Flicker. It’s like… it’s like you just gave up on any sense of self outside of what your cutie mark was. I’m good at detecting storms… I can smell feral storms coming from miles away and I can see subtle currents in the wind that might lead to storms later, but I didn’t give up on the other parts of me… I’m a mother, a wife, a member of this community… I’m a cook, I bake bread, sometimes I volunteer at the schoolhouse with Cheerilee now… I try new things that have nothing to do with my cutie mark. And you… you just don’t. It breaks my heart, Flicky.”
“But I’m happy serving my purpose—”
“Flicker, there is more to life than purpose!” Twisty shouted. “If all I did was sniff storms and watch for dangerous weather, I wouldn’t’ve fell in love with Conk! You wouldn’t be born! You wouldn’t exist! Knick-Knack wouldn’t exist! Stop and think about that for a moment! No Knick-Knack! She exists because I have a life outside of my purpose! The thing you treasure most in life happened because having your father fronk me silly felt good and was fun! It was even more fun doing it and trying to hide it from you! It became a game! You know, fun stuff that exists outside of purpose!”
A category five storm of silence descended upon the room, smothering and suffocating all sound. Even the ticking of the ornate clock seemed muted somehow. Conk, a quiet, reserved sort, was stunned and it was clear that he couldn’t believe what his wife had said. Flicker, for the first time in his life, couldn’t stand there and keep listening to his mother. Saying nothing at all, he turned tail, snatched up the removed bits of his coat, and headed out the front door.
The storm of silence persisted, and the door did not slam.
The sound of Twisty’s crying filled the kitchen and Piper couldn’t help but feel a little awkward. However, she also felt that Flicker needed to hear what his mother had said. There was a lot wrong with that colt, but Flicker had been kind to her, good to her, he was her friend and coworker, but there was no two ways about it, Flicker was troubled.
“Hennessy, help me, we need to go after Flicker.”
“We do?” Hennessy asked. “What if he needs some time alone?”
“Lord Death of Murder Mountain is hurting and he needs us.” Piper’s face was the epitome of seriousness as she spoke. “We’re his friends. Maybe the only real friends he has. He would be there for us if we needed him. Somewhere, beneath it all, he has feelings and they’re hurt right now.”
Left ear twitching up and down in time to the sound of Twisty sobbing, Hennessy gave thought to Piper’s words for a time, then replied, “Piper, if’n he’s Lord Death of Murder Mountain, what does that make us?”
“Don’t be a dunderhead, Hennessy!” Piper grabbed the earth pony with her magic, yanked him close to where she was sitting, climbed up onto his back while ignoring his wickered protests, and then scowled down at him. “Giddyup!” she commanded, and then, not knowing where Flicker might be, she looked at Spud. “Flicker’s in trouble, Spud, go find him!”
Yowling like a siren hauled out of a lake and left to cook in the sun, Spud lept down off of the couch, headed for the door, reached the door, opened the door, and stepped out. Hennessy moved along with a smooth gait and went out the door after Spud with Piper riding on his back. She ducked her head to avoid conking her skull against the doorframe and patted Hennessy’s neck to get him to hurry.
“Onward, my faithful steed, we must find our noble protector and rescue him!”
Following along after Spud, Hennessy loped through the woods at an easy pace with Piper on his back. He had been a little irritated with her at first, just climbing up there, but now he could not remember why he had felt irritated. She was hurt, he had watched her legs get gnawed on by swarming rats, and some of those bites had been right down to the bone.
All in all, he liked Piper, she was easy to get along with, she knew his secret, and she hadn’t judged him for it. In fact, she didn’t seem bothered by it at all, which felt pretty weird, all things considered. She had figured it out on her own, and he hadn’t told her anything when she had approached him and asked. In a way, it felt good to talk about his secret.
Hennessy, a colt, wanted to be a filly.
He was happy how he was, he was aware that there were ways and means to actually become a filly, and he didn’t want to change his body; no, he was happy enough being a colt, but he wanted to be a filly tom-colt, or perhaps a coltish tom-filly. It was difficult to explain, or even talk about, and Piper had been the first pony that he had ever said anything to about his secret thoughts and desires.
He suspected that Lentil Pakora knew, in fact, it seemed as though she had seen right through him.
But there was another pony that Hennessy wanted to talk to, to share his thoughts with, but this pony was Lord Death of Murder Mountain, as Piper had called him. Hennessy knew that he was nursing a crush, and crushes were dangerous. His last crush had ended badly, as he had crushed upon somepony who did not reciprocate, or even appreciate being crushed on.
The beating had been savage and he had suffered multiple broken ribs, none of which were ever treated. It was terrifying, having a crush again, especially when one was crushing on Lord Death of Murder Mountain. Flicker wasn’t exactly attractive or good looking, but there was something about him, something worthwhile, if perhaps hidden. There were all those taut muscles and keen, furtive eyes. Everything about Flicker made Hennessy’s twelve year old body, which was deep in the throes of puberty, respond in an animalistic fashion.
“Whatcha thinking about, Hennessy?”
“Not a darn thing.”
“Liar.”
Sighing, Hennessy thought about all of the things that he wanted to talk about, but was afraid to. The pressure felt like it might burst open at any minute and everything inside of him would go spilling out, or worse, exploding out. Piper was open-minded, so what could it hurt? She seemed kind enough, and he desperately wanted somepony that he could share his thoughts with.
“Piper?”
“Yes?”
“Do you know much of anything about puberty and growing up?” Hennessy’s drawl intensified from his nervousness.
“Only a little. My mother would freak out if she found any books about it and she would take them. Got me in some trouble at the library.” After letting out a sigh filled with far too much pubescent angst, Piper added, “You know, you can always ask Doctor Sterling.”
“Oh, I don’t know if I can talk to another stallion about it—”
“And why not?”
“It’s powerful embarrassing.”
“But you can talk to a filly about it…”
“Well, to be fair, you ain’t just any filly, and no, I wouldn’t talk to a filly about it either, but I need to talk to somepony.” Hennessy felt Piper squirm on his back and he screwed his courage to the sticking place, as the old saying went. Perhaps it was just better to let it all out. “Piper, I’m all scrawny and little—”
“Are you kidding? You’re big for your age.”
“No, Piper… lemme finish, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Piper, there are parts of me that are scrawny and little, and I keep wondering why.”
“Ooooh…” Piper sucked in her breath and held it, causing her cheeks to bulge.
“It really bothers me… my dad and my brothers all said it was ‘cause I’m a faggot and they said it would make parts of me fall off… for a long time I thought that was true, that everything would fall off, and I had nightmares about it. But now, well, ya see, I was one of the youngest, and not being a fighting type, I wouldn’t stop my brothers when they took what little food I got and a lot of times I went hungry. Doctor Sterling says I’m malnourished and he wants me to eat a lot and I’ve been wondering if being malnourished is why I’m all small and shrivelled up back there. I’m scared, Piper… I’m scared and I don’t know how to talk about it.”
“Oh my goodness,” Piper said, letting her held breath out.
“I’m really scared that I’m going to eat better and get food and everything will get better back there and maybe I’ll start growing, and when I start growing, and I start getting that thing that colts have, that thing in the blood and the body, I’m worried that if I start growing, then maybe I won’t want to be a filly anymore and I’ll want to be a colt or stallion and I won’t be gay… and that scares me a whole lot, not being gay, ‘cause it’s become a big part of who and what I am on account of how much I’ve suffered for it and all the pain and crying I’ve done. What if what I think is a lie and I’ve suffered ‘cause I was sick or some no good reason?”
“Hennessy, I’m saying this as your friend, but you need some real help, the kind of help that I can’t give you, and you need a way to sort this out. You need to talk to Doctor Sterling. You need sorting out just like Lord Death of Murder Mountain needs sorting out.”
“I’m so invested in what I am… it defines me.” As he spoke, he felt Piper pat his neck. “If we get Lord Death of Murder Mountain sorted out, what will he become?”
“Prince Peaceful of Happy Hill?” Piper let out a reluctant laugh that was equal parts amusement and discomfort. “Hennessy… for what it’s worth, I don’t think it works the way you think it does. You’re gay… and that’s just fine. As for your problem… well, you shouldn’t worry about it. Anypony that loves you isn’t going to notice, at least, that’s how it should be. Real life sometimes doesn’t quite work out the way it should though. But you shouldn’t worry. If it is just malnutrition, you’ll have a growth spurt or three since you are eating better and everything will get sorted out and everything will be fine.”
“Meow.”
As Hennessy and Piper came into a copse of beech trees, they noticed the hunched over form of Flicker, and he was not alone. A pink pony sat on the soft forest loam beside him, and she had a foreleg draped over his withers. The muted sound of weeping made both Hennessy and Piper’s ears prick up. Hennessy came to a halt and Piper had to hold on to keep from falling off from the abrupt stop.
“How… how did she...” Piper started to ask, but it was no use, and her words trailed off even as she thought about how useless it was to say them. There was no explaining Pinkie Pie, even to a fellow Pie. It was a lot to take in; somehow, Pinkie had passed them, found Flicker, and had tried to comfort him. There was also the fact that Flicker had feelings, and he was crying. Even after being blown up, after much pain and abuse, he hadn’t cried. So it was obvious that something had hurt him, and hurt him badly. It was something that hurt worse than being mauled by a bear and getting exploded with dynamite, which made Piper ache just thinking about it.
“I think Lord Death of Murder Mountain needs a hug,” Hennessy whispered.
“He’s getting one,” Piper replied, also whispering.
Pinkie Pie sprang up, bounced a few times in a circle around Flicker, and pronked over to where Hennessy and Piper stood. She paused, mid-pronk, suspended in the air right in front of Hennessy, and she reached out to pat the surprised earth pony colt on the cheek. “He’s all yours, I’ve softened him up a bit for you, but he really needs his friends. He’s a tough nut to crack, maybe even tougher than Cranky Doodle Donkey. There wasn’t much I could do for him.”
Then, Pinkie Pie unpaused her pronk, bounced, and pronked away, her tail bobbing, and she began to sing, “‘Cause I love to make you smile, smile, smile… yes I do… it fills my heart with sunshine all the while… yes it does… ‘cause all I really need's a smile, smile, smile… from these happy friends of mine…” And then, without warning or explanation, Pinkie Pie vanished behind an oak.
Spud, his stubby, sausagy, hairless tail held high, crept through the loam to where Flicker was sitting, climbed up his back, and then somehow sat down upon Flicker’s hunched withers. He meowed once as he reached out his paw and began swatting at Flicker’s ears, and then meowed for a second time.
The second meow was when Hennessy found his get-up-and-go, which for a moment there, had got-up-and-went. Pinkie Pie had that effect on ponies. Hennessy walked to where Flicker was, sat down, and Piper slid off of his back. Piper wobbled around on her legs, not steady, and somehow made it to the other side of Flicker, where she sat down.
“We’re a messed up, rag tag group of heroes with a crazed, maybe even psychotic loner, a cat-creature made from nightmares, a fabulous hick from some alicornless backwater, and a scrappy, plucky leader that doesn’t have a clue what she is getting into.” Piper looked over at Flicker, who sat sniffling beside her. “This would make for a fantastic comic book or even a movie.”
“My mother’s right.” Flicker’s voice was strained and scratchy. “I don’t know how to fix myself. I’m a pony with built in blinders.”
“Oh, it’s not that bad.” Piper tried to smile, but failed, and the corners of her mouth fell. It was pretty bad, and it was difficult to lie about it. “You are just single minded in your direction and your purpose. But we can fix that.”
“Doctor Sterling has tried exposing me to art, music, and culture.”
“Well, maybe you need to be exposed to friendship,” Piper replied. She almost added, Or maybe even love, but thought better of it and kept it to herself. “You need a hobby, something that isn’t work related—”
“I have a hobby, something I keep secret. I don’t want other ponies to laugh.”
“What is it?” Hennessy asked.
“Never you mind,” Flicker replied in a brusque manner. “Pinkie Pie already blabbed about it.”
“We don’t want to laugh at you, but it is okay if we laugh just a little bit at each other, isn’t it? I mean, we’re all going to be working together for the rest of our lives, right? We’ll know all of the embarrassing bits and the secrets that each of us have.” Piper gave a pointed stare to Hennessy, but he was oblivious. “I have a stash of simulated alicorn porn that my mother never found. Rather saucy images… I keep them because every time I look, I bust out laughing because of how ridiculous it all is.”
“Meow.”
“No, Spud, you don’t want to see that.” Flicker drew in a shuddering deep breath, held it, and then shook his head. “Once upon a time, I was different. I can remember being different, but it’s all growing dim now and I remember less and less of it. Sometimes, sometimes it feels like my cutie mark is consuming me, and I don’t want to make it stop. I just want to exist in the moment and fulfill my purpose. Just be rid of all the complications, the doubt, and just exist purely in the moment with no fear of the future and no worries about the past.”
“If you did that, you’d just be your cutie mark and you’d stop being Flicker… that’d be bad.” Hennessy scooted a little closer to Flicker and his ears angled over his face in concern. “Your cutie mark, your purpose, it shares your body with you. Flicker, you have to hold on to who and what you are.”
“Who am I?” Flicker asked. “Does it matter? The only time I feel whole is when I am wearing the mask, and why does a pony in a mask need a name? The mask is perfect uniformity and order. We all look the same. When the mask is on, I’m not the weak little colt that used to be scared of everything. I am the faceless slayer of rats. I have power and authority. I’m no longer afraid of what is under the bed, or in the closet, or of the scritchy-scratchy sounds in the dark corners of the house at night. The mask has made me the nightmare of rats.”
“There is still a face, a voice, and a heart beneath the mask…” Piper felt a tightness in her throat, as this hit close to home. She too, felt the dangerous allure of the mask, and she worried if she might also succumb to the seduction of anonymity within faceless servitude of purpose. “We are more than the masks we wear.”
It was with a great deal of trepidation that Flicker approached the farmhouse, scared in a way that he wasn’t usually scared. He had a nagging suspicion that Pinkie Pie was still about, and that one fact alone was plenty unnerving. His mother had said a few things to him that he was still trying to piece together, and he didn’t want to see his mother at the moment, not exactly, but his companions had goaded him into coming back home.
A quick look around confirmed that his father was wonderful, which was to say that he was outstanding in his own field. The joke was Flicker’s mother’s and he thought about the fact that she had such a warm sense of humour. What did he have? Not much. He could see his father’s faint outline near the riverbank, quite a ways down. Just behind him, there was a teeny, tiny little silhouette, and Flicker knew that it was Knick-Knack.
A part of him became angry, just angry enough that the corner of his eye twitched a few times. He didn’t want her to work the fields all day, pulling heavy farm equipment. No, he wanted, no, needed her to go to school, get a good education, and go to college. Neither his mother or his father had ever finished school, both of them had only gone to primary school, and his father had dropped out a year before finishing primary school to get a job.
“Ah-hah!” Piper cried. “Feelings! Now, whatever that was, hold on to it. What made you react so strongly?”
Somewhat annoyed with Piper, Flicker turned his heavy gaze upon her, the corner of his eye now twitching a bit more. “I don’t want my sister getting swaybacked… I want her to go to school… and I don’t want to see her out in the fields.”
“But she’s an earth pony—”
“Hennessy, she is an earth pony that will work with her mind.” Flicker’s dull, heavy gaze now fell upon Hennessy.
Chuckling just a little, his eyes merry, but also a little troubled by Flicker’s intensity, Hennessy’s ears leaned forwards as he stared right back at Flicker, and then he clucked his tongue a few times before he replied, “And what if her cutie mark sets her up to do something else? What if she’s destined to do hard work and nothing else?”
At these words, Flicker’s face fell, and he whirled around to look off into the distance at his little sister once more. His mouth opened, as if he was about to answer, but no words seemed forthcoming. No witty phrase or rejoinder volunteered themselves for departure after having been hoisted by his own petard.
“You can still save yourself, you know,” Hennessy drawled after Piper poked him in the neck with her hoof, prompting him to keep going. “There has to be more to life than cutie marks and work. There is more to life than your precious order. There is all of the little things that fill up the spaces in-between.”
“I don’t follow,” Flicker replied, his voice almost cracking in a most embarrassing way.
“Like, right now.” Hennessy made a gesture with his hoof, indicating everything around him. “This is an in-between space. Right now, we ain’t working, and this has nothing to do with our cutie marks. And we’s all full of ourselves with highfalutin—”
“Been reading the dictionary, I see,” Piper interjected.
“—talk of purpose and destiny and your anger at the idea of your little sister working.”
“And what of it?” Flicker asked, not seeing the point.
“Damn, you is one dense, ‘tarded sumbitch.” Hennessy stood there, muttering to himself for a moment, and then his eyes brightened. “What if your sister asked you to help her learn to dance, or paint, or sing, or all that stuff you have trouble doing. You’d let her down—”
“Meow.”
“Shut up, Spud.”
“These in-between spaces matter… these empty spaces is where the meaning of life is. We done s'posed to keep the light of civilisation burning, Flicker, that’s our job. That’s what we get paid to do. And that’s a noble job and all… but what good is it if’n we don’t enjoy what civilisation has to offer? If we is all like you, all work and purpose, there would be no need for civilisation, for fun, for dancing, or art, or music, if we was all like you, civilisation would fall. We’d just be vessels that serve our marks and nothing else. Purpose too, can be a plague. How do we protect ourselves from that?” Hennessy, without realising that he was doing it, batted his eyelashes at Flicker. “I could keep going… I came from a desert of culture, a place where I starved, and you don’t know how good you got it—”
“Okay, okay, I get it, the empty spaces that are between the big events matter!”
“Feels like… victory,” Piper said from atop her noble steed as she lifted her head and held it high. “We have come to Murder Mountain, and with great success, we have wounded its lord and master.” She sniffed, and her nostrils flared. “I’m feeling lightheaded and I think I need more morphine. I’m feeling really alive right now, and I don’t know why. When the rats were chewing on my legs, I kept thinking that I was going to die, but now, here I am with my two friends, talking about the meaning of life. I tell ya, life can be funny sometimes.”
Mᴇᴏᴡ
“Did anypony else think that Spud sounded a bit strange just now?” Hennessy asked.
“I didn’t notice anything,” Flicker replied.
“Neither did I, but I wasn’t paying attention.” Piper looked down at the mutant cat and smiled at him. “I was too busy thinking about how precious life is and how much having all of you as friends means to me. I really like all of you… even you, Spud.”
“Meow.”
Flicker moved about his mother’s kitchen, turning on the stove, putting a kettle on so that it could boil, pulling carrots and stalks of celery out of the icebox, (he wished that his parents would buy a real refrigerator) some apples were pulled from the larder, and everything that was needed for tea. Flicker too, was in much pain and feeling a bit lightheaded, but before he and Piper could take any medication, they needed a bite to eat.
Piper and Hennessy sat at the kitchen table, looking subdued, both watching Flicker as he worked, though for very different reasons. Piper marvelled at Flicker’s efficiency of movement, he was almost mechanical as he moved about, and she felt as though she was learning something by observing him. He was very much like a big predatory cat that didn’t do much of anything until it was time to pounce, and then it was beat-down time. Exciting things happened when Flicker began moving, terrible things, yes, but exciting.
Hennessy watched for very, very different reasons.
Lifting a cleaver, he examined the edge with his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth from his state of intense concentration, and then Flicker went to work on a cucumber, shaving off slices that were paper thin and translucent. In no time at all, some very basic cucumber sandwiches were made and put upon a platter with chipped edges that had seen better days decades ago. The harvest gold colouring of the platter was a dead giveaway of its age.
The platter of sandwiches was put down upon the table, and Flicker turned around once more to continue his task in his usual single minded fashion. Unbeknownst to him, a far more dangerous predator had entered the kitchen, and she moved with an uncanny silence only available to supernatural horrors and mothers everywhere. Hennessy and Piper, smart, responsible sorts, remained silent as Twisty snuck up on her son, though Piper was a bit worried about how Lord Death of Murder Mountain might react to a sneak attack.
Piper’s fears were unfounded and proven baseless. When Twisty wrapped her wings around Flicker, he just stood there with a blank, vacant expression, and with his magic, he continued about his task. This wasn’t the reaction that Piper was hoping for and the filly began to feel Flicker’s mother’s frustration.
“I’m sorry, Flicker, but I said what I said hoping to shock you into some kind of reaction.” Twisty closed her eyes and leaned into her son, hugging him, and holding him close. “You know, Flicker, I was still a filly when I had you. I was scared, and young, and my whole world turned upside down, and I was terrified of having to grow up so young.”
“Mother…”
“But you came along, and everything was okay. I was still a playful little thing at that age, and you played with me. You splashed in mud puddles with me, we played in the mud together, and I taught you how to make mud pies to throw at your father.”
The kitchen was filled with the sounds of Flicker’s strained breathing and there was a look of absolute worry upon his face, as perhaps he feared his mother dropping more unwanted revelations upon him. One somewhat swollen ear twitched when his mother opened her eyes and the downy feathers in her wings tickled his neck.
“I worried so much about you. Like I said, I was a little thing… I worried that you wouldn’t get enough to eat, that my body couldn’t produce enough milk for you.” At her words, Flicker’s face darkened, and Twisty let out a maternal sigh. “But I was one proud pegasus. I had made a little friend for myself, and what a curious little friend he was.”
Flicker’s sharp inhale was an audible wheeze.
“I was a different pony then… I can’t believe how stupid Conk and I was… the doctor actually had to explain to us how you came along, because we were totally unaware that what we were doing would get me knocked up. You were quite a surprise, and you changed my whole world.”
Using her magic, Piper grabbed Hennessy’s foreleg and draped it over her withers as she leaned in a little closer to him, scooting her chair over as she did so.
“I was angry, Flicker, because I felt like I had lost my friend. It was bad enough losing my son… but my friend… my playmate… that hurt me, Flicker, it hurt me real bad. It’s left a big ol’ empty place in my heart and I’ve had to get some counselling for it, and it’s made Conk and I bicker a bit, because he don’t believe in headshrinkery. He thinks private stuff that happens at home should stay at home.”
“I’m sorry…” Flicker breathed these words as the tea kettle began to think about getting warm enough to boil.
“I am too,” Twisty replied, her voice husky and her eyes shimmering with excess moisture that threatened to come spilling out.
“I’ll get some help,” Flicker promised.
“Sometimes, he was even funny,” Twisty said, speaking to Piper and Hennessy. “Sometimes, when his mama farted, he would say, ‘You can’t have the pegasus without the gas us.’ Maybe I only found it funny because I’m his mother, but I was proud of him for being witty.”
Hennessy began chuckling, a slow, drawn out, hickish sounding laugh that filled the kitchen. The tea kettle edged a little closer to deciding to boil, and Piper wiped her eyes with her bandaged foreleg, mindful to be careful.
“I want my friend back, Flicker,” Twisty said, making her intentions clear. “I want the little colt that I took to Canterlot back. Even if I can only see him for a few minutes at a time. I know that he has to be in there, somewhere, and I want him back. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll give him to me.”
The water in the teakettle on the stove began to burble as it approached a boil.
“That little colt I miss went down into the cellar and a different pony came back up.” Twisty let go of her son, stepped away, and folded her wings against her sides. She kissed her son on the cheek, then backed away, retreated, and sat down at the table. Blinking, she began wiping her eyes while trying to smile.
“I miss my Ma…” Hennessy said as his laughter came to a sudden, abrupt stop. “I don’t miss my Pa none, but there’s a powerful ache inside when I think of my Ma.”
Reaching out, Twisty took Hennessy’s fetlock into her own and gave it a squeeze, giving him a silent suggestion that she had motherhood to spare. Together, she and Hennessy watched as Flicker continued his task, and the flurry of movement that came when at last the kettle began to whistle as it boiled.
“My mother is pretty special, even if she drives me crazy sometimes,” Piper remarked. “She doesn’t respect my privacy and she takes my growing up as an affront, but I still love her.” Piper paused, shook her head, and added, “And deep down, I think my mother thinks that my magic is offensive, as she is always going on about the earth pony way and she becomes visibly upset sometimes when I use my magic. I have a troubled relationship with my mother.”
“Oh, I’ve always liked having Flicky’s magic around.” Twisty leaned over the table and looked into Piper’s eyes. “Magic is just a part of what makes him so special. Conk had some trouble adjusting at first, but I gave him a good, stern talking to. Conk’s happy now because Flicker got his father’s work ethic, and Conk don’t care how that work is done, just so long as it is done. Conk is one of those ponies that respects results. That’s really all that matters to him. Yields and results. He don’t abide no laziness.”
“I like Conk, he’s nice.” Hennessy’s head swivelled around to look at Twisty. “He don’t shout and he was nice to me when I was helping him. He had nothing but kind words and I don’t get that much from other ponies. I ain’t used to it.”
“I tried to help my parents when they worked.” Piper’s expression became sulky. “My father came right out and said that the food was tainted with magic and he got upset. I was just trying to make things easier… you know, come to think of it, I’m rather glad I’m away from home. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love them both, but I can’t be me around them.”
“Don’t feel bad, Piper, I can’t be myself around my parents either,” Hennessy drawled.
“Poor dear, that must be hard.” Twisty gave Hennessy a knowing look and something that was almost a smirk lurked upon her muzzle. She glanced over at Flicker for a moment, then back at Hennessy. She gave the earth pony colt a wink, waggled her eyebrow, and then made a gesture at Flicker, who had his back turned to the three of them at the table.
Hennessy, looking a little frantic and afraid, nodded, glanced at Flicker, and then looked back at Flicker’s mother as he squirmed in his chair. When Twisty nodded back, Hennessy’s ears stood up and the unspoken communication continued. Again, Twisty made a saucy eyebrow waggle, and she gestured at Flicker while giving Hennessy a meaningful stare.
Pegasus ponies were observant creatures; some more so than others.
Looking excited, Twisty went almost still when Flicker turned around and began to carry the tray loaded down with the tea over to the table. She gave Hennessy a final wink, a hopeful look, and poor Hennessy, overcome with emotion, trembled in his chair, causing the somewhat warped legs to rattle against the floor. When faced not only with acceptance, but open encouragement, from the mother of his crush no less, Hennessy did not know how to respond.
“Hennessy, if you please, run out and get my father. Tell him the tea is served.” Flicker set the tray down upon the table. “Thank you, Hennessy.”
Confused, flustered, and even a little excited, Hennessy bolted for the door to do as he was told, thankful and glad for the opportunity to escape.
With a patience that could only be described as ‘endless,’ Flicker waited for Piper to work up the nerve to change his bandage. This was good for her, learning how to apply a field dressing, how to bandage wounds, how to patch up flesh that the job destroyed. His mother, Twisty, turned away as she scooped up Knick-Knack and she covered his little sister’s eyes with her wing.
Piper took several deep breaths to prepare herself, then began.
Taking the bandage off wasn’t so much a problem, but what lurked beneath it was. Piper hissed a bit as she worked, and then, with a snort of self disgust, she made herself look at Flicker’s wound. The flesh had been pulled taut, stretched over the open gashes on his ribs, and there was a long incision that had been made going from rib to flank, the soft, delicate place that existed between his ribs and his hip. The muscle had been repaired, sewn together, and right now, there were about a hundred stitches or so, inside and out, along with many staples at stress points.
“It’s looking better,” Piper said, her eyes glittering in the lamplight as she made herself look. “You’re a very fast healer, I think, I mean, I have nothing to go on, but every day this looks a whole lot better than the day before. Meanwhile, my legs continue to look pretty awful.”
“And what muscle did I tear?” Flicker asked.
There was a bit of a delay in Piper’s response. “Are you going to pop me a smart one on the neck if I get it wrong again?”
“Yes.” Flicker saw no need for anything but brutal honesty.
“The external abdominal oblique,” Piper replied, unflinching and confident in her answer. Using her telekinesis, she lifted up her supplies as she examined the wound, looking for diseased flesh, infection, signs of swelling or places with fluid build up that might need to be lanced and drained. Flicker had been a more than competent teacher in this subject, along with necessity, and she felt confident that she could do anything required, should it need to be done.
“I don’t smell any sickness.” Hennessy moved closer, his ears pinned back, and he leaned his head down a bit. He sniffed a few times, his nostrils flaring, and his brows furrowed as he examined both the gashes from the bear’s claws and the long surgical incision. “Nothing should heal that fast. I ain’t no doctor, but I’ll be damned if that’s natural. I done been ripped open, gashed, beaten into a bloody heap, and kicked into submission too many times. I done spent a lot of time healing and I gots me a good feel for it.”
Looking a bit bewildered, Hennessy backed away, sat down on the floor, gathered up his art supplies, and with a charcoal pencil in his mouth, he began sketching the wound on Flicker’s side as Piper began the wound care. Holding a pair of tweezers, Piper looked for any hairs that might be growing in which might have grown into the closing wound, and cause an ingrown hair. That was a means to infection that could be prevented. Piper had a keen eye and an even keener confidence.
“Most ponies would be bedridden,” Twisty said, unable to bring herself to look as she held Knick-Knack.
Grimacing, Piper lifted up the spray bottle of iodine in her telekinesis, now finished looking for stray hairs growing in. “I won’t lie, Flicker, I’m going to enjoy this after all of the pain you’ve caused me. I’ll try not to gloat too much about it though, not with your mother sitting right here.” Piper laughed a little, a grim sound. “You deserve this…” And without further ado, she began spritzing Flicker’s side with iodine.
The stoic colt did not make a sound and his side quivered with every spray.
Piper used a sheet of paper to fan the wound, drying it a bit, and when she was satisfied with how it looked, she began applying the moisturising gel to the red, almost scabby edges of sutured flesh. Applying the wet pack was important. Humming to herself, she stuck a few gauze sponges to the bone deep gashes on Flicker’s ribs, using the gel to hold them in place, and then she taped them securely. Unrolling more gauze, she began to apply a wound dressing that ran most of the length of Flicker’s side.
“I’m going to make certain you get a commendation for this,” Flicker said, his voice absolutely flat and emotionless. “Work this good demands recognition and getting a good list of accomplishments will help you begin your promotions. It stinks being at the bottom. Trust me, I know.”
Blushing just a little, Piper nodded and said, “Nothing needed packing this time. There was a couple of spots that I thought might be need to stuffed with gauze, places where they didn’t stitch to allow for drainage I guess, I don’t know… but I just had a hunch that they don’t need packing.” The filly sighed, dreading what was coming next.
“Now it is your turn… prepare yourself, Piper…”
As evening settled in, as it had for the past few days, Flicker noticed a distinct absence of Hennessy. This bothered him, though he would never admit to it, and he wondered where his companion was going during these unexplained absences. Not even a half an hour ago, Hennessy had been colouring with Knick-Knack, helping the little filly get over her case of the sads after witnessing yet another wound care session.
As for Knick-Knack herself, she was yawning and saying that she wasn’t sleepy, nope, not sleepy at all, and she was a big filly that didn’t need to go to bed. Flicker knew from recent experience that she’d drop over in not much longer, then his mother would take the little filly to her bed, carrying her by the nape of her tiny, precious little neck.
Pacing around, Flicker looked at the front door.
Doing so set off a chain of events, and Flicker had no idea that many had been conspiring against him, his family and his friends. For whatever reason, now was the chosen time to strike, and strike they did, moving with coordinated effort. Piper, limping a bit on four legs but able to move, picked up Knick-Knack in a bubble of magic and headed for the kitchen door, so she could get to the back of the house where the bedrooms were. After a moment of hesitation while also glancing at her husband, Twisty gave a nod and then she followed Piper out of the room.
“Son, we need to talk,” Conk said to Flicker, who was still looking at the door, oblivious to everything that had just taken place.
“Can it wait?” Flicker asked, still staring at the door, and thinking about his missing companion.
“No. Have a seat, Son.” Conk gestured at the old threadbare sofa, the sofa where Hennessy had been sleeping at night. When Flicker was slow to respond, Conk added just a little more authority to his voice. “Son, please, have a seat.”
Being the dutiful son, Flicker obeyed. He went over to the sofa, sat down, frowned a bit, and looked at his father, his eyes curious and flashing in the lamplight. He waited as his father appeared to collect himself, and he did his best to ignore the itching in his dock and tail where new hairs were growing in. It dawned upon Flicker that the living room was now empty, save for himself and his father.
“Son, I have to ask you a question, and we need to have a talk.”
“That’s fine.”
Conk took a deep breath, and unable to look at his son, he looked at the ornate clock instead. The stallion reached up, scratched his neck, and then chuffed a few times, nervous and out of sorts. After much delaying, he asked, “Son, are you gay?”
Flicker’s gaze became a thousand yard stare as his eyes went vacant. The lights were still on, but at the moment, nopony was home. The clock ticked away the seconds, and thirty seven seconds later, one of Flicker’s ears gave a half-hearted twitch. Eleven seconds after that, his nostrils flared—quivering for the span of nine seconds, and then went back to normal.
Conk waited as the second hand on the clock began to go round again.
Lost in a state of intense concentration, Flicker wrestled with his father’s question until at last, the second hand on the clock began its third go round. Twenty six seconds after the second hand began its third turn of the clock face, Flicker made a near-whispered response.
“Is it okay to be gay?”
Frustrated to the point of reaction, Conk snorted. “What sort of question is that? I raised you better! I tried to make you tolerant… is it okay to be gay? Of course it is! You were raised in a multi-tribal house! We might not be the smartest ponies around, but we’re not intolerant hicks… of course it is okay to be gay! Damn, Son, sometimes you are so thick headed!”
Forty nine seconds later, his father still chuffing and snorting, Flicker replied, “No, I mean, is it okay for me to be gay?”
A vein in Conk’s temple began throbbing and below it, his eye twitched in a fitful manner. The stallion facehoofed, once, twice, and on the third time, he let out a groan, then asked, “Son, why wouldn’t it be okay if you were gay?”
“I…” Flicker’s utterance trailed off and his response died on his lips. Thirty two seconds later, he recovered enough to speak. “I don’t want you disappointed in me or anything I do. I don’t want you or my mother feeling let down or otherwise disappointed by my actions. I couldn’t live with myself if either of you were ashamed of me for any reason. So I don’t know what’s okay.”
“Son, your mother can’t help but notice that Hennessy spends just about every waking moment staring at you when he thinks you’re not looking. Have you even looked at what he draws in his sketchbooks? It’s all pictures of you! And a few of Piper, too. He draws you from every angle. When he thinks you’re not paying attention, he just stares at you, and I’ve even seen it myself. He looks at you in the same way your mother still looks at me when she thinks I’m not watching, and how she used to look at me when she and I were the same age as you and Hennessy.”
Flicker blinked.
“And you, you Son, you spend a lot of time staring at Hennessy.”
“I do?” Flicker asked.
“Yes. You do.”
“I like his colour,” Flicker admitted, which was a huge, meaningful admission for him.
“It is very distinctive,” Conk replied.
“Mother will want grandfoals. Family. I think about it, sometimes, when I’m laying in my bed at night and staring at the wall. I’ve tried planning my adult life, but I keep drawing blanks. Sometimes, I’d feel ashamed about it, because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea. It was easier to just exist in the moment and not think about anything.”
His hard, blustery demeanour softened and Conk looked at his son with weary, sad eyes.
“There was only me and the mask and I couldn’t picture anything else.”
“Son, I’m not a learned pony,” Conk began, and then he coughed to clear his throat. “I never finished primary school. I’m not all that wise in the ways of the world. I’ve learned a few things though. Twisty… she was my playmate growing up and I figured it out pretty early on that the pegasus filly playing in the birdbaths and the fountains and the puddles was a pretty special pony. I knew that if I didn’t catch her, she was going to fly away some day, and I lived in fear of that day happening.”
With a slow, almost mechanical turn of his head, Flicker looked at his father.
“As you know, I was raised by my uncle. After I was weaned, my mother took off to do whatever it was that she took off to do, and she left me with her brother. Now, Twisty, she didn’t have no parents either, and she just drifted in on the breeze one day when she was just a tiny thing. Our relationship started with an apple butter sandwich that I shared with her. That turned out to be the smartest thing I ever did, Son, and your mother might say I ain’t done nothing smart since.”
After a moment, Flicker nodded to acknowledge his father’s words, so Conk could continue.
“I became friends with that flighty little bird, but I lived in fear that she would fly away one day. Or worse, somepony would come along and take her. It was common for the young to leave home and find their way, but she was still really little… after a time, I convinced my uncle to let her stay with us, and she could’ve lived in the house, we tried to get her to come into the house, but she wanted to live in the barn up in the hayloft where she could make nests. Now, that peeved my uncle something awful, because it made him look bad, because he had an orphan living in his barn. He thought it made him look calloused.”
Flicker knew all too well his mother’s nest making problem.
“Come morning, she’d start crowing before the roosters did, she’d be up on the barn roof making a ruckus, and my uncle was a thankful sort for this happening. It meant an extra hour of work in the cool of the morning, before the heat of the day set in. My uncle said that was how she earned her keep, she was the most perfect alarm clock ever.” Conk smiled as he recalled many fond memories.
Still silent, Flicker waited and listened.
“Son, if you have any kind of smarts at all, you’ll catch you an earth pony.”
“What do I do with him once I catch him?” Flicker asked, giving his father a blank stare.
Again, for the fourth time now, Conk facehoofed, and it made a sound very much like his namesake.
“This stuff is complicated. I don’t understand it. Hennessy likes a whole bunch of stuff I can’t even begin to understand and it seems impossible to talk to him about it.” Flicker’s stoic exteriour shattered and he slumped down where he sat, looking miserable. “I’ve wanted to talk to him about it a few times, but I just couldn’t get the words out… just earlier today, even.”
“Son, you need to develop a personality of some kind. You seem to have lost yours somewhere between here and Canterlot. Honestly, I think it got dropped down a well someplace after you pummeled it into submission and maybe stabbed it a few times.”
Not at all amused by his father’s joke, Flicker’s cheeks and eyes bulged as he stared at his father. His face grew darker and the fuzzy tips of his ears quivered. The colt stifled his anger, as he could not remain angry with his father, lest he be disrespectful, and Flicker couldn’t live with himself if he did that. He’d have to toss himself down a well if he behaved poorly.
“Now, listen to me, Son, and you listen good. Hennessy has been going off to watch the moonrise and he prays to Princess Luna… he’s talked to me about it while we were out working in the fields. He wants acceptance… he feels like an outsider and it hurts him plenty. He figures that Princess Luna knows how it feels to be an outsider, and not be accepted, not be wanted, so he’s taken up praying to her that she fixes his mind so he’ll know some peace.”
For Flicker, it felt like an icicle had been driven through his ribs, into his barrel, and right through his heart.
“He reminds me of your mother, Son, back when she had a crisis about herself, and she couldn’t figure out if she was pretty. I suppose we all go through that phase where we try to sort ourselves out. But Hennessy, it’s worse for him, because he’s scared shitless on account of how he grew up. There’s a lot of hurt there, Son, a whole lotta hurt, and I doubt this is gonna be easy. First crushes or infatuations are supposed to be hoofloose and fancy free, but you ain’t gonna get that, Son. Not much in your life is gonna be easy, I figure.”
Sighing, Flicker slumped down a little bit more.
“No, I reckon that if you want to claim you an earth pony, you’re gonna need to lay siege to everything hurting him and then batter down those doors of his. You’re gonna hafta find a way to slay those demons of his, because, let me tell you, Son, he’s troubled. Son, to help you understand all of this, some ponies... some ponies, they have rats in the cellar… Hennessy… well, Son, Hennessy has rats in his soul.”
Flicker’s blank look of despair became one of seething rage and the sudden change startled his father, who jerked his head back in alarm. The murderous expression upon his son’s face was a painful reminder of how much Flicker had changed, and what his son had become. Conk, now silent, watched as his son rose from the sofa, shook himself a bit, and then headed off for the door.
When his son had passed though the door and shut it behind him, Conk wondered if perhaps he had made a mistake in saying what he had said. The cold, icy, murderous eyes of his son were unsettling, unnerving, and Conk squirmed in his seat. Sighing, worried, he got up from where he was sitting, and went to go and say goodnight to his daughter, while also worrying about his son.
Conk hoped that Princess Luna was listening, because it was bound to be a long night.
As Flicker searched the night, it began to dawn upon him that there was a conspiracy against him and that he had just been ambushed. He wasn’t angry about it, far from it, he was happy that there were those who loved him enough to worry about him and look after his needs. Flogging his brain, Flicker demanded to know where a good spot to watch the moon rise might be, a place away from trees and other tall things.
His brain gave him an answer. The diving rock down the river a ways. It was a massive boulder that jutted up out of the river bank at an angle. It was easy to clamber up one side, get to the top, and then have a good ten foot or so drop to the water below. He had fond memories of his mother teaching him how to cannonball from the rock, learning how to swim, and that one fateful summer where he had belly flopped from the top of the diving rock. That had been the summer that he had discovered what it meant to be a colt—that parts of him were tender and had to be protected at all costs. It hadn’t been long after that his mother had become pregnant, and his entire life had changed.
As it always happened when he felt troubled, his thoughts turned to his sister. She was very precious, very dear to him, he loved her a great deal. The deep part of his mind, the part of him that was smart, so very smart, the part of him that was full of cunning and brilliant ideas, it suggested that if he could feel the same way about Hennessy, or even other ponies, such as Piper, for example, certain problems might fix themselves.
Flicker’s entire demeanour had changed when he had become his sister’s knight and she had become his princess. It had awoken some important fundamental aspect of his very being and given him a sense of wholeness. Now, his brain suggested, if he could do the same with others, if for perhaps different reasons, purpose could be found. Flicker’s existence demanded purpose, he needed a cause to serve, to give himself over to.
He was, at his heart, a pony in search of a princess. Some ponies aspired to become princesses, or princes, as the case may be, while a few special-minded ponies sought to serve said princesses (or princes) with single-minded authoritative zealousness. In another time, in an another era, Flicker might’ve become a knight, or worse, an inquisitor, and he would have served his chosen liege with unwavering, unflinching, unending fanatical devotion, burning down the countryside and the peasantry with reckless glee and abandon if his chosen liege so demanded it.
Born outside of the time where he might have been most useful, where he might have held the most promise, a time when he would have been the cream that rose to the top, Flicker had given himself to an ideal, but that was a poor excuse for a princess and some deep, buried part of his mind knew it.
Slipping through the darkness, Flicker moved off in search of a princess, and he was going to have the prettiest, most brushable, most combable princess ever, somepony to give over all of his fanatical devotion to. A princess with a distinctive, reddish-golden-brown coat that was pleasing to the eye.
Far, far away, in the Crystal Empire…
Something was wrong. Princess Mi Amore Cadenza could sense that something was wrong, but she couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Oh, there were a lot of things that could be wrong, it could be gas, which was possible, those deep fried pickles dipped in chocolate sauce and spicy yellow mustard hadn’t quite agreed with her delicate, princessly body. It could be hormones, which had laid siege upon her as of late, her second pregnancy was a bit rough and she had trouble keeping her mood in check because of all of the blemishes on her pregnant, pudgy, plush, princessly, pimpled posteriour. It might have been those curious leftovers she had found in the back of the fridge; Shining had warned her of the dangers of eating curry with an unknown age and pedigree.
Cuddling with her daughter, Flurry, she felt it again, the permeating sense of wrongness, and as the army of goose-stepping geese marched in lock-stepped profile down her spine, she got goosebumps. It was quite alarming, and what Cadance didn’t know was that she was feeling a type of love unfamiliar to her; crazy, reckless love fueled by mania and a mild but persistent form of insanity.
Disturbed, she hiccuped and felt a peculiar sense of drunkenness even as her sense of alarm grew with each passing second. Yep, there was something wrong and she needed to get down to the bottom of it, as this was something that couldn’t be ignored. This wasn’t the curry with an unknown age and pedigree, she was certain of it, no matter what her curry-purist husband might say if he knew. Besides, what did he know, anyhow? She poo-pooed her husband’s curry-supremacist ways even as she clutched her stomach with her hoof.
Sighing, Cadance began to worry, as this new sensation of love was very much like curry; dangerous, fiery, potentially painful, and at the end of it all, there was bound to be a very sore, abused and battered backside. Rolling over, she slipped out of her bed, and she felt the need to contact her Auntie right away.
Meanwhile, back in Ponyville…
Atop the diving rock, Flicker could make out Hennessy’s silhouette in the moonlight. The river was filled with a thousand glittering diamonds and hundreds of tiny moons reflected in the swirls and eddies of the flowing water. Ears perking, he could hear the sounds of Hennessy praying, but he couldn’t make out the words. Not knowing what to do, what the appropriate etiquette for approaching somepony while they were praying was, Flicker waited in the shadows.
A dilemma presented itself. Flicker, being a stealthy sort, might be down here all night, or at least until Hennessy was finished. The colt atop the rock had no way of knowing that he was being watched, or that there was a sneaky, somewhat illusive predatory creature in training lurking in the shadows. Flicker thought long and hard about his father’s words, about Hennessy having rats in his soul. The rats got into everything, everything, and Flicker hated them all the more.
A terrible creeping cold came over Flicker and his ears perked at the sound that he wasn’t sure if he was actually hearing. He was almost certain that he had heard something, but he wasn’t quite certain of what it was. He thought about the old, strange expression that ponies sometimes said, about somepony walking over their grave, and Flicker now understood what that felt like. If there had been a sound, Flicker decided that he didn’t want to hear it and it was better to pretend that it didn’t exist.
One thing was for certain, Flicker didn’t want to be alone, not with spooky weird sounds in the dark that almost, but not quite, sounded like a voice. Moving in silence, his coat allowing him to blend in with the darkened night, he crept over to the diving rock, placed his hoof upon the stone, and began to climb up. His frogs were sweaty and everything felt all weird. The confidence he had felt earlier was gone, and was now replaced by outright terror.
“I done reckon that you had a talk,” Hennessy said to Flicker as he sat down beside him. The last word uttered sounded more like ‘tawk’. The colt with the extraordinary pelt looked at his companion for a time, and then resumed looking up at the moon. “I was just sitting up here on this here rock, having a talk with Princess Luna.”
Flicker found the words ‘rawk’ and ‘tawk’ somewhat endearing, but he didn’t know it at the moment. While Hennessy looked up at the moon, Flicker looked down at the water. The flowing river and the water it contained sometimes confounded him. Flicker was fire aligned by nature and disposition, so much so that it was even part of his cutie mark.
“Your father was easy to talk to, and it felt good to talk about it with somepony that didn’t judge me. I was powerful relieved to finally get a few things off my barrel, and your father even hugged me, which was just about the nicest thing ever. I ain’t used to that, and it scared me a bit, and he held me while I cried.”
Flicker remained in stony silence.
“I ain’t used to no comforting or kindness, or being held, so that scared me too.”
Lifting his head, looking up at the moon, Flicker thought of his father, and he thought well of his father. His father was the embodiment of a good pony, even if he wasn’t well learned or worldly. He wanted to do something nice for his father, but he didn’t know what. There was a sense of gratitude that demanded acknowledgment though.
“I can’t even begin to understand what you see in me.” For the first time, Flicker heard the sound of his own voice, really heard it, and was shocked to hear a rather smooth Canterlot accent. It was a shocking reminder of how much he had changed since leaving home. Ponyville had its own twang, and Hennessy… well, Hennessy’s drawl was poured from a bottle.
“You’re like a blank page, a sheet of paper that needs fancy words written on it, or maybe a nice painting or a sketch. See, lots of ponies, they like art, and I love art, it’s what kept me going, and while ponies love art, I feel that artists should love what they done draw on, or write on, or paint on. I done reckon it’s ‘cause I did without for so long and I ain’t never had much in the way of art supplies. But a blank sheet of paper has its own beauty, Flicker, it’s a promise of beauty yet to come. Ya just gotta wait around to see how it turns out.”
“I… can’t even understand what you are saying,” Flicker confessed, shaking his head, “but there is something meaningful to it. But that meaning eludes me. Even your words are like art, and I don’t know what to make of them.”
“My words is art. Ayup. Or as my father might say, ‘You stop with that sissy faggot talk, you little queer piece of shit, afore I’—”
“Don’t say that.” Flicker looked over at Hennessy, feeling a dreadful pain, and in a very stern voice, he added, “Don’t ruin this. It’s hard for me to think when there’s rage in my mind. My brain moves slow as it is. I don’t need anything making it slower.”
“I talk slow, you think slow. I have a spoken drawl, you have a mental drawl.” Hennessy blinked and the moon reflected in his eyes. “‘Cause both of us is all slow, ponies tend to think we is dumb. I watch how ponies look at you and react to you. They look at you in the same way they done look at me, and think I’m ‘tarded cause I talk funny.”
“I could listen to you talk all night.”
“Well, that’s good, Flicky, ‘cause with as slow as I talk, it might take me all night to say something.” Hennessy smiled just a little bit, cheering up, and his bright amber eyes flashed silver in the moonlight. “Back where I come from, ponies talk so slow that, afore a filly has time to tell you they ain’t that kind of pony, they is… and the cycle of life goes on. So it goes.”
Flicker, oblivious, didn’t get the joke. Shrugging off the attempt at humour, he changed the subject, as he was wont to do when faced with humour that he didn’t understand. “In Canterlot, near the cemetery, there is the Chapel of Night. It was just finished during the winter. Prince Gosling had it built for Princess Luna as a token of his deep and abiding friendship with her. I’ve never been there, but I’ll take you there. I think you might like it.”
The laboured sound of Hennessy breathing filled the night, his barrel hitched up and down, and little snorts came out of his nose as he fought to keep himself composed. “That sounds nice. You’d do that for me?” Hennessy paused and sucked in as much air as his lungs could hold. “Wait, did you just ask me on a date?”
“At no time did I ask a question,” Flicker replied, mulling over his own words. “I stated that I would take you there. Never once was a question mark implied in what I had to say.”
“I see.” Hennessy smacked his lips together and his ears folded back against his head. “Well.” He smacked his lips again and looked up at the moon. “So, that’s how Lord Death of Murder Mountain goes about dating. I’m not sure how I feel about this approach.”
“There’s room up here on the mountain for two.” Flicker couldn’t tell if he had just tried to make a joke or not, but he had tried to be as clever as his slow thinking brain would allow. He was rather proud of it, success or no. His sweaty frogs dried up a bit as his confidence soared. “I can’t give you a lot of fancy words… I’m a doer, I do things, when things happen, I don’t think about stuff, or try to talk my way through a situation… I just do it. I’m not that great at asking questions, at least I don’t think I am. I make Doctor Sterling frustrated a lot of the time.”
“So you don’t ask, you just do stuff.” Again, Hennessy smacked his lips. “You’re the doer.”
Flicker felt as though he was missing something, but for the life of him, he didn’t know what it was or what it might be. “Yes, I am the doer. That’s what I do. I do. I find what needs to be done and then come Tartarus or high water, I do it until the job is finished or it can’t be done no more.”
“You so dense…” Hennessy shook his head, smirking in the moonlight. “All this feels so magical… you’re flirting with me and you ain’t even knowing of it.”
“I am?” Puzzled, Flicker’s forehead wrinkled as he tried to think of how he might have flirted with Hennessy. After many long, stretched out seconds, he drew a blank. He suspected that Hennessy was pulling his leg, as in no way was Flicker flirting. A dull sense of confusion settled in and Flicker tried to figure out what was going on.
“I has me a powerful need to cool off.” Grinning, Hennessy launched himself from the top of the rock and then a second later he splashed into the river below.
Flicker, still very confused, sat there on top of the rock, bathed in moonlight, with a blank expression on his face, trying to figure out what had just happened. Whatever had just transpired, he was unaware of it, and left mystified from the encounter. Left with no other option, with no other recourse, with no means of understanding, Flicker whispered four words he never imagined himself saying.
Flicker, feeling a renewed sense of spirit and self, looked around the table at the ponies eating breakfast with him. His eyes lingered the longest on Knick-Knack, but Hennessy was a close second. He hadn’t slept much, there was just too much to think about, and he had spent most of the night staring up at the ceiling, wondering how he was going to get help.
He would start by asking Doctor Sterling, as that seemed wise, but beyond that, he was clueless.
Buckwheat pancakes. Buckwheat wasn’t wheat, and it wasn’t even a grass. It was a food for the poorest of the poor and Flicker wondered why his mother still bought it. He didn’t mind eating it, he just wondered why it continued to be a staple in this house when he sent so much money home.
“It’s time to go back,” Flicker said after swallowing.
“What?” Twisty almost choked, she coughed, and then continued, “You’re not healed!”
“I’m healed enough,” Flicker replied as he turned to look at his mother. “There is much that we could be doing. Schooling, for one. Light duty work won’t hurt us. Also, if I am to get help, I’d rather do it sooner than later. I fear that I will slip into complacency and go back to how I was.”
“Well, that’s very honest of you to say that.” Conk leaned over the table and rested his forelegs against the edge, close to his pushed away and now empty plate. “I’ve been meaning to ask, did you and Hennessy have a nice talk last night?”
“We sure did.” Hennessy lifted his head away from his food, and his muzzle was covered in applesauce. “If’n we’re gonna be going, I wanna thank ya’ll for being so nice to me. It means a lot. I’ll try to keep Flicker on task and see that he gets sorted out.”
“No go.” Knick-Knack looked at her brother and her face was very distraught.
“Knacky, I’m sorry.” Flicker took a deep breath and steeled his resolve. “There is much work to be done and I’m not one for lazing about.”
“I am,” Knick-Knack said as she peered over her plate at her brother. “Stay and I won’t blow my fart whistle no more. Promise.” The little filly’s ears drooped. “Being lazy is good… sleep in, warm bed, lots of naps, snuggling with Mommy, play with toys… all good.”
Putting down his fork, Flicker sighed. This was why he hated coming home—leaving. He became aware of the fact that Piper was looking at him, and for whatever reason, he couldn’t meet her gaze. Did she want to stay? She still needed more time to heal, but she could do it in a classroom. An unfamiliar feeling of doubt and uncertainty lingered in the back of Flicker’s mind.
“Knacky, I love you so much that I can’t even talk about it. There is just too much to say. I love you and I want what is best for you, and I am in the best position to make sure that you have it. You deserve the world, and I want to give it to you.” Flicker glanced at his mother, then his father, and continued, “I love all of you, even if I don’t say it much. Mom, Dad, both of you deserve to be able to retire and live a comfortable life someday. Knacky, you need your education. These are things I want to give to all of you, and it means I have to work for it.”
Looking just a little sulky and a bit confused, Knick-Knack glared at her brother for a few seconds, and then her angry, petulant stare softened. Her lower lip started quivering, and it became obvious that this wasn’t an act or a ploy. Grunting, Flicker lifted her out of her seat with his magic, pulled her over to where he sat, and then held her in his forelegs, easing her in so he wouldn’t hurt himself.
“Do you have any friends, Knacky?” Flicker asked as he pulled his sister’s head to the base of his neck and held her.
“Fluttershy watches me while Mommy works, I like her,” Knick-Knack replied. The filly squirmed in her brother’s embrace and closed her eyes. “She smells like aminals and pee sometimes.”
Across the table, Conk began snorting as he tried to keep a straight face.
“I was there when Fluttershy put Angel Bunny in the dirt and she was sad and she cried a lot and then she got the new Angel Bunny and she was happy.” Knick-Knack snuggled up against her brother, yawned, and wrapped her forelegs around his right foreleg, holding on tight to her brother. “She told me letting go was hard.”
“It is, Knacky, it is.” Flicker leaned back in his chair and rubbed the top of his sister’s head with his chin, moving it in slow little circles between her ears. She was bigger now, and there was a lot more of her to hold. His sister was also an earth pony, and therefore heavy. The softness and warmth of her pelt, the silkiness of her mane, all of these things served as a reminder of what was at stake. These were all things that were precious to him, things that he would miss.
“Go when I’m sleeping, okay?”
Flicker asked, “Why?”
“It’s like tonsils, if you all sleepy, it won’t hurt.”
Ear twitching, Flicker remembered that his sister had suffered tonsillitis. He had paid for the hospital bill so that his parents wouldn’t have had to put a lien against the farm. Through narrowed eyes, he looked over at Piper, who nodded, and then at Hennessy, who also offered up a nod of acknowledgment. So, that’s how it would be then. Knick-Knack would go to sleep and they would slip away. She would wake up, have a good cry about them being gone, and then get it over it in the way that only the very young could.
The breakfast table became a very quiet place indeed as Knacky drifted off to sleep in the embrace of her big brother.
In a way, he envied his little sister, and he wished that he too, could just sleep through the uncomfortable parts of life. She would wake up with the really painful part over, maybe cry a little, get cuddled by his mother, and then everything would be good again. As he stood there watching, his mother and his father both hugged Hennessy, and his mother even kissed him.
The pair of them went after Piper next and worked her over. Piper seemed surprised and it occurred to Flicker that Piper might not have experienced the affection of pegasus ponies before. Flicker didn’t have much time to think about it before his parents were all over him. Being a stoic, he stood there and endured it.
“Our home is your home,” Conk said to Piper and Hennessy as he wrapped his foreleg around his son’s neck. “Our door is always open to you and you are free to come here at any time. Bring Flicker back to visit.”
“Okay.” Piper began to tear up a bit and the filly stood there, sniffling, wobbling on her unsteady legs, but remaining upright through effort. “Thanks, Twisty… for our, uh, talk that we had. I don’t think my mother and I could have had that talk.”
“It was nice to talk about it,” Twisty replied as she squeezed her son Flicker with her wings.
“That was a really funny story that you done told me, about how you used to fly over Conk’s head to give him some shade while he was working.” Hennessy shuffled on his hooves a bit as a broad grin took over his face and it almost appeared that the colt’s face would start to ache from happiness.
“Look after one another,” Twisty said as she rose into a hover, her wings buzzing. “All great things start with great friendships. Just look at Twilight Sparkle… Ponyville is what it is today because of her friendships. There is something about the three of you… or maybe I’m just being a silly pony.”
Pulling away from his son, Conk wickered a bit and stomped his hoof on the old grey floorboards of the porch. “Better get going before Knacky wakes up. Good luck, Son.”
Flicker drew in a deep breath and said, “Goodbye, all of you…”
There were several hours to kill before the train departed for Canterlot and Flicker found himself waiting in a cafe bookshop with his friends. The scent of coffee and tea filled the air, along with the scent of light, pleasant breakfasts. He had kept an eye on Piper and had determined that her problem was that she didn’t push herself very hard through pain.
The guild would fix that. Piper was capable of walking and moving about, but didn’t want to deal with the pain of doing so. It was something that would be fixed in time, and if he didn’t set her straight, somepony else would. Flicker was inclined to believe that he might be a bit more kind about it than somepony else though, though his ‘kindness’ left a lot to be desired.
Browsing the books, Flicker perused the best selling self-help section, wondering if there was anything that might help him. His eyes fell upon a display of best selling books, and on the top row was a book with the smiling face of Starlight Glimmer. How to Make Friends When You Suck At It. The title was refreshing, honest even, and Flicker considered a purchase just for the inflammatory title alone. Honesty should be rewarded. Starlight was a known seditionist that had come back into heel and Flicker wasn’t sure how he felt about her.
Also on the bestseller list was a perennial Twilight Sparkle book. Friendship With Naptime Benefits: Consensual Snuggling, Cuddling, and YOU. Also includes, Sharing Your Sleep Space With Pegasus Ponies, An Addendum.
“Meow?”
“No Spud, I don’t think our relationship requires any further redefining.”
“Meow.”
“I don’t care that you’re disappointed.”
“Meow…”
“No, Spud, I don’t think that’s physically possible for me to do what you are requesting. How rude.”
Down on the fourth shelf, Flicker noticed a sunny yellow book with a pleasant cover and there was a picture of a mare that seemed familiar, but Flicker couldn’t quite place where he had seen her or met her. So, You Find Your Same Sex Friend Attractive: What Next? Flicker’s eyes darted to the left, then to the right, and he had himself a good look around without knowing or understanding why he was doing what he was doing. This was Ponyville, for crying out loud.
He lifted the book, flipped it around, and looked at the back cover. It was written by a mare named Lemon Hearts and there was something reassuring about her smile, both on the front and the back cover, which used different pictures. Down at the bottom of the back cover, he read the words, ‘Published by the Twilight Sparkle Friendship Foundation, a nonprofit organisation.’
Sighing, he put the book back. The book was for ponies who weren’t sure if the pony they found attractive was gay or not. He had already covered that monumental hurdle and now he had to figure Hennessy out, a task that seemed next to impossible. The search continued for anything that might be helpful.
One book had a tasteful brown paper cover over it and curious, Flicker peeled it back to have a look, wondering what there was to hide. Friendship Is Nice, Fronking Is Nicer: A Guide For Getting What You Want, When You Want It, by Cadance, Princess of Love. Peeling back the paper a little more, he saw the grinning face of Princess Cadance in the bottom right corner. He began to feel a little uncomfortable as he thought about the Princesses, the beautiful, wonderful figures of order and harmony that they were… well, it was easy to understand why this book was covered in brown paper, which he slipped back into place. It couldn’t exactly be called obscenity if one of the princesses was doing it, but little foals should most certainly not see this book. How graphic.
Princess Cadance was allowed to have her hobbies. Flicker shuddered and turned away.
Along the bottom shelf, there were more paper covered books, and Flicker, with his morbid curiousity, had to have a look. After a look around to make certain that nopony but Spud was looking, he peeled back the paper. The Necessity Of Lube And If You Are Smoking During Or After Sex, Something Is Wrong.
Nope. He let go of the paper and decided he was done looking at those books down there. Good heavens, down there at the bottom, a foal might see them. What was this world coming to? Cringing, he backed away from the best seller self help shelf and decided that he would look elsewhere. There needed to be laws against that sort of smut.
“Hennessy found a book!” Piper announced as she came careening around the corner and almost plowed into Flicker, as she was still unsteady on her legs. She stood there, excited, and her eyebrows bobbed up and down as her grin widened. “It’s about city-country romance and I think it will help the two of you.”
Flicker focused his blank, stony stare upon Piper and said nothing.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Piper got right up into Flicker’s face. “You might have been raised on a farm, but you don’t act like it anymore. You’ve become refined, Mister Nicker, and Hennessy feels dreadfully self-conscious around you.”
This made Flicker worry a bit. “He does?”
“Well of course he does, you self-absorbed twit.” Piper relaxed a bit and stepped back.
“Well, I don’t want him to feel that way.” Flicker began disseminating this new information through his mind, sending it through all of the proper channels. “How do I fix it?”
“How would I know?” Piper returned.
“Well then, what use are you?” Flicker demanded as his ears leaned forwards over his face. “Why tell me this just to make me worry if you don’t have a solution?”
Eyes going wide, Piper looked up at the much larger colt with shock and surprise. Stewing, she backed away a little more, her tail flicking from side to side, and she shook her head in disbelief. “Apologise at once!”
“What’d I do?”
Huffing with exasperation, Piper rolled her eyes, ground her teeth together, and stomped her hoof on the floor. With a flash of magic, Piper hoisted Spud up into the air like a sack of potatoes, held him close, and stormed off, leaving Flicker standing all alone and confused. Flicker watched them go, blinking, trying to figure out what had just transpired.
The verticality of Canterlot was a welcome sight for Flicker as the train pulled into the station. This was a place of harmonic order; well defined right angles against the skyline and efficient use of what space there was. Canterlot was many things to many ponies, but for Flicker, this was home. Patient, he decided to wait for others before he decided to disembark from the train. He turned a cool stare upon Hennessy, aware that he was staring, and noticed how the colt was made out of all soft angles, which stood out in sharp contrast to his own body, which was all hard angles.
For Flicker, this was like an awakening. He had been doing it without being aware of it, but now that he was aware, now that he had awakened to the possibility, he allowed his mind to wander in a cautious manner, but refused to think of Hennessy in a lewd sort of way. That would be disrespectful and crass. Hennessy was like looking at a sunrise, or a sunset; pretty, but Flicker never truly understood the appeal—except that now, he did. His brain suggested that there was something to be said about colours and soft curves, indeed, there was a lot to look at. For the first time, Flicker noticed that Hennessy was a bit, well, effeminate. The way he talked, the way he moved; awakened to all of these new thoughts and sensations, Flicker took them in so that he could make sense of them.
“Flicker, are you aware that you’re staring?” Piper asked.
After a few seconds, Flicker nodded. “Yes, Miss Pie, I am perfectly aware that I am staring. I have lain claim to it, and it is mine to stare at for my own satisfaction.”
“Mister Nicker…”—Piper hesitated a little as she thought about what to say and she squirmed in her seat—“a claim of ownership might be—”
Hennessy elbowed Piper in the ribs. “Don’t go a ruining this for me. If there’s something I don’t like, I’ll say something. Flicker… Mister Nicker takes care of his possessions and things that are his. I ain’t bothered by it.”
“I just don’t want anything bad to happen,” Piper whispered, “there is so much tension right now. It was like Doctor Sterling and what he said to Madam Pakora, about how others might get the wrong idea if a unicorn says they have a claim over an earth pony… tribal tensions.”
“Actually, Miss Pie brings up a good point. You might have to share me with Madam Pakora. I like her, she’s really nice, even if I don’t understand her.” Hennessy smiled, and it was like the clouds parting to reveal the sun.
“I can share you with Madam Pakora. I don’t mind.” With a slow swivel of his head, Flicker looked at Piper. “Honestly, I don’t see what the big deal is. Marriage is just a very kind word for ownership. My parents own each other and remain in a mutually advantageous relationship that benefits the both of them. It is a social contract of the utmost importance. Marriage is perhaps the most important institution our society has.”
“I think… no, you… I am almost certain…” Piper stammered, blinking, and her ears drooped. “I can’t make a good argument against that. Every word you said is true, but it sounds very cold and calculating.”
“I am cold and calculating.”
“Murder Mountain is a bit chilly, Mister Walker, I would bring something warm.” Piper turned to look at the colt sitting beside her. “We’d better get going, our car is emptied out. Flicker…”
“Yes, Miss Pie?”
“I was about to say… that you should treat Hennessy as you would a lady, but then I thought about what you did to me when you helped me suit up… and that time in the shower when you mauled me with the scrubbing brush. I’m not sure what to say now.”
Hennessy let out an almost coquettish giggle at Piper’s words.
Making a smooth gesture with his foreleg, Flicker said to his companions, “Ladies first.”
It seemed that he had returned in time for organised chaos. A procession of plague doctors, suited up and wearing masks all filed into the big, blocky building that the guild called home. Flicker’s mind recalled that a plural of plague doctors was called a ‘parliament.’ Also, the guild seemed to be having its sign changed, which concerned Flicker just a tiny bit.
The parliament of plague doctors were carrying with them a large crate covered in biohazard signs, signs that mirrored Hennessy’s cutie mark. Looking at the crate made his rat-sense tingle in a weird, unknown manner. Flicker eyed the crowd and saw an appropriate level of fear, which he found reassuring. Ponies kept their distance and remained respectful, which was good. Flicker, head held high and with an almost martial cadance to his gait, approached the door a bit more, then waited for the rest of the parliament of plague doctors to file inside.
Leaning against the wall, he saw the new sign that would replace the old one. Ministry of Plagues, Pestilences, Diseases, and Magical Maladies. Frowning, Flicker wasn’t sure how he felt about this. He knew that change was coming, but that sign was a mouthful. And the word ministry… it stunk of bureaucracy, and bureaucrats were just rats in fancy suits, living off of the fat of the land without doing anything particularly useful.
There was a fine sense of history to the very words, ‘Rat Catcher’s Guild.’ Flicker could not help but feel that something important was being squandered in the change and already, he didn’t much care for it. There wasn’t anything he could do about it either. The colt let out a sigh and thought about how times were a changing.
“I did not expect to see you return so soon.”
“Doctor Sterling.” Flicker turned around to look at the doctor, who stood near the gate that lead to the back entrance. “I am fit for light duty. I can study, take exams, and the like. Any more lazing about would just be wasting time.”
One silvery eyebrow raised.
“Also, Doctor… I need some help… I have a cutie mark problem and I need some sorting out.”
The doctor sighed. “Flicker, I am very relieved to hear you say that. I’ll speak to some ponies I know and you’ll get the help you need. I am very, very proud of you for coming forward like this. It takes courage to ask for help.”
The bushy eyebrow lowered. “That’s a nice coat, Mister Nicker.”
“Thank you, Doctor Sterling. I had Rarity, in Ponyville, make it for me.”
“A few days ago Wicked lost his mind and began cursing wildly while shouting your name. Would you happen to know anything about that?” Doctor Sterling had a very visible smirk beneath his mustache.
Worried, Flicker shook his head.
“Go in the back way and go to your room. Miss Pie, Mister Walker, welcome back. Wicked will probably come looking for you soon, Mister Nicker.” The doctor shuffled closer to the sign, but did not look, and kept his attention upon his apprentices.
“Right.” Ears low, Flicker headed for the gate that lead to the back entrance, with Piper and Hennessy right behind him.
“It is good to see you again, Doctor Sterling,” Piper said as she passed.
“I’ll be coming up later to examine the two of you,” Doctor Sterling replied. “Spud, you are looking well. Glad to see you back.”
“Meow.”
Piper’s single bed had been replaced with a bunkbed. Flicker supposed that it didn’t hurt anything, but it somehow made the room feel smaller. Perhaps another apprentice was coming. More trunks had been added, big trunks, just like his own. Hennessy had one, and it had his name engraved on a brass plaque, and so did Piper. Yep, the room felt a lot smaller now.
“The room feels cosy,” Piper said as she stood near a small table that had been placed in the corner, along with some cushions to sit on. “This needs a tablecloth. I think I’ll get us a tablecloth. And maybe some curtains.”
“Can we get something with flowers? Something in yellow?” Hennessy turned his big, soulful eyes on Piper and did his best to look both irresistible and pathetic. For extra effect, he whimpered a bit.
“Fine, fine, we’ll go shopping together and find something in a nice floral print.” Piper shook her head and waved her hoof at Hennessy as she whined, “Just… stop looking at me like that. Stop that!”
“Miss Pie…”
“Yes, Mister Walker?”
“There is something I’ve always liked ever since I saw them in a fancy store window…”
“And what’s that, Mister Walker?”
“Lace doilies—”
Flicker let out a ragged sigh of exasperation and began to break down his coat to something more suitable to wear indoors.
“—they’re just so fancy. Do you think we can get some?”
Piper’s lips pursed as she ignored Flicker and gave thought to Hennessy’s words. “Well, I don’t see why not. Not sure where we’ll put them, but I am positive that something can be figured out.” The filly crossed the room, her eyes on Hennessy, and her horn glowing. With a blast of magic, she set Hennessy’s mane in order, giving the colt a perfect slicked back coif. “There, that’s better. The wind ruined your glorious mane.”
Piper and Hennessy both turned to look at Flicker, and Piper began sizing him up, her horn still glowing, and her lips puckered into a thoughtful pout. Flicker, whose mane was half missing after the fire, and was missing an eyebrow, was a sight to make eyes sore. After a few seconds, Piper realised that she could do nothing for her scowling, glowering companion but keep her distance while hoping that everything grew back.
Loud, dreadful snores came from Spud, who was now sound asleep on Flicker’s bed.
Flicker, his ears perking, crossed the room in a fluid series of movements. Reaching his trunk, he lifted the lid of his trunk so that he could have a look inside, his eyes wide, twitching, and manic. He let out a low, shrill whistle when he saw the two scabbards and the leather belt with brass trim. He lifted one a little, undid the snaps, and pulled out a blade to have a better look.
Beautiful perfection. Flicker held it aloft, mindful of his companions, and he didn’t behave like a foolish colt, waving it around like a feebleminded idiot. He lifted the scabbards and belts to have a better look, and realised that the leather sheath was lined with a sheet of brass to keep the blade from cutting the leather. The leather itself couldn’t make up its mind if it was dark, ruddy red or brown, and had a pebbled texture to it. He slid the blade back into its sheath and put his swords back into his trunk. After one final look, he closed the lid.
“I think you looked happy for there a moment,” Piper said to Flicker.
“I saw it too,” Hennessy added.
“There are things that make me happy… like my sister.” Flicker wasn’t sure why he felt so defensive, but feel that way he did. “I’m not used to having companions or roommates,” he blurted out. “For the past year, I’ve been mostly by myself. They have to keep the younger apprentices away from the older ones because of hazing, bullying, and abuse. Bad things have happened, but I don’t know what. Wicked wouldn’t tell me, he just kept me by myself.”
Crossing what little bit of space there was, Piper moved to stand a bit closer to Flicker.
“It all happened right after I got my cutie mark. It was all I had… all I was. Rather than be lonely, I just… buried myself in my training. Rather than cry at night because I was alone, I’d stay up until the still hours of morning whacking on my training dummy with a heavy wooden sword. I just focused on what I would become, rather than what I was feeling. I thought if I just gave into what I was meant to be, it would make everything better. And I guess it didn’t.”
“Flicker, I’m sorry…” Piper moved a little closer, and looking a little fearful, she brushed up against Flicker’s uninjured side and then leaned up against him. Closing her eyes, she rested her head against his neck and stood there.
“Rather than be afraid of my older peers, I grew hard and mean. On those rare occasions where I did get messed with, I left them in a bloody heap on the floor… because I spent so many nights swinging a heavy wooden sword all night long. The only pony who was even sort of my friend was Moonlit Gambit, and if he tried to be nice to me, all he got was shit on by his own crap-sucking peers. And… I… just… don’t… know… what… happened…” Flicker panted out his final words and then his jaw clenched shut.
“Things will be better now… shh… just let it all out if you can.” Piper’s low whisper was soothing and soft, like a favoured foalhood blanket. She stood beside Flicker, who was much larger and bulkier than she was, looking very much like a smaller sister trying to comfort her bigger brother.
Flicker, distraught, stood there as still as a statue and did not make a sound.
Just as Doctor Sterling came into the room, so did Wicked, and Flicker found himself grabbed in powerful, dangerous feeling magic. Before he could protest, he was dragged out of the room, his hooves scraping over the stone floor, and the door was shut behind him. Wicked dragged him down the hall, opened the door to the walk in supply closet, tossed him in, came in himself, and pulled the door shut.
Flicker found himself in close quarters with Wicked and he didn’t know why.
“Yer my boy and I’m damned proud of ye!”
Blinking, Flicker had no idea what was going on.
“It was only a matter of time before they noticed ya, and now we get to work together!”
“Sir?”
“Don’t ye dare start with that ‘sir’ shit!” Wicked bellowed, his mood changing like a dangerous feral thunderhead spotting a peaceful pony picnic. “I’ll not ‘ave that coming from ye, Juniour Agent Lima.”
At these words, Flicker snapped to attention and did so in such a way that a seasoned veteran of the guard would be proud. But not Wicked, no, the older stallion with a wooden leg just started laughing, ignoring Flicker’s confusion. Wicked got right up into Flicker’s face until they were almost nose to nose, snoot to snoot.
“I’m Special Agent Charlie ‘Orse, Canterlot Operative in Chief. When I got the news, I damn near choked! It was only a matter of time before they got to ye, Lad. Cutie marks and talents for killing are rare, Lad, real rare. They’s’s uncommon as ‘en’s teeth, they is. And S.M.I.L.E. always tracks them down. I was young when I was noticed, I was. I ‘ad funny skills for a candlemaker.”
Flicker blinked, but made no reply.
“Killing monsters is a rare talent, it is. Ponies aren’t natural killers, they ‘ave to learn it, and it’s ‘ard for them. But there are a few ponies, like yerself, ye get a mark for killing… and once you ‘ave that, killing most anything isn’t much of a stretch. Like killing a rabid bear instead of a big rat. Yer gonna go places, Lad. We just need to get ye sorted out.”
“Sorted out?” Flicker asked as the wheels inside of his head began to turn and process the situation.
“Aye, sorted out. I think having some friends around will be good for ye, Lad. I feel like this is my fault. There just wasn’t any applicants, ye ken?”
This got a slow nod from Flicker.
“If anypony asks, I just chewed ye out for running through that garden party with a chainsaw… for shame, Mister Nicker, for shame, ye chainsaw wielding psychopath.” Wicked began chuckling, and then without warning, he grabbed Flicker by the neck, pulled him close, hugged him for a short time, then let him go as he whinnied. In a whisper, Wicked murmured into Flicker’s ear, “I’m actually proud of ye for that, I am.”
“Thank you, Wicked.”
“Just don’t do it again!”
“Right.”
“Lad, I am going to give you two ‘undred gold bits, and you are going to go and donate a fine for your reckless, crazed be’aviour… and yer gonna act real sorry about it, ye ‘ear?” Wicked smirked down at the colt and there was warm affection in his eyes.
“I’ll be good, I promise.” Flicker blinked once and looked up at Wicked. “So, what was in that crate they hauled in? Why do we have visitors? I’m guessing they are visitors.”
“Soon, Lad, soon. All in due time. For now, back to your room so the doctor can ‘ave a look at ye.” Wicked’s smirk transformed into a reckless grin. “NO MORE SCARING THE RUNNY PISS OUT OF THE PONIES OF CANTERLOT WITH A BLOODY CHAINSAW, YE LOOPY PSYCHOPATH!”
And with that, Flicker found himself being dragged back to his room, his hooves scraping on the floor, as Wicked fought a difficult battle to keep from chuckling. Had Flicker a sense of humour, he might have smiled, but the best that he could muster was to play along with the charade.
When Wicked shoved him back into his room, Flicker felt the eyes of his companions and Doctor Sterling upon him. Piper’s legs were bare and exposed. They were looking better, but there was still a lot of healing to be done. Flicker figured that silence was his ally, and the less said the better. He had a secret to keep.
“We heard shouting,” Doctor Sterling said as he looked up from his work.
“Mister Nicker ‘as earned ‘imself a fine, ‘e ‘as for that little chainsaw stunt.”
“Wicked, really?”
