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Beneath an Endless Dusk

by RealmOfMereShadows

Chapters

Prologue - Over The Spoil Tip

“A new outburst has thronged the mine with flames and death today. The earthquake lasted for what seemed to be hours. The pit was filled with aching smoke and choking gas. It burnt the colliers alive. I still hear their screams of agony pouncing in my head; blend with the din of the fire.

I don’t remember how I escaped the tunnels. I’m not even wounded or seared. Maybe I used the draining pipes under the mine.

I can’t remember.

The sizzling in my ears doesn’t want to fade away. My hooves shake; I can’t stop it. I’m so afraid.

Is Mother searching for me?

And father… He was also in the mine, but not in the same wing as me. Did he make it out?

I don’t want to go home. Three times this week an explosion broke out in the pit. Always during the night shift… my shift. I’m tired of going down there. I don’t even make a quarter of dad’s earnings and we’re starving at home.

The Direction is on everypony’s back. With the Duma, the pegasi dissolved our union two weeks ago. Aunty has been arrested. We haven’t heard of her since. They reduced our pauses and forced us, earthbound, to do overtimes.

Who’s going to defend us tomorrow?

One says they are searching for something other than coal or gems.

I wish something different could happen. I hate this place so much.

I want somepony to help us… to save me.

I’m going to die someday. I just hope somepony will keep my diary safe. Please don’t burn it as they do with the other books. Please?

I’m so scared.

Please help us.

Candelabra”

Oaks, firs and maples stood high, gathered in a thick, dark, green ocean. Gusts of wind ruffled their leaves. A casual ear would say the forest was whispering ominously.

A young filly was napping between two massive chunks of granite. The clearing and its surroundings were so quiet. She was curled up in a hollow, naturally dug in the cold coaled soil. Withered roots sprout out of the edges of the hole, scratching her flanks.

She paid attention to the swelling of her chest as she gave long and deep breathes. She was eager to feel each itch, peak of pain and shivers running beneath her skin. Her fur creased against the dirt. She moaned as her tickled stiff rubbed on few gravels. She changed her position. Several cuts triggered a throbbing pain as she moved.

A saddlebag hung at her side. She crossed her both hooves on her face. She was covered with a nasty layer of coal and mud. Stains of dried blood had dappled her hooves.

Flickering shafts of light pierced through the the trees. The tender kiss of dusk lapped the filly’s flanks without warming her up. The northern wind had taken care of sweeping away the sun’s heat. The morning dew had started condensing. Dewdrops fell from a leaf on her hind legs. Annoying quivers sparked in her muscles. Her fur rose on her skin.

She moved again, this time with a grunt.

In spite of the shakes of cold running through her body, she lay still. She shoveled up the craving to run back home for safety. She wondered how long she would resist this urge. She pictured the puncturing stares her parents would give her… It was enough to shatter the scraps of courage she had left. She was not going to face them even if it meant a place by a fire.

She shook her head. Coming back home was out of question. She had fled out of the mine during her shift. She would not earn her day's pay. Without these few bits, she knew that a long starving night was coming; dampening her already weakened conditions. She wanted to burst into tears. But, her eyes were completely dried.

A new dispiriting question came up. Did anypony die because she had left her spot this night? She moped in silence. A painful knot tightened up in her stomach.

She eyed the surroundings, bored and ashamed. If happiness had someday filled the forest, it was long gone now. Every tree was crooked. Forced to grow on a blackened soil, acrid and impure, their trunks were bent and twisted, and eerily slender for old trees. The ground itself was blanketed with dead branches and brownish leaves. A slight odor of putrefaction slipped into her muzzle; she frowned.

Yet, the not-so-peaceful clearing had brought the filly the rest she had hoped for months. She was away from her daily worries. Here, she could put aside the traumatizing event of the previous night. At least she tried not to think about it too much. She was waiting for a dreamless slumber to cradle her soul and body. She wished nopony would come and disturb her… Slowly, she got rid of the interrogations jostling in her mind and she fell asleep.

Inhaling once again, the young mare smelled a new bitter, and unsettling, perfume. It was sweat.

“There you are!” a squeaking stallion’s voice exclaimed, ending her rest brusquely.

Scared, the filly jumped out of her curled position. She banged her head against the rock right above her. She cursed the world for letting somepony find her. It has to be there, in this goddesses-forsaken place. Worse of all, she knew this twang-pitched male voice very well. She sighed, in pain.

“Are you okay?” he blabbered hesitantly.

She opened a lid and rubbed her painful forehead. Phosphene danced before her eyes, blurring her vision. Standing on a boulder above, the colt was staring, fretted. He was slightly older than her.

His washed-out navy-blue fur and his dirtiness contrasted with his white smile. Having a bath of dirt could not worsen his condition. Two green eyes plagued with dark rings shined under his messy and greenish forelocks. He was bulky, but his sunken cheeks betrayed a state of malnutrition. In the end, a pair of massive and worngoggles was hung around his neck. Its leather straps shred into tatters.

Yellow reflects beamed from their glasses when the colt stood in the sunlight. He was far from being a stud, but he had still something charming about him. It was a shame his irritating voice was a call to slap him in the face.

A drop of sweat fell off the colt’s chin, landing on his friend’s face. The bead splattered in her eyes. The young filly snapped.

“Fire!” she gasped his name.

Fuming, she rose straight on her hooves and dashed forward, giving chase to this colt who had dared bother her.

Light years from her reaction, the colt laughed and ran away playfully. His green mane fluttered in the wind, and his tail tickled his pursuer’s nose. She sneezed. Fire deliberately gave space to his friend. Bouncing on the opportunity, the filly leaped like a bolt of lightning, aiming to his back. They rolled in the dirt, punching each other.

Laughter burst between the two ponies. It blended with the moans of the wind through the forest.

“Look at you, Candel’, you’re filthy!” Fire snickered with a smile. “I’m gonna hang you out to the laudry room.”

Candel inspected her hooves. Her usually white fur was hidden under a disparaging black layer. She coughed, rasping her voice. Specks of dirt flew off her mane, unveiling locks of red, yellow and orange mane. Fire gently swept the gloomy particles off her flanks, only to get himself dirtier than he already was. No doubt he was lax and was not paying much attention about it. His eyes opened wide. He gave an amazed look at Candel.

“You’ve got it!” He gratified her with a magnificent smile.

She looked at her flank. Her voice turned into an unconvinced whisper.

“Oh, this. Yeah,” she breathed, neutral.

“What? Wait a minute. That’s amazing, I still don’t have mine. You’re the…” he paused, “…the third in the class to get it.”

Candel raised her eyes to the sky, sighed and shrugged.

Right over her stiffs, her sides sported a weird symbol, her cutie mark. It was a small white candle with black outlines. Its wick was consumed by a grim blue and purple flame, contrasting with the hot colours of her mane. It was some surprising colours for a cutie mark. In general they matched or were tone on tone. In Candel’s case, it would raise some eyebrows.

Fire refused to hide his amazement. His smile grew into a grin of joy until it joined his two ears. He laughed.

“It’s gorgeous, Candel! You’ve got the most beautiful cutie mark I’ve seen so far.”

“It’s just a cutie mark, nothing useful. I don’t even know what it means. I woke up with it after…" She hesitated. "Te incident.”

Fire squeaked, shocked.

“You were part of the night shift?” he blabbered.

Candel nodded, unsure if she had to be thankful about it or not.

“Twenty ponies died, and everypony is searching for survivors,” her friend brought forth, alarmed.

Candel winced. Knowing the Direction, the company that controled Murmanesk's economic and political life, she supposed its private security force was focusing on bodies search, scurried to throw them into the Vault. A grim unfitting name for the mass grave located at the north of the mine, not far away from the colliers’ blocks. She knew that everything would be done in a record time. The Direction always wanted the miners to finish the work as soon as possible. And with the political backing of the Duma, it was a matter of time. There was something extremely important down there; something more valuable than mere ponies’ existences.

Seeing her friend’s innocent face, Candel preferred not to mention it. He had the luck not to be a miner.

Fire hugged her, giving her a warm smile. He was happy to find her here. He was now assured he would not find her cadaver at the entrance of the mine, rotting with several other corpses in the culverts.

“You’re choking me, Fire Damp…” she gasped.

She coughed, trying to escape her friend’s grasp. But he was too strong. She nibbled his shoulder. Fire Damp  laughed. Releasing Candel, he held her back with his hoof and dusted her entirely. He blew the last remains of coal of her mane. He smiled, Candel’s features was something he would never get bored looking at. White was a rare colour nowadays.

In his contemplation, Fire Damp blundered. His hoof slipped over Candel’s mane and his heel clanged onto two rustic circles of metal. Hung tight to her back, the atrocious contraption was encaing her two atrophied wings. Their deformed shape was revolting. A long captivity from this fetters had them withered and crooked on their joints. Added to this device were two screws pressing on her bones, sparkling a constant pain. It was a wing-cuff sporting the Duma’s brand, a blue edged wing.

Candel winced with a gasp. She shed a tear.

“I… I’m so sorry if I hurt you!” Fire Damp blabbered.

“If you hurt me?” She retorted with a bitter voice.

He tried to ease the pain sparkling in Candel’s wings. He bumped a second time his hooves on the cuffs. Enraged and sore, Candel pushed Fire aside. She cringed and started crying. At the moment, she could only feel shame.

“Shut up,” she cast. “Go away.”

Silence settled between both ponies. Fire Damp refused to move, muted apologizes moved his lips. He had long thought about Candel’s plight. And to be true, reality always backfired. Candel had lived for so long with the wing-cuff she usually forgot about her situation. The only reminders of such condition were the disgusted glances ponies gave her daily. The way back home after her shift was an ordeal.

Fire felt remorseful about the wing-cuff. They were blatantly shining on her back. Even a blind pony would be able to spot them with the clattering they made when Candel walked. Everypony knew, and everypony laughed at her. However, like many of the miners, Fire did not care so much about a pegasus wearing such contraption. Or somehow, he had trained himself not to see it. After all, a wing-cuff was a rare and gruesome garment only a few pegasi were forced to wear perpetually. The contraption was meant to cripple their wings until they were unable to fly. But it was also meant to deal a constant pain. In the end, it was nothing but torture.

Down in the pit, the miners were in the same dark destitution. Without a sky to look at and where to thrive or find a speck of hope, everypony was an earth pony in the tunnels, a filthy earthbound.

Unnerved by the painful silence he had created, Fire Damp spoke, eager to break the ice.

“Come,” he comforted.

Putting his hoof on Candel’s shoulder, he led her to the edge of the forest. The last bits of snow a recent storm had brought were melting with tardiness on the trees. Droplets of water fell on the ground, twinkling in the dusk’s light. They dashed over a stream and snaked through the young sprouts that had grown over the past days. They crossed the border of the forest.

“Follow me,” Fire Damp pressed.

Their hooves crushed a block of ice, shattering it in hundreds of morsels. Under their heels sprawled a hectare of scorched land, burnt for the future crops. Candel swallowed. The field was located behind a spoil tip. It was a monstrous mass of digging rubble, three hundred hooves high.

“Fire, wait, I can’t follow! You’re too fast,” Candel complained.

They crossed an old stone bridge and headed to the tip, and finally stepped on its rough and crumbled hill. Made of uncountable grains of black, dark red and brown, the ground lowered under Candel and Fire Damp’s hoofsteps. They both snatched dust and coal residue with their hooves. The wind took care to sweep the smoke away.

Candel coughed. A tear rolled on her cheek. She could not stop wincing, rubbing her eyes as she tried to wash the burning off her pupils.