“Guests pissed themselves and filed a formal complaint!” Wicked bellowed in reply. Huffing a bit, Wicked continued, “Two ‘undred gold bits. Another donation is in order. Thick ‘eaded little shit ‘as to learn.”
Sighing, Doctor Sterling’s ears drooped. “Mister Nicker, shall we make another visit to the Weeping Sister Hospital?”
Doing his best to look dejected, Flicker nodded and reminded himself, the less said the better. “Yes.”
“Wicked, the poor colt almost died—”
“Sterling Shoe, not another word.” Growling a bit, Wicked turned tail, grunted, and then he stormed out the door, leaving the four ponies and one cat alone together.
When the door was slammed shut, Flicker winced from the sound, which helped everything look more convincing. He looked at the other ponies in the room; Doctor Sterling looked disappointed, Hennessy looked, well, Flicker couldn’t make out what Hennessy’s expression was, and Piper looked a bit miffed.
“The Weeping Sister Hospital is going to get a lot of bits from me because I have no intention of changing how I am.” Flicker shuffled a bit on his hooves, let heave what he hoped was a convincing sigh, and then gave himself a gentle shake. “I don’t care what Wicked says, I didn’t have a sword and the chainsaw seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“So did two sticks of dynamite,” Hennessy drawled in deadpan.
Flicker’s glower was real and it matched the sun for fury and intensity. The corner of Flicker’s eye twitched and the corner of his mouth down below jerked into a lopsided, convulsive scowl. It was quite a terrifying look by any standard, had Princess Luna been present, she might have ‘borrowed’ it for her special nightmares, but Hennessy seemed unconcerned.
“He’s kinda cute when he makes that face.”
“Mister Walker… there is nothing I can say to reply to that.” Doctor Sterling let out a snort, lowered his head, and continued his examination of Piper’s legs, looking over her many stitches and bites. Humming to himself, the doctor began to rebandage Piper’s legs when he was satisfied that things were healing well.
Knowing he would be examined next, Flicker snatched up an alchemy textbook, then went over to the table and sat down, all while still displaying his fearsome glower power. Unconcerned, Hennessy came over, took a seat beside Flicker, and then just sat there, smiling, and looking pleasant.
“You know, if you keep making that there face, it could get stuck that way,” Hennessy drawled, completely unconcerned for his own safety.
Flicker felt that his change of bandages had been a waste, seeing as how they had been changed just this morning, but Doctor Sterling insisted on having a look. He kept his nose in his alchemy book, ignoring Hennessy and Piper as they studied and goofed off. Still, he was distracted, and this wasn’t helping him at all. He needed to pass his candle exam.
There was a knock at the door, and then before anypony could say anything, it opened. An earth pony mare stepped though, looked around the room, and focused upon Piper. She smiled, she was beautiful beyond measure when she did so, and stepped into the room. With a friendly twinkle in her eye, she waved.
“Hiyas! My name is Doctor Amber Harvest and I just popped in to say hello. I’m here to speak with Piper, but you two nice looking colts can stay. Wicked wanted me to share a few words with Piper. I hope I’m not bothering you or interrupting anything too important.”
“Doctor?” Piper responded. “What’s your specialisation?”
Amber beamed, glad to have a chance to talk about what she did. “I have a doctorate in grain fungus studies. It’s not glamorous, but eh, it’s a living.”
“Grain fungus?” Piper asked.
“The dancing plague is commonly caused by the ergot fungus and the chemical ergotamine.” Flicker put down his alchemy book, still opened to the page he was reading, and leaned against the table as he continued to recite relevant data. “Ponies afflicted by this plague become hysterical, hallucinate, have fits, and will sometimes begin to dance. Ponies rarely die from the ergot fungus itself, but they do die from exhaustion, stroke, dehydration, exposure, and heart attacks while under the influence. There are also other diseases caused by rat urine and feces getting into grain supplies.”
Amber turned to look at Flicker and began to study him, her eyes curious.
“He’s a ton of fun at parties and social gatherings,” Piper said as she pointed at Flicker with her hoof. “In fact, the last party he attended, he brought a chainsaw and a live rat. Now he has to pay a fine.”
Laughter spilled out of the earth pony standing near the door and Amber began to squeak as she tried to regain her composure. She pranced in place on her hooves, which clicked and clattered against the floor, all while her tail slapped around her hind legs. When her eyes became moist, Amber wiped them with her foreleg, her sides still heaving.
Still giggling, Amber pulled herself together enough to speak. “Piper, I came by to tell you that what you are doing is special. We don’t have nearly enough mares doing this job… this is a rough career and it can be really, really tough for a filly. Some bad things have happened recently, but they’ve never happened to me. I grew up in the guild, I was just a wee little thing roaming the streets of Fillydelphia begging for food when Stodgy and Dodgy found me.”
Amber paused, gnawed upon her lip for a bit, and then smiled. “They lured me into following them with sweets, took me back to the guildhall, and then tried to hide me in a closet because they felt so bad for me and wanted to keep me, like they had found a stray or something. They were both about your ages. Those two were really, really nice to me, but we all got found out. Stodgy and Dodgy took a flogging for breaking the rules, and then for extra added punishment, they were made to look after me. So I grew up with two special guys that kept me safe and looked after my happiness.”
“That’s incredibly sweet,” Piper said in a shrill, somewhat nasal voice.
“I owe them everything.” Amber’s voice became a little scratchy and her smile quivered as her eyes glimmered with remembered joy. She looked at Flicker, then at Hennessy, her eyes glittering with moisture. “The two of you have a chance to be something special to young Piper here. One day, she might be the one talking to some filly that has just joined the guild, and she’ll be able to tell a story about having two brothers in the guild that she can trust.”
“So you grew up in the guild and became a doctor?” Hennessy looked thoughtful and he turned to face the window, so that he might stare out of it. “See, I ain’t knowing what to do as an earth pony. No fancy magic.”
“I have to work harder to be useful sometimes, but I spend most of my time in the lab staring down into a microscope. When I’m out in the field, I’m usually the pack pony. I can’t do much with a sword, but I’m a recognised master in several forms of hoof to hoof combat. I’m also an accomplished scuba diver with almost eight thousand hours logged, most of them in flooded sewer and drain lines, hunting for rats with a harpoon gun.”
“And you owe it all to your brothers?” Piper asked, both eyebrows raised and her ears perked.
“I do.” Amber nodded. “They taught me how to read, how to write, how to do math, and now, the two of them, they’re teachers in the Fillydelphia guild, and all of the skills they gained from looking after me are now used to help to train new apprentices. Everything works out when you do good for the sake of good.”
Looking thoughtful, Piper closed her book and put it down on the floor. Her tail curled up around her backside and her hind legs in an almost cat-like manner as she focused upon Amber. It was obvious that Piper was having deep thoughts, and she remained silent for a time as Hennessy continued staring out the window.
“Look, Piper… it’s going to be really rough. You’re going to be beat up. I’ve heard that you’ve already been chewed on and I’m real sorry about that. At some point, you’ll probably be on fire, or burned by chemicals, all kinds of bad things are going to happen. Training is going to stink a lot. None of this is going to be easy and they will not go soft on you because you are a filly. Only the strongest mares and stallions survive in this business. We’ve made it an artform to purge weakness and burn away the chaff. Ponies walk away quitters all the time. But if you trust in your guild brothers, they can help carry you through the worst, and I have no doubt you’ll be able to carry them through some rough spots too. You’ll have a better chance of surviving if all of you stick together.”
“A lot of apprentices have quit,” Flicker said in a near deadpan. “I don’t think they understand that the problems they face are temporary and that quitting is permanent. Once you’re gone, you can’t come back. It’s over.”
“Yep.” Amber’s voice was squeaky and her smile bright, with perfect square teeth. “All discipline is optional. The door is always open and a pony is always free to leave. I’ve thought about it a number of times in the past, I’ll admit. Stodgy and Dodgy picked me up a few times and set me straight. I’m a better pony for having chosen to stay.”
Piper, her lower lip quivering a bit, looked down at her bandaged legs. “I’ve already thought about leaving. I’m scared. Having the rats swarm and climb all over me did something to me. There’s been a few nightmares and I’ll confess, I’ve been wondering if it is worth it. He’s kept me going”—she pointed at Flicker—“just by being who he is. I respect examples over words. As for Hennessy”—she looked at the earth pony colt staring out the window—“well, Hennessy is the friend I didn’t know I wanted.”
“Piper, I think you’re going to be okay.” Amber’s smile became like a sunbeam, bringing a little more light and warmth into the world.
“I want power and magic,” Piper admitted, her voice becoming a little hoarse and scratchy. “Not just showy magic or useful magic… I’ve already figured out that I’ll have access to spells here in the guild I would never have access to otherwise. I want to find the edge and keep going. I want to know what I’m capable of.” The filly licked her lips and her pale green mane tumbled down over her face as the spell she was using to keep her mane coiffed wore off. She pointed at Flicker with her hoof. “I want to be like him… everypony is just a little afraid of him, and for good reason. He’s not even grown up yet and already, he’s found the edge and now he’s seeing what he’s capable of. He’s going to do things with his life”—Piper’s voice became huskier—“wonderful and maybe terrible things, and I want to be there to watch. I want to be doing those things with him.”
“Ambition is something that this guild strives to cultivate and something we reward, Miss Pie,” Amber replied, her warm smile now having become something else, something almost dangerous. “It is one thing to be a successful mare in this outfit… but to want to climb atop the heap… that takes guts, Miss Pie. You can’t do it alone. As for quitting, you’ll never get what you want if you quit.”
Still staring out the window, Hennessy wickered, then sighed.
“Miss Pie… I would love to be your penpal,” Amber said as she shuffled on her hooves, “and I’d love to sponsor you as you go through the guild. If you ever need a mare to talk to, I’m just a train ride or a telegram away.”
“Thanks.” Piper’s eyes moistened a bit and she smiled.
“Hey, how about we all go and have a spot of tea?” Amber suggested. “It’s been a long trip and I’m feeling that old earth pony emptiness.”
“That sounds wonderful.” Hennessy looked away from the window and smiled. “Food is always good.”
A parliament of plague doctors filled the laboratory. Flicker Nicker, who stood in the doorway, was hesitant to go in further. It wasn’t because it was crowded, it was because everypony was staring. Piper bumped into him and Hennessy bumped into her, causing her to bump into Flicker again.
“Two untested apprentices have no place in here,” a grizzled looking pale grey unicorn growled.
“Shut it, Garland, my guild, my rules,” Wicked snapped in reply.
The room filled with murmuring and many soft-spoken words. Flicker could not make out everything being said. There was a griffon here, a griffon with only one wing, and Flicker gave him a cursory glance so that he would not appear as though he was staring. The colt’s rat sense was tingling in an unpleasant way, almost painful, and he didn’t like it.
“He’s the one…”
“We don’t know that.”
“He’s a bad omen, he is.”
“It’s funny how he shows up at the same time the new strange rats start showing up…”
Flicker’s ears perked at the soft sound of Piper whinnying with worry, but he didn’t know how to comfort her at the moment. He looked at Doctor Sterling, who stood silent, the blinking of his eyes was the doctor’s only movement. Almost squirming, Flicker wished that those present would remember good etiquette and stop staring.
“He’s the one, he has to be.”
Garland, big, bulky, covered with as many scars as he had muscles, took a step forward. “Quiet, all of you and show some respect. Wicked, I do believe we were promised a demonstration… if you could get on with it? I’d like to see your one-trick pony.”
“Aye… a demonstration. Doctor Sterling, if you will please direct Mister Nicker in what to do…” Wicked made a gesture with his wooden peg leg at the doctor.
Clearing his throat, Doctor Sterling addressed the crowd. “Mister Nicker has a rat slaying talent, as many of you know. His mark is currently missing due to some rather violent circumstances involving a rabid bear and two sticks of dynamite”—the crowd began to chortle—“but extensive documentation has been made about the subject.”
Moving through the room, his silvery-grey short cropped tail bouncing behind him, Doctor Sterling pointed to a glowing glass containment box. “Mister Nicker, if you please, we would like a demonstration of your abilities. We would very much like for you to examine this rat and tell us what your rat-sense has to say. Be descriptive, as this is going down in a scientific journal.”
Almost sweating, Flicker noticed that there were movie cameras set up to capture everything from multiple angles. He could hear the clicking, creaking contraptions as they caught everything on film, and there were large teardrop shaped microphones hanging from the ceiling. Looking around the room, he spotted Amber Harvest and she was smiling at him. It gave him courage.
Flicker moved forward, uncomfortable with the crowd, and brushed past Doctor Sterling. “My rat-sense feels uncomfortable and off… the sensation is unfamiliar to what it usually is.” His slow, careful mind began what he hoped was useful narration. “My insides feel like they do when I eat one of those burritos from a street vendor and I get the salsa de asesinato on it. I feel itchier than normal, given my current state. My frogs are sweating profusely and so is my scrotum.”
Doctor Sterling’s eyebrow arched, but he had no other reaction.
“Feeling a bit more aggression building up than usual and the accompanying feelings of anger are a bit more than I am used to,” Flicker reported, speaking in a slow, easy to understand voice. “I can feel the adrenaline response kicking in, and I do believe I am experiencing piloerection along my spine and neck.”
“Has the colt been coached?” Garland demanded.
“No, and do be quiet,” Piper responded, turning to look at Garland with a fearless expression. “Do they have no manners in Fillydelphia or do you have a mark in loutishness that excuses you?”
Wicked began chortling as Garland turned a very dark shade of purple.
Eyes narrowing, Flicker looked inside of the glass containment cell and saw a rat. He wasn’t sure what he expected, but he didn’t like what he saw, it made his skin crawl. Something felt off about the rat. It’s eyes were milky and patches of its fur had fallen out, revealing greasy looking pale grey skin.
“Have a look, Mister Nicker,” Doctor Sterling said as he held out a mask to Flicker.
Taking the mask, Flicker put it on, glad to have a face again. It made him confident and the crowd no longer bothered him. Almost right away though, he noticed something was wrong. The rat gave off no red glow. He stared through the lenses in disbelief, looking at a rat that gave off no signature. This was worrisome and he didn’t much care for it, not at all.
“This rat is dead,” Flicker announced in a flat voice devoid of feeling or emotion.
“Aye, very astute observation, Lad.” Wicked came forward, his face wizened with worry.
“Undead,” Doctor Sterling corrected.
“Zombie rat?” Flicker asked.
“No,” Garland replied, his bluster gone, now he looked sweaty and nervous. “We’ve never seen anything like it.” The big unicorn crossed the room, drew his sword, and held it out to Flicker. “Go on, stick him. Run him through. See for yourself. Cut his ugly little head off and see what happens. A zombie rat would die with no head.”
Jaw muscles clenching, scowling, his whole face contorting into a grimace, Flicker took the offered weapon and watched as the glass cell was opened. The rat was held secure in the combined telekinetic force of several unicorns and Flicker raised Garland’s sword, which was a long straight rapier. There was a flurry of movement as masks went on and Flicker waited.
Piper was the last to slip on a protective mask offered to her.
Curious, Flicker poked the rat with the needle-sharp tip of Garland’s rapier, and no blood came out. No, instead of blood, a foul looking black miasma curled out of the puncture wound like smoke. With cold, calculating cruelty, Flicker stabbed the rat again, right in the stomach, driving the sword clean through. Already, the first wound was closing up, and when he pulled the sword out, the second wound began closing up even as he watched.
This disturbed him a great deal.
With a flick of the blade, Flicker cut the rat’s head off and that should have been the end of it—but it wasn’t. The head landed with a splat and then, much to Flicker’s horror, pale, putrescent tentacles wiggled forth from both the neck hole and the severed head. The wiggling, writhing tentacles reached for each other, extending, grasping, and grabbing one another, and as Flicker stood there watching, the head was pulled back onto the body.
“No,” Flicker murmured in disbelief.
“It’s no zombie,” Doctor Sterling said in a low voice. “I’ve dispatched quite a number of zombies… none of them have ever done this.” His body trembling, the doctor drew his sword. “This sword has a refined silver edge and has a few minor enchantments to keep the silver hard and sharp.” The doctor stabbed the rat and it sizzled on his blade.
When the doctor pulled his sword out, the wound was much slower to heal.
“Silver, as I am sure all of you should know, is an anathema to the undead. It will also conduct aether, it is one of the few metals that will, along with copper, gold, and platinum. Now, as you can see, I have stabbed the rat and the wound is healing.” The doctor held out his sword to Flicker and his eyes burned with a fierce intensity. “Flicker has a rat slaying talent. A magical talent. Now, if this talent has any significant strength, if he is ‘the one’ as some of you keep saying, then my sword when held in his magic should transfer his magical aether through the blade, along the silver edges, and we should see some kind of reaction on contact. Mister Nicker, do not kill the rat, but do open a wound.”
Taking the doctor’s sword into his magical grasp, just as he had done so many times before, Flicker studied the rat and felt a new hatred burning into his heart. He passed Mister Garland’s sword back to him with a bow of his head, and then returned his attention to the rat. With a quick thrust, he obeyed, and opened a wound. On contact, the silver edged sword caused silvery flames to manifest as the rat sizzled like hot fat dripping onto a hot stove. When Flicker pulled his sword away, the wound didn’t seem to be healing, or it was healing so slowly now that it was difficult to observe.
“Well then,” Garland said in a deep, raspy voice, “I think that proves it. New rats start appearing and now a pony with just the right mark shows up. It’s providence—”
“And just five minutes ago you were speaking down to him and treating him with the contempt normally reserved for unloved dogs who fart in the parlour.” Piper strode forward, her eyebrows an aggressive ‘V’ above her eyes, and she came to a stop beside Flicker. Then, with bold defiance, she gave Garland her best Pie family glare.
“As far as apprentices go, this one has promise,” Garland muttered as he eyeballed Piper.
“With the beginning of almost every new plague, there has been a herald,” White Pepper said in a smooth, cultured voice, “a pony uniquely suited to dealing with it. There are always others though… we live in a new era, a modern era… we have the telegraph, we have the means to cross the continent in mere days, and we have mass empire-wide media in the form of newspapers.” The soft spoken pony looked around the room at his colleagues. “We need to begin an aggressive recruitment campaign. We need to visit schools of all types and look for promising apprentices. We need to go to remote villages and hamlets that are cut off from the world and see if they have any promising talent. We need to be proactive as we deal with this new plague that is coming.”
“Look, I’m sorry, but one pony with a rat killing talent and an undead rat does not a new plague make,” a dark mossy green unicorn said as he looked around the room. “We should not waste resources until we know something a bit more definite. I know it is very fashionable to talk about Grogar, but this probably has more to do with some mad wizard and their crazed experiments.”
“Scheele, that’s enough out of you!” Garland barked. “While I appreciate your over-cautious nature, now is not the time.”
The room erupted into too many voices to hear at once and Flicker just tuned them all out so he could focus on the rat instead. He had the overwhelming urge to decapitate the undead rodent. Instead of buck teeth, the rat had two large pointed fangs. The wound he had inflicted with the doctor’s silver sword still had not healed and a foul, greasy looking miasma trickled forth from the seared looking opening.
“QUIET! ALL OF YOU!” Garland barked. “Wicked and I don’t always see eye to eye, but he and I have always been able to work together because we respect one another! And right now, we need to defer to his experience in this matter, as I myself do not have a good, well informed opinion, other than I try to follow the signposts that destiny tries to leave for us.”
Flicker turned about to face Wicked, who looked thoughtful.
“I try not to rush into anything,” Wicked said to the now quiet room. “The last time I was too ‘asty I lost my leg. I will agree, all of the right signs and portents are starting to show. Now is the time for caution, and I think we can all agree, an aggressive recruitment campaign can’t ‘urt anything.”
“I would advise an elevated state of alert.” Doctor Sterling’s eyebrow raised. “More sewer raiding and the plundering of trash heaps. Begin a bounty program to look for live specimens. Offer promotions. We need to better understand what we are dealing with.”
“And what of the colt?” the one winged griffon asked.
“What about ‘im?” Wicked replied.
“Fillydelphia is buried in rats while Canterlot seems to manage!”
At this, the room descended into chaos once more and Flicker very much wanted to escape.
The guildhall had a strange, almost menacing atmosphere for Flicker. There was disorder here, chaos, there was fighting and bickering here when there should have been copacetic unity. There was no mistaking it, there was a new threat and potentially a new type of plague had manifested; because of this, now everypony had their own idea of how to fix it or what to do about it.
Flicker understood though; Fillydelphia was a city of almost a million and a half ponies.
Maybe more.
The total population of rats was unknown; incalculable.
Pacing about his room, in which there was no longer very much room to pace, Flicker became acutely aware that he was ten years of age and the problems he was facing were very adult problems. There was nothing he could do about them, the only thing he could do was kill rats, that was the beginning and the end of what he was capable of. Killing undead rats though, that was the stickler. His own blades had no silver, they were just plain old steel. The young colt didn’t even have a clue how much silver weapons might cost.
The pressure continued to build, unabated.
When Flicker could no longer stand the feeling of chaos welling up around him, he stopped mid-step and ceased his pacing to announce, “We’re going out. All of us. Yes, you too, Piper, so that I might keep you safe.”
“We is all going on a date?” Hennessy asked.
That was a brilliant idea. “Yes. We’re going to the Chapel of Night, just as planned.” Flicker allowed his mind to make a reasonable plan, and he spent several long seconds doing so. “We’ll go down the back stairs, the circular stairs, and out the back door. If we’re lucky, we’ll slip off without being noticed.”
“So, we’re sneaking out?” Hennessy’s muzzle brightened with the hint of a smile.
“No.” Flicker sounded very stern. “I am free to come and go as I please, and following the rank of seniority, I am free to tell the two of you what to do. You two are not allowed to come and go as you please, but the two of you are expected to obey my commands or face discipline. So, we are going, and we are doing so in a quiet, expedient manner, without attracting the attention of others.”
“Expedient,” Hennessy drawled, having just a little trouble with the word. “Practical action, but maybe improper or immoral. I was just reading that in the dictionary.”
“Very good, Mister Walker.” Piper smiled. “I am proud of you.”
Snatching up the extra pieces of his coat, Flicker made ready to leave.
The springtime night in Canterlot was almost unseasonably cold and Flicker was thankful for a coat to wear. A freezing mist had come off of the waterfall and now much of the city was glazed over in ice, which made the cobblestones treacherous. While Flicker had remarkable balance and poise for his age, he didn’t deal with ice very well.
In fact, he didn’t deal with ice at all and would have fallen several times had Piper not caught him. He suspected that Piper had cast some spell on her hooves to give her secure traction, but he couldn’t be sure. Hennessy also did well, but Hennessy was an earth pony walking on cobblestones.
The route to the cemetery was all downhill, as the cemetery was in the lowest section of Canterlot. Coming home, it would be all uphill, and maybe even more treacherous with the temperature dropping. The freezing mist was becoming a freezing fog, and everything glittered in the warm glow of the streetlights.
The trip was made all the worse by Piper’s incessant giggling, and Flicker knew that she found his near-pratfalls hilarious. In silence, Flicker plotted all of the ways that he would get even with Piper, as she needed to suffer. Oh yes, she needed to suffer. There would be much suffering, and all of that suffering would be centered upon her.
A cloaked figure moved about in the cold, huffing out clouds of steam, and behind them, a much smaller cloaked figured followed, trying not to slip and slide on the ice. Life went on in Canterlot, and living up over a mile in the sky was no excuse. Errands had to be done and tasks had to be completed.
When the Chapel of Night came into view, Flicker came to a clumsy halt to have a better look. Two statues of draconic pegasus ponies stood on each side of the door, silent stone guardians to greet all those who might enter. The building itself was a small, skinny looking tower made of blue-grey stone. At the top of the tower, a pyre burned, a massive burning fire that acted like a beacon in the night, intended to draw in nocturnal pegasus ponies like a moth to a flame.
Flicker hoped that it would be warm inside.
The statue of Princess Luna was not what Flicker expected, causing him to stare, dumbfounded. He expected to see Princess Luna in a magnificent, majestic pose, something dominating, something fierce. What he got was a cowering Princess Luna, her head down, an agonised expression of fear upon her face. This Princess Luna looked vulnerable, exposed, and something about the sight of her clawed at his heart. Her wings were out, as if she was shielding herself from some awful abuse. At the bottom, on the base, there was a silver plaque that read, For my wife and best friend, I do hope you will forgive me for my choice.
The chapel was empty; either Princess Luna wasn’t too popular or it was just too cold for a nighttime visit to this solemn place. Flicker stood there, trying to take it all in, and as he did so, Hennessy plopped down in front of the statue. The earth pony colt bowed his head and closed his eyes. Piper did the same, but after she gave herself a shake. She sat down beside Hennessy, scooted up against his shaggy side, seeking warmth, closed her eyes, and bowed her head.
Moving with an almost regal slowness, Flicker joined his companions and sat down on the other side of Hennessy, sliding the rain cape of his coat beneath him so his bare bottom wouldn’t sit upon the cold stone. He looked up at the statue, taking it all in, the wide, terrified, pleading eyes, the open mouth, lips that if one stared at them in just the right way, one might swear that they were quivering. This was the forgotten, unloved sister, the one with the thankless job of keeping the world safe from the things that lurked in the dark.
Flicker felt a kinship with her, it kindled in his barrel, a tiny flame that ignited and began to burn. In his mind, he thought about how Princess Luna wore a mask, and this statue before him, this was the real Luna with her mask stripped away. A pony like any other, vulnerable to insecurities, to fears, to doubts, a pony that had been left all alone to do her job in the dark.
Had her mask consumed her?
The thought terrified Flicker, and he began to shiver as his skin crawled. He had his own darkness to face, his own mask to wear, and a thankless job of his own to perform. His cutie mark had already almost swallowed him, consumed him, and it was only recently that he realised how much of himself he had lost. Blinking, he wondered what might happen if he became a hollowed out shell of himself. What might Nightmare Nicker be like?
For Flicker, the thought was as serious as the grave, and a part of him felt just as empty.
The first tear dribbled down his cheek as he stared up into the statue’s terrified eyes. This Luna understood. This Luna spoke to him. This Luna battered through all of his defenses and he saw his own soul mirrored in her affrighted countenance. Like him, she would have to put on the mask and soldier on, she would have to put aside her fears, her doubts, her insecurities, she would have to become the Night Lady, Luna, Princess of the Night.
Beside him, he heard the muffled sobbing of Hennessy, and Flicker looked over, feeling guilty for watching his friend cry, and feeling as though he had committed some breach of etiquette by keeping his eyes open. Not knowing what to do, Flicker sat there, paralysed, trying to think of the proper protocol for this situation.
“I don’t want to be the outsider no more,” Hennessy mumbled in an almost inaudible whisper as he wept. “It hurts, it hurts so much, take this pain from me!” The colt said more, but his words became unintelligible and inaudible.
His heart breaking, Flicker thought of his father’s words about Hennessy, about having rats in his soul, and Flicker was moved to some emotion, some unknown feeling that left him feeling hollow… empty. He saw Piper’s eyes open and then she was looking at him, making gestures with her hoof, pointing at Hennessy as her lips moved, saying unspoken words that Flicker could not make out.
Gripped by powerful magic, Piper’s magic, Flicker felt his foreleg being lifted, pulled, and then it was draped over Hennessy’s hitching, shuddering withers. The empty ache inside of him subsided just a little and he pulled Hennessy into a hug, trying to comfort him. It was an awkward moment, but also profound, and everything felt better when Piper joined them, also hugging Hennessy.
Taking refuge in Luna’s shadow, Flicker Nicker was swept away by his own emotions…
For some, the cafe’s lighting might be called romantic, but Flicker called it dim. Fragrant steam rose from his oversized mug of vin brulé and left him feeling lightheaded. Hunched over the table, he looked at his companions sitting across from him in the booth. Hennessy was leaning over his own steaming oversized mug, and Piper was eyeing the plateful of vegetable pasties that were sure to be as hot as the surface temperature of the sun.
The cafe had a few patrons, but not many. Flicker had brought his companions here after visiting the Chapel of Night, all of them felt empty, dehydrated, and were in need of comfort. Glancing at the pasties, he knew better than to eat one right now, but he wanted one. Outside, the wind howled as it tore through the canyons of Canterlot.
“Thanks,” Hennessy said in a grating whisper. The colt coughed, cleared his throat, and tried again. “I mean that, thank you. You don’t know what this means to me. Both of you… being my friends and all.”
“Don’t mention it,” Flicker replied as he hunched down into the padded booth seat and pulled his coat tighter around him.
“As far as first dates go, this is better than I could have hoped,” Hennessy added. Sighing, he leaned over onto Piper a bit and stared down at his mug of vin brulé. “I’m finally free to be myself. Now I just need to convince myself to stop being afraid and that I’m safer now.”
“You are safe,” Piper whispered as she pressed herself up against Hennessy.
“I don’t believe that,” Hennessy replied, shaking his head. “The world is full of bigots and the small minded. I ain’t never gonna be safe, the way I reckon it, but I figure I can be safer… and I’m okay with that. I guess. Realistic expectations, and all.”
“Ponyville and Canterlot are full of—”
“We ain’t always gonna be in Ponyville or Canterlot.” Hennessy scowled and shook his head. “I hope I ain’t never gotta go home for a job, or someplace like it.”
“Things are different now,” Piper said as she placed her fetlock on top of Hennessy’s, which rested upon the table. “If you ever have to go home, or to one of ‘those’ sorts of places, you have me… and Lord Death of Murder Mountain. Not to mention Doctor Sterling. When the rats swarmed, just think about how he moved and how he reacted. Those dimwitted dirt clods back home wouldn’t stand a chance.”
Hennessy did not reply, but sat in silence.
Flicker, as brave as he was thick-headed, picked up a vegetable pasty and bit into it. Right away, as the cheesy gravy erupted like magma rushing up to the surface, Flicker let out a whimper and pulled the pasty away. It dribbled bubbling cheesy gravy, green peas, little bits of potato, bright orange carrots, and little pearl onions down Flicker’s chin.
The colt was quick with his napkin and the burns were kept to a minimum. He put the pasty down upon the saucer beside his vin brulé and kept wiping at his chin, scowling, his eyes filled with a thousand promises of murder for the vegetable pasty that had dared to defy him. Across the table, Piper rolled her eyes and snorted.
“I think it’s mocking you,” Hennessy said to Flicker.
“Don’t encourage him,” Piper snapped as she turned to look at Hennessy. “Nopony should ever look at a vegetable pasty like that. It’s unsettling.”
“Yeah, but I like it. Sorta. It makes me feel safe.” Hennessy looked down at the ruptured golden brown pasty that was spilling out bubbling cheesy gravy. “Flicker, he’s scary and all, and my father, he was scary, but Flicker is the sorta scary I can live with. I saw how he was with his sister.”
Flicker, listening to his friends discussing his moods, had nothing to say, but glared down at his pasty in contempt as he lifted his mug. He inhaled the fragrant, spicy steam, was soothed by it, and the thousand promises of murder in his eyes dropped down to a far more manageable number, around five hundred or so.
For Flicker, it was an expression that could almost pass for happy.
“You slipped out last night.” This was not a question from Doctor Sterling, but rather, a statement of fact. The doctor, who had drawn himself to his full height, looked down at Flicker with deep furrows in his brow and his silvery-grey ears leaning out over his face. Responding to Flicker’s stony silence, the doctor continued, “And you took your companions with you.”
Unflinching, unmoving, Flicker stared up at Doctor Sterling, impassive.
“It’s about time you did something normal for your age. I am so relieved, Mister Nicker. I trust that you had a good time, and that I will not be hearing about your exploits in the morning papers?”
“We went to the Chapel of Night so Hennessy could satisfy his faith. Afterward, we went to a cafe to drink mulled wine. It was bitterly cold outside and the spiced mulled wine hit the spot. I burned my mouth on a vegetable pasty.” Relieved, Flicker let the words spill out of his mouth and there was a noticeable change in his posture as he relaxed a little.
“Ah yes, restoring Princess Luna to her proper place of worship, as it was long ago.” Doctor Sterling inhaled, his ribs expanding, and he nodded to show his approval. “Prince Gosling has done well to try to restore Princess Luna to her sister’s side so she can be worshipped among the First Tribes. With his attentiveness and his friendship, Princess Luna’s mercurial moods have stabilised a bit.” One of the doctor’s eyebrows raised and the other angled down into a thoughtful position, making the doctor look wise. “You know, sometimes, all it takes is one good friendship to sort a pony out. You would do well to remember that, Mister Nicker.”
“Yes, of course, Doctor Sterling.” Flicker bowed his head.
“Are you ready to make a donation to the Weeping Sister Hospital?” Doctor Sterling asked as he looked down at his younger apprentice. “Wicked was going on and on about you and how much it is going to take to set you straight. He sees you becoming a troublemaker.”
Flicker gulped.
“Off of the record, Mister Nicker, I thought the chainsaw was a good idea. You didn’t have a sword, and while a chainsaw is dangerous, you did have presence of mind to grab safety goggles—clearly you behaved in a safe, sane manner.”
Both Hennessy and Piper began chortling, but Flicker didn’t get the joke. He just nodded in response to the doctor, believing the doctor’s praise to be sincere. A warm, affectionate smile spread over Doctor Sterling’s muzzle, and reaching up with a front hoof, he patted Flicker on the neck a few times.
“Okay, all of you, this will be a working day. We have much to do and we shall find breakfast on the way to the Weeping Sister Hospital. Prepare for a lot of walking. Today shall be quite exciting, I would venture. Bundle up, it is quite cold outside for the season and the wind is very blustery.”
The warmth of the sun did not reach Canterlot this day. Under siege, Canterlot was beset by a howling, ferocious wind that was stiff enough to make walking a treacherous proposition done by the foolhardy or the obligated. Hennessy, who had nothing, owned nothing, was wearing a thick brown woollen cloak issued to him by the guild, while Piper had a somewhat thinner woollen rain cloak that was the same colour as her mane and was more suitable for Vanhoover than Canterlot.
The doctor was fashionably attired in a heavy black frock coat, a rain cape, and a white silk scarf. He cut a dapper figure, even in Canterlot, with his regal, silver-grey features and majestic mustache. He lead the way and his apprentices followed along behind him in single file, leaning into the wind as they made their way into the city.
During a particularly strong gale-force gust of wind, Piper was almost blown away, and would have been had Flicker not grabbed her. His telekinesis, made strong from pulling farm equipment, yet gentle from caring for his sister, snatched Piper out of the air and put her back down upon the ground, unharmed, but a little scared.
This was life in Canterlot. The pegasus ponies were all grounded, the guard did not circle overhead to keep an eye on the city, yet life continued and there was traffic in the streets. The ponies of Canterlot had adjusted to this lifestyle long ago and lived in happy defiance of it. Any proper Canterlot pony could tell stories of the special happiness found only on the days when the smoke from chimneys flowed sideways.
The inside of the cafe was warm, perhaps even too warm, and it was packed with ponies seeking shelter from the cold. Doctor Sterling and his apprentices were able to squeeze into a small, cosy, intimate little booth together, and right away, Doctor Sterling ordered the morning quiche special without even asking what it was. The waitress, smiling, hurried away to do her job, glad that there was no hemming or hawing on such a busy day.
A pot of strong breakfast tea was plunked down on the table as another waitress passed, along with some oversized cups, some spoons, and a few saucers. There was already heavy cream, sugar, and honey on the table. The companions begin fixing their tea to their liking and Hennessy added far more sugar than was necessary, causing the doctor to chuckle.
About fifteen minutes later, a massive quiche was plopped down upon the table, along with four plates and a serving trowel. Doctor Sterling leaned over the enormous pie and examined it, curious to see what was for breakfast. A cursory inspection of the pie revealed onions, red peppers, big chewy pieces of garlic, sun dried tomatoes, zucchinis, and great globs of runny goat cheese.
Without further ado, breakfast was served.
Traversing the city in gale force winds was quite a workout, and Piper got the worst of it, being the smallest and lightest. With her thin cloak, she was miserable as they drew closer to the Weeping Sister Hospital. Yet, Piper continued without complaint, she soldiered on without crying, without whining, determined to stick this out, even if she froze to death or was blown away.
The weeping statue of Princess Celestia was a welcomed sight. Her many tears had turned into icicles, which hung from her cheeks at odd angles, shaped by the wind. The icicles had many points, many jagged tips, the wind had done terrible things to shape the ice into cruel, unfriendly shapes.
But Flicker scarcely noticed. No, his attention was drawn to an old zebra mare exiting the hospital, a tiny little pegasus filly in tow behind her. Her mane, and her tail as well, was long and ropey, reaching the ground all around her. Flicker stared, transfixed by the strange, wrinkled old mare, trying to remember the name for how her mane had grown. The old mare was unfamiliar, yet somehow familiar, and something about her terrified him, but also left him feeling very calm.
The little pegasus filly was pronking about, giggling and laughing, unconcerned and unaffected by the wind. That was when Flicker noticed that the zebra mare’s long ropey mane wasn’t blown by the wind at all, she too, was unaffected, and for a brief second, she looked Flicker right in the eye.
His blood froze in his veins, and it wasn’t from the sub-zero wind. He watched the little pegasus filly frolic, she looked so happy and carefree as she followed after the zebra. She was pretty, the pegasus filly, she was a pale shade of blue, almost white, and she had a vibrant pink mane that had dark blue streaks.
“Are you seeing this?” Flicker asked.
“Seeing what?” Doctor Sterling replied.
“That.” Flicker pointed. “The old zebra. The wind doesn’t seem to affect her.”
“I see nothing. Flicker… are you feeling okay?” Doctor Sterling began to stare at his apprentice, waiting for a response. As he stood waiting, Piper and Hennessy exchanged a worried glance with one another.
“You don’t see it?” Flicker inhaled the cold, bitter air, and held it.
“There is nothing to see, my boy.” Doctor Sterling shook his head. “Come, let us go inside, we can discuss this where it is warm.”
“Look, I know what I saw, I have no reason to lie and I’m not going crazy.” Even as Flicker said the words, he realised just how crazy they sounded. Scowling, he looked up at Doctor Sterling, feeling just a little betrayed. “I’m telling the truth… I know what I saw.”
“Flicker, I accept that you think that you saw something,” Doctor Sterling whispered as he shook his head, “but none of us saw it. You’ve been under a lot of stress lately, and taking morphine. Flicker, my boy, there can be hallucinations—”
“I know what I saw!” Flicker snapped.
“Yes, and I believe that you saw it.” Doctor Sterling’s voice was thick with concern and worry. “But we didn’t see it. You were the only pony that saw it. It was only real to you.”
“What I saw was real,” Flicker insisted as he tried to swallow the angry lump in his throat. He felt a growing fury as he thought about his senses betraying him. Why would his senses betray him? Was it just the morphine? He had been very sparing with those tablets. The colt thought about how the zebra’s mane didn’t blow in the gale and the pegasus filly wasn’t the least bit bothered by the weather. Flicker felt his legs begin to tremble.
“It was real and I can prove it.” Flicker ground his teeth together for a moment. “When somepony comes to accept my donation, I’ll ask them if there is a filly here that matches the description of what I saw. If not, I’ll shut up about it. If so, then I want an apology.”
Humouring the colt, Doctor Sterling nodded. “Very well, that seems reasonable.”
His jaw set, Flicker waited.
After hearing everything that Flicker had to say, Doctor Gambol leaned over his desk with a worried expression upon his face and looked at the angry, troubled colt hunched over in a chair in front of the desk. Doctor Sterling, sitting beside the colt, had a blank expression the entire time the colt recited all of the relevant facts.
Flicker, looking at Doctor Gambol, waited to be vindicated.
“Little pegasus filly… pale blue, almost white, with a very pink mane that has dark blue streaks—”
“Yes!” Flicker shouted, far more animated than he would be under normal circumstances.
Doctor Gambol coughed a few times and pounded his own barrel. “Flicker, I don’t know of any nice way of telling you this. That filly, her name was Lovely Aurora—”
Flicker let out a wheeze; it both felt and sounded as though he had been punched in the stomach.
“—and she had stomach cancer. Last night, at midnight, after determining that there was no way for her to recover, we administered a merciful dose of morphine and pentobarbital as her mother and father held her. At about one minute after twelve, she closed her eyes and went to sleep. At four minutes after twelve, we marked the time of her death. Flicker, I don’t know what you saw, or how you saw it, but there is no way that the filly in question could be up and pronking around. I have no idea how you knew about her, or were able to describe her so well.”
In his chair, Flicker sat rigid, trying to comprehend what he had just heard. It didn’t make sense, but then again, seeing an old zebra mare with a ropey mane and tail being followed by a dead filly didn’t make sense either. In his mind’s eye, he recalled how happy the filly looked, how lighthearted she was, and how she played. His mouth fell open, but no words came out.
“Mister Nicker… Flicker… I apologise for doubting you.” Doctor Sterling’s voice was flat and emotionless as he spoke. “But now we have a bigger problem… as you seem to be seeing things that shouldn’t be seen. This is worrisome, Flicker, and I am concerned.”
“Flicker, you look unwell,” Doctor Gambol said to the colt as he rose from his chair.
Blinking once, Flicker’s face went from being distraught to being utterly blank. There was a hardness in his eyes now, and he replied, “I’m fine. For a time, I was worried that my senses had betrayed me. I know what I saw.” The colt paused and shook his head. “I came here to make a donation. Two hundred gold bits. Do the parents have the means to bury her?”
“We are busy making arrangements for that,” Doctor Gambol replied.
“See that my donation goes towards that cause.” Flicker rubbed his neck with his hoof as he tried to sort out his unsettled mind.
“Very well, that can and will be done.” Doctor Gambol bowed his head in acknowledgment.
Glancing at Flicker, Doctor Sterling cleared his throat. “I cannot let my apprentice be so generous without matching him. I shall donate two hundred gold bits as well, and see that it goes towards the burial. That should be enough for a nice headstone, or a memorial marker, I would think.”
Leaning back in his chair, Flicker sighed, rubbed his neck some more, and shook his head, his face still blank. He thought about the old zebra mare, something about her was familiar, but he couldn’t quite put his hoof on what it was. At least he now had confirmation that he wasn’t seeing things, but this still troubled him. Now he had a different problem.
Not wanting to think about what had happened, Flicker forced himself to focus upon his purposeful marching through the wind. The colt’s mind gave careful consideration to the placement of each hoof, how each leg was raised, he kept his spine rigid, his neck at a proud angle, and his nose at parade point.
Piper, plucky, endured her thin cloak and her abuse from the wind. Her expression was now flinty, determined, and she walked just behind Hennessy, her nose almost in his tail, trying to take shelter behind him as the wind came head on. The filly’s legs were stiff and it was clear that she was having trouble walking, but she did not complain. Some of her bandages showed signs of spotting, but she remained resolute.
Hennessy, a sure-hoofed earth pony, did well in the wind, even somewhat malnourished, Hennessy had a natural strength to him and his hooves found purchase on the cobblestones. The cold was wearing him down though. Born in a hot, humid place, Equestria’s deep south-eastern corner, he was not at all used to the cold weather, and even under the heavy brown woollen cloak, he was succumbing to the cold, even though he made no complaint.
This job was all about deprivation and suffering. It wasn’t just the Rat Catcher’s Guild, but the other guilds held to high standards as well, such as the Guardian’s Guild, which dealt in hired security, home defense, and bodyguards. One might be expected to work on a cold, blustery day, and there would be no staying at home keeping warm beside the fire.
Stepping inside of the octagonal tower, Flicker was thankful that it was warm. He had been to this building before, Night Light could be found here now and again. A bright orange unicorn was coming down the stairs to greet them. Flicker knew him, knew him well, and Flicker realised that he wanted to know him better, as this particular fox-like pony fought using two swords.
“Fox Populi, so good to see you,” Doctor Sterling said as he smiled a warm, happy smile. “Miss Pie, Mister Walker, this fantastic pony is Fox Populi. Like Night Light, he does not take well to being called ‘Mister’ so do be mindful.”
“Names.” Fox breathed in deep and winked. “I need proper names!”
“Piper.”
“Hennessy.”
Bowing his head, Fox grinned at Flicker. “And the ever so starchy Flicker Nicker.”
“Fox, he’s had a very rough morning.” Doctor Sterling paused for a moment, looking as though he was about to say more, but no further words came forth.
“I am sorry to hear that.” Fox’s look of concern was warm, genuine, and his demeanour seemed to drive away the chill the companions all felt after being in the blustery cold. “I have received your dispatch and have read through the entirety of the report, Doctor Sterling. Undead rats, you say. Most troubling, most troubling indeed. At least we’re lucky enough to have a slayer arrive, just as he is needed.” Fox’s eyes narrowed and he began to study Flicker, who appeared to be lost in his own thoughts.
The bright orange pony with distinctive white markings walked in a circle around Flicker, who stood there, almost oblivious to the fact that he was being studied. After a full go-round, Fox looked Doctor Sterling in the eye as he raised one eyebrow in a curious arch. “And his ability has been confirmed?”
“I saw it for myself, with my own two eyes,” Doctor Sterling replied. Moving to stand beside Fox, Doctor Sterling’s eyes narrowed and his mouth pressed into a tight, pinched straight line beneath his mustache. “Silver weapons and their required enchantments are very expensive, as I am sure you know. It will take years of saving before Flicker has enough coin to purchase one. Once more, our guild comes to you, seeking aid.”
“And once more, Lucerna Perpetuum will do what we can to aid you.” Fox’s lighthearted manner vanished and he took on a more serious mein. “However, we will not aid you without recompense.”
Muttering to himself, Doctor Sterling took a step back while Piper turned her interested and curious stare upon Fox. Hennessy was looking at a painting of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna raising the sun and the moon in an eclipse. Flicker remained statuesque, staring at the two swords strapped to Fox’s sides.
“Is this a matter of money?” Piper asked.
“No,” Doctor Sterling replied, “this is never about money.” Brows furrowed, Doctor Sterling faced Fox. “What is it this time? Do I need to go into some wretched barrow or crypt filled wall to wall with undead to fetch a long forgotten tome of lore? Does some artifact need recovering? Some horrifying centaur vault filled with insane automatons or other minions of madness that needs clearing out?”
His thin lips tugging into a smirk, Fox replied, “Nothing of the sort.”
“Well, what then?” Doctor Sterling demanded, looking exasperated.
“I want them,” Fox stated with cool, casual calm as he gestured to the doctor’s apprentices. “We want them. Lucerna Perpetuum wants them. We would very much like to have a slayer in our ranks. I have an artifact, yes, you heard me right, an artifact that I know will help you. And I will give it to Flicker… give… not a temporary loan… and all I ask for in return are three simple oaths said by three eager apprentices.”
“I suppose it was all just a matter of time.” Doctor Sterling let out a huff of irritation and his lip curled back from his teeth as he stared at Fox. “I can understand Flicker, but why Piper and Hennessy?”
“Because, we here at Lucerna Perpetuum value friendship. It is how life continued and survived the windigos. It is how Twilight Sparkle grew into the pony that she is today. It is how Tarnished Teapot destroyed Grogar’s Crown of Corruption. It is how Sumac Apple and Pebble Pie keep going through such trying circumstances. Every great thing we have in our society begins with friendships. Friendships are an asset, and one of the commodities that we here at Lucerna Perpetuum hoard, whenever possible. Friendship is the greatest asset we have in our treasury.”
Piper looked mystified after Fox’s speech, and Hennessy turned around, peeling his eyes away from the painting he had been studying. Flicker appeared to be staring up at the ceiling, lost in thought. Doctor Sterling’s tail swished behind him and his silvery-grey eyes were focused upon Fox.
“What is this, exactly?” Piper asked.
“A not-so-secret secret society,” Doctor Sterling replied in a flat deadpan.
“Neat.” Piper grinned and her eyes lit up with curiousity. “Like, a hidden enclave of wizards?”
“Exactly like that.” Fox grinned and nodded.
“So, we join your secret club and Flicker gets something that will help him?” Hennessy reached out and poked Flicker on the front leg. “Hey, hey Flicky, here’s your chance for another Flicker-sticker.”
“What?” Flicker blinked his eyes in a rapid manner and tried to piece together what was going on. “I’m sorry, I was thinking about what happened earlier. I was lost in thought. Forgive me. I was trying to recall the word for when a pony’s mane looks like rope.”
Doctor Sterling relaxed a bit and began snickering.
“Dreadlocks?” Fox gave Flicker a peculiar look. “What a curious thing to think about. I encountered many ponies and zebras with dreadlocks in Windia. In the local tongue, they call them jata. Many of the mystics and sadhus allow their manes and tails to lock up.”
“So, about getting this weapon for Flicker… what do we need to do?” Piper took a fearless step forwards and got right up into Fox’s face, her muzzle now a half a foot from his own. “Would doing this get me access to special spells? More powerful magic? I smell opportunity here and a chance to further my own ambitions. I want great power so I can do great good.”
Doctor Sterling let out a sigh as he looked at Piper, then rolled his eyes.
“And you… what do you want, Hennessy?” Fox asked.
“Well, I s’pose I want acceptance,” Hennessy replied in a drawl slow even by his own standards. The words stretched out like taffy as he spoke them. “Beyond that, I don’t know what I want. I done reckon I want love and kindness, and maybe a soft place to rest my head. Beyond that, what else is there?”
“There is fondue, Mister Walker, and it is fantastic,” Piper remarked. After a moment, her eyes lighting up like two twin fires, she added, “And poutine… poutine makes life magical, if perhaps a bit gassy.”
“So, dinner and a musical number later that night?” Hennessy drawled and his words made Doctor Sterling snicker a bit more. “I ain’t adverse to that.”
“What are we doing?” Flicker asked.
Piper looked ecstatic as she clutched the spellbook full of light spells that had been given to her after the initiation. Flicker had received a spellbook as well, but his sat on the table. Doctor Sterling paced the length of the room, looking both proud and just a little bit worried. Hennessy sat at the head of table that ran the length of the room, looking very calm and thoughtful.
Fox returned to the room, having left it to retrieve the promised artifact, which he now held in a box that was rather coffin shaped. Walking to the table, Fox set the box down and turning his head, he looked at Flicker. “This is a dagger, a misericorde, which comes from the Fancy word, miséricorde, which means mercy. The dagger’s name is Heartfinder.”
Opening the box, Fox continued, “Heartfinder was made with the cooperation of several nations, with silver mined and purified by diamond dogs, steel forged by minotaurs, the grip made by griffons, and Princess Celestia herself put an enchantment upon the blade. It was created to put an end to a powerful lich and was carried by the diamond dog hero, Fortis. It is assumed that Fortis put the blade through the lich’s shriveled heart. The resulting explosion killed the lich, but also Fortis, whose remains were never found. Heartfinder was recovered in the lich’s lair, and in time, it was the griffons who brought it here for safekeeping, until such a time that it was needed again.”
With a reverent bowing of his head, Fox pulled the misericorde from its box and held it aloft for all to see. It was delicate looking, long for what it was, thin, and it was covered in silver. The dagger had a silvery glow to it, a faint glow that might not be noticeable at all in direct sunlight. The grip was covered in black ebonwood and there was a yellow gemstone embedded in the pommel.
“It is a powerful weapon against the undead.” Fox’s words were a reverent whisper. Looking very stern, he held the misericorde out to Flicker and gave it a shake.
“And this is mine?” Flicker asked.
“You will be its bearer for as long as you live,” Fox replied, sounding very solemn. “Consider this an extended lifetime loan. Princess Celestia has agreed to let you be the bearer for this crisis and beyond.”
Taking the blade into his own magic, Flicker bowed his head. “I am honoured.”
“You are also obligated.” Fox looked Flicker in the eye and moved closer. “With this gift, Princess Celestia has raised her expectations and she will want much in return. Do not disappoint her. In time, should you prove yourself, we have other gifts to offer our chosen champion.”
The misericorde had its own warmth, its own magic, and Flicker felt a pleasant ticklish sensation as he pulled it free from its steel and silver sheath. The silver inlays on the blade ignited at his touch and he could see little curls of silvery flames coming up off of the weapon. The blade thrummed with an audible sound that made Flicker’s mind feel very focused. It wasn’t very big, but it didn’t need to be. A misericorde was meant to be stabbed into the slit of a visor on a helmet to give the brains inside a good stirring. It could be inserted into the base of the neck and the blade could reach the heart hidden secure in the ribs. It could punch through most armor with a bit of effort and skill.
The blade had no keen edge, it was triangle shaped, reinforced, and was designed for stabbing. Wounds caused by the triangle blade would be very slow to heal, if at all. Flicker’s sharp eye studied it for many long seconds, and after a thorough examination, he determined that though limited to stabbing, the blade would be useful against most anything that was big and armored—like rabid bears, his primary form of reference for all dangerous things non-rat.
“I can make this work,” Flicker said, more to himself than anypony present.
“He looks rather happy,” Piper observed as she leaned forwards to get a better look at Flicker’s face. “Hennessy, look at him, quick, before it fades away. He’s not frowning!”
“What?” Hennessy almost fell out of his chair trying to look and he squinted at Flicker.
“Thank you, Fox. Once again, I am indebted to a kind benefactor. First my wand, now this.” Flicker bowed his head, slipped the misericorde back into its unique triangle shaped sheath, and ignored how both Piper and Hennessy were staring at him. They were silly ponies, and they just didn’t understand how to be serious and reserved.
“Flicker…”
“Yes, Fox?”
“Keep the lights on, Flicker. That is our solemn duty.”
“I intend to, Fox.”
The orange unicorn drew in a deep breath. “Flicker, I am hesitant to say this, but do be careful. Bad things tend to happen to those who keep the lights on. No doubt, you will attract the attention of those who wish to turn the lights off. Make no mistake, there are fervent adherents to that cause, every bit as fanatical and devoted as we are. If you hope to stand any sort of a chance against them, you will need to endure constant self improvement—this includes personal enrichment and development, such as making friends.” Fox’s eyes darted over to Piper and Hennessy. “Friends represent our greatest strength… and our greatest weakness. It is a paradoxical asset.”
Flicker gave Fox a blank stare, not understanding.
Ears splaying out, Fox shook his head. “Alas, I must bid thee adieu. I have errands which must be looked after. It was wonderful to meet all of you. Listen to Doctor Sterling, hang upon his every word, and obey Wick Chandler. These ponies have been in this fight for a long, long time and they have much to teach you. Good luck.”
Exhausted, his hooves sore from walking all over Canterlot for the entirety of the day, Flicker made his way to Wicked’s office. He was tired, his face was windburned, and his side ached far more than he would ever admit. Still, he was happy in his own way, even if he didn’t show it, and he had a brand new weapon.
Reaching Wicked’s door, he was about to knock, but it was pulled open just as his hoof was about to strike wood. Cautious, curious, he entered and found Wicked looked rather excited, which may or may not have been a good sign. It was difficult to say, Wicked, much like Flicker, got excited about terrible things that other ponies found terrifying.
The door slammed shut behind Flicker and then there was a fierce glow all around the room. Wicked made a gesture with his wooden leg at a chair, grunted, and then poured himself an enormous glass of brandy that smelled a bit like roses and old leather. Flicker, obedient, sat down.
“Lad, there is no nice way of saying this, but I need ye as bait while yer all bashed up and ugly looking.” Wicked leaned back in his chair, took a sip of his brandy, grimaced, then squinted at Flicker. “It’s gonna be a right and proper dangerous job and I’ll do my best to keep ya safe, but it’ll be risky.”
“Okay.” Flicker looked Wicked in the eye and saw fear.
“Something monstrous is preying on foals in Baltimare. They keep finding dead bodies washing up in the bay. Street urchins mostly, or so we think. Been ‘ard to identify. Some of ‘em have been recognised by orphanarium marms. Princess Luna’s Wardens have a good idea of the general location, or so we think, but for the actual finding… that’s been rough. S.M.I.L.E. is getting involved, Lad.”
“I’m in.” Flicker’s words were spoken in the coolest, calmest deadpan to ever come out of the colt’s mouth. “Now, about Hennessy and Piper—”
“They’ll be going with Doctor Sterling to his ‘ouse for a few days while we’re gone, for some private instruction and tutoring. So that’s one less thing for you to worry about, Lad. Now, about the job… we can’t have you armed, or wearing yer fancy coat, or even being bandaged. We want ye looking all pitiful like, and 'elpless.”
“Right.” Flicker nodded.
“Aye, Lad, yer a ‘ard-arse after yer first year. I did something right.” Wicked tipped back his head as he lifted his glass to his lips, and he emptied it all in one big gulp. Grimacing from the burn, he squinted at Flicker, his eyes watering, and a low equine bellow could be heard in the base of this throat. “Chills the blood, it does. I saw photos, Lad, and read the casefile. They were ‘usks, Lad, ‘usks. Shriveled, soggy ‘usks.”
“Sounds like something needs to die,” Flicker said in a very matter-of-fact voice.
“Aye, and we’re leaving to kill it tonight, Lad.” Wicked poured himself another glass of brandy and then waved the bottle at Flicker. “Airship, Lad. Small, light, and fast. One of those rigid models, long and thin, like a cigar. We should be in Baltimare by three in the afternoon to meet up with local agents. By nightfall, we want you out as bait. We’re gonna make you look a bit roughed up, Lad. Yer gonna walk the streets and look like a starving waif.”
Flicker nodded. He wasn’t helpless, even if he was unarmed. There had been a little hoof to hoof combat training, but not much. No, in a pinch, Flicker was good at setting things on fire. Being a fire aligned sort, all Flicker had to do was tap into his own natural rage and anger and everything around him was on fire in no time at all. Of course, he couldn’t control his fire, he couldn’t bend it to his will, and that was risky, but it was what it was.
“When do we leave?” Flicker asked.
“Sooner the better,” Wicked replied.
“Let’s go right now,” Flicker suggested. “I’ll go and say goodbye to Hennessy and Piper.”
“Aye, Lad. I’ll meet ye on the roof. The ship’ll swing by and pick us up once I send up a flare.” Wicked drained his glass of brandy again, belched, and shuddered from the afterburn. “Yer a good lad, Lad. I’m right proud of ye, I am.”
Flicker, his cheeks warm from praise, nodded, got up, and hurried out of Wicked’s office, so that he could say goodbye to his companions. He was looking forwards to crashing in a bunk, and it didn’t really matter where it was, so long as it was warm and had a few blankets. A hot meal might be nice too.
Baltimare, two thirty seven in the afternoon…
Flicker found himself in the company of giants. He gazed at the ponies around him with an almost unabashed affection, admiring them, these ponies were doing the work of the alicorns, and so was he. Wicked was talking with them, there were several Wardens here, Flicker just somehow knew that they had to be Wardens, and a few agents of S.M.I.L.E. Flicker did his best to look attentive, but nopony was paying much attention to him. That was okay though, he was here to prove himself, and he hadn’t done so yet.
“There is strong magic near the wharf district, in the rundown rowhouses, but we can’t find an exact location,” one of the Wardens said. “That’ll be our best place to leave bait.”
“I would like to formally declare that I do not support this plan—”
“Warden Dread Drop, your concerns have been noted. As a professional observation, I think you are letting your feelings as a mare get in the way of doing your job.”
“Oh, piss off Warden Owleye!”
“That’s enough! Both of you! If you don’t shut up right now, this instant, I’ll put both of you in the breeding program together!” the largest of the Wardens bellowed, a big sooty black nocturnal pegasus that was perhaps more draconic in nature than pony. Patches of reflective black scales could be seen dappled along his shaggy, wiry pelt and his voice was a bit hissy. “I think a bit of rutting to establish dominance would do the two of you some good.”
“By the alicorns, I hate spring, leaves these big brutes all edgy and out of sorts,” a seedy looking unicorn grumbled as he smoked a fat black-papered cigar. Looking down at Flicker, he gave the colt a wink, puffed on his cigar, and gestured at Wicked. “This is the ugliest bait I’ve ever seen.”
“Starry Ire, say one more word about me apprentice—”
“Yes, Wicked?”
“—and I’ll geld ye with a spoon.”
Starry Ire burst out laughing, huffing and puffing cigar smoke out of his nostrils. When Wicked whacked him on his front shins with his wooden leg, Starry let out a wheezing cough of pain, followed by a snarl. Then, Wicked started laughing, and both of them laughed together as the hazy cloud of cigar smoke around Starry grew ever thicker.
Flicker didn’t know what to think, as he wasn’t used to professional adults acting this way.
The tracking capsule was downright painful to swallow, and far too large. It was a horse pill, an actual horse pill, and Flicker wasn’t sure if he would get it down. He drank some water and he could feel Wicked rubbing his throat with magic. Nearby, Starry Ire was smoking and a pegasus named Dapper Do was watching out a window.
The apartment set up for reconnoitering was small, cramped, and had seen better days. It also stunk of tinned beans and burnt toast. The walls were yellowed from nicotine and the ceiling had a greasy looking slick sheen from so much smoking. Nicotine-cicles hung from places where Starry Ire sat to smoke.
When the pill was down, Dapper came over and went to work. An artist, Dapper made faces, he did makeup and disguises. He set about the task of making Flicker look worse. All of the bandages were torn away, exposing his still healing wound. A foul smelling grease was rubbed into what remained of Flicker’s mane and over his sole surviving eyebrow.
Using applicators and brushes, he made Flicker look quite pitiful, with a blackened eye that seemed quite swollen, and somehow the pegasus made Flicker’s lip look as though he had been punched in the mouth. With a bit of putty, some spirit gum, and some prosthetics, he gave Flicker a cauliflower ear that would make any boxer cringe.
With powders and liquids, he made the wounds on Flicker’s side look horrific, diseased looking, as if they hadn’t healed well at all. Along Flicker’s bare patches, which were still quite bruised, Dapper added rashes, splotches, and what appeared to be mange scabs.
“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Starry grumbled as he puffed away, “and I was feeling hungry for beans and toast. Dapper, you’re too good at what you do.”
“Where are the Wardens?” Flicker asked.
“In hiding,” Starry replied as he exhaled a thick cloud of eye-watering smoke.
“So what do I do?” Flicker asked.
“Lad, you have to improvise.” Wicked, sitting on a wooden kitchen chair, was reading a paper that had the words PRINCE PLEAS FOR UNITY TO FACE ASCENDENCY THREAT! DEMANDS BUREAUCRATS FALL IN LINE, OR ELSE! sprawled across the top of the front page. “Look, I know that creativity isn’t yer strong point, but you need to reach deep, Lad.”
“So, I just try to look as pathetic as possible?” As Flicker spoke, Dapper applied more make up. “Like, rummage around in the trash like I’m looking for food and such?”
“That’s a good start, Lad.”
“We have a bit of intel on an old mare that roams the streets at night looking for hard up foals. Many have claimed to have seen her, but none of us have seen her. It’s obvious that magic is being used to mislead us.” Starry crushed out a cigar in an overflowing ashtray and then lit another before the first stopped smoking. “With you being all hard up, maybe our nice old grandmotherly mare will come out to help you.”
“And then what? I kick the shit out of her?” Flicker looked around, hoping for instruction, and his words made Starry choke on his cigar smoke.
“I told you!” Wicked shouted. “I told you! The little ‘ot ‘ead ‘as a mean streak a mile wide!”
“Damnit, speak Equestrian, I can’t make out a word you’re saying,” Starry wheezed as he recovered from his coughing.
Scowling, Wicked flicked his pegleg out, smacked a empty bean tin, and sent it flying. It sailed through the air in a perfect arc and a second later, it bounced off of Starry’s forehead after hitting him right in front of his ear. Letting out a pained cry, Starry then coughed out a cloud of thick smoke, coughed some more, then after gagging, he horked up some stringy yellow lung butter, which he spat out in the overfilled ashtray.
Wicked’s bellowing laughter filled the apartment and Dapper Do looked annoyed by the distraction. Starry began laughing, which made his cough worse, and more lung butter was horked up, then spat out. Flicker was appalled that adults would act this way, and he shuddered in revulsion. This was awful. He was ready to hit the streets and face whatever danger was out there rather than endure another minute of this.
This was just about the worst thing ever.
Fresh air. Flicker could breathe again. If he ever smelled cigar smoke again, it would be too soon. It was cool, and as the sun went down, it would get cold. He had no coat and much of him was still bald. Doing his best to look miserable, he stumbled down the sidewalk, dragging his hooves, and hoping that he was doing the right thing. Nopony had told him what the right thing was, not exactly.
Dusk was already here and the sun would be setting soon. He wondered how long he might have to wait. The scent of the air was salty, almost fishy. Baltimare… supposedly haunted and a place of legend. Sea ponies lived in the Horseshoe bay, or so it was said, and there were quite a number of strange cults here. Castle Murder could be found on the peninsula and there were a million stories, all of them printed in pulp novels and sold as truth. Flicker felt that most of the writers belonged in the local asylum, which was known as Arkham.
Baltimare, and it’s surrounding towns, Innsmouth, Dunwich, and other little touristy traps, had a long and storied history. Now, as an agent of S.M.I.L.E., Flicker found himself investigating one of the local mysteries. Whatever it was, he was certain he could handle it.
Looking up, Flicker watched as the streetlamps began to bathe the street in light and he shivered, feeling a chill that felt as though it originated from the inside. It was going to be a long night, and his stomach was already rumbling.
Shivering, Flicker’s muscles ached from the cold and the only thing he had to comfort him was the thought of hazard pay. He was unaware of it, but his mercenary soul was just fine with this arrangement, this transaction of violence for coin. For Flicker descended from a long, long line of warriors and mercenaries on his mother’s side of the family. Not unicorns, but proud, pummelling, pounding pegasus ponies that never backed away from a fight.
How had he ended up with a horn instead of wings? A simple twist of fate.
A few ponies were out on the street, but not many. This was the bad side of town, near the wharf, and Flicker sensed a disturbing lack of rats. This puzzled him, as this area should be swarming with rats, but it wasn’t. Oh, there were a few rats here, but not many, and they were hidden. Flicker, had he been a bit more imaginative, might have wondered why, or perhaps took it as a warning sign.
He wandered from place to place, his head down, going from garbage can to garbage can, sniffing around as if he were a dog. Tall, narrow rowhouses lined the streets, made of red brick and broken dreams. Many had broken windows that had been boarded over. Some had graffiti, including seditious propaganda about the Ascendency and how they would save the common pony. Almost all of them had no doubt been converted over to apartments to maximise profit. This was a place of misery, a place where the equine soul was ground down and made to serve.
In the distance, near the water, there was a big soulless factory, with sharp angled roofs, watchtowers, and chimneys that didn’t seem to stand quite straight. Smoke poured from the stacks, and dim lights could be seen in the factory windows. It was the dim lights that concerned Flicker—ponies needed well lit areas for safe working conditions—a fact that he mused about while standing in the faded glow of a streetlamp that had seen better days.
An industrial bakery was nearby, the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen, and the stench coming out of the vents was nausea inducing. Flicker, innocent to so much in the world, thought that a bakery of any sort would smell good; warm, wholesome, and inviting, but this was not the case. As Flicker went down the street, a young couple hurried away from the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen together. For some reason, as Flicker looked at the couple, he thought of Hennessy.
Hennessy would be warm right about now. Distracted, Flicker thought pleasant thoughts of Hennessy, a heavy blanket, and some cocoa. For some reason, Piper was there too, but she had her own blanket and her own cocoa. Perhaps a roaring, crackling fire. Or better still, he could be at his parent’s house, and they could all be together. The colt sighed at the thought, then shivered in misery.
“You poor dear… what are you doing out on the streets?”
His blood freezing, Flicker turned around to face the pony speaking to him. She was old looking, with loose, wrinkled skin, and there was a smell… she smelled bad. Something smelled bad, anyway. She was wearing a heavy, ratty looking cloak that hung from her like a shroud. The old mare’s horn was swollen looking and the casing was translucent. Flicker was certain that it was his imagination, but he could have sworn he saw something… moving inside of her horn.
“You look so neglected. What are you doing out on the streets, little one?”
Flicker, worried about his creativity and his ability to tell a convincing lie, tapped on his throat with his hoof. He waited, looking at the mare, who was just about the same size as he was. After a few seconds, her face lit up with understanding.
“Oh, you poor dear, you’re mute… if you got into trouble, nopony could hear you cry for help… oh, you poor little darling… let me help you. At home, I have tea and cakes. I’m an old mare and my foals have all grown up and gone away. I’m a lonesome old widow, and I just want somepony I can fawn over.”
Ears drooping, Flicker nodded.
“Follow me home, little one, and let me help you.”
‘Home’ was a tiny, cramped apartment up on the third floor of a rowhouse. Flicker lacked the descriptive creativity to fully express just how bad the stench was. Something was rotten here. He watched his benevolent host as she teetered around her tiny kitchen. His eyes kept going to her horn, which he had a better view of in the light of her kitchen.
It was swollen for certain, enlarged, engorged, and the base of it was lumpy. The casing was indeed, translucent, thin, like wet or greasy paper, and something unsettling was moving around inside of it. It wasn’t his imagination, because Flicker hardly even had one. The mare’s eyes were weepy and gritty snot crusted in the corners.
“So rare to see a little unicorn round here,” the old mare said. “Most of the unicorns have better jobs in the better parts of town. Oh, I would imagine that you must have quite a story to tell about how you escaped from some orphanarium, or perhaps from the hospital, by the looks of things.” The old mare smiled, and it was unpleasant. “Such a pity you are so quiet.”
Flicker could not help but notice that the old mare had never offered her name. Her skin was lumpy, it hung from her in odd ways, and he was certain that he could see things… slithering just beneath her flesh. Flicker wondered where Wicked and the others were. As he thought about this, the old mare let out a wheezy chuckle.
“Foolish colt, your friends will never be able to find you here, but it was nice of them to offer up a tasty treat for this old mare.”
It took Flicker’s mind several long seconds to realise that he had been played. His reaction was swift, terrible, and brutal. With his telekinesis, he swept the black iron kettle that was almost boiling from up off of the stove, and then with a terrific slam, he bashed the old mare right on her diseased looking horn.
She let out a cry as her horn ruptured like a compacted cyst. Slimy goo, the colour of pale cheese curds in whey, spurted from the ruptured magical organ, and little wriggling, writhing things that looked like leeches dribbled down from the gaping hole on her forehead. The old mare, far from being injured, began to cackle, and Flicker felt his blood run cold as the kettle clattered to the floor.
A thin, slender tentacle slithered out of the pus-spurting hole in the mare’s forehead and almost formed a question mark. The mare’s lower jaw fell open, and then much to Flicker’s horror, her lower jaw ripped in half, almost as if it were unzipping, pulling apart, and it became two gnashing mandibles. Seeing this, Flicker only had one thing to say.
“Fuck me.”
He dove out of his chair as the mare continued to transform into something else, something not a mare, and more curious, seeking tentacles had joined the first. Things became chaotic as the front door exploded into splinters, and Wicked entered, followed by a cigar smoking Starry Ire. The explosion rattled the walls and shook the apartment.
Wooden panels fell away from the walls, revealing horrors inside. Eggs glistened inside of long, translucent, veiny tubes. Little leech things slithered around inside of the mess, and the eggs were suspended in a creamy yellow-green substance. It took Flicker several seconds to realise that he was looking at intestines, guts, the eggs were secured inside of slick, smooth intestines, filled with leech things and goo.
So much happened all at once. Flicker, disgusted and horrified, set the hidden horrors inside of the walls on fire with his magic as his hooves scrabbled over the kitchen’s linoleum floor. Wicked and Starry were casting defensive spells and the old mare, no longer a mare, began shrieking. The fire blazed through the old half rotten wood and the apartment filled with smoke.
“My babies!” she screeched in a scratchy, furious whine. “My precious babies! They take so long to hatch! You wretched little shit, my babies! I’ll gobble your little balls!”
Screaming, the mare continued to transform, and the skin of her four legs split open after stretching far too tight. Each of her equine legs began to tear, ripping asunder, and long, hairy, spindly legs burst forth. Spider legs, horrible, terrible, sanity destroying spider legs. Still screeching, the spider-pony-tentacle monster puked out a blob of acid at Flicker, who lept out of the way.
Moving, terrified, screaming with mortal fear, Flicker hit the boarded over window as hard as he could with his telekinesis, causing the wood and glass to splinter and shatter. He took off at a run, unable to deal with the sudden appearance of spider legs. With the apartment now blazing, Flicker slammed the kitchen table into the monstrous mare to knock her out of his way, then he charged for the window, shouting and yelling, spitting out incomprehensible curses, unable to deal with his arachnophobia.
The colt lept out of the third floor window, not caring about the consequences, he just wanted to be away from the spider-pony-tentacle monster. Flames followed him out into the night, and so did the spider-pony-tentacle monster. Wicked was right behind her, and Starry was right behind him.
Midair, Flicker was snatched by Dapper, who swooped down and kept Flicker from smashing into the street. Flicker was dropped from a safe distance, and then Dapper swooped away as the eight legged spider creature landed on the sidewalk. Flicker, who hated spiders, kept running, and the spider-pony-tentacle monster took off after him, bent on revenge for him burning up her precious, precious babies.
“You have been selected for termination! Please cease your struggles and comply!”
The voice belonged to Warden Owleye, who came barrel-rolling in from the rooftops. Behind him, Warden Dread Drop flapped her wings and moved to intercept the spider-pony-tentacle monster chasing after Flicker. The eldritch horror paused for a moment, just long enough to puke some digestive juices in the general direction of the two Wardens, and then she was after Flicker again.
“Your life is forfeit, monster! Do not resist your termination process! Submit and comply!”
“Oh, shut up, Warden Owleye! I don’t think she plans to go along quietly!”
A long, slender tentacle whipped out and almost snatched Flicker’s hind leg. The colt doubled around, ducking, and began to run towards Wicked, bringing the monster with him. His hind legs were soaked with urine and his eyes were aglow with the frantic struggle of survival. More ponies began to arrive, more unicorns, they appeared in flashes of light and joined the battle.
“UNFORGIVABLE!” the monstrous mare screeched, venting her ire for Flicker’s terrible crime.
The air filled with spells cast by the unicorns and much to Flicker’s horror, the spider-pony-tentacle monster could also cast spells, which she flung from the tentacles that sprouted from her forehead. He dove and took cover beneath a wagon, terrified, struggling to draw breath and feeling a dreadful pain in his side.
Spiders were the most awful thing ever and Flicker just couldn’t deal with them.
Wicked, moving and dodging about, put himself in between Flicker and the vengeful eldritch horror. Using his magic, he snapped off a street lamp, and the exposed electrical wiring spit and crackled. Scowling, he held his makeshift spear at the ready, waiting for the time to strike.
Flicker felt himself grabbed and lifted, then found himself in Warden Dread Drop’s embrace. Looking down, he could see that the ponies were getting up off of the street, and then he saw why. Starry opened up a hydrant, which flooded the street, soaking everything with water, including the old mare that was no longer a mare, but was more of an eldritch spider horror with tentacles, at the moment.
Wicked, who had lept up onto a stone bannister beside some stairs, rammed the arcing streetlamp, its cable still connected to a power supply, right into the spider-legged night terror, skewering her like a bug on a pin. The resulting wet electrocution made her dance a festive looking jig, her legs flailed about as her tentacles thrashed, and acidic digestive juices dribbled from her flailing mandibles. The tarantula lady danced a fine tarantella.
Explosive wounds appeared upon the spider-mare’s sides, which spewed out things that looked like leeches. She screamed and screeched; she was incoherent as the electricity cooked her from within. The apartment she had transformed into her hatchery was now ablaze and a column of flame rose high into the night.
Rising higher into the night sky, Flicker was glad to leave the scene of battle behind.
Sitting in a cafe, Flicker, huddled up in his coat, stared down into his coffee cup as he tried to collect his thoughts. He didn’t know how it ended, he was thankful that Warden Dread Drop had hauled him away, and he wondered how long he would have nightmares about giant spider creatures living in disguise as old mares roaming the streets looking for orphans.
Now, everything would be swept away, because that was what S.M.I.L.E. did. This horror would be erased, forgotten, and ponies would feel safe again. Warden Dread Drop was sitting beside him, drinking coffee and eating scrambled eggs as though nothing had happened. Across the table, Wicked and Warden Owleye did much the same.
Flicker’s own scrambled eggs remained untouched. He didn’t want to think about eggs, not after what he had seen in the wall. Lifting his head, the colt looked at Wicked and asked, “What happens now?”
It was Owleye who answered, “Our field agents go to work with their Reflection Deflection—”
“Nopony calls them that, Owleye, they’re Ref Defs,” Dread Drop interjected.
“ —Units and after being hit by the magic of the Reflection Deflection rays, those who witnessed the spider-hag will have trouble reflecting upon the memory, so it won’t trouble them. They’ll think about something else, something pleasant.”
This seemed quite reasonable to Flicker and he wasn’t bothered by this information in the slightest. He sniffed his coffee and said, “She was ready for us. She knew it was a trap and didn’t care. She thought that she was untouchable. I find this upsetting.”
Scooping up some scrambled eggs, Wicked nodded.
“What was she?”
Chewing his eggs, Wicked shrugged.
Thinking about the big pill he had swallowed, Flicker took a sip of coffee. “And these are the sorts of things that the Crown protects us all from?”
“Aye, Lad.”
“And I am a part of that now?” Flicker put down his coffee cup.
“Ye are, Lad. And you did well for yer first assignment. Don’t feel ashamed for being scared, Lad. That was an unnatural ‘orror… there are things in this world that are in’erently evil and can’t be reasoned with, which is something you have to deal with when you live in a world of magic, Lad.” Wicked, eating his eggs, squinted at the colt across the table.
“So, when ponies protest the Crown, when they talk about getting rid of it, like these Ascendency types, they’re protesting the protection that they get from the Crown. These… monsters that are hiding in plain sight and preying on the common pony.” Flicker, looking troubled, stared down into his coffee cup.
“Aye, Lad, that’s certainly one way of looking at it.”