“Something in your eyes?” Fire Damp smiled, worried about her.

The ground started sloping. Moving forward became more difficult. They started clambering. They stumbled, toddling between the debris. Their eyes were tearful, assaulted by the caustic cold air and the grating smokes. Subsiding under their hooves, the slope collapsed and rumbled further down.

Candel gave a scared stare behind her back. Her eyes swelled. The height was sickening; she felt vertigo numbing her mind. Everything started whirling. Her stomach ached with a knot. She was going to threw up. She gasped and nearly slip off her steady position. A fateful hoof held her still before she hurtled down.

“Come on,” Fire Damp reassured. "We aren't finished yet!"

Hauling Candel next to him, Fire Damp lifted her right back on her hooves. With a nudge of his muzzle, he pushed her before him, willing to watch over Candel’s clumsy steps. He smiled. Candel’s features were indeed really beautiful, in spite of her skinniness of course. He liked her hazel eyes even more and her smile was worth a gold mine.

Pulling themselves together, they resumed the ascent. They fell, slipped and tripped over the unstable mounds of coal. But, step by step they climbed. They kept moving, straightening up and raising their muzzles toward the top. Whatever the obstacles, the hurting dust or the aching air filling their lungs, they never never strayed from their path.

And in the end, they stomped on the highest chunk of hardened scoriae.

The sun was beaming low in the West. The clouds were transfigured with hundreds of shades of blue, purple, orange, red, yellow and pink; giving to the sky the aspect of a burning fire. The breeze brought the same eerie coldness it had backed in the forest. The freezing northern wind tickled their nostrils and froze the tears on their cheeks.

The clouds shaped a lid over the land. Nopony could see the sky and this blanket of grey and white was stretching infinitely toward the sun. To be accurate, nopony ever saw the sky in eons.

Similarly even darker clouds were stuck in motion thousands of miles in the east, shaped like immobile gargantuan hurricanes. Terrific bolts of lightning slashed through them intermittently. Their flashes reverberated with violence. If they had been nearer, Candel was assured would she have gone deaf.

The spectacle was terrifying. Fire and Candel were glad they would never come closer to them. It was the so-called Frozen Horizon, the Land of the darkness. It was a place from where nopony ever came back, and where nopony was allowed to venture in.

Candel shivered.

“The hurricanes are darker today,” she concluded with a spooked voice, her eyes riveted on the east.

“Dad says it announces bad things,” Fire assured.

“You father is a bigot,” she replied.

Fire disapproved with a loud protest and stuck out his tongue. They looked at each other, blushing.

“It’s beautiful,” Candel mumbled, thankful.

“You see, if you always stay grounded in the mud, you’ll never see the light in the never-ending twilight,” Fire Damp foretold.

Candel gave him a deadpanned look.

“My mother told me,” he giggled. “You know, mother’s things.”

Fire kept his eyes on his friend. Candel’s stare was now lost in the landscape. She had stars of wonder in her eyes. The colt blushed even more. He braced himself and took a deep breath.

“Thanks Fire. You’re a true friend,” Candel cut him off.

Fire Damp’s ears fell flat, dangling before his eyes. He pouted in silence. The hug Candel gave him afterward as a reward brightened his face up. He wanted to reply, but appropriate words failed him.

Candel was called back to reality. The quote of Fire’s mother had been too accurate it was heart-shattering. Candel had now few questions she knew that would stay unanswered. How was the day at noon? What does the stars look like? What is night time? Which colour was the sky? No living pony could answer these queries.

Nowadays, the weather was always messed up. The stories of dawn, noon, midnight or even the night itself were nothing but tales told to fillies during sleepovers. The sun in the West had not moved for more than a century, stuck in the horizon at the same accurate and unsettling position, Dusk.

Candel felt an anchor pulling her heart down. These questions burned inside her, and she would never know. She sobbed.

In the distance, the taiga spread toward the horizon and beyond. The crowns of the trees were still whitened by the dying remains of snow, melting in brown puddles below.

“You’re a pegasus after all, don’t stay glued to the ground!” Fire challenged.

He poked her in the flank, right under her restrained wings. She shot her friend with a daggers-throwing glare. He knew she hated that ponies talked about it. And he also acknowledged she had sent more than one foalish classmate to the infirmary for that matter. Her frail constitution was deceitful.

“Sorry… again,” Fire regretted, lowering his head in remorse.

Candel swivelled on her hooves, ready to go down the spoil tip. But it was so high and steep her head wobbled with vertigo. She drifted toward Fire’s side and cramped herself to his mane.

“Sort of,” she sighed, resigned to her fate. “You know that I will never fly.”

The wind moaned on the top of the pile, blowing through both ponies’ manes. It whizzed unpleasantly and brought a disgusting odour.

Turning over, they looked down. Bordering the forest, a cyclopean city sprawled in every direction, taking space over a scorched and barren land. The buildings were built off the same pattern, repeated over and over again. Three floors high with wall of bricks and wood, all blackened by a lack of cleaning and years of coaled dust accumulation.

“Murmanesk…” Candel growled with a pinch of disgust.

It was a colliers' city as they were so many in the Federation, the only nation everypony was meant to live in. And of this archipelago of nasty towns, den of twisted and coughing ponies, Murmanesk was the biggest and dirtiest.

Dark smokes exhaled out of thousands smokestacks. From above, the city looked like a pony hive. In the north-eastern side of the city, smog was rising from a gigantic hole carved into the bowels of the earth. Similar to a slumbering dragon’s breath, the wind struggled to dissipate it. The accursed pit was dwelling there; the opened mine which tunnels extended under Murmanesk over hundreds of miles. The bordering blocks were dirty and poverty-stricken. On the opposite, the south part of the city shined under the sun, and a massive semi-circular building casted its shadows on the quarter.

“It’s time to get our hooves down on earth, Candel. Your father must me biting his owns down to the quick searching for you,” Fire offered.

“Yeah… he is more interested in the money I bring to him than anything else,” she stated with rancour.

“You’re too mean at him.”

Fire stepped forward on the steep, paving the way to Candel. He stopped abruptly and raised his head, scrutinizing all around.

“Did you feel that?” he demanded, widening his eyes.

“What are you talk–”

The earth shuddered abruptly. Sides of the spoil tips started crumbling down, rumbling like the thunder.

“It can’t be a mining burst!” Fire cried out.

The shakes gained in momentum. A deafening zoom invaded the air. Scared, Candel glanced up at the cloudy sky. Her jaw dropped. Staring back at her, Fire saw Candel’s horrified expression. He looked up too. He could not believe it. It was awe-striking.

“A shard…” Candel whispered.

A shadow passed on their faces, literally. Coming from the east, a massive chunk of rock pierced through the dark lid of clouds. It headed toward Murmanesk. Its shadow covered the city beneath. Ponies’ screams were loud enough to be heard from the spoil tip. The size of a mountain, the flying mass squealed with speed. There was no strong enough word to describe such spectacle, petrifying was the least to say about it.

The ‘shard’ was similar to an inverted mountain. A piece of earth a disincarnated gargantuan talon had ripped of its original location, only to thrust it into the air. The earthquake trebled in intensity, and somehow Fire and Candel felt lighter. Chunks and dust ascended into the air, likely attracted by an invisible pull.

The flying mountain rotated and was now tilting to the left. Candel and Fire Damp cringed. They could hardly believe their own eyes. Completing an ellipse, the tip of the hovering island pointed at its bottom.

The vision was apocalyptic, widening Fire and Candel’s eyes. Powerless, they watched a play that would be forever imprinted into their memories.

The opposite side of the floating chunk was the remains of a plain. Its edges were shattered. A lighthouse was sitting in state on it, Circled by a dried river bed. Its light was still round dancing crazily. The beam passed over Candel and Fire. For a second, it seemed that a mighty eye had aimed at them, seeking for something.

Candel asked herself if gods played Boules. If the answer was affirmative, the balls were entire cities.

In a loud burst, the floating island executed a last rotation. Its tip crashed into the north-west outskirt of Murmanesk, ripping off a whole block of miners’ cottages. Facing an obstacle, the monstrous mass of rock bent and overturned. Now to the horizontal, it shattered in uncountable number of bits. The pieces pounced aimlessly, forming a cone of fallout. The debris cleaned hectares of land in an instant. Spoil tips, buildings, checkpoints and trees alike were annihilated. The picture of a hoof passing over a board game struck Fire’s imagination. He shivered.

He and Candel swallowed, stunned by the devastation brought by the falling ‘shard’. For both of them, it was the first time they witnessed such devastation in such short period. This spectacle of destruction was striking, scary.

They watched the last act of the piece. The last remains of the shard collapsed and the lighthouse, standing still until now, shattered. Its light died inside its compartment. Something strange occurred, a bubble formed over the crash-landing zone, growing menacingly at top speed.

Fire saw the incoming shockwave. He turned back at Candel. She was stunned, glued to the ground, hiding her eyes behind her hooves. He jumped and circled his forelegs over Candel.

The blow hit the hill, wiping the tip out with an ungodly easiness. Its sides slid and crumbled on themselves.

A haze of dust swallowed the region.

And everything sunk into darkness.

Act I, Chapter One - Going Down

      

“I’ll always remember the first lesson I’d been taught when I entered Murmanesk’s kindergarten. It was fur-raising.

‘What is a shard?’ the teacher toned sternly, eyeing each one of us with his squinting glass eye.

It would have been hilarious if his missing forehoof didn’t give him the look of a hangpony.

‘What is a shard?’ he repeated, limping. ‘Do you know that we live on a shard? Murmanesk is a shard. Every piece of land you will ever tread upon is a shard.’

These words have been carved into my mind since this lecture.

‘More than a century ago, something terrible happened to that world and the old Pony Kingdom.' He had emphasized on that name with an unsettling irony, not so many ponies remembered it, and not so many ponies ever paid attention. ‘In Canterlot, there occurred a big flash, and Canterlot was no more. Today, nopony can disclose the truth. The witnesses are now long dead. But we do know that when the survivors woke up, they found themselves drifting on floating islands. That chunks of rocks were scattered somewhere in the emptiness of space with a motionless, wan sun gleaming weakly in the horizon for companion.’

His grin was terrifying. And knee-high I wasn’t ready to stare in his eye.

‘Yes, my little ponies, we’re now gently floating on a shard. Murmanesk’s shard, the fourth biggest in the world, seventy miles wide for a height of fifty. Murmanesk is the jewel of the East, the pride of the Federation. It is a gift the Direction, hoof in hoof with the Duma, is exploiting to fuel our country with goods and wealth. And this project needs workers,’ He paused at this exact moment. ‘You, for the greater good of us all.’

I don’t remember what he said afterward, but for sure I know now that it was nothing but a downward creepy propaganda. I was day-dreaming. Was I really listening to a teacher on a reversed mountain floating in a gigantic void with no landmark at all? The thought was terrifying for the foal I was.

I’m still frightened now.

I remember I asked him a simple question. ‘Are we in danger?’

The toothless smile he gave still shakes me.

‘Do you want to know what the greatest enemy of everypony is? It isn’t the Republic, our age-old enemy. It isn’t the Renegades. It isn’t the fact that shards can smash into each other with cataclysmic aftermaths. No. The most pernicious enemy of every kind is what we call the Magic Erosion.’

I hope I will never see this teacher ever again.

Candelabra”

Fire Damp opened his eyes and coughed, spitting phlegm. He tried to focus but his vision was blurred too much. He felt dizzy, his ears were ringing and his body was screaming in pain. Breathing in heavily, Fire winced. He had damaged something, maybe a rib. His lungs ached horribly, assaulted by thin particles of dust. He raised his head and looked around. The mist blinded him; even his hooves were hidden by the fog.

“Candel?” he called with a raspy voice.

He coughed again.

“Candel?!”

No response. He decided to move in spite of the burning sensation in his eyes. Fire’s hoof bumped into something hidden by the smoke. Tossing it forward, he heard it clink as it hit an obstacle. Fire lowered his head and tried to crawl under the cloud. He walked to the mysterious object, his chin ripping on the gravel carpeting the ground.

It was his goggles, more cracked than ever before.

After having them adjusted on his eyes, the colt scanned his direct surroundings. The northern wind had vanished. Now it would surely take hours to go around, searching for an escape. Looking in every direction, he saw nothing but a thick and dull wall of grey and brown blocking his vision. He felt terribly lost.

A sob echoed out.

Anxiousness numbed Fire’s mind like two talons closing on his heart. Somepony was sobbing nearby and, encircled by the mist, the colt could not tell the origin of the cries.

“Candel?”

Still no response. He dashed through the smoke, running. Fire had few hopes and his shaken psyche was not helping. He was more counting on being lucky enough to stumble over his friend. Finding somepony here was an impossible task to fulfil.

The sobs continued. Fire cried out her name again.

Somepony galloped in front of the unfortunate colt. Fire narrowed his eyes. A shadow emerged from the darkness and pushed him aside. The silhouette screamed and disappeared straight away behind him. Fire swallowed. He had not seen a glimpse of the pony’s face. He straightened his spirit. Who the pony was did not matter in the end. Only Candel mattered.

A grunt burst out close to the young colt, startling him. He tried to picture a shape through his dirty glasses and the mess around.

“Oh Candel, you scared me so much,” Fire hissed as specks slithered in his throat.

It was not Candel. It was not even a mare. It was, however, a pegasus.

The pegasus was lying in his own blood, his wings broken and stretched into revolting positions. His armour was horribly indented in, probably crushing his internal organs and cutting through his flesh. The pegasus panted atrociously, his smashed breastplate compressing his lungs into a deadly embrace. He was clearly a soldier. His armour was made of raw iron and like every military equipment in Murmanesk, it sported the symbol of the Direction. At the level of the pegasus’s cutie mark, the garment showed a washed-out blue bolt of lightning piercing through an obsidian black rock. The dismal darkness distorted the mark, giving it a spooky appearance.

The Pegasus shook convulsively, forcing Fire to leave. The colt was on the verge of throwing up.

The shockwave had tackled everypony to the ground, Fire thought. In Murmanesk, every guard was a pegasus. The ones flying at the moment of the impact should have been slammed down. Against the blast, they would have been nothing but pitiful ragdolls. Fire sniggered at his own condescendence. He hated the Direction’s thugs like everypony else; he did not have to feel pity for them.

Fire cursed the wind for leaving him stranded when he needed it the most. The atmosphere was heavy… heavy and surprisingly hot. The scared colt supposed that blazes had been lit in the heart of the city. The dryness must have drifted here.

Crooked shadows erupted from the mist around Fire. Chunks, scoriae and remains of the spoil tip were scattered haphazardly. Some uprooted trees were lying down like skeletal and distorted arms.

At a turn, Fire saw Candel. He let a sigh of relief. She was spread out on a broken rock, her eyes closed. She was motionless. Deeply concerned, Fire rushed to her side and lugged her on the ground. He shook her gently, hoping for a reaction.

“Candel, please. Wake up.”

Screams and barks echoed in the distance, distended in inaudible and grim sounds. Fire’s eyes wandered around, unable to catch a movement. Trembling, he focused on Candel, trying to check her state. She had several cuts and her nose was bleeding. Through the dust, Fire could not tell if she was breathing.

“Candel?”

His stare lay on her cutie mark. This same strange candle lit up with a blue flame he had seen earlier. Scrutinizing it, Fire wished he had his own light to illuminate his way. Guidance, he wanted somepony to guide him. But he was desperately alone.

Taking his courage in his hooves, he slid Candel onto his croup and pierced his way through the fog. Gallops, horseshoes clattering on the ground and cries zoomed everywhere around him. Yet, nothing but distant shadows was visible.

“Hide and seek,” Fire laughed, shyly and dazed. “I’m playing hide and seek.”

A howl burst out at Fire’s left side, sending him to his flank with fear. Candel’s limp body stumbled over his stifles and hit the ground, hard. A mare was standing next to Fire. He had not seen her before her scream. Her open-wide eyes were tear-ridden with bereavement. She had a bleeding foal in her arm. She called for help but only silence answered back. She did not even spot the stupefied colt lying next to her. The anonymous mother vanished in the dusty cloud.

Fire gulped the gag down his throat, adding a pull to the knot in his stomach. Putting Candel back on his shoulders, Fire resumed the walk. He decided to go to his house as fast as possible. His father knew Candel, he would be glad to help in spite of the abysmal poverty his family was in. He knew what to do.

The outskirts of Murmanesk were a no-pony’s-land. Fire pictured the city as a war zone. He had never been on a battlefield nor seen one before, but he was sure it was no different. Falling chunks had wiped off vast spaces of the city, leaving large and deep trenches in their tows. Houses were gutted and ripped open of their walls, furniture and, unfortunately in some case, ponies. Blazes consumed houses and were spreading to the neighbouring buildings. Queue of ponies carried buckets of water.

The ambient agitation was pregnant. A scramble of ponies was running aimlessly in the streets, fleeing from a threat long gone now. The falling shard had filled everypony’s mind with awe and wildness. Riots and pillages were going on and nopony tried to stop them effectively. Fire got hold of his own fears and walked pass the horrors creeping around in the boulevards. He lifted Candel all the way along and entered in a vast square.

Standing on an improvised stage, a group of four pegasi guards stared with shooting eyes at an angry crowd gathered around them.

“How did the Duma let this happen?” voices roared over the cacophony.

“Weren’t you supposed to protect us?” an old stallion raged.

“Where are the rescue squads?”

“Help us!” a filly instructed, bleeding.

The four pegasi wore the same armour. The same as the soldier Fire had witnessed dying earlier. This time, they were shiny and, of course, perfectly polished and shaped. The piercing bolt of lightning on the flanks was glowing. Only one pegasus was not following the trend. He was wearing a helmet showing two navy blue strips. A small herald was pinned to the feather of his left wing, a red spear. He was incontestably the leader.

“Fall back to your houses,” the sergeant barked at the crowd. “It’s an order of the Direction.”

The angry mob started shouting down at him.

“Go buck the Direction,” an anonymous voice yelled.

The sergeant repeated his order with the same previous unsuccessfulness.

“Don’t make me use the hard way,” he admonished the crowd, stern and resigned.

An anonymous earth pony threw a brick at him. In the half-dissipated smoke, the sergeant hardly saw it and the brick crashed on his face. The sergeant toddled, visibly stunned, and nearly fell of the promontory he was standing on. His soldiers froze. It took only a second for them to nod at each other with blunt eyes.

Fire felt a new fear birth in his chest; the situation was getting bad. He had to find a way out before it was too late. The pegasi reached for something tightly held under their wings. Casting a glance back at the soldier, Fire winced. He had to run away, now. The crowd kept shouting, surrounding the soldiers in a compact mass of angry ponies ready to swoop down on them. Shards of bottles, rocks and bricks flew in the air, aimed at them. Fire tried to push through the ponies that had gathered around him and Candel’s unconscious body.

Each of the soldiers drew out a long thin cylinder from his military saddlebag. A hidden mechanism clicked and strange instruments telescoped, reaching one and a half-lengths of a pony. The tips of the spears were sharp, glowing blue and purple as arcs of electricity sparked off their surface.

Once back on his hooves, the sergeant called a last time the mob to step back. Getting no answer but thrown objects, he gave a final order.

The pegasi raised the spears over their shoulders and held them firmly in their hooves. Thumps cracked in the air. Like arrows, the tips of the spears flew in the crowd, piercing the ground or the pony on their path. Shrieks echoed, and everypony froze. The sergeant jingled an eerie instrument similar to a lighter in his hoof. He slammed it to the ground. Three sparks of electricity pounced from the tool and rushed toward the tips stuck in the middle of the crowd. Some began running. It was already too late. Fire jumped in a narrow street neighbouring the square. The three sparks hit their destination.

The place brightened in a blue aura. Bolts of lightning burst out of the spear points and slashed through the ponies who had stood their ground in front of the soldiers. Three cyan explosions consumed everypony and filled the air with an atrocious odour of ozone. The explosions were deafening. The earth quaked as the shockwaves blasted everything away.

From his hidden position Fire glanced at the square. Burnt flesh of ponies had been strewed in a slaughterhouse-like spectacle.

The soldiers were unharmed. They enjoyed their time dealing a final blow to the fatally wounded ponies. Fire watched a guard slam his headless spear into the seared body of a stallion, ripping off the corpse from the tip he had shot seconds ago. Fire cringed and turned his gaze when the sergeant came close to the shaking body of a filly, withered in a foetal position. For the pegasi, age was irrelevant factor.

Fire swallowed. ‘The way of the Direction is always the hard way,’ he remembered his father telling him. He wanted to lay low and disappear in the shadows. Yet, he had committed himself to helping his friend. He had to.

“What are you doing here, young filly?”

Each of Fire’s muscles tensed. Hidden in the dark, he had not paid attention to Candel. Still unconscious, she was lying on the street at the mercy of anypony passing by. And in this particular case, it was a pegasus. He was one of the murderous soldiers. Tight under one of his wings, the spear was still giving fumes and sparks of electricity. Fire was completely immobile. He was terrified by the pegasus who was getting close. The soldier poked Candel with a hoof and swivelled her. He winced with disgust before his expression twisted.

“Hey guys, I got a Fallen right here,” he giggled with grin.

Hoofsteps approached and his stooges came into sight. Their horseshoes were splattered with an indescribable melange of brown, black and red. The first soldier pointed at the wingcuff. They laughed.

In a way, Fire was happy Candel was stunned. She would have burst into tears, succumbing to the pain and the raucous laughter she was subjected to. And the soldiers would have lynched her for that. One of the pegasi, a spiteful green coated stallion, kicked his hoof into Candel’s breast and sent her in a pile of rubbish.

“Always sort your trash can,” he sniggered.

The pegasi returned to the square, laughing. Several minutes were necessary to Fire to get rid of his stupor. He dashed toward Candel. She was bleeding and coughing.

“Candel, are you alright?”

“I-I’m fine,” she assented.

She mumbled and fainted again. Fire’s hooves trembled when he hauled her on his back for the third time. He chose to go straight to the North of Murmanesk. It was the colliers’ block, the nastiest and most dangerous part of the city. Unfortunately, Fire was stopped at the limit of the quarter. A cordon of soldiers was blocking the way. This show of force was unexpected and a mare walking around asked the guards.

“It’s for protection m’am, the area is closed due to the shard fallouts.”

Fire Damp sniggered silently, he knew better. The cordon was not here to block the way in, but to impede anypony entering the restricted area. The miners were known for their protestations. The pegasi called them revolts, uprisings.

For Fire, it was a rightful violence. For the pegasus, it was an opportunity to stretch their wings and test their spears. The crackdown the miners suffered every day was heart-breaking and the shardfall had probably triggered riots inside the block. Fire could not picture himself going through the security cordon. He had to find a passage over it, or underground. An idea popped in Fire’s mind.