After much effort, Flicker’s brain came to one conclusion that he did not say out loud. Without the Crown and the protection that it offered, there wouldn’t be civilisation. There wouldn’t be organised, competent defense. Most citizens never gave any thought to what they were being protected from; disease, rats, and monsters. Flicker, who was just starting to see the bigger picture, was certain that there were plenty of things that he didn’t know about.
Terrible things.
Once more, Flicker came to the conclusion that sedition was a disease that might very well wipe away society. He concluded that, like foals, ponies had to be protected from themselves, and from the things that would prey upon them. Like foals, most ponies were better off not knowing what lurked in the dark, on the fringes, and the Crown, like devoted parents, allowed society to sleep like foals tucked away in warm beds at night, secure in their parent’s protection and care.
“You know what, I’m fine with all of this,” Flicker announced, deciding on the spot that he could live this sort of life. “I look forwards to our next assignment.”
Sighing, Piper sat in the gym, wishing that her legs were better. Oh, they were healing, but they weren’t healing anywhere as fast as Flicker, who had spooky-fast healing. His stitches had been removed yesterday by Doctor Sterling, who was baffled enough to take photographs. The past few days had all been ones of intense study, after spending two nights at Doctor Sterling’s house, where Lentil Pakora had spoiled her and Hennessy.
Her eyes, which were not in her Equestrian history book, looked over at Hennessy, who was going back and forth, trying to leap over a four foot section of wall. It was much harder than it looked, he kept smacking into it, banging his legs into it, and sometimes landing stomach first on the wall. In time, she supposed, that would be her, and no mercy would be spared because she was a filly. This is the price one paid to become a hero; blood, bruises, and bumps. It was a small price to pay, because here, she could learn magic. Real magic. Turn a monster inside out and make him explode magic. But this sort of magic had to be earned. And earn it she would.
All in due time.
In an open corner of the gymnasium, Flicker and a pale whitish-grey pony named Moonlit Gambit were sparring, whacking more at each other’s swords than each other. Each collision made a terrific ‘THWACK!” sound and the two heavy wooden swords had to be quite sturdy to hold up to the abuse. Watching them, she realised just how big Flicker was, as Moonlit was one of the older students, about a decade and a half in age, almost an adult, and Flicker was just about as big as Moonlit.
This lead Piper to conclude that Flicker was going to be a big one. Hennessy on the other hoof, while of good size, was on the delicate, slender side, and with each passing day, seeing him around other ponies, she could not help but notice how much more… fillyish he was in his proportions. She was beginning to understand just how self conscious he was, and why.
Sighing again, Piper shook her head as she thought of yesterday, and the incident. In an oral recitation about plague history, one of the older students had whispered the word “queer” behind Hennessy, setting off a chain of events that had ended with Mister Balister bashing the older colt in the mouth with volume E of Encyclopaedia Equestria over and over until the colt was a bloody heap on the floor, and the entire time Mister Balister shouted about respect, spitting out each word while driving his point home with the book, explaining the violence that might happen because of a single, careless spoken word.
Then had come the speech about courtesy and its importance around a group of such well-armed and capable types, ponies that excelled at extreme violence. Courtesy was the glue that held everything together, good manners and proper etiquette kept well trained soldiers from killing one another, or, as Flicker liked to say, “Civilisation maketh equines.”
Her studies forgotten, she watched as Flicker and Moonlit sparred. She was curious as to what Flicker had been up to with Wicked; he hadn’t said anything, not one single word, other than mentioning that he had gone off to Baltimare on guild business. Flicker and Moonlit were circling one another, moving with slow, cautious steps, and their swords clashed in heart-palpitating flurries of beautiful, purposeful violence.
Flicker didn’t have a lot of magic, hence the wand, but he was more than capable with his telekinesis, which Piper admired. She supposed that more capable wizards might give a haughty sniff and look down on ponies like Flicker, but she knew better. The smartest, most capable wizards cultivated friendship with ponies like Flicker, and then kept them close. This was how wizards lived to a ripe old age, gaining wisdom to go along with their power. At least, this is what her book, So You Have Magical Ambitions had suggested.
She knew from conversation with Hennessy that Flicker was The Doer, and in time, she could send him to do what he did best. It was all a matter of command and having a good and proper flunky. Having a good flunky was one of a wizard’s greatest assets, and a capable flunky was to be treasured and adored. Flicker was her best possible candidate.
Sucking wind, Hennessy crashed to the floor and then did not get up. He lay there, soaked with sweat, his sides heaving, his earth pony strength having abandoned him. He waited for a stinging swat from Mister Balister’s swagger stick, but no such blow came. Relieved, he kept sucking wind while laying on the cool, smooth floor.
“Mister Gambit, if you would please come over here,” Mister Balister said, his voice commanding and cool. “While Mister Walker is resting, I think a demonstration is in order to inspire him. Miss Pie, do come over here at once.”
Hennessy lifted his head as the others drew near and he wished that he had some water. If he drank it right now, he knew that he would just sick it up in his current state, but that wouldn’t stop him from drinking. Piper sat down just a few feet away, and Flicker stood nearby, holding two wooden swords, slashing them through the air.
“What should I demonstrate?” Moonlit asked.
Looking thoughtful, Mister Balister did not reply right away. He shifted his weight from his right side to his left side, then back to his right side, and then replied, “A single backflip off of the four foot wall, if you please, Mister Gambit.”
“Righto.” Grinning, the pale colt made an effortless leap to the top of the four foot wall, which was only about six inches wide. He stood atop it, balancing with ease, and then in a stunning move of dexterity, he backflipped from the wall, somersaulted through the air, and landed on his hooves.
“Now, Mister Gambit, an explanation as to why this is important,” Mister Balister commanded.
“Balance is everything. We might fall, we might get flung, and in our work, we regularly make leaps from high places. Being able to reorient in the air, knowing which way is up or down, and being able to land upon our hooves is paramount. It could mean the difference between life or death.”
“Very good,” Mister Balister said, offering a little dry praise that lacked much in the way of enthusiasm. “Mister Gambit here was in the sewers of Manehattan a while back—”
Moonlit Gambit groaned and shook his head as he backed away.
“ —and in a stunning display of gross, cretinous levels of ineptitude, he slipped while walking across some pipes slick with sewage condensation. Had he recovered, he might have landed upon some pipes just below him, but due to his complete and utter failure, he ended up dunked in a river of wastewater and he went for a swim. He hasn’t smelled quite right since. It is the putrid stench of… failure and it is my most sincere hope that he grows to loathe it. Perhaps some ridicule might condition him to hate that stench as much as I do.”
“I’m never going to live that down,” Moonlit muttered as his ears drooped in shame.
“No!” Mister Balister gave Moonlit a hearty swat on the neck with his swagger stick and the colt didn’t even flinch. “You will not live that down until you redeem yourself and take steps to ensure that sort of gross incompetency never happens again! You might have died, and your poor sweet mother might have sobbed at your graveside, her and your father living the rest of their lives regretting that their inept son bungled his life away and drown in a river of shit!” To make his point, the cranky older pony brought his swagger stick down twice on the same spot on Moonlit’s neck, and on the second blow, Moonlit flinched, his ears pinning back as Balister snarled.
Moonlit whimpered, not so much from pain, but from the idea of his mother mourning his death. That hurt more than anything, and his eyes almost began to water as he thought about it. His mother, Lady Gambit, was a good and gracious mare, sweet, caring, and lived a life of public service, throwing parties to raise money for charitable causes. The idea of making his mother cry hurt more than just about anything Moonlit could think of. She had raised him to be selfless, giving, and self-sacrificing in his service to others.
“One hundred backflips from the four foot wall, you disgusting shit-swimmer,” Mister Balister demanded of the glassy eyed colt on the verge of tears. “NOW, BEFORE THE WEAKNESS SPILLS OUT YOUR EYES!”
“Right away, Mister Balister, glad to do it, Mister Balister,” Moonlit replied as he rushed to comply.
Hennessy, fearing reprisal, felt a question that needed to be asked. He could feel it on his tongue, like a bitter pill, demanding to be let out, and his body twitched as he thought about the possible lashing he might get. Still, the question remained, and Hennessy desperately wanted an answer. He pulled himself up into a sitting position, turned to Mister Balister, and then summoned as much courage as he could.
“Could I see a demonstration of what you can do when you leap from the wall?” Hennessy asked as Moonlit landed with a clatter. “I only ask so I can see what I need to aspire to. I mean no disrespect.”
Mister Balister’s response had a surprising amount of gentleness and graciousness. “I would be glad to show you. So few students ask for a demonstration, they rush into it thinking that they know everything. It is a rare occasion that I get a chance to show anypony how it is done. Most would rather learn the hard way and I am all too willing to oblige them as they smash face first into the floor.”
Beaming, Hennessy felt both relieved and proud. Moonlit paused his in exercise to watch, and Flicker put his swords away. Piper, her legs sore, sat down beside Hennessy, and together, the apprentices watched as Balister began to limber up, all of them with eager faces and perked ears.
With an explosion of movement, Balister went streaking away, his close cropped mane and tail bobbing, and his hooves clattered over the floor. He moved with the fluid grace that came from thousands of hours of practice and a lifetime of living his skills. Away he lept, soaring through the air towards the eight foot wall. With ease, he landed on the top edge, standing on his two front hooves, doing a neat hoof-stand, with his hind hooves straight up over his head.
Laughing, he did a flip, launching himself straight up with his front hooves, and then he landed once more on top of the wall, and it was obvious to anypony watching that the older stallion was being playful—having fun on the job—and he showed off a little by standing on one front hoof. He did a few one hoof pushups, touching his nose to the top of the wall, and then, standing on his two front hooves once more, he lept backwards away from the wall.
In the air, he did six full backwards somersaults before he landed on all four hooves, but he wasn’t done. The second he landed, he sprung away, cartwheeling on two legs, he rolled around the room, heading for the six foot wall, and standing on his hind legs, he lept to the top, doing a neat little flip on the way. He landed atop the six foot wall, standing on his hind hooves, clapped his two front hooves together, bowed, then lept away again. In midair, he changed direction, twisting about, and did a front facing flip.
He landed on his right front hoof, balanced, and not even breathing hard.
“All of you will be able to do this in time,” Mister Balister said in a calm voice that didn’t have even the slightest bit of strain to it. “It will be like second nature to you. You will learn and your muscles will gain memory.”
“Doctor Sterling moved like that when the rats swarmed me.” Piper’s voice was a low whisper.
“Yes, and had you some training and experience, you would have been able to save yourself by leaping away, getting to a place that the rats couldn’t reach you,” Balister replied, still standing on one front hoof. “Or just going from place to place, never staying in one spot long enough for the rats to swarm you.” He dropped down to all fours once more, and with a look of concern and worry in his eyes, he approached Piper. “What happened to you is regrettable. I know for a fact that the good doctor blames himself for what took place. You will now live your life with some awful scars, which is a tough thing for a filly your age to face down. My suggestion is, use it to motivate yourself. You know what the pain feels like, make certain that you never experience that pain again. The pain of training is far preferable. In this life, we have the glorious option to choose what sort of pain we experience. It is magnificent and all of us should revel in this bounty of choice we have been given.”
“Yes, Mister Balister.” Piper nodded her head.
Then, the soft concern in his eyes melted away with a flash and was replaced with benevolent cruelty. He slapped Moonlit on the neck four times and barked, “You lazy shit-swimmer! Get to work! Give to me what I am owed!”
The door to the conservatory was open and Flicker Nicker steeled his nerves. Help, it seemed, had arrived, and waited for him within. He took a deep breath, feeling panicked and not understanding why. Unaccustomed to feeling panic, Flicker did not deal well with it. His whole body shuddered as he thought about the spider-hag and the sensation of panic when her four pony legs became eight spider legs. That panic was justified, because, spiders, and this panic was foolish.
It was only a meeting with a group known as the Cutie Mark Crusaders and certainly not anything to worry about. Cautious, he passed through the door and into the conservatory. Lifting his head, he saw them. An earth pony, a pegasus pony, and a unicorn, all sitting on the same couch together. All of them were older fillies, or perhaps very young mares, it was hard to tell. With the way they were looking at him, Flicker began to feel a little out of sorts.
“Hi,” the earth pony said in greeting, “I’m Apple Bloom.”
“Scootaloo,” the pegasus said.
“And I’m all fluffy and cute,” the unicorn added, “but you can call me Sweetie Belle.”
The earth pony gestured at a chair, and then as Flicker went to sit down, she began to talk. “We’re students in university, learning to help ponies like yourself. Ponies with cutie mark problems. We work with Princess Cadance, who supports our efforts, and one day we hope to be a part of her vast network of social workers.”
“It’s a living.” Scootaloo smiled as Flicker sat down and she brushed her short cropped mane away from her face. “You look a little stiff there, Flicker. To start with, you could try relaxing. See, we need for this to go well, just like you do, because we’re being graded on what we learn here.”
Upon hearing this, Flicker actually relaxed a little, being the sort that wanted to help others.
“Okay, okay, that’s a start.” Sweetie Belle put on a pair of reading glasses, pulled out a pen, and then a notepad, which she began writing on as she continued, “We need you to tell us everything you can. Be descriptive. Try and tell us what the problem is and how it affects you. The more you tell us, the more we can help you. Apple Bloom and I are professionals, so you can be very open and honest with us.”
After several seconds, Scootaloo turned to look at Sweetie Belle, her eyes narrowing. “Hey!”
Taking a deep breath, Flicker found himself at ease—well, sort of. For some reason, he was expecting to be grilled in a very clinical fashion, questioned, interrogated. He didn’t know why he expected this, but expect it he did, and the light hearted attitudes of the young mares on the couch was a relief.
“Took you long enough, Scoots.” Sweetie Belle nudged the pegasus pony beside her with her elbow. “It’s amazing… I know the fastest pegasus in the world… and the slowest.”
When Scootaloo turned to look at Sweetie Belle, Flicker’s mouth dropped open and Apple Bloom began laughing. Lifting her hoof, Scootaloo shook it at Sweetie Belle, who ignored the gesture and remained focused upon Flicker.
“So, Flicker, why don’t you tell us about yourself?” Apple Bloom asked as Scootaloo continued to menace Sweetie Belle. “As you can see, we’re all very laid back and you can tell us anything.”
“Anything?” Flicker responded.
“Anything.” Scootaloo dropped her hoof and looked at Flicker.
“Okay…” Flicker took a deep breath, and wondered how to begin.
Sore and stiff, Hennessy found it difficult to keep up with Doctor Sterling as they hurried to the front door. Somepony had asked for him… him and now, he was panicked. Hennessy was a pony that didn’t want to be found, and he wanted to leave the entirety of his old life behind him. He had first been sent to the Baltimare guild, and they had nursed him to somewhat better health after his horrific beating. They had tested his talent a bit, shown him kindness, and then had sent him to Canterlot.
He did not know what to expect, what waited beyond the front door, and he hoped that it wasn’t his father. The colt was glad that Doctor Sterling was armed, and he suspected that Piper would also come to his defense. He did not want to open the door and see his father on the other side, the very idea terrified him and made his stomach clench. He wished that Flicker was here.
In the entryway, Doctor Sterling pulled the door open and Hennessy sucked in a deep breath. Standing in the doorway was a cowering, terrified figure, covered in a ratty, filthy, torn blanket fashioned into a makeshift cloak. Not much could be seen of her, but one front leg was swollen and jutted out at an odd angle just above her fetlock. Hennessy felt his heart shatter inside of his chest.
“Ma.”
“Is that you, Henny? I can’t see so well.” The mare squinted, one eye was swollen shut and was unable to open, the other eye was swollen to the point it could only open a little.
“Good heavens, she has a broken leg!” Doctor Sterling started forward, but halted when the mare began to hobble away on three legs.
“Stay back, unicorn, stay back!”
Shoving past Doctor Sterling, Hennessy went to his mother. “Ma, he’s a friend. That’s Doctor Sterling. He’s very nice and you should let him help you. What happened to you?”
“Your dad… he beat it out of me that I helped you leave. He and your brothers, my own sons, they beat me and cursed me for foaling out a faggot. The bastard broke my leg, Henny… he broke my leg! I came to be with you, but you weren’t in Baltimare, and they gave me a train ticket to come here.”
“And the guild there didn’t help you?” Doctor Sterling asked.
“I ain’t got no need for no charity!” the mare snapped as she hobbled and limped back a little more.
“But you took the train ticket.” Doctor Sterling shook his head in disbelief. “Madam, you are nothing but broken bones and trauma! I don’t even understand how you are up and walking!”
The mare did not reply, but turned to look at her son. “Without you around to let go his anger on, your father went plumb crazy. He’s drinking more than ever and picking fights with everyone. Without you there, I decided that there ain’t nothing left for me there, so I came here to this city of faggots—”
“Ma, you gotta stop saying that…”
“But ain’t that what this is? The city of faggots? That’s how your father done tells it. They’s all faggots and they steal the foals of others to carry on their unnatural lives—”
“Mama, Pa lied about a lot of things. The unicorns here ain’t all gay, they won’t use their magic to make you a slave, and they don’t go around stealing years of your life to make themselves live longer.” Hennessy reached out to his mother, his whole body shaking, and his voice cracked as he tried to speak. “Ma, let Doctor Sterling help you.”
“No!” the mare squealed as she shuffled away from her son.
“Doctor Sterling, as her son, you done have my permission to do what needs to be done,” Hennessy said, his voice cracking even more.
“What? No! Stay back from me!” The mare started to try and run on three legs, but didn’t make it very far, going limp and falling.
But she never hit the ground. His jaw set, his mustache quivering, Doctor Sterling lifted the battered, broken mare in his magic, gave a reassuring nod to the witnesses on the street, and then began to carry the mare inside. Hennessy, left standing outside, looked at all of the rubberneckers and witnesses, not knowing what to say.
“I’m sorry that y’all had to see something so private. I wish I knew what to say to make this better.”
Feeling awkward, Hennessy waved to the ponies around him, then retreated inside.
Flicker felt as though he had been very descriptive, or at least he had done his best. The sounds of Sweetie Belle’s pen scratching filled his ears and kept the silence of the room from being unbearable. Perhaps he had told them too much. What if they judged him? What if he horrified them? He had told them a lot of himself, including some of his secrets, all with the hope that he could get better.
Not knowing how they felt was killing him. The seconds passed and the most awful thoughts passed through his mind. Apple Bloom was rubbing her chin, Scootaloo was watching Sweetie Belle write, and Sweetie Belle was focused upon finishing her notes. The seconds turned to minutes and Flicker felt as though he might burst.
“It sounds like,” Apple Bloom began, “you slipped into a type of cutie mark zen. Scootaloo came up with that, she learned about this thing called zen when she was learning some hoof-fu. Zen is like a perfect state of being, a togetherness of the body and the mind, and we’ve seen this in other ponies.” Beside Apple Bloom, Scootaloo nodded as the earth pony spoke. “In the others we’ve observed, they’re just happy and content as they fulfill their purpose.”
“Yeah,” Scootaloo said, picking up, “normally, this is a good thing, achieving a state of happiness as you work towards your purpose. But you sound really unhappy. You’ve lost a part of yourself. It sounds like you’ve slipped completely into serving your purpose. I guess it is possible to be a little too zen… I hadn’t thought about the dangers of tuning out everything else so completely.”
“Can I get better?” Flicker asked, feeling just a tiny bit worried by what he was hearing.
“Yes,” all three young mares said together in a way that wasn’t creepy at all.
Pointing her hoof at Flicker, Apple Bloom gave him a reassuring smile and said, “You need to get outside of your own head. Start learning about the interests of your new friends. Do things with them, fun things, activities that aren’t necessarily work related. By developing an interest in what your friends do, and why they do it, you won’t be so wrapped up in your own thoughts and trapped inside of your own head. You need to learn to balance your training, your education, and all that other stuff, with some leisure time.”
“Yeah,” Scootaloo nodded and continued, “Teach them. Really. Try teaching them how to do some of the stuff you know how to do. By helping them understand it, you’ll have to try thinking how they might think, and that will get you out of your own head. That’s where we should start.”
“Okay.” Flicker found this quite agreeable.
“Yeah, Scootaloo is right. We need to shuffle around your interests.” Apple Bloom made a gesture with her hoof as Sweetie Belle kept taking notes. “This hits really close to home for us, because we do everything together, and we’re always trying out new stuff because one of us wants to try it, so we all try it.”
“And most of the time, we end up covered in tree sap,” Sweetie Belle muttered as she scratched away with her pen. She paused in her writing, looked up, and focused upon Flicker. “By having so many overlapping interests with one another, we have a closeness that few can imagine. We tend to know what the other of us is thinking. We don’t get too wrapped up in ourselves, or too self focused, or too self absorbed, problems that we’ve all seen in other ponies that sometimes have cutie mark problems. See, it’s like… tailoring, yeah, that’s it, tailoring. Sometimes, you get a cutie mark… and it is the cutie mark that you’ve always wanted, it’s perfect. But then you notice that it doesn’t fit very well. It might have a tight feeling, or rub you the wrong way, or might make you uncomfortable at times. Gosh, I sound so much like my sister right now.”
“But you’re right, Sweetie.” Scootaloo looked over at the unicorn beside her for a moment, then with a turn of her head, she returned her attention to Flicker. “Sometimes, the cutie mark you want can feel a little restrictive. It is up to you to make it fit, and you do that through a dedicated effort of self-improvement and self-affirmation. You’ve fallen into a cutie mark hole, and it is up to you to pull yourself up and out of it.”
“Your assignment, should you chose to accept it” —Apple Bloom gave Flicker a reassuring smile— “is a regiment of self-acknowledgement and self-improvement, along with gaining a better understanding of your friends and their interests. Can you do that?”
“Yeah.” Flicker felt confident that he could do this.
“Good. Then we’ll be back to see you in about a week or so. We’ll want progress reports. Maybe even keep a journal so we can read your thoughts, but only if you want to.” Scootaloo leaned up against Apple Bloom and let out a contented sigh. “I’m feeling my sense of purpose right now, and it sure does feel nice.”
“It’s easy to understand how some ponies might fall into it,” Sweetie Belle remarked as she made a few more notes. “Like anything else that feels good, I guess it can become addictive, like gambling, or por—”
Apple Bloom cut Sweetie Belle off. “Plenty of other self-destructive behaviours that can cause addiction. A cutie mark isn’t all that different. You’re supposed to feel good when you serve your purpose… if a pony didn’t feel good from doing what they do best, there would be no motivation to do it, and then a cutie mark wouldn’t serve much of a point.”
“That makes sense, actually.” Flicker bowed his head in concentration.
“We have to go… we have a class in about an hour and a half, and we need to get ready.” Sweetie Belle gave Flicker a gracious smile full of warmth and sincerity. “Thank you, Flicker, I feel that we’re going to learn a lot from you, and what we learn we’ll be able to help others with.”
“Yeah, thanks!” Scootaloo added.
Apple Bloom’s ears stood erect as Sweetie Belle stuffed her notebook away. “We’ll be back in a week or so, good luck, and don’t be afraid to ask your friends for help!”
“Thank you, all of you.” Lifting his head, Flicker watched as the trio made ready to leave. Already, he had ideas, thoughts, he was forming a plan to put into action. He felt an immense feeling of gratitude, but he didn’t know how to express it, and all that came out was, “See you in a week.”
Deep within Flicker’s heart, a new pain lurked, and he didn’t like it. Unmoving, impassive, he seemed to lack emotion as he just stood there, blank faced, and he had a painful awareness of how he might seem, which made it worse somehow. The sound of Hennessy sobbing was somehow more unbearable than the sounds of his little sister crying, but he couldn’t say how or why. He could comfort his little sister, but he didn’t know how to comfort Hennessy.
“Hennessy, you need to do the right thing and press charges. Your mother will not, she is a battered mare and no doubt incapable of making her own decision upon this matter.” Doctor Sterling’s words were a soft spoken whisper, and the fact that he called Hennessy by name spoke volumes about the situation.
“I can’t,” Hennessy replied, shaking his head, “I just can’t.”
“Your mother needs you to be strong right now, the right thing needs to be done.” Doctor Sterling’s mustache bristled and his ears angled over his scowling face. “He can’t hurt you anymore, there is no chance of reprisal, you are out of his reach—”
“No, I ain’t!” With a gasp, Hennessy fell to the floor and curled up into the fetal position. “Every day, he still hurts me! The memories! It hurts so much and I can’t make the memories go away! Every day I hear his voice and hear the things he said!”
Closing his eyes, the doctor let out a sigh, then stood there, unmoving. Not far away, Piper, who did her best to act like an adult most of the time, began sobbing like a foal. She sat down, bleated, and then covered her face with one foreleg when she could no longer hold everything in. Flicker felt something within his stony self crack. A part of him wanted to kick Hennessy and demand that he get up, cursing his weakness, but that part was overpowered by something new welling up within him.
Moving to Hennessy’s side, he stood beside him. Reaching out his forelegs, Hennessy grabbed Flicker’s right foreleg and then buried his face against Flicker’s fetlock, rubbing his wet, teary face against it, seeking comfort. With the stillness of a headstone, Flicker stood there, looking down as his friend writhed on the floor, clutching his leg, and Hennessy’s tears were damp against his flesh.
Lifting his head, Flicker looked Doctor Sterling in the eye. “I’ll get him to do the right thing. Give me some time. Miss Pie, you’re with me, pull yourself together.” Tilting his head down, Flicker felt an unwelcome pain as he looked at his sobbing friend. “Come, Hennessy, let’s go and get you straightened out.”
“Flicker, do you really think you can get him to do what needs to be done?” Doctor Sterling asked.
“I don’t know,” Flicker replied, being honest, “but I think I know how to get him to help himself.”
The doctor nodded. “Alicorn speed,” he said to Flicker in a solemn, tight voice that was rough and scratchy with feeling. “He’ll remember this, you know, you being here for him during this low point. Many would flee this situation, as it is awkward and painful.”
“It’s not in my nature to run from much.” Flicker reached out with his mind, lifted Hennessy from the floor with absolute ease, and draped the limp, wailing earth pony colt across his back. His side suffered a painful twinge, but he ignored it. “Come, Piper, we must away.”
Sniffling, Piper pulled herself together, finding some reassurance in Flicker’s authoritative command. It cut through her pain, her confusion, the fog of the situation, and gave her direction. She paused for a moment to look at Doctor Sterling, and he gave her a tilt of his head, a faint nod, the last bit of reassurance that she needed to keep going. She felt her flagging spirit lift and she took her place at Flicker’s side.
This would always be her place, she realised.
The spring night was warm and the streets were crowded. Flicker moved through the traffic as if the burden upon his back was weightless, not caring about Hennessy’s weight or bulk. The earth pony colt wasn’t so much sobbing anymore as he was just leaking, he was too exhausted to be an active participant in his own grief.
Biting her lip, Piper kept up, moving with Flicker, who moved like a pony possessed. She had been on her legs for far too long today, and each step was agony. Each leg felt like it was on fire, she could feel her healing muscles all quivering, clenching, going tight, but she dared not complain. She knew that Flicker had to be in pain, even if he didn’t show it, and as for Hennessy, it was obvious that Hennessy was broken from his pain. Piper marvelled at Flicker’s ability to just keep going and she thought that his stamina was almost mechanical.
In one year, he had become a machine, and she knew that she would do the same, as she intended to be his equal. They were the next generation and there were some big shoes to fill. In much the same way that Flicker idolised Doctor Sterling and did everything to try and emulate the good doctor, Piper idolised Flicker and did everything she could to be just like him. He was the bar, the standard, he was the goal that she had set for herself, and she was determined to be his equal, even if it killed her.
When Flicker turned the corner, Piper realised where it was that they were going.
What a difference a warm night made. The Chapel of Night was busy and the street leading to it bustled with ponies of all types. Ponies sat out on the sidewalks, begging, some of them had cups, or hats, or something for bits to be put in. Most of the beggars were crippled in some way, and many were disfigured. Flicker moved past them, ignoring them, and it wasn’t because he lacked compassion, it was just because he was a pony with natural blinders focused upon his task.
Inside of the chapel was a crowd and the smell of scented candles filled the air, along with sweat, the stench of alcohol, and desperation. Some of the ponies were prostrate at the base of the statue, praying, others were weeping, some were praying and weeping, and others just suffered in silence.
The crowd parted around Flicker like magic, and he moved through them in the same way that a well made blade passed through a rat. The sounds of misery made Flicker’s ears perk, and some deep part of him that he was unaware of at the moment was moved to sympathy. A one winged pegasus, also missing an eye, was begging Princess Luna’s statue for restoration and peace.
While Flicker waged war against the rats, others battled against the harpy menace.
With a heave of his body and some help from his telekinesis, Flicker dumped Hennessy on the floor in a somewhat gentle manner, and then held the earth pony colt in an upright sitting position. When Piper had trouble reaching them, Flicker used his telekinesis to push somepony out of the way, he snatched Piper, who squealed in alarm from being grabbed, and then yanked her though the crowd to be at Hennessy’s side. Going ragdoll in her confusion, Flicker bent Piper’s legs for her and sat her down beside Hennessy, pressing the two together to leave room for others.
While Flicker’s kindness might leave a little to be desired, much like his scrubbing in the shower, it was a reflection of his nature. The hard colt had a hard kindness that didn’t have much in the way of softness. He stood guard over his friends, looming over them, making certain they weren’t jostled or molested. Not far away, an older mare wailed—it made Flicker’s ears twitch—and she clutched a framed photo of a young stallion wearing golden armor. Around her neck hung two stars, one in blue enameled steel, the other was smaller and golden. Staring at her, Flicker’s slow but steady mind made the connection, and feeling her pain, he bowed his head.
Now Flicker understood the statue of Princess Luna. The way she cowered, her expression of pain, her look of frailty—in this chapel full of misery, a proud, arrogant looking Luna would have no place, no meaning, no value. It looked and felt as though Luna’s statue felt the pain of those around her, heard their weeping, she was aware of the pain and suffering present. For Flicker, this realisation was profound, and his respect for Prince Gosling grew. The young prince knew what he was doing and how to reach his subjects.
This statue of Luna appeared to have a keen awareness of the suffering of her subjects, and it touched Flicker.
In the flood of noise, he could hear Piper and Hennessy talking, but he had trouble making out what was being said. He did not know the proper etiquette of standing guard while somepony prayed, he didn’t know if he should bow his head, so he just stood there, confused, and feeling the pain of others.
In silence, Flicker waited for Hennessy to sort himself out. Flicker had brought him here, carried him even, and now it fell upon Hennessy’s withers to find his way, find his courage, to find his direction. Flicker was confident that Hennessy would do the right thing. Faith was important to Hennessy, and Flicker thought about his instructions from Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo.
Perhaps he could learn to share in Hennessy’s faith and develop an interest?
Several police ponies and guards wearing golden armor stood in front of the Canterlot Police Command Station. It was, like so many other buildings in Canterlot, a tower, a big five sided one, with balconies sprouting off the sides for pegasus ponies to come and go. The front double doors were enormous, made of black iron, and had stylistic iconography of alicorns on them. One carried a set of scales, the other bore a flaming sword and a golden shield.
Hennessy sighed as he stared up at the doors, and couldn’t seem to move.
“You know what must be done,” Flicker whispered.
“Yeah, I do,” Hennessy replied, also whispering, “but I’m so scared and it hurts so much.”
“He can’t hurt you anymore.” Piper gave Hennessy a nudge. “Do you know what would happen if he tried to hurt you? Lord Death of Murder Mountain would descend from his mountain, and then all manner of unpleasantness and comic book levels of violence would take place. And I’m pretty confident that I would get in on that action as well.”
“Is that what I’ve done?” Hennessy asked, his words trailing off, and he did not further elaborate.
“I don’t follow.” Piper sidled a little closer to Hennessy, and brushed up against his side. “Do explain?”
“It feels like I’ve ran away from one monster and found another to protect me.” Hennessy began to tremble, then shook his head. “Flicker, I’m so sorry for saying that, I don’t mean it in a bad way, I’m sorry—”
“Quiet,” Flicker commanded, “that’s enough.” And at his command, Hennessy went silent. Flicker, unaccustomed to comforting others outside of his family, moved a little closer himself. “You are going to go inside of the police station, and you are going to report a crime, and not just on your mother’s behalf. You will report on what has been done to you as well. There is going to be a Warden in there, no doubt, and he or she is going to peek inside of your mind, it is going to be uncomfortable, and you are going to endure it. When everything's said and done, I am going to take you away from this place, we’re going to get a spot of tea and maybe a bite to eat… and Piper is going to give you the sympathy you need.”
“And just what will you be doing?” Piper asked, narrowing her eyes at Flicker. “He could use some sympathy from you as well.”
“I have too much on my mind,” Flicker admitted, and then the muscles in his neck went rigid as his jaw went firm.
“Like what?” Piper demanded, her brows furrowing. “What could possibly be more important than comforting your friend?”
“Resisting the urge to go south and committing many heinous acts of murder, for one thing.” Flicker’s voice was a low, cold, emotionless deadpan and he looked up at the alicorn bearing the flaming sword and shield. “Hennessy, it will be a mercy for the Wardens and the police to find your father and your brothers. If you don’t act, I just might. I am almost sick with rage and it is only my own strict adherence to law and order that is holding me together right now. But law and order must be tempered with justice, which demands to be meted out. It must be done.”
“I… I actually appreciate you saying that.” Hennessy’s whispered confession was scratchy, and the earth pony was looking up at the alicorn holding the scales of justice. “Somehow, that makes this a little easier. Will you stay with me?”
“If they will let me, yes.” Flicker nodded. “I promise, I will be with you every moment I am allowed.”
“Me too,” Piper added.
Hennessy, swallowing, took a single step forwards. “Mother, forgive me for what I’m about to do…”
Donut Joe’s had very few patrons at this time of night. Hennessy was distracted, out of sorts, and still disoriented from his meeting with the Wardens, so grabbing him by the nape of the neck, Flicker shoved his friend into a booth and then sat down beside him as Piper took a seat on the other side. A waitress came strolling up, and it was Piper who dealt with her, requesting a dozen crullers and some tea.
As the waitress went off, Hennessy leaned up against the window, shivering, shaken from his ordeal. He closed his eyes, pressed his cheek against the cool glass, and let out a pent up sigh that he had been holding in for a while. The trio got comfortable and Piper noticed that it was almost ten o’clock. She scooted over to the corner of the booth where the wall, the window, and the booth all merged together.
“Hennessy, are you okay?” Piper asked in a hesitant whisper. “What was it like?”
“It wasn’t bad, if that is what you are wondering,” Hennessy drawled, his voice soft, and he sounded almost as though he was relieved. “It was a little uncomfortable at first, it felt weird, but then she made some of the hurt in my mind go away. I can’t say just how it was”—the colt shook his head, confused—“but it… it was like she was there with me in my memories, like she was there when the beatings happened, she was right there with me, feeling my pain, sharing it, and I can see flashes of myself as a little foal, she was a little foal too in my mind, just a little thing, and she took every kick, every smack… and she… and she made me remember stuff I forgot…”
“Dare I even ask what you remembered?” Piper’s eyes narrowed.
“My Pa trying to drown me in the river… I blacked out.” Hennessy shivered and his head thumped up against the glass. “She was there with me, drowning with me, holding my fetlock. She knows my pain and that makes me feel better.” Closing his eyes, Hennessy’s head drooped a bit. “Just talking about it makes me feel like I has the piss-shivers.”
“The Wardens are aware of every crime committed.” Flicker’s words were a gutteral, furious whisper. “Every trespass, every act of cruelty, every callous act of abuse. Hennessy, you were very brave to have gone through with this. I’m proud of you.”
“Do you mean that, Flicker?” Hennessy asked, opening his eyes and turning his head.
“Hennessy, Flicker doesn’t strike me as the type who would say something and not mean it,” Piper replied as she leaned over the table and patted Hennessy’s hoof with her own. “I’m proud of you too. Just being in the same room as those Wardens made me want to wet myself. They’re scary.”
“They’re supposed to be,” Flicker deadpanned.
“Oh, I dunno… she was there with me through every moment of abuse pulled up out of my memory. She shared my pain. She knew… she knew… she felt it all and she didn’t shy away from it…” A single tear rolled down Hennessy’s cheek and splashed onto the worn formica tabletop. “Why would anypony do that to themselves? How many ponies like me has she helped? And other forms of abuse… I can’t imagine what a Warden must go through when helping a foal that’s been abused in… that way.”
“They would make themselves feel every minute of it and then make certain that justice is dispensed.” Flicker was about to say something else, but was caught off guard when Hennessy grabbed him. The colt went rigid, unmoving, and his eyes widened in a slow, stunned manner as Hennessy squeezed him.
“Don’t panic, Flicker, it’s just a hug. You really need to loosen up.” Piper began to stack sugarcubes into a little pyramid and she glanced up at Flicker for only a second, long enough to smile, then she looked down at her tiny pyramid. When Flicker didn’t loosen up, Piper rolled her eyes and let out a disgruntled huff. After a deep inhale, she told Flicker, “I swear, you need to be sorted out somehow.”
“I have a plan to get better,” Flicker retorted.
“Good.” Piper’s eyebrow rose. “Hennessy deserves somepony with some warmth after what he’s gone through. Plus, the two of you look adorable together like that, with him holding you. It’s rather heart warming.”
Glaring at Piper, Flicker slipped one foreleg around Hennessy in a rather cold, but protective embrace, and he pulled the earth pony colt closer. Even though his expression did not change, Flicker noticed that Hennessy was soft, a bit warm, and it was pleasant enough to hold him. On the outside, nothing showed, but on the inside, a tiny flicker of light and warmth appeared as his brain catalogued all of these new sensations.
It was like lighting a candle and leaving it to burn.
The following morning…
Miss Tweeny, who served the guild as both a maid and a teacher, had returned. She was a little thing, short of leg, hence her name of Teeny Tweeny, but Flicker knew better than to ever mention her first name after he had watched her dismantle an older student who thought teasing her might be fun. She was also the guild’s primary hoof to hoof combat instructor.
The fussy looking unicorn mare prowled the room, waiting for a moment of slack so that she might strike. Flicker was studying for his candle exam, Piper was reading an introduction to toxins, and Hennessy was reading the dictionary, something which Miss Tweeny approved of. Flicker was taking careful notes—that was one of the tricks to his impressive memory, he wrote everything down until he remembered it.
Hennessy lifted his head out of his book, looked over at Miss Tweeny, and then not knowing what to do, he raised his hoof to get her attention. Almost right away, she went over to him, leaned in close, and waited with a pleasant, patient expression. Hennessy pointed to something in his dictionary, and then looked at Miss Tweeny.
“Pacifism,” Hennessy said to his teacher, looking and sounding apprehensive.
“What about it?” Miss Tweeny replied.
“Could I be a pacifist and still be a part of the guild?” Some new hope glimmered in Hennessy’s eyes as he spoke and he gave his teacher a pleading, begging stare. “I’ve been hurt so much and by so many. I don’t want to hurt others, I think I want to heal them and make them well.”
Miss Tweeny smiled. “It is possible to obtain a pacifist’s writ and still work within the guild, but you would be expected to do a great deal more work to compensate.”
“It takes a very brave pony to be a pacifist.” Miss Tweeny reached out and touched Hennessy with her hoof. “Many will ridicule you, or call you a coward, there are those who will try to diminish you. It is quite difficult to walk the path of nonviolence.” Turning her head, the starchy little mare turned a hard, stony stare upon Flicker. “Some of us take a little too well to violence. A little bit of pacifism might even things out.”
“Lord Death of Murder Mountain, I think she’s talking about you,” Piper remarked, her tone teasing.
Flicker, scowling, ignored what was being said and continued to study.
“Miss Pie, that was uncalled for.” Miss Tweeny gave Piper a disappointed look. “Somepony has to keep the pacifists safe. Goodness and kindness in our society must be defended, protected, and allowed to flourish. We are at war, Miss Pie, and it will be the pacifists who will be the quiet voices of reason that help us keep the moral high ground.”
“Sorry.” Piper hung her head. “It is a bit of a joke between us. I’m actually quite fond of Mister Nicker and I don’t mean anything by it. He’s kept me safe, and I certainly wouldn’t disparage that.” Her eyes darted to the left, where Flicker was, then to the right, where Hennessy was, and then with a slow turn of her head, she looked over at the earth pony colt. “If I might ask, what brought this on?”
“Last night,” Hennessy replied in a slow, sticky drawl, “hearing about Flicker wanting to go south and seek out justice himself. It left me thinking… he’s more suited to something like that, and I ain’t—”
“Am not,” Miss Tweeny corrected.
“Yeah.” Hennessy nodded to Miss Tweeny to acknowledge her correction, then continued, “It’s fine for Flicker to be how he is. It is part of what makes him who and what he is and I’ll not be one to judge that. The world is better for it. But for me… I want to make the world better, not worse.” Hennessy paused and shook his head. “Now, I ain’t saying—”
“Am not.”
“—am not saying that Flicker makes the world worse, ‘cause I don’t think he does, but I do think I would make the world worse, ‘cause I think I’d do it for all the wrong reasons. I’d give in to my pain, my anger, and all this bottled up hate that I have inside of me that needs to be sorted out. I might hurt somepony or something, and I might be doing the right thing even, but I’m afeared that I’d do it for the wrong reasons.”
Miss Tweeny sighed and once more made a correction. “Afraid.”
“Miss Tweeny, begging your pardon, but afeared is in the dictionary too, it’s an adjective and it is another way of saying afraid, also an adjective. I don’t think I was wrong, but if you insist that I am, I’ll go along with whatever you say.” Hennessy watched and waited for a reaction, but none came. All that happened was that Miss Tweeny’s lips pressed together into a straight, tight, puckered line.
“Flicker is all about order and control,” Hennessy continued, “and I’m more of a free spirit. I tend to do whatever when the mood hits me, and if I learned how to hurt others, well, it scares me what I might do. Flicker can be trusted with the knowledge and the training, ‘cause he’s all mindful about what he’s doing all the time. I really don’t know how to fully express what I’m thinking, and this is just about the best I can do.”
“Mister Nicker is disciplined and can be trusted that he won’t go waving his sword about willy-nilly, carving up innocent bystanders.” Miss Tweeny sat down in a chair beside Hennessy, leaned over, and placed one dainty hoof upon his foreleg. “Tell me, Mister Walker, are you a pony given to fits of temper?”
Hennessy sat there, blinking, thinking about what Miss Tweeny had said. He looked down at her hoof, which was resting upon his foreleg, and then his eyes went unfocused as he zoned out. His ears fell, then bobbed a few times, and his nostrils flared. While he was slow to answer, he wasn’t as slow as Flicker could be.
“I don’t reckon I’m a pony of ill temper,” Hennessy said in a hesitant, slow drawl, “but I do reckon I’m a pony of passion. I have my moods. That’s why my Pa called me a sissy, ‘cause I’d cry sometimes, or show my feelings, or show that I was hurt about something. I don’t keep things in, I tend to let them out as I experience them.”
Sitting beside Hennessy, Miss Tweeny patted his leg with her own, gave the colt a smile, and said, “You know, I think we’ve learned enough for this morning. It will be eleven soon. Why don’t you find Doctor Sterling, and see if he’s heard anything about your mother… by the way, what is her name?”
“Southern Comfort,” Hennessy replied.
“Mister Walker, when you have some free time, could you write me an essay about what makes you passionate?” Miss Tweeny asked. The mare gave Hennessy’s fetlock a squeeze and looked him in the eye as she continued. “This will help your writing skills… and I bet that you are a budding writer just waiting to happen. Get your friends to help you.”
The colt blushed. “Okay.”
“In fact, essays from all of you. Reveal your passions to me.” Miss Tweeny looked concerned and she turned her head to give Flicker a stern glare. “Something not career related, Mister Nicker. Something you would not be ashamed to let your sister or mother read. Something pleasant and of good cheer.”
Flicker’s face fell and for a second, he looked as though he was chewing on lemons.
Making very little effort to stop herself, Piper began to giggle just a bit, and she fell silent in a hurry when Flicker turned to look at her. She stared up at the clock on the wall, squirming in her seat, and then Miss Tweeny chuckled.
“Go on, all of you. Youth is wasted on the young.”
Seeing that Doctor Sterling was speaking to another pony, Flicker halted and waited. Much to his relief, Hennessy did the same, and as for Piper, she had her nose in a book about magical theory. The pony that Doctor Sterling was speaking to was old, remarkably old, rather battered looking, had a few scars, was missing an eye, and the most curious of cutie marks; a crossed pair of sharpened wooden stakes. The old stallion was a faded greyish white and his mane had an odd, somehow familiar shade of electric blue streaked with grey.
The two of them were discussing sanguinare porphyria, and while Flicker didn’t know what it was, something about it made his ears perk. An opera was playing on the modern hi-fi phonograph and the conservatory held the faint, nose-tickling bitter smell of fine, expensive ink. A curious collection of books lay upon the table. Empusas, Lamias, and the Striges: A Compendium. Beside that, Vetalas and You: A Comprehensive Guide to Eradication. One book was enormous, bound in leather, and made Flicker uncomfortable to look at, as it made his vision blurry for some reason. Goats and the Ancient Revenant Cult: A History of the Near Undoing of Civilisation. There was also a book bound in wooden covers titled, The First Tribes and the Aluka: A History of the Motetz Dam.
The old pony stopped speaking, then turned, and Flicker found that he was being studied. He said nothing, but stood there and allowed himself to be inspected. Meanwhile, Doctor Sterling was coming over to speak to Hennessy and Piper had sat down. Flicker could not help but feel that he was being sized up.
“Any word about my Ma?” Hennessy asked.
Doctor Sterling’s mustache quivered and the doctor let out a sigh. “Your mother,” he began, and then the doctor just slumped, as though he looked quite weary. “Your mother suffers from extensive malnutrition, an entire host of health problems related to having too many foals under horrendous conditions, her body has been ravaged by alcoholism, she has too many broken bones to list, she is concussed, and she is beset with uterine fibroids. No doubt there is more to be discovered, the doctors are still trying to sort her out. She is being kept sedated and is in the asylum wing of the hospital.”
Hennessy’s ears stood up, fell down, stood up again, drooped once more, and did not rise. “Well, damn.” The colt shuffled around, moving from side to side, until at last he bumped into Flicker, and then he ceased to shuffle around. “She can be made better, right?”
“In theory,” the doctor replied. “For some things, like alcoholism, she will have to want to get better, or a family member will have to approve more coercive treatments.”
“I don’t get what that means.” Leaning up against Flicker, Hennessy shuddered and his eyes turned glassy.
“What that means, in the most simple terms,” Doctor Sterling explained, “is that you can have her treated against her will for alcoholism, you can have her committed, so to speak, and then through the use of some harsh alchemical reagents, she can be treated, thus killing her desire to drink. But before committing to such a harsh action, I would advise that you think long and hard about it, as it is likely that she will never forgive you for your good deed.”
“I see.” Hennessy breathed out these two words and deflated. “Flicker, what do I do?”
It took almost a full minute before Flicker worked up a reply, and then it took even longer for him to be able to look Hennessy in the eye. But look him in the eye he did, and in a voice that held the faintest hint of a quavering tremour, Flicker replied, “The sacrifice of one’s self for another has a noble dignity of its own.”
“I don’t… consarnit, what’s that even mean, anyhow?” Hennessy asked.
“In the end, your own life and your feelings are irrelevant,” Flicker responded, the quaver now gone and his voice a perfect, unfeeling monotone. “She is family. She is your mother. She can be saved from her disease, which has no doubt stolen away her mind and clouded her ability to love you. As her son, you are obligated to give her whatever life that you can, even at the cost of yourself. You have a duty to see that she is cured.” Flicker inhaled and his ears splayed out sideways. “She may yet come around and forgive you. It is a calculated risk, but a good one. Then, both of you can be happy.”
“I need some time to think about it.” Hennessy looked over at Doctor Sterling, his eyes wide, hurt, and confused.
“What is there to think about?” Flicker asked.
“Mister Nicker, not everypony has your rigid sense of duty.” Doctor Sterling’s voice was soft, but also firm and he took a step forwards. “There is a wide, wide world of ponies out there, and you, my beautiful, dutiful son, are a minority. Your sense of law and order has a time and a place, but this is a matter of the heart. The very thing that you called irrelevant weighs in heavily here.”
Bowing his head, Flicker’s ears drooped in submission. “Very well, Doctor Sterling, I shall defer to your wisdom on this issue. I spoke out of place.”
The doctor let out a frustrated snort and shook his head, sending his mane tumbling about. Silver strands cascaded and spilled down the sides of his face and his forehead. The unknown pony also snorted, backed away from Flicker, and moved to Doctor Sterling’s side. The pair of them eyeballed one another for a time, and then the old pony spoke.
“He is a natural soldier, I see. Is very fascinating. Is very muscled. Disciplined. Follows orders. Is good, is very good. Will have strength of mind to resist outside influence. Will follow orders, not influence. Is good.”
“Mister Nicker, Mister Walker, Miss Pie, this is Doctor Fancy Fiasco, the great, great uncle of Lord Fancy Pants of Canterlot. Doctor Fiasco came here so that he could be consulted, and he specialises in one single disease.”
“I know you!” Flicker gasped.
“You do?” Doctor Fiasco looked amused. “Nopony knows me, I am unknown. I am pony lost to history.”
“But I do know you. You were the pony that battled a terrible plague… but I don’t know which plague. The book didn’t mention the specific type of plague, but it did mention you! When I went to the Canterlot archives to learn more, I couldn’t… access was restricted and the plague you battled was said to be unavailable for public knowledge. I was then escorted out of the archives by guards who told me to never bring this matter up ever again.”
“Mister Nicker knows his plagues,” Doctor Sterling said, offering an explanation, and then in a whisper, he continued, “he’s rather obsessed with them. I think he studies them as a hobby. I often worry that he has an unhealthy fascination with them.”
Doctor Fancy Fiasco’s amused expression vanished as he took a step forwards, eyeballed Hennessy with his one remaining eye, and then said, “My condolences about your mother. You have mine most sincere sympathies, yes.”
“Thank you.” Hennessy watched the strange old pony as he moved away from Flicker, went over to where Piper was sitting, and then sat down, his eyes never leaving Doctor Fiasco. “A stranger’s kindness is always appreciated.”
“And none is stranger than me.” Doctor Fiasco’s amused expression returned.
“Who are you?” Flicker asked, being direct and demanding.
“Oh, nopony of consequence,” Doctor Fiasco replied. “I am just a stranger that has come bearing gifts. I am the gift horse, yes. Those books on the table are for you, Flicker. It is rare that ponies such as you and I meet one another. Usually, one slayer naps in the dirt long before his or her replacement comes along. This is, how you say, a rare treat.”
Again, Flicker asked, “Who are you?”
“I am a plague doctor of another stripe.” Doctor Fancy Fiasco’s one eye narrowed. “I started off as one of the middle sons in my great and noble house. My father gave me to the Rat Catcher’s Guild. In return, my father, he secured a wife for his oldest son, the guildmaster’s daughter. I came here, to this very building, and I started to learn my trade.”
The old doctor turned his eye upon Flicker and stared through him. “No mark, no sign of talent, but a brilliant mind who was capable with weapons. That was me. I lacked direction, but I still managed to prove myself, so I did.”
Flicker hung on every word said by the old stallion.
“As it happens from time to time, a new plague sprang up, so it did. A nasty little something something called sanguinare porphyria. Now, it wasn’t spread by rats, but it was a plague. And it needed a special doctor to treat it. I became that doctor, yes. All my schooling, all my brilliance, all my weapons training… when my mark came, I was prepared to fight the disease that had come to ravage us.”
Flicker glanced over at Doctor Sterling, then returned his attention to Doctor Fiasco.
“You’re talking about vampires, aren’t you?” Piper asked. The smart filly began to put two and two together, and then she blurted out, “That rat down in the lab, it’s a vampire, isn’t it?”
“Of a type,” Doctor Sterling replied. “Rattus Nosferattus. Something new. Something we’ve never seen before. Rat Bastard seems to know something about it, but we don’t understand how he knows. There is a lot we don’t know and it is dangerous to speculate.”
Flicker’s mind began sorting out the various facts at his disposal, such as the public not knowing about this plague. He became certain that if he reported to the archives as Juniour Agent Lima, he would gain the access he needed. This was something that would send the public into a panic. This was something that the public in general was better off not knowing. Flicker of course, said nothing about his internal revelations, and remained silent.
For silence was now his ally and secrecy his cloak.
“Is good, is good,” Doctor Fiasco muttered. “A slayer needs his assistants and the slayer has his assistants. Is good to have smart filly. Now, the question that must be asked is, can handsome earth pony colt sniff out sanguinare porphyria? Is magical disease. Is very tricky. It does not want to be found or detected. Many wizards of great skill cannot sense it. Only She of the Sun has been a reliable source of detection in the past.”
“I bet I can,” Hennessy said, lifting his head as his ears perked. The sorrowful look in his eyes was replaced with determination and a bit of… anger? The colt bounced off of the sofa and began to walk towards Doctor Fiasco. “How do we test it?”
“Easy,” Flicker replied as his keen, scientific mind provided an answer. “We take tissue samples from normal, healthy rats, and some from that undead rat down in the cellar. We can have you sniff them out and that should be sufficient evidence of your detection abilities.”
“Is slow in reaction, but brilliant of mind, yes?” Doctor Fiasco’s eye narrowed and he began to study Flicker. The corner of his mouth twitched a bit and the old doctor scowled in concentration. “Doctor Sterling, you of foolish youth—”
Doctor Sterling, a pony of middle age, snorted in contempt.
“—I am almost certain, I am, that Flicker could make the Rat Bastard talk.” A sour expression caused the old stallion’s face to form what had to be a million wrinkles. “He resists our mind probing and our compulsion magicks—”
“You want Mister Nicker to torture him?” Doctor Sterling demanded.
“Nothing of the sort!” Doctor Fiasco snapped. “I want Mister Nicker to engage in aggressive interrogation and information retrieval.”
“I’m okay with this,” Flicker announced.
“I’m not.” Doctor Sterling shook his head.
Flicker, who idolised Doctor Sterling, was shocked to discover that there was now a wide canyon of disagreement between them, a yawning chasm that seemed far too wide to cross. It troubled the colt, as he very much wanted to be just like Doctor Sterling, but now, his hero, his idol, seemed out of reach. It bothered Flicker more than he cared to admit and for the first time, Flicker realised that being just like his idol was an impossible dream.
It hurt a lot.
It hurt far more than Flicker would ever admit.
The love for his idol—the previously perfect Doctor Sterling Shoe—was now tarnished.
His idol had lost some of his shine.
The colt was smart enough to understand why his torture would be effective, it was his mark. It would be his magical influence, acting in much the same way that his talent allowed him to hurt the undead rat down in the lab, he knew that he could hurt the Rat Bastard enough to make him talk, make him say everything.
Feeling a terrible ache that nopony else seemed aware of, Flicker stood at a crossroads of a sort. With one choice, he could be a little closer to Doctor Sterling, but the distance would still remain between them. With but another choice, he would be drawn further away from his hero, his idol. The knowledge of this tore him apart on the inside, and left him feeling a hollow ache, an empty space deep inside of him.
“I think that, before anything else is said or done,” Piper remarked, “that we should perhaps have lunch first. Empty stomachs lead to empty words, my father says.”
So much could be had just by having the right cutie mark. Piper, lost in thought, reflected upon this very issue, pondering all of the opportunities afforded to Flicker, just because he had the right cutie mark. Others worked to help him, removing barriers, opening doors, assisting him so that he might achieve what he was meant to do.
The clever filly did not feel jealous; on the contrary, all those doors opening for him were opening for her as well. She was his friend, and would remain his friend, even when it was unpleasant. Wherever he went, she would go with him. She had a marvellous opportunity for a quick ride to the top of wherever it was that Flicker was going, and she knew that he was going to go far. She was certain that he was going to go far, because she was going to help him get there, thus insuring her own rise to the top, and whatever favourable position could be had as a companion to the Chosen One, as Flicker seemed to be.
In one of her favourite books, Success Is Making Others Successful, written by a delightful mare named Miss Harshwhinny, there was a detailed series of chapters on how to help a pony live up to their fullest possible potential, thus ensuring that your own potential blossomed. Miss Harshwhinny called it Mutually Assured Management Achievement, or M.A.M.A.
Chosen Ones were chosen, by their very nature. All of the movers and the shakers tried to make themselves indispensable to the Chosen One, hoping that in turn, the Chosen One would help them. Piper had learned that much from comic books and it was valuable information. But for every Chosen One, like Princess Twilight Sparkle, there was a Rarity.
Piper was fond of imagining that Rarity was the behind the scenes miracle worker, the fabulous, the talented, indispensable source of inspiration, the pony with the cunning and the savvy to push Twilight to the very pinnacle of success. It just had to be Rarity, Piper concluded, after much research and ‘reading between the lines’ in all of Twilight’s books written about friendship.
It was reasonable to assume that, if Piper was going to be Flicker’s Rarity, that meant that Hennessy had to be Flicker’s Rainbow Dash. It also meant that Spud was Spike and the four of them needed a few more friends. Doctor Sterling wasn’t a very good Princess Celestia, mostly due to him being a stallion, but he would have to do in a pinch, as it was obvious that he was Flicker’s mentor.
Or perhaps Hennessy was Flicker’s Applejack, it was hard to tell.
The armory. Flicker loved being in here, but he wasn’t allowed to come in here often. He had a moment of worry, thinking about Piper and Hennessy, but knew they would be fine under the watchful eye of Mister Balister. The armory smelled like steel, fine wood, leather, and oil. Training weapons and guild owned weapons were stored here. Racks of training rapiers, daggers, and throwing darts. Axes, hammers, and chain whips.
“Ah, the crossbow, mine favoured weapon,” Doctor Fiasco muttered as he stared at the rack mounted on the wall. “Mine Master, he favoured the umbrella.”
This statement made Flicker’s eyebrow arch in curiousity.
“The umbrella is the weapon of the refined gentlepony,” Doctor Sterling remarked. “The hooked end… very dangerous. Still, I prefer my silver rapier.”
With a sniff, Doctor Sterling moved to the rear wall where a collection of firearms was racked. He stopped, turned, and faced Flicker. “You are the youngest apprentice, at least in my memory, to earn this privilege. For all of your hard work, all of your effort, and your strict adherence to the rules, you have earned the right to use one of the most powerful tools of our trade, the alchemist’s shotgun.”
Flicker said nothing, but felt a warm happiness bubble within him.
“The training shotgun is a thirty two gauge weapon, one barrel, single shot. You will be issued ten shells, no more, no less, and the guild will never again give you ammunition. You will be responsible for making your own shells and spellshells.” Doctor Sterling lifted one of the guns from the rack; it was a bit worn looking, the wood had scars, character, and the brass had some dings. But it had been well cared for. “Cryoshot is popular and useful in the sewers. Flashless pellet loads are good for firing into crowds. On the rare occasions where I use a shotgun, I tend to favour glob loads that emit paralytic gas. One well placed shot near a vent can incapacitate an entire swarm.”
Flicker stared at the shotgun held in Doctor Sterling’s magic for a time, his eyes widening and narrowing as he studied the simple firearm. It was definitely a unicorn’s weapon, as there was no visible or outward accessible trigger. It was sleek, straight, little more than a metal pole a yard long. There was a wooden stock of sorts, and it was capped in brass so it could be used as a club in a pinch. The trigger was internal, and Flicker knew that he would find it with his telekinesis.
It was a literal boomstick. Utilitarian. Simple. There was nothing more on the weapon but what it absolutely needed. It might as well have been a wand charged up with spells, but with an alchemist’s shotgun, the spells were interchangeable, depending on the loadout of shells carried.
Squinting, Flicker eyed a thinner, more delicate looking rifle on the wall, designed like the shotgun, with no external trigger. The blued barrel was slender, it too, had a wooden stock of sorts, and there was a brass scope mounted on the top of the rifle. Pointing with his hoof, he asked, “What’s that?”
Turning his head, Doctor Sterling looked over at what Flicker was pointing to. There was silence for a time, and then, “That is, if my memory serves me correctly, a twenty calibre compressed air rifle, a windbüchse. It has an air reservoir that holds nine hundred or maybe one thousand pounds per square inch worth of pressure. It fires a projectile that moves almost at the speed of sound and is quite deadly at range. It is an antique from another era and it is broken.”
Broken? Flicker was not discouraged. “Can it fire silver pellets?”
“Brilliant is the colt,” Doctor Fiasco murmured under his breath. “I will take this to Mercenary Alley and see if it can be repaired. Silver pellets imbued with his magic will give the rats such a splitting headache, yes. The migraine dispenser must be fixed!”
“It is not a practical weapon, refilling the air chamber is tricky, as there are no external levers to work the pump. It’s all done through magic.” Doctor Sterling frowned a bit as Doctor Fiasco pulled the old air rifle off of the rack. His eyebrow rose like bread dough left on the counter and then the doctor’s frown became a straight line. “If we can get it working, it might be ideal. Flicker, you do have a very good idea to use silver pellets. This isn’t an apprentice weapon, but I’ll talk to Wicked about it. He might not be able to make the decision though, and if he can’t it will be Princess Luna that has to be convinced.”
“Tell Princess Luna that I’ll practice in the middens until I am a sharpshooter. Her sharpshooter.”
Doctor Fiasco let out a gleeful chuckle, and with the rifle held in his telekinesis, he hurried out of the room, cackling like a madpony. Doctor Sterling watched the wily old pony go, a blank expression upon his face, and then the old pony was gone, he looked Flicker in the eye. The pair of them studied one another for a time, and then Doctor Sterling smiled.
“This is yours,” Doctor Sterling said as he gave the shotgun a shake. “It is to be stored in your trunk, your work trunk, along with your other work gear. You may equip it when you are doing a job, but you are not to carry this in public. Am I clear?”
Flicker nodded.
“I am confident that you will not betray my trust. Other than a few minor exceptions, one of them involving a rabid bear, you have always obeyed my commands. This is why you are trusted.” The good doctor’s smile broadened as Flicker took the shotgun from his magical grasp.
“This must never, ever, under any circumstances be pointed at a pony—”
“As members of the militia we must use any and all available weapons at our disposal.”
“I don’t care what the rules and regulations say, Flicker.” Doctor Sterling now looked stern as he peered into Flicker’s eyes. “I’ve treated gunshot wounds. They’re awful. I don’t much care for firearms, but I understand that they are sometimes a necessity for our trade. You must never point this at another pony… do you understand?”
“I give you my word as your apprentice,” Flicker offered, making the most solemn oath he could think of at the moment. “I’ll not point a gun at a pony. I understand and respect your position and your opinion as a doctor.”
“Thank you, Flicker. That means a lot to me.” Doctor Sterling let out a sigh and then said, “Let’s go upstairs and get you ten shotgun shells. Remember, you only get ten, so choose wisely.”
As Flicker was stowing away his gear into his work trunk, where his mask and his now repaired body armor was stored, he heard the ringing of a bell. The sound chilled him, made his blood run cold, and the colt paused in what he was doing. In the past year of his training, he had heard stories about the bell, but he had never actually heard the bell, not this bell.
The sound lingered in his ears, haunting, enduring, not going away. Flicker shivered. There was the call bell for general alarm, the fire bell, the assembly bell, and this bell as well. It was strange, how he had never heard this bell, but still somehow recognised it.
He slammed the lid of his work trunk closed, flew out of the room, galloped through the hallways of the ground floor, (an infraction) and stopped in the central room, where many hallways and stairs converged. Ponies were gathered here, along with Asterius, and Flicker waited with his ears perked, listening for the news that was sure to come.
White Pepper appeared, stepping out of a hallway. He was half in and half out of his body armor, his work suit, and he wore no mask. Mister Pepper’s white face was splotched with blood, and many of the gathered apprentices gasped when they saw him. Flicker pushed through the crowd, needing to be closer, needing to know. Mister Pepper was limping and favouring his left front leg.
“We were swarmed in the sewers below the financial district,” Mister Pepper announced, his voice ragged, dehydrated, and weary. “Sunfire Rondache fell, buried beneath the swarm, and Beryl Waltz is in the hospital. He is not expected to survive. They both gave a good accounting of themselves. That is all.” Having said what needed to be said, Mister Pepper limped off, the crowd getting out of his way, and the soft spoken pony went up the stairs.
Stunned, Flicker just stood there. In a year of being an apprentice, this had never happened to him before. The bell might have been rung for him, had the encounter with the bear gone differently. He could hear ponies all around him talking, whispering, gasping, and he heard anger. One of their own had been taken from them and another wasn’t expected to survive.
There was now a dull ache in the base of Flicker’s throat and a white hot lump of anger in his guts. He knew both of them, in a way, but he didn’t know them well. Sunfire was brash, quick to anger, and Flicker hadn’t liked him very much, as Sunfire was sloppy and liked to cut corners. Also, when doing the cleanup after a job, Sunfire acted as though the cleanup afterwards was beneath him. Beryl, from what little Flicker knew of him, was a decent sort, a little meek, and was known for having a keen sense of direction underground.
Little by little, the crowd began to break up. Life would go on. Floors needed to be cleaned. Swords had to be sharpened. There were exams to take, courses to study, and a trade to continue learning. Dealing with loss was just a part of that. Flicker thought about his friends, and how much he wanted to be with them at the moment.
“Mister Nicker!”
Lifting his head, Flicker waited, and saw Moonlit Gambit approaching. The expression on Moonlit’s face was unreadable, the colt was holding back, that much was obvious. Flicker knew that Moonlit was part of Sunfire’s extended circle and he was certain to be feeling something, but what? Sunfire bullied those around him into doing his work for him and made those beneath him do cleanup. Mister Rondache had exceptional leadership skills, or so it was said.
“Mister Gambit, I am sorry about your friends.”
“He wasn’t my friend,” Moonlit replied, shaking his head. “Beryl was though. I did what I could to keep him from being walked all over, or tried to, anyhow.”
A little shocked, Flicker just stood there.
“Is it wrong that I am a little relieved that this happened?” Moonlit whispered. The older colt shook his head. “I was starting to reevaluate my future, Flicker. Before this happened, I was trying to think of what is important. I followed Sunfire and obeyed him because it sure seemed as though he was going to be running this guild one day. I hated him… look, I wanted to say, I haven’t been a very good friend to you, I let peer pressure influence me and my choices, and I think I’m growing up a little bit because that started feeling wrong. I am truly sorry, Flicker, and I wish that I had been a better friend to you. I know you’ve been lonely. It’s hard being the youngest.”
“Think nothing of it,” Flicker replied.
“It is all I can think about,” Moonlit confessed. “I hang out with a crowd of frauds and phonies… most of my own peers would rather do what is ‘cool’ rather than do what is ‘right.’ It’s been bothering me for a while… Beryl, he was… Beryl was sincere. He wanted to do a good job, and so many of us took advantage of him. He was always left to clean up and do the unpleasant stuff. Beryl never complained when everything was just dumped on him.”
Sometimes, a lot could be said with silence, or so Flicker believed.
“Sunfire and I actually got into a pretty big fight a few months back, and it was because I said something to him about hazing you and harassing you. I think that was the beginning of it all, at least for me, and I feel ashamed that it has taken me this long to get myself sorted out. My mother raised me better, she raised me to do what is good and what is right, and I haven’t been doing much of either.”
“Mistakes happen.” Flicker thought about saying more, but then reconsidered.
“To make everything even more complicated, we have that fencing exam. I’m feeling really nervous about it, because I actually like you and I don’t want to hurt you. I’m feeling guilty because I feel like I’ve already hurt you.”
“We can be gentleponies during the duel. It is a scholastic exercise and nothing more. I had no plans to take offense.” Flicker noticed that Moonlit’s sides were heaving and he felt bad for the unicorn standing in front of him. Something needed to be done, but what? Flicker was lost in this situation, this awkward social interaction.
“Mister Balister… he told me that being friends with you would be better for me in the long run than being friends with Sunfire. He told me that almost a year ago. I wish I had listened… I wish that I had not just gone along with… with—”
“The in crowd?” Flicker said, trying to be helpful.
Moonlit gave Flicker a wounded look. “Yeah.” The colt’s expression soured and his ears splayed out to the sides of his face. “The in crowd. This is a really confusing point in my life, Flicker… I’m trying to sort out what I need to carry with me into adulthood. Everything has to be balanced in such a complicated way. I’m so scared of making a mistake and screwing up my future. Sunfire is dead now… for some reason, a part of me believed that he was the future, and he had me convinced that his success would be my own.”
Brows furrowing, Flicker continued to listen.
“Any of us could get killed at any time,” Gambit said, almost whimpering. “Sunfire was fierce… I know you saw him during fencing. He had magic too, not much, but a lot more than I did. He had it all. He had all of the high marks for physical fitness, he set records, he outdid some of the adults, our teachers. Sunfire was a pony that was going places… and he’s gone now. It’s really weird, ya know?”
Flicker didn’t know, but he nodded.
“My mother says that any fool can die for a cause… but it is what you live for that is important. I’ve been living a lie… I hang out with fakes… phonies… frauds… charlatans… I’m sorry, Flicker, but I’ve got to go. I’m sorry, so sorry!”
And with that, Moonlit hurried away, moving like a pony possessed. Flicker watched him go, feeling a little confused, a bit out of sorts, and he couldn’t help but wonder if there was something he could be or should be doing. Perhaps there was something he should say, but he couldn’t think of what that might be. Moonlit vanished upon the stairs, and Flicker let out a little sigh.
Everything felt as though it was about to fly apart.
Spud was plagued by a growing sense of annoyance. The not-terribly-bright equine creatures sharing his room were in a less than pleasant mood. The little female with the squeaky voice and the voracious need to hug appeared as though she was on the verge of tears, as if somekitty had smacked her in the face with a mackerel, or perhaps a sturgeon. The Ratkiller, the smart one of the group, the one that understood the danger, he was brooding, but he was prone to brooding. The Ratkiller’s cold indifference and brooding nature almost made him a cat… almost. The soft one was laying in his bunk, staring up at the ceiling.
At least the soft one had some common sense. Laying down was smart, there was no sense in expending any energy unless one absolutely had to. The little female? She was pacing the room and it was driving him to distraction. He had tried tripping her, getting under her hooves, to make her lay down on the floor and save energy, but she had just lifted him up and out of the way with her magic.
Harrumph.
The hyper-intelligent feline figured out that it was up to him; he was going to have to give a rousing speech and inspire his foolish equine associates. He would have to lift their fragile spirits and return a spring to their steps. Sitting down on the table where the Ratkiller was reading a book, Spud yowled once to clear his throat, and then he began to orate in his fine feline voice:
“Hearken unto me, my boon companions, and listen well! The dreadful rodent menace down the dark depths grows ever stronger and we do not have the luxury of self-pity or self-doubt! We must be strong, we must resist their machinations, for they wish to injure our morale! We are not mice! We do not cower! We are not mewling kittens who cling to a teat, no, we are roaring lions! Well, technically, three of you are silly horse creatures, but my point still stands! The rodent invaders might have scored a victory, but we are noble! We are valiant! We have greatness! And for certain it is us who shall win the war!”
“Well said, Spud,” replied the Ratkiller, also known as Flicker.
“All he did was meow once,” the whining little female said as she shook her head. “I swear, sometimes, Flicker, I worry about you. I feel as though I am going stir crazy. How is that studying going along for your candle exam?”
Spud gave an impatient yowl and wondered how miniscule equines could be so stupid. They would be nothing without cats to rule them, guide them, and keep them civilised. No doubt, they would be standing out in some field someplace, eating grass, and getting rained on. Spud snorted in disgust and wondered why he bothered.
“I think I’m going to be okay, but I just need to practice a few times.”
Doctor Sterling seemed older somehow. His silvery grey mane somehow looked a little greyer, his eyes were bloodshot, and the crows feet in the corners of his eyes were far more pronounced than usual. In Flicker’s eyes, the doctor had aged by a decade or more. It looked as though Piper noticed it too, she was staring at him, and Flicker, with a turn of his head, studied her for a moment, so that he might gage her reaction.
“You’ve been requested for a job,” Doctor Sterling said to Flicker in a dry, somewhat raspy voice that sounded as though he had been shouting—or perhaps crying. “You’ve healed up a good bit and I think you’ll be able to do it. The harbourmaster needs another quarantined ship cleared. He has specifically asked that you do it and is willing to offer a little compensation.”
“Why me?” Flicker asked.
Doctor Sterling shuffled on his hooves for a time before he replied, “You cleaned up well and he appreciates that. You left behind a well cleaned ship after your last job when you took your test. A clean ship makes him look good, as it shows that he seeks out competent help. Alas, there have been those within our ranks that have disappointed him.”
Flicker thought of Sunfire Rondache, but said nothing about him. Instead, he had this to say, “The cleaning is just part of the job. I did my best and I am glad that my efforts are appreciated. I can clear out an infested ship tomorrow, that should be no trouble at all.”
“Miss Pie, Mister Walker, you’ll be coming with us. I want the two of you to meet the harbourmaster. It is vital that we maintain a good rapport with him. Having Flicker do this job is a step in the right direction in establishing a good working relationship with him.”
“Wait, Sunfire did he—”
“We do not speak ill of the dead,” the doctor said, making a gentle interruption.
Piper’s mouth opened to say more, but then she thought better of it. She stood there, no longer pacing, frozen and in silence. She shifted from one side to the other, left to right and then back again. Her mouth moved again, her eyes blinked, and then she asked, “How is the other apprentice?”
“Beryl… his life hangs by a thread. Princess Cadance is coming so that she might have a chance to practice her skill. Radiant Hope should arrive by the morn as well. His injuries are extensive and gruesome… and represent the sort of challenge that would test the skill of any healer.” Doctor Sterling hung his head and his eyes looked troubled. “I can detect trauma… I am so very skilled at that, I can even find hairline fractures that x-rays can miss… but alas, I do not have the ability to magically mend flesh. What I wouldn’t give for the ability to do so.”
At the mention of her name, Flicker’s mind recalled Radiant Hope. He had met her just once, her and her strange, quiet companion, whom she called her shadow. Her body guard perhaps? Friend? More than friend? Her companion had been covered in a grey cloak the entire time and was quite mysterious. Radiant Hope had the most miraculous ability to heal, and he had met her at the Weeping Sister Hospital.
She never stayed in one place long, she was always coming and going, and had to be. A healer, a rare gift, there were so many looking for a cure and so few capable of curing. Being in one spot for too long tended to cause mobs of angry ponies who demanded her skills as a healer, believing themselves entitled to her gift. She was a walking, talking, breathing, sometimes singing panacea.
Flicker couldn’t imagine being so hounded.
“Be well rested tomorrow. We’ll start early. I want all of you bright eyed and bushy tailed.” The doctor did not wait for a reply, but turned about and headed for the door. “I shall be in my personal quarters here at the guild if any of you need me. “I would suggest turning in early.”
And then, the doctor was gone.
The next morning…
It was a matter of going through the motions on difficult mornings like this one. This particular breakfast was a Canterlot favourite—savoury oatmeal; soy nuts with sautéd onions, mushrooms, rosemary, and thyme. Flicker had cracked two fresh eggs into his and stirred well. His companions hesitated, savoury oatmeal was unknown to them, and Canterlot cuisine in general made them both raise their eyebrows on occasion.
There was something in the air of the guild, something palpable, a feeling of grief and rage. Deaths were uncommon, but they did happen. More apprentices died from training accidents than rats though. Alchemical explosions were a common way to go, or suffering fatal equipment failure, which was typically the end result of being sloppy. Being careless would get you dead.
Piper, sighing, stirred two eggs into her oatmeal, doing as Flicker did, and she stared off into space as her spoon went round and round. Flicker broke two eggs into Hennessy’s oatmeal and gave it a quick stir with a spoon. Hennessy eyeballed the mess of strange oats in his bowl, and after shrugging, he tried some.
“Oh, that’s good… silky,” the colt murmured and then Hennessy began to eat in earnest.
“Flicker, I’m scared,” Piper blurted out. “I keep thinking about quitting and going home to my parents… but I don’t want to quit! I want to keep going! But I can’t stop thinking about it even though I want to and I feel so conflicted. It’s tearing me apart inside!”
Looking up from his oatmeal, Flicker saw tears in Piper’s eyes. He sat there, chewing, looking at Piper, and then he crammed another spoonful of breakfast into his mouth. “Piper, this is a hard life,” he said around a mouthful of savoury oatmeal, “and it isn’t for everypony.”
“I know.” Piper tried a bite of her breakfast, then nodded. “Hey, this is rather good.”
The filly hunched over the table and began to shovel in her breakfast, knowing that time was limited. As she gobbled it down, her cheeks bulged, and she had a thoughtful expression upon her face as she stared at Flicker. After swallowing, she paused her eating and said, “Last night I had a bad dream about the rats swarming me. It was really bad… in the dream, they crawled up my hind legs and then started gnawing their way inside of me just under my tail, if you get my meaning.” Grimacing, Piper returned to eating and stared down into her bowl.
Almost choking, Hennessy began to cough as he lifted his head away from his bowl. He sputtered, oatmeal and runny egg dribbled down his chin, and he turned to look at Piper. “Are you okay? Land sakes, why didn’t you wake one of us up after you went through that?”
Groaning, Piper swallowed, sucked in a deep breath, then replied, “Spud came and comforted me after I woke up. He slept with me and his purring made me feel better.” Having responded, she began eating again, scooping up great dripping spoonfuls of oatmeal, and making a mess on her chin.
Pushing aside his empty bowl, Flicker sat back in his seat and let out a stifled belch. He thought about the spider-hag, which he couldn’t talk about, and the rabid bear. Both had almost been the death of him. Things got a little exciting with those two. It dawned on Flicker that he was ten years old—a decade—and he had his whole life ahead of him. His eyes went vacant and he stared off into nothing.
He was okay with that, he realised after zoning out for almost a full minute. He wasn’t too keen on any spider-related encounters, no doubt he would run off screaming again, as much as it pained him to admit it, but that is why he had Piper and Hennessy around. Lifting his head, he looked at his companions, who were still eating, and he tried to think of what to say.
“I need both of you.” Flicker did not say why, or that he needed them to deal with spiders, no, saying that he needed them was enough. He could let them arrive at their own conclusions as to why he needed them, they could derive their own value from his words. It felt like he had more to say though, so he added, “I can’t do this without you.”
Which was true in a technical sense as well as a practical sense.
“I’m flattered,” Piper replied around a mouthful of oatmeal.
“I think I need you more.” Hennessy’s words were faint, breathed more than spoken, and he stared down into his oatmeal. “You’ve been just the sort of friend I’ve needed. When you took me to the Chapel of Night that night after my Ma arrived… I… well… I dunno.” The colt’s words trailed off and he stuck his muzzle back down into his bowl to finish off his breakfast.
Piper’s face reddened and she dropped her head as her ears also drooped. “I can talk to the two of you about anything, right?”
Not seeing the harm in doing so, Flicker nodded.
“Well, last night, when that dream happened, when the rats gnawed their way inside of me and started chewing on me between my legs, I climaxed—”
Hennessy choked on his oatmeal, and then snorted some up his nose when he tried to suck in some much needed air with his mouth being clogged with oatmeal. It was the primary danger of eating the earth pony way. Piper, still blushing, her face now purple, whacked Hennessy on the back with her telekinesis and he began coughing.
“It was a really scary dream,” Piper said, almost whining, “and it isn’t the sort of thing a filly my age should be… well, you know, it isn’t the sort of thing a filly my age should be aroused about. I’m really torn up about it, and I don’t have anypony to talk to. Even if I went home, I couldn’t talk to my mother about it, and I know it. She’d cover up her ears and start shouting ‘Tralalalalalala!’ until I shut up about it. I don’t know what’s normal for a filly my age to experience and I’m scared.”
Hennessy let out a whoop, coughed a bit more, and then managed to wheeze out a few words. “I’m over here ‘bout to cough up a lung or two, and Flicker looks fine, yes he does. He heard about a filly getting the shivers from a dream about rats eating her filly parts, and not one muscle twitched. How?”
Flicker shrugged, not knowing. He was bothered by it, but he was also disconnected from it. It would probably sink in later and he would be bothered by it then—but as for now—he didn’t know how to react. Stoicism or dull senses? He couldn’t decide.
“Well, my balls has done moved north and I think I can feel them in my throat now.” Hennessy coughed once more and then began to wipe his muzzle with his foreleg. He squirmed in his chair, avoiding looking at Piper, and not looking at Flicker either. The colt groaned and placed a front hoof between his legs to comfort himself.
“I’m really sorry I brought this up—”
“Don’t be sorry,” Flicker commanded, his voice now hard. He turned his head to look at Piper, his hard, blank stare made her squirm. “We are your brothers and your guildmates. I have been tasked with your wellbeing and protection. That includes helping you out if I can if you have a troubling dream. I don’t know what I could do for you, but I can listen, and if you wake up troubled in the night, I can sit with you until the fear subsides.”
“Thank you.” Piper looked Flicker in the eye for a second, then looked away. “That makes everything better, actually. I think I’ll be able to sort myself out now and if I need to talk to you… I will. Knick-Knack is a lucky filly to have you as a brother… and I feel pretty lucky to have you as a friend.”
Flicker nodded, his expression stony and hard. “Finish up, we have work to do. We’ve lollygagged long enough…”
It felt good to be wearing his face and skin once more. Flicker began to double check his gear, making sure everything was snug, he tugged on a few straps, pulling them tighter, and then began to strap on his weapons as he adjusted his hat. He secured his new swords to his side, reminded himself that there were daggers there too, and then he strapped on Heartfinder. The shotgun was left in his trunk. The ship was wood and aluminium, shooting holes in it would be frown worthy.
“Seeing you gives me the shivers,” Hennessy remarked in a slow, syrupy drawl. The earth pony colt sauntered up to Flicker, and his movements were almost feminine with the way his hips rocked and his tail swished. “You go on, go on and give those rats a good what for.” Hennessy made a dismissive gesture with his hoof.
Piper, smiling, tucked his wand into a deep pocket that held a few candles. Flicker nodded, but was silent. He had almost forgotten his wand in his other coat. The mechanical thrum of his breathing filled his own ears and it felt good to be himself again, all of himself. He was stronger again, more capable, he was the pony he was meant to be. If he had encountered the spider-hag while wearing his face and his skin, that battle might have gone a little different.
Or so Flicker told himself to make himself feel better.
“Once all of the killing is done and the toxic fumes have been vented, I think I am going to have Flicker show you two how to clean up after a job. Extermination isn’t enough, we have to do decontamination. That means removing all of the rat corpses, cleaning up the blood, removing as many rat turds as possible, and then hitting the ship with sterilisation bombs. It’s not enough to just kill things, you will never be truly good at this job if that is all that you can do. We purge pestilence. We clean contagion. Failure to do this not only hurts our reputation, but might also cause ponies to get sick, or worse, die.” Doctor Sterling’s face was solemn, serious, and there were deep creases in his forehead from his furrowed brows.
“Um, I ain’t got no magic,” Hennessy said to Doctor Sterling.
“Oh, not to worry,” Doctor Sterling replied, “we have scrubbing brushes we can strap to your hooves. Earth ponies make fantastic floor scrubbers!”
The earth pony colt groaned at the doctor’s enthusiastic words and hung his head. “I reckon I can’t complain, not after signing that writ of pacifism. I’ll do my part.”
“If you don’t do your part…”—Flicker loomed in a menacing manner—“I’ll pick you up and use you as a scrubbing brush. Both of you. See if I don’t.”
Backing away, Hennessy's good natured grin showed a trace of actual fear. “Now now, I done said I’d do my part—”
“And being a good friend, I am motivating you to do the very best that you can do,” Flicker deadpanned, his mask making his voice sound inequine and perhaps even a little unholy. “Not to worry, this isn’t about seniority. I don’t work that way. But you will learn. Yes, you will learn.”
“Lord Death of Murder Mountain keeps a tidy home,” Piper said, a hint of laughter in her words, “and he does not like the many corpses of his victims lazing about in his garden. Murder Mountain… a very clean place. Corpses not welcome. And blood? That’s right out. It would get on the doilies and the drapes.”
Flicker didn’t realise that Piper was making a joke and he took her words at face value. He stood there, and after a time, he nodded. Saying nothing else, he took off at a trot to go aboard and do his job. When he was a few yards away, Hennessy leaned over, put his muzzle next to Piper’s ear, whispered something, and then the two of them began to giggle like two overcaffeinated squirrels. After a moment, Doctor Sterling, who had heard the exchange, let out a hesitant snicker that turned into a body shaking chuckle.
Still laughing, he hurried after Flicker so that the colt could be lifted over to the ship.
This ship, a vessel for both cargo and passengers, was hot with plague. Flicker could see the glowing red bodies through the walls, through the floor, and it was a wonder that nopony had become fatally ill. His rat sense was the worst that it had been in a long time. He prowled through the first floor, trying to get a feel for the ship, the layout, and what needed to be done.
There was a soft lurch, but he paid it no mind. This was an airship, and airships bobbed around on their mooring cables. His ears heard the sound of machinery; the ship had a steady vibration that traveled through the wood and metal. Flicker paused mid-stride when he heard a creaking sound, it was peculiar, and he was unable to place the somewhat metallic noise.
He went down the stairs to the floor below and saw that the passenger quarters had a serious flea infestation. No matter, he had the means to fix that and make the little buggers dissolve into nothingness. In fact, he had the means to cure this entire ship. He moved through the dark like a bird beaked phantom and he heard a high pitched mechanical squeal coming from somewhere.
“Greetings, Flicker,” a voice said over the intercom. “This is your captain speaking, we are all going down. We are all going down together. My Master sends his regards. Alas, you have made friends with the wrong sorts of ponies, and now, now you must be killed before you become a threat. Goodbye, you insufferable, genocidal, rat-slaying bastard.”
Turning about, Flicker hurried down the hallway, back to the stairs, and went up the stairs. He then went storming down that hallway, heading for the navigation cabin where the ship’s intercom system was located. He went up a short flight of stairs, and emerged inside of a glass cabin.
An alarm klaxon began to sound, it lasted for a few seconds, then ceased. The control cabin had been sabotaged. Controls were all damaged, cables and wires had all been severed. Chewed. Looking out the window, Flicker saw that the ship had rose up into the air and the mooring cables had been detached.
As he stood there contemplating this astounding turn of events, one of the ships down below him, still docked, exploded. The back half of the ship blossomed into a massive fireball and then the ship beside it exploded as well. Black smoke began to rise up into the sky. The alarm klaxon tried to sound again, there was a mechanical screech, and then it went silent once more.
The steam gauge was pretty much maxed out, deep into the red warning indicator, and Flicker had only one thing to say about the situation, something suitable and having satisfying hard consonants.
“Fuck me.”
As the ship drifted away from the Canterhorn, Flicker realised that he was over a mile up into the air with nothing below him but farmland and plains. There was a loud squealing sound and Flicker began to wonder what the sound of metal fatigue was like. There was a loud PING! and then without knowing why, Flicker began to run. A fragment of metal shot up through the wooden floor, perhaps a bolt or a rivet, Flicker didn’t have the time to figure it out, and it grazed his left rear leg just above his hock. It left behind a crimson crease in his flesh, tearing open his suit. He battered the window with his telekinesis, shattering it, and he lept over the ruined control panel as he tried to escape.
Soaring through the broken window, Flicker made the leap with ease, thanks to his training in the gym. Another fragment of metal shot through the floor and hit a window, shattering it. More bits of metal began to shoot through the floor and Flicker came down hard on the deck with a hail of metal coming up from beneath him.
Wood, splinters, and metal filled the air around him as he bolted, and one of the fragments grazed him once more, burning him and leaving a bright scarlet line along his right hip. The whole ship was shuddering, shaking, and smoke poured from the back end, which was no doubt going to explode at any minute now. Flicker kept running, but he didn’t know where he was going. Where did one go for safety when aboard an airship that was due to explode at any second?
Near the front of the ship, he saw a rat of exceptional size and the rat was… wearing a parachute? The rat waved, snarled, and then lept over the rail. Flicker, realising that he was about to die, understood that he had a choice of how he died. And that choice was easy to make. His hooves thundering over the deck, he ran for the rail and lept.
Dying was easy, living was hard.
Gritting his teeth, Flicker tucked in his legs close to his body and pointed his mask’s beak towards the ground. His cape fluttered and flapped behind him like a flag in a hurricane. As he streaked towards terminal velocity, his hat was torn off of his head and he could feel the wind tugging at his suit. Good thing he had everything nice and tight. Below him, the rat looked like he was swimming through the air, trying to get away.
Far below, another ship in the sky harbour exploded, leaving the harbour in chaos.
How fast was terminal velocity? Flicker couldn’t recall and it would be a waste of time to do so. His life was now measured in moments and every moment mattered. He yanked his wand out and began to charge up. The rat was going to burn and that would be the end of him. Not long after that, it would be the end of Flicker, too.
He let go of his fire spell and was shocked when the usual flames didn’t happen. Something else, something he was unfamiliar with, beautiful silvery flames erupted all around the rat like a cloud and in seconds, the rat was consumed in fire. He squeaked his last squeak and Flicker felt better for some reason. It was impossible to say how he felt better, but feel better he did. His wounds didn’t sting so much and for some reason, he just felt stronger.
Above him, the ship he had been on just mere moments ago exploded and it began to rain down flaming debris. Burning wreckage filled the skies and Flicker looked down at the ground that was rushing up to meet him. It wouldn’t hurt and there was no sense being a pansy about it. There was no point in turning away, either. No, he would face this like a stallion.
Tucking in his legs a little tighter, his mask gave him a fine aerodynamic profile, the beak cutting into the wind. Flicker didn’t close his eyes, no, he kept them open and he made himself watch as the ground got closer and closer with each passing second. He would be a puddle soon, a pony puddle, and that was fine. At least it wasn’t spiders, or the spider-hag.
Just as he had made peace with dying, he smacked into a physical force and it was like hitting a wall. He was turned in the air and saw Doctor Sterling in the back of a small skywagon being pulled by a pegasus. Piper was with him, beautiful, wonderful Piper, and she was waving. Flicker was relieved and he was happy that he was about to be rescued. Being snatched while falling was hard—physics was a bitchy mistress—and you had to compensate for momentum or else whatever you were grabbing would be turned into jelly.
There was a cry from Piper and Doctor Sterling raised a shield bubble around them. Falling, flaming wreckage hit the shield, which popped, and Doctor Sterling’s grip on him failed. Flicker’s relief fled from him as he began to fall again. A falling metal strut almost skewered him and he kicked it aside, the force of which made his hind hooves go numb.
Something else grabbed him, something clumsy, and Flicker felt as though all of his bones were about to break. Thankfully, he hadn’t had enough time to return to terminal velocity. His insides threatened to go squirting out of his asshole like toothpaste shooting out of a tube and his eyes almost popped right out his sockets. The coppery tang of blood filled the back of his mouth.
More wreckage was falling around him as he was pulled into the skywagon by Piper. Doctor Sterling did not look well, both eyes were bloodshot, red, and blood poured from his nostrils in a steady flow. The wreckage hitting his shields had been too much for him and the strain had become physical injury.
Woozy, disoriented, Flicker brought his own brute force telekinesis into play, shoving and pushing things away when they were too close. The pegasus pony flew as fast as he could, his wings tearing through the air, trying to fly out of the path of the falling bits of burning airship. Flicker hit something with his telekinesis that was just a little bit too much for him to handle and the strain was like being punched behind his face. Once more, his eyeballs almost popped out of his sockets, all of his teeth went on edge, and he felt blood go gushing out of his nose, flooding the inside of his mask.
Flicker’s relief returned once more when they soared through clear skies. From here on out, it was all smooth flying. Flicker slumped down and struggled to breathe. Everything inside of him felt squishy and his brain felt like mush. Tearing his mask away from his face, he grabbed Doctor Sterling and gave him a gentle shake, gentle by Flicker’s standards.
The doctor wasn’t very responsive and he moaned.
“Hospital! NOW!” Flicker barked, his lips flecked with blood, and he knew that every second could matter in a case like this. “Hurry! Go now!”
“Do you think I have lied somehow, or have been misleading?” Flicker demanded as he was filled with a keen, almost painful awareness that everypony was just staring at him with confused, blank stares, and some of them looked doubtful. “Have I ever been dishonest about anything? Why the interrogation?”
“Lad, I don’t think yer lying, it is just very ‘ard to accept the truth,” Wicked replied as he moved a little closer to where Sterling Shoe was sitting. “All these ships blown up, the ‘arbour is in ruins, some of the city caught fire, and right now, every little detail is important. Now again, tell me what ‘appened.”
Biting his lower lip, Flicker gnawed upon it for a short time as he prepared to repeat himself yet again. “I went aboard the ship and started to do my job. I didn’t notice that the ship had slipped from its moorings. A talking rat came on the intercom and tried to be witty. He said that I was going to die. After that, things get a little bit confusing. I went to the navigation cabin and found the controls wrecked. The steam boiler was about to explode. Metal bits came up through the floor and I jumped out of the window. On the deck there was a rat with a parachute—”
“It’s obvious what we are dealing with here,” Mister Balister snapped, “and asking the boy to repeat himself yet again would be impugning his honour. I’ll not have that and I’ll cross steel with anypony that does!”
“Balister!” Wicked bellowed as he turned to glare at his scowling subordinate. “No one is impugning anything… it is just, right now, we are surrounded on all sides by small, furry saboteurs that live in our walls and down in our sewers and at any moment they could start setting our cities on fire, or start blowing up our factories.”
“Holding Flicker out to the fire will accomplish nothing!” Balister took a step closer to Wicked and continued, “I stand by what I said, continue interrogating the boy at your own peril. I’ll not let you kindle his resentment during a time when unity is demanded.”
“Mister Balister makes a fine point,” Doctor Sterling said in a weak, wavering voice. “If you wish to continue asking questions, do so when tension and temper have died down, Wicked.”
Wicked’s face sagged and his ears drooped. He looked at his old, dear friend, his eyes going soft and sad, and his lower jaw quivered a bit before he managed to say, “That was a close one, Shoe. You very nearly had yer brain turned to jelly.”
“I’ll be fine.” Doctor Sterling might have said it, but he didn’t look it.
“This rat was smarter sounding than Rat Bastard. He spoke differently. Given the state of the ship, I think it is obvious how smart he was, and he was using a parachute. He made plans and planned to survive.” Flicker’s brows furrowed as he thought aloud. “I’m thinking that Rat Bastard was some kind of first or early attempt. Rats breed fast and I think that, over time, we’re going to see more new rats. Smart ones, ones with magical gifts. It is clear that this is an army bred for purpose to be used against us and play against our most instinctual fears.”
Rubbing her head, Piper struggled to sit up in the bed where she was laying. One eye was bloodshot and with every movement, she winced and hissed. She looked around the room, smacking her lips together because her mouth was dry and tasted awful. “And not a one of you have mentioned that you’re happy that Flicker is alive, or that you are glad that Doctor Sterling didn’t have a fatal stroke from overexertion. All I hear is arguing and that makes my head hurt! It’s dreadful! Something just tried to kill my friend and all you are doing is arguing! In my room no less! All I want to do is lay in bed and have my head stop hurting! But no! There is a fight in my room! I just want to think about how I managed to grab my friend as he started to fall… the single most difficult thing I have ever done in my life, and how close I came to giving myself brain damage in the name of friendship! Now, all of you, shut up! Or at least keep it down!”
Having said what was on her mind, Piper fell back down into her bed with a grunt and a huff. She lay there, trembling, in pain, and her ears twitched in time with her shallow breathing.
“Honestly, I’d like to know how Flicker seems to be mostly fine,” Mister Pepper said in a low, respectful whisper. “He came in here with his brains scrambled like eggs, coughing up blood… and he was bad off. Now look at him.” White Pepper’s soft voice was filled with doubt and curiousity. “That’s not natural. The wound on his side is almost healed over as well.”
“That’s probably just due to the body spackle,” Doctor Sterling said in reply to White Pepper. “As for the rest of him, I don’t know.”
The door to Piper’s room opened and two ponies entered, making their way into the already crowded room. Wicked moved aside and so did White Pepper. The first pony that entered pulled back her hood, revealing an arctic blue mane and piercing arctic blue eyes. Behind her, her much larger companion kept his hood up, and for a second, his eyes glowed within the voluminous shadows.
“We meet again,” the cloaked mare said to Flicker as she bowed her head. “There is something odd about you… let’s see… what was your name again? Flicker… that’s right, Flicker.”
The colt, spoken to in such a manner, began blushing and he backed away from the mare as she let out a muted, musical laugh. Hearing her speak, hearing her laughter during such a dark, dangerous time, Flicker felt hope ignite inside of him and his spirit felt renewed. Flicker ran out of space to keep backing up, and the mare continued her approach. She lifted one hoof, held it out, and touched him.
Flicker’s legs went weak and his whole body itched. Warmth flooded through him and there was a most curious sensation. The world went blurry but Radiant Hope remained in sharp focus. Sound muted and ran together. Flicker found himself staring into the mare’s eyes, drawn in by some unknown compulsion.
For just a second, he saw Radiant Hope as she was. Her mane became a flickering, waving curtain of aetherial fire billowing around her head and neck. She was like the princesses, the Royal Pony Sisters, but then the image went away, and Flicker found himself staring into the eyes of a fallen goddess, the tragedy of which threatened to make him weep.
With a cry, Flicker’s knees gave out from beneath him and he would have fallen had Radiant Hope’s companion not held him up. The silent shadow behind her had power, a terrifying amount of raw power, and Flicker could feel it crackling all around him. His eyes remained locked with Radiant Hope’s as reality around him stretched thin, like taffy pulled too long and too hard.
“We meet again, Lima Bean. I did not think I would find you here.”
“I expected no less,” Radiant Hope replied, bowing her head. “I will atone for my sin and do whatever it takes. My shadow and I have accepted our fates. Redemption isn’t such a tough road to walk. For whatever it is worth, I don’t resent you anymore and I thank you for giving both of us a second chance.”
Radiant Hope let out a lingering sigh and shook her head. “Let me heal him and take a few more steps down my road to redemption. Please? I know that you and I have our differences, but he is innocent, and shouldn’t be made to suffer.”
“Very well,” Radiant Hope replied, bowing her head once more.
Blinking, Flicker tried to figure out what was going on. His eyes were dazzled and filled with flashes of light. His whole body itched all over and he felt far too warm. Squinting, he looked into Radiant Hope’s face and saw a smile, a sad, sad smile. He felt a little peculiar and it didn’t take long to figure out why.
“Lad, yer whole of body again, and yer mark, Lad, yer mark…” Wicked’s voice trailed off.
Whipping his head around, Flicker looked at his cutie mark. His pelt had regrown, all of it, he was hairy again and not bruised. But his mark—the flaming rat was different, the rat now engulfed in silver flames, just like he had seen when he had set the parachuting rat ablaze. Turning his head, he looked at Radiant Hope once more.
“I had nothing to do with that,” she said as she backed away and moved to Piper’s bedside. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have much work to do. It was good meeting you again Flicker.”
“Thank you so much… I don’t know how to repay you.”
“Think nothing of it,” Radiant Hope replied as she shook her head. “Flicker…” the mare hesitated and she paused.
“Yes?”
“Nevermind.” Radiant Hope just smiled, turned away, and faced Piper. “Now, young lady, let’s get you sorted out, shall we?”
In silence, Flicker mused upon some new knowledge. Disruption. His silver flames were an anathema to the undead. He wasn’t sure how he felt about his cutie mark changing, but he wasn’t too bothered by it, just thoughtful. The late afternoon sky was red and hazy with smoke. The scent of fire lingered over Canterlot, burning the nose and making the eyes water.
He rather liked the silver flames, as they reminded him of Doctor Sterling.
As for the good doctor himself, he was sitting nearby, looking out over the city as they all spent a little time relaxing upon the roof of the guildhall. Which really wasn’t a hall, but more of a tower, and Flicker didn’t know why they called it a hall. Doctor Sterling seemed to be in good spirits, which was surprising after the events of the morning. Surprising, but not impossible, as it was difficult to be in bad spirits after a visit from Radiant Hope.
Distracted, Flicker was not prepared for an affectionate assault from a hesitant earth pony. Hennessy flung himself against Flicker and wrapped his forelegs around Flicker’s neck, clinging to him with everything he had. Hennessy drew in a deep, shuddering breath and then just sat there, holding Flicker, who become just about as animated as a statue.
“I nearly lost you,” Hennessy whispered as he squeezed Flicker hard enough to make the colt’s eyes bulge in their sockets. The earth pony rubbed his cheek against Flicker’s broad, well muscled neck and redoubled his grip. “You’re the first pony I’ve really, truly been in love with and when things started exploding, I felt my heart stop! I thought I was gonna piss myself.”
Flicker, unmoving, did not respond. Piper’s eyes met his own for a moment and he sent her a wordless, unspoken plea for help, a mental cry for assistance, but Piper didn’t seem to get the message. No, now she was all weepy eyed, watching and gushing over what she saw. Flicker hated her just a tiny bit for not being able to read his mind. A wheeze flew out of Flicker’s parted lips when Hennessy applied just a little too much earth pony strength to his efforts.
“This city stinks with fear,” Wicked muttered as he stood near the edge and looked at Canterlot. “Ye mark my words, nothing good will come of this. This’ll be like striking a match in the sewer.” The old stallion let out a weary sigh and shook his head. “This’ll be a war with no recognised front. The world isn’t ready for something like this.”
“Grogar has declared war against life.” Doctor Sterling looked over at his friend and his ears drooped. “As a doctor, I’ve waged war against death. I am sure that there is something poetic and meaningful to be said here, but I can’t think of what it might be.”
“There’s your answer,” Piper said as she pointed to Flicker and Hennessy. “There’s your poetry and your meaning. This is what we’re fighting for. I get that now, I do. I feel like I’m a different pony now. Today has changed me.”
“And given you new legs,” Doctor Sterling added.
“And given me new legs.” Piper smiled and nodded. “Now if you will excuse me, I am going to go and hug my friends with my new legs…”
Confused, Piper felt Flicker explode out of her embrace and she fell backwards with a cry. Hennessy fell over as well, squishing her, kneeing her right in the teats, and then he rolled off. She grunted, squeaked, and recovered, then sat up in time to watch Flicker take a flying leap from the edge of the roof. Her heart squirted up into her throat and she wondered if he would make the ten foot plus leap to the next roof over.
“We’re ten stories up,” she murmured.
Wicked took off, shouting, “Bats aren’t rats, you silly cuss!” And then, making it look effortless, Wicked lept. Where Flicker had taken a running leap, Wicked went over to the edge of the roof at a rather casual looking stroll, bunched up like a cat, and then launched himself from the edge of the roof.
Piper squeaked again and felt her throat close as the pony with three normal legs and one wooden leg made the terrifying jump. He landed, coming down easy, and didn’t even wobble. His pegleg made a fantastic tattoo as he ran over the roof of the building next door, following after Flicker, who lept again. The filly felt her nethers clench as she wondered, Will I be able to do this someday?
As fantastic as Flicker was, he was nothing compared to Wicked, who caught up with the colt in no time at all. Wicked was faster, could jump further, and could land with far more grace. The chase ended and the two ponies began their rooftop to rooftop return, with Flicker holding something in his magic.
“It’s like watching the Power Ponies in real life,” Piper breathed.
Doctor Sterling walked over the edge of the roof and his eyebrow arched as Flicker landed. With an “Oof!” Wicked landed beside him and then gave the colt an affectionate kick in the backside as the doctor began to examine what Flicker held in his telekinesis.
“That’s not a bat,” Piper remarked.
“It’s not a rat, either,” Doctor Sterling said.
“It’s got four legs and bat wings.” Wicked snatched the squeaking, thrashing creature out of Flicker’s telekinesis and had himself a better look. “It’s like a pegasus pony, but a rat. What in Celestia’s green earth is going on ‘ere?”
“So we have a ratasus, what’s next? A raticorn?” Hennessy moseyed closer and had himself a better look. “No sir, I don’t like it.” The colt’s lips pressed together into a straight line and he pulled his head back from the thrashing creature. “What do we do with it?”
“We study it, of course,” Doctor Sterling responded. “That will go into a specimen bay in the lab. Nice work, Mister Nicker.”
Piper, hesitant and just a little scared, had herself a better look once she was close enough to do so. The rat was big, but not too big, the body was maybe seven inches or so without the tail. It had bat-like wings sprouting from its back in very much the same manner as a pegasus pony, and its tail was just a little bit different too. It was flattened at the tip, and wide, almost leaf shaped.
“What a peculiar creature,” Piper said as she continued her observation. “How do you suppose this happened? Did a rat and a bat breed together to make a crossbreed? Magic? Was this intentional?”
“All good questions.” Flicker drew in a deep breath and then let it out in a slow, measured huff. “I’m inclined to ask why though. Why would this be made and what purpose would it serve?” Flicker began to rub his chin in a manner almost identical to Doctor Sterling and his eyes narrowed. “Aerial surveillance? A means to send in orders?”
“This along with the sabotage we saw today gives me the willies,” Wicked said as his face contorted into a wrinkled, contorted scowl. “Sterling, ye think the Rainbow of Darkness did this?”
“I don’t know, Wicked.”
“The what?” Piper asked.
“Never you mind!” Wicked bellowed and then he gave Piper a gentle, good-natured pat upon the neck. “Come, Sterling. Ye and I are going to secure yon wee beastie in the lab and have ourselves a private chat. Let’s go.”
Piper, burning with a desire to know more, watched them leave.
Flicker, now in his room, began to pace a little. There wasn’t much room to pace now, not with the beds, the trunks, and the table. Just a narrow space between the beds. His room, his sanctuary, his sanctum, had become crowded. Spud was wedged into the window and sitting on the sill. Hennessy and Piper were at the table, and Flicker couldn’t help but feel a little peeved with them, as they were laughing and having fun.
Today was far too serious of a day to have fun.
“So, what are you writing?” Hennessy asked.
Hesitating, Piper lifted her head and looked over at the earth pony sitting beside her. Reaching out a foreleg, she placed her fetlock over Hennessy’s and gave him a squeeze. “Don’t laugh,” she whispered, “but I’m writing fanfiction. Saucy fanfiction.”
“Whassat?” Hennessy leaned in a little closer and tried to look at Piper’s paper.
“You know, there are better things we could be doing, like studying… or… studying,” Flicker suggested.
“You know, you could join us. Maybe try something new. Something creative. Like you were assigned to do.” Piper gave Flicker a bold look and gestured for him to come over. Her ears drooped when his stern glare focused upon her with burning intensity. “You’re not being very fun.”
“Very well, we shall try your frivolity.”
“Very well, we shall try your frivolity,” Piper said, mimicking Flicker’s lugubrious deadpan. Feeling bold again, her ears perked and she stared Flicker right in the eye as he glared at her. “You know, Hennessy, Flicker Nicker is the sort of pony that little rats dare one another to say his name in the mirror three times.”
Covering his muzzle with his fetlock, Hennessy began chortling and Flicker did not get the joke. Flicker came over to the table, sat down, and then focused his dull, blank stare upon Piper. Piper rolled her eyes, shook her head, and pulled her foreleg away from where it rested on Hennessy’s.
“Fanfiction,” she began as she lifted up a pencil and gave it a twirl, “is when a fan writes a story in an established universe. Like right now, I am trying to start a story about the twin son and daughter from the Masked Matterhorn, but I am having some trouble coming up with the background stuff, like who their father is, who the Masked Matterhorn finally married, and how the twins came to be... and it’s causing me a lot of trouble.”
Flicker’s ears splayed out to the side and he let out a half groan, half sigh.
“I see.” Hennessy nodded.
“All of that needs to be sorted out somehow,” Piper continued, “and it needs to be done in way that makes sense, or effectively glosses over it in a way that the reader won’t care.” The filly twirled her pencil some more and then began tapping the eraser end of the pencil against her snoot. “Like, I am thinking of shipping them off to some sort of boarding school, like a school for gifted ponies or something, just so I can get the parents, home, and all of that complication out of the way, that way I can isolate them. Or, I suppose I could just kill their parents off, but that smacks of lazy writing and only a hack would do that.”
Hennessy, his eyes almost glowing with eager anticipation, nodded his head. “This sounds like fun and I wanna help!” Reaching out a foreleg, the over-enthusiastic colt grabbed Flicker and pulled him closer, ignoring Flicker’s tenebrous, terrifying scowl. It was the sort of expression that would make a manticore hesitate and reconsider its life choices that brought it to the point of meeting Flicker.
“Anyhow, this brother and sister, they have a magical talent that they share together that allows them to combine with one another and become an unstoppable alicorn, a secret that they’ve hidden from the rest of the world. They’re poised to become superheroes one day, and they have an excellent secret identity.”
“Ugh.”
“Don’t go ‘ugh,’ Flicker, you dress up in a suit, wear a mask, and do insane things like swan diving off of exploding airships.” Piper reached over the table and gave Flicker’s cheek a tender pat with her hoof. “Say, that gives me an idea…”
“About alicorns,” Flicker began as he shook his head from side to side. “Everything I do, I do through hard work. I don’t have much in the way of magic. I need a wand to cast even the most basic of spells. For the past year, I’ve been remaking myself in the gym and working every day. If I am impressive at all, and you seem to think so, it is because I work to be that way, and that is what makes me special. An alicorn, they have superiour physicality, speed, intelligence, and magic. Now, I could be wrong, but it seems to me that they don’t have to work very hard at something to be good at it. I don’t have much of anything compared to them. I’m fast, but I am nowhere near as fast as Doctor Sterling. I’m strong, but Wicked is stronger by a longshot. I’ve watched Wicked outwrestle earth ponies. I’m smart, but Doctor Sterling and Mister Balister are a whole lot smarter than I am. The only thing that I think really makes me remarkable is that I don’t give up.”
Piper sucked in a lungful of air to reply, but then sputtered when no words came.
“In short, it takes a lot of work to be Lord Death of Murder Mountain. Entire days and sometimes even nights spent in the gym, having Mister Balister beat my sorry ass if I didn’t give him what he was owed, which was my one hundred and ten percent. Days spent in the classroom with my nose in a book trying to improve myself. It’s almost insulting to hear somepony just so casually mention how two twins can merge together and form the perfect alicorn body. It feels like it cheapens everything I’ve worked for.”
The filly let out an exasperated lip-flapping sigh and stared down at her paper while she continued to tap on her snoot with her pencil eraser. Looking rather pouty, she muttered, “It’s just escapism and fantasy. It’s nothing equinal against you.”
“Flicker, you’re kind of a wet blanket,” Hennessy said to his friend, “a wet blanket with fart stank. You just sucked the fun right out of this.”
“But he’s right,” Piper responded as she slumped over the table.
“Okay, fine, so he’s a wet blanket with fart stank and he’s right.” Hennessy ignored Flicker’s water-curdling, bowel emptying stare. “So let’s keep going and we’ll just make more realistic heroes that have to work hard at what they do.”
“Someponies to rival the Power Ponies? But in a good way?” Piper, blinking, looked eager. “We’ll call one of them The Creep. He doesn’t blink as much as normal ponies and he stares a lot. He never laughs, he has no sense of humour, and he speaks in a deadpan most of the time. In battle, he acts like he has no fronks left to give and his friends constantly have to humour him.”
“I like this guy,” Hennessy remarked. “Is he cute?”
“Doesn’t seem like much of a hero.” Flicker’s eyes narrowed and he shook his head. “I don’t get it, what would be so appealing about him? I don’t understand. Does he have a superpower? ”
Piper looked into Hennessy’s eyes and the pair of them began to laugh, a loud boisterous laugh that got on Flicker’s nerves right away. Clutching her sides, Piper fell over onto the stone floor, her hoof clopping on the table’s edge as she went down, and then she rolled on the floor, laughing. Hennessy fell over onto Flicker, who did nothing to catch him, and then the earth pony colt plopped onto the floor, his laughter paused.
After a moment, he began laughing again, grabbed Flicker’s now regrown tail, and began hugging it to his cheek. Piper began gasping, struggling to breathe, and Flicker rolled his eyes, not at all understanding what was so funny.
“I’m going to study for my candle exam, the two of you are impossible to understand,” Flicker announced as he got up. “Good luck with your writing, but this just isn’t my cup of tea. I just don’t understand it. Have fun, both of you. I’ll be in my bunk, reading.”
It was difficult to study. Quite by accident, Flicker had noticed something about Hennessy, and now, he couldn’t unsee it. Hennessy had… curves. The colt was almost hourglass shaped when viewed from behind while he was sitting down. His barrel was wide, his waist narrowed, and his hips widened again. The part of Flicker’s brain that suggested reason and logic for why things were the way they were made a quiet mention that the narrowing of Hennessy’s waist was for reasons of grip with the forelegs—but Flicker’s brain could not complete that thought, because that would be inappropriate. The censorship division of his brain went on high alert and announced general quarters.
But yes, Hennessy was very grippable, and his brain left it at that.
With a little food, a little exercise, and a bit of care, Hennessy would fill out a bit more and no doubt, with his sleek and slender middle, there would be good grip to be had. For Flicker, this observation was new and he couldn’t unsee it, which caused the censorship division in his brain no end of worry. Even worse, Flicker was aware that he was staring and he did nothing to stop it, he just kept ogling Hennessy without a care in the world.
Another part of his mind kicked in, the sorting aspect of his mind, which now had the task of figuring out where Hennessy fit in and where all feelings, thoughts, and observations involving Hennessy needed to be filed. As a new office formed in Flicker’s mind, the Ministry of Hennessy Related Affairs, the wheels of his brain turned just a little bit slower as this new section formed.
When Hennessy giggled, Flicker’s ears perked, and the sound was sorted away in the new ministry under “Sounds of Happiness, Volume One.”
There was a knock from the door—Flicker’s whole body tensed—for some reason it felt like he had been caught doing something wrong—and when the door opened, he saw Asterius the minotaur enter. She stood in the doorway, looking at Piper and Hennessy, and after a time, she came forward, one hand raised.
When she was close to Hennessy, she bent over a bit, extended her hand, and Flicker heard her say, “Hold still, I have to check and see if your button works.” Then, without a further ado, her pointer finger extended, she pressed the tip of said finger into the soft, fleshy pad of Hennessy’s snoot, which caused Hennessy’s eyes to become crossed.
“It works,” Asterius remarked, and she applied light pressure, poking Hennessy once more. “The three of you are needed in Wicked’s office at once. Do hurry.” Then, without warning, the minotaur grabbed Hennessy’s ear, pinched it between her thumb and forefinger, and then gave it a gentle tug, indulging herself in the soft velvetiness of it as she allowed it to slip from her grip in a slow, measured manner.
Hennessy’s hind hoof began thumping against the floor, forming a staccato tattoo of sound as it clopped against the stone tile. Flicker found the sight endearing, but he had no visible outward reaction. Flicker’s mind filed this away under “Hennessy Being Adorable, Volume One.”
Closing his book, he pulled himself out of his bunk.
When Flicker pushed open the door to Wicked’s office, he saw a flash of white, a tall figure stood against the far wall, and Flicker was hardly even inside the door when he went prostrate against the floor. There she was, beautiful and perfect. She was smiling, she looked serene, and she was… pregnant. Lifting his head just a little, he looked at the graceful swell of her belly.
He wasn’t worthy. Closing his eyes, he lay there as Piper and Hennessy stepped over him to come inside of the room. He heard a whooshy sigh from Wicked, a snort from Doctor Sterling, and then, he heard the perfect, flawless voice of the Goddess say, “Get up, faithful servant.”
Flicker was torn. On one hoof, it was proper to bow—on the other hoof, he had been given an order. The need to obey was strong so Flicker got up onto his hooves, but assumed a very servile position—he knew his place—and he kept his head and his ears down in a submissive manner.
“I seem to have a brave and devoted knight in my service,” Princess Celestia said, sounding very much amused, but not patronising in the slightest. No, she sounded sincere and warm. The big mare’s feathers fluffed out a bit and a look of discomfort crossed her face. It passed with the same suddenness as it had arrived with and she smiled once more as she drew in a deep breath through her nostrils.
“I have come here this day to reward two very brave unicorns—”
Hearing these words, Flicker felt his heart soar, he lived to serve.
“—two very brave unicorns who took great risks to save a friend.” The princess paused for a moment, her horn glowed with golden light, and she pulled two small boxes from the saddlebags of a nearby guard. She put these down upon Wicked’s desk and opened up the lids on both of them. “I have two medals here, Clover’s Blessing, a reward for the exceptional use of magic under the most trying of circumstances, and usually given for saving a life when your own is at risk.”
The big mare took a step forwards, then gestured at both Doctor Sterling and Piper. “Lord Sterling Shoe… Piping Hot Pie… what you did this day was perhaps one of the most difficult things to do with magic. Saving Flicker’s life”—the white alicorn’s eyes darted to glance over in Flicker’s direction—“with the use of your magic was an exceptional feat. The fact that you saved him, and did not crush him, it speaks volumes about your magical prowess and skill. I am impressed.”
Piper tried to say something, but all that came out was a squeak. She stood still, so very still as Princess Celestia lifted out a small silver four leaf clover hung from a long green silken cord. With a majestic nod of her head, Princess Celestia slipped the green silken cord over Piper’s neck and allowed the medal to fall into place around the filly’s neck.
She did the same for Doctor Sterling, and the good doctor bowed his head a little, bending his proud and noble neck for the princess as she slipped the medal over his head. Doctor Sterling, with tears in his eyes, nodded and went rigid as the medal fell into place around his neck.
“It isn’t very often that I get to give these out.” Princess Celestia held her head high and she beamed, her smile lit up the room like the sun and her perfect white teeth were visible. “They require such dangerous circumstances to even qualify for… I fear with the war and Grogar’s rising power, I will be awarding quite a few of these in the days to come.”
Again, Piper tried to speak, but all that came out was a squeak.
“As for you, my brave and devoted servant”—Princess Celestia turned her whole body to face Flicker—“you did very well this day. You have shown exceptional valour and have shown courage in trying circumstances. I commend you!” And with that, Princess Celestia reached out one wing, extending it fully, and she patted Flicker on the head.
Flicker, touched by the very object of his fanatical, overzealous devotion, went still as his brain tried to register what had just happened. Her feathers were warm like a ray of sunshine, downy soft, and perfect. In the depths of his mind, an alarm klaxon went off, blaring out “AWOOGA!” noises in his brain. All vital functions were suspended as his mind tried to comprehend that he had just been patted on the head by one of his beloved Goddesses. His eyes became glassy, almost tearful, and the most wonderful sensation of lightheadedness settled in.
When faced with such a mind-blowing revelation, Flicker did the only thing a fanatical zealot who had forgotten how to breathe could do in this situation.
He fainted.
“You fainted,” Hennessy teased as he gave Flicker a grin.
“I did not!” Flicker, feeling petulant and sulky, suffered quite a foalish reaction to everything that had just taken place. Unable to do much else and unable to muster up a murderous stare at Hennessy, he just sat there on the floor, next to the table, with his ears pinned back against his skull as he seethed.
“You did,” Hennessy retorted, and then the colt began to chuckle.
What made everything even worse was that Princess Celestia was gone. She had left while he was out. Eyes narrowing, Flicker let out a snort that sounded like a constipated locomotive flirting with a nearsighted minotaur and trying to get its attention.
“At least she left you a lovely gift,” Piper said in a voice that was far too chirpy for Flicker’s mood. “Do you mind if I have a peek into your new spellbook?”
Glowering, Flicker did not respond, but his eyes darted down to the book on the table. Dangerous Undead and how to Vapourise Them. Celestia the Burning One, Slayer, Saintfire, Bane of the Undead, She of the Righteous Fury, First Era to Present. It seemed that he was part of a prestigious club now, one that had very few living members. Doctor Fancy Fiasco… Princess Celestia… and himself.
“I’m feeling very proud of myself at the moment,” Piper announced as she lifted her head a little higher. “I don’t know if I deserve it though. Doctor Sterling did the hard catch, the catch I made pales by comparison… but I could feel that I had almost turned you into Lord Death of Murder Mountain marmalade.”
“Oh, shut up,” Flicker grumbled.
“What?” Piper, fearless, leaned over the table and gave Flicker a good stare as her ears angled forwards in an aggressive manner.
“Don’t sell yourself short. It disgusts me. What you did was impressive and for you to think that it is somehow less impressive than what Doctor Sterling did, that’s just pathetic and stupid.” Flicker’s ears stood up and pivoted forwards. “You did what you did without the years of experience that Doctor Sterling had and all of his extensive magical schooling. So shut up.”
“Well, I… well, I hadn’t thought of it that way—”
“Spend more time thinking, less time saying stupid stuff.”
Piper did her best to try one of Flicker’s menacing, soul withering glowers, but failed. All she managed to do was look adorably angry, contentiously cute, and Hennessy began snickering. Reaching over, she gave Hennessy a light slap on the foreleg with her hoof, and then returned to trying to stare Flicker down, which wasn’t working out very well.
“Oh, you are impossible!” Piper blurted out as her ears drooped in submission. “Even worse, I find that I can’t be angry with you, because you’re right. I’m hating you just a little bit right now, just so you know.”
Flicker shrugged.
“I wonder how my Ma is doing.” Hennessy’s smile vanished and the earth pony colt’s mood made an abrupt shift. Sitting on his haunches, the colt tapped his two front hooves together while staring down at them. “I’m gonna have her cured… I think… and if she comes out and messes up, I s’pose I’ll have her put right back in.”
“You’d do that?” Piper asked, her voice a strained, tight whisper.
“I dunno… if I had to… I thought I was okay with leaving my family behind, but I ain’t.” Hennessy’s eyes became troubled. “Today got me thinking. With everything exploding and such, I thought about Flicker’s family and how they might take the news of him dying. I sorta thought that it might be right for me to be the one that tells them. And that got me thinking, I want family. Just not the one I had. But if I can save my Ma, I think I might be happy with that.”
“That… is quite a thought.” Piper’s ears perked up for a moment, then fell, then sort of half-rose. “If something was to happen to me… I’d appreciate it if it was one of you that told my parents. You both are starting to know me, to really know me, and you’d be able to talk to them about me… maybe comfort them.” After a few seconds she added, “It’s like Princess Celestia said. We’re at war and bad things happen in war.”
“While you were out, Princess Celestia told Wicked that she wants Ponyville purged. I think we’ll be taking a trip soon.” Hennessy let out a sigh and rested his front hooves on the table. “I wonder what that will be like.”
“Easier with Piper.” Flicker’s brows crinkled a bit and a few fine wrinkles appeared in the corners of his eyes as he began thinking. “There are spells for summoning rats, but those are nothing like what you are capable of, Piper. We’ll be able to draw the rats out of ponies’ houses and do full scale extermination. The guild’s cats will probably get involved. We’ll work under the cover of night and by dawn, we’ll be gone, and nopony will even know that we were there.”
“Summoning spells?” Piper asked.
“They’re not very strong… I’ve seen Doctor Sterling use them… the rats tend to resist a bit and it only affects a few at a time. Wicked’s candles are useful for drawing in rats, but the fumes have to be able to reach them. Your talent calls them out in droves. You were born to do this job.” Flicker’s confident assurance left no room for doubt in his mind.
“Just like you,” Piper whispered as she nodded in agreement.
Flicker’s expression was completely blank as he held up a wooden sword in front of Piper. He stared at her for a time as his brain thought of everything he needed to say, and she took a single step back from the wooden sword held up in front of her nose. She tilted her head off to one side for a better look, then tilted it to the other side, then took the sword in her own telekinesis.
“It’s heavy,” she remarked as she hefted the dull wooden blade.
“Some are eight pounds, others are ten. That one is ten.” Flicker looked Piper right in the eye as she waved the wooden sword around in her magic. “It will build your telekinetic strength. Swinging a ten pound wooden sword for hours will condition your mind and your magic for repetitive telekinetic weight stress. When you have a real sword, which will only be a few pounds, you will be able to swing it effortlessly.”
“That makes sense.” Piper nodded and looked at Flicker.
“The wooden training dummy is modeled after a real body. With a significant application of force from your wooden sword, the head will pop from its ball joint, and so will the arms or forelegs, whichever way you wish to see them. If you can take the head or the legs off of the dummy, you can do it in real life with no real effort.” As Flicker spoke, he made a gesture at the training dummy set up in the corner of the gym and glanced over to where Hennessy was trying to leap over the wall.
Hennessy was distracting.
“Go on, take the dummy’s head off,” Flicker commanded, “but have a word of warning. If the head or the limbs fall on the ground, Mister Balister is going to come over here and give you welts. If you somehow manage to sever the head, you are expected to catch it before it makes a racket as it bounces over the floor.”
“Somehow manage?” Piper’s eyes widened as she gave Flicker a wounded stare. “I bet I can take the head right off!”
“We shall see,” Flicker replied in a voice both knowing and wise in the ways of violence.
Grimacing, trying to look as murdery as Flicker, Piper lifted her sword and advanced on the training dummy. Bringing all of the force she could muster, she made a sidelong swipe at the neck, but missed, and hit the wooden head in the temple area instead. It remained on its neck and the blank wooden eyes stared at her, mocking her failure.
Piper huffed and let out a nervouscited laugh as she prepared to strike again.
With her tongue sticking out, she chopped at the dummy, trying to aim a little better, and this time her blade connected with the shoulder joint with a loud THWACK! that echoed through the gymnasium. The dummy continued to stare, mocking her, and she couldn’t help but feel that Flicker’s chilly, imperious stare held some sort of judgment. The filly’s ears began to burn and a hot, uncomfortable itch manifested in her dock as she began to feel the smoldering sensation of humiliation.
Decapitating a foe wasn’t as easy as it looked.
“Show me,” Piper said, requesting a demonstration.
Flicker drew another wooden sword from the training rack, bowed his head to her, and then held his sword up in front of him. She watched, focusing upon his every move, and then, as she stood watching, he exploded with a flurry of movement that was too fast to see. Three swift strokes were made, cutting off the right limb, the left limb, and the head in that order. All three bits were levitated and prevented from hitting the ground.
There were loud clicking sounds as the limbs and the severed head were reconnected.
“And how long did it take you to do that?” Piper asked as it dawned upon her how much practice that must have took.
“Only recently could I do it with any sort of reliability. I kept messing up and dropping the limbs. The head is the hardest to remove and takes a significant application of applied force. It took me almost a year of steady practice to be able to do this.” Flicker lowered his wooden sword, nodded, and said to Piper, try again.”
From elsewhere in the gymnasium, there was a cheer as one of the older students cleared the eight foot wall. Flicker and Piper both turned to have a look and when Piper glanced over at Flicker, she saw desire in his eyes. She knew that he would push himself to no end to do the same someday, someday soon maybe. Flicker was relentless and single-minded, it didn’t matter what he focused on, once he was focused, he was like a mechanical automaton in pursuit of his goal.
She had to be like that. Gritting her teeth, Piper took a whack at the training dummy, then another, again and again she began slashing it at it, falling into a rhythm. The wooden sword was heavy, a single swing or two wasn’t too bad, but just a few minutes in, she was already feeling the mental fatigue. She knew what Flicker would say before she even asked him; push through the pain and keep going.
So she did. She fell into a steady pace and gave up trying to decapitate the dummy, instead she focused on hitting the shoulder joints, the limbs, and the occasional slap on the nose. A few minutes in and she began sweating, it trickled down her legs, down her sides, tickling her and threatening to break her concentration as she struggled not to giggle.
In no time at all, she was soaked in sweat and it ran from places where she was unaccustomed to having it run from, it dribbled from her every nook and cranny, but a sweaty cranny was the worst. The hidden hollow of flesh just beneath the base of her dock felt swampy, clingy, she didn’t like it and as she thought about how much she disliked it, it began to itch, making her dislike it all the more.
“Mister Nicker, take Miss Pie down,” Mister Balister commanded.
Piper hardly had time to react or register Mister Balister’s words. She lept away as Flicker’s wooden sword made a slow swipe at her and she realised that if he had wanted to, he could have whacked her a good one. She kept moving and brought her own sword to bear, waving it at Flicker in an ineffective manner as she tried to look fierce.
Piping Hot Pie was just not a fierce looking pony.
THWACK!
Flicker’s wooden sword hit her wooden sword with enough force that it made her horn tingle and go a little numb. She could feel the strain in her mind and she realised that Flicker was a formidable foe by any standard—the same force he used to move farm equipment could be used to swing a sword. Blocking his attacks would only give her mental fatigue and a headache. Failing to parry his assaults might mean having a limb lopped off with a wooden sword, which would be unpleasant and Piper’s imagination threatened to go wild.
Scowling, she tried to ignore her stinging, aching horn as she retreated. Flicker wasn’t much of a swashbuckler, he wasted no movement, he did nothing fancy or theatrical. Every movement was made with the goal of a hit, not a feint or a flashy display of sword twirling skill. At least he wasn’t trying very hard, he wasn’t moving his sword as fast as he could be, and he was giving her a fair chance.
She appreciated that.
His sword came in fast and low, at her legs, and she was forced to leap up into the air. In the air, she got one of Flicker’s telekinetic flicks, which almost knocked the wind out of her, and it sent her flying backwards. She recovered mid-air and landed on all four hooves with a deafening clatter with her sword held out in front of her in a ready position.
“Remarkable,” Mister Balister said, “I thought for sure he had you there.”
The praise sounded sincere, but Piper had no time to revel in it as Flicker advanced. His sword came down in a heavy chop, which she sidestepped, but then with blinding speed, came in right for her neck and she was forced to parry. The blow hit her wooden sword with enough force to send a spike of painful feedback through her horn, which rattled her teeth and made her spine ache.
Would he actually hit her with that much force? She didn’t know and she didn’t want to find out. She slashed at him, making a few clumsy swipes, all of which he sidestepped, ducked, or moved away from. Even worse, he wasn’t even sweating like she was, and that infuriated Piper. He was making this look so easy while she struggled. She let out a pained cry as she blocked another one of his slashes with her sword and she felt a dreadful pain in her sinuses. Why did he have to hit so hard?
“That’s enough!” Mister Balister commanded as he stomped his hoof. “Mister Nicker, you didn’t try very hard, which I am rather disappointed in you for, but also did no serious harm to Miss Pie, while teaching her a valuable lesson, for which I commend you. Good work, Mister Nicker.”
“He hits like a runaway wagon,” Piper whined as she lowered her sword.
“Yes he does,” Mister Balister replied in a matter-of-fact voice. “I’ve watched him shatter the swords of others during practice duels. Other students get nosebleeds when facing off against him, and it isn’t from getting whacked on the snoot.”
“How do you fight somepony like that?” Piper asked. “He’s too fast and he hits too hard. It feels impossible.”
Mister Balister’s eyebrow arched and he stared at Piper. He said not a word as he lunged forwards in a blur, moving with what almost appeared to be supernatural speed. Piper felt her wooden sword snatched away out of her grasp, and in the span of a single eyeblink, Mister Balister was all over Flicker in a flurry of violence that moved so fast it was impossible to keep track of everything that happened.
She watched as Flicker was put on the defensive and he was forced to parry—Piper rather enjoyed watching Flicker having to retreat. There was a grunt from Mister Balister as Flicker scored a single glancing blow against the base of the stallion’s neck. Flicker paid for his success with a storm of hammering blows, some of which he failed to parry and landed upon his body.
Piper cringed at the sound, it was awful, the wooden sword striking flesh had to hurt and she knew that Flicker was going to be covered with bruises and lumps. Mister Balister’s assault continued unabated and the fight came to end when the older stallion swept Flicker’s legs out from beneath him, taking Flicker down to the floor and leaving him prone. Mister Balister prodded the point of the wooden sword into Flicker’s exposed and vulnerable neck.
“I yield,” Flicker gasped as his barrel heaved.
Lowering his weapon, Mister Balister stepped away. “This is how you deal with a foe like Mister Nicker. The only option is speed and enough skill to match his brute force. You have to somehow put him on the defensive, which is no small feat, then you have to strike at an opportune moment. Mister Nicker is a formidable foe whose primary defense is his incredible offense. As you have stated, he hits like a runaway wagon and crossing swords with him will scramble your brains. Do keep in mind, Miss Pie, dueling is very different than using live steel. Had he struck me with a real sword, he would have cleaved me open a moment ago.”
Piper nodded, understanding.
“Miss Pie, your reaction speed is marvellous, but everything else needs serious work.” Mister Balister turned to look at Flicker, who was getting up off of the floor, and he nodded at the colt. “Mister Nicker, you make a fine instructor for Miss Pie. See that she continues to practice during her free time. See that she is only bruised and not given serious harm. She has to learn.”
Piper felt cold chills course through her body as Flicker nodded.
“Go and hit the showers, all of you,” Mister Balister commanded, “and then get some rest. Tonight, we’re going to Ponyville to conduct a purge, so be ready for that.” The older stallion drew in a deep breath and turned his attention to Flicker. “You’ll be fighting Moonlit Gambit soon. If you need a sparring partner for practice, I might be able to help you.”
“Thank you, Mister Balister,” Flicker replied.
Hennessy, limping a bit, dragged himself over, dripping with sweat and reeking with hot horsey smell. His tongue was hanging out and he panted as he drew up alongside Mister Balister. The earth pony colt stood there, his sides heaving, and rivulets of sweat ran down his legs.
“I hurt everywhere,” Hennessy announced.
“Good.” Mister Balister smiled. “Just as it should be.” The older stallion eyed Hennessy’s fetlocks and let out a concerned whicker. “Right rear looks a little swollen. A little ice might help and you should get that wrapped with tape. Stay off of it and we’ll see how it looks tonight. If the swelling is still there, there’ll be no going to Ponyville for you.”
Ears drooping, Hennessy looked rather disappointed as his whole body slumped.
“Don’t give up, Mister Walker. You have what it takes to be a natural gymnast, but it will not come easy for you. Hard work, dedication, and many thousands of hours of practice will make it possible.” Mister Balister gave the earth pony colt a sympathetic grin. “Now, go on, hit the showers, all of you. You stink.”
Strange creatures moved through the darkness in Ponyville. Their faces were almost birdlike, they had beaks, they blended into the darkness almost to the point of invisibility, and they moved about on long spindly legs that were far too long for some. The grotesque and macabre figures moved under a cloak of silence and overhead, the Night Lady, Princess Luna, the Princess of the Night wove a comforting blanket of sleep for the residents of Ponyville with her magic.
Nestled away in their beds, most of the residents of Ponyville were quite unaware that they had such strange, surreal visitors. The rat catcher’s guild moved about on stilts, surrounding the town, preparing for the purge. Piper moved among an army of older, more seasoned protectors, including Doctor Sterling and Mister Balister, as well as a host of skilled apprentices. Tonight, her magic was going to be given quite the field test and perhaps even pushed to its limits.
But of all the strange sights in Ponyville, there was none stranger than that of Flicker herding his army of guild cats, fearsome mutated monstrosities like Spud. They had come on the train to Ponyville too, following Flicker’s command in a manner most eerie that none could explain. And so, it came to pass that Flicker was given his first real position of command and his own army.
Hennessy too, had been given a special assignment, and one that he hoped that he would do well. It was simple enough an order, but it had no end of complexity. Hennessy’s special assignment required that he be himself and so he appeared without mask or costume, like a straggler showing up late and ill prepared for the masquerade.
“Some of the squirrels started talking about how their neighbors were showing worrying signs,” Fluttershy said in a muted whisper. “Squirrels are like that, they’re gossipy, but sometimes it’s helpful. A lot of the animals are showing signs of sickness; rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks… many of the forest dwelling rodents. As usual, I’ve gathered up a healthy population and I put them in a secure, comfortable place so we can do what needs to be done.”
“Aye, Lass.” Wicked gave the sunny yellow pegasus a nod of acknowledgment. “‘Ennessy, yer job is to stay with Fluttershy and see that she gets through this night. This ‘as always been rough on ‘er, Lad. Plus, I want you to have a good rapport with ‘er. She’s a real value to us in the guild and we need ‘er observations.”
“Okay, Wicked.” Hennessy held his head high and then with a turn of his head, he looked at Fluttershy. “Do you need a hug or something?”
“Oh, yes please!” The yellow mare moved with alarming sudden speed and latched on to the young colt as the pair of them sat down in the grass. “I can’t stand it when my animals get sick, it troubles me so.” The yellow pegasus sucked in a deep breath as she tried to gather whatever courage she could muster. “Wicked, go and do what must be done. Also, I think that Twilight wanted to talk to you.”
“Aye, Lass, I’ll look into that…”
Flicker didn’t understand what the big deal was. There was absolutely no trouble to be had when herding cats. He didn’t understand why the guild cats were willing to follow him and obey his commands, nor did he question it, some things it was just better to accept. More cats had joined the herd, some house cats by the looks of them, maybe pets, maybe strays, he didn’t know.
“Disturb nopony,” Flicker commanded, his voice mechanical behind his mask, “and be careful. Go into the houses, slip in through windows, if there is an opening, find it. Hunt down the stragglers, the hiders, and those who resist the call. Search under the beds and in the dark shadowy places where our enemy loves to hide. When you find them, and you will find them, drag them out into the darkness so that we might make sport of them.”
Standing on his fully extended stilts, Flicker was a commanding figure. “I need about half of you to help me form a line and stay with me here. We need to catch the rats and rodents that might try to flee into the Everfree, and with the summoning magics, we might have animals coming out of the Everfree.”
“Meow.”
“That’s right Spud, we’ll be surrounded.”
“Meow?”
“Well, if they go berserk and swarm us, we might get to die a beautiful death. Wouldn’t that be lovely?”
“Meow.”
“That’s right, Spud, let them come.”
As Flicker stood watching, about half of his well over a hundred strong army broke off and headed for the sleeping town of Ponyville, while the other half began to spread out and form a line. Spud remained with Flicker and made a few meows now and then to command his fellows. The show would be starting soon and Flicker was filled with eager anticipation.
In the distance, Flicker could see his fellow apprentices and rat catchers moving through the dark, preparing, making ready, it would be time to kill soon. The plan was simple; get most of Ponyville’s rodent population to move towards the train station, where mass-extermination would be orchestrated. Suffocating gas, paralytic agents, and magic would be used to kill them en masse, the corpses would all be rounded up, placed in special barrels, and loaded onto the train.
Come morning, there would be no sign of the slaughter, no evidence of the purge, not one corpse left behind, no bloodstains, no hair, not even a single whisker would be left. Cleaning was an enormous part of the job. The guild had an image to maintain, and that image was one of secrecy. It was best for everypony involved if ponies just didn’t know what took place in the dark of the night.
The wait was nerve wracking. All Piper could think about was the rats swarming her again, as they had done last time. She was sweating bullets in her body suit and she trembled with fear as she relived the dreadful memory of the rats chewing on her legs. The memory of her troubling dream lingered in her thoughts as well.
“You okay, Miss Pie?”
It took Piper a few seconds to identify the voice, the masks made everything sound different, menacing, and she turned to look at Moonlit Gambit. “I-I-I’m fine,” she stammered, and as she heard the sound of her own voice, she realised that she was not fine. She was letting her fear get the best of her.
“It’ll be okay,” Moonlit said, the mechanical quality of his voice offered no comfort, no reassurance. “I am with you and there are the others. I’ll not leave your side and I’ll keep you safe. Flicker asked me to guard you.”
“He did?”
“He did.”
That was reassuring for some reason and Piper felt better. Even now, apart, Flicker was looking after her. Hennessy was safe too and Piper took a deep breath as she tried to steady her nerves. The sound of her own heavy breathing was almost deafening in her ears, she could hear the steady thrum of the respirator in her mask.
“Get the merrymaker ready,” Mister Pepper said as he drew his sword.
It took a few seconds, but Piper realised that she was the merrymaker. She would make the music that would lead the rats to thier doom. Tilting her head back, she looked up and saw Princess Luna and a wing of her guards. She was the merrymaker, she was like her cousin Pinkie Pie, she was the party pony, and she was about to throw the rats a party.
Moving a little closer to Moonlit, Piper summoned her pipe and she thought of all of the different forms it would take this night. She felt the magic flow through her, it excited her, made her feel alive, and for a brief second, she had a better understanding of Flicker—this was purpose, purpose brought fulfillment, and fulfillment brought happiness. It was easy to give into purpose and fulfillment offered a feeling of immense satisfaction.
“Play us a song, Miss Pie,” Mister Balister commanded, “and do not be afraid. No rat will harm you this night, you have my word. Mister Gambit, you’ll help me keep my word, won’t you?”
“But of course.” Moonlit bowed his head and drew his rapier. “Make a melody in the moonlight suitable for a princess, Miss Pie. Our princess is with us and our fortunes are rising.”
The encouragement was just what she needed and Piper began to play.
Drawn by Piper’s distant piping, the first of the rats came out of the Everfree. Flicker watched as it emerged from the treeline and his quick calculations told him that it had to be a good two footer, not including the tail. It moved like a jerky puppet, twitching, drawn by compulsion. It was spellbound and had no will of its own.
One of the cats got it, one of Spud’s bigger, lumpier kin, and with a single crushing bite, the rat’s neck was broken. Flicker felt an immense feeling of satisfaction as events progressed. Things were best when they were routine and methodical. Everything was going according to plan and the coordination going into this purge was considerable.
More rats came out of the Everfree, but none seemed to be escaping from Ponyville, at least not yet. Some of them had the terrible red glow of the plague when viewed through the lenses of his mask. Flicker’s cats dispatched them the moment they came out of the trees and Flicker could not help but feel somewhat disappointed that his cats were so effective. No weapon should ever be unappreciated though, and Flicker let the cats have a moment of glory. Even Spud got in on the action, biting down upon a rat’s neck, flipping it over, and then disemboweling it with a swipe of his retractable razors.
Standing up on his fully extended stilts, Flicker likened himself to some great general, and the cats were his army. He did his best to look commanding, he kept his back straight, his neck at just the right angle, and his head held high. There were a lot more rats coming out of the Everfree now, but nothing that he and his cats couldn’t handle. He kicked a rat with one of his stilts, breaking its spine, and then he stepped on it.
Piper’s talent was powerful for it to reach out all this way. Flicker maneuvered around and kept an eye on the growing situation. There were a few more rats than he had anticipated and no rats seemed to be escaping. At least he wasn’t fighting a war on two fronts. The steady trickle of rats became a flood and a tide of vermin poured from the treeline of the Everfree.
It became a pitched battle.
Together, the cats formed a defensive huddle to better deal with the rampaging vermin. Flicker relied on his stilts to maim, injure, or otherwise kill. He also used a few well placed flicks of his telekinesis, which turned the rats it impacted into clouds of scarlet mist. The bodies began to pile up and the cats were now killing machines; claws out, teeth bared, their hairless, wrinkly bodies all flecked with blood and gore. Yowls filled the night, mixing with the sound of rended flesh, which formed a macabre lullaby fit only for the morbid and the insane.
After a few intense minutes, the tide became a steady stream, which slowed into a trickle. As the rats came, they were dispatched, either by a cat or by Flicker stomping on them with his stilts. The nearby houses had no idea what terrible menace lurked in the woods, bringing with it contagion and disease. Their owners slept in their beds, unaware of the battle and terrible slaughter going on.
Flicker surveyed his work and felt pleased. So far, no signs of swarming, at least, none that he was aware of, nothing had gone wrong, no rabid bears had come out of the woods, everything had gone more or less as planned, just as it should. Mister Pepper liked to say that the job was best when it was boring, because when it became exciting, bad things happened.
The problem was, Flicker rather liked it when bad things happened…
Atop her stilts, Piping Hot Pie knew what it felt like to be a princess, and it was intoxicating. She was protected on every side, watched over, and in her own way, she was in charge. With her piping, she controlled the ebb and flow of the stream of vermin. She moved up and down the streets of Ponyville with a parade of protectors, her royal guardsponies as it were.
This was her place. Her rightful place. And as she continued piping, she knew; this is what she wanted and one day, she was going to run the guild. As she worked, her dreams and aspirations lingered in the back of her mind, her desires, and she began to plan. She had to make herself completely and utterly indispensable, she needed to keep Flicker as close to her as possible, and by extension, this meant Hennessy as well.
For the first time in her life, Piper was in control, and it felt good. The first flickering flames of resentment towards her parents kindled within her breast, their control, their restrictions, their absolute refusal to acknowledge her as a unicorn, oh, they said they loved her as their daughter, but they loathed her magic.
Now, those words rang hollow and she felt a growing bitterness. This bitterness, this resentment, this anger, it funnelled into her magic, giving it a hint of darkness. Resentment became rage and rage… rage brought power and Piper began to realise that she could do more.
Behind her mask, Piper’s eyes suffered a profound change. The whites became a nauseating shade of green and the centers of her eyes became burning crimson maelstroms. Piper was giddy with her magic and was suffering a curious reaction. A lifetime spent withholding her magic, restraining it, being shamed for it, and now, finally getting to let it out, Piper was feeling the emotional release that came with it.
The music from her pipe changed, becoming ominous and dire. She poured her resentment and her rage into her music, all of it, she let it flow in the form of minacious notes which had the most curious effect upon the rats; they began tearing one another apart. The rats turned on one another with all of the viciousness they had while swarming, biting, gnashing, chewing, clawing, the horde of rats began to devour one another with a disconcerting savage ferocity.
Cries of alarm went up, experienced guild members believed that the rats were about to swarm and they begun to prepare for it, but the rats never attacked the guild members, no, their maliciousness was reserved for one another. Piper reveled in the destruction she was causing, the chaos she was orchestrating.
This continued right up to the point where Princess Twilight Sparkle landed, her countenance stern and somber. As Twilight folded her wings against her side, she uttered one word of command to Piper: “Stop.”
It was difficult to stop though, so difficult, after a lifetime of holding everything back, it felt good to let go. At least, it did, until Piper began to feel the wrongness of it, the vileness of it. The piping ceased, the music ended with a screech, and her rat-pipe vanished with a cloud of glittering sparks that sprinkled down like falling stars.
“You feel it, don’t you?” Twilight asked.
Piper became aware of all manner of eyes upon her. The rats weren’t moving anymore, they weren’t doing anything, they weren’t fighting or running away. Piper realised that she was hot inside of her protective suit, and she had one very bothered looking alicorn princess staring up at her from the ground, which was quite a ways down.
She did feel it and she gave a nod. Something was amiss.
All around Piper, the rats who had been in close proximity began to bleed out of their noses and ears. Many fell over and began to twitch. More and more of them dropped, their brains scrambled, and it appeared as though they were dying from a stroke, or some such ailment. Piper could feel the wrongness in her actions, but her anger, her resentment made it difficult to feel very much of it.
“I think a break is in order,” Wicked said in a loud voice as Twilight stood staring at Piper. “Clean this mess up, you lot. Finish off the survivors and ‘aul away the bodies. Piper, Lass, I think ye’ve earned yerself a lecture. I’d listen well if I was ye.”
“I have no intention of lecturing,” Twilight said in a subdued voice that was husky with emotion, “but I do intend to offer up a warning to set somepony straight.”
“Aye, ‘ave at ‘er then,” Wicked replied as guild members all around him moved to obey his orders. “Piper, Lass, yer a dear ‘eart to me, and ye’d better get yerself sorted out before I ‘ave to sort ye out.”
Sighing, Piper realised that she was in some trouble.
It was past the witching hour, well and truly into the dark of the night. The air had cooled considerably, and for this, Flicker was thankful. It got a bit warm inside of his suit. He moved with his army, prowling the outer perimeter, picking off stragglers. Something had happened further into Ponyville, but he wasn’t sure what. The flow of rats had ceased. Flicker didn’t hear the sounds of alarm or see a panic, so he assumed that everything was business as normal.
Soon, it would be time to fetch a barrel and begin cleanup of his area. There were several hundred corpses of rats, some of them messy, but this would be a quick, easy cleanup, and he wasn’t worried. Hearing a flutter of wings, Flicker turned, thinking there was a princess nearby, but when he looked all he saw was a pegasus landing close to him.
Rainbow Dash, Element of Loyalty, longtime companion to Princess Twilight Sparkle, and the fastest pegasus pony in Equestria. He wondered what he had done to get her attention, and in the back of his mind, he pondered what sort of authority she had. After a few seconds of consideration, he decided that Elements of Harmony had considerable authority, so he bowed his head.
“Wicked said to begin cleanup of your area,” Rainbow Dash said as she stared up at Flicker on his stilts. “There’s been a lull in the action and somepony is getting a pep-talk from Twilight. I don’t know what happened.” The pegasus pony shrugged with her wings. “After you clean up your area, Wicked wants you to take your cats and patrol along the river on the White Tail Woods side of town.”
“All of you are so wonderfully creepy!” Rainbow Dash shivered and gave her wings a flap. “This job looks cool and all, but I bet all the cleanup is boring and super grody.”
“It’s a living,” Flicker replied, realising that Rainbow Dash was one of those sorts of ponies. In his annoyance, his breathing increased a bit, and now it made a noticeable sound through his respirator.
“You sound like Scourge Slithers, the sworn arch-nemesis of Radiance from the Power Ponies. In the movie, Scourge Slithers gets all burned up and crispy from being set on fire after a big neon sign fell on him when he and Radiance and Mistress Mare-velous were having a big showdown. After he was all burned up and crispy, he gets remade and he’s half dragon, half machine—”
Flicker wanted to know how a dragon got burnt up.
“—and when he breathes it makes this awesome sound, just like you do and his voice sounds amazing!” Rainbow Dash stopped in her fan-fillying before she let out a squeal and revealed her eggheadedness. Taking a deep breath, Rainbow Dash did her best to look nonchalant. “That movie was absolutely ruined though with that kiss between Radiance and Mistress Mare-velous… everypony knows that Mistress Mare-velous would hook up with Zapp, because they’re awesome together, although there is something to be said about Zapp and the Masked-Matterhorn getting together, because that would be kinda hawt…”
The little pegasus mare shuffled around on her hooves in a manner that most would find a little awe-inducing in its awkward, fillyish adorableness. But not Flicker. No, he just wanted to do his job, not discuss inane comic book movies. He looked down at Rainbow Dash and drew in a deep breath which reverberated through his respirator.
“Is there anything else?” Flicker asked.
“Nope!” And with that, Rainbow Dash flew away, taking off in a streak, grinning with awkward reckless abandon.
Hennessy’s keen eyes watched as his fellows worked in the distance, cleaning up an enormous mass of corpses strewn about in the road, and nowhere near the train station where the killing was supposed to happen. Head cocked off to one side, his ears flopped over, he wondered what went wrong and he watched with idle curiousity. He felt Fluttershy shift against him and he sighed. The yellow pegasus was nice and he liked her a great deal. She was quiet, calm, and kind.
A second princess flew overhead and Hennessy watched as Twilight swooped just above the thatched rooftops. A blue pegasus with a rainbow mane and tail flew beside Twilight and Hennessy wondered what it might be like to be a pegasus.
“You’re not like the others,” Fluttershy murmured, trying not to be offensive or say the wrong thing as she attempted to make conversation.
“I s’pose I ain’t,” Hennessy replied as he shook his head. “I ain’t a killing sort and I just signed a pacifist’s writ. I want to give life, not take it. I ain’t sure what to do with my life though, not yet.”
“Sometimes, as awful as it is, you have to take life,” Fluttershy whispered as Twilight circled overhead and in the distance, tall, grotesque distorted shadows, dark shapes in the night, moved about, doing their ghoulish job.
“Flicker takes life and I don’t think he ever gives a second thought about it.” Hennessy felt Fluttershy snuggle a little closer to him and the yellow mare shivered. “For him, it’s as natural as breathing. It bothers me a bit that he’s so good at it, but that’s just his way. I just wish that he’d have some sort of feeling about what he does. He’s my friend and I worry about his soul. Sometimes I wonder if he’s even aware that he has a soul. He doesn’t do much to look after it.”
“You worry for your friend, that’s touching.” Fluttershy took a deep breath and the feathers on her wings fluffed out to keep her warm in the cool night air. “I worry for my friends too. I suppose I am the caregiver in our little group. Twilight’s become a little colder, but she won’t admit to it. Some bad things have happened. And Rainbow… she got bored once she became a Wonderbolt. Rainbow likes to chase things, I guess, and once she has them, she gets bored. She’s changed too since she started going off with Tarnish and Daring Do.”
“I worry for Piper too,” Hennessy admitted, musing on what Fluttershy had revealed to him, and he marvelled at the complexity of friendships. “I love her like a sister and it bothers me a whole lot that she’s becoming like Flicker. Piper has a lot of ambition and need for power. She’s been hurt, I think, maybe her parents didn’t do it on purpose, not like how my Pa did, but I done reckon that Piper thinks that having power will make her feel better. Those who feel powerless tend to want power, I done reckon.”
“I understand. Twilight is that way, wanting more power, but she actually has good parents, and I don’t think she feels powerless very often.” Fluttershy blinked, her ears perked, and for a short time, she looked quite troubled. “I keep Twilight and Rainbow leveled out, that’s my purpose, I think, as their friend. The past few years have been hard and I’ve had to do a lot of soul searching. I’m not the pony that I once was, my friends have changed me, for the better I think, and I’m pretty sure that I’ve changed them too.”
“So it falls on me to keep those two leveled out?” Hennessy asked.
“Well, somepony has to,” Fluttershy replied. “If I wasn’t around to be the quiet voice of reason for Rainbow and Twilight, things might be very different for both of them, and not in a good way. Twilight is becoming more and more aggressive and I take it upon myself to hold that in check.” She sighed, paused for a moment, and then after another forlorn sigh, she continued, “And Rainbow Dash has this root, it is a tiny, fragile, delicate thing, and it is all that keeps her in Ponyville. I have become its caretaker, I see that it is nourished and tended to, because if it was to die, I think Rainbow would blow away with the wind.”
“You sound wise.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that… some time ago, I went to the druid grove, seeking answers for a problem, and I allowed that place to change me,” Fluttershy said to the colt beside her in a low, soft voice. “It awoke something within me, some awareness that I can’t explain. It’s made me a better pony.”
“Maybe I should go there.” Lifting a front hoof, Hennessy began to rub his chin.
“Everything comes with a price…” Fluttershy’s voice was flat and cold. “Be careful what you ask for, Hennessy, you might get what you need, not what you want.”
“I don’t follow.” Hennessy shook his head and became aware of the fact that Fluttershy was stroking his neck with her wing.
Fluttershy tilted her head back and looked up at Princess Luna, who continued to circle overhead. “When the spirit of the grove touched me, I don’t know what else to call it, I became painfully aware of the cruelty of nature, the lack of compassion… being the Element of Kindness, I found the opposite of everything I believe in and place my hopes in… as I drowned in the water where Tarnish destroyed Grogar’s crown, I realised, life was all about suffering and pain… that is all there is, and living is all about avoiding pain. We eat so we don’t feel the pain of hunger. We run from monsters so we don’t feel the pain of death and being eaten. Life is about the avoidance of pain.”
“Huh.” Hennessy drew in a deep breath and tried to wrap his mind around what Fluttershy had said.
“It isn’t enough to avoid the pain though,” Fluttershy continued, “avoiding pain is just base survival, and it doesn’t mean much. It is existence, and nothing more. That’s not the same as living. Living…”—Fluttershy pulled Hennessy closer and gave him a squeeze—“living is what happens when you find meaning in the suffering, with meaning comes understanding, with understanding comes purpose, and with purpose comes fulfilment, and somewhere in the middle of all of that, if you are lucky, you find wisdom. But it only comes if you embrace suffering, not run from it.”