The sewer of Murmanesk reeked death and putrefaction. Fire was walking with difficulty in malignant and stagnant water. He had vomited, multiple times. And now he was moving forward, passing under the cordon. He heard the muffled voices of pegasi. A scream rang out, reverberating in a grim echo throughout the tunnel. Still holding Candel on his shoulders, Fire encountered an intersection. He peered to the left. And Fire stopped abruptly.

A kind of woodpecker was riveted to a floating log of rotten wood. Fire narrowed his eyes. It was a bird made of steel, both of its eyes glowed purple. A tiny arc of electricity sparked on his wings and the creature opened his beak. Spooked, Fire held his breath. It was an automaton, a creation from some obscure engineers of the Direction that moved on its own. A bird made of steal and gears that could attack and serve an absent master was a disturbing idea. And now that he had the creature right in front of him, Fire was terrified.

“Intruders in the sewers”, it shrieked.

The voice was mechanic and atrociously loud. Covering his ears with his hooves, Fire lost his balance and stumbled into the stinking water. He gasped out of the revolting mix and pulled Candel out of it. Shouts came from over Fire’s head followed with hurried hoofsteps.

“Intruders in the sewers”, the bird-shaped machine cackled again.

Fire heard the grating of ponyholes. Thumps cracked in the sewer and spear tips raced in the air, instantly followed by the same blue sparks the sergeant’s lighter had created back in the square. Fire’s eyes widened. He ran as fast as he could. A burst lit up behind his back and Fire felt an unbearable warmth bite his hind legs. The brightness of electricity made his eyes scream as he was instantly surrounded by white blue arcs.

Fire dived into the disgusting and murky water, his hooves holding tightly onto Candel’s motionless body. He felt his body abused by convulsions as electricity penetrated his flesh through the water.For a second time this day, he felt the darkness numbed his mind.

Fire opened his eyes. He was floating in the sewer. Hopefully, he had not let Candel go. Trying to stand on his hooves, pain rushed to his brain and triggered flashes in his eyes. He winced and coughed. He had swallowed a mouthful of the rotten water. He threw up.

After a long minute, Fire hauled Candel on a footpath running along the muddy stream. There was no ponyholes over his head. In fact there was nothing but a large pipe where sprung a relatively clean stream of water. Fire wondered how long he had been knocked out. At least, he was thankful to be alive.

He washed Candel and himself in the waterfall and decided to go up the pipe. There were enough places to breath and it was the only solution at the moment for the stranded colt. Fire crawled on less than twenty yards, pulling Candel with him. His body screamed in pain as water poured over his cuts and bruises. Fire passed through a wall of water and gasped as a sensation of free-fall followed instantly, catching Fire off guard. His face knocked on concrete and stars danced around his head.

Fire sobered up and focused on this alien part of the sewers. He had fallen from a hole pierced in the pipe he had been crawling through. He laid his eyes on the vicinity. Everything was buried under a layer of mud. After the erection of the building, this part had probably been forgotten. Several air ducts ended there and from one of them came a distant whisper. Aroused with curiosity, Fire decided to creep down the pipe. But it was too small to go along with Candel.

With remorse, he chose to let her rest behind. Nopony would find her while he was gone, Fire convinced himself. Once he had stepped in, he promised himself he would come back quickly. He just had to check something. He climbed up after casting a last look at his friend.

“This is insane,” a voice cut. “How could this happen?”

Fire stopped. Over him, the pipe was provided with a round and ajar vent. The colt peered an eye in.

The chamber above him was shaped like an auditorium. It was equipped with at least three rows of seats half-circling a stage of marble where was standing a pegasus. His burgundy mane was agitating on his brown face, venting his anger at the assembly. Four dozen pegasus were gathered around him, all murmuring in fear.

Fire Damp could not believe it. He was right under the Duma, Murmanesk’s parliament. Every political decision concerning the city was made in absolute secrecy right here. The idea he should not be listening to this assembly struck Fire hard. Witnessing the setting of the parliament, he felt anger growing in his heart. The Duma was a spectacle of wonders. The chairs were sewed with gold and blanketed with crimson purple velvet. Each pegasus wore golden attires and had food and drinks at their side.

Fire’s eyes pained. He was not used to such demonstration of wealth. He lived in the colliers’ block, grim and poverty-stricken. Pegasi called his hometown the Lower City while their own part of Murmanesk was named narcissistically the Upper one. More than anger, Fire felt jealousy growing.

“I repeat. Who let this happen?” a voice hummed.

The gathering dampened and fearful eyes set upon the chairpony. A pegasus outside of Fire’s range of vision cleared his throat.

“Following the reports, the shard had a lighthouse built on it. Hoofston’s lighthouse.”

The chamber went silent. From his position, Fire caught the cloud passing on the chairpony’s face.

“Hoofston? Like in Hoofston’s Marche of the East,” he whined. “The outpost before the Eastern Hurricanes?”

Somepony nodded back to him. The assembly president sunk into his comfy chair. His eyes were lost in the emptiness in front of him.

“Magic Erosion?” he asked.

“We can’t know for sure. But we called an investigator. The Ditzy Mail Corporation was kind enough to give us a free ride. The capital will be alerted within a week. The investigator will arrive in a month,” the voice replied, hopeful.

“It’s too long,” somepony contested. “With earth pony riots in the Lower City and such chaos wreaked upon us, we can’t let this go so easily. With the Direction… We have to make sure the miners go back to work. We have deadlines to deal with, no matter how much it will cost us.”

“So, do you have any idea?” the chairpony sighed.

“The inspector Argen is currently on Cheeltenham’s shard. A fast pegasus could do a lightning trip, it would take five hours. And the same amount of time to reach us.”

“Five hours for a pegasus of course. You know he isn’t.”

“But it… he is our only solution right now.”

The president facehooved. He cared a little, showing his reluctance to hire the so-called Argen.

“Fine,” he answered. “Send a message to the Direction, that they summon him as fast as possible.”

“And what shall we do about the riots?” A female voice cut off every murmur.

“They are earthbound scum. The Direction will deal with them. I will mail the Department of Deportation in the capital. They always have some replacements to compensate the collateral causalities in cities like ours.”

Fire shovelled his anger away and retreated back to Candel. She was now awake and visibly shaken. She was licking her wounds in silence.

“Something wrong, Fire? There was a lot of noise from where you came.”

She trembled.

“It is absolutely nothing,” he hissed. “Follow me. My father will take care of us.”

“I’m tired of following you,” she complained.

Fire gave his friend a feigned chuckle. They slid out of the dusty chamber of concrete and ventured back to the colliers’ block.

Fire Damp’s residence was ridiculously small. To be accurate his flat was the last floor of a miner’s cottage. His family, his father, mother and two younger sisters were piled up in this place. For Candel they seemed to cope well with this plight.

“How are ye, Candelabra?” Fire’s father asked with a bright smile on his face.

His accent was strong, rolling his r’s and mispronouncing his h’s with a grave-pitched and raspy voice.

“Bad,” she growled.

“Ah know ye were in da pit during da night shift. 'Tis a joy to see ye made it out. Yer father is well too. He was in da entrance when ‘tings happened. Da heavy cart he was pulling saved his life in da end,” he laughed. “Do he know ye’re here?”

Candel shook her head to the utmost disappointment of her Fire’s father.

“Yer mather’d be dying searchin’ for ye. Ah know yer father’s barn door ain’t swinging with only kind emotions for ye, but think about yer mather.”

Candel nodded with watery eyes.

“I just… I just hate the pit,” she sobbed.

“Like ‘pony else. But we’re all stuck there. Ain’t gonna fight fate, are ye?”

If words could kill, Candel would have passed out. The bulky stallion drifted his eyes away from the poor filly and called his son. Fire was wrapped in bandages.

“Go see Candelabra’s mather, tell her Candel is here,” he ordered. “Don’t get yeself caught outside. Pegasi’s put the curfew on.”

Fire saluted with a smile and dashed out of the room.

Candel took a look outside. She was exhausted by the events of the past day. Or was it the past hour or the past week, she could not tell. She cursed the sun beaming low in the horizon, flooding the room with its dusk light. She was burning to yell her rage at that immobile sun. But instead, she cried. She would have liked somebody to hug her. Her stare slid on Fire’s father.

“Ah’m not yer mather or father,” he demurred. “Ah’m not da one who can help ye for that kind of matter. Ah’m sorry.”

Candel lowered her watery eyes.

“I’ll have to go back down there during the next shift,” she muttered. “I didn’t get the pay for the last one… because I ran away.”

“No pony got der pay t’day,” He countered, a pinch of anger twitching his lips. “Da Direction refused to let da money flow for half a day of work. Don’t worry ‘bout dis.”

‘Don’t worry’… Candel was sick of this sentence, nothing was alright in Murmanesk. Yet, Fire’s father had spared her the shameful ‘Everything will be fine’. She hated everypony saying that kind of hollow words. Somehow, she hated herself.

While she was unconscious, she had dreamed she wished upon a star for change. But when she woke up, dusk had been waiting for her. She had looked at the window and through the layer of coal dust she had seen nothing but the same fumes rising from the pit. She had lost herself staring at the town she had to call home. She felt heavy tears rolling on her cheeks. She'd had enough.

A dark red furred stallion entered the flat, Fire at his side. His brown eyes were marked with exhaustion and his grey mane was seared at some points. He was angry and strangely eased at the same time. He stood in front of Candel. She kept her eyes low. He slapped her.

“We were worried to death!” he shouted. “Can’t you imagine your mother? She pleaded the pegasi to let her go into the pit, looking for you. You… ungrateful daughter.”

“Stop, Rustic, she’s just a child,” called Fire’s father.

“Don’t you dare teach me how to educate my only child. My only child, you understand,” Rustic brought forth, pushing aside the tended hoof of the other stallion.

Rustic looked down at her daughter, still angry.

“Your mother was sick searching for you. And…” He paused. “You disappointed me.”

This fact dunked Candel’s head in her shoulders. She would have preferred him to beat her rather than saying this.

“I’m sorry, father, for being such a bother,” Candel apologized, sobbing.

“Don’t be sorry, fix what you’ve done. You’ll make excuses to your mother.”

Candel nodded.

“By the way, the Pit reopens in three round shifts. I expect you to be there with me,” Rustic grunted.

He stepped out of the flat and disappeared in the smoky streets of the block. He did not even wait for her daughter to follow. After a long moment she stood up, thanked Fire’s father for his hospitality and left the house in silent. Once she was gone, Fire slithered in the room. His father was muted, sadness cast on his face. He felt empathy for Candel.

“Dad, what’s a round shift?” Fire asked

His father snapped out of his day-dreaming.

“Ye see, since da night is gone one century ago, 'tis difficult to cope with time management. So, miners created da round shift. Twelve hours period to tell who’s gonna go down and work, and who’s gonna go up and bandage their wounds. Tis called a round shift because da hand of da clock does a turn.”

He shrugged.

“Yer friend Candelabra and her family are bound to da second round, da ‘night shift’ they call it. But Ah think ye already know dat, why yer askin’?”

“I don’t know. It’s just I’ve seen terrible things today, heard terrible things. And I found a way under the Duma. And… the pegasi, they don’t care about us in the end.”

His father’s ears twitched.

“Ye said ye found a way… under the Duma?” he asked, interested.

Fire affirmed.

“Tell me where,” he insisted.

“And for the pegasi?”

“Da pegasi don’t give a darn ‘bout us. We’re workload. Why do ye think they winded up our trade union? Now tell me, where is dat way under the Duma?”

Fire confessed, slightly afraid of his father’s grin.

“Father, I have another question.”

“Ya?”

“What is a ‘fallen’?”

His eyes widened.

“Ye don’t want to know,” he replied, sweeping off the subject.