Hennessy was unable to respond, but he gave serious thought to Fluttershy’s words as the pair of them lapsed into an agreeable, comfortable silence. Enough had been said, and now, it was the time for thinking, to strive for meaning. The colt realised that he had made a friend, somepony he could have deep, meaningful conversations with. Flicker was not one for navel gazing and Piper… well, Piper wasn’t much for it either.
This felt good, and Hennessy was thankful for the company of the sunny yellow mare.
Staring off towards the White Tail Woods, Flicker thought about how close to home he was, but still so far away. He was working and he couldn’t take a short walk to go and visit his family. There were rats here, by the river, and his faithful minions did his bidding. His cats went into burrows, into hollow trees, beneath the bridges, and everywhere his cats went, rats and rodents died.
Moving on stilts allowed Flicker to move about and make good time as he went from bridge to bridge, following the old farm roads that circled through this area and went back to Ponyville. There were new houses here, new farms, new growth, and as more ponies pushed into the White Tail Woods, more animals would be displaced. The wild animals would get into the garbage, break into houses, and they would bring fleas and other parasites. With parasites, incidences of disease would increase.
Civilisation came at the cost of pushing back the wilderness, pushing back the wilderness displaced the wild animals, and the wild animals brought with them contagion. It was a cycle that gave Flicker a reason to pause and consider the odd quirks of life. After a little thought and weighing the various options, Flicker came to a very simple conclusion.
The wild animals could be killed and civilisation could be allowed to flourish.
As far as conclusions went, it wasn’t his very best, but Flicker wasn’t so good at figuring these sorts of things out. It was the reason why he seldom allowed these flights of fancy and he pushed these thoughts out of his mind so that he could return his attention to doing his job.
With his brain now cleared, other things rushed in to occupy his consciousness. He thought of his sister, how close she was, just down the road and over a bridge, in fact. Thinking of family, Flicker’s mind brought up the issue of Hennessy. Family of his own was a delightful possibility in the distant future.
How would it work? What would happen? Would it be possible? He didn’t even know how to define his current relationship with Hennessy, but it was something like a good friendship with interest… interest in what though? There was a vast, empty, unknown space that loomed before him, something that existed outside of work and purpose. The strict, orderly civilisation of Flicker’s mind just pushed a little ways into the expansive, unknown, unexplored wilderness of his heart… and didn’t like what it had found there. The wilderness was fraught with danger, it was brimming with the unknown, and Flicker was very much becoming a Canterlot pony.
The thought terrified Flicker so much that he shoved it out of his mind and pretended as though it never happened. It was better to do his job and focus upon that, rather than flights of fancy. There just wasn’t enough dynamite to properly explore the wilderness and deal with all of the things he might encounter there.
“If I were a chocolate, I’d be the dark, bitter kind that nopony likes!” Piper let out a huff and sniffled a bit, trapped on the verge of tears. It was almost dawn, it had been a long night, and Piper’s current state of exhaustion wasn’t doing anything to help her mood. She flounced over onto her bed, bounced, and almost fell out.
Flicker, lying in his bunk on his back, turned his head to look at Piper. “I like dark, bitter chocolate.”
“Oh, you would!” Piper let out a half-laugh, half-sob, almost choking, and curled up in her bed as she pulled her blankets over her. “Princess Twilight seems to think I was abused! Can you imagine that? Sure, my parents were less than perfect, and they weren’t too keen on my magic, but abuse? I think not! Twilight seems to think that my little… my little… outburst was due to my magic and my emotions being suppressed…” the filly’s words trailed off and ended with a faint soft but shrill squeak.
“Piper?” Hennessy’s voice was sleepy, but filled with concern.
“Magic was something that my parents always promised that we would talk about later, but never did. The talk never happened—when I tried to talk to them about it, there was always some reason to avoid it, or they would put me to work, or I’d be lectured about being frivolous when there was so much to do.” Closing her eyes, Piper pulled the blanket over her head. “My mother and father love me… or they say they do… how could they abuse me? Is that really abuse?”
“I don’t think it was done on purpose,” Hennessy remarked, trying to prevent a void of silence from forming.
“I think I disagree—”
“Flicker, how can you say that?” Wiggling in his bed, Hennessy rolled over so that he could look over the edge of his bunk so that he might see Flicker down below him.
“Piper is a unicorn. Magic is a part of what she is. Rather than face that, her parents just delayed and avoided the issue every time it was brought up. That seems like avoidance, which is something you have to choose to do. It’s like when Knick-Knack has a tantrum and my mother decides to let her cry it out. She has to ignore my sister’s crying and pretend like it isn’t happening.”
There was a whimper from Piper’s bunk and she was just a nondescript lump beneath her blankets. In his bunk, Hennessy pulled his head back from the edge and laid it back down upon his pillow as he pulled his blankets up to his chin. The earth pony colt yawned, unable to help himself. The silence crept through the room as the trio began to succumb to sleep. It had been a long night and now, it was almost dawn.
“We’ll talk about it when we wake up,” Hennessy said as he fought to hold back another yawn. He managed to hold out for a while, but it finally escaped and he let out a whine as his mouth fell open. “I still don’t think it was intentional, but I’d like to think that your parents love you, even if they don’t like your magic.”
“Thanks for trying to make me feel better,” Piper whispered from beneath her blankets.
The trio was now expected to eat in the common mess hall with the others. They sat together in a corner, by themselves. Hennessy was still half-asleep, Piper, anxious, was wide awake, and Flicker ate like a machine, shovelling stuff into his face because it was a job that needed to be done.
“Twilight wants me to send her friendship reports,” Piper said around a mouthful of food. “What a fine bunch of ponies we’re turning out to be… I have to answer to Princess Twilight for using dark magic by accident and Flicker has to dig himself out of his cutie mark hole. What a fine mess we’re in.”
“Why dig when there’s dynamite?” Hennessy asked, trying to be funny. When nopony laughed, not that he expected Flicker to laugh, but the earth pony colt was something of an optimist, Hennessy stuck his muzzle down into his plate full of pinto beans and rice.
“I’m still miffed that Twilight dared to suggest my parents abused me.” Her lower lip protruding, Piper stabbed her beans and rice with her spoon. “I’m even more upset that she might be right. She told me to tell her everything and so I did and now I wish I hadn’t because some things, once they’ve been said, can’t be unsaid. Things feel complicated now.”
Lifting his head, Hennessy, still hoping to somehow change the mood, began to recite a poem: “Beans, beans, they give you gas—they make you fart, and burn your ass. The more you eat, the more it hurts—so slow down your eating to stop the squirts.”
Piper choked on a mouthful of food and Flicker’s spoon fell down on his almost empty plate with a clatter. With a slow, almost glacial turn of his head, Flicker focused his absolute best penetrating stare upon Hennessy, and there was no readable expression upon his face. Hennessy, unconcerned by Flicker’s domineering stare, reached over and gave Flicker’s cheek a light pat with his hoof. The earth pony colt was fearless and knew that Flicker was full of bluster, but not malice.
Coughing a few times, Piper tried to regain her composure, and failed. She sputtered and spat out a pinto bean onto her plate, then rolled her eyes as she let out a huff. “Colts.” She sighed the word and shook her head. “Really.”
“I can’t be the only one who’s had a chapped asshole from farting.” Hennessy gave his companions a good natured grin. “My aunt, Dixie Whistles, she can press her dock down over her asshole and make it whistle a tune. She takes requests and that’s how she makes a living.”
Flummoxed, flabbergasted, Piper gave Hennessy an incredulous stare. “She what?”
“She can press her dock down against her asshole so she can vary the pitch and volume when she farts. She travels around as part of a vaudeville act.” Hennessy’s ears stood up straight and he gave Piper a nudge with his hoof. “Ponies pay bits to see the act, so that’s proof that farts are funny.”
Not wishing to even acknowledge that this conversation was taking place, Flicker changed the subject. “Last night was how things should be, other than your little slip up, Piper. You still did good work and we cleared away thousands of rats from Ponyville. A pretty good haul, all things considered. Wicked says the numbers are up from last year.”
“My little slip up,” Piper replied, drawing her words out and saying them in a slow, almost bored sounding manner. “My little slip up… that sounds like a cartoon movie for foals… My Little Slip Up.”
“Try not to worry about it.” Flicker, his voice hard and emotionless, gave Piper an unfeeling, chilly stare. “I’m going to help you redirect all of that anger and give you an outlet. We can’t have you doing that again and we can’t count on Princess Twilight to always be merciful. If you do it again and again, at some point, she is going to see it as an intentional act, and then you will be punished. As for myself, I will not tolerate it either. It is forbidden.”
“So you are going to sort me out.” Piper’s voice was fearful and she blinked a few times as she wondered just what Flicker planned to do. Nothing nice, she already knew that, it just wasn’t Flicker’s way to do anything the easy way or the nice way. Flicker’s way probably involved something unpleasant.
“You’re going to help me and I’m going to help you. It is in our own best interests to help one another with our respective problems.” Flicker’s words were blunt, but he felt that they were true. He lifted up his spoon, resumed eating as if nothing had happened, and ignored the way Hennessy was staring at him. Some things just couldn’t be acknowledged.
“I can’t help but feel that both of y’all are ignoring me,” Hennessy drawled.
Her head bobbing up and down, Piper replied, “Yes. We are. Ignoring you and your talk of whistling assholes.”
“Y’all ain’t no fun.” Hennessy let out a snort and then resumed eating, looking a little miffed that nopony else thought that what he said was funny.
“I didn’t get enough sleep,” Piper remarked as she ate.
“Intentional,” Flicker replied.
“Intentional?”
“Sometimes, while doing our job, we are deprived of sleep.”
“Oh, I see.”
“There are times when we are deprived of sleep or kept awake for an inordinately long time and then our performance will be evaluated. In times of crisis, we do not always have the luxury of sleep.” There was a long pause and then Flicker added, “Prepare yourself, I’m going to work you over in the gym once we are done eating. It will not be pleasant.”
“Oh bother,” Piper sighed as she shook her head. At least she had been warned.
A rather large crowd had gathered to watch and Piper couldn’t help but feel self conscious about her actions and her performance. Mister Pepper was the instructor in charge of the gym at the moment and he watched with mild amusement, which annoyed Piper for reasons she could not explain.
“Come at me, filly,” Flicker commanded as he waved his heavy wooden sword around. “Give me your anger so I can repurpose it… I want you to hit me as hard as you can.”
Gritting her teeth, Piper’s whole body tensed. She had been doing that for a while now, lashing out with as much telekinetic force as she could muster and trying to take a whack at Flicker. Even worse, he was taunting her, he was smug to the point of being infuriating, and she had no real chance of actually landing a blow on him.
But in some ways, she felt better.
Right now, it was good to feel angry and Piper had plenty of anger bottled up inside. She could be angry without thinking about it, without trying to make sense of it, indeed, right now, she didn’t have the luxury of reflection, because if she became distracted again, Flicker was going to add a third welt to her hide, which she did not want. The first two were more than enough and she was proud to have them. In the Rat Catcher’s Guild, friendship was measured in lumps, cuts, and bruises.
“Miss Pie,” Moonlit Gambit said in a loud voice, “don’t just chop down, stab down at an angle… it will act like a wedge and push Mister Nicker’s blade away.”
She understood and the concept of a wedge made sense. Backing away, wary, she kept her eyes on Flicker’s sword, wondering where it might go next. She was feeling confident that she could at least stave him off for a while. Unleashing a flurry of blows, she tried using her blade at an angle and found that it worked, striking at an angle did more to push Flicker’s blade away, but she also became aware that he had been doing this to her.
It made her furious and sweat ran down her neck in rivulets.
As Piper tried to think of what to do next, something heavy struck her in the back of the head, striking with enough force to make her see stars. As she staggered about, she realised that she had been clobbered with a medicine ball, which thumped, then bounced off of the floor not far away. It took her only a few seconds to understand that Flicker had done this, and he was taking advantage of the fact that she was only watching her sword.
“In organised duels, direct magical assaults are not allowed, but distractions are,” Flicker explained as he raised his wooden sword high. “You must be mindful of the dangers around you.”
As expected, during her moment of weakness, a flurry of blows rained down and Flicker’s sword came at her from every conceivable angle. Piper knew that she was in trouble and sure enough, she failed to keep her defense up. She cried out when the wooden sword struck her on her fleshy croup, no doubt raising yet another welt.
As it had happened during the night, the dam holding back Piper’s fury broke and she charged forwards to unleash a wave of clumsy but powerful blows, chopping at Flicker with reckless, rage-filled abandon, no longer caring for her own safety, no longer worried about pain or injury. Each time the wooden swords connected, she could feel the pain of the strain in her mind, her horn tingled, the pressure behind her eyes became almost unbearable, but she didn’t care. Harder and harder she struck, trying to hit as hard as Flicker did, she relied upon brute force and savage ferocity.
It felt good to be angry, and it felt even better that this violence was consensual. Had Piper been paying attention to her own body, she might have noticed the moist heat that burned through her nethers and her guts. The muscles on the insides of her thighs twitched, convulsed, pulled tight, and quivered.
Shrieking with fury, Piper brought her sword down at a stabbing angle, was blocked, and then bringing as much force as she could muster to bear, she tried to riposte Flicker’s parry. There was an almost deafening clatter of wood striking wood, and Piper’s sword shattered against Flicker’s from the force of the impact of the two swords meeting.
Blinking, Piper looked at the chunk of splintered wood that was mere inches from her eye and felt her blood run cold. Flicker had caught it, because of course he had, he could dismember and behead the training dummy with no pieces hitting the floor—he was quick. Panting, her sides heaving, her entire sweaty body covered in a foamy lather, Piper’s magic ceased to be and the remains of her wooden sword fell to the floor.
“Your anger belongs to me,” Flicker said in a cool, calm voice, and he wasn’t even breathing hard. “I will give it purpose. For now, you are weak, but I will make you strong.”
These words caused Piper to shiver and her blood ran cold through her overheated body. It was at that moment that she knew the fundamental difference between her and Flicker—she had tapped into her inner darkness, the shadowy part of her psyche, by accident—while Flicker had done so on purpose, he had embraced it, he had integrated with it and had found strength.
Piper wanted strength.
“Go hit the showers, both of you,” Mister Pepper instructed as he collected the pieces of the broken wooden sword, including the bit that was still hovering near Piper’s eye. “Congratulations, Mister Nicker, on becoming a mentor to one of your fellow apprentices. Expect high marks for performance if she does well.”
Turning about, Flicker bowed his head to Mister Pepper, then slid his wooden training sword back into the display rack. “Come, Miss Pie, let us do as we were told…”
After a shower and a few yawns, Flicker did his best to focus during independent studies. It felt good to have a little downtime, even if it meant earning his relaxation through study. Flicker had his muzzle deep inside of a textbook about critical reasoning and the common pony. It struck him as odd that such things had to be taught, and it unnerved him that such things were part of a nonstandard curriculum, according to Doctor Sterling.
All apples are fruits, but not all fruits are apples. This was presented as a self-evident, irrefutable truth, a self-supporting statement that was categorically true. Flicker scowled, bothered on some level that such things had to be taught. It was just common sense and it shouldn’t have to be explained.
Then again, Flicker supposed, he had his moments and there were many who considered him to be a little slow. Beside him, Spud farted and never woke, causing Flicker to scowl. Hennessy began chortling and Piper let out a wordless whine. Spud had a few scratches, some bites, and a few minor injuries, but nothing too serious.
“I think I like studying with a teacher,” Hennessy said as he lifted his head from his reading primer. “It’s hard to study like this on my own.”
“It reflects the job,” Flicker remarked to his roommate and companion. “There are many times when we work and get no instruction, no supervision. We have to keep ourselves on task and independent studies are a way for us to learn how to do that. Everything about this job is about achieving results.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” Piper closed her book, stretched her neck, and turned her head from side to side. “It occurs to me, we’re herd animals…”
“Yes.” Flicker’s eyebrow raised in a very Doctor Sterling-esque manner.
“And as herd animals, being independent, doing independent work and committing ourselves to independent studies goes against our social nature. Herd animals have difficulty in solitude.”
“I hadn’t thought of that, Piper,” Flicker replied. A deep crease appeared just below his horn but above his eyebrows and Flicker gave some serious, careful thought to what had just been said. “Perhaps this is the reason for so much instruction in being independent. I’ll admit, I had trouble when I started.”
“And I’m having trouble now,” Hennessy admitted.
Flicker was about to say something but was interrupted by the sounds of the alarm bell, which tolled throughout the building. His ears perked, wondering if this was a drill, but then he doubted that it was a drill, and he had a bad feeling begin to well up inside of him. In an instant, everything could change.
The bell clanged and the seconds grew long. Flicker was on his hooves already and his companions were starting to do the same. The door opened and Doctor Sterling entered, looking tired, worn down, and grim. Flicker suspected that the doctor hadn’t slept after the long night, as evidenced by the red, bleary eyes and the dark circles.
“Hennessy, you’ll be staying in this room,” Doctor Sterling began, “and as for the both of you, Miss Pie, Mister Nicker, you’ll be heading to the armory. An unruly mob is rioting in the streets of Canterlot—”
“What?” Piper shouted, interrupting.
“Prince Gosling made good on his threat. He has suspended every bureaucrat in the city until an independent performance evaluation can be done. But that is not what is important—what is important is that ponies are rioting and the city is facing civil unrest. With so much of the guard fighting down south, we’ve been called up as militia to restore order in the city.”
“I can’t do that!” Piper whined, shaking her head. “I’m… I’m a foal!”
“You are an able bodied member of the guild and you agreed to be called upon during times of crisis,” Doctor Sterling said to Piper, now looking both tired and stern.
“I’m not going to go and bully citizens!”
“Miss Pie, do you want your walking papers?”
“Hennessy doesn’t have to go?” Piper asked, stalling and changing the subject.
“Mister Walker signed a pacifist’s writ. Look, Miss Pie, this is not open for discussion. Do as you are told or you may walk. Choose now.”
Flicker became aware that Piper was staring at him with wide, pleading eyes, seeking guidance, or reassurance. He looked at Doctor Sterling, who seemed angry or agitated that Piper had questioned orders. Turning his head again, he focused on the distressed filly and felt a twinge of pity for her.
“Piper… it’ll be okay. Stick with me and I’ll keep you safe.”
“But I don’t want to hurt other ponies!” Piper said, now on the verge of tears and shaking her head. “I don’t want to throw away my hopes and dreams, either! This isn’t right! This isn’t fair!”
“Life isn’t fair, Piper, now come with me and suit up. We’ll sort this out later, when we have the luxury of time.” Much to Flicker’s relief, Piper seemed to go along with it. He saw her nod as she began crying, and a look of defeated resignation appeared upon her face.
“Stay safe.” Hennessy looked terrified. “All of you, stay safe. Flicker… don’t do anything in anger that you’ll regret later… please.”
“I’ll do my job,” Flicker replied as Piper began to shuffle for the door. “There’s no regret in following orders...”
The riot armor was heavy and didn’t fit very well. The gas mask wasn’t his real face, but it would have to do. A heavy rubber truncheon was secured against his side and he had multiple tear gas grenades. The sound of marching hooves on cobblestones rang in his ears like bells and Flicker loved the sound—it was the cadance of authority, the sound of order.
A small unit of guards marched in the front and a vast army of militia brought up the rear. Flicker couldn’t help but notice that much of the militia consisted of foals, some even younger than him and Piper. The Canterlot Military Academy was out in force, wearing their fancy riot armor. Their marching was a sight to behold, regimented ranks of young pegasus ponies, earth ponies, and unicorns all moving in unison, all in perfect lockstep.
The Guardian’s Guild were no slouches when it came to marching, either. Flicker wished that the Rat Catcher’s Guild spent more time marching, but it wasn’t necessary in the sewers. Indeed, marching in the muck would only make it splash more, Flicker knew from experience. The colt liked to think that what the Rat Catcher’s Guild lacked in marching, it made up for with scary raw intimidation.
His real face could be a little scary.
In the back, the very back, the smallest and the youngest were kept—some had to be no more than half a decade—and Flicker knew why they were here this day. They were here to learn and many important lessons would be taught this day. Piper would be learning too. Dissidents and seditionists would learn to submit to rightful, alicorn established authority. The word of alicorns was absolute and irrefutable, at least in Flicker’s mind.
“There’s a crowd ahead,” Piper said, her voice shrill and squeaky with fear.
The ranks came to a halt and Flicker could feel the pre-fight jitters. Blood was going to be spilled, there was going to be violence, and at the end of the day, the rule of law would be upheld. It was going to be glorious and Flicker was proud to be in the middle of it. Today, the city’s seditious bureaucrats would be brought to heel.
“Disperse, citizens!” a guard commander shouted, using a voice amplified by magic.
“I am Lord Fancy Pants and this is my militia,” a loud, clarion voice replied. “We are loyal to royals, we are powerful and we love this city. We offer you our aid.”
Craning his head, Flicker could see that the crowd ahead carried a banner with a rubber duck on it. It wasn’t very intimidating as far as banners went, but it was a good reminder of who ruled the city—the Lord Mayor, Prince Gosling. The seditious dissidents could use a good reminder of who was in charge and Flicker approved of the banner.
“Flicker, I’m scared…”
“Piper, it will be okay,” Flicker deadpanned, his voice too cold and emotionless to offer any reassurance or comfort. “Just stay close to me. Mister Gambit is right over there. We’re dealing with cowards anyway, so I doubt there will be anything to worry about.”
From ahead, a voice cried, “Lord Fancy Pants, form ranks and fall in behind us! You are to look after the wounded and the dead! Keep our smallest and youngest safe!”
Ears perking, Flicker felt his mouth go dry. The commander was surely just saying that as a formality. There was no way that this would end up being a real fight, and nopony was going to die today—would they? Flicker was almost certain that the rabble rousers would break ranks and run away rather than fight. There was nothing at all to worry about.
“So many of us are just foals,” Piper whined as the ranks began to march again.
“The articles of militia haven’t been updated for almost a thousand years, ever since the E.U.P. was started. They had different standards of what able-bodied meant back then.” Flicker felt a peculiar sensation but he couldn’t quite figure out what it was. “You are a unicorn, you have magic, and you can swing a truncheon. Age is irrelevant.”
“But I have to live with myself if something happens!” Piper’s voice was almost a panicked shriek. “Flicker, damn you, how can you be so calm? Something really bad is about to go down!”
“Piper, it’ll be okay…”
Had Flicker the presence of mind to do so, he might have thought about the earlier discussion about independence and the herd. As it was, he was swept up in the moment, reveling in the authority that he was a part of, the sound of marching, the glorious feeling of being part of something larger, something meaningful. The city would soon be restored back to proper order and he would be a part of that.
Ahead, a massive mob marched towards them and for the first time, Flicker understood what he had been feeling—fear. The throng ahead was thousands strong, maybe tens of thousands. A vast sea of ponies flooded the streets and Flicker, no fool, understood that the militia was outnumbered many times over.
Smoke rose from buildings, already fires had been started and Flicker’s fear was joined by rage. What was it with unruly mobs setting things on fire? Why make the city worse? What was setting things on fire supposed to accomplish, other than hurt the little ponies, the business owners, the shopkeepers, the working stiffs?
“There’s so many!” Piper stumbled in shock and Flicker grabbed her before she fell to the cobblestones. The filly struggled in the cumbersome, ill-fitting riot armor. “I’ve never seen so many ponies packed into one place, even in the really big street festivals we have in Vanhoover!”
Overhead, a number of nocturnal pegasus ponies circled, the fact that their kind was out in broad daylight was a sure sign that law and order had broken down. More guardsponies were coming in to reinforce the militia and aerial sorties were no doubt being made ready. Flicker could feel a new, unknown tension in the air and it twisted his guts into knots.
For the first time since this whole thing had started, the cold, hard reality that he might have to kill somepony settled into his mind. What might his mother say? His father? What would his sister think of him? A cold, freezing prickle crept over his belly and settled in around his groin as his aching balls retracted into his guts from fear, causing the entire back half of his body to cramp up.
“Piper, stay close to me, no matter what, do not leave my side or let yourself get separated,” Flicker commanded of the sobbing filly beside him.
“We don’t belong here!” Piper wailed as she pressed up against Flicker’s side, her whole body trembling with so much force that it made her riot armor rattle. “This is wrong, Flicker, wrong! They’re going to make us kill them, I just know it! We’re about to make an example of these ponies!”
It was now difficult to hear anything because there was shouting and the roar of the crowd as it approached the militia was almost deafening. Steeling his nerves, Flicker prepared himself. The law was a harsh mistress and from time to time, she demanded blood as a price for order. Flicker prepared himself, knowing that the blood would come from protesters and maybe from himself.
Ahead, guardsponies were preparing fire hoses and aiming them at the unruly mob. Flicker knew that fire hoses could peel the skin right off of a pony if there was enough water pressure, they could break bones, they would break the crowd and it would get messy. Firebomb cocktails were being hurled, filling the street with broken glass and fire.
“You said it would be okay,” Piper sobbed.
Sweating in cold terror, Flicker realised that he was about to break his word. He hadn’t made a promise, not exactly, but Piper had taken it as a promise. Breaking his word bothered him more than just about anything, as a pony was only as good as their word. He had told Piper that it was going to be okay and it was not going to be okay, not at all. Order came by the strength of keeping your word, keeping your promises, and all of society existed by virtue of social contracts. He needed a way to make everything okay, and his brain offered up a helpful suggestion, the sort of helpful suggestion that only Flicker’s brain could come up with.
“Piper!” Flicker barked, his own panic making his voice crack.
“What?”
“Piper, pull out my wand, it’s under my armor, and call the rats!”
“You want me to do what?” Piper shrieked.
“They’re all around us,” Flicker replied, “summon them, summon them all! Just trust me and do it!” As he spoke, he felt his wand sliding out from beneath his armor. Legs trembling, his ears perked as Piper’s horn ignited with a fierce light, and then the most dreadful piping began to play.
Flicker’s rat sense went all kinds of crazy and his panic doubled as he realised that Piper was having a surge due to her emotions. His brain made another helpful suggestion, a rare one, one that his brain didn’t offer very often.
Run.
But there would be no running, there would only be rats. Lots of rats. So many rats…
For a moment, Flicker entertained the peculiar idea that the Canterhorn was now a rat volcano as the rats erupted from everywhere. They poured from the drains in the street, crawled out of rain gutter pipes, popped out of waterspouts, and were vomited out of the mouths of decorative stone gargoyles. They kept coming in a vast swarm, up out of the sewer, bringing with them filth, stench, and disease. In perhaps the most ominous, most dire moment of this dreadful day, a strange near-silence now permeated the thin air of Canterlot, a silence that somehow existed with the sinister, reedy whine of Piper’s piping.
The rioters had stopped and were now huddled together, their eyes wide and filled with terror as the endless swarm manifested. The makeshift militia had also gone almost silent, with fearful whinnies and knickers coming from the youngest and the smallest.
The silence was dispelled by Lord Fancy Pants’ cultured voice crying, “Merciful alicorns! Vermin! Protect the citizenry at all costs!”
The noble, commanding voice of Lord Fancy Pants broke the spell and everypony present recovered from their shock just enough to begin moving again. The rioters broke ranks and many began to flee; pegasus ponies flew away to safety, unicorns gifted with a surplus of magic winked away in bright flashes of light, and earth ponies stampeded away, their hooves clattering over the cobblestones.
Even though many fled, more stayed, rooted to the spot from terror, sides heaving, panting, their eyes wide with panic. Each of them began to push and shove one another, trying to get to the center of the herd, to safety, leaving the smallest and the weakest to their fate on the outer edges of the herd.
It was the sort of chaos that Discord himself would have admired, appreciated even.
The rats kept coming and Flicker wondered just where they were all coming from. There were too many, far too many, and his heightened rat sense suggested that this wasn’t natural at all. A little voice in the back of his head suggested that Piper might have uncovered something vast entirely by accident, and Flicker had a hazy, almost panicked recollection that there were miles of old mines and tunnels under Canterlot.
Miles of old mines and tunnels that might be filled with rats.
Piper was pressing against him, terrified. He could feel the hard edges of her riot armor snagging and catching against his own. They had come to put down the gathered protesters, to stop a riot, and now, there was about to be a full scale battle. What bothered Flicker in the heat of the moment was the fact that he might not have kept his word, such as it was, because everything was not okay, things were not okay at all. This was just about as far from okay as one might get.
“Piper, stop calling the rats!”
A firehose had become a hazard and it flailed about like a berserk serpent, shooting a high pressure jet of water in every conceivable direction. Flicker had to scramble to avoid being injured and he pulled Piper and some other earth pony from the Canterlot Military Academy with him as a group of pegasus pony guards flew in to tackle the slap-happy hose.
When this fracas had started, all ranks had been facing the rioters, the protestors, with the oldest and most experienced up in the front and the smallest and most vulnerable in the rear. Now, with the rats, they were surrounded on all sides and ill prepared for the melee mayhem that was now taking place. Some of the protesters had joined the militia—panicked though they might be—and this lead to the strange, surreal sight of ponies wearing riot armor fighting alongside ponies in business suits.
Shattered glass was everywhere and it crunched underhoof while threatening to slice into tender, vulnerable frogs. Moving, reacting without thought, Flicker lifted the earth pony foal from the military academy and put him up on top of a second story balcony, up and out of the way of the chaos. Flicker had a plan, he had an idea, but for it to happen, he needed control.
He remembered how Wicked had dealt with the spider-hag and knew that would work here, but only after ponies were safe. He picked up a fallen riot shield from the military academy and began pushing his way through the crowd like a bulldozer, using his brute force telekinesis to plow right through the throng all while dragging Piper along behind him.
As he smashed and battered his way through the crowd, Flicker clubbed rats with his truncheon, striking them with enough force to turn them into a fine, chunky-hairy paste on the cobblestones. The street was already flooding, filling with about an inch or two of water, which flowed in faster than the drains could flow out. The guards who had wrangled the berserk firehose were now using it to try and put out a fire, which only added to the chaos.
Some fool had dropped a tear gas grenade and it had gone off, filling the area with choking, snot-inducing smoke. Flicker was thankful for his gas mask, even if it wasn’t his real face. Wicked and Doctor Sterling were already turning the tide, forming a tiny island of order amidst the hullabaloo all around them. Mister Balister’s barking commands fell upon the ears of the younger members of the Canterlot Military Academy and they recognised him as a voice of authority. His hard, flinty demeanour brought reassurance and courage to the young fillies and colts that would one day be officers and soldiers.
Another firehose was in use now, Moonlit Gambit had it held in the firm grip of his magic and he was firing controlled bursts at groups of swarming rats while trying not to hit protesters. Beryl Waltz, meek though he might be, stood beside Moonlit in the thick of the fight, performing first aid on those with grievous, bloody injuries. The swarming rats were voracious and blood thirsty.
“Wicked!” Flicker shouted when he was close enough. “I have an idea!”
“Let’s ‘ear it, Lad!” Wicked barked in reply.
“Clear the protesters from the area, flood the street, and hit the rats with electricity!”
“That’s a damn good idea, Lad!”
Some semblance of order was now being restored, the suggestion of order, a thin veneer that was spread over the swirling chaos. The protesters were being evacuated out and the rats were being pressed in. Injured protesters were flown out by rather green pegasus pony guards, these were rather unseasoned soldiers that had never seen a real battle before and their panic was obvious.
A group of unicorn foals from the Canterlot Military Academy had formed makeshift phalanxes with riot shields, a moving wall that stretched the entire width of the street, and these phalanxes had formed a crude corral of sorts, keeping the rats in. Stout, stocky earth pony foals from the academy had been hitched to delivery wagons, fruit and vegetable carts and the like, forming makeshift ambulances that hauled away the injured and the mauled.
There were so many injured.
Piper, now in a place of safety, was calling the rats again, and while the those under the influence of swarming were immune to her charms, she continued to draw in quite a number of those who were not. Doctor Sterling and Beryl Waltz had set themselves up a place of triage inside of a shop. Those with the worst injuries were carried up to the second floor to the balcony to waiting pegasus ponies who would carry them off to awaiting makeshift ambulances or fly them to the hospital directly, depending upon the severity of their injuries.
Flicker, now armed with not one, but two heavy rubber truncheons, did what he did best, while also getting some practice in with the complicated Dimachaerus fighting style. He battled alongside Wicked, keeping his wise, experienced leader safe from swarming, gnawing rats while Wicked prepared for a mass extermination. Some of the rats were hefty, there was a surplus of two-footers, and a disturbing number of rats were of the unbelievable variety, the rodents of unbelievable size.
Which didn’t matter to Flicker, who smashed them, cudgelled them, and crushed them, his rubber truncheons moving in a plain, uncomplicated manner. Wherever Wicked moved, Flicker cleared the way, clubbing rats and shoving ponies out of his path. Everything was being funneled into a roundabout, a circular section of road with an alicorn statue in the middle, which was where Piper was located, standing atop the statue’s broad back.
The streets that fed into the roundabout were swarming with rats, who were being pushed in by the phalanxes and drawn in by Piper’s magic. Fire hoses were being used to push the rats into the very center of the roundabout, as well as drench them, if the force of the spray didn’t kill them outright.
The pitched battle harkened back to the dark old days, the bad old days when equinekind and the lowly rat were locked in a never ending battle, with the rats seeking the shelters and the supplies of ponies, and ponies seeking to keep their unwanted visitors out. The militia and the protesters were now allies, united against a common foe. The feeling of unity was strong and the herd had come together to behave as one again.
An old pegasus mare landed on top of the alicorn statue beside Piper and began giving orders—Flicker realised what the problem was with the militia, most of the ponies in the militia were either too old or too young—and the experienced soldiers were almost all down south, holding the front line against Equestria’s enemies.
“Get up off of the road!” Wicked bellowed in a voice that echoed through the urban canyons of Canterlot. “Get up out of the water! Seek ‘igher ground, ye lot!”
Others echoed Wicked’s commands and ponies began to scramble up and away from the places where water flowed. Pegasus ponies swooped down and did airlifts of ponies down in the wet places. Flicker followed Wicked, who walked through a sea of swarming rats unopposed, heading for the middle of the roundabout where Piper stood atop the statue.
Flicker scrambled up onto the statue’s pedestal with Wicked and whacked at any rats who dared try to climb up, clobbering them into chunky jelly spiked with bone fragments and clumps of hair. There was an ominous crackle when Wicked yanked free a power line from a nearby power pole and Flicker watched, his eyes gleaming behind the gas mask, as the arcing power line was held ready.
“Clear?” Wicked asked and he waited with his murderous shadow right beside him.
“Clear!” a voice shouted from above and to the east.
“Hoi, clear!” another voice yelled from street level and to the west.
“Cleared!” somepony shouted from up on high and to the north.
“We’re good!” a unicorn standing on top of a retaining wall bellowed from the south.
“Let ‘em cook!” a guard commander shouted from his place of safety on top of a department store roof. “Let the little nippers fry!”
With a snarl, Wicked dropped the spitting, crackling, arcing power line into the drenched, waterlogged rats and the now flooded roundabout. Right away, there was an awful sound, hissing, popping, a sizzling sound, and the roundabout was filled with blinding flares of light. A terrible smell filled the area, the stench of burning hair and roasting rat meat.
Many of the rats spontaneously combusted from the electrocution, while others just popped like popcorn. Bluish white bolts of lightning arced from body to body and crackled through the water. Steam and smoke rose with the horrible stench from the burning, charring bodies of the roasted rodents.
Piper’s piping ceased.
Standing on balconies, up on roofs, standing on top of retaining walls, both protesters as well as militia alike watched as the rodent holocaust continued and the rats were consumed by electricity. The sound was dreadful and the smell was even worse. With an almost deafening pop, something blew and a massive surge of electricity went through the flooded roundabout, then the power died.
Not much moved in the streets, and what did move twitched from the intense electrocution. There were survivors, but not many, and those could be dealt with. Fires had started and the charred, burning piles of rats smouldered.
The now dreadful silence was broken by a cheer—Flicker didn’t know who had started it, but it spread like wildfire through the crowd—and the cheer became a roar that drowned out all other sound. This neighborhood of Canterlot, which had almost been consumed by rioting, was now a place of exuberant celebration.
And a holocaust of rats.
The celebration would be short for the Rat Catcher’s Guild, who would have to clean up all of the corpses and keep the city safe from contagion. Flicker felt an immense feeling of pride; things hadn’t quite worked out as he had planned, but things had worked out. Piper had a chance to be a hero, and even now, she stood atop the alicorn statue, waving to those around her.
Exhaustion was setting in and Flicker was dead on his hooves, even with his excellent conditioning. He wasn’t like Wicked, or Mister Balister, who seemed to be able to just keep going, and going, and it shamed him a great deal. There had been something of a shortage of sleep and now, Flicker was feeling it.
With the sun now setting, Canterlot faced the night, and what a strange night it would be. The protesters, who were a danger to the city just a few hours ago, were now cleaning up and helping out. There was a new sense of unity in the air as food and drink were being handed out. Ponies who might have clashed together and fought one another were now working side by side, putting everything back in order.
Flicker did not know what to make of the outcome and he did not know how he felt about the seditious dissidents—they needed to be brought to heel, and they had, but Flicker wasn’t certain if they were getting their due punishment. Of course, it wasn’t his place to punish them, but if it was… oh, if it was, what a glorious day that would be.
But that was neither here nor there and Flicker heaved a weary sigh. It was a wonder that nopony was killed, but there had been a few exceptional injuries, most of which had been caused by broken glass. Some had been chewed on by swarming rats and this day there had been a good reminder of the enemy that lurked below in the deep dark.
“You look tired,” Doctor Sterling said to Flicker and the doctor’s own voice sounded exhausted.
“I can keep going,” Flicker replied as he stood up and did his best to push past the slow, leaden feeling in his legs, which were more achy than he would ever admit.
“Good, I have a mission for you.” Doctor Sterling’s eyes glittered for a moment as a street lamp ignited and flooded the area with warm, yellow light. “Miss Pie is dead on her hooves. I need you to escort her back to headquarters. She’s inside the cafe right now, trying to recover from having multiple surges in the span of just a few days. She is having trouble even walking.”
“Oh.” Flicker’s reply was a tired gasp.
“She hasn’t had the sort of training that you’ve had to remain on your hooves even when you’re tired and she has hit the very end of what she is capable of this day.” Doctor Sterling’s ears splayed out sideways on his head and this caused his forelock to slip down over his left eyebrow. “When you return to headquarters, see that she is looked after. I am putting you in charge of her well being. Help her to recover, got it?”
“As you command,” Flicker replied, bowing his head, and not even realising that he had been duped into going home and staying there by Doctor Sterling. “I will escort Miss Pie safely home and see that she is looked after.”
Nodding, his motions slow and weary, the doctor added, “You know Mister Nicker, while you might not show much in the way of leadership qualities, there is something to be said for a pony that obeys orders. That is your strength and your weakness—”
“Weakness?” Flicker blurted out, his manners lapsing in his state of exhaustion.
“Yes, weakness,” Doctor Sterling continued, “not all orders are good ones and you’ll need to learn that some day. I suspect that it will be a very trying lesson for you. Your success hinges on taking orders from the right ponies.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m sure you don’t.” Doctor Sterling smiled and shook his head. “Take Miss Pie back to headquarters, Mister Nicker, and see that she is squared away. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go look after Mister Waltz, I suspect that we are going to have a new field medic soon, which we have a desperate need for.”
With a nod, Flicker took off to do as he was told and headed for the cafe, which had become the impromptu base of operations for cleanup and recovery. Doctor Sterling watched him go, his silvery grey eyes flashing in the pale yellow glow of the streetlamps that pushed back the coming darkness.
The good doctor smiled and there was a look of unmistakable pride on his face as he did so.
Piper limped and dragged her hooves over the cobbles from her fatigue induced torpor. Her eyes were bloodshot and the base of her horn was visibly swollen. She was plucky though and determined to walk back to headquarters without being carried. Flicker found himself admiring her and her determination. She was soft now, but with time and training, she was going to be something special, he just knew it. It made him proud to know that he would have a part in helping her become the pony that she was meant to be.
In the back of Flicker’s mind, he found himself worrying over the troubling number of rats that had been called forth from below. It was something that was going to have to be dealt with sooner rather than later, and the sooner the better. It was Wicked’s problem to deal with though, as Wicked would know best.
Overhead, the first stars began to twinkle and it seemed that Princess Luna was eager to get the night started. Flicker saw the benefit in this, as many ponies went to bed the moment the sun went down and it was just one of many ways of clearing Canterlot so that the city could return to its relatively quiet, peaceful state.
Coming around the corner, Flicker saw a contingent of guards flocked around the Rat Catcher’s Guild. This surprised him a bit and he picked up his pace, concerned and worried that something might have happened. He felt a nagging sense of worry for Hennessy and his weary sense of exhaustion fled from him as he hurried to see what was going on.
As it turned out, his fears were unfounded. Hennessy was having an amicable conversation with a one Seville Orange, noteworthy reporter, friend of the royal family, and faithful companion of Prince Gosling… Prince Gosling, who was waiting for their return it seemed. Flicker was quite surprised to be greeted by the prince and his retinue, which included a nocturnal pegasus named Hush, a pegasus pony named Hotspur, and a dozen royal guard that weren’t introduced.
“A little birdy told me that you’d be coming back home,” Prince Gosling said as he waved one wing around. “That same little birdy tells me that I have you to thank for averting what was sure to be a nasty scene.”
“Oh, that was an accident,” Piper replied as she took a step backwards, her tail swaying from side to side. “It was his idea!” The filly pointed at Flicker.
“Kids, there is no accidents.” Prince Gosling’s Broncs accent was a bit thick and the pegasus prince looked worried. “No matter how it happened, or why it happened, a lot of good has come out of it.”
“Good?” Piper’s ears stood erect.
“Yeah, good.” Gosling nodded and waved both wings around as he gestured at the city around him. “I’ve already had an emissary from the bureaucrat’s union come and meet with me about an hour ago. The middle heads are going for a vote of no confidence for all of the upper-level leadership and then we’re going to work together.” The prince folded his wings to his sides, sighed, and looked Piper in the eye. “Today was a stunning reminder that we have a common enemy. I guess the exploding airships in the sky harbour wasn’t enough to get their attention, but today sure did. Today, it affected them. It left a lot of them quite shaken. Anyhoos, we’re going to try a little game of give and take.”
“Why work with the bureaucrats at all?” Flicker asked. “Why not just be rid of them?”
“‘Cause, we need them, kid, we need them. They keep the city running and they handle all of the administrative stuff… and provide a necessary system of checks and balances.” Gosling looked troubled for a moment. “A lot of the highest level leadership though, they was a bit too conservative, and they was keeping us in stasis. They didn’t feel that things were broken, so they didn’t see the point in trying to fix things.” Tossing his head from side to side, Gosling snorted. “The rep that came and spoke to me said that it was the sight of foals wearing riot armor that rattled her… she said the fact that those laws still existed was troubling, that times had most certainly changed, and hardly any of the laws had been changed to reflect that. See, the bureaucracy, when it’s working the way it is s’posed to, it changes the laws gradually over time according to the public need, but not too quick or too fast so that we don’t have civil unrest.”
“But at some point, they decided that what we have works, so why change it, right?” Wincing a little, Piper sat down on the grass on the edge of the sidewalk and looked at Prince Gosling with wide, curious eyes.
“Correct.” Gosling began tapping the edge of his hoof against the sidewalk, making soft little taps. “So, I am letting the bureaucrats go back to work and they’re going to be getting some new leadership. Today just sort of worked out, and I’m real thankful for that. I want all of yous, all threes of yous, to come and talk to me. Keep me informed of stuff. I don’t want to spy on your guild or anything, I just want your opinions and thoughts on stuff. I’m trying to give the youth of Equestria a voice so they don’t feel ignored.”
“We can keep you informed of stuff,” Flicker said to the prince, “and we would be honoured to do so.”
“Good, I’m glad to hear that.” Gosling let out a shrill, piercing whistle that made every ear around him perk. “Okay, pack up, yous mugs, we’ve gots to get going. I have other things to put back into order and other ponies I need to check on. Let’s go.”
“Calling me a mug, why, I oughta murderise ya, ya chowdahead!”
“Hotspur, so help me, I will buck your face into next Tuesday! Seville, get your sorry, no flying hiney into the chariot so we can go!”
“I feel like I’m luggage—”
“Yous is luggage, Mister Suitcase Face, now get in the chariot! and shuddup!”
Appalled, scandalised even, Flicker wondered how anything got done. This was not the behaviour he expected from the royal prince and his retinue. His ears drooped as the wisecracking and insults continued, and he was dismayed when he heard Piper giggling. This wasn’t funny, not at all, nothing about this held even a single iota of humour.
“Tellin’ me to ride in a chariot, your mother rides mustaches, Hotspur!”
“What? My mother is a saint! Yous dirty, no good, good for nothing—”
Squeezing his eyes shut, Flicker tried to block out the sounds of the vile words coming out of the mouth of Hotspur, and he was going to have a chat with Piper about this, explaining to her all of the different reasons of why this was wrong and nothing to laugh at. With the fluttering of wings and the hurling of a disparaging, awful tribalist slur that could only be described as preening the wings of your own mother, they were gone. Flicker listened to the sounds of the hooting and hollering as it grew faint and was glad for a return to decency.
“The prince is awesome! I had no idea! He’s amazing!” Piper let out a fillyish squeal and her head bobbed up and down.
Exasperated, Flicker let out an enervated, defeated sigh. There would be no reaching her on this issue, no getting her to see his way, no means to make her understand that this was wrong.
“I’m powerful relieved to see y’all again,” Hennessy said, his voice intruding upon Flicker’s thoughts. “I was scared, seeing all the smoke rising up in the distance. It’s been a long day for me, I helped to scrub the floors and clean the place up. Let’s get you inside, it looks like it’s been a long day for you two as well, Both of y’all stink like smoke and death… phew!”
“I can’t seem to smell myself,” Piper replied.
“You don’t want to.” Hennessy’s muzzle crinkled and he backed up a few steps. “I was gonna hug ya, but I done changed my mind… ugh!”
“Oh, come on, Hennessy, give me a hug!” Piper got up in on her hooves, wobbled for a moment, and then advanced on the earth pony colt.
“Naw, I’d rather not, you has a powerful stank!” And with that, Hennessy bolted, lept up the stairs, and vanished through the front door, his hooves clattering over the stone.
Flicker let out a grateful sigh, it was good to be home again after a long day.
Awake? Flicker didn’t need to be awake, he just needed to be moving. After flinging himself out of his bed, he had left his sleeping companions in their room and now he made his way through almost empty halls looking for Wicked. He felt a powerful need to do something about the rat menace facing the city from down below and it gnawed at it his mind, gnawing away at his conscience, well, like rats.
The sun had not yet risen and Flicker wasn’t quite all there, but he had the presence of mind to be aware of it. There had been a shortage of sleep as of late, but it wasn’t anything that he couldn’t handle. It was all part of the job and he needed to learn to function as best as he could under these conditions. He yawned without opening his mouth, forcing it through his nose, which caused him to let out a squeak.
To make matters worse, he’d had nightmares all night, but he couldn’t quite remember what they were or what they had been about. Now, the feeling of unknown dread lingered with him, turning his mood a little black. He hadn’t even combed his mane or brushed his coat, which was matted from sweating while he slept. Flicker looked manic, or perhaps a bit frantic.
Ears perking, he heard the sound of Wicked’s pegleg tapping against the floor. He focused upon the sound, his head tilting off to one side, and he headed off for the kitchen area, knowing that he would find Wicked there, no doubt checking up on breakfast.
A look of amused worry was upon Wicked’s face as the two ponies stared at one another. Flicker, looking a bit out of sorts, stared at his mentor, while his mentor studied the colt standing before him. Nothing had been said yet, but that was about to change and Flicker was already filling his lungs.
“When do we begin the invasion down below?” Flicker asked.
“We don’t,” Wicked replied.
“What?” Flicker was unaware that the volume of his voice had increased a great deal. “What do you mean by that? The enemy is amassing beneath us!”
“All the more reason to be careful and not go rushing in,” Wicked said in a nonchalant manner. He kicked out his wooden leg and held it up for Flicker to view. “I went rushing off ‘alf-cocked once, and look what it did to me… just look! It’s a lesson I’ll not forget!”
Squinting, Flicker’s eyes made a reluctant downturn and he looked at the wooden leg being held out for him to view. The colt deflated as he let out a sigh and his ears splayed out, then tugged to a back facing angle. Unable to respond, Flicker began to grind his teeth together, which made a dreadful sound.
“We’re going to wait and be patient.” Wicked, hearing the sound of Flicker’s teeth grinding together, looked worried and concerned. “Yer going to take your candle exam—”
Flicker’s eyes went wide and the grinding ceased.
“—and probably your fencing exam with Mister Gambit as well. We’re going to fall back on routine and everypony is going to calm down so we’re all level-’eaded. And when I decide that it is a good time, we’ll do something, but not a moment before.” Wicked put his wooden leg back down upon the floor and leaned forward to place his weight on it. “This is part of the job, Lad… anticipation. Ye need to learn to deal with it, Lad.”
“We should strike while the iron is hot.” Flicker, hearing his own words, realised how half-hearted they sounded, and then he thought about how he sounded like a whiny, petulant foal. He needed a way to prove his point while still sounding like an adult. The colt stood there, the wheels of his brain turning, but no solutions were offered to his dilemma. Try as he might, he couldn’t make a more reasonable argument or a more compelling reason. Without meaning to do so, he found himself staring at the hideous scars that could be seen all over Wicked’s legs.
“Yer a smart one, Flicker,” Wicked said in a low voice, “and I can already see that yer using yer ‘ead. Ready yerself, when the time comes, ye’ll be one of the first that I call on.”
After several long seconds of staring, Flicker nodded.
“Night Light’ll be by later,” Wicked mentioned as he lifted his head. “Before this day passes to night, ye’ll ‘ave done yer candle exam. Do not fail me.”
“Right.”
“Good luck, Lad…”
Flicker had his nose buried in a book, but it was difficult to study. He was filled with a pressing need to do something, anything, about the threat that lurked below. Maybe he was imagining it, but it felt as though his rat-sense was tingling and had been all morning. The feeling was driving him crazy, like a burr or a goathead thorn stuck in his frog.
He could feel the corner of his left eye twitching, which drove him to distraction. There was a hot, itchy sensation that spanned his belly, which left him restless and made it difficult to sit still. No doubt, this was all part of the lesson, the ability to perform while under stress. What he needed was release, but he didn’t know how to let out everything that was pent up inside of him. He didn’t have an outlet at the moment.
“I’m going crazy!” Flicker blurted out, startling his companions and causing Piper to drop her heavy book to the floor with a thump.
“This is… unexpected, coming from you.” Piper took a moment to compose herself, she drew in a deep breath, and she let it out in a slow, drawn out huff.
“There is just too much inside of my head, I can’t take it!” Flicker snapped his book shut, put it down, closed his eyes, and then tried to avoid grinding his teeth together. “I’m the doer, I do things, I make things happen! I can’t stand sitting around and doing nothing when there is something that needs to be done! And it is driving me crazy that Wicked is right and rushing in would be terrible, but that’s what I do, I rush in because I’m the doer!”
Eyebrow arched, Hennessy looked up and glanced over at his friend, his expression one of disturbed concern. Saying nothing, his lips pressed together, the earth pony colt turned his head to look in Piper’s direction for a moment. Ears perking, Piper exchanged a glance with Hennessy, and then to both of their surprise, Flicker got up and left the room, moving with the sort of speed born by a surplus of manic energy.
The door shut with a soft click, leaving Piper and Hennessy in their room together.
It was almost painful, the realisation that he was still very much a foal, that he thought like one and had moments where he acted like one. For the past year, he had sank so far into himself that he had almost forgotten his own age. He had given up far too much of his own self trying to live up to his own cutie mark, trying to become whatever it was that he was meant to be.
Now, he wasn’t sure who he was.
He was having a crisis that he couldn’t even identify or explain. If he had some interest in music, he might’ve been able to listen and take his mind off of things. Had he some interest in art, he might have found some way to blow off a little steam and release some of the pressure building up inside of him. His feelings had become a dull thing, something shoved to the background and for the most part, ignored.
Now, they couldn’t be ignored and he had no way to cope.
Lifting the heavy wooden sword, Flicker prepared to fall back on all he knew, and he eyed the wooden training dummy. The wooden sword trembled in his grip, it quivered in his unsteady telekinesis. He didn’t even have his own room anymore, his own private sanctuary, the place where he could let himself go in solitude. Now, he was in the gym with others watching, eyeing him, sizing him up, and no doubt wondering what was wrong with him.
His fury uncorked itself as he did a charging downward slice, a move of pure power. A savage scream filled the gym and Flicker didn’t even realise that it was he who was screaming. The events of the day before, his own impatience, his shortcomings, his own foalish foolishness, it came out as pure, unbridled rage as he struck.
The sword shattered on impact, and so did the wooden training dummy. Even the metal frame gave way from the terrific blow and the dummy was sundered, dissevered in two. Heads turned and every eye in the gym was now on Flicker and the wrecked training dummy, which was now in pieces on the floor. Mister Balister and Mister Pepper, both present, took a moment to look at each other, and it was Mister Balister who took it upon himself to approach Flicker.
Mister Balister, a fearless, hard sort, looked a bit hesitant as he approached.
“Talk to me, colt, you okay?” Mister Balister paused about two yards away and eyeballed Flicker in a wary manner.
“No,” Flicker admitted as he dropped the remains of the grip of the wooden sword that he had shattered. It clattered to the floor and Flicker looked over at Mister Balister. “I’m not well at all. I think I’m having a bad day.”
“Son, I just watched you cleave a steel and wood training dummy in half… with a wooden sword. I think that qualifies as a bit more than a bad day. You’ve earned the right to be open and honest with me.” Mister Balister moved forward, but did so in a cautious, careful manner, as he if he was approaching a caged beast and he wasn’t certain that the cage would hold. “Talk to me, son.”
“I just feel moody,” Flicker said in a low voice, feeling embarrassed. “Sulky. I know that Wicked is right about something, but I still want to do what I want anyway, and everything in my head feels all messed up.”
Using his magic, Mister Balister pushed the debris of the shattered sword and the broken training dummy away from Flicker. It could be repaired later with a spell, and dealing with it wasn’t important now. When he was done moving the debris away, his horn didn’t dim, and he focused on Flicker with a caring, but harsh looking stare.
Mister Balister only had hard affection, it was the only thing he knew.
“I feel stupid because I want to be an adult about this, but I keep having these foalish moments. My mood feels all wrong and I feel out of sorts. I woke up feeling agitated, mean, and even though I know I’m wrong, I want to prove that I am right somehow.”
Mister Balister gave Flicker a cautious smile. “Son, sounds like puberty.” He said it as a joke to lighten the mood, and as such, he was surprised by Flicker’s reaction.
“Really?”
In an instant, Mister Balister’s cautious demeanour vanished and he became authorative again. His smile took a hike and he took a more aggressive stance. “Yep. Sounds like it. Don’t let it get the best of you. It’s happened to everypony that you see here.” The somewhat older, middle-aged pony gestured with his foreleg at the other apprentices in the gym. “They wake up one morning as moody, unmitigated assholes, and then I have to sort them out. Puberty is a rotten thing to go through, son. Give it about five to seven years or so and it will go away.”
“Oh.” Flicker looked relieved. “Adolescence. That makes sense. I’ve grown a lot and I’ve been eating a lot more than I normally do. Thanks, Mister Balister, I think I’ll go and sort my own self out.” Sighing, Flicker turned around and began to walk away, kicking past the remains of the broken dummy.
“Son, you go and do that.” Mister Balister drew in a deep breath, held it for several seconds as Flicker walked away, and then when Flicker was at the door, the stallion let out a sigh of relief and visibly relaxed. “Pucker factor on that one was pretty damn high, if I do say so myself.” He turned to look at the other apprentices, who were still staring. “What are you looking at? Back to work, all of you! NOW!”
Puberty. Adolescence. A period in one’s life of temporary insanity, bad decision making, and irrational behaviour. At least Flicker now had a reason for feeling the way he did and it was something of a relief to have an excuse for being so out of sorts. He had entered the next stage of life and was now in a period of transition. Insanity and uncertainty were expected. He was supposed to be defiant, sulky, and moody.
It all made sense and now, now he could just wait it out.
Five to seven years was quite a stretch, but Flicker would see it through somehow. It was a period of chaos, a time of unpredictability, but it would pass and then glorious order would be restored. At least for now, he had an excuse, a reason.
“Flicker, just the pony I was looking for…”
Ears perking, Flicker knew that voice. “Night Light.”
“In the flesh,” Night Light replied. “I just finished talking with Wicked and now, I’ve started my talk with you. Come with me, Flicker, and let’s have a chat.”
“I’m having a rough morning,” Flicker responded, feeling it was only fair to give Night Light a fair warning. “Mister Balister says that I just started puberty and it’s making me moody.”
There wasn’t even a hint of a smile or amusement on Night Light’s face. Looking very serious and concerned, Night Light nodded. “We can talk about that, too. My goodness, Twilight was a terror when she crossed the threshold, and she spent about a year writing essays on all of the ways that biology and nature had offended her and her sensibilities. She demanded to know why modern medicine hadn’t invented a cure for this insufferable condition, or some means to alleviate it.”
Blinking, Flicker just stood there, unable to process what had just been said. He didn’t want to think about Princess Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship, the Warrior Princess of Equestria, having puberty issues. Nope, these were thoughts that were unhealthy to have and they all had to go. If only there was some means of making them go away. Flicker shuddered on the inside, where it couldn’t be seen.
Sighing, Night Light moved closer to Flicker, patted the colt on his side, and said in a low whisper, “We’ll get everything sorted out, we’ll have a crack study session, have some tea, and then you, you are going to take your exam and it’ll be one less thing for you to worry about as you go through your transition.”
Night Light was sipping tea and Flicker just held his teacup. The colt was having a hard time internalising everything that Night Light had said about the trials of adolescence. It seemed that Flicker was in for a rough time, as Night Light painted quite a chaotic picture. Unicorns had it rough when entering puberty, as their thaumaturgical systems also had to mature, and those were connected to the very glands that caused puberty to happen.
As such, magical senses, such as Flicker’s own rat-sense, might have an exaggerated effect. Telekinesis became erratic at times. Even worse, magic had a strong connection to a pony’s sexuality, and the release of one could cause the release of the other. The entire thing sounded just dreadful and Flicker saw very little hope for the future. Puberty was a time for despair.
It was a talk that his own mother and father couldn’t give him, as they were not unicorns and not at all versed in thauma-biology. Flicker’s teacup trembled and he did all that he could to steady it, but to no avail. It continued to tremble in his grasp and he worried that he might drop it.
“If I am to understand everything correctly, you have an interest in Hennessy, correct?”
A hot, prickling heat crept up Flicker’s neck as he nodded.
Smiling, his eyes full of merry mischief, Night Light chortled a bit, then said, “Remember, when experimenting, to apply lots of lubrication—”
The teacup in Flicker’s telekinesis almost fell again.
“—as the judicious application of lubrication turns a lubrican’t situation into a lubrican. Remember, nopony likes friction burns.”
Blinking, Flicker’s mind fled down into the basement to ride out the storm, where it was immediately set upon by the Id and violated by the indescribable, unspeakable horrors that lurked in the recesses of Flicker’s brain. The colt sat there, blank faced, unable to laugh or even respond to Night Light’s most terrible joke.
“Somewhere in there, there has to be a sense of humour.” Night Light’s eyebrow arched and he studied the colt with vacant eyes right beside him. “You are too tightly wound, Flicker. It’s not natural for a pony to never laugh or smile. Even Twilight, for all of her seriousness, laughs on a regular basis.”
“I just don’t find anything funny,” Flicker replied as parts of his brain recovered.
“Hmm.” Night Light took a sip of tea and his brows furrowed into deep creases, making him look older. He continued to study Flicker and the middle-aged stallion drew in a deep breath, which he held for several seconds. Then, letting it all out, he said, “I think this is temporary. I think that, in time, you shall be fine. I think that your friends will help you find your smile. In the meantime, I’m going to help you get a passing grade and I’ll do what I can to help you through what is sure to be a trying day. Drink up, we have a lot to do.”
A strange, contradictory feeling of calm restlessness now filled Flicker as he studied with Night Light. Hennessy and Piper had joined him in study and a pleasant, reassuring near-silence filled the room. Hennessy was a bit distracting, Flicker found himself looking at him, but that was okay. It was all okay. Because, puberty. At least there was a reason.
There was a rough femininity to Hennessy that appealed to Flicker and he allowed himself to experience the distraction for all that it was worth, oblivious to Night Light’s soft, knowing smile. There was now a rational excuse for Flicker’s irrational behaviour… puberty, and he was relieved that he could now just let certain things slide.
While staring at Hennessy, Flicker realised that he was as ready as he would ever be and that now was the time to take his dreaded candle exam. Any further study would just be delaying the inevitable. It was time to pony up and tackle this problem, not with brute force, but with care and attention.
“I’m ready,” Flicker announced.
Pulling his head back, Night Light studied the colt for a few seconds before replying, “Are you certain?”
“It’s time to do this.” Flicker swallowed, now no longer feeling quite so certain, but he decided to go with his initial feeling. “I think I’ll feel better once I get this out of the way. One less thing to worry about.”
“Very well.” Night Light gave Flicker a nod. “I’ll go and fetch Wicked and then we’ll meet you in the laboratory.”
Leaping out of her chair, Piper scrambled to her hooves. “We’re coming, there is no way we’re letting him face this alone. Come on, Mister Walker, laziness does not become you, get up!”
“Aw, shucks.” Hennessy’s cheeks puffed as he huffed and got to his hooves. “Asterius worked me almost to death yesterday and I’m feeling it today.” Once on his hooves, Hennessy gave himself a shake and then kicked each one of his legs in turn to get the kinks out. “My back…” There was a crackling sound as Hennessy flexed his spine and the earth pony colt closed his eyes. “Ah, that feels better.”
The laboratory was a little chilly and the ventilation system thrummed as air moved through it. A number of ponies were gathered to watch, both young and old, masters and apprentices. Some of the older apprentices watching had taken the test, some had not. Flicker, young as he was, had excelled in his alchemy studies to reach this point.
Wicked stood near, his face pensive and wizened. He shifted his weight away from his wooden leg, glanced at Night Light, and then returned his watchful eyes to Flicker, who was just now beginning his test. Nopony had gone screaming through alchemical studies and taken this test at Flicker’s age, and even with his failings, Flicker was good at this. He showed a great deal of promise, his careful, meticulous nature lent itself well to alchemy. The colt’s natural fearlessness allowed him to work with volatile materials without panic.
If Flicker passed his test, he would begin advanced alchemical studies, something that most in the guild began when they were adults, or near adults. Wicked’s eyes shifted and he gave Night Light, who stood beside him, a sidelong glance.
In a low whisper, Wicked said, “I’d bet my good front leg that Mister Nicker ends up with a doctorate in alchemy.”
“I don’t know,” Night Light replied, “perhaps. He’d have to be pushed in that direction, it’s outside of his focus.”
“Then I’ll shove ‘im along—”
“Wicked, old friend, I wouldn’t push him too hard, he’ll push back.”
Blinking, Wicked bit down on his lip and watched as Flicker arranged everything around him, organising his workspace and making certain that everything was just so. “Nighty, ‘e makes mistakes, but they’re the right mistakes. We just need to snap ‘im out of his damn over-focused state and ‘e’d be brilliant.”
Nodding, Night Light agreed in silence.
Lowering his voice even more, Wicked continued, “Forget the rats for a moment and think about what the wee lad could make for war. This is why ‘e needs pushing. A mind like that can’t go to waste. Our enemies wouldn’t know what hit ‘em.”
“Wicked—”
“Just sayin’, Nighty.”
“Best to let it drop for now, Wicked…”
Sweating, doing his best to ignore his creeping mental fatigue, Flicker looked down at what he had accomplished. Several candles had been made. He wasn’t very good at alchemy and he wasn’t very good at candlemaking. His candles were a little lumpy, a bit crooked, and looked awful. He was, however, confident that this time, they would work.
Alchemy was his worst subject and the one that he had to work the hardest at. It was the subject that was the most taxing upon his mind; history was easy, fencing wasn’t hard at all, reading and writing were no trouble, arithmetic wasn’t too bad, but alchemy was the worst because it forced him to be creative. For Flicker, that was the most difficult thing to do. He liked the part of alchemy that was formulas, the sensible parts that followed rules and obeyed a sense of order, the chemistry aspect was great; but the magical side of things where chaos was introduced gave him fits.
The testing bay was already filled with rats, who huddled in the dark corners, trying to escape notice. Flicker’s eyes glittered with hatred when he looked at them and he was relieved that soon, so very soon, all of them would be dead, so very dead. Well, that is if he did well with his candles. Doing well had its own reward.
He opened the testing bay, placed a candle down in the middle of it, and closed the lid. Drawing in a deep breath, he prepared himself for whatever happened next, success or failure. His frogs were sweaty and the little hollow beneath his dock drove him to distraction, as he had a dreadful urge to somehow reach back there and begin biting at himself to relieve the painful itch.
Worst of all, his ears had started ringing and there was now a terrible pressure right behind his eyes that made his skull throb. He blinked a few times as he stared down at the candle and with a flick of his magic, he lit the wick, which sputtered a bit before finally producing a greasy looking flickering flame.
The candle did nothing for a time, but then began to release a gas. It was like heat shimmering on the road, colourless, invisible, but it blurred the air. One by one, the rats in the corners stiffened, then began moving towards the candle, compelled by some unseen force. So far, so good. Flicker was astounded by his own success so far. Other than a bit of a delay in the beginning, it was working.
As expected, the candle sizzled and the flame changed colour, now burning an unpleasant bluish-green with ghastly yellowish flickers. The gas took on a pale yellow colour and the flame, sputtering, almost went out. Flicker’s balls were now in his throat, crammed in tight with his beating heart.
The rats, called forth by the mesmerising gas and held in hypnosis by the flickering flame, did nothing as the yellowish gas billowed around them, and that was when things went wrong. The gas was only supposed to kill them, but Flicker saw the undeniable evidence that he had made a mistake.
One by one, the rats began melting like wax as the yellowish gas smothered them. Eyes dribbled from sockets, ears melted off, little fuzzy faces slid off of little bloodied skulls. The rats writhed in the dreadful gas and each of them became puddles of goo, sloughed off wads of skin, bits of fur, and bone. Flicker’s ears perked and pivoted around, trying to home in on the source as the sounds of retching filled the laboratory. Several apprentices vomited on the floor, while others fled the room, gagging and coughing.
His heart sinking down into his bowels, Flicker prepared to deal with the consequences of failure…
“That’ll turn me off of my lunch,” Wicked remarked in brusque tones as he looked inside of the testing bay at the rat puddles. “By the alicorns, what a bloody mess!” Wicked coughed and watched as one of the rat puddles bubbled, almost as if it was boiling. “Fine work, Flicker.”
“But… I failed.”
Wicked inhaled and looked down at the colt looking up at him. “And what makes you think that?”
“The results aren’t the same… I don’t know what happened… I did everything right!” Flicker stammered.
“Flicker, calm down.” Night Light came forward and with a soft touch, he tried to calm the colt down. “Alchemy will never be a perfect science. Alchemical reagents always, always react to the alchemist. Your own special magic infused with your reagents to produce this result. Everything worked just the way it was meant to.”
“I… I… I don’t understand.” Flicker sat down on the floor, turned his head, and looked over at the testing bay, which was still filled with swirling gas. “Why can’t it just be perfect and do what is expected?”
“Lad, for a colt that just passed ‘is candle exam, ye look awful glum.” Wicked turned away from the bubbling rat soup in the testing bay and shuddered.
“But it wasn’t perfect and predictable!” Flicker shouted, the volume of his voice rising. “They weren’t like yours at all!”
“No, those candles are unmistakably yours.” Night Light’s voice was gentle and kind. “They worked exactly as intended. They worked perfectly, as your candles.”
“But—”
“No buts, Lad. Alchemy is what it is.” Wicked glanced over at Hennessy and Piper, then back down at Flicker. “Ye deserve a bit of downtime. Go off with yer friends. Maybe get out for a bit. Go for a walk. Clear your ‘ead. Even if ye ain’t 'appy with yer own results, ye passed.”
Looking crestfallen, Flicker nodded.
“Blow off some steam, Lad, and ye’ll feel better.” Wicked gave Flicker a proud smile. “Go on, get! I’ll clean up ‘ere, I don’t mind. Get out of ‘ere!”
“Congratulations, Flicker.” Night Light helped Flicker get back up on his hooves. “We’ll talk later today. You did well. Alchemy gives Twilight fits as well, as she expects perfect, predictable results. You did very well and I look forward to working with you in advanced alchemical studies.”
Donut Joe’s was going through a lull. It was funny, before meeting Piper and Hennessy, this was just another place for Flicker, one place of many, but now, it seemed to be the place. A small mountain of crispy, glazed and unglazed crullers sat in the middle of the table, along with some frosted donuts, some cream-filled, and some jelly-filled. A thermal carafe filled with strong, rich coffee had been left at the table for the trio, and a pitcher of cream.
A small fortress of sugarcubes sat in the middle of the table, made by Piper, and she was now constructing a monstrous donut-creature. Hennessy, a cup of coffee gripped in his fetlock, watched Piper with great interest, while Flicker just stared out the window, distracted and out of sorts.
There were only two other patrons at Donut Joe’s, an earth pony wearing a hideous, tacky tropical print shirt and a donkey that spoke with a curious, southwestern Equestrian accent. The both of them spoke in hushed tones and the donkey kept prodding the earth pony with her hoof while making loud, indignant snorts.
Piper crammed the donut-creature she made into her mouth and it squirted red, sticky jelly everywhere as she tore its guts open. Hennessy rolled his eyes, shifted in his seat, and then looked over at Flicker, who was still staring out the window. Reaching over, he prodded Flicker to get his attention.
“Hey,” Hennessy said in a low voice, “stop looking so glum, you passed. It’s all over and all you’ve got to worry about now is fencing. I can help you build a fence.”
Chortling, Piper had glaze and sticky red goop go dribbling down her chin, which she wiped away with a napkin. Flicker however, had no response other than looking at Hennessy with a blank stare. After a moment, Flicker shook his head and resumed looking out the window. Sighing, Hennessy poked Flicker again with his hoof, determined not to give up on somehow making Flicker feel better.
“So what kind of a fencer is Moonlit anyhow?” Hennessy asked. “Is he like you, a hard hitter?”
Still staring out the window, Flicker responded, “He’s quick and fast. He doesn’t hit very hard. His telekinesis isn’t very strong, but he has a ridiculously long range for his magic, which I lack.”
“Range?” Hennessy looked confused as he drew his head back and his ears angled over his eyes as deep creases appeared in his brows.
“Unicorns have different ranges,” Flicker replied as he turned his head to glance over at Piper. “I have a very small radius for my magic before it loses potency. But in my small radius, I have a lot of telekinetic strength.”
“Which we’ve all seen,” Piper remarked as she cleaned the last bit of red jelly from her chin.
“Moonlit, he has a very large radius of potency, giving him an extended reach, but he doesn’t have a lot of strength. He’s fast though, very, very fast, and that makes me nervous. He hasn’t figured out how to teleport his weapon yet, though, so I have that going for me.”
“I wonder what sort of fencer I’ll be…” Piper let out a huff, inhaled deep, held it, and then let it out in another long, drawn out huff. “You know, at first, I didn’t see the point of fencing as a unicorn, but I think I’m catching on. It helps you find your limits and hone your magic. It isn’t spellcasting, but it is still pretty useful.”
“There are things that will resist your magic.” Flicker’s voice was low and flat as he spoke. “There are awful things in the sewers, things birthed by foul alchemical waste and magical pollutants in the sewer. Dangerous things that are far, far worse than rats. I’ve seen some things.” As he spoke, he thought of the spider-hag; that hadn’t come from the sewer, but it had certainly left a lasting impression on him. There were awful things in the world, just waiting to be discovered.
“So, Moonlit is fast.” Hennessy looked thoughtful and he studied Flicker, his eyes lingering on the colt as he looked him up and down. “And this makes you equal fencing partners somehow?”
“I guess, Mister Balister seems to think so. Moonlit and I are both considered mid-range in our skill.” Flicker slumped down in his seat a bit and his black coat rumpled. “I don’t feel good about this match”—the colt shook his head from side to side—“only one of us can win, the other loses, and the loser takes a hit to their grade. I like Moonlit and I don’t want to do that to him.”
“Oh… that sounds… well, I don’t know, but I don’t like how that sounds.” Piper’s expression soured as she lifted up her coffee cup and she blinked as she slurped some of the pale brown liquid from her cup.
“It is supposed to teach us grace in losing and loss.” Flicker shrugged a bit and his ears pivoted forwards. “We can’t always win or be victorious. And when Moonlit and I have a go at one another, somepony will have to lose. I don’t like it, but I understand why it is done this way. As Mister Pepper says, there is a lesson in everything. I can be a gracious loser if I have to be, but I don’t want to lose. At the same time, I don’t want Moonlit to lose, because he’s not a bad sort.”
“I don’t like losing,” Piper confessed, “and I don’t think I could be gracious about it.”
“So, this fencing, it’s just swords banging together, and no magic?” Hennessy asked
“No direct magical attacks,” Flicker replied.
“But indirect ones are allowed?” Piper now looked curious.
“Yes, but they are frowned upon.”
“But they are allowed.” Piper clopped her front hooves together, which made Flicker’s ears perk. A devious grin appeared on Piper’s face and she rubbed her front hooves together as her own ears splayed out sideways.
“I prefer to have an honourable duel,” Flicker said in a cold deadpan as he focused his steely gaze on Piper.
Shrugging, Piper replied, “And I prefer to win. To each their own.”
Eyes narrowing, Flicker poured himself some coffee, refilling his cup, all while he stared at Piper, scowling at what she had said. He added a little cream and a sugarcube to his coffee, stabbed in his spoon, and gave it a good stir. Across the table, Hennessy made an impressive slurp from his own cup of coffee, a slurp so loud that Donut Joe himself glanced over at the trio.
Fearing that his friends might bicker, Hennessy changed the subject as he put down his cup on the table. “Doctor Sterling tells me that I still can’t see my mom. She’s in the asylum wing of the hospital and she’s having something called delirium tremens. He says she’s not herself at all right now. I’m worried.”
The tension vanished as both Piper and Flicker stopped staring at one another and instead they focused on Hennessy. The earth pony colt now looked both relieved, a bit sad, and a whole lot worried as he sucked in a deep breath.
“They’re trying a new experimental treatment,” Hennessy continued, his eyes dropping and focusing on the sugarcube fortress in the middle of the table. “They drain out all of her blood and give her fresh blood from a donor. Doctor Sterling says that he is hopeful that she’ll respond well to it.” Hennessy’s barrel hitched and he looked up at his friends. “I just want her well… I left everything behind me, everypony and everything, and I just want her well.”
“Experimental treatment?” Piper’s voice was now thick and a little husky with concern.
“It reduces the cost,” Hennessy replied as he squirmed in his seat. “This is gonna cost me. I could’ve had her put in the poorhouse asylum, but they don’t do much in the way of treatment there, so Doctor Sterling talked with some ponies that he knows and a deal was made where some of my wages will be docked for a long, long time. I’m fine with that.”
Looking disheartened, Piper crammed a whole unglazed cruller into her mouth and began chewing, her ears rising and falling with the movement of her jaw. Following her example, Hennessy did the same, only somehow managing to cram not one, but two crullers into his mouth. There was much lip smacking as he chewed and he drummed his hooves on the edge of the table.
There was a loud gulp when Piper swallowed, and she looked around at her fellow companions with bright, excited eyes. Sucking in a deep breath, she bounced up and down in her seat, overcome with exuberance as she had a most wonderful idea.
“We should all go out tonight and see a concert,” she blurted out. “Well, that is if the concert is still on after everything that’s happened and we can somehow still get tickets, that is. That might be the tricky part, getting tickets. Octavia is putting on a show. I’ve been dying to see her live and in pony.”
Flicker groaned and rolled his eyes. When he did, Piper slugged him right in the shoulder while Hennessy watched in wide-eyed astonishment. Flicker, turning his head, gave Piper an icy stare, but did not retaliate, as his stare was more than enough.
“Don’t be a boob,” Piper said, chiding Flicker. “This could be wonderful for all of us, and I think Hennessy could use some cheering up as well.”
Glowering at Piper, Flicker’s eyes blazed with dangerous inner fires and his nostrils flared. “I suppose this might be a way to satisfy Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom,” he muttered, “and try to develop some interests with my friends.”
There was a whinny from Hennessy and it turned into a chuckle. He watched his friends, his eyes glittering with amusement, and after chuckling for a bit, he gave a nod. “I’d like to see a concert. Maybe Flicker and I could sit together and he could hold my fetlock.”
As Flicker turned his baleful stare upon Hennessy, Piper let out a squeal and said, “Let’s finish up these donuts and then let’s go and see if there are still tickets for sale.” This caused another groan from Flicker, which the over-excited and happy filly ignored. Lifting her coffee cup, she gulped down the contents and then began cramming her mouth full of donuts, in a race to outdo Hennessy, who had a fantastic lead.
Flicker’s hard expression softened and with a turn of his head, he resumed looking out the window. His horn glowed with a faint, soft light and he lifted up an unglazed cruller. He ate it with small, polite bites, interspersed with sips of coffee. One ear twitched when Piper oinked, making fun of Hennessy and his eating.
While the others were clearly excited and happy with the prospect of a concert, Flicker just looked bored.
The urbane canyons of Canterlot were a strange place at times, ever-changing and odd. Riots could happen one day and a day later the streets could be a snarl of traffic as a cargo convoy hauled a load of precious, priceless ambergris to a perfumery. The wagon convoy had a group of protectors from the Guardian’s Guild that Flicker recognised. He didn’t know them by name, but he had met them on a couple of occasions now.
As he and his companions tried to find a way around the traffic, Flicker could not help but feel that there was something menacing right beneath his hooves, lurking below, down in the dark, maybe below the sewers. The sewers were a strange place, an actual maze, and were constructed from the ruins of the old Canterlot. A long time ago, when the city was still new, there had been an earthquake. No one was quite certain of the cause, some blamed mining in the mountain, others blamed magic, but the damage done to the city was catastrophic.
Much of it had fallen down into a sinkhole and other parts just fell over. The parts that had fallen over had been pushed into the sinkhole to fill it and now, the undercity of Canterlot was a strange, strange place indeed, filled with curious warrens made of the bones of old buildings. Old tower sections formed cisterns that held stormwater and sewage. The rooms of old mansions could still be found, somewhat intact. In his many excursions into the sewers, Flicker had seen some strange things, and there were even ponies that lived down there.
Down there, the rats thrived.
Far below in the confusing maze, there were no doubt thousands of openings and passageways to the old mines and Flicker had heard stories that the Canterhorn had been completely hollowed out by ponies greedy for gems. For Flicker, it was a nightmare scenario. Who knew what enemies might be lurking below, waiting to strike the city?
But he couldn’t sit and brood about it because he was expected to go to a concert and have a nice time. There wasn’t much he could do, he was just one pony, if he did go down there alone, he would get himself killed and he knew it. But it didn’t stop him from thinking about it and the ways to solve the problem.
Pumping vast quantities of gas down there would be stupid; the gas would leak and the ponies of Canterlot would suffer. The city would need to be evacuated, which was possible, but that would cause a panic. Ponies panicked too much and Flicker felt a fundamental sadness as he contemplated this fact. His species was prone to fits of stupidity when massed together and herd-think ruled the day.
Shaking his head, Flicker fought back a sneeze. Ambergris… what need did ponies have for whale vomit, anyhow?
As Flicker traversed Canterlot, the colt came to realise that there were a lot of things about the world that irritated him to no end. Perhaps it was puberty colouring his perceptions, but there were things that just should not be. Like slight curves in the roads, or odd angles—all roads should be laid out in a perfect grid with perfect right angles. Canterlot had a lot of curiously crooked roads, and Flicker found that he hated them. Oh, he loved this city, but he hated the roads.
And the cobblestones. Oh, alicorns, he hated the cobblestones. They were not all of uniform size. Some were square, some were rectangular, some were worn, others looked to be almost brand new. Even worse, some were of a different colour… ugh. Whomever was responsible for the cobblestones needed to be motivated to do a better job.
Flicker knew from experience that the lash was an excellent motivator.
Something about the buildings bothered him as well, but Flicker couldn’t quite put his hoof on what it was. Canterlot was supposed to have a certain look to it, and the older buildings conformed to this just fine. But some of the newer buildings… they were garish. Garish things had no place in his fair city, and if he was in charge, he would have that fixed right away.
Never once did Flicker think that the bright, cheerful colours of the houses of Canterlot were a reflection of the bright, cheerful colours of the ponies that lived within them, otherwise, he might have thought that ponies too, needed a bit more conformity. As for Flicker himself, he was rather drab and uninspiring, all things considered.
Turning the corner, Flicker let out a huff of relief at what he saw.
The ticket booth had a surprisingly short line for an Octavia concert. There weren’t many ponies out here trying to buy last minute tickets—and that suited Flicker just fine. Just a few ponies, a minotaur, and a pair of griffons waited in line. One of those ponies however, it wasn’t like the others, as it was very, very big.
Flicker joined the queue and fell into place right behind the big nocturnal mare, feeling a little in awe of her. She was a bit scaley and she was wearing protective goggles over her eyes to block out the sun. She smelled a bit like woodsmoke, maybe burning cedar, and Flicker was consumed with a strange curiousity as he studied her.
“It feels strange, to be stared at with appreciation,” the big nocturnal mare said as she cast her glance back over her withers at Flicker, her eyes unseen behind the dark glass of her goggles.
“He’s sorry, he just stares at everything.” Piper let out a fearful squeak and fell into the queue behind Flicker. “Please, uh, don’t take offense or anything.”
“You’ve recently used dark magic.” The big mare sniffed and a scowl turned her features hideous. “You still have the stink of it about you.”
“And Princess Twilight Sparkle lectured me for it,” Piper replied, her voice becoming squeakier. “It was a surge, I couldn’t help it, I have a lot of things repressed.”
Turning about, the big mare focused on the much smaller filly as she trembled. “Truth is spoken. Fascinating.”
“I’m not about to lie to a Warden.” Piper dropped her eyes and stared down at the paved sidewalk. “Which I’m guessing that you are.”
“I am Warden Gavel. You may call me Warden Gavel.” The big mare smiled, revealing a mouthful of terrible, horrendous teeth. “You… Flicker… yes, Flicker…” The big mare almost seemed like she was savouring the word ‘Flicker’ somehow and her nostrils flared as her sides expanded. “You know, too much order is just as bad as too much chaos. You need to relax a little bit, friendo.”
Bristling, Flicker did not reply, but he shuffled on his hooves.
“Puberty has not been kind to you,” Warden Gavel said with a hint of a chuckle in her words. Reaching out a wing, she touched Flicker on the cheek, an affectionate gesture that Flicker shied away from. “You know, had you been born as one of us, you would have been pulled from the general population for Warden training. It’s rare to meet one of you day ponies with such a rigid, structured mind. Normally, your kind is a frivolous, squirrelly lot.”
“Yeah.” Flicker grunted the word and he looked up at the big mare, surprised by her blunt honesty.
Hennessy, standing behind Piper, held his head up high and gazed at the Warden with unabashed adoration, the memories of that night at the police station still fresh in his mind. His amber eyes were filled with the light of worshipful appreciation—Princess Luna was his patron princess and her Wardens were her chosen messengers.
Piper’s squeaky voice broke the silence that had settled in—“Squirrelly?”
A wickering chuckle slipped from Warden Gavel’s lips and her wings flapped against her sides. “You, especially, are quite squirrelly, little filly.”
These words caused Piper’s lower lip to protrude and her eyes narrowed. “And Flicker isn’t squirrelly?”
The big mare inhaled and the corners of her mouth turned upwards. “No, he is more of a mongoose in search of a cobra. The mongoose does not know why it hates the cobra, but it does, it just does, and the world is better for it.”
“Flicker, are you blushing?” Hennessy asked.
“No!” Flicker snapped in reply as his ears angled aggressively over his face.
“If anypony here is squirrelly, it’s Hennessy, because he’s after some nuts,” Piper deadpanned, doing so in a manner that only a Pie could.
It took several long seconds for Piper’s words to sink in and Hennessy’s mouth dropped open. The colt blinked a few times, and his ears drooped when Warden Gavel bellowed with laughter. Shuffling on his hooves, he kicked the cobblestones as he let out a coquettish giggle and then said, “Yeah.”
Flicker continued to purplefy and his murderous expression intensified as he waited in the queue.
The remaining tickets were quite expensive, far, far more bits than Flicker had on his pony at the moment. Far more bits than Piper and Hennessy had. Flicker suspected that he was witnessing price gouging, which irked him, but he wanted his friends to be happy. Somehow, they had to get tickets.
Confident, Flicker stepped up to the booth and eyeballed the unicorn inside. Much to Flicker’s relief, he saw a bank agent star on the unicorn’s bright blue vest. “Going to need three tickets, please. I have an account with the Canterlot Guild’s Bank—”
“Yeah right, kid.”
Taken aback, Flicker blinked once and then stared in shock.
“I understand that yous wants to sees the show, all of yous kids do, but these tickets are expensive and there is no ways that I am falling for that trick—”
“It’s no trick!” Piper’s voice was shrill.
“Is there a problem?” Warden Gavel’s voice was gritty… and more than just a bit scary.
“Naw, no problem, just some punk kids—”
“Who are telling you the truth,” Warden Gavel growled. “For Princess Luna’s sake, you are a bank agent! You have magic to help you do you job, you lazy, worthless, flyblown, festering pile of manticore shit. How dare you insult some of the hard working ponies that do a thankless job that keeps our fair city safe?”
The unicorn cowered inside of his booth, looking as though his bladder was about to suffer a critical failure.
“You are supposed to take everypony at their word as a bank agent, and use your magic to determine if they are honest or not.” Warden Gavel drew in a deep breath to continue her lecture and her scowl was filled with far too many teeth. “You do a job that keeps our city running, the management of transactions of money. Not only have you insulted these three apprentices, but your careless, lazy actions would have cost your employer a considerable sum of bits… for shame!”
The unicorn gibbered and closed his eyes.
“Thank you,” Hennessy said to Warden Gavel as he remembered the importance of etiquette and being polite. The colt’s tail flicked from side to side and he pressed up against Piper, looking nervous and out of sorts.
“You leave me with no choice but to report this infraction to your employer,” Warden Gavel said to the unicorn in the booth.
Trembling, the unicorn opened his eyes and looked at Flicker. “My apologies, good sir… I is ready to take your account information for the secure transfer of bits. I’s real sorry for my earlier lapse.”
“You should be,” Warden Gavel said in a deep, throaty, baritone growl. “You’re not off the hook, Mister Speckle. Do your job so I don’t have to do mine.” Her lip curled back into a snarl and she let out a snort that made every pony present flinch.
Something wonderful burned deep within Flicker’s barrel, a deep and abiding love of the law. Society had to be kept in order and in some cases, harmony had to be enforced. He looked up at Warden Gavel, thankful for her presence and her service, even if she had helped to mercilessly tease him. Taking a deep breath, Flicker made ready to share his account information.
The place was packed, packed to the point of being uncomfortable, and the only seats left were the really awful ones. That didn’t matter to Flicker, as he didn’t care about music. What he cared about was the happiness of his friends, much in the same way he cared about the happiness of his sister. And right now, they were happy.
The Canterlot Heliotrope Theatre boasted that it had five thousand seats, and almost all of them were filled. The seats that Flicker had purchased were up at the top of the round, towering arena, and the stage was far, far down below, in the middle of the tower. Perhaps a pair of opera glasses might have been good, as Flicker saw quite a number of ponies peering through them.
The seat was upholstered in vivid green velvet and the wood was worn smooth with age. A cigarette filly roamed the rows of seats—the name was a bit of a misnomer as she appeared to be middle-aged—selling cigarettes, cigars, and a small selection of overpriced treats to appeal to those who forgot to buy snacks at the only somewhat overpriced concessions counter. She even had little bottles of rye whiskey, gin, and rum.
The air was almost blue with smoke and Flicker could smell the sweet, heady, almost sneezy scent of hookah tobacco coming from someplace, no doubt a private booth. Without even realising it, he was caught up in the moment and filled with anticipation of what was to come. The atmosphere around him was visceral and an assault upon the senses.
“How much longer?” Hennessy asked as he elbowed Piper.
“Over an hour,” Piper replied, “oh, I wonder if they’ll do a pre-show. This place is packed.”
Far below, the stage almost looked tiny. Flicker could see the spotlight shining on two instruments, and not the orchestra he was expecting. A cello and a big purple-black piano stood in an island of light, both waiting for somepony to play them. Flicker liked pianos—oh, not for their music—but he appreciated them for the marvellous mechanical contraptions that they were. They were engines of harmony, everything working together in precise perfection to produce something meaningful and good.
For Flicker, this was something that gave him the warm-fuzzies, though he’d never admit to it.
“I think I’m afraid of heights.” There was a loud gulp from Hennessy and he peered down at the stage far below. “Every time I look down, I get all dizzy-headed and the ground starts moving.”
These words made Flicker think about his long fall from the airship. He shivered a bit, his ears twitched, and he felt sweat beading up on his frogs, all of them. It would have been a long ways down with a very sudden and abrupt stop at the end.
“Just stop looking down, you dunce.” Piper poked Hennessy with her hoof and rolled her eyes in disgust.
“But the stage is down there!” Hennessy let out a snort of protest and poked Piper right back. The colt swallowed, blinked, and then looked over at Piper. “I don’t know if I like open tower designs like this one.”
Hennessy’s long drawl made it sound as though he had said, “This’un.”
A few levels below, somepony coughed while somepony else brayed with laughter. Flicker wasn’t so sure about this, distractions such as those would take away from the music and he wasn’t so sure that he understood the appeal of concerts. Still, the ponies around him sounded happy, and that was a good thing after the civil unrest they had just experienced.
“We have some very special guests tonight,” a voice said, filling the empty spaces of the theatre with warm, crackling sound. A yellow-white pegasus mare could be seen on the stage far below. “The former Lord Mayor, Prince Blueblood himself, is with us tonight, and he is the patron that made this show possible. None of these shows would be possible without our lovely patrons, and this theatre would have been torn down ages ago without the love and appreciation of our lovely patrons, those noble souls that keep the arts alive.”
The crowd roared with applause and the pegasus mare waited.
When the crowd quieted enough for her to continue, she did. “Also with us are a noble group of champions that keep the arts alive for all of you to enjoy!” There was a pause as a murmur crashed through the crowd like a wave, and the pegasus mare flapped her wings. “A.K. Yearling is with us tonight, acting as a representative for Daring Do, who has made yet another fabulous donation! With her is Tarnished Teapot, the Professor of Voracious and Horrendous Flora at Baltimare Downs University, and a known champion of the arts.”
It took a while for the cheering to die down and the pegasus mare’s head bobbed up and down as she made gestures with her wings. Stepping closer to the microphone, she went on with her speech. “And of course, the third member of our beloved trio, Rainbow Dash, who graciously donates much of her earnings as a Wonderbolt to fund music and art programs in Equestria’s inner city regions. We, the fine upstanding citizens of Canterlot, thank you, Rainbow Dash, for your continued contributions!”
This time, the applause was deafening and Flicker was forced to cover his ears with his hooves. He didn’t understand this appreciation for the arts, but this was an undeniable reminder that music was important to ponies. This seemed like it was a big deal and Flicker wasn’t even aware that the arts were in trouble. Of course, he didn’t understand how there could be trouble, a musician just had to pick up and start playing their instrument, right?
Scowling, Flicker just didn’t understand what was going on.
Peering down, Flicker was somewhat surprised by just how good his vision was. All of the lights had dimmed, but he could see quite well, and he was a little mystified by it. The crowd had a strange silence to it, a silence that carried with it a demand. Overwhelmed by sensation, Flicker’s ears pivoted to face every sound around him. A cough, somepony breathing, the creak as somepony shifted in their seat, each little noise drew forth a reaction.
A trapdoor in the middle of the stage far below opened, and Octavia rose up on a lift. She was wearing a slinky black evening gown, and her mane was pulled back into a tight, severe looking bun, making her look a bit like a schoolmarm. She stood there for a moment, took a deep breath, and then addressed the crowd.
“Hello, and a fine how do you do to all of you. As you no doubt know, I am Octavia.” The prim little mare paused, cleared her throat, and then turned about on the stage so that she might have a good look at all of her audience. “Tonight, I must ask you for your best behaviour, as I have a very special guest with me. He’s a little shy, and it took me so much convincing to get him to do this. Please, I ask that you treat him with the same respect that you would treat me.”
The trapdoor opened again and the lift rose, bringing with it a short, squat, bipedal figure wearing a tuxedo. The crowd gasped upon seeing that it was a diamond dog, and Octavia made a gesture for him to come over to her. Flicker watched with great interest while all around him, the crowd reacted to the sudden appearance of a diamond dog on the same stage as Octavia.
“This is my friend, Johann Bark.” Octavia lifted her head and peered up at the nosebleed seats. “He’s quite young, timid, and shy. Just like I am.” She waited for a moment so that the crowd might laugh at her joke, then continued, “He and his family immigrated to Equestria from Germaney. They are hard working, industrious, and young little Johann here, he has a dream to play the piano. He’s quite good. The problem is, he is having trouble getting gigs because of his species… and I find this sort of behaviour reprehensible.”
Flicker leaned forwards in his seat and looked down. Much to his surprise, he was able to focus upon the expression on Octavia’s face, even from where he sat, which was quite a ways away. He ignored the crunching sounds from beside him as Piper snacked on some granola.
“Why, Johann, you look smashing,” Octavia said to the diamond dog standing beside her.
“Thank you,” he replied with a gruff accent.
“Are you ready to begin?” Octavia asked.
The diamond dog’s sharp inhale could be heard on the microphone, and then he nodded.
“Very well then, let us begin…”
After a brief swell of silence, the music started. A few notes came from the piano, and then Octavia coaxed something beautiful from her cello. She moved like a gardener tending some priceless, fragile rose, and her body swayed as she leaned into her cello with a tender embrace.
Johann was hunched over his piano, his ears bouncing as he struck his keys, his paws moving in a smooth blur. His tail wagged from side to side behind him and the spotlight faded, becoming dim. The diamond dog kept his head down, his nose almost to the keys, and his long arms allowed him an amazing reach of the keys.
The music crashed against the audience like waves against the rocks and a peculiar feeling of emotion overtook Flicker. He thought of his sister for some reason and was moved to some unknown, maudlin emotion that made his heart feel heavy. Like so many others around him, Flicker found it difficult to breathe—some unseen, unknowable force clamped itself tight around his barrel, and try as he might, he could not break the spell.
The music was as sad as it was haunting and Flicker had no defense against it. In moments, he was laid bare, his insides raw and exposed. His head felt heavy and it made his neck stiff to hold it up. Without even realising that he was doing so, he reached out, seeking comfort, and his fetlock wrapped tight around Hennessy’s foreleg, gripping it in a sweaty, fearful embrace.
Hennessy looked up, his mane spilling down over his face, and he said nothing as he glanced at Flicker. Then, the colt looked down at Flicker’s fetlock, his eyes glistening with liquid emotion in the faint, dim light. Sitting on the other side of Hennessy, Piper did the same, clutching at the earth pony colt, and she began to sniffle.
Octavia’s magic was inspiration, that was her gift, her talent, and it did not translate well to recorded form. For all of the times that Flicker had listened to various records of hers, he had felt nothing, for such was his talent, his gift, which gave him stoicism as a boon. But now, exposed to Octavia herself, the earth pony with, perhaps, the most powerful magical talent of this era, he bore the full brunt of it and was powerless against it.
Flicker was inspired. He had placed the last vestiges of his equinity into his sister as though she were a vessel. He had stripped himself of weakness, of frailty, and he had voluntarily made himself a machine made of meat, muscle, and sinew. In this moment, exposed to Octavia’s most powerful magic, Flicker was inspired to be a better pony. Not a machine that wore a mask and black body armor, not a mindless killer that obeyed every order, but a better pony.
All those things that Flicker saw as weakness and buried were now uncovered and exposed. Octavia, moving her bow across her strings, recovered those hidden treasures, those bits and pieces of Flicker that he had stashed away, feeling as though they were useless. And not just Flicker, either, but everypony (and everybody) in the crowd.
Hennessy and Piper were not spared either. Both hurt, both harmed, both of them were laid bare by Octavia’s magic and the two of them suffered the same reaction as Flicker. Sitting together, the three of them began soul-searching, with Piper and Flicker both clinging to Hennessy.
There was nothing that anypony could do but ride it out. Swept up in sensation, overcome with emotion, Flicker felt it far more than his companions because so much of himself had been lost. With each note, each resonant note of Octavia’s bow caressing the strings of her cello, Flicker could feel buried, long hibernating, even long-dead parts of himself waking up and springing to life. For Flicker, this was a frightful, turbulent spring after a long, cruel, unforgiving winter.
Unable to bear the onslaught, Flicker wept as Octavia poured her heart into his soul.
Weary, sweaty, shaking, and starving, Flicker let out a moaning whimper of relief when the music ended. Applause did not come right away, no, the audience was just as drained as he was, and there was a vast, smothering silence as all present tried to recover. The lights remained dimmed, and with there being no music, the sound of weeping could be heard in the dark.
A murmur passed through the crowd—the sound of many sniffles and snuffles all happening at once. The sound of bodies moving against themselves, against each other, of forelegs wiping eyes and bodies being embraced. All of these things had a sound, and they could be heard now in the melancholy dark.
Octavia placed her cello on its stand and slipped the bow into a decorative glass vase beside it. With both of her forelegs, she smoothed out her gown, tossed her head back to throw loose strands of her mane out of her face, and then dropped down on all fours, moving with a fluid, silken grace normally found in feline creatures.
Looking a bit dishevelled, his bow tie askew, Johann rose from his piano bench and then shuffled over to stand beside Octavia. He bowed at the waist, stiff, and when he rose, he tilted his head back to look up and around at the audience, who were still recovering.
At long last, some applause began. It was weak, weary, it was an exhausted but still somehow enthusiastic effort. Most were still too stricken to do much of anything and some were in a fugue-induced fugue. Up high, in his lofty seat, Flicker struggled to comprehend what had just happened and why he felt the way he did, just like so many others.
“I need some fresh air,” Piper said in a thick, sibilant whisper to the others.
Nodding, Hennessy agreed. “I do too.”
Ears sagging, Piper turned her head to look Hennessy in the eye. “I’m sorry if I was all sweaty while I held onto you. I feel rather awkward…” Her words trailed off with a nasal whine and she could say nothing else.
“Don’t mention it.” Turning about, Hennessy looked over at Flicker. “You okay?”
There was no reply from Flicker, who looked rather vacant. Hennessy poked him and there was no response, just a blink. Hennessy tried again, this time waving his hoof in front of Flicker’s eyes and even booping him on the snoot. Flicker remained unresponsive, and Hennessy sighed.
“He needs some air, I think. Think you can carry him outside, Piper?”
“Yeah, but first I really need to pee…”
It was now almost midnight, and in the chilly night air, Flicker revived. He sucked in a few deep lungfuls of air, snorted, and then took off at a hurried trot that startled his companions. They moved double time to catch up to him, and fell into pace with him as he hurried down the crowded streets of Canterlot, streets filled with other concert-goers departing the show.
“Flicker, where are we going?” Piper asked as she bumped against his side.
“There is a place I need to be,” Flicker replied, but he did not elaborate any further.
“I’m starving.” Hennessy sniffed the air as though he was hoping to smell food. It was late, but there were still places open and he looked around with a hopeful expression as he walked. “Flicky, that place you needed to be, can we eat there?”
“No.” Flicker’s voice was a flat, nondescript deadpan that offered no feeling.
“Dog farts.”
“Ew, gross, Hennessy, really?”
Ignoring his companions’ banter, Flicker moved like a pony with purpose through the crowded streets of Canterlot.
Pausing, Piper studied the building made from pale pink marble. To one side was a florist's shop and the other side, a chocolatier’s confectionary. It seemed somehow apropos, given the nature of the building. For the life of her, she could not figure out why Flicker would want to be here, of all places, and she was baffled.
Flicker didn’t seem to be the sort of pony that would visit one of Princess Cadance’s chapels.
Flicker moved through the door without pausing, and when Hennessy halted in the doorway to get his bearings, Piper shoved him through. It was rude to stop in a doorway, and she felt justified with her hard shove to get Hennessy moving. As she passed through the doorway, she saw Flicker go to Princess Cadance’s statue and sit down in front of it.
The statue of Princess Cadance was an odd construction, it showed the princess sitting on a heart-shaped pillow beside an open box of chocolates. A pink spotlight was affixed on the statue, bathing it in an almost labial pink glow. Just looking at it made Piper feel rather moist and she shuffled, embarrassed, curious as to why she had the reaction she was having.
She crept closer to Flicker, feeling almost afraid, and there was a peculiar sensation that she was intruding on something private in this most public of places. There were other ponies here, but not many. Glancing at Flicker, she realised that he was praying—his eyes were closed and his lips were moving, though words could not be heard.
Embarrassed, she felt a hot, searing flush move through her body, and she looked away as her ears burned from a keen feeling of awkwardness. She looked at Hennessy and watched his non-verbal response—he shrugged. An unwelcome sense of confusion settled over Piper and she tried to make sense of all of this. Why would Flicker come here to this place?
Even worse, it felt as though the statue of Princess Cadance was looking right at her. Piper tried to dismiss the feeling, but it made it worse, and she averted her eyes, staring down at the floor, hoping and praying that she had not offended any supernatural force. Princess Cadance’s eyes were now boring a hole right into her skull, into her brain, and drilling into wherever Piper’s soul was secured.
“Why are we here?” Hennessy asked.
Gritting her teeth, Piper hoped that Flicker had finished praying, lest the statue of Princess Cadance turn her stony fury upon Hennessy. She glanced upward for a moment, saw Princess Cadance looking down right at her, and she averted her eyes once more.
“It’s equinal,” Flicker replied, and he said nothing else.
Smacking his lips once, Hennessy was undeterred. “Is this about me?”
“No.” Flicker’s response was a husky grunt.
“But this place is about love, isn’t it?” Hennessy leaned in a little closer to Flicker and poked him with his hoof.
Saying nothing, Flicker looked up at the statue of Princess Cadance for a time, and then he returned his gaze to Hennessy as his face contorted with some unrecognisable emotion. Flicker shuddered, blinked once, and then turned away from Hennessy, unable to look the earth pony colt in the eye any longer.
“Don’t you dare shut me out,” Hennessy said with a surprising amount of force and anger.
Bristling for a second, Flicker looked at Hennessy, and Piper sucked in a deep breath without even realising it. She gnawed her lip, fearing the tension that was now thick in the air, and she could feel all of her stomach muscles contracting as her teats grew hard from fear. There was a weird energy in this place that Piper just could not deal with.
“I came here so I could let you in,” Flicker admitted, and then saying nothing else, he closed his eyes once more, bowed his head, and continued praying.
Hennessy watched and waited as Flicker headed out the door, off to take a morning shower. He suspected that Flicker hadn’t slept much, as when he woke up, Flicker was standing and staring out the window. Spud had Flicker’s whole bed to himself. Feeling concerned, he elbowed Piper in the ribs.
“He’s gone weird,” Hennessy muttered, “well, weirder. I’m starting to think that concert was a bad idea. I’m worried, Piper, and kinda scared.”
“I’ll admit, I’m rather frightened myself. He had a weird look on his face this morning when he was just standing there, staring out the window.”
Hennessy nodded, but didn’t know what else to say.
“I need a shower myself,” Piper mentioned in passing. “Before I go… Hennessy, I think Flicker could use a bit of reassurance for his fencing test. I have an idea, a cracking good one, and I think you and I could pull it off.”
“Okay, I’m up for it, whatever it is.”
“Good… good… I’m going to go and shower.”
“Me too. I am going to watch Flicker shower.”
“Naughty!”
The rug had been yanked out from beneath Flicker and his world was filled with chaos. Flicker detested chaos. The rats were chaos in small, disgusting, wretched bodies, and oh, how he hated them for what they represented. Yesterday he had been flying high, or so it felt, having a wonderful moment of catharsis when he had shattered the training dummy.
Now, well, now he very much felt trapped within himself.
Last night, he had felt, and he didn’t like it, not at all. What he had felt unnerved him, almost broke him, and the awareness of the cavernous emptiness inside of him had almost unhinged him. He had a woeful lack of preparation to deal with what he had seen inside of himself. His self discovery had almost broken him. He was a hollow shell of a pony that wore a mask as his real face. Beyond the mask there was little else, just a machine for murder and mayhem that was made out of gristle, muscle, bone, and sinew.
Octavia’s music had echoed within the vast, empty space inside of himself, a haunting, unwanted reminder of just how meaningless his existence was. Kneeling before Princess Cadance’s statue had been like lancing a wound, only to find that everything was shriveled up, dessicated, and empty inside, because there was nothing for disease to find purchase on.
He couldn’t even understand what had driven him to Princess Cadance’s shrine, other than he had felt a powerful tug, a pull, he had felt something and it was powerful. Kneeling there, praying, Flicker had realised one horrible truth about himself, a truth so terrible that even now, he wanted to deny its existence.
There was no love for himself.
He was not a harmonious creature, no servant of order.
“Mister Nicker, are you having a problem?” Mister Balister’s voice was stern, harsh, yet still had a faint hint of worry.
“Yes,” Flicker replied, being honest as he realised that he had been staring at the same spot on the wall for an unknown period of time, and he probably deserved a good head-thumping from Mister Balister. “Yes, I am collapsing in upon myself, Mister Balister.”
“Well, we can’t have that.” Mister Balister’s voice softened a bit, but not much. “Since you cannot seem to study, is there something else that you would rather be doing? Something productive?”
“Could you hang me by my hind fetlocks so I can do a thousand sit ups? I need to sort out what’s in my head, Mister Balister.”
“Very well, Mister Nicker. I shall hang you, as requested, and you shall take some equinal time to sort out your head. A thousand sit ups it is, then.” Mister Balister’s eyes narrowed with worry as he watched Flicker rise out of his seat. It was never a good sign when ponies like Flicker began showing cracks and ponies with his level of training could do a lot of damage if they flipped their wigs.
Joined by Doctor Sterling, Piper and Hennessy watched their friend doing sit ups while hanging upside down, hung by his hind legs. Flicker had been going at this for a while now, and the three ponies watching all did for different reasons. Doctor Sterling watched with a look of worry that was plain to see upon his face. Hennessy watched with fascination, as there were just so many rippling muscles on display. Piper watched with envy, and wondered if she could even perform a single upside down sit up.
“Undone by a concert,” Doctor Sterling muttered. “I’ve heard that Octavia has rare and powerful magic for an earth pony. It seems that she has ensorcelled our Mister Nicker. I sent word to the Crusaders, maybe they can help. You say he went to Princess Cadance’s shrine?”
“Yes,” Hennessy replied, his head bobbing up and down in time to Flicker’s sit ups.
“Now, why would he go there, I wonder?” Doctor Sterling, perplexed, used his magic to smooth out his handlebar mustache. “Being a warrior, I would think that if Mister Nicker suddenly found religion or a need to be spiritual, he would go to Princess Celestia’s shrine or Princess Luna’s. What would possess him to go to Princess Cadance’s shrine, I wonder? She is enshrined as the Princess of Love and the Patron of the Arts.”
“Patron of the Arts?” Piper turned away from Flicker to look at Doctor Sterling.
“Each princess is a patron of various professions and interests,” Doctor Sterling replied, explaining their purpose to Piper. “Princess Celestia is the patron to soldiers, warriors, and wizards. She is also the patron of wainwrights, for some peculiar reason. Princess Luna too, is also a patron to those of martial professions, but her shrines are just now being reestablished, due to Prince Gosling.”
“Princess Cadance’s school focuses on the arts and the equinities,” Piper said, reciting her newfound knowledge.
“Correct, which is why artists worship her.” Doctor Sterling eyed Flicker, his worry increasing. “Princess Twilight Sparkle agreed to allow herself to be enshrined as the Patron of Scholars, but only on one condition.”
“And that is?” Hennessy asked.
“She demanded that her shrines, if she had to have them, be used as public libraries.” Doctor Sterling made a gesture at Flicker and then asked both Piper and Hennessy, “How many sit ups do you think he has done?”
Both Hennessy and Piper shrugged, as neither had been keeping count.
The earth pony colt drew in a deep, almost shuddering breath and then whispered, “Flicker could be the Patron of Ripped Abs.”
“He could indeed,” Doctor Sterling replied. “He does this when he gets stressed out over something, or bored. He exercises obsessively when he’s feeling high strung.”
“Those muscles…” Hennessy’s words came out as a longing hiss, accompanied by the trembles.
“You really fancy him, don’t you?” Doctor Sterling asked.
“From the moment I laid eyes on him,” Hennessy replied. “He’s handsome.”
“Love at first sight,” Doctor Sterling said, sighing. “Such a magical thing. You just look at a pony and feel that magical, electrical connection. It really is quite grand, isn’t it? Or maybe it is lust at first sight, but I really do want to be an optimist, in spite of how awful everything really is.”
“Oh, Doctor Sterling, before I forget, I need your help with something. We want to do something nice for Flicker before his fencing exam. Something to help cheer him up and make him feel good.” Piper tapped on the floor with her hoof and she squinted at the good doctor. “He’s been a good friend, and I want to do something nice.”
“Tell me about your plan, Miss Pie…”
Wicked’s office held a princess, but it was not the one that Flicker was expecting. Summoned by Mister Pepper, he had stopped doing sit ups and come to Wicked’s office right away, something he regretted. He wished that he had showered, that he had cleaned up, that he had made himself presentable.
The pink pony was impeccable, perfect, and it was all he could do not to fall to the floor and grovel, something she had forbidden him from doing the second she had laid eyes on him. He now stood, trapped, his backside against the door, wondering what would come of all of this.
“Some time ago,” Princess Cadance began, “I had quite a moment of alarm. I have some interesting danger senses as an alicorn and I am still getting used to them. Some of them do take me by surprise though, and you took me by surprise. Which is why I am here. Of course, I was in town anyway, to visit family, but I figured, hey, since I was here…”
Flicker gulped, terrified. In a creaking voice he asked, “Why are you here?”
Eyes-widening, Princess Cadance smiled. “Did you not ask for me to come into your life?”
Ears drooping, Flicker gave thought to the princess’ words; he had, in fact, asked her to come into his life, he had done so at the shrine, but he had not expected this to happen. He averted his eyes, feeling unworthy, the emptiness ached within him and he couldn’t bear to look upon such a perfect, beautiful creature.
“We’re still figuring this prayer thing out,” Princess Cadance admitted. “But last night, I felt you. I felt your sincere, heartfelt desire to be loved. I was right in the middle of lecturing Gosling for letting Flurry roll around in paint so she could make pictures with her body. I swear, that pegasus…” As her words trailed off, the alicorn rolled her eyes and whatever else she was going to say came out as a groan of frustration.
Flicker wondered if he had inadvertently spared Prince Gosling a terrible fate.
Returning back to the task at hoof, Princess Cadance’s expression became solemn. “You… you pledged yourself to my service and promised to be my devoted servant if I gave you some small measure of peace. You are the second warrior to have done this, and I must confess, I am baffled and a whole lot flattered.”
“The second?” Flicker asked, bewildered. He watched Princess Cadance take a deep breath and her wings flared out from her expanded ribs. She had a curious, serious look upon her face, and he could not fathom the emotion he saw in her eyes.
“Yes, the second. The first shall go unnamed for the sake of their privacy, which I respect.” Holding her head high, Princess Cadance studied Flicker, and with a soft touch of her magic, she smoothed out his mane and then gave one of his drooping ears a playful, affectionate tug.
“I looked into myself,” Flicker confessed, “and I didn’t like what I found.”
“We seldom do,” Princess Cadance replied. “Tell me, Flicker, do you love?” She already knew the answer of course, but she wanted to hear him say it. Self-actualisation was something she treasured.
Still as a statue, Flicker did not respond right away. Precious seconds passed and his blank stare intensified. More seconds passed, then a minute, and then about a minute and a half later, Flicker broke. He bowed his head, closed his eyes, and made an admission of the great sin he had committed. “My love is meaningless and has no warmth. It is something I use as an excuse for duty. I use it to justify my transformation into whatever it is that I am becoming. Of all of the aspects of harmony, of which love might be the greatest, I have exploited it. I have done so ruthlessly and without a shred of remorse. Of all of the alicorns, the manifestations of the will of harmony, I have sinned against you the most and I am undeserving of your forgiveness. I request penance.”
Her proud neck bent and Princess Cadance shook her head. “Oh, poor Flicker… it pains me more than I care to admit to hear you say that. Come here, Flicker.”
Seeing Cadance advance, Flicker panicked and his stoic mask, a thin shell indeed, broke. He tried to take a step back, but his behind was already against the door. She loomed over him, larger than life, a menacing, terrifying shade of pink. There was no escaping her, no fleeing, and Flicker let slip a gibbering cry as she wrapped her wings around him.
Flicker’s knees gave way beneath him, and he would have fell, but somehow Princess Cadance held him up with her wings. Her embrace was warm, soft, kind, and something about it made him think of his mother, Twisty.
“Octavia’s music woke something within me, it made me feel,” Flicker gasped as he squeezed his eyes shut. “I thought about it all night as I stared out the window, and I’ve been thinking about it all day today… she inspired me to make right the wrong that I had done and to atone for my sins.”
“Yes, she does that,” Cadance whispered as she stood neck to neck with Flicker, hugging him, and trying to console him. She felt a damp moistness, not much, but enough to know that the colt was crying. “Every now and then, she delivers a real zinger to somepony, and it hurts a lot. It sounds like she got you pretty good. She is one of my most powerful agents and she brings so many ponies to me.”
Sniffling, Flicker asked, “What happens now?”
“Well,” Cadance responded. “Now… now I help you get better and I get to figure out what to do with a second warrior among my growing flock. Your faith has touched me, Flicker, and I will help you with your penance. You will not go through this alone. Be warned though, I can be strict and I have peculiar demands. I am a harsh, jealous mistress. My love can be a terrible, weighty burden.”
“My life for you,” Flicker whispered, buried in a pink embrace.
“Accepted. There is no more succinct oath of fealty.”
For reasons he could not explain, the small blue crystal heart that hung from around Flicker’s neck made Hennessy’s heart race and he felt a powerful spike of attraction. Even better, there was a look of calm upon Flicker’s face, and it was nice seeing him not look quite so murdery. The mysterious colt was still quiet though, and hadn’t said much.
“I know that necklace means something,” Hennessy said to Flicker, trying to start a conversation. “But I’m not sure what.”
“I became one of her acolytes,” Flicker said in a somewhat embarrassed, foalish voice.
“Looks like I need to step up my game and find religion.”
“It’s not a game.”
“Flicker, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Well, how did you mean it?” Flicker asked as he looked Hennessy in the eye.
“Not like how you’re taking it.” Hennessy, feeling bold, perhaps because he was the older of the two, took a step forwards and felt Spud start rubbing up against his legs. “I wasn’t brave enough to give myself over to Princess Luna, but I want to. Something about it scares me though.”
Hearing this, Flicker stared, and the time between his eye blinks had an almost unnatural length. One ear quivered a bit and it was clear that Flicker was going to say something at some point, but the words were slow to come. That was fine though, as Hennessy was a patient earth pony, and he didn’t mind the chance to just stare into Flicker’s almost unblinking eyes.
Flicker’s eyes were pale blue, so blue and so pale that they could be mistaken for grey, or even white eyes when looked at in certain lighting conditions. Most ponies thought his eyes a bit creepy, as they lacked the vibrant colour that was common to ponies. But Hennessy didn’t find Flicker’s eyes creepy at all.
Those eyes. Hennessy felt a shiver along his spine.
“You should be scared,” Flicker whispered, and Hennessy reacted with a full body shudder. “She looked into my soul and found it lacking… what will Princess Luna see when and if she looks into you?” The pale blue eyes were consumed for a moment by a slow, glacial blink, and then like spring following winter, they returned. “It hurts, Hennessy, it hurts a lot, and then a little part of you dies… knowing that you are unworthy but that they love you anyway.”
Hennessy didn’t know how to take that or how to respond. Flicker had odd reactions to things that other ponies found commonplace. Wishing to offer comfort, Hennessy stepped forwards again, and then again, stepping over Spud. He was deep inside of Flicker’s personal space now, and with a final step, he stood neck to neck with Flicker, who tried to shy away.
But Hennessy persisted.
Leaning in a little more, Hennessy sniffed and caught a whiff of pine oil soap. The guild made their own pine oil soap, it was their secret weapon against disease. Antifungal, antibacterial, antiparasitic, the soap had its own distinctive scent, which Hennessy was smelling right now, along with sweat and Flicker’s own somewhat musky, exciting scent.
The colt’s ears twitched and pivoted with the sounds of Flicker’s breathing. It was the sound of life; Flicker drew breath in and out of his nostrils in great puffs, and his breathing had quickened a fair bit with Hennessy now deep inside of his personal space. Leaning over just a bit, and the two colts touched necks.
Hennessy was surprised by the sheer hardness that Flicker had, as he always was every time he touched the colt. Flicker was nothing but muscle under his velvet pelt, there was nothing soft or inviting about his body. His sinews and muscles were all firm, unyielding edges beneath his skin, as hard and unforgiving as the edge of a steel table. Hennessy’s ears danced about as he suddenly understood how Flicker was able to shrug off so much damage and hurt.
With a snort and a whinny, he leaned up against the warm body pressed against him and was rewarded with the sensation of blood flowing through Flicker’s broad neck. Tilting his head downward, Hennessy rubbed the side of his muzzle along Flicker’s crest, the thick, flat back of his neck. He chuffed and snuffled, causing the thick, almost coarse hairs of Flicker’s mane to part.
“Hennessy—”
The colt listened, eager for more words from Flicker. It didn’t matter what Flicker had to say, Hennessy just wanted to hear him talk. He wanted this moment to last forever, this perfect, wonderful moment. Hennessy was free to be himself, free without the threat of harm or punishment.
“—I had the most terrible thought. I don’t know if I can put it into words, Hennessy… but we need ponies like Octavia. I get it now. After what she did to me, I understand her importance. The importance of artists. They keep us from being empty.”
Hennessy nodded and listened to the sound of Flicker’s mane rubbing against his cheek.
“I don’t know how to say it, Hennessy… I’m struggling… but without Octavia, without ever hearing that sweet music… the words don’t want to come, Hennessy… it’s frustrating. I’m not good at poetic stuff.”
Closing his eyes, Hennessy waited. There were advantages to being a patient earth pony, and he didn’t mind leaning against the broad, unyielding pillar that was Flicker’s neck. Inhaling, he flooded his body with Flicker’s scent, a scent that would forever be associated with romance and a warm, happy feeling.
“I started wondering, what if ponies like Octavia didn’t exist? What if all the artists vanished? What if all those things that inspire ponies to greatness just ceased to be? We have enemies who want that to happen… I was becoming what our enemies wanted me to be… an empty, hollow shell, with no meaning, no warmth, no connection to my fellow ponies… and Octavia’s music made me see that.”
“That’s powerful, Flicky.”
“If we all become like that, it’s over for us, Hennessy,” Flicker whispered in a voice that was almost screechy with panic. “I pledged my service to Princess Cadance… my fealty. I took an oath to defend all artists, all musicians, poets and writers. I might not get art, and I don’t think I ever will, but I understand their importance. I gave Princess Cadance a blood oath… I swore on my own blood, Hennessy, and there was so much meaning in the moment. I felt so alive.”
The sting of tears burned Hennessy’s eyes, and he didn’t understand why. He felt happy for Flicker, but also sad. Confused, he breathed in and out, focusing on Flicker’s scent, which was comforting.
“Princess Cadance accepted my blood, Hennessy… she wasn’t squeamish about it at all… she wasn’t anything like I thought she was. She didn’t even flinch when she sliced herself open... I don’t know what I thought she was, but I was wrong. I was wrong, I was empty, I was a weak, brittle shell just waiting to be shattered.” There was a loud gulp from Flicker, who licked his lips, and then continued, “She sliced open my frog and then she sliced open her frog and when we pressed hooves together, when my frog touched hers, when our blood intermingled… I felt something. I don’t know what it was, but it scared me, Hennessy… it scared me and I cried just like I was a foal again. She laid my soul bare and she said things to me that I don’t know if I can repeat.”
Hennessy felt Flicker begin to tremble.
“She told me she loved me,” Flicker whispered to Hennessy, “and her words burned my very soul. I will serve her. For all of my days, I will serve her. I will obey her commands and I will defend those whom she patrons.”
“I’m an artist,” Hennessy whispered, and his words mussed up Flicker’s mane. “At least, I try to be.”
“I know…”
Standing in the doorway, Piper paused and let out an apologetic sounding, “Meep!” Hennessy and Flicker were standing near the window, necking, and Spud was on the floor licking his balls in a slow, methodical manner. A sheepish grin spread over her muzzle and she couldn’t help but wonder if she had interrupted what was sure to be leading up to a kiss.
Huffing, Flicker stepped away and began to collect himself, while Hennessy just stood there, grinning, and looking a little dopey. Piper levitated the brown paper package she was carrying over to the table and laid it down, then she licked her teeth while giving her roommates a coy look.
“Do go on, I wouldn’t mind watching. It’s better than reading some trashy bridle ripper novel.” With a pleasant lightness to her step, she pranced into the room, shut the door behind her, and went over to where Flicker was standing. She grinned at him, then at Hennessy, then she turned about and pranced over to the little table that they shared.
With a flaring of her horn, she opened the window to let some much needed air in. It smelled far too much like excited colts in here, a scent that Piper didn’t mind too much. For most fillies Piper’s age, this would be a warning sign, an indicator that it was time to find a concerned, responsible adult, and to be wary. At least, that was what was taught in public schools. But with Flicker and Hennessy, she got to enjoy all of the pleasures of it with none of the dangers, such as sore bottoms or unwanted pregnancy.
Still, the colts stank something awful, even if it was a somewhat pleasurable stink.
“What’s in the package?” Flicker asked.
“A surprise!” Piper waggled her eyebrows and enjoyed the saucy feelings she was having.
“Hmmph.” Flicker’s face returned to its usual scowl and the wounded look in his eyes retreated.
“While I was out with Doctor Sterling, he taught me some magic. You know, he really is a wonderful pony, that Doctor Sterling. I can see why you fancy him, Flicker.”
Flicker’s sullen, dreadful scowl intensified, so much so that Spud stopped licking his balls so he could hide beneath the bed. Piping Hot Pie, a Pie through and through, was either oblivious or utterly unafraid of her serious, scowling companion, a trait lamented by friends and enemies of Pies all around the world.
“Fancy?” Flicker’s voice was tight and gritty.
“Yes… I mean, it’s obvious, and it’s perfectly normal to have a crush on adults and mentors.” Piper paused for a moment, unconcerned about the death glare she was getting, and she had a very visible shiver. “Sort of like how I like Mister Balister most when he gives me a good, stinging strike to the neck with that swagger stick of his.” The filly let out a slobbery sounding hiss, and her tail flicked from side to side. “I think I’ll misbehave more often.”
“Uh, Piper, I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Hennessy said, looking and sounding confused. “I’m sure he’ll find a way to punish you, that’s what Mister Balister does.”
“Oh, no, Hennessy, I think it is an excellent idea.” Tail swishing, her adolescent brain inflamed by the scent of two musky colts, Piper grinned and continued, “Sometimes a bad filly just needs to be spanked, you know?”
The room was filled with far too much creepy breathing.
“Um… uh… um…” Hennessy just stood there, stammering, his head tilted off to one side as he stared at Piper.
Eyes narrowing, Flicker’s ears pivoted forward to a more aggressive angle, and there was a menacing, terrifying twinkle in his eye. “There is no greater path to self understanding than pain, Miss Pie. I can help you. I can show you your depths. I can help you find your center.”
Beneath the bed, Spud yowled out a warning, which nopony listened to.
Hennessy licked his lips and for a brief second, he worried about the pony that he was so attracted to. There were times when Flicker was just so creepy, like right now. After being so heartfelt just a few minutes ago, this was a shocking, disturbing contrast. Even worse, he found himself very confused by his sudden spike of arousal. Piper, there was something about her, and even though Hennessy would never, ever confess this, he kind of wanted to watch Flicker give her a good, thorough spanking.
He found the prospect exciting.
Flicker would be enthusiastic about it, because Flicker was gifted with violence, no doubt, and Hennessy was almost certain that it would be amazing to watch Flicker give Piper a good lashing. He licked his lips again and became aware of this strange new tension in the room. The tension smelled musky.
“How about we go to the gym,” Piper said to Flicker, “and we do a little fencing?”
“Ye look well rested, Lad. Ye finally got the shuteye that ye’ve been lacking. Yer gonna need it, Moonlit Gambit is lookin’ to be at the top of ‘is game, Lad.” Wicked’s voice was subdued at this early morning hour, which was odd to anyone that knew him. Wicked was a big, boisterous pony, and when he went quiet, those that knew him best could tell that something was wrong. His accent was also heavier than usual, an ominous omen indeed.
And Flicker knew him.
“Sir, I had a good night’s sleep. It’s been awhile, since the purge of Ponyville.” Flicker went rigid and he looked Wicked in the eye. “Have we learned anything, Wicked?”
“Aye, we’ve learned a few things lad, and I’m gearing up to move soon. Doctor Sterling and I ain’t seeing eye to eye at the moment, and even though I’m never gonna admit it, ‘e’s right.” Wicked drew in a deep breath, which escaped as a groan, and his eyes revealed just how tired he was. “Flicker, sometimes, yer friends’ll be right and it’ll suck. But ye gotta remember, they’re still yer friends. A good friend will be right and be quiet about it. A great friend will be right and be a big windy asshole about it.”
Narrowing his eyes, Flicker dropped his voice into a whisper and asked, “Is Doctor Sterling an asshole?” He felt wrong for even saying it, it left an awful taste upon his tongue, but there was no doubt a lesson to be learned here.
“Aye, ‘e is, and that’s why I love ‘im like a brother. Sterling, ‘e keeps me ‘onest and keeps me ‘ead from being too puffy.” Wicked smiled, a bittersweet, wry grin, and he gave Flicker a nod. “I think Piper’ll be yer asshole, if you let 'er. Let 'er blow ‘er ‘ot, stinky opinions over ye and learn to be ‘umble, Lad. In this business, this little guild of ours, being a right almighty bitch is just what’s needed. If somepony ever tries to shut ‘er up, ye have my permission to cut ‘em down. We need to cultivate ‘er bitchiness, it’s an asset like any other, and I aim to exploit it when the time comes. I’ll teach ye to do the same, ye little cuss. Leave no asset unexploited.”
“Cut them down, like, head comes off, or just cut them down, break their legs?” Flicker, his eyes wide, and his body stiff from concentration, waited for clarification. Orders had to be followed to the letter, Wicked’s orders most of all. Wicked’s word was law, second only to the princesses and princes.
“Aye, Lad, breakin’ their wee legs might be a bit much, but ye have my permission to leave ‘em ‘umbled in a bloody ‘eap on the floor.” Reaching out his good leg, Wicked gave Flicker an affectionate cuff on the neck. “Best o’ luck, Lad. I want a good clean fight today between ye and Moonlit. I know ‘e’s yer friend, but yer gonna ‘ave to lay ‘im low. Right now, Mister Balister is no doubt giving ‘im some last minute pointers on all of yer weaknesses. Ye’ll have to cripple ‘im, Lad, because Mister Balister made him tough.”
“I have a lot of weaknesses,” Flicker admitted.
“Aye, Lad, we all do, we all do… but admitting them is a strength.”
Puberty was giving him fits, Octavia had assaulted his senses, Princess Cadance had stripped his soul bare, and the dark spaces beneath Canterlot made Flicker’s skin crawl. It was as if the entire universe was conspiring against Flicker, trying to lay him low, and springing puberty on him was just plain dirty. Today was not a good day for a fencing exam, which was why it was a perfect day for a fencing exam. While Flicker had a lot of confidence, he suspected that Moonlit was going to mop the floor with him.
Moonlit was just faster and more nimble. Being older, he had more training and skill. Yet, the masters of the guild seemed to think that he and Moonlit were evenly matched, so Flicker wasn’t sure of the outcome. He wanted to trust in the judgment and the wisdom of his elders, because doing so made the world make sense, and now, more than ever before, with everything being so uncertain, Flicker needed the world to make sense.
He thought about the touch and feel of Hennessy against him, and there was something comforting about that. That made sense, even if he didn’t understand how it made sense. Flicker acknowledged that his interest in Hennessy was growing, becoming something greater, better, and he wanted to know more. Flicker wanted meaning and purpose in his life that wasn’t related to his cutie mark. The colt had no idea what might happen, but he was willing to explore the possibilities presented.
His relationship with Piper was different, but no less significant. She, like Flicker, was a budding ascetic sort, Flicker had learned what the word ‘ascetic’ was from Doctor Sterling and he decided that it suited him. It was a word that he could make work for himself. A word, like a mask, could hide all manner of sins if one wore it properly. As a word, it worked for Piper, too, to some degree. Not everypony could share his own zeal and fervency, nor did they need to. It wasn’t a contest.
At least, it shouldn’t be a contest, but Flicker took secret pride in being zealous and he most certainly had more fervency than most of the ponies around him. Already, his subconscious mind was gearing up to make sure that Princess Cadance knew that he was her most dedicated, most ardent follower. He would show her… he had to show her. She would love and adore him because he would lavish her beloved artists with protection, care, and funding.
Love was service and Flicker wanted so desperately to serve. He lived to serve.
Moonlit had chosen the mess hall as the location of their duel. It was a good location, lots of obstacles, differing elevations because of tabletops, and yet still a wide-open space. Flicker thought it was as good of a place as any. The room was crowded and ponies pressed against the walls, apprentices and masters alike.
As he stood in the door, he eyed them. He stepped into the room, taking a deep breath as he did so, and he heard some hooting and hollering. Turning his head, he saw that Piper, Hennessy, and Doctor Sterling were all sitting together… and… he had trouble registering what he was seeing. All of them had bright yellow shirts and in garish, bright pink letters, the words LORD DEATH OF MURDER MOUNTAIN FAN CLUB was emblazoned upon them. He thought of the paper-wrapped package that Piper had brought back with her to the room, yesterday. Something in Flicker’s soul ignited and blazed with fierce intensity.
Doctor Sterling in particular looked rather silly.
Great. After all that trouble, Flicker was going to have to work extra hard to make sure that he didn’t let them down. Lifting his wooden sword, he raised it in salute to his companions and his mentor. The idea that Doctor Sterling was having fun caused Flicker some distress. This was an exam, a serious, studious time. Yet, there was this festive, playful atmosphere, like a carnival.
Flicker didn’t know what to think.
“I want a good, clean fight. Both of you know the rules!” Mister Balister stood in the middle of the room with a silver bell held in his telekinesis. “This is a no holds barred match! Hits will be graded on both technical merits and severity! There will be blood! There will be pain! This is our ancient tradition that we hold near and dear to our hearts!”
Hooves stomped and Flicker’s ears were filled with the roar of applause. Still holding his sword aloft, he held it out to Moonlit to salute him. Moonlit was on the other side of the room, in the corner, with Beryl Waltz beside him. Flicker saw Moonlit’s own wooden sword raise up, and the solemn salute was returned.
“Blood and pain!” an apprentice shouted, and he was soon joined by others.
“BLOOD AND PAIN!” The words were barked out to the cadence of stomping hooves. The air became electric and Flicker could feel the coarse hairs along his spine standing up as his dock went tense. “BLOOD AND PAIN! BLOOD AND PAIN!”
It was having an odd effect upon Flicker, and he felt a little euphoric. Was he having fun? He couldn’t tell. Lifting his sword, he saluted the crowd with a broad sweep, then began his slow march through the mess hall. If they wanted a show, he would give them a show. Thinking about this, he had a sudden understanding of why this was happening; Wicked wanted the guild to blow steam off before launching any serious offensives into the sewers.
All the more reason to trust Wicked and obey his every command; Wicked was wise and knowing.
Gritting his teeth, Flicker was ready to do his part. Moonlit was crossing the room now, moving with slow, measured steps. The crowd was still chanting, “BLOOD AND PAIN!” Flicker, after a year of intense, brutal training, was no stranger to either, and was prepared for both. All those hard, merciless strikes by Mister Balister were just preparation, love taps, a warm up for the real thing.
A broken leg would mean a swift, brutal end to the match, most likely, and broken legs could be healed. Time spent in bed recovering was time that could be spent studying. A broken leg was really just a favour between friends. Yes, a broken leg was the best way to end this. A good clean break.
Sure, there was the muzzle strike, and letting your opponent drown in their own blood as the match lingered on. One good hard hit on the muzzle would shatter it, and there were many masters within the guild that had crooked, misshapen muzzles. Flicker understood the meaning behind a mooshed muzzle, but he was still curious as to how friendship survived something like that.
He was about to find out.
When Mister Balister raised the bell, the crowd went silent and the chanting ceased.
“Both of you are exceptional,” Mister Balister said to the colts. “But only one of you can succeed. The winner will begin advanced arms training with me right away. The loser will spend a year in remedial arms training just to make sure they understand the concepts of swordplay and which end of a sword goes where. It will be humiliating and degrading. You will know shame for your failure, and I will carve away your weakness. Am I understood?”
Moonlit nodded first, and then Flicker, always a little slow, joined in.
“Mister Nicker, best of luck.” Moonlit bowed his head in reverence.
“Mister Gambit, to you as well,” Flicker replied as he felt the pressure building.
“This is one of our oldest traditions.” Mister Balister’s eyes had a hard, menacing gleam. “Any sort of interference from an apprentice will earn you nineteen lashes and your walking papers. Stay out of the way, because I believe this fight will get ugly. Prepare yourselves.”
How was this going to end? What might Moonlit do? Would he go for a muzzle strike? Flicker wondered what he might look with a mooshed muzzle. A broken leg? A direct strike to the windpipe? A single mistake on Flicker’s part would allow any of these things to happen. Blood and pain indeed. There was no room for failure and any moment of weakness would be exploited.
With a predatory grin, Mister Balister rang the bell.
The two would-be warriors gave each other wary glances while they held their swords at the ready. Moonlit’s face was a stone mask with no emotions visible, but his twitching ear gave him away. Flicker took this as a sign of fear, but the paranoid voice in the depths of his mind warned him that the twitching ear might be a ruse. Anything might be a ruse.
Neither of them seemed to be in a hurry to make the first strike, but kept circling each other, blades ready, eyes narrowed, their mouths pinched into tight grimaces. Flicker, for all of his seeming size, was a bit on the small side compared to Moonlit, who was taller by a head and a half. They had one thing in common though, both of them had bodies that appeared to be carved from granite.
When a foal joined the guild, they were puddles of cupcake batter, but this deplorable condition was sorted out in due time. The different masters of the guild all took different approaches; mental, physical, magic, but the end result was all the same. The sewers were dangerous, unforgiving places, and the training had to prepare them.
The crowd began to murmur, growing impatient. The purpose here was blood and pain, and thus far, not a single strike had been made. Some matches ended within moments of the bell being rung, others stretched on for a few minutes, but at least there was action. Flicker kept his sword tucked close to his head, while Moonlit held his out in a horizontal defensive pose.
Their styles mirrored their natures. Flicker’s position showed that he was ready to attack or defend, that he was open to either, while Moonlit’s pose showed that he was ready to defend. It was a reasonable stance to take, as Flicker was known for his overbearing, brutal aggression. It was strength and power versus speed and finesse. Both were valid, both were good, both were acceptable, but only one could win.
Much to everypony’s surprise, it was Moonlit who moved to make the first strike, and with a whirling blur attack, he launched a flurry of blows against Flicker. Put on the defensive, Flicker stepped back and parried, blocking each blow as it came in, and when an opportunity presented itself, he took a quick swipe at Moonlit, who sprang away.
“You’re faster than I expected,” Moonlit said while he squinted at Flicker.
Flicker had nothing witty to say and no reply, so he remained silent and focused upon the task at hoof; taking Gambit down with a good clean strike. He studied Moonlit, looking for signs, a sudden blinking of the eyes, tensing muscles, anything that might indicate a strike, all while trying to prevent his own body from giving him away.
“Mister Balister does not give you credit,” Moonlit continued with his sword raised, “and he goes on and on about how slow you are. You know, I think he slanders you, Mister Nicker. You might want a word with him at some point.”
This was distraction, and Flicker knew it. He kept his eyes on Moonlit and not on Mister Balister. It was time to test Moonlit’s defenses and see what the colt had. Flicker feinted left, appeared to slash right, and with practiced speed, he made a quick reversal back to the left, whipping the sword around, and striking out with the grip, using it like a hammer. It was a move that Doctor Sterling had taught him, and Flicker considered it one of his finest.
There was a loud cry from Moonlit, who was caught off guard and only just managed to bring his sword around to parry. Flicker’s halted blade was inches from his foreleg, and vivid, shimmering fear could be seen in Moonlit’s eyes when he realised that Flicker’s supposed slowness was either exaggerated by Mister Balister or an act of fakery by Flicker himself. The blow would have been bone shattering, had it connected.
Retreating, Flicker did not press his advantage, but drew himself back into a defensive crouch. Fear was eating into Moonlit’s confidence now. It was like drawing blood from a wound, and all Flicker had to do was wait for weakness to set in. Flicker, when necessary, had infinite patience, a by-product of his dense, slow-minded nature.
Flicker knew he was a scary bastard and he didn’t feel a need to boast about it.
Perhaps from desperation or motivated by fear, Moonlit launched a series of quick, fast strikes. Not strikes that would do any real harm, but they would give him points if any of them connected. Flicker retreated, mindful of tables, and parried anything that got to close. Moonlit didn’t have much power in his blows, just speed. While Moonlit might be able to break a leg on a strike, it was far more likely that he would have to go for more tender places, like the muzzle, to make a duel-ending strike.
Lashing out, Flicker slammed his wooden sword into Moonlit’s just to rattle him, and was rewarded by a thin trickle of blood dribbling from the colt’s nostril. It gave Flicker an idea, and Flicker wondered if just focusing on Moonlit’s sword was a feasible way to earn a win. Repeated hard strikes would cause devastating strain on Moonlit’s mind, and at some point, he would be weakened to the point of frailty. Then it was just a matter of a good finishing move.
Flicker saw the way ahead and how to win this match, but he knew that he had to be careful. He couldn’t just go on an all out offensive because Moonlit was faster than him by far, and was skilled with riposting. This was a plan that could backfire and Flicker knew it. A few more good, hard whacks might burn out Moonlit’s telekinesis, and Flicker felt it was worth the risk.
“Blood is drawn, but that doesn’t count as a strike!” Mister Balister hollered.
When Flicker lunged again, Moonlit made no move to defend himself, but ran away in rapid retreat. Flicker followed, playing the game, mindful of what might happen. Moonlit wasn’t just retreating, but running. Flicker bore down upon him, sword ready, and the crowd parted to get out of Moonlit’s way.
The colt hit the wall and ran halfway up it, then kicked out with his legs. Now soaring through the air, he twisted around to bring both his sword and body to bear. Flicker started to go right, feinting again, but then broke left and forward, keeping his sword overhead while Moonlit somersaulted above him. He wanted to take a swipe, to score a hit, but it did not seem wise because Moonlit had momentum and movement on his side. Already Moonlit’s sword was coming down in Flicker’s blind spots.
Flicker found himself on the defensive and was forced to parry several blows even as he was turning around to face Moonlit, who was now behind him. The colt had landed with a light clatter of hooves, and was now pressing his advantage against Flicker, who was struggling to parry the swift flurry of incoming blows.
None of the blows were hard, but they were fast. Flicker was having a hard time keeping up and even worse, it showed. Moonlit wasn’t as fast as Mister Balister, but he was fast enough to give Flicker some trouble. Moonlit was keeping Flicker’s sword engaged with short, fast parries, and not allowing Flicker to swing his blade in broad enough strokes to build up momentum.
Flicker’s power attack had been countered, somewhat, and he was forced to re-evaluate his plans.
Sensing danger, Flicker ducked his head and parried a stabbing blow, sweeping Moonlit’s blade aside as a wooden chair went flying through the same spot where his head had been just a fraction of a second ago. Anger gave Flicker strength, and he managed to give the startled Moonlit’s sword a hearty whack, rattling the colt’s brains once more. More blood dribbled and left scarlet droplets upon the stone floor.
“Dirty pool!” somepony shouted.
“That’s not a direct magical attack!” Mister Balister barked. “It’s a distraction, and I’ll allow it! Alicorns have mercy on your soul, Mister Gambit!” As he spoke, the crowd let out a roar.
“I’m sorry,” Moonlit whined, “I don’t know what came over me!”
Tit for tat. Reaching out with his mind, Flicker lifted one of the massive oaken tables. It was several hundred pounds of hard, unforgiving wood, but he lifted it without even straining. Saying nothing, he chucked it at Moonlit. Tit for tat. Fair was fair. The table soared through the air and Flicker gritted his teeth together and he prepared for whatever might come next.
“Oh fuck everything!” Moonlit cried as he lept into the air. He somehow managed to land on top of the table mid-flight and he fought to keep his balance as both he and the table flew through the air. The crowd scrambled out of the way, some screaming, and Moonlit jumped from the table just seconds before it crashed into the wall.
The table became a pile of scrap, but that was okay. There were repair spells.
A terrible, dreadful, horrendous grin appeared upon Flicker’s muzzle as he sent another table flying right at Moonlit. Several hundred pounds of wood sailed through the air with just a small flick of Flicker’s brutish magic, his dreadful flicking. Moonlit scrambled, running for his life, trying to put some distance between him and Flicker, but there was nowhere to go.
The mess hall was full of tables.
Flicker lifted another table, but didn’t throw it. He advanced, the the two yard long and one yard wide table held up before him like a shield. Moonlit made a futile effort and tossed a few chairs in Flicker’s direction, hurling them with all of the magical might he could muster, but they just bounced off the raised table. Moonlit whimpered as Flicker drew closer, and tried to figure out what to do next.
“I’m gonna break every bone in your body,” Flicker said, his voice a savage growl.
Scrambling away, Moonlit lept over tables and chairs on his way to get to the other side of the mess hall, trying to get away. Flicker had changed his direction and continued his slow, steady march, blocking any chairs that were tossed at him. There was no hurry, time was on Flicker’s side and he knew it. He turtled down and kept his table-shield raised.
“It’s like watching the psycho slasher come walking for his victim!” somepony in the crowd shouted.
Hearing this, Moonlit gibbered in terror, knowing full well that the psycho slasher could not be stopped.
Brawn was about to be proven superiour. Still holding his table shield, Flicker lifted another table and chucked it at Moonlit’s head. The colt was forced to evade, and his hooves clattered over the floor. For a moment, Moonlit tried to stop the table with his magic, and the table had a brief, glittering glow, but his telekinesis wasn’t strong enough.
“Can’t we just go back to trying to kill each other with swords?” Moonlit asked, begging for a reprieve against Flicker’s table missiles.
“No!” Flicker barked and he launched another table at Moonlit. “Hold still and just take it, Moonlit! I’m gonna ram one of these tables right up your ass if you keep running around! I’m gonna ram this thing so far up your ass that you’re gonna be tasting furniture polish and spilled milk in the back of your throat when I’m done with you!”
The sound of Wicked’s booming, bellowing laughter filled the mess hall and was only interrupted for a brief moment by the sounds of crashing, splintering wood as the table struck the wall. Apprentices scrambled to get out of the way and Doctor Sterling raised a protective shield around himself, Piper, and Hennessy. But the three of them still moved just to be safe.
Flicker, who had pulled heavy farm equipment for most of his youth, could keep doing this all day long and he knew it. He wasn’t getting tired at all, but, he was wondering what he would do when he ran out of tables. The colt knew that he could throw a chair a whole lot harder than Moonlit and the mess hall was full of chairs. What to do when he was out of chairs?
Standing in the center of the room, Flicker kept his table-shield pointed at Moonlit, and he just waited, secure and safe, his sword held at the ready. Moonlit was cowering in the corner, ducked down behind the splintered, busted remains of a hurled table. The cowering colt had something that Flicker lacked.
Range and distance.
Scraps all around the room were levitated, and then hurled at Flicker from every side. Moonlit was careful to follow the rules, which stated that direct, applied attacks could only be made with a sword. He wasn’t holding them, no, he was throwing them, letting them go. Snarling, Flicker swung his table around in a broad sweep and used his sword to block as well, batting stray chair legs and table fragments out of the air.
More flack was incoming, keeping Flicker busy defending himself from chunks of wood and splinters. He somehow managed to hurl another table at Moonlit, and the colt had to scurry out of the way of the incoming missile, only to discover that a dozen chairs were now being lobbed at him. Moonlit shieked in terror, his voice shrill as he ducked and rolled beneath a table to avoid the incoming chairs.
Flicker lifted up the table that Moonlit had taken shelter beneath, flipped it over, and dropped it. Still shrieking in mortal terror, Moonlit crawled away on his belly, his hooves scraping over the floor, and the table came down where he had been just an eyeblink before, crashing down with a terrific whomp.
A bell rang and Mister Balister’s voice filled the mess hall. “STOP!”
Sword and table-shield still held at the ready, Flicker obeyed.
“Ten minutes have passed! Ten whole minutes! Our rules state that the maximum allotted time for a duel is ten minutes, no more, no less!” Mister Balister’s eyes narrowed. “At the end of ten minutes, direct strikes are to be added up and a winner declared!” His eyes went wide, slow as the rising sun, and his head turned from side to side as he looked at both of the colts. “This has never happened before in our guild history! A ten minute long duel with no scorable hits!”
“Who won?” Piper asked as she clutched Hennessy.
“I don’t know!” Mister Balister barked. “Wicked shall have to pass judgment upon this epic duel, but know this, mine apprentices! This day you have witnessed history! It is my sincere hope that all of you have learned something! All of you are dismissed… be gone! But not you, Mister Nicker, and Mister Gambit, you shall stay until Wicked passes his judgment…”
Flicker didn’t mind the isolation he found himself confined to, but the anticipation of Wicked’s judgment was killing him. Alone with his thoughts, he found himself thinking about the duel and all of the little things that he thought he had done wrong. In a moment of total honesty with himself, Flicker admitted that he didn’t trust his own rage. At some point in the fight, he had broken away because he didn’t want to engage Moonlit, not really, but he did want to scare him into submission. Upon closer examination of his own motives, Flicker worried that if he managed to hit Moonlit, he might not have stopped. He might have kept going.
This alarmed him.
The alternative had been chucking tables at Moonlit, and Flicker found that he hadn’t tried very hard. If he had really wanted to hit Moonlit, he could have. It was complicated, but Flicker supposed that the complications were the point to this exercise. Moonlit was his friend and fellow apprentice. He was given an explicit task of cutting his friend down. Was this part of some greater lesson trying to teach him that some orders shouldn’t be followed?
What was the point? What was he supposed to learn from this? Flicker didn’t deal well with abstracts and what not. Was this even about swordplay? The colt sighed, his withers rising and falling as he expelled his ennui. All of this felt wrong. Flicker didn’t want to duel his friend and fellow apprentice, he wanted to chop down rats. He wanted to be in the sewers, making a difference, or in the middens fighting a pitched battle against the real enemy.
Escape wouldn’t be hard. Flicker wasn’t locked into his meditation cell. He could slip out if he wanted to, grab his weapons, suit up, and slip off into the sewers. No more navel gazing, no more hoof staring, no more wondering about what great lesson was being taught here, Flicker could just go with what he knew. Action. His muscles twitched with the idea. Apprentice or not, he had the hard-earned right to bear arms and act on his own now. He had the right to hire out his services or act on his own accord.
There were questions that needed answers and left alone in isolation, Flicker faced down his own seething hatred. His sister’s face appeared in his mind and he thought of her; sweet, innocent, helpless. His emotions became a seething caldera and he thought of his standing in the guild. Then he thought of other things, Hennessy and Piper, then he thought of Moonlit, then, he thought of Cadance. Almost as if by some miraculous magic happening, the blue crystal heart around his neck became heavy.
Bending his proud, unyielding neck, Flicker slipped into fervent prayer, not knowing what else to do.
Walking with his head bowed low, his ears drooping, Flicker followed along after Mister Pepper, having been summoned to the conservatory. Prayer, much to Flicker’s shock and surprise, had settled his mind, calmed some of his rage, and had given him some clarity. As he prayed, the trinket around his neck had grown a little lighter, making Flicker wonder if some strange magic was at work.
The door was opened for him and Flicker was bade to enter, though it appeared that Mister Pepper would not be attending this meeting. Swallowing, Flicker went in and the door was closed behind him. Lifting his head, he saw quite a crowd of ponies, including one he did not expect, not at all—
“Princess Celestia.” He ducked his head down once more and adopted a submissive, subservient posture.
The big white alicorn clucked her tongue but said nothing.
“I ‘ad to go back to the source, ye see,” Wicked explained. “I didn’t feel confident passing judgment, so I asked for ‘elp.”
“So why is she here?” Moonlit asked, sounding very meek and foalish.
“Who do you think founded this order?” Princess Celestia asked, sounding somewhat amused. “Who do you think wrote those rules? Who built this guild hall? Tell me, who would have such a drive to protect and preserve life? Who would be so invested?”
Flicker almost swallowed his tongue. None of this was in the guild’s history. From the sounds of it, Moonlit wasn’t taking the sudden revelation so well either. Standing there, Flicker tried to remain as statuesque as possible and he was determined not to faint this time. It was very, very difficult to breathe though, all of a sudden.
“I made the first of the modern masks, an experimental blend of magic, technology, and science.” Princess Celestia lifted her head high, but her eyes looked sad. “I dug thousands of graves for plague victims. Long after my most faithful servants and dedicated followers fell to the ravages of disease, I continued, fighting for a way to save my ponies. I buried so many…”
Wicked’s ears drooped, and he bowed his head in reverence, prompting Moonlit to do the same.
“I gathered survivors and searched out the brightest minds. I looked for crackpots, for madponies, killers, thieves, and murderers. I gave them pardons. I bound them with geases. I constructed an army that was purpose built to fight disease and the causes of disease.” Princess Celestia’s wings flapped once against her soft, rounded sides, the sleek curvature of her belly.
“I wrote these rules for a reason!” The volume of the princess’ voice caused various items in the conservatory to rattle. “Every jot, every tittle, all of it was written down to preserve purpose and cause. These duels are supposed to teach enduring camaraderie through difference. Who can tell me what this means?”
Flicker said nothing, not understanding, and no answer seemed forthcoming from Moonlit either.
“No one?” Princess Celestia blinked once. “I am disappointed, but not surprised. From my understanding, both of you are rather thick-headed and full of yourselves! Dense little ponies!”
Flicker’s head dropped until his chin was inches from the floor. If the carpet was grass, he could be grazing right now. The words hurt more than any lash and Flicker was almost certain that he could feel his soul shriveling. At the moment, Flicker was tempted to flee the room, find a shovel, run to the Canterlot cemetery, and dig his own grave.
“Wicked!” Princess Celestia barked the word, and every ear in the room twitched. “How many times have you and Sterling Shoe disagreed?”
“Well, I… I don’t reckon... I don’t think… I’ven’t kept track,” Wicked stammered.
“Story time,” Princess Celestia announced in a sing-song voice, and Wicked let out a groan. “Once upon a time, there were two little foals that were headstrong and impetuous. Both were convinced that they were right and the other had to be wrong. Always fighting, these two, and there were so many bloody noses, torn ears, and one of them even set the other on fire once.” The princess turned a stern, menacing eye upon Wicked, who withered under her glare.
“I apologised,” Wicked grumbled.
“It grew so bad that I had to intervene,” Princess Celestia continued, still staring at Wicked. “I ordered them chained together with a magic tether, a clever invention of my own making. It delivers quite a shock when the two wearers get too far apart and that shock grows worse with each passing second.”
“Aye, it does.” Wicked bowed his head.
“And these two little whippersnappers learned about camaraderie through difference.” The princess turned to glare at Flicker, then Moonlit. “You’re going to disagree. You’re going to hurt each other. In heated, angry moments, bad things will happen and you have to learn to let past bygones be bygones so you can work together! That is the purpose of these duels! There has to be a winner and there has to be a loser! Afterwards, both of you are expected to work together and do your jobs! You learn to bear your resentments and get over them! Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Moonlit squeaked.
Flicker’s mouth was too dry to make any words, so he nodded and kept his chin to the floor.
The big white alicorn’s long legs allowed her to move through the room in a hurry, and she went to where Moonlit was sitting. Lowering her head, she stared into his eyes, her ears angled forwards, and the corners of her mouth were tugged down into a tight scowl.
“What were you thinking, throwing a chair at your fellow apprentice?” she demanded.
“It was a mistake!” Moonlit howled, and he tried to look away. A pale golden glow surrounded his face and he was forced to look into Princess Celestia’s baleful, furious eyes. “I panicked and made a mistake! I was scared! I confess to my cowardice, but I wasn’t afraid of losing the duel!”
“Start talking and make each word matter.” Princess Celestia’s command hung in the air like a suspended anvil just waiting to fall.
“I was just starting to become friends with Flicker,” Moonlit whined. “I didn’t want to duel him. I didn’t want to… fight him. I panicked and did something stupid. I thought that if I could distract him with a chair, I might be able to lunge in, score a light hit, and then forfeit the match so that Wicked could make a judgment call.”
“I see.” Princess Celestia’s voice was icy and her stare had the burning intensity of the sun. She held Moonlit’s face and continued staring into his eyes, causing Moonlit’s ears to flap and flutter like a trapped bird.
“I was so scared that I wasn’t thinking clearly! I just didn’t want to lose the progress I had in making Flicker my friend!” Moonlit kept trying to look away from the princess, but she maintained her grip on his head. “I wasn’t even trying to hit him with the chair, honest! I just wanted to distract him! If it was actually going to hit him, I was going to bat it away, honest! Everything that happened afterwards was just me trying to defend myself because I thought Flicker was going to murder me! Honest!” The colt’s voice was now a shrill, frightened screech.
Flicker didn’t lift his head, he didn’t dare, but he did listen.
“At least your mother raised you to be honest,” Princess Celestia said as she let go of Moonlit’s face with her magic. “Though I must say, ‘tis a pity that she did not raise you with courage.” Eyes narrowing, the matronly alicorn began to cluck her tongue while she shook her head from disapproval.
Turning away with a snort of disgust, she crossed the room and went over to where Flicker stood. Reaching out with one wing, she lifted Flicker’s head, but he did not look her in the eye. Princess Celestia stood there looking at the colt, then reached out her other wing, and touched the blue crystal heart hanging from his neck.
“How odd to see this upon you,” she murmured.
Trembling, Flicker said nothing and remained at attention.