Fire trotted back to his room and collapsed on his bed, the short journey had been too much for him. He kept repeating himself he was not meant for adventure. Behind his door, his father locked himself up in the living room, leaving his wife in an undisclosed stupor. She was not used to such tantrums. And, of course, she preferred not to interfere. She returned to her own room, two young fillies were waiting for her to feed them.

Two round shifts later, Fire Damp paid a visit to Candel. Like his own flat, his friend’s house was a dirty ponyhole. Three families had stacked up their scarce furniture inside and the overcrowded building was filled with the cries of a new-born foal one of the families had been greeted with a few days earlier. Candel and her parents lived on the left side of the first floor. Formed of two rooms and a kitchen, they had relatively a lot more space that he had. Candel was an only child after all.

She welcomed Fire with a hug, trying to hide her tiredness. She invited him to enter.

“Candel,” called a feminine voice from the kitchen. “Come here. I have something for you to do.”

She assented.

“Hi Miss,” greeted Fire.

Like her husband, Candel’s mother was an earth pony. Her beige fur was covered by her long and tousled brown mane. Her cutie mark was a spatula. She was one of the cooks of the pit.

“Candel, I need you to go get some goods at the market. The Direction gave me food stamps yesterday.” She tried to smile. “Well, since your father and you didn’t bring anything yesterday. You’re going to help me with the shopping.”

“Where is Dad?” Candel asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. He’s been distant recently.”

The conversation dragged out and Fire was glad to get away. Candel’s mother was truly a chatterbox when she wanted to be. The curfew had been cancelled a few hours ago and everypony was already minding their own problems in the town.

“The market? That’ll be awesome,” Fire enjoyed as he walked along with Candel down the street.

“I hate the market, I can’t go in the shops, can’t do nothing but go straight to the rationing building and go back,” she grumbled.

“Why?”

She shook her back, making the wingcuff tinkle.

“You know the rules of the market, no outcasts.”

The rest of the walk passed in silence.

The market was a vast oval space nearly five hundred yards wide. It was located at the East of Murmanesk, bordering the forest where ponies could amass logs to fuel their fires. Less than a thousand of ponies were doing business in dozens of scattered shops. Apart from the stores, goods were scarce and bargaining was flying around with agitation and cacophony. It was common to see two ponies fighting over the same piece of scrap, outbidding over and over again for the merchant’s greatest amusement.

Candel shrunk on her hooves. Ponies were looking at her. She was used to it, but they were so many of them.

The building allocated to rationing was a massive three story high construction. Its façade was greyish and the windows were darkened with muck. Fire and she were lucky, the queue was short and they had to wait only twenty minutes to pass the gates of the building. Its interior was relatively clean and a large desk was piled up with registration papers.

“Name, residence and amount of tickets,” a purple mare with white locks demanded robotically.

Candel and Fire stepped forward.

“Candelabra, Five hundred Saddle Road, North-East Block, first floor, first wing. And three tickets.”

“Fire Damp, Seven Harness Street, North-East Block, Third floor. Five tickets.”

The mare gathered their rationing tickets, avoiding touching Candelabra with her hoof. Then she gave them stamped papers and switched them to the next desk. Two pegasi was standing their ground, armed and protecting another administrator. Again, it was a mare. The guards smirked at the two children.

Fire and Candel presented themselves with trembling hooves. They hoofed their administration passes and after a long inspection, the mare clapped her hooves. A brawny mule opened a door behind the desk. He was rolling two casks on the floor, one larger than the other.

“Take your due and get out,” the administrator grunted, bored.

Her round shift was coming to an end and she was hurried to leave her spot to somepony else.

As they were ordered, Fire and Candel chose not to slack inside the building. They harnessed the small barrels onto their back and started walking back home. Fire let out a sigh of relief.

“At least the guards didn’t bully us this time, or try to steal our rations,” he affirmed. Candel nodded.

She was going to reply but gasps cut her off. She feared somepony had pointed a hoof at her, again. Yet, looking around, she saw stares riveted to the sky. She raised her head. During a second, she feared a new shard was coming over. A massive shadow passed over her in a wisp. Her jaw dropped. Fire giggled at her side, earning a weird look from Candel.

“Ain’t gonna lose that,” he chuckled, “Come with me!”

“I’m not sure that’s a good id…”

Fire tugged her with him, stopping her complaint. They ran behind the shadow in the sky, trying to cope with its speed. Ponies preferred hiding under their cart or locked themselves inside their houses. Thus, the way was cleared and the two young ponies raced to the North of the market. The shadow grew in size as its caster came closer to the ground.

They passed the border of the forum, breathing with difficulty, and penetrated the ‘harbour’. A pompous name given to the landing paths Murmanesk owned. It was a flat area covered with crackled asphalt. White strips were painted on it, delimiting specified areas. An earth pony was moving a red flag, announcing an expected arrival. Merchant pegasi had gathered around. Usually pulling their flying carts, landing or taking off in an endless round, they all had stopped. They were busy fixing the sky with stares. A large portion of the airport had been swept clear of any object or being.

He showed himself, piercing through the clouds.

A breeze of terror blended with amazement spread in the audience. The creature was a bird of prey, his charcoal feathers reverberating with dark blue reflections. His massive wings fluttered in the air with a loud whistle. His appearance was close to a crow, but his face denied any kinship with that species. The bird had a long yellow beak armed with sharp teeth and his two blue bulging eyes shot dagger-glares at the gathering. A shred of flesh was dangling under his chin devoid of feathers. His talons were knife-edged and shone in the dusk’s light.

Flapping his wings, he blew dust on the crowd, disheveling manes and pushing back Fire and Candel with the strength of the blow. The bird had a ventral satchel made of brown leather.

Finally, Candel understood why she was afraid. It was not his appearance who had disturbed her, but his size. Stack up three ponies, one on top of the others, and the bird would be still taller; align ten pegasi side by side and his wingspan would still be bigger. He was terrifyingly gigantic.

He landed uneasily, repelling everypony on a few yards. The creature bounced a few times before stabilizing himself. He toddled on the ground and stopped. After a short pause, he eyed everypony and gave a cynic laugh.

“Always the same effect,” he smirked with his grave and amused voice.

“Argen, you’re here at last,” greeted a voice.

Three pegasi pierced the mob, pushing everypony aside. Two were guards in armoured-plate. The third one was wearing a toga and a pin sporting a golden wing was sewed to his feathers. He was a noble from the Duma.

Fiery stares set upon the pegasus as he feigned not to see them. In return, both guards took care to beat any unwise behaviour out of the concerned ponies.

“You should have a good reason to disturb me in my retreat,” the monstrous bird replied.

“We need you,” the pegasi answered. “Something really bad happened and you were the nearest emissary authorized to investigate this kind of situation. But where are my manners, would you be so kind as to follow me to the Duma?”

“The shard?” the bird asked simply.

The pegasi acquiesced.

“Well, better now than later,” the bird guessed with a deep sigh. “And thanks for the invitation, but my answer is no, at least for the moment”

Argen ransacked his belly saddle, searching for something. Hidden under a trolley, Candel and Fire heard somepony snap. The massive creature drew out a young colt, nearly a foal. Holding him by the scruff of his neck, Argen then dropped him to the ground. He was younger than them and his orange fur was contrasting with his blue mane. His head was wrapped in a layer of white sheets of silk like a tightened turban. The foal stumbled, raising hilariousness in the crowd. Argen cleared his throat loudly, asking for silence. The crowd shut their mouths up. The noble pegasus arched a brow.

“My assistant,” the bird explained. He tilted his head toward the foal. “You, take notes of everything.”

Taking in his mouth a notebook and a pencil from the bird’s satchel, the foal smiled.

“Yes, master,” the foal replied, chewing on the pack of paper dampening his elocution.

“Is he your…” the pegasus tried.

He stopped. He knew he would not get any answer from the investigator. The so-called Argen inspected the crowd. Fire Damp gulped when Argen’s stare settled upon him, and Candel cringed when he looked at her. Worse of all, the bird kept staring at them longer than for everypony else. Then he backed away and asked the pegasi to show him the way. Nopony tried to slow down his progression.

Afterward, the atmosphere was eerily silent for the harbour. The walking bird three times the size of a pony had left his print on everypony’s mind.

“That was awesome,” Fire erupted quietly.

“Are you crazy,” Candel replied. “He can catch us in his claw and send us to the sky like nothing.”

“Maybe, but that was still awesome,” he continued. “I’ve never seen somepony like him before.”

“Because he’s the last of his kind,” an anonymous pegasus joined in. “He’s an old rag but he’s known for his work. He’s the best superintendent of the Federation. I wonder how the Duma will pay him.”

The pegasus hushed and got back to his cart, he had to sell his stock as quickly as possible.

“Well, see you later, I’m going to follow him,” Fire chuckled.

He had disappeared before Candel could respond. She sighed.

The night shift had finally come and Candel had rushed home with her family’s ration. His father was waiting with his usual hawk-eyes.

“Well, here we go. We’re in the boring team tonight,” he laughed at his own joke.

Candel gave a fake chuckle, lowering her stare. She followed silently her father to the pit. It was an open-cast mine descending into the bowels of the earth with a spiral footpath. Earth ponies were pulling up carts overwhelmed with coal and ores, sweat running off their faces. It was their last climb before returning home.

The pit was a Dantean play. Suffering, endless work and exhaust were the lot of the average pony here. The more Candel went down, the less she felt alive. For the filly, the pit was a widened maw waiting to suck the life of the ones who had willingly jumped in. Nopony here in the mine knew if he was going to survive his shift. Death was, in the end, a road companion here. Having it beckoning behind each trap scattered in the infernal place was unsurprising. It was a fact everypony had accepted for years.

As the new shift was starting, a mass of ponies were exchanging spaces. Following the movement, Pegasi were flying in the sky. Each one was keeping an eye on the earthbound ponies with spears in their hooves. At the bottom of the pit, tunnels had been carved and rail tracks were riveted to the ground. Candel felt muffled earthquakes reaching her hooves. The miners often used explosives to clear their way. Candle’s father pulled two small punched cards out of his saddlebag and hoofed them to the waiting tunnel supervisor.

“Rustic, I must warn you. You’re assigned to the north drilling. You’ll have to use arcs,” the foreman alerted. “I dunno if your girl should be there. And it's all about the Duma’s crazy project.”

Rustic grunted.

“We need that money. She comes. And I’ll show her what an arc is and how it works.”

The supervisor went silent and stepped away from the entrance with sorry eyes. He was a good lad, he never laughed at Candel nor say anything offensive about her wings. In fact, he was afraid of Rustic; Candel’s father was built like a house. And before its dissolution, the red furred stallion was one of the pit Union’s leaders. It was a miracle he had not been arrested yet. Walking in, Candel and her father stood in a metallic lift. Three ponies jumped in with them in the cage. The engine shook and they initiated the descent.

“Wear this,” Rustic ordered.

He gave Candel a hard hat showing a small recess on the front. Rustic grabbed a lighter positioned in a container screwed in the carriage. A spark of electricity lit up the archaic lift. When she reopened her eyes, Candel saw in distorted reflects on the metallic bars of the lift that a blue flame biased on her helmet.

“Keep it,” Rustic dictated, putting the lighter away in her saddle bag. “Maybe it has something to do with your cutie mark.”

He took a pause and breathed in, like what he was going to say pained him.

“I’m proud you got it.”

These words pushed Candel to the verge of crying. Her father was proud. She had made her father… proud. Somehow she felt happy.

Laughter rose from the other ponies, watching the scene.

“That’s so cute Rustic. You’ve gone soft,” one cajoled with a shrug. “You need a trip to the jail to harden you up.”

The earth pony eyed Candel greedily. In the darkness she could not devise his fur colour but his yellow eyes were frightening. The rest of the plunge passed in silent. When the lift opened, Rustic pushed gently Candel away in the tunnel and blocked the exit of the cage.

“You touch my girl, I break you, all of you. In half. And nopony will ever find your carcasses,” Rustic warned.

He waited for no answer and thrust his hoof in the nearest pony’s face, flinging him in the back of the lift. He glared with threatening eyes to the unconscious pony’s friends and swivelled. He caught Candel again.

“Thanks father,” she muttered.

“Don’t be thankful,” he drawled. “Mend your own mistakes.”

They headed to the bottom of the tunnel. Ponies were shouting over the sounds of picks digging into the walls. Two masons were reinforcing the sides of the way while half a dozen of ponies threw chunks of coal in a trolley. Some saluted Rustic as he took position next to a mare inspecting a map. The atmosphere was saturated with coal dust and the light coming from the hard hats flickered in this induced darkness. Everypony coughed intermittently, spitting black mucus from their aggravated lungs.

“Where are the arcs?” Rustic articulated.

The mare gave a tired glance at Candel’s father. She pointed a metal box in a corner. Rustic invited Candel to follow. He unlocked the case with his mouth. Candel’s eyes widened. It was filled with strange leaded cylinders. Absolutely smooth, they sported a thin opening protected by a piece of glass. Inside a glowing blue marble was wobbling from a tip to the other, again and again.

“That’s an arc,” Rustic explained. “They are explosives. The miners use them to pierce tunnels. But the magic inside can be applied to many use.”

“Like the spears?” Candel mumbled.

Rustic agreed silently, a sorry smile on his face.

“Don’t think about it, there are things worse than that in this world,” he drifted. “Well, the Direction has probed the soil here and there is a hollow cavity behind that wall. I’m here to dig it up. There is something more valuable than coal here.”

Candel watched her father prepare two arcs. When he stood up and led her girl to the wall, ponies moved aside. Two thin holes had been pierced in. He placed the devices carefully and drew out of his saddle bag two long rope of copper. He coiled them around the tip of the arks sprouting out of the rock. He backed away with Candel.

“Well, clear me the way,” he shouted at the miners. “Store the tools in the back of the tunnel and plug your ears. It’s gonna get messy.”

Ponies hurried around the wall, shifting everything away from it. While Rustic was helping moving the heavy cart, Candel spot a lantern in the corner of her eye. The lamp was filled with the same energy stored into the arc, shining with a white blue gleam. Taking the handle in her mouth, Candel lifted it up. Even light, the lantern was messing with her balance. She toddled.

“Hey, watch your step,” a pony barked raucously.

She raised her head and saw that true pony her father had whacked earlier. His upper lip had swollen and a bruise marked his eyes. The pony looked at Rustic who was busy focusing on pushing the trolley. With a grin, the resentful pony flattened Candel with a buck in her breast. She gasped for air, letting the lantern bounce on the ground. A clinking sound echoed. Everypony turned and stared. A sudden awed silence overwhelmed the usual noise filling the cave. None of them moved, waiting for the unavoidable.

The bully understood his mistake too late. He watched, powerless, as the lamp cracked on the ground and saw lightning bolts burst out. Searching for the nearest conductive matter, the sparks peaked on the unprotected copper wires lying on the ground.

Rustic jumped on Candel as the electric discharge raced to the two planted arcs. The tunnel was filled with blue explosions and the earth shook. The wall fractured and the shoring collapsed.

The air was filled with a smell of cooked flesh and the cries of wounded ponies. Her ears burning, Candel woke up. She had a hard time focusing on her closest surrounding. Her hard hat was lying feet from her, its small flame dying. Rustic had collapsed, protecting her with his hooves. His body was fuming. Shaken, Candel took a look around. Her head wobbled. The blast had scattered everything and everypony apart. Rustic had been right, it was messy. Her head trembled. She slid out of her slumped father and stood on her hooves, hesitant. She could not hear anything, even her respiration. Some ponies crept around her toward the lift.

Everything rolled out in slow motion with statics set upon her vision. Candel saw a bunch of ponies surrounding her. They were bloody, wounded or bruised for the luckiest. They beat her down and pushed her in the cavity the arcs had pierced. They were angry, but she could not hear them. She chuckled, it was better like this, she tried to convince herself. Somepony had cramped her wingcuff and lifted her in the air. One miner threw her in the cave everypony had been so eager to access. She hit the ground with a hard thump, but she could still not feel pain.

Candel glanced at her father. He had not moved.

The cave was a large cavern which walls had been carved by nature during eons. The wall were covered with gems. But this surprise was short-lived and they summed up their small vendetta.

Candel’s senses came back in a rush. A hoof struck her with violence and she crashed against a wall bedecked with blue gems.

“You stupid pegasus,” a reddish mare shrieked. “You always have to make everything worse.”

“Your father isn’t here to help you,” a stallion sniggered. “Who’s gonna protect you?”

“Wait, it wasn’t me, I…” Candel tried.

A kick closed her mouth.

She started crying and she tasted blood flowing between her teeth. Hooves stomped on her limbs, she felt torn apart. She felt bad, hurt, painful… ashamed. She wanted to fight back, to defend herself. But she could not, she was too weak.

Helpless and weak.

Alone.

A hoof slapped Candel’s face. She emerged from her half-unconsciousness. Grins welcomed her.

“You played with us for too long. It’s time to restore a bit of equilibrium.”

A pony opened her hind legs and try to force his way.

Candel bayed at the ceiling with pain, horrified. Her cutie mark beamed, the flame of the candle spreading a bright purple light on her sides. Her assaulters stopped and looked around, the gems blanketing the walls glowed blue. The assaulting ponies lost their composure.

Thousands of feet above them, screams clambered out of the tunnel and filled the air in an abysmal complaint. The ponies gathered around the entry shivered as an horrific feeling rushed their heart. The screams went louder.

“Tireless we dig deep within the cave

All alone we are carving our grave

We are the silent colliers under the mine

For us is there nothing left above to shine?

For the sins of others we must atone

Sent to work our hooves to the bone

Here in dull caverns by those who can freely fly

We have been condemned by those who deny

Here we cry and there we are meant to die

The simple freedom to look up in their eyes

Has been buried under unending lies

So now is the time that we go ‘n pry

We are the miners under the pit

And we will be the ones who will never fit

So let’s raise higher the pick and the axe

And struck them down right into the sombre cracks

Sing united a story that can’t be retold

As we send away the lies that’s been paroled

“Prideful workers go forth” is our cry of war

So let’s go foretell to the missing star

“Go son and tell once you escape from hell

That Earthbounds stand prepared to rebel”

And then assume these grim words

That we kept repeating to the lords

Shed upon us starvation

And of pride we will feed

Shed upon us humiliation

And of food we will live

But be aware

Yes sure be aware

Snatch from us those lawful rights

And waged upon you, will be revolution

With training we were forced to grew

And remember that our anger is true

So be aware

For sure go prepare

For the mighty charge of our kind

That you have mindlessly left to die

And left to us nothing but our cry

Under the open-pit, under the mine

We will a day arise

We will soon avenge

And make this epoch our shrine

Someday we will all look at the blue and beaming sky

But right now it’s for freedom that we will all die”

Written down on the fiftieth year after the cataclysm

Murmanesk’s shard

Last words of rebellious colliers

Act I, Chapter Two - The Lighthouse

Encounters…

Sometimes, we do dream of ordeals, epoch-making deeds and heroic sacrifices. We dream, unaware of the truth that our wishes are impossible promises. We imagine and magnify a flow that would carry us away from the mourning and dull reality. We ask for a change. We beg for it. We plead for somepony to thrust us in its irresistible rapids. We pray and worship beings and ideas we don’t clearly understand, only to wait for something which may never come.

But sometimes, it does occur.

For the ponies that get lucky enough, something might come and knock loudly at the gate. Call it fate; call it luck; call it destiny; call it whatever you want. But in this world, there are no mighty gods which will ever glance at us and take part in our daily misery. Thus, none of them will ever stretch his hoof in our direction. So, what is fate all about?

Encounters…

They are the true evidence of fate. However minuscule, meaningless and short they can be, they will always influence us. Like an obstacle on a road they will force us to drift and change the way we behave and step forward… for the better, or for the worse… over and over again until the moment we are swept from the surface of this world.

We are the product of these encounters.

With them we grow, we evolve and we die.

Never underestimate the strength of a meeting; because in the end, everything will be linked together and will unfold in front of our eyes.

Candelabra

The falling shard had wiped out the north-western blocks of Murmanesk, setting upon it a lid of dust. The sun was shining weakly behind this cover, plunging the place in a chiaroscuro light. Only ruins erected from the ground, pricking up into the air like the ribs of a skeleton. The silence was overwhelming. Everything was dead. The air was swamped with an excessive stench-ridden fog and seeing through it was an ordeal.

In the wake of the shardfall, the Direction had made sure the access to the area would be restricted to a few privileged. Alone, two silhouettes were laboriously walking inside the smog, coughing. Their lungs ached under the assault of the specks of dirt burying the devastated quarters. They often passed by a puddle of dark red, adding to the taste of mud floating in the air a darting odour of blood.

One of the shadows toddled.

“Ah! I bumped my claw again,” Argen cawed in a complaint. “Those cities aren’t made for me.”

“You’re not supposed to live in a pony town, Master. You quite outmatch a lot of standards,” a squeaking voice responded.

The little buck stretched his body and shook himself, splattering grime on his custodian’s feathers. Dust had washed over him, gluing his orange fur and blue mane together. His white kerchief had turned brownish. The little colt was not pleased at all. This fine layer itched horribly and he was having a hard time getting rid of it. Argen had not been spared from this care too.

To the scruffy foal’s surprise, a talon closed on his back. The sharp claws swept all the greyish soot off the tiny pony. He could not hold back a snort. Feeling the edges running on his skin was tickling. Yet he started complaining, pouting. Being treated like a child was the last think he wanted to; he hated it.  The young pony loved pretending he was older than he really was. He deeply desired to be bigger, to be a grown-up. And, more than anything else, he poured out this opinion to whoever gave him an attentive ear.

Hence, the small buck complained loudly, ashamed he had enjoyed his guardian’s rub and showed so. Argen responded with an amused smirk. However, the gigantic bird’s humour went short-lived.

“Shush little one. Now is time to work,” Argen instructed.

The foal sighed.

“I still don’t understand, Master. Why do we… you have to come here? A shard crashed into another one, end of the story,” he vented. “I…”

Argen closed the foal’s mouth with the picky embrace of his claws.

“Hush now, I said. You’re getting annoying.”

All the pony’s nerves were itching to answer back. But for once in a lifetime, his reasoning got in the way. The foal backpedalled and shovel down his opinion.  He slowed his pace and let Argen take the lead. It was useless to argue and it would bring nothing but a load of troubles. The child lowered his head in a sign of surrender. Imperturbable, Argen paved the way with the intimidating rattling of his talons.

The investigator and his protégé moved forward, cutting through the haze. They focused on recording each anomaly they could evidence around them. But they had to admit they had drawn a blank so far. Argen’s assistant sniggered.

“I told you, end of the –“He bumped into his master’s tail, slightly creasing his feathers.

The small pony’s head span. Queasy, he tilted his head from behind his master.

Argen was standing silently in front of a cadaver. It was a mare. Her legs were crushed under a chunk of rock. It was blatant she had died from exhaustion and blood loss. The foal winced, shocked; the mare’s face was contracted, awestruck. Her glassy eyes were petrified, staring at something long gone now, something atrociously scary.