“The last warrior that devoted himself to her service went on to do amazing things. Fantastic things. He endured such teasing though.” The princess let out a sniff and shifted her weight. “If you will pardon me for just a moment, the triplets are giving me some trouble.” She stood still, her wing still lingering with a light touch on Flicker’s neck, and she continued to stare at the pale blue crystal heart.
Blinking, her eyelids fluttering like butterfly wings, Princess Celestia waited a moment to sort herself out. She then continued, “So then, for what reason did you start chucking tables at your fellow apprentice and why didn’t you move in so that you might finish the coward off?”
Flicker’s ears stung at the word ‘coward’ but he didn’t dare disagree. He stood there, trying to think of words as he stared straight ahead at the wall. A soft nicker, his namesake, escaped from him when Princess Celestia shook him, hoping to encourage some words to come out. More gentle shakes followed the first, and Flicker found it hard to form a coherent sentence.
“Angry,” Flicker blurted out, it was the only word he managed to say.
“Yes, Flicker SMASH!” Princess Celestia nodded her head in a knowing manner.
The colt’s face turned beet red and his hooves began to shuffle around as his composure broke. The big alicorn was scary, she wasn’t a princess, she was something worse, and Flicker felt his own courage just slipping away as he suffered a urethra-shrivelling moment of terror. To make everything worse, he could feel her breathing on him.
“I was angry,” Flicker managed to say in a somewhat choked voice. “I didn’t trust my rage so I kept my distance and chucked stuff. I wasn’t trying very hard to hit him, I guess. But I wanted him to fear me… because… for some reason… that… felt right. I wanted him to cower... and knowing that I… that I had scared him… it made me feel better.”
Shaking her head once again, Princess Celestia clucked her tongue several times.
“Looking back on it, I don’t know if I would have been able to stop chopping on him with my sword,” Flicker confessed.
“Cowardice and rage,” Princess Celestia spat out in disgust and her muzzle contorted as though she had tasted something foul. “I will not allow a draw to happen, not in this instance. There is just too much to be learned here. There are lessons here that must be learned, and by goodness, if I have to instruct you in these lessons, I will!”
Flicker gulped. “So this means I—”
“Yes! You will be fighting again!” Princess Celestia snapped as she drew herself up to her full majestic height and towered over Flicker. “Tonight even! Right now!”
“No.” Flicker couldn’t believe the word coming out of his mouth, or that his mouth had betrayed him.
“What?” Princess Celestia looked down in shocked disbelief.
Flicker thought about all of the times that his teachers had tried to tell him that some orders were not worth following and he tried to swallow the enormous lump in his throat. It felt as though his bowels were about to turn to water and his heart began racing in the most painful way as he felt his testicles retract into his abdomen.
“No.”
“No?” Jerking her head back, the princess looked quite surprised. “I am giving you an order… I am still one of the masters of this guild and you will obey me!”
Flicker snapped to attention, going rigid. “No.”
“Flicker, lad, I don’t know if—”
“Be quiet, Wick Chandler!” Princess Celestia barked. Her eyes narrowing, she wrapped her wing around Flicker’s neck and drew him closer. “Mister Nicker, your career, your profession, and your future is on the line. I ask that you reconsider.”
“No.” Flicker’s refusal came out a shrill, embarrassing squeak. “If there is to be a duel, then I concede the match to Moonlit.”
“Very well. Congratulations, Mister Gambit, your cowardice pays dividends.”
“No.” Moonlit shook his head. “I refuse to accept Mister Nicker’s concession.”
The princess let out a very disturbed sounding sigh and her whole body went stiff. She looked at one colt, then the other, then focused her seething gaze upon Wicked, as if she blamed him for this headache. Wicked, like a scolded foal, turned away and could not look his monarch in the eye. Stepping away from Flicker, Princess Celestia began to pace about the room.
“If there is one thing that truly irks me, it is soldiers who fall out of line.”
Flicker’s ears drooped and made an expression as if he had been struck. Wicked remained hunched over and stared down at the floor. Moonlit too, studied the floor with great intensity while Princess Celestia paced back and forth. Flicker lifted his gaze a bit and dared to look at his monarch.
“Mister Chandler, as far as I am concerned, here are our options. These colts can agree to a duel, or they can be flogged, or they can take their walking papers.”
“Majesty, forgive me, but I’ll not enforce that,” Wicked replied as he raised his head, his courage blazing in his eyes like live coals. “Now, I ain’t one for stepping down or quitting, so I suppose I’ll be the one taking a flogging. I’m alright with that, I am. Might I suggest Mister Balister, ‘e’s quite thorough about these things.”
The princess’ eyes narrowed, and she focused her imperious stare upon Wicked. Flicker tried very hard not to piss himself and he struggled to keep drawing breath. Moonlit was wheezing with panic, and Wicked somehow managed to return Princess Celestia’s stare. Flicker felt himself growing lightheaded, he worried about fainting and pissing himself.
“Camaraderie under duress,” Princess Celestia said in a voice devoid of emotion. She turned to look at each pony in the room in turn, then continued, “I am impressed, but you have not escaped punishment for this debacle. You have, however, reduced its severity. I feel that some leniency is in order here, as a lesson has been learned.”
Moonlit let out a sigh of relief, then pitched over in his chair. He tumbled to the floor, limp and unmoving, his legs tangled in a heap.
“He fainted,” Princess Celestia announced in a very matter-of-fact voice while she pointed with her wing.
“Aye, ye have that effect on yer wee li’l ponies.” Wicked’s voice was still filled with uncertainty.
“A year of remedial sword training, spent together,” Princess Celestia said to Wicked. “This is their punishment for failing to have a proper duel. I want a clear message sent that guild traditions are to be preserved. You cross swords in a duel, not hurl furniture at one another. I want an example made of them.”
“Aye, Majesty.” Wicked nodded his head.
“Now, what to do, what to do.” The big white alicorn turned about to look at Flicker with her head tilted off to one side. “Continuing with the theme of punishment, I want more responsibility given to these two. For so brazenly defying me, I want both of them made prefects, with all of the hard work, duties, and responsibilities such a position bestows. Let it be a millstone around their necks. I want them to know the pain of leadership. Make them ache with it, Mister Chandler.”
Sighing, Wicked gave the princess a faint nod, his head moving just once.
“Now, if you will excuse me, I must be going.” Princess Celestia beamed and her smile was like the sun. “Also, congratulations are in order for not fainting this time, Mister Nicker…”
A subdued pall hung over the guild, which stood out in sharp contrast to the previous day. Still somewhat damp from his shower and not fully awake, Flicker was finishing breakfast. He stared down at his plate, and not at his companions. He hadn’t slept well, there had been troubling dreams, but he could not remember what they were. But he had slept, and he did feel rested, but he lacked the feeling of contentment that came with a good night’s sleep.
“Uh oh,” Hennessy murmured as Mister Balister drew closer.
Lifting his head, Flicker looked up. Mister Balister looked as stern and stony as ever. He twirled his swagger-stick in the air beside him, and hummed to himself as he approached. Lifting his fork, Flicker ate the last of his fried eggs and began chewing as he looked into Mister Balister’s eyes.
“Mister Nicker.” The hard teacher came to a stop about a yard away from Flicker. The swagger-stick flipped in the air and was caught in Mister Balister’s magic. “I came to inform you that you will be joining me for remedial dual-wielding right away.”
Having trouble with what he was hearing, Flicker blinked and responded with, “What?”
“Wax in your ears, colt?” Something that was almost a smirk or a smile could be seen on Mister Balister’s face and there was a cruel-kind glint in his eye. He lifted his swagger-stick and waved it at Flicker. “I’m sure I could shake it out for you, Mister Nicker.”
Piper, looking up from her plate, focused a hard, steely stare upon Mister Balister, which did not go unnoticed. No, hard gazes and stern glares were graded in this fine establishment, and Piper was learning. After a cursory glance, Mister Balister returned his focus to Flicker, while Hennessy just focused on eating.
“I admire you for what you did, colt.” Mister Balister’s neck stiffened and his smirking smile became a little more real.
“But I failed,” Flicker said to his teacher. “I’m being punished. And you, you are going around the rules.”
“Yes. Yes I am.” Mister Balister’s grin vanished and he became cross-looking again. His short, bobbed tail swished behind him, making slapping sounds against his hips, and he took a step forwards. “Dueling has been a farce for quite some time. At least yesterday, it was an entertaining farce, colt.”
“I don’t understand.” Flicker, wary of the swagger-stick and how it was used to drive home a lesson, kept a weather eye on it.
“At some point, dueling changed from being a learning experience involving the exchanging of blows to a contest on who could end it in the fastest, bloodiest manner. Not much was being learned from anypony involved, the crowd or the combatants. I myself went along with the changes, because that is how you survive in this business.” Mister Balister’s eyebrows furrowed and shallow grooves formed on his forehead.
Shuffling, he went on, “Flicker, colt… son… your beloved guild is dying. We’ve been on life support for a while. We have fifty eight students and nineteen masters. We can’t afford to have anypony down with a crushed muzzle or a broken leg.” The starch in Mister Balister’s back vanished and his spine sagged a little. “We live in a building designed to house hundreds. Every year, our numbers dwindle just a little bit more, and the job becomes a little bit harder. Dangerous, life-threatening tasks that used to be special assignments have now become the everyday lessons out of necessity. Had you crippled Mister Gambit, our guild would only have become just a little bit weaker at a time when such weakness cannot be afforded.”
Flicker sighed.
“The next generation will be mostly regular doctors and layponies.” Mister Balister’s voice sounded strained. “That’s why we’re becoming the Ministry of Plagues, Pestilences, Diseases, and Magical Maladies. I’ve been assured that a few of us will survive the transition, and that our order, as iconic as the masks we wear, will survive. But all of this, all that you see, all that you know, it is coming to an end. Which is why I wish to impart as much of my skill as I can to you. You are the vessel of my hope, Mister Nicker.”
“This agency can’t die,” Piper whined.
“It can and will,” Mister Balister replied. “Things change, Miss Pie. Like our duels. At one point, they were a means of education. Much was learned. At some point, they became bloodsport. Sure, there was still a lot of importance to them, and there was a lesson to be learned, the lesson’s impact is greatly diminished by the spectacle that dueling has become.”
“And I unwittingly took part in that.” Flicker’s expression soured.
“You can’t be faulted.” Mister Balister lifted his head and gave Flicker a nod. “Wicked planned the duel. He knew that the guild needed to blow off steam before something bad happened. Everypony is all tense, all worked up since the riots. Canterlot is ready to explode since the harbour was sabotaged. This whole city is ready to collapse in upon itself. The tension is thick enough to cut with a knife. Everypony has gone paranoid with fear, doubt, and loathing. Such things give sustenance to our unmerciful enemy, Grogar. The Royal Pony Sisters have started moving military hardware south. Tanks roll through Equestria and ironclads sail the seas. Yesterday, you gave the guild just what it needed, colt. A good laugh, before we lose our damn minds.”
“Is it really that bad?” Piper asked in a low whisper.
“It’s worse than anypony will admit to,” Mister Balister replied. “There has been a huge fight in Manehattan. Again. Some horrid pony named Belladonna is the new face leading Grogar’s forces. She made a bold attack on the city and assets of the Crown. The Ascendancy arrived to take advantage of the chaos. Many of the guild members in Manehattan were killed while acting as peacekeepers. The death toll approaches the thousand mark. Meanwhile, beneath Canterlot, an army grows in number. Baltimare continues to be plagued by supernatural monsters. At some point, the pressure will no longer be contained, and all of this will explode into a giant mess.”
“And you know what Manehattan, Baltimare, and Canterlot all have in common?” Hennessy asked in a low, cautious voice.
“Do tell, Mister Walker.” Mister Balister’s back stiffened once more and he waited.
“Rats,” Hennessy whispered. “No doubt sabotaging everything while acting as the enemy’s eyes and ears. Keeping everypony on edge, so that when something does happen, it’s worse. This Grogar fellow, he has us by the balls, don’t he?”
“More so than anypony will admit,” Mister Balister said to Hennessy.
Making a strange sound in the back of his throat, Flicker pushed his plate away, even though there were a few more bites of pancake and some syrup pooled upon it. He folded his forelegs over his barrel while slumping down in his chair, a chair that might have been broken, or might not have—repair spells were wonderful things.
“Finish up, colt. I intend to work you over today.” And with that, Mister Balister turned and left.
Doctor Sterling looked scared. Flicker wasn’t used to seeing the good doctor like this. Standing in the hallway, he waited for the doctor to say something, but he seemed out of sorts. Shuffling on his hooves, Flicker knew that he had to be practicing with Mister Balister right now, and he hoped for mercy for his tardiness.
“Doctor Sterling?” Flicker could see the corner of the doctor’s eye quivering and his mustache was crooked.
“The world has gone mad, Flicker. Utterly mad.” Doctor Sterling drew in a deep breath, held it for but a moment, and then let it out in a pained, slow exhale. “A mare stole a piece of her own son’s soul to give to her master, Grogar. Many have died…” The doctor’s words trailed off.
“Mister Balister mentioned something about Manehattan,” Flicker said.
“A filly named Moon Rose was attacked in her own home by talking, intelligent rats that cast spells.” Doctor Sterling swallowed, and it was obvious that he was having some trouble speaking. “She was magicked away to Manehattan to keep her safe… which is just what the enemy wanted. A piece of her soul was stolen as well.” The doctor trembled with both rage and emotion and his silvery-grey eyes flashed with dangerous malice. “Many of my dear, dear friends in Manehattan have died… not just guild members… but dear friends. They stood in defense of these poor foals and paid the price for their steadfastness and their bravery. They died with a stiff upper lip, all of them.”
“Doctor Sterling?” Flicker began feeling distressed at the sound of the doctor’s voice.
“Flicker, put your gear on. Get Piper and Hennessy. We’re going tracking. Wicked wants us to start at the scene of the attack and then go combing through the sewers. It’s my territory, so it is very familiar to me, as it is to you as well.” Doctor Sterling’s voice quavered in pitch and volume with each word.
The colt did not question his orders, but nodded his head. He understood action and the need for it, because he was a doer. Grief and rage would have to be put aside, it seemed. There was a job to do. Flicker, in a peculiar moment of empathy, reached out and touched Doctor Sterling. The good doctor started, then looked down at Flicker’s hoof resting on his foreleg. He blinked a few times, his face contorting with pain that he could not hold back, and a tear rolled down his cheek.
“This is not the same country I grew up in,” Doctor Sterling whispered to Flicker, his voice strained and reedy. “It has become strange to me… a grotesque parody of what it once was. Things have felt wrong since Mister Mariner’s failed gambit. All of my friends are dead, and I wasn’t there to die with them. A mother has done something unimaginable to her own son, the blackest, most vile thing… such a thing that I cannot even begin to comprehend.”
“Doctor Sterling…” Flicker looked up at the doctor, his mentor, his teacher, and Flicker realised, his friend. Words failed Flicker, he had no idea what else to say or how to bring his mentor any measure of comfort. He kept his hoof where it was though, and looked up into the doctor’s eyes.
“Come, Mister Nicker, we have dirty business to do today.” Some of the resolve returned to Doctor Sterling’s voice as he spoke. “Flicker… I need you… with me. You’re like my son, you know that, right? Because of circumstance, because of how I am, it is unlikely that I will ever have foals. I just wanted you to know how I felt… we live in strange times, Flicker… strange times. Nothing should be left unsaid.”
Saying nothing, Flicker nodded.
It felt good to be wearing his face again. Flicker slowed his breathing so that he could appreciate the sound, the marvellous sound of his mechanical respiration. Piper and Hennessy were suited up as well. Flicker had checked them both over, making certain that everything was just so.
Hennessy was being used as a pack pony and was loaded down with almost seventy pounds of traps. Piper had her sword out and was examining the blade. Doctor Sterling was making a few last minute checks of his own gear. Flicker was eager to go, there was killing to be done. His own blades, all three of them, had been double-checked at least a dozen times now.
The miséricorde known as Heartfinder was secured beneath his heavy cloak, out of view. His twin swords were secured to his sides and he was ready, ready to go. Barbed steel darts were secured in hidden sheaths on his front legs and back. Flicker could hurl them with enough force to drive them clean through a four inch thick slab of timber. A bola was hidden away in the pouch pocket on the belly of his protective gear.
“Mister Nicker, you will take the lead. I trust your senses.” Doctor Sterling’s voice sounded strange inside of his mask, as if he wasn’t quite himself. “Mister Walker, Miss Pie, you are to observe and learn. Remain alert. Do everything I tell you to do and obey my every command. I’ll bring up the rear. We’ll go to Moon Rose’s house and begin combing the sewers there. I’m betting that Mister Nicker’s senses will prove quite useful. Any questions?”
Hennessy shook his head no, and the pale white beak-like protrusion on his mask moved from side to side. The lenses of his mask flashed red in the shadows beneath the brim of his hat in the harsh glare of the electric overhead lights. The traps were piled high on his back and sides, connected with a series of clips and straps.
Piper slid her sword away while adjusting her hat and cowl. She was the smallest of all of them, but looked no less frightening. Indeed, something about her small stature and menacing costume was terrifying. The incendiary grenade she carried seemed much, much larger when compared to her small, slight frame.
Gesturing at the trapdoor in the floor that lead to the sewers, Doctor Sterling turned to look at Flicker. “Mister Nicker, let us descend into the darkness together…”
Doctor Sterling’s silver floating orb of light led the way and Flicker followed, splashing through the mucky water of the sewer. Behind him, Hennessy and Piper trailed after him, laying traps every few yards as Doctor Sterling instructed. Piper was good at setting traps, better than Flicker was, even with his practice, but that was no surprise, seeing as how she had better telekinetic manipulation than he did.
So far, not one rat was seen, which worried Flicker, for reasons he could not comprehend. If things felt wrong aboveground, down here in the dark depths of the sewers, it was almost panic inducing. He could feel the rats, sense them, they were close, but there were none to be seen, not a one.
Coming to an intersection, Flicker came to a halt and looked around. This was a five way intersection, one of the sewer hubs. In the middle was a grate that drained downwards to another level, down below the storm drains where they now walked. Flicker could feel eyes on him, but he could not see them, which disturbed him a great deal.
“We’re being watched,” Flicker said, his respirated voice echoing somewhat in the narrow confines of the tunnel.
“I know,” Doctor Sterling responded as he too, had a look around.
The four of them looked like strange birds in the sewer, their pale masks gleaming in the soft silver luminescence of Doctor Sterling’s glowing orb of light. Piper pulled a trap from Hennessy, set it, and placed it down on the grate, half submerged in the water. When finished, she lifted her head and had a look around.
“How odd,” she remarked, “it does feel like I have eyes on me. I don’t like it. Come out, come out, so that Lord Death of Murder Mountain may stab you.”
For Flicker, the sewers were home, but they didn’t feel like it now. They were strange, the darkness was oppressive, and devoid of life. The enchanted lenses on his mask showed nothing, not a thing. Not even insects were showing up, which was a worrisome sign. There should be cockroaches down here, but there was nothing.
It was impossible for the sewers to not be infested, yet Flicker saw the evidence with his own eyes. He scanned the walls, the water, he even tilted his head back to look up at the arched ceiling above him; nothing. How could this be? How was this even possible? What could do this? Was this what Wicked was trying to investigate before making a hasty move? Flicker had questions, but no answers seemed forthcoming.
“Come along, my apprentices, we must keep moving…”
There were guards in the passage ahead. In the wall, there was an opening blown open, perhaps by magic, and at the other end of the opening, Flicker could see up into a house. Wardens were here, along with a number of unicorns wearing armor. Ever respectful, Flicker gave a ground-pounder’s salute, his booted hoof dripping slime when he raised it from the muck.
His salute was returned by all present.
“Ex Ignis Amicitiae,” said one of the unicorns as the group drew near.
Coming to a halt, Doctor Sterling responded, “Ex Ignis Amicitiae.” And then, after a moment, he added, “Hail the Night Lady.”
One of the Wardens snapped to attention and saluted with his wing. “Lord Shoe, I have much to report. I am Warden Maestus, loyal servant to Her Majesty, the Night Lady.”
“And I am Malfeasance,” one of the unicorns present said in a soft, almost slithery voice. The unicorn in question was a slick looking character, and he appeared to be right at home in the sewer.
“What sort of mother names her foal Malfeasance?” Piper blurted out.
Grinning, Malfeasance replied, “I was not a good foal. Call me Malf.”
“Mister Nicker, I don’t like him. He’s creepy. If he comes near me, stab him.” Piper backed away, her booted hooves splashing in the muck. “I don’t like the feel of his eyes on me. Don’t let him come near me.”
“Warden Maestus, I’ll hear your report.” Doctor Sterling turned to look at Piper for a moment as she cowered behind Flicker, and then he glanced at Malf. “Don’t look at her, Malf. You may be geased to do good, but I know full well what you’ve done. I’ll geld you if you keep looking at her.”
“And I won’t stop him,” Warden Maestus added and as he spoke, there was a squeak of leather against steel when Flicker’s swords loosened in their sheaths. “Lord Shoe, they burrowed in with earth moving magic and came up through the floor. Some of the wards were disabled, but not all of them, and help was dispatched right away. Princess Celestia lost several of her Immortal Solars last night in the battle that took place, but because of their sacrifice, Moon Rose was able to be sent to Manehattan.”
“Which is what the enemy wanted,” Doctor Sterling said to the Warden.
“Yes.” The Warden nodded. “The other assets were magicked away to Manehattan as well, as there was a coordinated attack made last night. Marauders made their way into Ponyville. Two of the assets were sent to some farm, I don’t know the location, but the enemy was ready and made an attempt to capture them there. The backup plan was initiated and both assets were sent to Manehattan. Once in Manehattan, the sanctuary where the assets were sent was breached by a pony known as Belladonna.”
“We have been thoroughly infiltrated.” Doctor Sterling’s voice sounded sad and weary through the droning whirr of his respirator. “And it all started here. In these sewers. The attack was launched from here.”
“Nopony knows these sewers like you do,” Malf said in his greasy, slick voice and his eyes darted over to Piper for one quick second before returning to Doctor Sterling. “I would find a place where there is a connection to the caverns down below, a thin place that could be excavated. Do you know of such a place?”
“Several, actually,” Doctor Sterling replied. “Mister Nicker, if he glances at Miss Pie again, I want you to carve his ears off.”
“Of course, my Master. Without hesitation.”
Malfeasance froze up for several seconds, then scuttled away to be closer to Warden Maestus, while keeping his tail tucked between his legs. There was creepy, and then there was creepy—with Flicker being the latter. Looking disgusted, the Warden kicked Malf away from him, and the unicorn stumbled away, splashing through the fetid brown water.
“I’m really very sorry,” Warden Maestus said to Doctor Sterling. “I find him repulsive, but his talents continue to prove useful.” Turning to look at Piper, he added, “My apologies, Miss.”
“Just what is it that he does that makes him so useful anyhow?” Hennessy asked.
“He can summon a variety of magical eyes that allow him remote viewing… including eyes that allow him to see through solid objects,” Warden Maestus replied.
“Yes!” Malf hissed, and then he let loose a lugubrious-sounding half cackle that died in his throat. “I can see what you see not…” His words died on his tongue when Flicker’s sword came halfway out of its scabbard. With his eyes focused on the menacing colt, he skulked further away, his head low in a posture of utter submissiveness. “I can feel this one’s eyes burning into me!”
“You…” Flicker’s voice was a demanding mechanical growl. “What do you know?”
“All I know is that whatever lies below in the darkness blocks my eyes,” Malf replied as he continued his retreat until he bumped into the wall. “There is only blackness… darkness… impenetrable.”
“We should be going. We have much ground to cover.” Doctor Sterling bowed his head to Warden Maestus and then cast a final glance at Malf. For a moment, it seemed as though the doctor had something to say, but silence was held.
“Good luck, Lord Shoe.” Warden Maestus raised his wing in salute once more. “Good hunting!”
As the group headed east, nearer to the catacombs, Flicker became increasingly agitated, though he could not say why. The feeling of being watched became even stronger, and he wondered if perhaps Malf was watching them. If he was, Flicker resolved to stab him at some point in the future. Oh, not a fatal wound, but something that would bleed a lot and be quite painful while healing.
Coming to a three way intersection, he stopped. Still no bugs in the sewer, which was weird. No sign of rats, either. Flicker could feel them though, the rats, and he knew that they were close. Cautious, he looked about, checking both passages, scanning for signs of life. When nothing could be found, he continued up the tunnel on the right, which was narrower and older, with a lower ceiling. He had been down this passage before, and it was a favourite of the rats.
Above, there was a Saddle Arabian Saboni, a fancy soap maker’s shop, and many exotic fats as well as delectable ingredients ended up washed down the drains. His mask blocked out the clean scent of soap that he might smell in this area. This was an older, more exclusive part of town, full of ponies whose shit didn’t stink.
Piper put down the last available trap, lightening up Hennessy’s load. The earth pony colt followed close to Flicker and he kept up in silence. Doctor Sterling cast spells that made the walls glow in a weird, eerie light, and in some places, on the stones, the strange looking spidery symbols of glyphs and magic became visible.
Flicker had no idea what any of them meant, and he didn’t bother asking.
“Stop!” Doctor Sterling commanded.
Halting, Flicker was almost bowled over by Hennessy plowing into him. Turning his head, he looked at Hennessy, but said nothing. Piper shook her leg, trying to get a clump of something sticky off of her boot. Meanwhile, Doctor Sterling was looking at some strange symbols on the wall down near the waterline.
“These are wards,” he said to his apprentices. “Wards to block divination spells and clairvoyance spells. They’re fresh, too. They’re quite strange, this is not unicorn magic. See how they resist the light? These come from darkness. Pay attention, and give them a look, Miss Pie.”
Doing as she was bid, Piper bent her head down to have a look.
“These were carved into the stone,” she said as she peered through the lenses of her mask. “I can see the scratches. Do you think this was done with a claw?”
“Most likely,” Doctor Sterling responded as he had a look. “So the rats have scribe based magic… glyphs, scribed wards, and written spells. Fascinating. This suggests literacy.”
Turning about, his boots squelching in foamy muck, Flicker stared at Doctor Sterling, not quite believing what he was hearing. Rats… who could read. Grinding his teeth together, Flicker did not like how that sounded, not at all. Reading meant learning, learning meant organisation, and organisation meant advanced battlefield tactics.
The rodent problem beneath Canterlot was getting out of hoof.
Frustrated by these new facts, Flicker reoriented himself and continued down the passage once more, pressing ahead while the others gawked at rat scribbles on the wall. There was only one cure for rat literacy, and that was total and complete annihilation of the rodent swarms beneath Canterlot. A task easier said than done, all things considered.
The guild had been hunting rats for centuries and hadn’t managed to exterminate them from the city. Pausing, Flicker came to a halt when he noticed a faint strand going from wall to wall, like a spider’s web. He didn’t like it, not at all, and backed away from it. Something about it seemed off.
“Doctor Sterling, I think I have found a trap,” Flicker announced. “I almost didn’t see it. If I wasn’t wearing my mask, I don’t think I would have seen it at all.”
The doctor’s boots splashed in the mucky, foamy, soapy water as he approached, and he tilted his head to one side to see better. He cast a spell and the strand glowed with a fierce, throbbing light. The good doctor grunted, then cast another spell, then another. The strand vanished with a wisp of smoke and then bubbles of darkness rose up from the water, actual bubbles, which were as black as night and had a strange dark glow to them.
“Blindness hex,” Doctor Sterling said to Flicker. “At least, I think. It’s different than anything I’ve seen, but it is close enough that it is almost familiar. Whomever did this was powerful and strong… I think you’d need a princess to break this hex.”
“I’ll be very careful going forward.” Flicker began to advance once more, peering ahead and down into the water, glad that his mask allowed him to see through minor barriers, walls, and water. The last thing he wanted to do was step on some poisoned caltrop.
He didn’t get very far before he saw another strand hanging down from the ceiling. It might have been mistaken for a bit of cobweb, but Flicker was wary—and paranoid. He nodded upwards and backed away so that Doctor Sterling could remove the devious magical trap. This was magic that was entirely beyond Flicker and his abilities, a weakness if ever there was one.
The colt hoped that Piper was paying attention.
Sighing, Doctor Sterling said with a huff, “It’s going to be slow progress making our way down this passage…”
The rough, bored tunnel had ominous implications. It was a small thing, too small for even Piper to shimmy though, and it led upwards. Another tunnel led downwards, down into the heart of the Canterhorn. Flicker peered upwards, looking at the slick, slimey stone, but could see very little because the tunnel had a bend to it. All of Flicker’s senses were screaming at him that something was wrong.
“We should investigate aboveground,” Flicker said to his companions, stricken with a need to get answers.
“Yes.” Piper’s voice was a mechanical hiss, like steam escaping a valve.
She had changed, Piper. In the span of just a few hours, she had changed in Flicker’s eyes. Her mask was an accessory no longer, but Flicker knew that he was looking at her true face, though the same could not be said for Hennessy. In Flicker’s heart, he did not want the mask to replace Hennessy’s true face. But Piper? Piper was like him now, a creature driven by dark motivations that had become as one with her new face and skin.
Piper was very much like his sibling, but Flicker lacked the vocabulary to truly describe the scope of their relationship. He knew that she would follow him into the darkest, foulest sewer, or into darker, danker places, or even Tartarus should it be necessary. The colt had no idea what had made him wax so poetic, but these were his thoughts as he peered up into the ominous tunnel above him.
“Yes, let us have a look around.” Doctor Sterling backed away from the tunnel and gestured back down the passage behind them. “There is a means to go topside back there. Let us make haste, and be cautious.”
The lane was very narrow, no wider than a wagon. This was an old place in Canterlot, with exquisite, graceful towers packed together like trees in a forest. The cobblestones were dark grey, with glittering speckles, made from some stone that Flicker did not know or recognise. Turning his head, he focused on the tower at the end of the lane, where the tunnel was. It was tall, square in shape, and quite old looking. It was surrounded by a wall on three sides, a tall wall with spikes protruding upwards. The front was closed off with a wrought iron fence, also spiked.
Something about the tower made Flicker’s blood run cold, but that did not deter him. He moved, a strange four legged bird cloaked in dark and shadow, leaving behind a trail of filth from the sewer. It was quiet here, a strange quiet, even the birds were not chirping. No ponies could be seen in any of the tiny yards.
This place seemed as lifeless as the sewers.
Unseen by Flicker, unseen by mortals, several figures stepped out of the shadows. One was a zebra whose mane was a mass of writhing, reaching, ropey dreadlocks. The second was an alicorn stallion, pale in colour, and his gaunt face held a deathly pallour. His cutie mark was a shattered, broken hourglass. The third figure, the largest and most dangerous looking of the three, was matte black with pale white dapples. His cutie mark was an intact, whole hourglass, filled with a moving mass of sand that shifted up and down in constant motion.
As the companions moved down the lane, with Flicker in the lead, the unseen trio drew nearer. The unseen zebra turned away, an expression of intense pain upon her face, and she squeezed her eyes shut when the large, black alicorn stallion drew his primary feathers over Flicker’s throat as he passed. Flicker had no reaction to the touch he did not feel.
The same happened to Piper, but so focused was she, so eager to follow Flicker, that she walked right through the massive, black wing with white dappled feathers. When Hennessy was touched, the earth pony colt paused for a moment and shuddered, as if experiencing some chill. He did not remain still for long though, and hurried after his friend as the dark black alicorn stallion allowed his primaries to trail along Hennessy’s spine.
The last touched was Doctor Sterling, and the alicorn that looked as though he was made from the night and stars lingered for a time on the good doctor. The zebra’s eyes opened and she looked at him, her eyes pleading, sad, there was an eternity of sadness in those eyes. When no response was made, she looked away, unable to watch.
And then, his eyes focused on the tower, Flicker pulled open the gate…
The mare that opened the door had dull, glassy eyes that seemed to stare through Flicker. Her maid outfit seemed a bit dishevelled, less than perfect. Flicker, rigid, his senses screaming, could hardly see the maid, and it was as if the two were blind to one another.
“Ma’am, we need to have a look around,” Flicker said to the maid.
“No.” The maid shook her head, her voice was slow and slurred. “The lady of the house does not wish to have visitors and she has requested that I turn away all callers.”
“No, I really need to have a look around,” Flicker insisted.
“Come Mister Nicker, let us go.” Doctor Sterling’s voice was firm. “We have been turned away, it is now a matter for the guard. Let us go and find the Daywatch. We’ll explain what is going on and then we’ll return.”
“No, I don’t think so.” Flicker, grunting, shoved the maid out of the way. “Sorry, Ma’am… but I’m going through puberty and I’m having a rebellious moment. Please, forgive me.”
“You can’t come in!” the maid cried, almost moaning, and she tried to shove Flicker out as he pushed past her.
“Mister Nicker! Come out of there at once!” Doctor Sterling commanded.
The colt did not listen, but continued, going into the tower at the end of the lane…
Almost overcome by his rat-sense, Flicker stood in the middle of the entry room, looking around, and ignoring the orders being given to him by Doctor Sterling. A dreadful obsession had overcome him, a compulsion that he could neither resist or ignore. His cutie mark burned with inner fire and he gave himself over wholly and completely.
This place had not been cleaned in some time. Had Flicker not been wearing his mask, he might have smelled spoiled, rotten meat, an odd smell indeed in a pony’s dwelling. He looked about the room, ready for violence, ready for anything.
At the door, Doctor Sterling was apologising to the maid. “Ma’am, I’m frightfully sorry, I don’t know what has come over him, please, accept my apologies.”
“Get out!” the maid moaned.
Everything here felt wrong. Rat turds littered the floor and the rugs were soiled with urine. Flicker’s head turned and he stared at the stairs leading upwards. Moving with his slow, methodical, almost mechanical movement, Flicker headed for the stairs, his head tilted upwards, while his booted hoof splashed in a puddle of urine.
“Flicker Nicker! Obey me! What has gotten into you?” Doctor Sterling barked.
But Flicker did not listen, he did not obey, and he continued for the stairs…
Poking his head up, Flicker had a look around. The second floor was also filthy, just as disgusting as the first. There was a small landing at the top of the narrow, cramped stairs, not a large space, and several doors were visible to him. Flicker peered through the walls, but there was nothing, not a thing. No sign of any rats, but Flicker could feel them. they were close now, so very close, and the colt wondered if they were somehow invisible, as he had heard stories.
The dreadful stories that nopony in the guild wanted to believe. Invisible rats.
With a few steps, Flicker stood on the landing and had a look around, scanning his environment. He could feel the cold through his protective gear, there was quite a chill in the air around him. The rats were close now, if his senses could be believed, but there was still no sight of them, no trace.
In an act of curious desperation, Flicker took his mask off, he took off his face. There was a faint hiss as the seals gave way and he could feel cold air on his fuzzy flesh. A terrible stench of rot and decay assailed his nostrils. Something had died here and the putrescence in the air was like a slap in the face.
Standing in the corner, near a door, was a rat. It stood, bipedal, and it wasn’t like any other rat he had ever seen. With his mask on, it had been invisible to him, but now unmasked, the rat was visible. A murderous scowl crossed Flicker’s face as he stared at the strange, bipedal rat. It had much longer legs, longer arms… and hands.
The rat laughed and then many things happened all at once. The doors around Flicker slammed open and screams could be heard downstairs. There was a clang of steel on steel, and then Flicker heard Doctor Sterling shout, “Run, Hennessy! Go and fetch help! DO IT NOW!” Then there was screaming from down below.
“PIPER! GET OUT! GO!”
Several loud clicks filled Flicker’s ears and much to his surprise, several small crossbow quarrels pierced his protective gear. He stood there, dumbfounded by everything taking place, shocked by the sudden appearance of an army of rats. Almost right away, his blood began burning as some awful poison seeped into his flesh from the crossbow quarrels.
Time seemed to slow down for Flicker as the poison burned into his muscles. His swords came out, both of them, and his mask fell to the floor, dropped from his magic. Snarling, gritting his teeth, he advanced, determined to go down killing. More quarrels peppered his sides, his neck, and his legs.
Flicker’s whirling blades found their first enemy, and with a vicious scissor attack, Flicker beheaded one of the many rats swarming him. They came at him, armed, some had small swords and bucklers, others had axes, and one had a rat-sized mace. With a broad, sweeping motion of one sword, he forced them back on one side, but they continued to advance on the other.
The ones who were closest burst into flames as Flicker unleashed his magic. The flames spread with great rapidity, igniting the carpet and then the drapes that covered a large picture window meant to illuminate the landing. The choking smoke made it difficult to breath and Flicker no longer had his mask, his face, leaving him vulnerable.
In this wretched, dreadful moment, Flicker thought of Mister Balister. Every beating, every blow, every painful punch and kick… Mister Balister had prepared him for this… his teacher had educated him on how to deal with pain… and how to die well. Flicker understood the lesson now, and he was thankful that he had been blessed with such a fine teacher.
As he slashed at a rat swiping at him with a sword, another rat drove it’s blade between Flicker’s ribs. He felt the chilly steel piercing vital places, and Flicker might have fallen over from the pain, had it not been for Mister Balister’s many lessons. Another sword buried itself into his flesh, this time just in front of his hips. The colt swept out with his swords, low and wide, and several rats were sliced or chopped.
Below him, there were more screams, some of them Piper’s. She had not fled as commanded.
Incensed by her screams, Flicker lashed out with a psychokinetic nova, his flick spell, but it now formed a circle of applied force around him. Rats flew away, some exploding from the impact, and others were knocked into the flames that were consuming the landing. A new combatant entered the fray, and Flicker watched as he entered through an open door.
Tall, as tall as Flicker, the hominoid rat was pale white and covered in bulbous tumours. In his hand, he held a longsword that had a fine, tapered point. With his other hand, he made a gesture, and his claws glowed with magic. Flicker found himself lifted, picked up by his throat, and a crushing force bore down on his windpipe.
“So predictable,” the rat said in a calm, cool voice. “Just as my Master said you would, you came. Had you more intelligence, you might have been a threat to me, but the foolishness of youth is your undoing. Even now, your guild is burning… we’ve scattered you all over the city, chasing after ghosts and shadows.”
Gasping, Flicker tried in vain to draw breath, but couldn’t.
“Together, you might have posed a minor threat to me, but you were so easily pulled apart.” The rat’s voice was mocking, condescending, and he flexed his claws, which tightened his magical grip on Flicker’s throat. There was a wet pop as Flicker’s larynx collapsed, and the rat let out a malevolent chuckle. “We’ve even found a way to use your precious, beloved masks against you. What was it like, being blind to the world as you crawled through my sewers, unable to see my army mocking you as you passed so near to them?”
Stars danced in Flicker’s vision, which was now fading. Try as he might, he could not draw in any air and he felt his body growing heavy. There was a lot of screaming from down below, and as Flicker’s consciousness began to slip, he wondered if Doctor Sterling and Piper could even see what they were fighting.
“In the end, you weren’t much of a threat at all… I don’t understand why my Master was even worried about you.” The pale rat made a dismissive gesture with his sword, and then with his other hand, he acted as though he was flinging something way. “His instructions were very clear though, I was to be the one that killed you.”
Flicker was hurled through the flaming drapes that covered the glass window and then through the window itself, which shattered. The jagged glass carved into his flesh, ripping him to shreds, and as his vision went dark, he could see the glass glittering all around him like millions of tiny stars suspended in the velvet night sky.
The colt fell, trailing ribbons of scarlet blood, shards of glass, and flaming sparks. A second later, he landed on the spiked fence below, back first, and then much to Flicker’s confused shock, he saw the wrought iron spike protruding up from his barrel, slick with his own blood. He struggled a bit, but there was no fight left, and after a second of convulsing and thrashing around, he went limp. His body almost folded in half as his front part and and his hind part hung on different sides of the fence.
With a gasp, he spoke his last and final word, which was more of a bloodied wheezing exhalation than anything else. “Knick-Knack…”
Tʜɪs ɪs ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴄʜᴀᴍᴘɪᴏɴ, Lɪᴍᴀ? As I ʟᴏᴏᴋ ᴜᴘᴏɴ ʜɪᴍ, I ғɪɴᴅ ʜɪᴍ ʟᴀᴄᴋɪɴɢ. Fᴏᴏʟɪsʜ. Hᴏᴛʜᴇᴀᴅᴇᴅ. Iᴍᴘᴇᴛᴜᴏᴜs. Eᴀsɪʟʏ ᴍᴀɴɪᴘᴜʟᴀᴛᴇᴅ. Nᴇᴇᴅ I ɢᴏ ᴏɴ?
Flicker found himself looking up at his own corpse, which was skewered onto a sharp iron spike that protruded from the top of the wall. He had been cut open in dozens of places and there were parts of him that were hanging out that shouldn’t be. After shuddering in disgust, he turned about to face the two ponies and the zebra that stood there with him.
“I stand by my choice,” Lima said as her body took on a defiant stance. “Who are you to judge me, Chronos?”
Looking around, Flicker found himself frozen in a moment of time. Shards of glass were still suspended above him. Flames licking out the window had become solid and unmoving. His own blood was not dripping. Nothing moved. After much looking, Flicker focused on Lima, whom he knew.
“What’s going on?” Flicker asked.
“An ending,” the dark, unknown alicorn replied.
“Flicker, this is Chronos and Pale. Do not anger them.” Lima’s eyes narrowed as one of her dreadlocks reached out, grasping for Flicker, and then stroked his cheek. “You have fallen, my champion.”
For some reason, Flicker wasn’t as moved by the news as he felt he should be. He looked at the dark alicorn, then the pale one, and found both of them studying him. He was dead, it was over, and Flicker supposed that his soul would be measured before he was carted off to whatever afterlife awaited him.
“Chronos, you can undo this,” Lima said in a pleading voice as she looked over at the much larger alicorn stallion.
“All things must end,” Chronos replied. “Even us. Our end approaches. The Nameless One dies a little more each day and magic grows ever weaker.” The stallion let out a sigh. “I have seen so many ends.”
“So let us choose an end where we die fighting!” Lima snapped while she stomped her hoof. “There are new magics! New means to fight! Look at what the Nameless One’s champion has done with magic! She fights with friendship! Terra Firma’s champion ended the wrongness that was Skyreach! And my champion—”
“Is dead,” the pale alicorn said, letting the words out in a huff. “He failed. Spectacularly. Failure.” The pale one snorted. “Sometimes, I don’t even see the point in trying. Everything goes wrong at some point. That whole thing with Skyreach was a fluke, I say.”
“I’m not so sure.” Chronos’ wings fluttered against his sides and he turned a piercing, imperious stare upon Flicker. “I was wrong about Skyreach. It isn’t often that I am proven wrong. Lima’s words bear much conviction. She believes, Brother.”
“A stopped clock is right twice a day—”
“Don’t even talk to me about clocks,” Chronos commanded while his face was overcome with an irked expression. “Silence your tongue, Brother.”
“What happens now?” Flicker asked.
Staring at Flicker, Chronos’ mouth became a tight, pinched straight line beneath his nostrils. Pale looked away, looking at Flicker’s corpse. Lima stared at Chronos with pleading, sorrowful eyes. Flicker found that he could not bear Chronos’ gaze, so he looked down at his own front hooves, which were transparent at the moment.
“Turning back time has consequences, especially with all these lives involved. There is a price to be paid.” Chronos looked away from Flicker and instead focused upon the colt’s corpse where it hung on the fence. He took a few steps, paused, reached out a wing, lifted up a shredded tatter of Flicker’s protective gear, and then stared at the pale blue crystal heart hanging from the dead colt’s neck.
Trembling from the change in Chronos’ voice, Flicker tried to look at the dark alicorn and found that he couldn’t. Majesty radiated from Chronos in waves, a tangible, kinetic force. Flicker felt like he was all of five years old again and part of him wanted to grovel on the ground. The sounds of clocks ticking filled Flicker’s ears, along with chiming bells, perhaps an indicator that his hour had come?
Having died, knowing that his friends were dying, his beloved guild was dying, Flicker felt rage bubble up from within him. The rage tore open a chasm of rebellion, and something truly awful came crawling out of Flicker’s subconscious. “Fuck you, you pompous prick, I don’t have you tell you shit. My reasons are my own.”
Hᴀ!
Lima’s sudden outburst was like a thunderclap and Chronos raised one eyebrow as he turned to glare at her. After a moment, he focused his commanding gaze upon Flicker, and his ears pivoted forwards. Pale began sniggering, but after a deep, resonating growl from his brother, Pale fell silent and dropped into a submissive posture.
“The unmitigated gall…” Chronos muttered and then he drew in a deep breath in hopes of recovering his patience. “The audacity from this little twerp!”
“The reason why I chose him.” Lima lifted her head as high as possible to challenge Chronos, and her ears angled out in an aggressive manner over her face. “In the face of gods or Grogar, he will be defiant until—”
“Enough, Lima.” Chronos said the words and the zebra mare went silent as she dropped into a more submissive stance. Her ears drooped and she averted her eyes from Chronos, focusing on Flicker instead. “Silly zebra, do not confuse bravery with thick-headedness and stupidity.”
“Thick-headedness is a virtue,” Lima retorted, keeping her eyes on Flicker.
“Wait… is that… is that the reason why you chose him?” Chronos blinked a few times as the stunning realisation dawned upon him. “You chose the most thick-headed mook you could find… you picked a palooka to go into the fight?”
This time, Lima did look at Chronos, and her eyes narrowed. “That’s right. I did. It’s not always about the biggest, the strongest, the bravest, or the most courageous. Sometimes, it is about the last one standing. I would have Grogar tire himself out on this one so that the other champions stand a better chance.”
“I… I… you… Lima… I can’t even!” Chronos sputtered, spitting out each word while shaking his head. The corner of his eye twitched in a most frightful manner as a terrible, terrific majesty continued to radiate from him.
“When he dynamited the bear, I knew he was my champion.” Lima’s eyes narrowed even more, becoming slits. “I wanted a palooka. It is my desire that Grogar be exhausted when the inevitable fight comes. Already, he has the souls he craves to make himself a new body. He will live again. The fight is coming, mark my words.”
Pale snorted, but said nothing.
Extending his wing, Chronos wrapped it around Flicker’s neck and pulled the colt closer. The dark alicorn sighed once, then a second time, and on the third time, he shuddered. “This can’t be done without cost, colt, and the price is a terrible one. Harmony has a way of correcting itself if you work against it. It has to be give and take. What are you willing to give?”
“What do I have?” Flicker responded. “I’m dead.”
“I’m holding the one valuable thing you have left.” Chronos’ words were a soft, velvet whisper spoken into Flicker’s ear. “The world has grown… there are so many now… so, so many. I need willing servants. There are many souls in need of harvest, in need of guidance… in need of rest.”
“If I serve you, then how do I go back and fight?”
“I will give you a life,” Chronos replied, his lips brushing up against Flicker’s ear and causing it to twitch. “I will give you a life, but it will cost you a life. Your soul however… will belong to me until such a time that I die.”
“So, the end of time.” Flicker blinked, which was quite a peculiar sensation, being dead.
“This is not an easy bargain.” Chronos’ words were tinged with sadness and regret. “It is longer than you realise… do not be hasty. Flicker Nicker, you were a good pony in life, living in service to others. You have a marvellous afterlife awaiting you. Do not so carelessly throw that away. Your last words spoken were ones of love, not contempt and hate. Something beautiful and wonderful awaits you.”
“I would rather fight.” Flicker leaned against Chronos because the embrace was comforting and it brought peace to his troubled soul.
“Let me show you what awaits you should you fight…”
Chronos’ horn ignited and blazed brighter than Celestia’s sun. The air was filled with the sounds of ticking clocks and Flicker’s eyes went wide. A dull, vacant expression could be seen on the colt’s face and his mouth fell open. Flicker, no more than a naked soul, his eyes went glassy and blank as he was shown forever, a near eternity of servitude.
Then, Chronos’ horn went dim, Flicker blinked a few times, and shook his head.
“That wasn’t so bad—”
“That wasn’t so bad?!” Chronos’ mouth fell open, aghast, and Pale began sniggering again. “That wasn’t so bad? Are you daft? I just showed you bloody forever and it makes most ponies who see it go insane! Even ponies who are currently missing a body react poorly to it, it’s bloody forever, you barmy twit! A thrice damned eternity!”
“It was orderly and had rules,” Flicker said as he rapidly recovered his senses. “I like orderly things with rules. They’re comforting. It means I don’t have to think as much.”
“Colt, you just might be the most thick-headed pony to have ever existed,” Chronos stated, and awe was evident in his voice. “I think if Grogar himself was to show you the Black Void, you’d just shrug it off.”
“This is why I chose a palooka,” Lima said again. “His brain has the consistency of a well-boiled pudding. There is no better defense against the madness and insanity that Grogar is sure to bring to bear.”
“When Chronos showed me forever, I never quite recovered.” Pale lifted his head, sniffled a bit, and shook his head. “It’s all so pointless… so meaningless… I don’t even know why I bother. All that is left is this dreary half-existence.”
“You’ll have to forgive Pale,” Lima said to Flicker. “If you showed him a glass with some water, he wouldn’t see it as neither half-full nor half-empty—”
“No, it’s a glass that I’m stuck washing ‘cause nopony else will. It’ll just sit there, forever, until I clean it up. So it goes.” The pale alicorn let heave a sigh that was pure, concentrated ennui and he gave a flap of his wings. “Oh no, I can’t clean that up, I’m Chronos, the Master of Time, and I have to police the timeline and protect it, Star Swirl this and Starlight Glimmer that… I can’t be bothered with such trivialness—”
Reaching out his wing, Chronos slapped his brother upside the head and then let out a frustrated snort.
“—hey, ow!” Pale gave his brother a wounded look and then backed away with his tail tucked between his legs.
“I want to fight.” Flicker raised his head and looked up at Chronos. “Let me fight. Give me the means to correct my mistakes. Give me another chance. I just lost everything I hold dearest to my heart, and I’m still willing to fight. I’m not willing to give up just yet.”
“Lima Bean, are you willing to share your champion?” Chronos turned to look at the much smaller zebra mare.
“I suppose that I could.” Lima gave Chronos a duck-lipped stare of curiousity and several of her dreadlocks formed question marks around her face.
Sighing, Chronos held Flicker close a little longer, and his affection seemed genuine. The big, dark alicorn looked over at Flicker’s corpse, still suspended in time, still frozen at the very moment of the colt’s death. Flicker found comfort in the embrace, but he had learned already that some of the hardest ponies in the world were also the kindest.
“The foe you face is named Contagion,” Chronos whispered to Flicker, “and he is mighty.” The alicorn stallion gave Flicker a squeeze with his wing and drew in a deep breath before he spoke again. “As the rats gained sapience, Contagion rose among their ranks. He is enshrined, Flicker… the rats pray to him and this has started him down the path to a form of godhood. This… enshrinement gives him certain powers. It makes him strong. His magic is miraculous. He is not so different than the princesses that you worship and adore. They too, are enshrined. The prayers you offer give them strength, boost their magic, for such is the nature of living alicorns and other beings who have been touched by the divine.”
“You died, didn’t you?” Flicker asked, his voice soft and almost foalish.
“All three of us,” Chronos replied. “Grogar killed all of us. One by one, he did us in, destroying our beautiful and noble pantheon. When Terra died, I… I lost my mind with grief. She was a good and dear friend to me. I was a bit like you. I rushed into battle and I didn’t care. My brother, the good and loyal sort he is, he followed me. Which was pretty much what Grogar wanted. Before he killed me, he made me watch as he tortured Pale to death. My brother paid for my stupidity.” For a moment, Chronos looked over at his brother with sad, regret-filled eyes. “I know what it is like to go berserk from loss… and before this is over, you’ll know loss.”
“Lima?” Flicker peered over the feathers of Chronos’ wing over at the zebra mare.
“I don’t remember who I was.” Lima looked away and she stared at the tower from which Flicker had been thrown. “I only remember that I was a mother fighting to protect her foals. I died to Grogar’s shadows. Chronos and Pale gave me an opportunity to keep fighting, so I did. And so old Lima Bean shall fight until the end of all time.”
“Are you ready to return?” Pale asked, his voice solemn and low. “It will be painful… it will be the worst pain you will ever experience… harmony does not like it when the rules are bent or broken. You will pay for existing past your point of expiration. Plus, your body is well and truly trashed at this point. You died a bloody mess, colt.”
“I can turn back the hands of the clock, but know this… there is still a pound of flesh that must be paid. Hennessy has been ambushed and mere moments from now, he will die. Piper’s blood burns with the same poison that weakened you, and Sterling Shoe suffers as well. Before this is over, you will lose one of them.” Closing his eyes, Chronos bowed his head. “Who dies, Flicker Nicker?”
Knowing that he had to make a choice, Flicker agonised over the decision…
Stars danced in Flicker’s vision, which was now fading. Try as he might, he could not draw in any air and he felt his body growing heavy. There was a lot of screaming from down below, and as Flicker’s consciousness began to slip, he wondered if Doctor Sterling and Piper could even see what they were fighting.
“In the end, you weren’t much of a threat at all… I don’t understand why my Master was even worried about you.” The pale rat made a dismissive gesture with his sword, and then with his other hand, he acted as though he was flinging something way. “His instructions were very clear though, I was to be the one that killed you.”
A thousand knives pierced through Flicker’s flesh and every nerve in his body sang in a choir of agony. He didn’t know what the rat was doing to him, but it hurt like nothing else had ever hurt. For a brief second, Flicker worried that every cell in his body was about to explode like popcorn. Mister Balister had tried to teach him how to manage pain, but this was too much pain, far too much pain.
This kind of pain gave Flicker a wicked case of the angries, the most terrible case of the angries ever, the sort of angries that drove a pony berserk.
The sclera of his eyes turned a sickening shade of green and his pupils burned a bright, vivid crimson. Vile purple mist rose from his eyes and Flicker’s horn was a conflagration of black fire. Never in his whole life had he ever been angrier, the colt didn’t think that this level of fury was even possible, and as the pain reached its crescendo, Flicker broke.
Given strength from dark magic, his flick spell struck the pale white rat in its right elbow and the arm disintegrated from thousands of pounds of force being applied in an area the size of a pinprick. When the arm turned into a cloud of foul mist, Flicker fell to the floor with a thump and sucked in a lungful of much needed air. The pale rat screamed, and as it wailed in agony, its arm began regrowing, a wriggling lump of diseased, putrucent flesh squirting out of the gaping wound that was his shoulder.
Not giving his body time to get air, Flicker forced himself into motion, once more owing Mister Balister a sincere thank you. Swords out, he chopped at the rats around him as reinforcements spilled in through the doors and came down the stairs from the floor above. Some of the rats were trying to extinguish the flames using magic, because it was such a terrible danger to them.
Fire purged the undead and vampiric entities like nothing else.
Rage made Flicker’s blood boil with so much heat that it seemed to be purging the poison in his body. With a violent scissoring, he beheaded a rat before it stabbed him and then sliced another in half with a quick sweep. Shifting tactics he kept one sword on his right side and the other sword on the left, meeting his enemies as he came. He wasn’t skilled in this form of combat, but he had rage and strength, which covered a multitude of sins.
The dark magic burned away from Flicker and something in the back of his mind told him he would need to atone himself with Princess Cadance. The same something told him that the rat’s name was Contagion; he didn’t know how he knew, but the knowledge was just there in his mind.
As for Contagion himself, he was recovering and retreating.
Flicker followed, slicing and cutting, carving his way forwards. Beyond the door, he found a small, cosy sitting room that also doubled as a library. In a chair by the fireplace was a dried out, shriveled, desiccated corpse of a unicorn. He was just a husk, it was like seeing a bug sucked dry by spiders… or a pony sucked dry by vampires.
Snarling, he drew Heartfinder, and it glowed with a brilliant silvery light. Now armed with three blades, Flicker found it difficult to concentrate on the movement required to keep them all useful as weapons. When this was over, Flicker knew that he needed to learn the Dimachaerus fighting style from Mister Balister.
More rats rushed into the room and Flicker pushed them away, releasing another psychokinetic nova, a much improved version of his flick spell. Now that he had some breathing room, he began chopping away, hacking and slashing, but far too enraged to notice that some of the rats were healing up and recovering from his blows.
Contagion was backed into a corner now and Flicker bore down on him with murderous intent. The colt brought one sword forward, stabbing at the hominoid rat in front of him, and Contagion parried with his longsword. There was a clang of steel on steel and sparks flew from the blades. The rat was strong, but Flicker knew that he was stronger.
Again, their swords crossed and there was a deafening clang. Flicker’s brain felt the force of the blow and his vision fuzzed over. Contagion was quick, too quick, and Flicker found himself on the defensive. Behind him, rats were recovering and coming to flank him. He parried another blow, this one a powerful downward chop, and much to Flicker’s shock and surprise, one of his swords was cleaved in twain. The sheared off blade tumbled to the floor and bounced on the wooden planks.
Growling, Flicker tossed away the broken half of the sword that he still held. Contagion’s longsword was magical and Flicker knew that if he parried the blade again, his second blade might suffer the same fate, as his blades were just common well-made steel. He found himself in trouble and he knew it.
Hearing the ring of steel on steel behind him, Flicker backed away from Contagion and turned his head just in time to see Doctor Sterling entering the door. Piper was behind him, her sword had a broken off tip, but she was still fighting. Both were bloodied and their protective gear was shredded. Neither was wearing a mask.
Contagion hissed upon seeing Doctor Sterling and drew into a defensive crouch. Some of the smaller rats were fleeing now, running away to save their own hides. One rat rushed Piper with a rat-sized sword, and a glowing shield bubble appeared around her. It popped on contact, but Piper was able to ram the broken tip of her sword into the rat’s neck.
Taking advantage of the confusion and the chaos, Flicker struck. He moved with almost supernatural alacrity, surprising even himself, and he rammed the Heartfinder right into Contagions’ chest. The pale rat looked surprised for a moment, then threw back his head and began laughing, filling the room with inane, maniacal cackling.
“Fool!” he spat. “I have no heart!”
Grinding his teeth together, Flicker ripped Heartfinder free, leaving behind a gaping, ragged hole in the rat’s chest that began to close, but the regeneration was slow. Doctor Sterling bore down upon Contagion, swinging his silver rapier, and Flicker felt the warm tingle of magic all around his body. He didn’t know what spell Doctor Sterling had cast, but he felt better.
Contagion’s longsword and Doctor Sterling’s rapier came together with a violent, ear-ringing clang. The rat, still swift on his feet, scampered out of the corner he was in, his back sliding along a bookshelf. The good doctor turned with his foe, trying to keep himself from being flanked. Piper moved into the fray, still armed with her broken training rapier.
Moving out of the corner was a bad idea, because Flicker began to maneuver towards Contagion, hoping to get the rat surrounded. Doctor Sterling took a swift swipe at the rat and landed a blow. A cluster of tumours was shaved away by Doctor Sterling’s supernaturally sharp blade; they bounced to the floor with a wet squelch, and then much to everypony’s horror, some of the tumours became tiny, tiny rats, which scurried away.
With a yell, Flicker skewered a rat that got too close to Piper and then lopped off the head of another. The floor was now slick with blood and great care had to be taken not to slip and fall. Piper, in a stabhappy frenzy, managed to sink the broken tip of her rapier right into Contagion’s eye as the rat was parrying another blow by Doctor Sterling.
The eye popped like a diseased cyst, spewing out jelly, and then more little rats came squirting out, little tiny rats in miniature. Some of them poured down Contagion’s face like tears and fell to the floor with soft, wet splats. Disgusted, Piper began stomping on them with her hooves, all while squealing in horror.
Then, in a sequence of events that Flicker was unable to keep up with, the tables turned. Doctor Sterling staggered backwards, and the hilt of Contagion’s sword protruded from just below his neck. The entire length of the blade had been buried in his body. Piper shrieked, her shrill cry was piercing in the small room, and Flicker let out a wordless roar of rage.
With a look of grim determination, Doctor Sterling rammed his rapier blade into Contagion’s chest and pinned him against the wall. Several inches of the doctor’s blade had gone into the wall, leaving the diseased rat-creature locked in place and unable to move. Flicker felt the Heartfinder torn from his magical grasp, and then it too, was rammed through Contagion’s head.
Like a butterfly pinned to cardboard, the rat struggled but was unable to get free. One arm was still growing and even now, his wounds were closing as he thrashed about. His one remaining eye glittered with hatred, and he snarled at Doctor Sterling, who was still somehow upright and standing.
“Flicker…” Blood dribbled from Doctor Sterling’s lips as he said the word. “Flicker, obey me… get Piper to safety. I’ve slowed the poison in you both, but I could not cure it. I was too drained from disarming the traps.”
“Yes, Doctor Sterling.”
As Flicker spoke, Doctor Sterling used his magic to rip the gas pipes from the walls and then he tore off the valves that fed the lamps. The room began to fill with gas and the doctor yanked the incendiary grenade that Piper had secured to what was left of her tattered protective gear. Scowling, the doctor began to pull out his own supply of grenades, and he had quite a few. He wobbled on his legs, almost falling, and was forced to lean up against the wall beside Contagion.
Pulling Piper with him, Flicker began backing out of the room, wary of attack, his retreat leaving a trail of scarlet drops on the floor. Piper let out a shriek of protest, but Flicker just overpowered her and kept dragging her towards the door, determined to obey Doctor Sterling’s final orders. The colt gave his mentor a nod and hoped that Doctor Sterling wouldn’t feel anything.
“We’re going to Tartarus together, you and I,” Doctor Sterling said to the skewered rat as he began pulling out the pins from his incendiary grenades. The doctor’s words were punctuated by the hiss of the now ruptured gas pipes. A grim chuckle escaped the doctor’s lips as he forced one of the incendiary grenades down Contagion’s throat, and then he crammed another into the still healing wound in the rat’s chest. A third grenade was shoved into Contagion’s ruined eye socket. The rat wiggled in protest, but could do nothing to stop the violent grenade insertion.
Backing out of the room, Flicker began to shut the door when the doctor said his final words:
“Be there for Hennessy… he won’t take this well. I love you both like sons. Piper, take care of them both. They’re going to need a responsible pony to look after them.”
Tears blurring his vision, Flicker nodded. The rats were fleeing now, or trying to. The colt shut the door with a click while Piper began to sob, and he dragged her over the landing towards the stairs. There were many squeaks of terror all around him, but Flicker ignored them to obey the doctor’s final orders. Staggering, he began to pull Piper down the stairs.
At the bottom of the stairs was the maid, who lay in a contorted heap, dead.
Flicker was almost certain that he was dying. A long trail of blood followed him down the lane as he pulled Piper along. She was bawling her eyes out and still trying to drag him back, no doubt with the hopes of rescuing Doctor Sterling. Rats ran through the streets, seeking shelter, some dove down into drains, while others scurried up gutter pipes.
When Flicker stumbled, his adrenaline finally giving out, the tower at the end of the lane exploded. The front door blew out, windows shattered, and the ground trembled. A shockwave of heat and sound hit Flicker, knocking him over, and sending him sprawling to the pavement. Piper fell on top of him while it began to rain flaming chunks of stone and shards of glass all around them both.
The tower transformed into a pillar of smoke and fire that reached skyward. Piper threw her forelegs around Flicker’s neck and squeezed him, sobbing. The moment of shared grief was interrupted by an enormous chunk of falling stone; Flicker rolled over Piper, pushing her down beneath him, and the falling piece of fireplace mantle struck him on his spine, causing the entire back half his body to go numb.
Fighting to keep himself awake, alert, and aware, Flicker knew it was over, but he did not know how he knew. Some part of his mind told him that Contagion was no more, and neither was Doctor Sterling. Unable to feel his hind legs or his back half, Flicker hugged Piper to him while she continued to bawl, her body wracked with sobs of grief.
The hospital room was dim, but not dark. Flicker lay in the bed, groggy, with Spud curled up in a ball beside him. Some kind soul had stitched his cat back together and had allowed him to stay. At the foot of the bed was a table, and upon the table, two weapons rested. One was Heartfinder, the other was Doctor Sterling’s silver rapier. Both had somehow survived the explosion, but it wasn’t all that surprising, as they were magical weapons.
Flicker could now feel his back half, and wished that he couldn’t. Everything from the middle of his spine downward throbbed in the most unpleasant way imaginable, due to his bruised and swollen spinal cord. His injuries were extensive, and Flicker couldn’t remember them all. The only thing he knew was, he should be dead. Ponies weren’t supposed to survive in his state.
Worse than the pain, there had been no news. No nothing. Just a few doctors and nurses here and there, and nopony told him anything at all. There was no sign of his parents. Drugged as he was, he couldn’t sleep, and his keen sense of worry gnawed at his consciousness. Lifting a foreleg, he gave Spud a gentle nudge on a place that he hoped wasn’t too bad off.
“You look like you had a rough day, Spud.” Flicker’s voice was gritty and his damaged larynx ached.
“Meow.” Spud’s response sounded half-awake, and the mutant cat was clearly in considerable pain.
“I’m sorry, Spud, go back to sleep.”
Hearing a click from the door, Flicker’s magic wrapped around the two naked blades at the end of the bed, on the table. The scabbards were nowhere to be found. At the moment, Flicker was just a bit paranoid, and who could blame him? Both of the silver weapons glowed with a faint light, which reflected in Flicker’s glassy-eyed stare.
“Flicker… put those down. I really don’t want to get stabbed any more today.”
Squinting, Flicker’s blurry vision made out White Pepper, one of his teachers, one of his instructors, one of his trusted masters. The two weapons clattered back down to the table and clanged against one another. The colt watched as Mister Pepper approached his bed, and the stallion looked pretty bad off. His head was covered in bandages, obscuring one eye and one ear. Around his neck was a thick bandage, and all four of his legs were wrapped in gauze as well.
“I’m doing my rounds… checking on what’s left of my students.” Mister Pepper’s voice cracked from grief. “Most of ‘em aren’t expected to make it through the night.”
“Mister Pepper—”
“Call me White, Son.”
“White…” The familiarity was comforting for Flicker. He reached out his hoof as the older stallion approached his bed and it came to rest against Mister Pepper’s shoulder. “How bad was it? How many of us are left?”
“Son, you don’t want to know that right now,” Mister Pepper replied.
“I need to know,” Flicker begged, sounding very much like a colt requesting ice cream.
“As of right now, twenty six students, including you, survived, but like I said, most aren’t expected to make it through the night.” Mister Pepper’s voice became a weak, pained whisper. “Aren’t many of us left at the moment. Most of the masters have been killed. Wicked’s in a bad way, he’s gonna live, but he’s not gonna be the same. As for Mister Balister…” the words trailed off with an agonised gasp.
“What about him?”
“He refused Wicked’s order to give ground and instead chose to buy time for his students.” Mister White’s one visible eye blinked a few times. “The rats carved him apart and burned him with spellfire. The Rat Bastard… he got real smart and he led the attack inside our guild.”
“Is he dead?” Flicker asked.
“Mister Balister?” White Pepper winced. “No, but he should be. A long time ago, he donated his body to science so they could study long term effects of being exposed to disease and hardship. Right now, they’re rebuilding what’s left of him, the bloody scraps picked up off the floor. I don’t know how he lived.”
Flicker closed his eyes, went limp, and sunk down into his pillow. He didn’t know how to take this news, and so he changed the subject. “Any word on Piper and Hennessy?”
“Hennessy is back in surgery. He’s expected to live, but it’ll be a while before he recovers. If he hadn’t been rescued when he was… you might’ve lost your friend, Flicker.” White Pepper blinked a few times, then shook his head. “Piper is sleeping. They’re not sure about her odds of making it through the night. She’s been stabbed multiple times, and the poison did a lot of damage to her organs. Doctor told me her liver will never be the same, and she’ll lack some digestive enzymes she needs.”
“She’ll be fine.” Flicker’s words didn’t comfort him as much as he hoped and he gritted his teeth because of how much the throbbing intensified in the lower half of his body.
“I hope you are right, Flicker.” White Pepper let out a weary sigh. “I’d like to stay, but I must make my rounds. I must look after what few students I have left.”
Opening his eyes, Flicker looked at the white and grey-dappled stallion beside his bed. “You should be in bed, White.”
“No,” Mister Pepper replied. “No, I’m the only one who can get out of bed. I must do my rounds…”
At some point, Flicker had fallen asleep without realising it, and he awoke to the sounds of hooves clattering against a tile floor. Two nurses as well as a doctor were beside his bed, and they began to check his vitals. The blanket was lifted, set aside, then there was a painful, burning sting when one of the nurses stabbed him with an enormous syringe, and Flicker turned his dull, glassy-eyed stare upon her.
“That’s quite a cutie mark… a flaming rat skeleton,” the nurse remarked, her bubblegum scented breath washing over Flicker. “Just what we need for times like these. There’s been attacks all over the city.”
He blinked a few times, trying to make sense of the words, the cloying scent of bubblegum lingering in his nostrils. His cutie mark was supposed to be a flaming rat, not a flaming rat skeleton. Grunting, squirming a bit, he wasn’t able to move enough to have a look for himself. The nurse placed a hoof on him to make him go still, so he did. There was no sense in struggling and making things worse.
“My parents—”
“Can’t make it,” the doctor said in a tired, but patient voice. “Nopony can make it. The skies are a no fly zone except for the military in both Ponyville and Canterlot right now. The trains are not running for fear of sabotage. Everything is on lockdown.” The mare blinked a few times as one of the nurses secured a blood pressure cuff around Flicker’s foreleg, and then she shook her head. “Your guild makes some tough ponies,” the doctor remarked, making a little conversation with her kind bedside manner. “You should be dead, Mister Nicker.”
“I don’t have time to be dead, there’s rats to kill.” Flicker’s heavy stare came to rest upon the doctor. “I am going to do a purge, and Canterlot’s gutters will scab-over with blood.”
Both of the nurses and the doctor shivered and all three suffered very visible shudders.
“When I’m done in the streets, I’m going to go down into the dark of the Canterhorn and there is going to be a reckoning. When I’m done with all of the killing I’ve got planned, Tartarus will be the only place I’ll ever find welcome. And that’s just fine with me. Maybe I’ll find rats there, too.”
In a hurry, the nurse wrote down Flicker’s blood pressure, then yanked the blood pressure cuff off of his foreleg. Trembling, she backed out of the room, her tail tucked tight between her legs, and vanished from view. The other nurse also wrote down a few things, doing so as fast as possible, then trotted away, shaking, her eyes wide with terror.
The doctor shook her head, clucked her tongue, but said nothing as she too, turned to leave.
How long had he been staring at the ceiling? He didn’t know. Flicker was suffering from a rare case of boredom. Under most circumstances, he could just zone out and not care, but right now, his brain was not having it. Somepony had left him a tray of food, but he hadn’t touched it, because he was too damn angry to eat.
Spud was still curled up against his side, and still asleep. Something had changed between him and Spud, but Flicker couldn’t even begin to comprehend what it was, or what it might be. Every now and then, he had snatches of Spud’s thoughts flash through his mind, or worse, seeing what Spud saw in the guild during the pitched battle that had taken place there.
His poor cat had seen some stuff.
Reaching out with his mind, Flicker lifted Doctor Sterling’s rapier, wondering how somepony had found it in the rubble. He held it up in front of his muzzle to have a better look. It was, of course, undamaged and unblemished. Flicker didn’t have a good understanding of magical weapons, and he didn’t appreciate just how practical they were until now.
Did the blade have a name? The colt didn’t know. Would he be allowed to keep it? Again, he didn’t know, but he pitied whoever tried to take it from him. Laying in bed, Flicker resolved that only death would take this blade from him. His vision blurred from tears and he allowed the flat of the chilly blade to come to rest against his snoot. In seconds, the silvered steel warmed and Flicker found comfort in the sensation.
Once more, the door opened, and Flicker pulled Doctor Sterling’s sword away from his face. In the doorway, he saw a bandaged pony that it took him several seconds to recognise. He put the sword back down upon the table at the foot of his bed, and watched as Piper limped towards him. Much to his surprise, she lifted his blankets up, and then crawled into bed beside him.
“I got scared, being by myself,” Piper said in a squeaky voice as she snuggled up against Flicker’s side, opposite of Spud. “I keep having bad dreams… terrible dreams.” The filly squirmed, trying to get closer to Flicker, and their many bandages rustled together beneath the blanket. “I couldn’t find Hennessy, I think he’s somewhere else in the hospital.”
Flicker could feel Piper breathing on him, and that was reassuring somehow. She smelled of iodine and medicinal stink, a scent that tickled his nose. No doubt, he smelled that way himself, but he hadn’t noticed it. One thin foreleg came to rest atop Flicker’s barrel, and he found that he didn’t mind.
“Do you think it’s over, Flicker?” Piper whispered. “The guild I mean… do you think they’ll send us home?”
“Do you want to go home?” Turning his head a bit, Flicker looked down at Piper’s face and waited.
“No.” Piper’s voice was a soft, almost unheard squeak. “No, as awful as everything is, I want to fight. I’m angry, Flicker, real angry. I’m scared too, but I’m afraid this anger is gonna stick with me for life. Doctor Sterling taught me magic…”
Closing his eyes, Flicker dropped his guard and focused upon the sensation of Piper breathing against him. He hadn’t lost everything, and with luck, he still had Hennessy. Some of his seething rage subsided a bit, and he thought of love. He loved Piper, she was very dear to him, but he lacked the means to define their relationship. And, he supposed, he loved Hennessy, but that relationship was too confusing to sort out.
Angling his head a bit, Flicker kissed Piper on top of her bandaged head, then allowed himself to sink back down into his pillow. After a moment, he lifted his head once more, tugged on his pillow, and pulled enough of it over that Piper had a little room to rest her head. She wiggled against him, careful, cautious, and then she too, had her head upon the pillow. Flicker watched her blink.
“I was told my cutie mark changed,” Flicker said to Piper in a breathy whisper. “I don’t know what is going on. I also keep seeing what Spud saw in the guild… when the fighting was happening. Something is happening to me, Piper.”
“We’ll figure it out, together,” Piper replied, and then she yawned. “I’m so tired, Flicker. Can you watch over me while I sleep?”
“Of course, Piper.”
“Thanks… you’re the best.” The filly closed her eyes, then slid her head over the pillow until her snoot was touching Flicker’s neck. “Whatever happens next, I’m with you. For better or for worse, I’m with you… forever. Later, I’ll make a Pinkie Promise, when I feel better.”
“Get some rest, Piper.”
Yawning, the filly nodded, closed her eyes, and cuddled up a little closer to Flicker, who had resumed staring up at the ceiling. For a moment, Piper’s horn, which was close to Flicker’s cheek, glowed and shot out a few sparks. Then, the filly’s magic was gone and the sparks were no more.
“When we get a chance, I want to go back to your parents farm… I feel at home there.”
“Sure thing, Piper.” Not long after Flicker had spoken these words, Piper, who was snuggled up against his side, went silent and still.
Being a prefect meant having responsibilities, and so it was that Flicker Nicker had dragged himself out of his bed to do the rounds. He wished he hadn’t. Having seen his fellow apprentices, the gruesome injuries, he wished he hadn’t. Upon returning to his room, he couldn’t feel much of anything, not even rage. There was no grateful feeling of being alive, no feeling of relief, there wasn’t much of anything at all, just an empty, hollow ache.
Everything he loved, everything he believed in, everything he stood for, everything that he was so passionate about, he had witnessed its end. Shutting the door behind him, he gazed upon Piper, who was sound asleep in his bed. A nurse had come to take Piper back to her own room, and Flicker had snarled at her. The nurse had left in a hurry and an orderly arrived about five minutes later to clean up the puddle that had been left behind during the nurse’s hasty retreat.
It was difficult to walk or even move, but Flicker managed. Responsibilities were responsibilities, and nothing good ever came from shirking them. Doing the rounds, as White Pepper had called it, had left Flicker feeling drained and exhausted. Out of the twenty six students that had survived the massacre, there were now nineteen, with more than a few that remained upon the edge.
Equestria’s healers were elsewhere, and Flicker understood this all too well.
Standing beside his bed, Flicker watched Piper sleep, and became aware of the fact that Spud was staring at him. Hennessy was recovering, but couldn’t be seen, and this worried Flicker a great deal. Whomever had saved Hennessy, Flicker owed them a debt of gratitude the likes of which he feared could never be repaid.
In the bed, Piper’s eyelids opened, revealing bloodshot, somewhat yellowed eyes. She stared up at him, unfocused, let out a mewling cry of pain, then closed her eyes and drifted off. Sighing, ignoring his own pain, Flicker climbed back into his bed, mindful of Piper’s fragile state, so that he too, could doze off and lose awareness of this horrible nightmare he found himself living in.
The chicory coffee was quite good, much to Flicker’s surprise. He had tried it on a whim after being offered a choice, and he was glad he did. The nurse had offered him a Fancy coffee drink, café au lait, with chicory. It looked like coffee and milk, but it was different. Piper, sitting up in his bed, close to him, was drinking the same, holding her haggard, sagging face over her cup.
A figure appeared in the open doorway, not a nurse. Flicker’s eyes darted over to his swords, which still lay upon the table at the foot of the bed, and then back to the unknown visitor. The stallion cleared his throat, adjusted his bow tie, and bowed his head in greeting.
“My name is Trafalgar Truffle,” the stallion said, introducing himself in a heavy Grittish accent. “I represent the estate of one Lord Sterling Shoe, and I would very much like to offer my condolences. Might I come in?”
“Please do,” Flicker replied, and his eyes darted over to the empty chair. “Have a seat, Mister Truffle.”
The stallion, who had a big walrusy mustache, came in, took off his tweed flat cap, went over to the chair, and sat down. With his wings, he pulled open his attache case and began rummaging around inside. Sitting at the foot of his bed, Flicker took a sip of his coffee and watched every move that his visitor made, taking note of his meticulous, fussy nature.
“Lord Shoe—”
“Doctor Sterling,” Flicker said, correcting the pegasus. “He felt that Shoe was a silly name, and he always used his first name.”