The young colt was used to death; he was the assistant of an inspector after all. But the mare’s expression of despair was something he did not witness on a daily basis.

“May Death have pity on your miserable existence on this soil,” Argen whispered.

Forcing on the boulder with his talon, Argen pushed it away. A skanky noise of breaking bones and tearing flesh cracked in the air. The foal hid his eyes behind his hoof and nearly stripped his tightly wrapped bandana.

“Move along, little one,” Argen forewarned. “I have business with this pony.”

Following the order without any enthusiasm, he trotted away from Argen until his shape had vanished in the fog.

“Blah blah blah… I’m an inspector, I know better, go play away you little pony,” the foal muttered dryly. Again, he felt thrown away like an unwanted doll. Anger died slowly in his heart, replaced with sadness. He wanted Argen to be proud of him.

After a moment, the knee-high pony tried to distinguish the features of the neighbourhood he was in. He grumbled; seeing through a wall would be easier. He let out a deep breath of disappointment, and anxiety started bathing him. He hated being trapped.

The young colt turned the content of his saddle bag upside down until he found the wanted object. It was a small sphere of fired clay, sculpted with four rectangular loopholes. To each of the embrasures was riveted a thin and sealed piece of glass. The globe was half-filled with a dark liquid and on one of its extremities was screwed a thong of wreathed hemp.

He bit in the lash and shook his head. The sphere wobbled in the air, jolting. Its contents gurgled and a strange chemical reaction occurred. Four bleak shafts of turquoise light burst out of the object as the component inside sparked with electricity. It was not perfectly luminescent but the liquid was brighter enough to cast an outlining light around the pony’s hooves. Still, the brightness of the lamp reflected on the airborne particles, burning slightly his eyes like thousands of minuscule suns hovering around him.

A muffled crack erupted far behind the foal. He swivelled to face it, startled.

“Master?” he asked shyly.

No response echoed back.

Anxious, the little pony chose to move on, following the path the gleam his strangely shaped torch drew in front of his hooves. A reflection caught his attention. His curiosity aroused, he trotted to the object that was shining a few yards away from him.

It was a shard of broken glass. And it was certainly not alone. Thousands were scattered all around, making the ground uneasy to wander on, nearly painful. Each one glowed in the beam of the foal’s torch like the pieces of a stained glass. Sometimes the transient colours of the rainbow reflected on the morsels.

The spectacle was surprising if not eerie. It required an important dose of self-control not to venture deeper on this field; a large esplanade, the limits of which were hidden beyond the fog.

The foal found the nearest building and stabilized his lamp on its threshold. The wall was what remained of a colliers’ cottage, the rest had been devastated to its foundations. He took his pencil in his mouth and started drawing a sketch of the spectacle on his notebook. He had to be as precise as possible. Argen would be proud. He became absorbed in his task, picturing a forthcoming stare of approval from his guardian.

Concentrating, the little pony had slipped into his own bubble, forgetting about his surroundings. He did not remark drops of sweat dripping off his face and falling, turning muddy once they reached the ground.

“You draw super well!”

The lead of the pencil broke and ripped on the sheet, tracing a long and ugly mark on the drawing. The foal blinked, multiple times, in silence. He forced his mouth closed, chewing the empty space between his teeth. He blinked again, fixing the crossing-out striking his assiduous work. He turned his head, very slowly. His cheeks were swelled as if he was holding back a scream of rage.

A colt, older than him, was smiling awkwardly. He was wearing a dusty pair of goggles, and even if the dirt covering him was thick and nasty, one could easily guess his fur was dark, probably blue and his mane was somehow greenish.

“Name’s Fire, and you?”

Oh god, the foal hated that childish, stupid, smile casted on that so-called Fire. He gazed bluntly at this impromptu troublemaker. This… Fire was standing right next to the glowing lamp, his both hooves lying on the frame of the window.

The foal turned his head and started drifting away.

“Oh come one,” Fire pleaded. “Don’t make me use the long face.

Fire jumped out of the window and laughed, unnerving once more his younger peer. They wandered silently for a short spell of time before the foal finally stopped.

“Little One,” he responded as if these words had been squeezed out of him.

“That’s not a name,” Fire claimed.

“It will be enough for you.”

Fire smirked. The foal who called himself Little One wasn’t really helpful.

“You’ve got a stick up your arse, don’t you?” Fire slithered.

Little One shot a death glare at him. Fire answered with a new laughter.

“So, that’s a yes.”

Little One facehooved.

“Do all the savages from this city act like you?”

“Hey, why are you so mean?” Fire replied. “We’re good guys!”

Little One scanned the colt from muzzle to tail.

“More like the nasty ones,” he sniggered. “I wonder how you passed the cordon.”

“The pegasi are easy to kid around,” Fire bragged before clearing his throat. “And you forgot your… light thing back at the ruin.”

Little One grumbled and turned on his hooves, flogging Fire’s nose with his tail when he passed him. Little One struggled finding his way back to the ravaged house and the glass field, but the sphere had not moved at all. Of course, hooves were not going to sprout out of it only to run away, weren’t they?

Fire sneezed and complained, rubbing the tip of his face. Then he raised his head in Little One’s direction and smiled. He leaped straight forward, bumping at Little One on the way.

“You want it?” Fire’s voice shouted. “You’re going to chase me to get it back.”

Little One’s hooves pressing on his forehead was not enough to express his level of disappointment. Fire jumped where the shards of glasses were scattered, causing Little One to twitch. The foal looked behind him, hoping to see the massive and reassuring shadow of Argen bathing him. It was hopeless. Little One turned back to Fire, glaring daggers at him.

“This place is absolutely crucial to my master’s work. Don’t you dare walk on evidence,” he cautioned.

Fire looked down at the shards beneath him with a criminal smile on his face. In

Fire’s eye, the foal was an amusement stock. He was talking quite posh and seemed to respect a lot authority. Fire hatched a plan to spread a bit of fun in the air.

“Well, you’re gonna have to follow me if you want to get your gadget back.” Fire dashed in the smog, the beams of the lamp spotting him through it. “Catch me if you can,” Fire cackled.

“Wait!” Little One called again, sighed then paused. “Oh, those stupid colliers!”

He ran in Fire’s tow.

“Give me back my lamp!” Little One shrieked with a high pitched voice.

Argen put down the emptied bone he had chewed in his teethed beak. He breathed in relief.

“It’s been a long time,” he shuddered to himself with a pinch of thrill. “Good old instincts are always sweet.”

He withdrew his claws on the empty skull of a pony right beneath him and lifted it gently to his ventral satchel.

“You can join my collection,” he whispered to the macabre item as it slid inside the leather bag.

Argen pounced to a large and steep rock at a cable length from him, eager to take a rest. He jumped and perched himself on his top, balancing on one talon. With the other one, he reached a small pocket of his bag and drew out an antique silver necklace. A small translucent tube was dangling at the bottom, empty.

Argen rustled his black feather, uncurling the ones that had suffered from his errant feed. Satisfied, he then blew on the surface of the medallion. The void inside began to glow a melange of golden white and bluish black. Both taints were fighting each other in a silent war. A battle for space raged yet always seemed to end in a draw. The dark and lighting gleams kept thrusting themselves at each other endlessly. Argen’s voice rose, loud and stern like the rumble coming from the depths of a thunderstorm.

“Our Sun who art in the day sky; Thy time is over and thy wisdom is lost; Yet thy memories are still struggling within; The heart of the true and bygone watchers.

Give me the strength to fight the shadows; Unveiling my eyes and thy ravaged land; Depraved under thy malicious usurper; That they shall be all thine once again.

Tears have fallen on thy grave now forgotten; And drops of sorrow are shed upon emptiness; That groweth and blacken our errant souls.

I see no escape and plead thee; That thou seeth the future of this land; Forever forgotten, forever forsaken; I plead you, lead, forgive and deliver us.”

Argen paused in his liturgy and wiped a tear off his cheek before tightening the pressure of his talon onto the necklace. The gold wisp within the recipient overwhelmed its sibling until it was nothing but a black point cornered at the bottom of the tube. Argen cleared his throat and resumed his prayer. His voice was deeper than before, betraying a hidden anger.

”Our Moon who art in the night sky; Thy shiny stars have left this grim world; And gave away their space to the great deceiver; That tells itself thy own beaming sister.  

The time of everlasting despair hath come; And no more pure sparks will ever arise; Nor under thy resting gleam or thy sister’s care; Without bathing in Dusk’s depravity.

We await thy return as night bringer; On thy sister’s ravaged and dried lands; But for now we away from the dull light.

That thy return means the end; Or that thou mean a new glorious era; We will await with hope thy return; With thee comforting sister.

Celestia and Luna, Let our prayer be heard; That this kingdom be yours once again.”

Again, he strengthened the embrace of his talon upon the necklace, printing the mark of his claws on its old ragged chain. Within the tube, the speck of dark burst out and enveloped the golden and hopeful light. Blackness swallowed all the space and disappeared, letting nothing but transparent emptiness inside the cylinder. Silence settled over the gigantic bird and he felt himself slipping away.

The catnap was cut short. Behind the curtain of dust, Argen spotted a dull light dancing agitatedly far away from his position. Muffled shouts were audible. After a sigh, Argen dropped off his perch and landed heavily. He tracked down the trail Little One had left behind him. The majestic and imposing bird did not hurry. He even chose to slow his pace.

He wanted to dry his tears before joining his protégé. He also wished to take his time gathering his rational mind. He too wanted to be strong. Moreover, he aspired to look inflexible like a stoic stone, careless about what life could throw at him.

“Give it back to me,” Little One panted.

The foal had a hard time following Fire. The shattered shards formed an endless rug of glass thorns and his small hooves had started bleeding from walking on this sharp blanket. On his own, Fire whirled and dashed with the sheerness of an excited youngling.

“Nope,” Fire snickered, the lash of the torch impeding his elocution.

Fire gradually slowed his pace, witnessing Little One suffering in silence. The broken shards were pruning slightly the soft part of the foal’s hooves. Fire could not keep this petty game going on forever. He decided he had enough amusement from Little One’s cute attempt to retrieve his lamp.

Fire turned left and headed toward a massive ruin. Lying on its side, it formed a steep slope of dark red bricks. Small arrow slits cut through its façade in dark and unfathomable mouths. Hawk-eyes would not be enough to pierce the darkness dwelling inside the building. Jumping over one, Fire gulped. A second, he feared a monstrous and disincarnated hoof would surge from the opening, catch him in the air and drag him in only to devour his soul. He had read too much of the comics he had stolen from the municipal library. Fire avoided the next hole, drawing a large circle around it.

Little One was not that careful. Narrowing the space Fire had cleared between them during the pursuit, he leaped. Fire dashed away and ran until he stopped at the top of the slump tower. He stood on the safety barrier of the roof, now inclined nearly horizontally. Emptiness welcomed his hooves.

The roof itself displayed a glasshouse. Through the dark, Fire could not see the inside. Jumping on the glass walls was not a clever idea. Fire knew it would either break his legs, or the wall would shatter under his weight and it would be a last mighty fall. Little One disagreed totally with this statement and skipped on his target.

After a short fight, Little One succeeded in snatching the lamp from Fire’s mouth and pushed him off the cliff. Fire yelped and fell over, rapidly followed by Little One who had lost his balance. Both went through the wall of the greenhouse which broke in thousands of parts. Inside, a second guardrail caught Fire and Little One in their fall. Fire gargled under the foal’s weight on his thorax. Being a runway was not easy.