“Yes, erm, right, my apologies.” The pegasus pulled out a pipe, placed it between his lips, but did not light it. Looking thoughtful, he studied Flicker, and then continued, “Doctor Sterling considered you his son and listed you as his heir. Now, there are some issues that need to be sorted out, but nothing too serious.”
Flicker nodded to show that he was listening, then drank more of his coffee.
“Because you are not related by blood, you cannot inherit his title or rank in the aristocracy. You cannot inherit any of his family’s estate houses, which is a shame, Doctor Sterling wrote a number of great things about you, young Master Nicker.” The pegasus’ pipe bounced up and down a bit and his mustache quivered. “What you can inherit is Doctor Sterling’s Canterlot townhouse, as well as a considerable fortune. Doctor Sterling hardly ever touched his own inherited fortune, but instead lived off of his own earnings.”
Sucking in a deep breath, Flicker held it until he felt as though his lungs might burst, then he let it all out in a huff. He thought about Doctor Sterling’s townhouse and its blue slate roof. He looked at the lawyer and blinked once. He was curious about the pony’s pipe, and why he had it if he did not smoke it.
“The townhouse comes with one condition though, and that is that you must employ Madam Pakora, his housekeeper. She is to be allowed to remain in the house until the end of her days. Her ways are peculiar, and strange, and Doctor Sterling worried for her well being, in the event that something should happen to him.” The pegasus pulled out some papers and laid them down next to the weapons on the table. “The money you’ve inherited should allow you to pay her her salary.”
“What about Doctor Sterling’s sword?” Flicker asked.
“Oh, that was specifically left to you, along with the contents of the house and Doctor Sterling’s personal armory.” The pegasus pulled out yet more papers, and an ebony black fountain pen accented with gold. “A pistol, called ‘Wraithbinder,’ was also left in your possession. Documentation of said artifact will be delivered to you shortly, but I do not know when.”
Sighing again, Flicker drank some of his coffee and noticed that his cup was almost empty.
“Now, seeing as how you are not a legal adult, not as of yet, your parents will also have to sign off on this inheritance, but it is a protected contract. They will not be able to wrest the property away from you. This is just standard contract stuff, with no ill meaning meant.”
“I understand.” Flicker nodded and eyed the fancy fountain pen. The colt knew his parents would never wrong him, never slight him, and he had total trust in them.
Placing a folder down upon the table, Mister Truffle looked into Flicker’s eyes. “Being a landowner in Canterlot is complicated, and these papers here will explain to you your rights and responsibilities. You will be beholden to the city, being both a landowner and having a Mercenary’s Writ, you will be obligated to defend the city during times of crisis. This also earns you quite a number of special privileges. Should you serve with distinction, you can appeal for peerage. All of this will be made clear by reading the papers in this folder.”
“Peerage?” Piper asked in a low whisper, breaking her silence.
“Well, by technicality, being a landowner makes one a Lord or a Lady,” the pegasus replied, “but with commoners able to purchase land, the law changed a bit. Here in Canterlot, owning land is the first step towards gaining peerage. Young Master Nicker here has a unique opportunity to become one of the many Lords of Canterlot.”
“Like Lord Fancy Pants.” Piper gazed with great interest at the papers upon the table at the foot of the bed.
“Yes.” The pegasus’ mustache bristled as his pipe jittered. “All I need from you is a signature, just to show that these documents were delivered. Later, when your parents can be present, all of this business can be dealt with. My apologies for intruding upon your grief, but these actions are time sensitive, and Doctor Sterling was very insistent that you received your due should anything happen to him.”
“Thank you,” Flicker said to Mister Truffle. Then, after a moment, he thought of something. “What of the Don’t Panic?”
“Oh, that comes with the house.” The pegasus smiled, but it was difficult to see beneath his mustache. His teeth clattered against the stem of his pipe and he clicked the brass clasp of his attache case shut. “I can’t stay. The entire city is under lockdown and there is a curfew. This is worse than the changeling invasion we suffered all those years ago. Any last questions?”
“None that I can think of,” Flicker replied, and he watched the pegasus get up from the chair. “Where do I sign?”
“Right here.” The pegasus slid a piece of paper closer. “Standard writ of delivery, proving that I was here.” Mister Truffle tensed, and his pipe bobbed in the corner of his mouth. “I really am sorry for your loss. I didn’t know Doctor Sterling all that well, but I respected him a great deal. He was good friends with my boss, they were very close.”
“I see.” Flicker gave a nod of acknowledgment, then lifted the pen, and eyeballed the line where he was supposed to sign. After a moment, the fancy fountain pen trembling, he signed his name. Flicker Nicker.
“I really must be going…”
The hospital food wasn’t very good, it was bland and flavourless, but Flicker ate it. He didn’t understand how the hospital could have a selection of coffees and teas available for consumption, but the food, the food was almost inedible. If Flicker was in charge, this seeming contradiction would be sorted out and put into order, because it was intolerable.
“I think when ponies die in the hospital, it’s from the food,” Piper remarked as she cast a forlorn glance upon her mushy, mealy rice swimming in strangely yellow gravy. “Ugh, you pray to the alicorns after you eat this mess. I think this is supposed to be saffron gravy, but I suspect it is mostly just artificial colours.”
At that moment, Flicker would sack all of Canterlot just to get a burrito from a street vendor. The peas on his plate were a distinct shade of yellow, and not a shade of green, as they should be. They were also mushy, bland, and devoid of any sort of salt or flavouring. The asparagus spears were vile and were more grey than green. And the broccoli? Flicker didn’t want to think of the broccoli, not while he was eating it.
“Flicker?”
The colt looked up from his food.
“This is what war is like, isn’t it?” Piper asked. “We’re at war, aren’t we?”
“Yes.” Flicker’s words were a pained grunt as he fought to keep his food down.
“I’m just a little filly from Vanhoover… I grew up in a bakery. My mom likes to ‘barrass me and my dad always treats me like I’m still a yearling. He’d freak out if I even crossed the street alone. I was sheltered, and protected, and my parents didn’t want to tell me anything about how the world was, because the world was awful.” Piper shook her head and pushed her rice around her plate with her spoon. “I haven’t even hit my decade mark yet and I’ve ended up in a war.”
“You did good in your first battle,” Flicker said to the filly sitting on his bed with him.
“You think so? It feels like I failed.”
“You’re still alive,” Flicker responded, bringing irrefutable logic to bear. “This is like the bad old days, when ponies grew up quick. Asterius, she tells me that those were horrible days when she sometimes teaches history, but I don’t think they were so bad. Ponies weren’t coddled back then. You were respectful to the Princesses because the land was filled with monsters and they were the ones that protected you. Being civilised meant that you got to live in the city, under protection, and being bad meant you got banished out into the wilderness.”
“Flicker, don’t take this the wrong way, but you would have been banished into the wilderness…”
Turning his head, the colt stared at Piper, his face devoid of emotion.
“You and Hennessy… the way you are… you would have been banished. Ponies had to breed back in those days. Sons and daughters were needed. Infertile mares were seen as being beyond useless and gelded stallions were deadweight. Being gay was a crime, Flicker.”
Flicker’s mouth sagged at the corners, and he knew that Piper’s words were true. He recalled Asterius’ stories, what she had told him, and she had spoke of how captured stallions were gelded to take the fight out of them, to make them passive. When and if the war ended, and the prisoners were returned home, they had nothing to look forward to, nothing at all.
Those days were grim times indeed.
He gave Piper a blank stare, not knowing what to say after having his worldview shattered. Reality was a cold, terrible thing, and Flicker was bothered that Piper seemed more in touch with the real world than he was.
Throwing her spoon down upon her tray with a clatter, Piper said, “If I don’t get to see Hennessy soon, I’m going to be very angry…”
After enduring the warnings, the lecture, the explanation that he had to be careful, Flicker was allowed to see Hennessy. The critical care unit was different than the wing where he and Piper were staying, this place had an eerie quiet that left him feeling unsettled. The lights were kept dim and the wing was dark. He and Piper had to wear padded paper booties on their hooves to keep the sound of their walking muffled.
The nurse leading them stopped at room one hundred and nineteen, then turned to face both Flicker and Piper. In a soft whisper, she said, “Seeing him will be a shock. Try to be brave. He has been selected for healing, but that will take time, what few healers there are, they are very overwhelmed at the moment. He is still critical, but stable enough to wait for a healer.”
“I understand.” Flicker’s voice had changed since the injury to his larynx, and he now spoke as though he was a middle aged stallion that sounded as though he lived on a diet of whiskey and black-paper cigars.
“Brace yourselves,” she said, offering a final warning as she pushed open the door.
Flicker managed to wait for all of two seconds or so, then he slipped past the nurse and went to Hennessy’s bedside. In the bed was an unrecognizable mess of bandages, some of them bloody. Flicker couldn’t see anything of his friend. He could feel his pounding heart creeping up into his throat, and he turned to face the nurse, who now stood beside him, looking sad, her ears drooping.
“He was stabbed so many times and shot with flaming arrows,” the nurse said to Flicker, her voice straining. “Still, he should recover, especially with magical healing. He’s also suffered extensive burns, and while we live in an era of amazing progress, burns are one area that we are woefully inadequate in treating.”
Closing his eyes, Flicker ground his teeth together, and he could feel them chipping, the painful electric tingles made the corners of his jaw ache. He felt a soft touch upon him, the nurse, and she had leaned into him, trying to comfort him. Much to his own surprise, he found himself pressing up against her, and his eyes burned with tears that refused to fall, little soldiers that refused to leave the fortress that was Flicker.
“Flicker, is that you?”
The voice was dry, crackly, like autumn leaves blowing on the wind or kindling beginning to burn in a fire. Flicker felt his ears go stiff, along with his spine, which made the whole back half of his body ignite in flames of nausea inducing agony. Forcing his eyes open, he pulled away from the nurse, fighting to stay upright, and he turned to face his friend and dear companion.
“Flicker… I think I saw that zebra you saw,” Hennessy said in a whisper that sounded like wrinkled sheets of newspaper being rubbed together. “She sang to me… she was nice. She played a banjo with her head-ropes.”
Confused, Flicker stood there, blinking, his heart throbbing in the narrow confines of his now parched throat. He needed a drink, something cool, something to numb the burning throb that threatened to choke him. Piper pressed up against his side, leaning against him, and his legs wobbled as he tried to hold both himself and his friend up.
“Hennessy,” Flicker somehow managed to say, but nothing else seemed to want to come out. The colt stood there, wanting to rage and finding he couldn’t. He became aware of the hollowness that existed inside of him, that great empty space that he feared.
“Piper, look after him, he don’t sound good.”
“I will, Henny, I will.”
“Good, I’m gonna go back to sleep now. I keep hearing crows cawing.”
The puzzling statement left Flicker baffled, and unable to say anything, he stood there, staring at his friend, wishing that he had something meaningful to say, perhaps some beautiful word, some bit of poetry, something that would bring Hennessy some comfort. But he was empty and there was nothing of beauty that could be found inside of his grey matter.
With Piper leaning against him and the nurse watching, Flicker stared while Hennessy drifted off into merciful sleep.
Returning to his own room, Flicker saw that he had guests waiting outside of his door, which surprised him. One older stallion and three young mares, all of them ponies that he knew. He made himself walk a little faster, eager to see them, and his hind hooves shuffled a bit, not wanting to keep up with his increased pace.
Night Light was armed, which caused Flicker some genuine shock. There was a bandoleer around the stallion’s body—from this hung a sword and a brace of what appeared to be antique pistols. The middle-aged blue stallion looked stern, hard-faced, and he hovered protectively over the three young mares, Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo.
Sweetie Belle had a bouquet of white carnations held in her magic.
“Night Light,” Flicker gasped.
“Hello, Mister Nicker,” Night Light said in a soft voice. “You wanted to speak to these nice young mares, or so I heard, but then, I guess things happened.”
“They did.” Flicker felt his legs shaking, and he was relieved to see his guests.
“Hmm, let’s get you back into bed, little ones.” Night Light’s paternal tone left no room for argument, no means to protest. Scowling, he scooped up both Flicker and Piper in his magic, his eyes flashing with emotion, and offering no apologies, he pushed through the three young mares, taking Flicker and Piper into their now-shared room.
A second bed had been wheeled in during their absence, and a few more chairs as well, leaving the room crowded. Flicker lay in the bed, exhausted, having told the Cutie Mark Crusaders everything, getting it all off his chest, starting with Octavia’s concert, finding his faith with Princess Cadance, and battling Contagion. Feeling very tired, he let his head sink down into his pillow, and much to his own surprise, he was able to relax his guard.
Night Light looked as though he could take care of business, if trouble started.
“We’re all very sorry,” Sweetie Belle said while her eyes lingered on the white carnations now in the vase that all hospital rooms seemed to have. “Flicker, do you mind if I call you Flicker? Don’t give into your hate. Don’t fill that emptiness in you with hate. I can’t imagine what your cutie mark might be doing to you right now.”
“I’ve been struggling with it,” Flicker confessed.
“Normally, we tell ponies to follow their cutie marks.” Apple Bloom’s eyes traveled up the blanket and stopped on Flicker’s face. “You’ve given us a lot to think about, Flicker. I think for us, because we did so much to find our cutie marks, and we continue to do all kinds of stuff together as friends, it was easy for us to enrich our lives with meaningful activities. But for you, the guild was very rigid and you found yourself in a spot where you gave yourself over completely. I’ve been thinking about it a lot… a whole lot.”
“And now, with everything that’s happened”—Scootaloo paused and blinked a few times—“and with how your cutie mark has changed, I’m not sure what advice to give you. We want to continue to help you though. The only thing I feel right in telling you is, go with Love. I don’t think it will lead you astray.”
“Right now, I feel so much rage and hatred.” Flicker closed his eyes and ignored the throbbing in the middle of his spine.
“Well, your cutie mark has changed, so your feelings might have changed as well.” Apple Bloom leaned forwards in her seat, and her red, bloodshot eyes revealed her fatigue. “And even though your cutie mark has changed, you still have a choice. You don’t have to be consumed by it.”
“We came here to tell you that we’re going to be with you during your recovery from this.” Sweetie Belle, turning her head, smiled at Flicker and Piper.
“We’re gonna be with you, every step of the way,” Apple Bloom promised.
“Because we’ve made you our pet project and we’re probably going to write our doctoral thesis about you someday.” Scootaloo clapped her hooves together once and laughed, but became serious again when Apple Bloom scowled in her general direction.
Laying in her own bed, Piper groaned, her bed frame creaked, and she rolled over onto her other side. She had her eyes half open while she listened, but she had nothing to say. Now that she was rolled over, her eyes were upon Flicker, whose bed was beside hers. Wiggling until she was at the edge of her bed, she reached out, grabbed Flicker’s fetlock, and held it in her own.
“I’ve never lost anypony before,” Flicker admitted to everypony, “and I don’t know how to take this. I can just feel the rage, it hurts me. Doctor Sterling was… my… friend.”
Turning away, Night Light stared at the wall, focusing on nothing. “This has been a bad time. A lot of ponies died. I’ve lost somepony as well, and Flicker, you have to believe me when I say this, it isn’t worth it, giving yourself over to revenge for the dead. The living will need you more. The city of Canterlot needs a hero, not a psychopathic monster.”
“You lost somepony?” Flicker asked.
“I did,” Night Light replied, and he turned to look at the colt. “Rather than give into my own selfish desire for revenge, rather than neglect the living, I shall serve. Rather than curse the darkness, I shall light a candle.”
At these words, Flicker’s hardened mask broke completely, the fortress walls crumbled, and tears began streaming down his cheeks. The first sob escaped him, causing his barrel to hitch, and the sudden pain in his spine felt as though he was being stabbed again. Whimpering, the stabbing pain was too much to bear, and this only further brought down Flicker’s defenses.
Flicker wept.
It came out in pained gasps that almost choked him, and Piper crawled from her bed over to Flicker’s, pulling herself over the gap. Without meaning to, Flicker was a little rough when he grabbed Piper and drew her close. The Cutie Mark Crusaders all leaned against one another, silent, heads bowed, it was awful to watch a pony like Flicker cry.
For the first time in a long time, Flicker became a foal once more, and his emotions bled out from him. In the corner, where he stood, Night Light stood a silent vigil, also crying, the tears streaming down his cheeks and it was obvious to any observer that he was consumed by grief. His weeping did not make him any less observant though, because when the door opened, his jaw muscles tensed as he turned to look.
“Fox…” Night Light said the word with a relieved gasp.
Fox Populi stood in the door, a longsword held in his magic, a longsword that Flicker might have recognised, had Flicker been looking. The naked blade had no sheath, it was flawless, unmarred, and made from steel that had a faint blue tint to it. Fox remained in the doorway, his expression one of apologetic awkwardness.
“Fox, do come in, please.” Night Light, glad to see his friend, went over to greet him.
“I brought this,” Fox said, raising the sword a bit, mindful of the naked blade. “It was recovered after the battle.” The orange unicorn with white accents glanced at the blade he held, and then his eyes darted over to where Flicker’s weapons lay on the table, looking past Night Light. “The law states that you are entitled to have this, either of you, as you are the survivors of the battle.”
Flicker, still sobbing, looked up from where he lay, holding Piper.
“The blade is called Keen and it vanished quite some time ago. Over fifty years ago, actually.” Fox blinked and then his eyes focused on Flicker. “Mister Nicker, I know this is a very difficult time, and I don’t know how you feel about keeping the blade that killed Doctor Sterling.”
Now, it was Piper who looked up, and she remained clinging to Flicker, trembling.
“The sword isn’t evil, nor is it good,” Fox said to Flicker. “It is just a weapon. It isn’t silver-imbued, but it does have a keen edge.”
Holding Piper, Flicker had a hazy recollection of how the blade had chopped right through one of his swords. Staring, his sobs subsided a bit, and he could feel eyes upon him, the Cutie Mark Crusaders were all staring at him. The colt didn’t know what to say, or how to respond. Once again, he found his heart in his throat, and he recalled how the entire length of the blade had been rammed through Doctor Sterling.
“To the victor goes the spoils of war,” Night Light whispered while he stood near Fox. “And we are at war, make no mistake.”
“Yes, I know.” Fox looked pained. “I can’t stay. I am needed, there is fighting in the streets… the rats are acting quite chaotic, almost as if they no longer have leadership.” The orange unicorn paused, shook his head, and added, “I suppose that is a dangerous assumption to make, but that is how it feels. Perhaps I am looking for a reason to have hope.”
“Leave the blade,” Piper said to Fox, her barrel hitching and her voice halting.
“As you wish.” Fox bowed his head, levitated the blade over to the table, and laid it down. “Do be careful, this particular blade has an enchantment that greatly amplifies how much bleeding a wound does.”
“Fox…”
“Yes, Nighty?”
“Do be careful, Fox.”
“Understood, Sir.”
“Spare no mercy, Fox.”
“As requested, Sir.”
“And Fox…”
“Yes?”
“Mister Nicker will need a teacher if he is to use two blades with any sort of skill.”
“Understood, Sir.” Fox raised his hoof and slapped it against his chest, just below his neck.
“Fox, let the light be triumphant and ever-present.” And with these words, Night Light watched as Fox departed, backing out of the room, and heading out to do good. After several long seconds, Night Light added, “So long as we draw breath, the light shall remain triumphant. Isn’t that right, Mister Nicker?”
Unable to speak, Flicker nodded, and his eyes burned with grim resolve.
The streets of Canterlot were cold, dark, and deserted. Lights did not shine in the windows, the sky overhead was a black velvet curtain, and the cobblestone streets were slick with rime. Even with the darkness, Flicker could see. Unlike other ponies, Flicker didn’t mind the dark because he did his best work in the dark. The colt walked down empty, deserted streets, looking for signs of life, of light and the warmth that came with it. While the darkness did not bother him, being alone did.
The cold, cold cobblestones made his frogs sting with every step, and fog swirled around his hooves in looping eddies, clinging to his fetlocks, caressing him with an icy, unwelcome touch. Naked, exposed to the elements, alone, Flicker drew in wintry air that burned his nostrils. How long had he been walking? Would he freeze? Where had everypony gone?
What had taken the stars?
The first sign that he was not alone was a distant squeak, a sound that Flicker knew all too well, a sound he hated and despised more than anything else in the whole wide world. The colt’s horn ignited, but the light seemed constrained somehow, dim, as if something was holding it back. Even stranger, it brought attention to the fact that Flicker had somehow been seeing in total darkness. The light around his horn was a globe, a sphere no larger than a foal’s toy ball, and the light simply did not reach beyond a certain point. It was fascinating to observe, but Flicker didn’t have the time to study it.
More squeaks could be heard, and then Flicker saw them, lithe bodies moving through the fog, causing the fog to whirl and ripple. The sound of clawed feet could be heard scrabbling against the rime-encrusted cobblestones, and the ever-present squeaking of rats. Flicker’s head jerked around while he tried to get some idea of what he was facing, the numbers, the combined strength of his enemy.
The sound of hard, hairless tails slapping against cobblestones was like rain on a roof, a distinctive sound, and Ficker stood in the middle of a deserted street, his breath heaving out of his nostrils in great clouds of steam—steam that joined the fog swirling around his hooves.
Tinkling glass. Flicker heard it, somewhere a window broke and the sound almost made him jump right out of his skin. He was unarmed, unarmored, he had nothing to defend himself. Where had his wand gone? More importantly, how had he ended up in here, and why was the city of Canterlot abandoned? The empty sky held no twinkles.
Around him, the swarming rodents turned into a sea of vermin that flooded the streets. They came up from below, they came out of emptied houses, they came out of rain gutters, out of drains, and odd winged bat-rats swooped down out of the starless sky. Everything around Flicker was awash with the horror of plague-bearing vermin.
The bodies clumped together, clinging to one another, rising up out of the fog, which now clung to them like a funerary shroud. The swarming vermin coalesced into a menacing figure, puddles of squeaking rats joined other puddles of squeaking rats, and became a writhing, wriggling mass of screeching, squeaking vermin. Flicker, frozen in place, every muscle in his body twitching, every nerve screaming a warning of danger, watched the dreadful abomination rise before him, gaining mass, form, and shape.
“What are you?” Flicker demanded, his voice defiant even though his body was held in the clutches of terror.
“I am…” There was a long pause as the shadows, fog, and rats all merged into one entity.
Cᴏɴᴛᴀɢɪᴏɴ.
“Fuck you, you’re a pile of rats and a fucked up puppet show!”
“Dying was all part of the plan. Not just death, but obliteration. I had to know my Master’s suffering. Now I see and understand everything with perfect clarity. I have been given perfection in true death.”
Scowling, Flicker now burned with so much seething hatred that he no longer felt the cold.
“Everything you work to defend, I will undo.” Rising, Contagion’s body gained shape, and he became a hulking bipedal monster made of wiggling, writhing horror, with thousands of rat tails visible, flailing around him like some nightmarish parody of skin. Reaching out with one hideous hand made of rodents, he grabbed Flicker in a crushing grip and lifted him.
Rats swarmed all around Flicker, pressing up against his skin, these rats had formed fingers, a thumb, a hand. Little tails squirmed against him, little noses breathed hot, disgusting air against his flesh, and curious little whiskers tickled him. All Flicker could feel was revulsion and his burning stare focused upon the unimaginable face of Contagion.
“Master will give me dominion over nightmares,” Contagion said to Flicker, “and know this, every night, I will haunt your dreams, and the dreams of those you love. You will never know peace, you will never know a restful night ever again. Every night, when the darkness comes, when Canterlot is bedded down beneath a shroud of darkness, I will make myself a new army, made fresh from the nightmares of those sleeping. This is a fight that will never end, not until all life has gone still.”
Lip curling back, Flicker snarled in defiance.
“Only the dead will know peace.” Contagion threw back his head and laughed, a terrible sound that defied all description, the sound itself was madness inducing, a frightful collection of audible nightmares. “Every morning, I will have fresh troops, while you… you will grow tired.” The eldritch abomination’s voice became teasing, and two eyes formed in its face, burning like glowing red coals.
“I will fight you,” Flicker vowed, his now deep baritone scratchy with the promise of violence.
“Your beloved Doctor Sterling couldn’t send me to Tartarus, and neither will you.”
Eyes narrowing with murderous intent, Flicker remained silent, defiant, and his ears pinned back against his skull, but only for a moment. Then they angled forwards, over his eyes, and he glared into the two red orbs that blazed within Contagion’s face. With nothing else he could do, he horked up a loogie and spat into the face of the newborn eldritch abomination.
“You will suffer!”
“Oh, shut up!” Flicker screamed with everything he could muster from his body. “If you were capable of actually hurting me, you would have done so by now! You’re just showing off! You’re no different than a colt discovering his dick for the first time and thinking it’s the greatest thing ever!” Foamy flecks of spittle flew from Flicker’s lips and his ears quivered with endless, unabating, unyielding rage.
“We will meet again, little pony.”
“I’m looking forward to it!” Flicker spat out the words, venting his venom and contempt. “I will fucking end you!”
Shivering, drenched in cold, flesh-numbing sweat, Flicker awoke to Piper holding him, stroking his mane, whispering soft sounds into his ear, and trying to comfort him. Near the bed, a nurse stood, and he appeared worried. For a second, Flicker worried that he was going to throw up, but the feeling passed.
Only somewhat aware, Flicker saw the flash of silver as a syringe manifested, and he panicked. Confused, terrified, he lashed out with his magic, flicking the syringe with his signature spell. The metal and glass shattered into tiny, jagged shards, and the liquid contents within spilled out onto the floor as the nurse let out a startled cry.
Backing away from the bed, the stallion shook his head, looking fearful, and he said, “This is why soldiers should be treated somewhere else.” Then, backing away, never taking his eyes off of Flicker, the nurse retreated from the room, leaving Flicker and Piper alone.
The ruined remains of the syringe lay on the floor in pieces.
Gasping, sucking in great lungfuls of air, Flicker lay on his back, his spine throbbing, the memories of his nightmare fresh in his mind. Only, it was no nightmare, no bad dream. He knew it to be real—Contagion was alive and in his nightmare. His thoughts raced, thinking of the filly that could make nightmares real, and the colt knew that dreaming was unavoidable. Ponies dreamed. All sapient creatures dreamed… and Contagion would be waiting, lurking in their nightmares.
“Piper,” Flicker wheezed, and the pain in his body made the colour drain from his vision. “Contagion, he’s not dead… he’s ascended, Piper… he’s not dead…”
Hearing this, Piper went limp against Flicker, her eyes wide, dull, and staring. A faint murmur that might have been a ‘no’ slipped from between her lips, and then her breathing became shallow, almost nonexistent. Flicker, who struggled to move, pulled part of himself out from beneath Piper, and then somehow managed to get one foreleg wrapped around her, holding her in the protective embrace of a big brother.
After a few more shallow breaths, Piper screamed, a cry loud enough to wake the entire wing, shattering the stillness of the night. Sucking in more air, her yellow eyes now bloodshot from strain, she screamed again, and then again, going hoarse while deafening Flicker and making his ears ring. When Piper yelled in terror one final time, the doctors and nurses had arrived at the door.
The first rays of dawn bathed Canterlot in rosy, golden rays of light, and with the rising sun came a renewed sense of hope. Piper, sedated, slept in the bed, drooling onto her pillow. Flicker, tired of lying about, stood near the small window, looking out, and keeping watch over Piper. Everything ached, but he did not care, he wanted to stand again.
On the table, a rolled up scroll lay, a warning, waiting to be delivered to the princesses.
Spud was buried beneath the covers at the foot of Flicker’s bed, and the colt knew that Spud was dreaming. The mutant cat was dreaming about chasing chickens—not catching them—but just chasing them, running through tall grass that tickled his bare hide. The cat hadn’t moved much, or done much, but Spud was recovering, so his comatose state was understood.
Canterlot would need heroes, saviours, ponies willing to brave the dark. These heroes would have to be the bravest sorts, those willing to pick a fight that had no foreseeable outcome, no end, a constant never-ending struggle against Contagion. And if ponies didn’t want to fight... Flicker was terrified of this outcome. The fight was coming, ready or not. There would be no running, no hiding, no fleeing, there was no safe place to go.
No sanctuary.
Flicker could not help but wonder, how much of himself would be consumed in this fight? He feared his own cutie mark because it had changed, and he had seen it with his own eyes. Why had it changed? What was the purpose? What did it mean? What did it signify? To what greater purpose did he now belong?
All questions, no answers.
His hopes lie with the Cutie Mark Crusaders, but still… he doubted. To be able to fight, he was going to have to give himself over, give in, that was his fear. He feared becoming a hollow void, a place where a mask was hung. The risk of being consumed was all too real, all too dangerous, and he held more fear of what he might become than he did for the rats, or Contagion.
To win, he was going to have to give himself over, and as things escalated, the demands upon him would become greater and greater. What great triumph was there for a pony to gain victory, but lose themselves within their purpose? With the mask on, he could become the killer that the city needed—no, the world needed, the stakes were so much higher than just one city. Was it worth sacrificing himself, giving himself over entirely to his purpose so that others might be saved?
Perhaps.
At what price came victory?
The rats had prayed to Contagion, bolstering him with fervent, whispered words. Flicker’s mind burned with this knowledge, this strange information. Given sapience, the rats had poured their hope into their champion and… they had enshrined him. Contagion had taken the first clumsy steps into a sort of godhood, he had become deified, and those prayers had given Contagion the staying power he needed to survive beyond death.
Evil was gaining substance in the world, and to fight it, Flicker feared he would lose his own substance, whatever was left that made him who and what he was. Turning away from the window, Flicker pulled the blankets off of his cat, lifted his slumbering companion, held the cat up to his cheek, and rubbed himself against the bare, wrinkled flesh, a spot that was somehow miraculously free of stitching.
The room was large, circular, and full of ponies, most of whom Flicker had never seen or met before. He found himself in the middle, surrounded on all sides, and quite uncomfortable with the whole thing. Seating was arranged in rings, each ring just a little higher than the one in front of it. In the highest positions were three ornamental chairs… thrones? They sat in the highest spot, beneath a mural of the sun and moon.
In the middle of the three thrones sat Princess Luna. To her left was Shining Armor, and to her right was Prince Gosling. One of the two High Crowns of Equestria, the Royal Pony Sisters, the Defender of the Realm, and the Lord Mayor of Canterlot. To Flicker, this almost felt like a trial, and everything about this made him nervous.
At least he wasn’t alone. Sitting in a boxed off area close to the floor, close to where he was, he had those he loved. His mother, Twister Tracker, and his father, Buckeye Conker sat on a wooden bench together, holding one another, and Flicker knew that his sister, Knick-Knack, she was with Fluttershy. Beside his mother and father was Hennessy, looking better after his healing, and Piper, whose eyes were still a bit yellow, even after healing. Wicked Chandler also sat in the box, and he was reading through some briefing or something. Sitting together, subdued, the Cutie Mark Crusaders had kept their promise, and they were here, for Flicker.
Even more nerve wracking were the motion picture cameras. All of this was being filmed, a bit of history put on film and not just in books. Everything about this was a big deal, which did nothing to help Flicker’s nerves, even though he looked just fine on the outside. He wasn’t fine at all, but was miserable, grief stricken, and mourning.
“Good day, Mister Nicker. My name is Justice Good Reason. You are permitted a moment to laugh.” The Justice paused and an aide made a few adjustments to the amplification system to smooth out some of the feedback. “I am the Grand Chancellor of Canterlot, my authority is second only to the Lord Mayor. I apologise, Mister Nicker, that you had to be here today, but these are trying times.”
“It’s okay, sir,” Flicker said in a subdued voice, and he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to look at the chancellor or not.
“Call me Justice, please.” The chancellor gave Flicker a gentle smile. “Though, if it makes it easier, you may call me by my given name, Good Reason.”
Looking up at the chancellor, Flicker nodded.
Clearing his throat, the chancellor turned his head and looked around, then looked at Flicker once more. “Defender of the Realm, Shining Armor, will now give a brief statement about our purpose here today. Prince Shining Armor, if you please…”
Shining Armor rose from his seat, and not far away, Night Light, Shining Armor’s father, turned to look at his son. The Defender of the Realm seemed a bit nervous, but then again, everypony was nervous at the moment. The tension in the room was tangible, unpleasant, and so many ponies were armed to the teeth. Paranoia had become fashionable in Canterlot.
“I have no fancy words to offer, nor flowery words of comfort,” Shining Armor said to everypony, and his voice reverberated through the sound system. “A terrible thing has happened to the fair city of Canterlot. Many have died. Our enemy has entrenched themselves right below us. Today, with the fallen on our minds, we have come together in the hopes that a new order might be established, and that for once, we can come together in one accord. There is no place for partisan politics today, there should be no parties, or party interests, there are only survivors, and the interest of said survivors should be served.”
The room filled with murmuring and the rustling of bodies, which caused Flicker’s ears to twitch. The swell of sound had no distinct voice that he could hear, soft spoken words, words such as, “The Monarchists will always serve true to the Crown.” This was something that Flicker didn’t understand, the game of politics, but it seemed that he was now trapped in the quagmire of it.
When Shining Armor spoke again, the room quieted, though not completely, much to Shining Armor’s annoyance. “All of this infighting has to end. All of this quarreling. We are at war, and this division is giving aid to our enemy. For a brief moment, you put your troubles aside after the riots in the city, and you came together. Why can’t you do that now?”
“Because, many are seizing upon this moment to push their political agendas, while suggesting that anypony who has a difference of opinion is aiding the enemy,” one pony replied.
Scowling, Shining Armor stared at the pony who spoke for a short time. Then, in a powerful voice of oration, he made a short, brief statement. “Perhaps you’d like to continue this debate after the rats sack the city and seize control of our capital. I’m sure they will have a commitment to settling disputes in the fair and just manner that you are accustomed to.”
Flicker sensed that the words cut to the bone, and he saw a lot of ponies all around him flinching, as though they had been struck. The colt still didn’t understand why these voices of dissent were even allowed to exist, or why these disagreements, these acts of sedition were allowed to take place. So many of these soft, worthless individuals had never once faced a single moment of danger, and Flicker felt that the lot of them should be left down in the sewer until attitudes changed—or the rats had their way with them. Either way, the voices of dissent needed silencing.
“Flicker Nicker, your city needs you,” Shining Armor said, looking down at the colt in the middle of the room. “To put it simply, you have the right mark, the mark that showed up at the right time. Doctor Fancy Fiasco has gone on the record and has stated the following, that you are the Slayer. That is not in debate, thankfully. Everypony has agreed on that.”
“The Monarchists were the first to reach our own consensus,” a voice said, loud and clear. “Meanwhile, the Liberty Party had to drag their hooves, just like they always do, as if there was any doubt about the truth.”
For a moment, Shining Armor could be seen grinding his teeth together, and the corner of his eye twitched in a frightful manner. The tension in the room became palpable, and Flicker gained a keen awareness of just how many ponies were armed. Not just unicorns with dangerous magic, but pistols and swords as well. He had no weapons of his own at the moment—new sheaths were under construction—and he felt naked.
Sitting near Justice Good Reason, an old green earth pony stallion lit a cigar.
“I myself, I am having some doubts about this,” Flicker blurted out, and just about every eye in the room went wide. He licked his lips and felt his frogs go slick with sweat. His back ached and there was a cramp in his side. Princess Luna was looking at him, and Flicker felt the first pangs of panic. “My cutie mark… my mark… I don’t know how good it is for me. It’s caused me some problems. It threatens to consume me, to devour me. I’ve already almost lost myself to it. I don’t know if I am the hero that you want me to be. I’m ten years old and I’m still trying to figure everything out, and nothing in life makes sense right now, and I just lost everything… everything! And if I give into my mark, I could lose myself too. My sense of self is one of the few things I still have.”
The room filled with the sound of many voices, all of them speaking out at once. Ponies looked at Flicker, they looked at one another, some turned to look at Princess Luna, hoping for her interjection, but one baritone stallion’s voice rose above the others, and he had this to say:
“If you will not serve willingly, we will invoke the Articles of Militia and you will serve! This is not something that is open for—AAAAAAARGH! My mouf!”
The pony speaking was interrupted when the old green earth pony straight-legged him in the mouth with his hoof. Blood and teeth flew in parabolic arcs, and the old green earth pony puffed on his cigar while the pony punched in the mouth writhed on the floor, clutching at his face. Smirking, the old pony bent over a bit and wiped his bloody hoof on his victim, never once taking his eyes off of Flicker.
“Chesty, was that really necessary?” Shining Armor asked in a meek, but still somehow firm voice.
“Eh, don’t question your elders, welp,” Chesty replied, chomping on his cigar. Then, still looking Flicker in the eye, Chesty bowed his head. “Son, I am sorry about that. Try not to worry, colt, that won’t be happening. I’ll not allow it.”
A unicorn guard moved through the crowd, his golden armor flashing in the bright lights, and he came to the side of the pony punched in the mouth, or mouf, as the case may be. The thrashing, kicking pony was lifted, restrained, and carried out of the room, which was now in a state of shocked silence.
Justice Good Reason, scowling, looked around the circular chamber, shaking his head, and his sagging cheeks wibble-wobbled with his every movement. “Not much has been accomplished yet, but I think that everypony needs some fresh air. This session is now in recess, and please, for the love of the Princesses, will all of you try not to piss Chesty off? We don’t want a repeat of what just happened. Dismissed! Everypony go and cool off!”
Flicker welcomed the break from the hot lights, the loud sounds, and the tension in the room.
The sun was glorious as it shone down upon the city of Canterlot, and Flicker basked in its radiance, troubled though he was. His mother sat close by, torn between wanting to hug him and give him his equinal space. Conk, his father, was having a conversation with Hennessy, and both of them lay in the soft grass of the tiny lawn in front of the Canterlot City Hall. Piper lay on her back watching clouds through half-open eyes, and her front hooves were folded over her barrel.
In front of City Hall was a roundabout for traffic, and in the middle of the roundabout was a statue, a statue that bothered Flicker a great deal. A stone building was being constructed around the statue to house it, a chapel. The stone statue was a perfect representation of Flicker, and he didn’t like it, not one bit.
Even more uncomfortable was the fact that ponies were already praying at the base of the statue, even with the chapel unfinished. Several mares sat with their foals, heads bowed, praying, and Flicker already knew what these prayers were, prayers of safety, prayers of security, prayers of protection from the rats.
They were praying to him. Flicker didn’t like this, not at all, he did not approve, he was no great figure worthy of prayer. Perhaps more than anypony else, Flicker knew that he was just a screwed up colt. If anypony deserved a statue, it was Doctor Sterling. But the good doctor had died, and Flicker had lived, and with Flicker, hope had survived.
So much faith, so much belief, so much conviction was put into cutie marks.
It was astonishing, really, the powers that such marks held. Flicker had been asked to create an entirely new branch of the guard, a new order, and he had no idea of what to do. This was too much to deal with right now—but the city needed saving—right now. And the responsibility to do so seemed to fall upon his shoulders.
Even worse, the statue wasn’t him. It was faceless, maskless, it was the hollow pony that existed beneath the mask. The soft touch of his mother’s wing snapped him from his thoughts, and he stared ahead while she stroked his neck, grateful for her touch. There was a lot he wanted to say to her, but he didn’t know how. For now, his silence held, but he leaned into his mother’s soft, reassuring touch.
“They’re offering my son the title of ‘Baron,’ I’m so proud.” Twisty beamed and scooted closer to her son, seeing that he was receptive to her affection.
“Mother, it is just the lowest rank of peerage among the titled landowners,” Flicker replied while his mother slipped her wing around him. “It’s like getting a gold star on your school paper and nothing more.”
“Yeah, but Baron… Flicker, that is a hoof in the door! Don’t you realise how important this is?” Twisty, worried, pulled her son, now larger than her, closer to her, and rested her head against his cheek.
“Maybe I just don’t care.” Flicker closed his eyes and felt his mother go tense against him. “Maybe I don’t care right now. All of this happening, everything, all of these things being offered to me… I’d rather have Doctor Sterling back.”
“I know, son, I know.” Twisty took a deep breath and in a soft voice she said to her colt, “Doctor Sterling died to give you a future… to give this city a future. Doctor Sterling clearly placed his hope in you. I’d like to think that in his final moments, he must have been confident in knowing that he had taught you well. He trusted you to do the right thing, and gave you a chance to do it.”
Flicker listened to his mother’s words and felt a painful, throbbing lump manifest in his throat. He wanted to believe that she was right, he desperately wanted to take comfort in her words. Everypony had so much to say, everypony seemed to have some great insight into Doctor Sterling’s head, everypony seemed to know his every motivation, his every thought, and his every conviction. Most of the time, it just pissed Flicker off, but his mother’s words… he wished those were true.
His mother smooched him, and Flicker was consumed by warm-fuzzies.
Looking at the statue in the middle of the roundabout, Flicker thought about the word ‘enshrined.’ It echoed in his mind, bouncing around in his grey matter, and it terrified him. It bothered him that he had no choice in this matter—the ponies of Canterlot had made the decision for him, they had made their choice without his input, his opinion, his feelings.
Contagion, his nemesis, was enshrined, and so was Flicker. Was the outcome of their inevitable battle to be determined by the fervent, zealous prayers of their followers? Flicker could not even comprehend what was happening, what was being done to him. He wasn’t even an alicorn, or even an adult; he was a unicorn, and a colt. Alicorns had chapels and devoted, dedicated, devout followers.
Tearing his gaze away from the statue, Flicker looked at Piper. He wasn’t even titled yet, nothing was committed in ink, but she was already his first vassal, his first sworn follower. She had dragged out some dusty old book written in Ye Olde Canterlot and recited the ancient rites of fidelitas, the swearing of loyalty, unconditional, unwavering loyalty to a liege or monarch.
It seemed that feudalism was getting a revival in Equestria.
The session—Flicker did not know what else to call it—resumed with some new faces in the crowd. He recognised Prince Blueblood, but that was about it. Everypony seemed uncomfortable, and no wonder. Grief, shock, and loss were still fresh on the minds of everypony present. The Justice, known as Good Reason, had called everything back into order with a stern reminder that punching ponies in the face was frowned upon, even if you were one of the great and beloved heroes of Equestria.
Every eye seemed to be on him, and Flicker sat in the very center of the circular room. There was an enduring silence that hung over the room, all that could be heard was the rustle of bodies, the sound of breathing, and the faint electric drone of the sound system. Reporters clutched cameras, almost all of which were focused on Flicker.
“All of this because of my mark,” Flicker said, hesitant, unsure if he was allowed to speak or not. “I don’t know if I am the pony you think I am. Most of you really don’t know me. I’m terrible at leadership… but you want me to found a new order, a new division within the guard. I’m a foal—”
“But you are the right choice,” a mare sitting in the highest row said in a clarion voice. “You have to be. Why else would you have that mark? It has been proven that you are the Slayer, the hero meant to arise in time of need. Every pony has a purpose, and every purpose has a pony. We all bear our burdens, that is just how things are. Some of us sweep the streets, others govern our fair nation, and yet others fight to defend it.”
“That doesn’t make me fit to lead,” Flicker retorted, shaking his head while trying to stifle his anger. “You don’t know how screwed up I am.” He looked around the room, now sweating, and his ears pinned back against his skull.
Chomping on his cigar, the earth pony known as Chesty rose from his seat, causing quite a few ponies present to gasp. The old earth pony went to the stairs and made his way down, moving with a fluid grace that belied his age. Muscles rippled, drawing the attention of many spectators, and the green pony made his way to where Flicker was sitting.
Chesty sat down and his cigar went from one side of his mouth to the other, the side away from Flicker. In the bright, unrelenting lights, Chesty’s cutie mark was visible for all to see, a stick of dynamite. Reaching out, the old stallion patted Flicker on the withers, and then looked the young colt in the eye.
“Son, I would consider it a great equinal favour if you would hear me out, and I’d be in your debt.” With each word, faint blue cigar smoke curled out from between the old pony’s teeth. “Sometimes, our purpose comes to us before we are ready to take it on… before we’re done training for it. Sometimes… sometimes that annoying little mark shows up right as we’re trying to fix a crisis… but make no mistake, it always shows up on the right pony.”
These words inspired a little confidence in Flicker, and his ears stood up so that he might listen better.
“I blew up a beaver dam that threatened my Pa’s farm.” Chesty paused and his cigar bobbed in the corner of his mouth. “There’s lots of stories that go around about how it happened, but that’s the truth of it. I blew up a beaver dam and got my stick of dynamite. Wasn’t long after, this country went to war. It wasn’t pretty, and my Pa’s farm got threatened by things worse than beavers… separatists.” There were gasps in the room as this word was uttered, and the old stallion had himself a look around, looking from face to face.
“I won’t say they was bad, I won’t even say they was wrong.” This caused more gasps, and Chesty seemed to delight in the reactions he was getting. “They were ponies, just like me and you, and they interpreted the laws a little different. They too, had their marks, their destiny all laid out for them, and they picked a fight over what they believed was right. If only all of us was that brave.”
Jaw muscles clenching a bit, Flicker bit down on his anger, holding it back, and made himself listen.
“I was nine years old… I had just turned nine, actually. My ninth summer. I ran away from home and joined the guard. I lied to them, told them I was fourteen, the legal age. I don’t think they believed me for a second, but they was desperate for bodies… and I had just the right mark. It’s a rare thing to get a mark suited for violence. It’s more than a mark, it’s a warning, it’s a brand and ponies treat it as such. But I digress.”
Chesty inhaled some of his cigar, and then let the smoke out while he spoke. “By the age of ten, I was knee deep in blood and guts and bodies. I’d earned myself a position, a grenadier. I was just what was needed for that war… and the next one… and the next one… and the one that came after that.” The old stallion laughed, and smoke billowed from his muzzle while his cigar glowed cherry-red. “I wasn’t no leader either… who in their right mind follows a pony that has a stick of dynamite as a cutie mark?”
“Sir, I would,” Flicker replied.
“Son, I done heard about you and the bear.” Chesty continued to chuckle, a raspy sound, like logs burning and popping in a fireplace. “That’s how legends get started, boy. You go balls out just once, and ponies will remember you. There’s no going back from that.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Flicker sighed and his gaze dropped down to his front hooves.
“Good Reason over there, he’s ready to declare you as a legal adult, for the purposes of joining the E.U.P. Everypony is lining up, ready to shower you with compensation for taking on this duty, but I don’t think you care much about that, do ya, colt?”
Lifting his head, Flicker once more looked Chesty in the eye. “I can’t leave my friends,” he said while gesturing in Piper and Hennessy’s direction. “No, I won’t leave them. I know what’ll happen. I’ll bury myself in my work, in my purpose, and I’ll go back to being how I was. Just before all of this happened, I had a… had a… there was a life-changing experience. I woke up… and I can’t go back to how I was, I just can’t.” It was far, far easier to focus on Chesty than it was on the crowd, all of whom were staring at him.
“We’ll come with you!” Piper shouted.
“Miss, I must ask that you be quiet,” Justice Good Reason said.
Rising from his seat, Prince Gosling struck a commanding pose. “I for one would like to hear what she has to say. Twilight Sparkle started her rise to glory by defeating Nightmare Moon with her friends—”
“Twilight was an adult!”
“Who are you to interrupt me?” Prince Gosling demanded of the pony who had spoken. Glaring at the cameras now focused upon him, the regal pegasus’ face became a stern mask. “Every great thing that we accomplish, that we do, it begins and ends with the friendships we form. I am of the belief that, if we separate Mister Nicker from his friends, his companions, we shall take away from him what makes him special, the very reason why we are seeking him out in the first place. His mark makes him the Slayer, we can all agree on that, but his friends… his friends make him the pony that he is. The mark is nothing without the pony it rests upon.”
Thunderous applause filled the room, the stomping and clopping of hooves. Prince Gosling, his head high, waited for the sound to die down before he continued, “It is a tragic thing, to send a foal off to war. Yes, the Rat Catchers Guild trains up its apprentices as soldiers. Yes, these apprentices face danger. It is part of the job. But this… this goes far, far beyond the duty of a simple rat catcher. These are extraordinary circumstances. Trying times. To force him to join the guard would be awful enough, but to not give his friends the option to join him, to be with him, to support him, that would be a travesty.”
The furious sound that filled the chamber was enough to make Flicker’s ears ring. Clapping, stomping, whistling, hooting, and hollering. The pall over the room had lifted and now there was something else present, something that had been missing—hope. Flicker felt it, it lifted his spirits, gave him courage, it ignited his will to fight.
Piper, her face contorted with grim determination, her yellowed eyes flashing, she jumped over the wooden enclosure where she sat, and taking brave strides, she moved to be with Flicker. Chesty watched the bold filly as she approached, and his head nodded, which caused his cigar to bob. Hennessy got up from where he was sitting, wobbled a bit, and Conk gave him a sturdy push to keep him upright.
Still recovering, Hennessy had trouble getting over the short wooden wall of the guest box. After a few thumps as well as a near stumble, he followed after Piper, looking shy and hesitant. The colt, reaching Flicker’s side, sat down beside him, looking wide-eyed and bewildered by the events taking place around him.
“The best of us give all we have to give,” Prince Gosling said, his words booming through the circular chamber. “Some of us give up our youth, others give up their very lives. We now live in a time of sacrifices. Surely, we all have something to offer to the cause, even something minor, like compromise.”
This time, rather than applause, there was deafening silence. Ponies turned to look at one another, some of them looked quite ashamed, or even guilty. Monarchists looked at members of the Liberty Party. Bureaucrats gave each other furtive glances. Flicker eyeballed his friends.
Taking a deep breath, Flicker summoned the courage to speak. “I will serve—”
No applause, only a collective gasp of relief filled the room.
“—I will do as you ask of me. I will found this new order that you seek.”
His cigar quivering, Chesty looked relieved. “Son, you got a name in mind?”
Flicker, put on the spot, said the only thing that sprang to his mind, but did so after a considerable delay. “The Underwatch.”
“The Underwatch?” Chesty’s eyes narrowed.
“Well,” Flicker began, “we have the Skywatch, the Daywatch, the Nightwatch, and it just makes sense to have an Underwatch.”
Nodding his head, Chesty smiled. “Son, I agree. That makes sense. Day or night, above or below, the guard has this city covered.”
Clearing his throat, Good Reason banged his hoof once on his podium. “Let the record clearly show the date and time of the creation of this new unit.” He banged his hoof again, and then peered around the room. “Much help is needed to get the Underwatch established. We will need sponsors, funding, resources, we still have much to discuss.”
“I have a motto,” Piper said as she looked around the room.
“Do you now, Miss?” Justice Good Reason looked surprised.
“I’m not sure how correct it is, I had to work it out from the indexes and glossaries in the back of my textbooks…” Piper’s ears drooped and she began chewing on her lips. “I didn’t have much else to do in the hospital, and I asked for my schoolbooks. They were a little burnt… well, one was a lot burnt, but I managed—”
“Miss, if you have something to say,” Good Reason said, tapping his hoof on his podium.
Clearing her throat, Piper held her head up high and did her best to dispel her timidness. “Pertinax mater irrumator praetores. I think it suits us.”
From where she sat, Princess Luna began picking over the words, and as she did so, her face turned a spectacular shade of royal purple. “Pertinax… unyielding, stubborn, obstinate… mater… mother? Irrumator praetores… that means… that’s a very, very vulgar term for coitus…” The princess gasped and shook her head. “We are not certain if this is apropos.”
“They’re gonna be down there wading through knee deep shit to keep the city safe.” Chesty puffed on his cigar, which was now a good bit shorter. “Tell me, what is appropriate? Shall we call them ‘The Canterlot Swim Team’ to somehow make this pleasant? Or maybe the ‘Brown Water Beat-down Brigade?’”
Eyes narrowing, Princess Luna replied, “Point taken. It shall be taken under consideration and We shall inform you of its approval.”
Rapping his hoof against his podium, Justice Good Reason said, “There is still much to discuss. Now, let us continue after that enlightening discussion about the stubborn motherfuckers who will serve beneath us in the smelliest Tartarus you can imagine…”
Almost everything seemed to go silent at these words, and Flicker turned his head to look at whoever had spoken. After turning about, he saw a mare that had stood up, and even from where he was sitting, he could see that she was crying, but there was a defiant look to her face. Like everypony else, Flicker waited in silence, wanting to hear what she had next to say.
“I am Lady Gambit,” she said, her voice amplified by magic, “and I am the Matron to a house that has lost almost everything. Mister Mariner’s failed insurrection stripped us of our fortunes and much of our resources. My son, whom I love dearly, was gravely wounded, but now, thanks to Princess Cadance, has been healed. Whatever it is that I have left, I will aid the Underwatch, and I do so with the hopes that many other candles will be lit with mine!”
“Here here!” A blue-maned, blue-mustachioed stallion stood up. “I am Lord Fancy Pants of Canterlot, and I too, shall light a candle! I have suffered from Mister Mariner’s machinations as well, but I am not as badly off as some. We nobles of Canterlot have an obligation to protect the commoners… Lord Sterling Shoe died doing his duty and lived as an example for each of us! I could do no less!”
The mood of the room had shifted and Flicker could feel the change. For a brief moment, an eyeblink, he had a keen awareness of the feelings of each and every pony in the room, a feeling that shook him to his very core. It was electric, and the sensation of hope buoyed his mood. Anger, shock, and fear had given way to better things, such as hope.
A mare with a fabulous mane stood up and she had a wild-eyed look of giddiness about her. “My name is Upper Crust, and I am an heiress to bubble gum, whiskey, and gun fortunes! I might be what you call ‘new-money,’ but I too, shall light a candle!” She gave the gathered crowd a manic smile and added, “Also, I have guns… lots of guns. I predict business will be booming, but I need business partners! I’ve always wanted a chance to sponsor a guard unit… that’s prestigious!”
Night Light rose from where he sat and waited for a lull in the crowd. When the right opportunity presented itself, he said, “For those who have fallen, for those we have lost, I too, shall light a candle.” And with that, he sat down, somehow looking both hopeful and glum.
A mare near Justice Good Reason stood up, and she too, prepared to have her say.
Unnoticed, and unseen…
“Brother, Project Eternity yields fruit.”
“I suppose it does, Chronos. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been good at this sort of thing.”
The two alicorn stallions were joined by the zebra known as Lima Bean, who stood near Flicker, her chosen champion. Chronos wrapped his wing around Pale’s neck in an affectionate manner and leaned in closer to his brother with the hopes of cheering up his pessimistic sibling. Meanwhile, Lima hovered near Flicker, and her long, ever-moving dreadlocks reached out for him, as if they might break protocol to give him a tickle.
“Our benevolent benefactors would be pleased,” Chronos said to Pale in a soft whisper. “Behold, weaponised hope. The ponies of Canterlot have chosen their champion. The seeds of despair, hatred, and apathy will have trouble rooting in this ground. A great and terrible evil threatens everything, but look at these ponies. Look at them! Look at the fire and the vim they possess!”
“I don’t know.” Pale shrugged. “Maybe? I don’t want to get my hopes up. When the cold, hard reality of this war settles in, I think it’ll take the fight out of them and they’ll go back to how they normally are.”
“I am starting to think that the Nameless One was right,” Chronos confessed. “Look at what happened the last time a group of Enshrined gathered. Six ponies came together. Together, they defeated the windigos, taught their respective tribes a new way, and a new nation was founded. Those ponies… those survivors poured all of their hopes and dreams into their chosen champions. Think of the strength that the Founders had. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna rose to incredible power as more and more ponies began to believe that it was possible to survive all of the catastrophes that had beset them. Project Eternity brought us back from the very precipice of extinction. And there are new magics, magics that our benefactors did not foresee, like the magic of friendship. The Nameless One insists that it is the magic of Enshrinement, but on a much smaller scale. The power of belief in one another.”
“Brother, do you really believe that this is a fight that can be won?” Pale asked, turning to look at his brother with wide, curious eyes. “You sound almost cheerful and upbeat. I don’t think I like it. It scares me, Chronos. If you don’t build your hopes up, you can’t have them shattered. It is better to have more realistic expectations.”
“Pale, my beloved little brother… I have grown tired of cursing the darkness. I choose to light a candle.”
The enclosed carriage trundled through the cobblestone streets of Canterlot, bearing precious cargo. Flicker sat with his head resting against the window, he appeared exhausted and only remained upright through force of will. Sitting beside him, pressed up against him, was Henessy, who also appeared tired, but happy too. Piper was the last pony stuffed into the rear seat, and her yellowed eyes appeared ecstatic.
Across from the trio, Wicked sat on the cushioned bench opposite, and he had his eyes locked on Flicker with a dull, vacant stare. He looked weary, sad, and grief-stricken.The stallion also appeared to be much, much older than his actual age. The day had stretched long, but much had been accomplished. The Underwatch now existed in an official capacity, Piper, Flicker, and Hennessy were now recognised as legal adults, with Flicker being Canterlot’s newest Baron, a title given to facilitate resources. With rank and peerage came privileges, and with privileges, doors opened.
Hope spread through Canterlot like a wildfire. As the carriage passed through the streets, pulled by stout members of the Royal Guard, cheering could be heard. Paper lanterns were being hung. The sound of singing, of reveling, and of mourning the many dead passed through the windows of the carriage. It was a strange jumble of sound, of ebullient jubilation mixed with sorrowful mourning.
This was a new and different Canterlot, united under a common cause. A moratorium had been called on the in-fighting, with all of the major political parties pledging to come together for the common good. Whether or not the promise would be kept remained to be seen, but many were hopeful. Today, many had pledged to light a candle, and if the current activities of the citizens of Canterlot were any indicator, many residents were, indeed, lighting candles, housing them inside of bright paper lanterns.
“Lad… there’s something ye should know,” Wicked said to Flicker in a voice that could only be described as paternal. “Seeing Mister Balister is quite a shock, Lad. You see, ‘e ain’t finished yet… not done… but I think it will do ‘im good to see ye and ‘ave the good news.” Wicked yawned, though from tiredness or boredom it was impossible to tell.
Lifting his head, Flicker turned to look at Wicked, then offered a silent nod.
“Even with the ‘ealing, they could only close the wounds. They couldn’t grow everything back, Lad. I ask that ye be brave.” Wicked inhaled, held it, and let out a sigh. “It’s a sight that puts me own teeth on edge, it does.” Huffing a bit, Wicked reached around with his one, his only front hoof and began to rub at the small of his back. “It’s ‘ard to accept that ‘e’s gone, ain’t it?”
Hennessy nodded, and so did Piper. Flicker just resumed looking out the window.
“Doc was my best friend. Aye, ‘e was a devious little shit, sneaky, mouthy… and when ‘e was younger, ‘e was every bad thing they say about noble brats. Cocky, smarmy, ‘e was born with e’ry advantage and ‘e knew it. I ‘ated him and ‘e ‘ated me, and it wasn’t until Princess Celestia chained us together that I learned ’ow to get along with ‘im. Now all I ‘ave is fond memories. I’d give me eyes to ‘ave us chained together again.”
“The funeral tomorrow… I don’t know if I can face it,” Hennessy blurted out, and the colt’s eyes were watering.
“Been so many damn funerals that there are traffic jams down near the cemetery.” Wicked’s heavy brows sagged down over his eyes and he shook his head. “Lad, if you don’t think ye can make it, no one will think any less of ye. We all deal with grief in our own way.”
Flicker, turning his head, shoved Hennessy away just enough to be able to free his leg. Then, with careful movement, he placed his foreleg around Hennessy’s withers and pulled the colt back closer. After a moment of hesitation, Flicker wrapped his foreleg around Hennessy’s neck, pulled him even closer, and then touched the earth pony’s cheek with his snoot. In this position, he remained, trying to offer up whatever comfort he could.
When the tears fell, they ran down Hennessy’s cheeks, leaving the end of Flicker’s muzzle wet and slick. Piper collapsed over onto Hennessy, sandwiching him between herself and Flicker. Closing her eyes, she held onto him, swaying from side to side as the carriage rocked back and forth.
With some trepidation, Flicker approached the door, and halted when he was a few scant inches away. There was a strong chemical stench of cleanser and disinfectant here that made him want to sneeze. Piper and Hennessy had chosen to remain outside, to wait, unsure if they could bear what was promised to be a troubling sight.
For Flicker, there was no choice to be made, he owed his teacher, and he was determined to see this through. Wicked was right behind him, and the colt could hear the stallion’s heavy, troubled breathing. Gritting his teeth, armed with unwavering, unflinching loyalty and his sense of duty, Flicker pushed open the door, then waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim lighting of the room.
Inside of the room, in the center, hanging from the ceiling were the remains of Mister Balister. Each leg had been hacked off, his body had been burned beyond recognition, and his lower jaw had been ripped away from his skull. Even after much extensive healing, he was quite a sight, and Flicker had to steel his nerves to continue. What was left did indeed, put Flicker’s teeth on edge, his dock had an unpleasant prickle, and his frogs tingled, a sensation made worse by the cold, sterile tile floor.
The glint of blued-steel could be seen from the one shiny new leg that had been surgically grafted into place, but the leg was not finished. An open socket at the end lacked a fetlock and a hoof. The nurse turned about, lifted something from a nearby rack, and then began securing it to what remained of Mister Balister’s face, which looked like melted wax.
Flicker saw a flash of gleaming blued-steel and heard the sound of mechanical respiration. When the nurse stepped aside, Flicker saw it, he saw Mister Balister’s new face, and his blood ran cold. The long bird-like beak of blued-steel. The red lenses that looked like round, burning eyes. The room filled with the mechanical thrum of Mister Balister’s breathing.
“Mister Nicker.” The voice was dreadful, chilling, and there was nothing equine about it. With no lower jaw, with no tongue, Mister Balister’s voice was now entirely mechanical in nature, artificial, and reproduced in such a way that it inspired terror.
“It’s been done,” Flicker said, reporting to his teacher. “A candle has been lit. The guild has been destroyed, but we will fight on. Sir, I have formed the Underwatch, a militarised version of our guild.”
“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day,” Mister Balister said to Flicker. “Don’t think I’m done with your lessons, colt. Now that we are at war, I have much to teach you. I have need of an apprentice… and you… you have need of a master. You are still in need of remedial sword training, as I recall.”
Flicker realised that Mister Balister wasn’t talking about the typical rat catcher master-apprentice relationship. When he glanced at Wicked, his mouth went dry, and then after a few moments of introspection, he returned his attention to what remained of Mister Balister. Again, he glanced over at Wicked, and he saw the older stallion nod. Bowing his head down low, Flicker drew closer to Mister Balister.
“I am yours to command, my Master,” Flicker said in hushed tones. “Your humble apprentice seeks instruction.”
“Keep your fellows and companions safe,” Mister Balister commanded, “and prepare yourself for training. It will take a lot of work and effort for you to become the hero that this city needs. Doctor Sterling will need to be avenged, but not in a careless, reckless, meaningless display of petty violence. No, we will engage in artful, creative violence, the violence of gentleponies. We will wage war as scholars, as ponies of great and terrible learning.”
Head still bowed, Flicker nodded.
“We will organise, we will rebuild, we will prepare, and then, when the time is right, we shall fight.” Mister Balister’s head lifted a little higher, and the sounds of his thrumming, reverberating respiration filled the room. “If you go off half-cocked, if you do something stupid, I will be disappointed with you. You don’t want me disappointed with you.”
“I will do as I am commanded,” Flicker said in a voice that was both soft and hard at the same time. “I will stay my need for vengeance and curb my desire for revenge. I will not disappoint.”
“Good.” Even though his voice was artificial, Mister Balister sounded relieved. “Stay with me, so that we might talk for a while. We have much to discuss. Hanging here like a piece of meat on a butcher’s hook, I’ve had nothing to do but plan.”
“I can stay a little while,” Flicker replied, “but my parents also need me.”
“Of course.” Mister Balister looked Flicker right in the eye. “It just feels good to talk with somepony again. Just a little time is all I ask, I do not wish to keep you from your parents.”
Lifting his head, Flicker returned eye contact with Mister Balister, staring into the glowing red lenses of the blued-steel mask. “What are your plans, my Master?”
It was a perfect, sunny day, and somehow, that felt wrong. Funerals were supposed to be rainy, dreary days, sad days, grey days with melancholy skies. This day was nothing of the sort. The newspaper headlines were ablaze with promises and pledges of unity, of togetherness, all to present a united front to the enemy. From tragedy had come inspiration, a sense of purpose, a will and desire to do better.
Even though so much of it focused upon him, Flicker could draw no comfort from it. Inside, there was only a hollow ache that begged to be filled with something, like a decayed tooth, it throbbed with cold emptiness. At least he had his orders, his duties, and his sense of purpose. That soothed the ache a little, but not much, and it stayed his hoof from rash action or petty, meaningless vengeance.
Also, he had Knick-Knack, whom he doted on rather than eat breakfast.
During his absence, her cutie mark had appeared at a young, tender age, and Flicker felt regret for not being there with her when it had happened. His mother had told him the story several times now, and would likely tell him several times more. He didn’t mind, it was a pleasant distraction and his mother’s words gave him a much needed mote of happiness.
For being a good filly, Twisty had taken Knick-Knack into town to purchase a new doll, but the little filly wanted a toy locomotive. She had begged and pleaded for it, even cried for it, and Twisty, being the soft-hearted mother she was, broke down and spent a considerable sum on the toy locomotive, which was made from real metal and was so very detailed.
Not long after the purchase, Knick-Knack had her cutie mark; a chugging locomotive. It was a good mark, and Flicker was happy. He hoped that his sister would do more than just operate a train though, he hoped that she would one day design and build better trains. Even in his current troubled state, his hopes and dreams for his little sister persisted.
Hope sprang eternal, a lesson that Flicker was still learning.
For his sister to design and build better locomotives, she had to have a bright and promising future. She, like so many others, had to have a future, and Flicker was determined to ensure that the future continued to exist. His own future, it seemed, had been determined, and he would serve.
“Give me that little fuzzball,” Twisty said to Flicker. “She’s sticky from breakfast. I’m going to clean her up before we go.”
Hesitant, not wishing to let go, Flicker kissed Knick-Knack one last time, which caused her to begin giggling. Feeling a keen sense of regret, he placed her on his mother’s back, and then watched as Twisty walked away from the table. Leaning forward, Flicker rested his forelegs on the edge of the table, and was only somewhat aware of the fact that Hennessy was staring at him.
Madam Pakora began clearing away the breakfast dishes, sniffling, her eyes red and puffy. She paused, lingering near Hennessy for a moment, and the corners of her eyes wrinkled as she smiled. “A cookie for your thoughts, Hennessy.”
Startled, Hennessy let out a squeak, and perhaps because he was caught off guard, he responded with total and complete honesty. “I was just thinking that Flicker here would be a good daddy. Mine was a total shit…” His words trailed off and he sat there, blinking, his lips still moving, but nothing was being said.
“And even though your own family was ruinous, you still have hope of goodness?” Madam Pakora’s smile widened a bit, causing her plump cheeks to press up into the corners of her eyes.
“Yeah… I guess… maybe?” Hennessy’s eyes darted from the left to the right, and he glanced at Piper. Flustered, the earth pony colt then looked to Conk, who was busy reading a newspaper. “I think a part of me wants to prove that I can do better than my own parents.”
Without warning, Piper let out a sudden, terrifying belch, egg-scented, and then she clutched her stomach while moaning, “I don’t think my liver likes breakfast, but I sure did.” She began panting, trying to cope with the sudden burst of pain, and her yellow eyes blinked several times in rapid succession.
Snorting, Conk used his paper to fan away the befouled air while shaking his head.
The carriage was stuck in traffic, but Flicker wasn’t worried. They had left early, knowing that most of the city would be trying to reach the cemetery. It was warm, too warm, and the hot press of so many bodies crammed into such a tiny space left him a sweaty mess. Most of the time, his mother’s wings were comforting things, but right now, they left Flicker hot, prickled, and itchy.
Even though the traffic didn’t bother him, Flicker was peeved for other reasons. He had a house now—though it had come to him through terrible circumstances—and a housekeeper too. He had the means to provide a comfortable, wonderful life for his parents—both of whom wanted to continue to live in their farmhouse in Ponyville. The rejection—for Flicker took it as such—stung. On top of all of the other hurt he felt, this just felt like rubbing salt in his many wounds.
But, being the good, dutiful son that he was, he said nothing.
The carriage lurched and began to move forward, but Flicker knew that they would stop again soon enough. Sweat ran down his face and made his mane stick to his neck. Sitting across from him, Piper looked miserable as well, and she clutched her stomach. Hennessy didn’t seem bothered by the heat or the humidity at all, he was humming to himself even, and Flicker hated him just a tiny bit.
If he had to suffer, then everypony should have to suffer, or so the petulant colt thought as the carriage slowed to a halt.
The cemetery was packed, overflowing with far too many mourners. Standing beneath a canopy was Princess Luna, though Princess Celestia was nowhere to be seen. Beside Princess Luna was Prince Gosling, and she was weeping against his neck. Seeing it made Flicker feel strange, a sensation that he lacked the means to describe.
There was no casket, but there was a statue. Flicker could see a hint of its outline beneath the black shroud covering it. A large lump appeared in his throat, almost choking him, and his vision blurred over. This was almost too much to bear, and right now, more than anything, Flicker wished that he was alone, that he had some privacy while paying his respects.
“Mister Nicker?”
Turning about, Flicker saw a filly on the verge of marehood, or a mare that still appeared to be a filly. She seemed to be about the same age as the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and she had a beautiful silver pelt that stood out in sharp contrast to the black gown she wore. Thick glasses were askew on her face, and the bottom of the lenses were smudged with tears.
“It’s you,” she said in a relieved voice. “My name is Silver Spoon. It’s funny, I feel as though I know you, my uncle talked about you a great deal.”
Ears drooping, Flicker bowed his head a bit and he watched as her barrel began hitching with each breath she took. Silver Spoon’s voice wavered a bit, making her sound more like a filly, and he realised that she was fighting to keep from crying, which made it quite difficult for him to keep his own composure.
“I understand that you and my uncle were very close,” she continued, and she gave Flicker a brave smile. “He saw you as a son. Sterling was my favourite uncle… he was a good pony and he was one of the ponies that steered me away from being a bully. He taught me to respect myself and when I did that, I began to respect others.” She paused, sniffled for a bit, and the corners of her mouth convulsed while she battled to keep the smile on her face.
“If my uncle saw you as a son, then I would like for you to be a part of our family.” Silver Spoon’s lower lip quivered and her nostrils flared while she sucked in great gulps of air. “I would like to get to know you better and I am hoping that we can be friends. I would be a terrible pony if I didn’t look after my uncle’s son.”
“I would like that, Miss Spoon.”
“Sit with me?” she asked. “I don’t know if I can get through this alone.”
Glancing over at Piper and Hennessy, Flicker saw them both nodding. All of this was strange, weird, it was new to him and he felt out of place, out of sorts. With Piper and Hennessy’s encouragement, he returned his gaze to Silver Spoon. “I will remain with you, if you will have me. We can make it through this together.” Then, as an afterthought he added, “My door will always be open to you and you will always be welcome as my guest.”
“I would like that…” Silver Spoon’s eyes glazed over and she tried to blink away the tears, but failed. They rolled down her cheeks in great, fat droplets, then fell to the earth where they clung to the blades of grass like glittering diamonds.
Then, without warning, Flicker had a stout earth pony hanging off of his neck. Bracing his front legs, he stood there, rigid, not knowing what to do. She was weeping, this was awkward, and Flicker realised that he had some trouble connecting to other ponies. With one front leg braced in place, he lifted the other, and wrapped it around her while she wept.
The weight was surprising, not the physical weight, no, this went beyond that and threatened to pull him down. This was a weight only born by maturity, something that Flicker knew that he lacked. This realisation of weakness left him vulnerable, it ripped open every emotional scab in the worst way possible, and Flicker could feel the evidence of his weakness welling up in his eyes.
The sting of tears was unbearable and Flicker would have prefered being stabbed again.
“Lord Sterling Shoe was my best friend, my associate, and my drinking buddy.” Wicked Chandler stood beside the statue with his head bowed and his ears sagging. “Sterling was also my primary antagonist at times and the pony I trusted to give me ‘arsh criticism. This loss ‘as left a 'ole in me ‘eart and I—” The unicorn broke down and shook his head.
White Pepper stepped out of the crowd and went to Wicked’s side, trying to comfort him.
“I can’t do this,” Wicked said in a choked voice. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this. I’m a terrible friend and I can’t deliver 'is eulogy.” Saying nothing else, Wicked hurried away, retreating from the crowd, his wooden peg-leg sinking into the soft earth with each stumbling step.
Looking pained, White Pepper limped off after Wicked, who moved with surprising speed.
Flicker could sense the growing tension, but he didn’t feel like there was anything he could do. Silver Spoon was weeping while she leaned up against him. Knick-Knack was bawling, no doubt because she didn’t understand what was going on, and his mother, Twisty, was trying to shush her. Overhead, the sun shone down without mercy, offering heat that Flicker had no desire for.
Looking around, trying to figure out what might happen next, Flicker saw a curious sight that made his innards clench up tight. The heat had to be getting to him, scrambling his brain, because he saw a zebra with a long ropey mane… and Doctor Sterling stood beside her with an unmistakable bittersweet smile upon his face. Unable to even breathe, Flicker jerked his gaze away from what had to be a hallucination and focused instead upon the black shroud.
Weepy eyed, Princess Luna strode out from beneath her canopy, scattering ponies before her like chickens. The crowd parted to make way for her as she moved with great purpose and determination towards Doctor Sterling’s shroud-covered statue. Following just behind her was Prince Gosling, looking every bit as grim and determined.
“He was Our friend,” Princess Luna said in a booming utterance that was right on the verge of being the ‘Ye Olden Canterlot Voice.’ Drawing herself up to her full height, she scanned the crowd, looking at them with sad, half-closed eyes. “My friend. He was my friend. We do not have a eulogy prepared, but what eulogy would do this pony justice? He died as he lived, a devoted servant to his ideals, his beliefs, and his convictions. If only all of us were so noble as he, this world would be a pleasant, perfect place. There was no servant more devoted than Lord Sterling Shoe and We… I trusted him a great deal. His loss pains Us greatly.”
Princess Luna stood there, statuesque, unmoving for a short time, until she blinked. With a turn of her head, she faced the shrouded statue and took a step back. Horn glowing, she grabbed the shroud, gave it a yank, and revealed the monument statue hidden beneath while the immense sheet of fabric billowed in the high-altitude breeze.
What Flicker saw wasn’t expected, not at all. He expected Doctor Sterling as he was, as a pony. The statue was something else entirely; Doctor Sterling, the Plague Doctor. The first thing that Flicker noticed was that the mask was in perfect detail, nothing was missing or out of place. His head was raised in noble, majestic pose, and Flicker felt that the statue was perfect.
Now, Doctor Sterling would forever watch over the cemetery, vigilant, all decked out and ready to do battle with disease. The mask made him more than a pony, he was a symbol, and poetic notions fluttered around inside of Flicker’s mind like butterflies. On the doctor’s sides were saddlebags, saddlebags that had carried medicine in life, his chosen weapons against plague, pestilence, and disease. Even the doctor’s hat was perfect, the brim broad and flat.
Where others might have seen a terrifying figure with dire connotations, Flicker saw only a comforting sight. His teacher, his role-model, his friend, his Master. Yes, that was the truth of it—Flicker idolised Doctor Sterling and everything he did was an attempt to be just like the doctor. Only now, the doctor was gone and Flicker’s idol was nothing more than a stone memorial, a reminder of the pony that Flicker strove to emulate.
He had only known Doctor Sterling for a year, but what a year it had been.
What a wonderful year it had been.
Trying to swallow the hot, throbbing lump in his throat, Flicker did everything he could to make himself feel some sense of gratitude for the year he had been given. Some ponies had an entire lifetime with their mentors, their friends, their loved ones… and some ponies got a year. Bowing his head, Flicker intended to treasure this year.
“Princess Platinum, we return to you one of your most treasured sons,” Princess Luna said in a voice that almost echoed against the Canterhorn. “Long have your silver-coated offspring been our heroes during dire times. He served in both life and death, giving his life in service to others, and with his death, he inspired a city… no, a nation, reminding us of our noble ideas, the betterment that we all strive for.”
Much to his own terror, Flicker realised that he was filled with a pressing need to say something. His voice straining, he said to the crowd around him, “With the doctor’s final moments, he set everything ablaze to destroy Contagion. His death was my candle.” For the colt, it was the closest he had ever come to poetry, and it scared him in ways he could not explain. “I can only imagine that the flames could be seen all over the city… he lit the largest candle of them all.” Blinking, Flicker now felt very foolish and stupid, and he wished that he hadn’t said anything at all. His cheeks burned with awkward embarrassment and he was all too aware of Silver Spoon leaning up against him.
“How very true,” Princess Luna replied, her eyes narrowing while she peered at Flicker with a peculiar expression upon her grief-stricken face. “Rather than embrace the darkness, rather than despair, rather than just merely dying, Doctor Sterling chose to light up the darkness. Let him be remembered for this! If only we were all so courageous!”
“Light a candle!” somepony cried.
“Yes, let us light a candle!”
“When the midnight hour comes, let us light a candle!”
Extending a wing, Prince Gosling caused the crowd to go silent by just clearing his throat. “Yes, light a candle. Become the light that you wish to see in the world, and live as an example to others, just like Doctor Sterling. From one lit candle can come many others. Without Doctor Sterling and the illuminating example he provided, we would not have Flicker Nicker, our chosen champion to fight the teeming masses beneath us.”
Lifting his head, Flicker realised that everypony was looking at him. He could feel their eyes boring holes through his flesh and into his soul. Even Silver Spoon, sitting beside him, was looking right at him. The colt’s mouth went dry and he felt his nethers clench from anxiety.
“I will light a candle,” he said, his voice cracking, “and I will be a light to others even as I go into darkness.”