“I’ve won!” Little One scolded with his small laugh as he pounded Fire’s chest.

“I– I surrender,” Fire hissed. “Get off me… please.”

With a smirk, Little One stepped off the colt. Fire panted trying to catch his breath. He coughed and turned on his back. The bars of the rail were stinging his sides. Beneath, emptiness was awaiting both ponies to fall. Fire looked at Little One askance. He was balancing himself on the rail.

“Well,” Little One broke in. “Now we’re trapped inside.”

Fire gave a look at the surroundings and realised; they were in the top of the lighthouse he had seen crashing on Murmanesk. The gigantic edifice had left scraps behind and its nearly intact head had survived. The beacon inside the glasshouse had been smashed and only its base was still present. When the tower had broken on the ground, the beacon had been catapulted out of its position, piercing the ceiling of the greenhouse with an incommensurable strength. The shards of glass he had seen earlier below were the last remains of it. Right now, the shattered walls of the room were still standing, menacing to slide off their rivets.

“Hey, look,” Little One called.

He was pointing with his hoof at the entrance of a spiral staircase, located above them. Fire gained momentum and jumped. He reached the opening with ease. The rail he had stood on shook and nearly jettisoned Little One.

“Be careful, stupid!” the orange-coated pony shouted back with exasperation. “I nearly…”

A noisy crack echoed and the rack bent dangerously. Little One shrieked. He stood on his two hindlegs, trying to reach the staircases with his forehooves. He was too small. The Lamp fidgeted on its lash still tightened in his mouth. The torch cast weird shadows on his wielder.

“Help me!” Little One cried.

Fire panicked. He had no rope to help Little One, nothing to reach him. He turned about for seconds when a second load of rivets snapped under the foal’s mass. The crack was louder this time. Fire thought quickly.

“Grab this,” he ordered.

Fire presented his bum to Little One.

The foal stared stoically at this moon, not really amused of this cynical joke.

“Are you kidding me, you sick…”

Fire’s tail fell flat on Little One’s face. The foal suddenly understood. He bit in the lock with all of his strength. The barrier unhooked and hurtled down in a metallic cacophony of scrap metal. Fire shed a tear of pain and yapped, trying to pull the foal over. On his own, Little One was suspended at the tip of Fire’s green tail.

It took a few minutes for Fire to haul Little One over.

The latter coughed, spitting the hairs stuck in his mouth. Still having his glowing lamp, he massaged his aching jaw. Fire was holding the dock of his tail and the bottom of his croup, small drops of blood dripped off them. He sobbed silently.

“Well… I owe you thanks," Little One conceded.

He stretched his hoof and wait for Fire to shake it.

“Lose some weight next time,” Fire sniggered. “It hurts like hell.”

Little One sniggered as Fire caught his hoof and shook it fiercely. After that, Fire poked Little One’s shoulder with his hoof, showing a large smile.

“That was fun!”

Surprised, the foal let the lamp slip out of his mouth. Both ponies stared the globe of clay rolling down the staircase. The ball bounced endlessly and disappeared in a corner, only the sound of the repeated hits of the lamp on the floor echoed. Its light faded away.

“I’m afraid of the dark,” Fire confessed.

“Me too.”

Both were petrified as the darkness enshrouded them. Something cracked behind their back, and they felt their heart leaping out of their chests. Screaming, they ran down the staircase.

They fell and landed in a large room inside the ruin of the lighthouse. Its former furniture had been shattered and piled up in a corner. Little One’s lamp had pounced out of the stairs and crashed on a plaque of metal, cracking it open. Its content was leaking out, printing a large glowing puddle of blue. The sticky goo cast a strange atmosphere on the walls and small arcs of electricity sparked off its surface. Both Fire and Little One stared in awe where the ball of clay had broken out. The plaque of metal was a shield tightly held in the hoof of a dead pegasus.

Little One inspected him, mimicking Argen. The pegasus was apparently long dead and his flesh had dried, giving him the aspect of a mummy. His mane was straw-coloured and his fur should have been indigo once. Its fur fallen, the corpse was buck naked. The pegasus was not a soldier of the Direction. He was not wearing the typical armour. Apart of his shield he displayed no piece of protection at all. Its only possession was a dangling necklace around his neck, and a long band of metal blocked under a tensed hoof.

With a quasi-religious silence, Little One and Fire approached the body. They inspected it from a safe distant, fearing it might come back to life and hunt them down. Zombie ponies did not exist, did they? The body was perfectly immobile and the two little ponies would not be stupid enough to disturb the rest of the pegasus.

“You think he was killed?” Fire asked in an undertone.

“There is only one way to know,” Little One responded with a shiver.

He walked past Fire and scanned the cadaver without touching it. The foal rubbed his bare chin like a philosopher.

“I see nothing that indicates so,” he pouted.

Little One wanted to find a clue, something that showed the opposite. Boring, he thought; it was nothing but a boring dead pony… a boring case in the end. It reminded him he was unaware of the reason that attracted Argen in this affair. Little One was clueless.

“What are you doing?” Fire asked.

Fire was looking at Little One with wide eyes. The foal raised an eyebrow.

“What? You’ve never seen a dead pony?”

“Well…”

Fire paused, a bit shaken by the question. Of course he had seen some. He had even seen somepony dying. He remembered very well the pegasus soldier after the shardfall. The memories were fresh. He had been struck at the moment. His train of thought had gone blurred and soaked with fear. But then, he had shovelled the thought inside his brain where he could not keep banging on about it. When it occurred, Candel had been at the centre of his attention.

But now Fire was perfectly aware, nearly worriless. The image of the dying pegasus rushed back into his mind. He remembered that hissing and broken corpse crying for help in a horrible silent. Fire bit his bottom lip and sat down, his eyes lost in that image.

“I– I…” He stopped. “He was a soldier, I shouldn’t feel… should feel nothing about him.”

Fire looked at the cadaver. Now he was picturing the dying soldier, his image glued onto the mummy corpse. Fire was just waiting for the cadaver to call for his help. He held back a gag of disgust.

“I feel bad,” Fire whispered.

“For something you did not do?”

“No, for… I don’t know. That’s sick. I let that guy die because I hate the Direction. I hate Pegasuses.”

“Pegasi,” Little One corrected.

Fire paid no attention. He felt guilty over the fresh memories of the shardfall he had cast away so easily. He had done so for only one pony he held dear into his heart…

“That’s stupid,” Little One sniggered. “And you know that I work for the Direction.”

Little One got the reaction he wanted. Fire gave him a stare betraying that he did not agree.

“You’re not, the big bird works for them. You’re just a kind of sidekick.”

“No, that’s not true,” Little One countered, vexed. “And the ‘big bird’ is called Argen.”

The foal turned back to the pegasus.

“Look, there is nothing to fear.”

With his hoof, Little One prodded the body. It was surprisingly squishy and left in Little One’s hoof an unsettling impression. The body slumped with a sound of tearing flesh and suction. Fire and Little One jumped away from the pegasus with a wince. The reek hit them like a hoof in the bowel, forcing its way into their muzzles. Fire threw up.

The pegasus had the look of a mummy indeed, as if somepony had suck out all the water his body could contain. Nothing was left but a dry and empty shell. But it was only the visible part of the cadaver. The body’s back had melt and liquefied under an undisclosed force. Drying, it had coagulated against the armoire it was pressing on. When the lighthouse had crashed, both had been thrust in a corner, packing up with the rest of the furniture. The joint of flesh between the corpse and the cabinet had been damaged. The swift and disrespectful poke of Little One’s hoof had been enough to untie them. And the hidden face of the scene was now revealed.

The pegasus was rotting on the inside. Seared and putrefied tatters of flesh dripped on the floor. His ribs were visible and beyond them his ravaged internal organs. His lungs were pierced from end to end and his heart was crushed. A section of his intestine was still glued to the armoire. With the body sliding slowly on its side, the intestine crept out of the pegasus’s ribcage like a monstrous worm.

Both Fire and Little One held back a gag. Stunned, it took time before they backed away from the corpse. Little One was undoubtedly shocked. Being Argen’s assistant had him immune to the sight of dead bodies. But this… this was too much. Fire threw up loudly.

The pegasus wreck finally collapsed with a fleshy thump, his neck cracking on the impact. A muffled clatter followed. Lit up with the phosphorescent liquid, the pegasus’s necklace shined on the floor.

After having calmed themselves, both ponies looked at the cadaver again, a new knot tied in their stomach. And both saw the necklace. Fire snatched it before Little One could even react. The foal, also interested in the jewel, whined.

It was a medallion. Made of oxidized silver, it was sporting a small diamond-shaped black symbol. Its contours had been sunken in several spot. Fire and Little One shivered. The symbol exhaled an aura of creepiness. With curiosity, Fire forced open the object. A small folded piece of paper fell, swinging in the air like a feather.

Fire caught the tiny sheet in his hooves. Little One tilted his head over his shoulder. A quote was written inside. Fire deciphered the message. It was poorly written, as if the writer had been in a hurry. The ink had leaked in small drops on the sheet.

‘There is a hero in everypony’

The words echoed with the voices of Fire and Little One in unison.

“What does that mean?” Little One asked.

“Bah! Everypony can be a hero,” Fire replied sarcastically.

“No, I mean, that’s stupid. Argen told me that heroes die quickly.”

“I’d like to be a hero,” Fire snickered.

At least, Fire thought, it would be worth it. He wanted so desperately somepony’s attention.

“Candel…” he sighed.

“Who?”

Fire remained silent, confusing the foal. Little One saw tears coming in Fire’s eyes.

“Everything’s okay?” Little One asked gently.

“Yeah. Yes, it’s just…” he hesitated. “I have a friend I like a lot and she is getting hurt every day.”

Fire lacked of convenient words to describe Candel’s plight. His cluelessness about his dearest friend’s daily suffering engulfed him with sadness. Fire was aware of his condition. He was a colt, an earthbound and a collier’s son. He could not be proud of feats he never did, or hope doing an exploit worth the sacrifice.

He was chained to his monotone and short life of Murmanesk’s worker.

The sudden realisation strengthened his feeling he was being held, trapped here. He was just Murmanesk’s worker. Yes, he was just an outcast among the pariahs. He could not even picture himself standing still against anypony. Fighting the Direction was a sweet dream. The pegasi imperiously commanded the pit and the city, only to fulfil deadlines. Hell, he was not even aware of who he was working for, for who so many ponies died every day.

Fire felt minuscule and miserable, bound to some chains in a remote place of the world. Was he nothing but speck among an overwhelming mass of faceless ponies? His body cried for freedom. But there was no ear to listen. Joy flew away from Fire’s face. His eyes darkened and he remained silent.

Little One stared at Fire. He was immobile, lost in his thought, his eyes watery and transfixed on the corpse.

“You okay?” Little One asked again.

Fire nodded. He folded the piece of paper and put it back in the medallion. The necklace slid in his saddlebag.

“Can we go?” Fire asked, depressed.

They passed by the cadaver and left the room, taking with them the shield splattered with the glowing goo. Fire casted a last glance to the soundless corpse and swivelled on his hooves. Little One and He went down the whole staircase, and reached the exit. The fog bathed them and suffocation plagued their lungs once more.

Argen was waiting. His dim shadow covered the two ponies; his two yellow eyes pierced them with disappointment.

“You’re late,” the massive bird berated.

Little One trotted to his guardian and placed his cheek on Argen’s talon, giving him a family embrace. Argen raised his eyes to the sky and posed the tip of his wings on Little One’s shoulders. Then his attention drifted on Fire. The colt was petrified in the hole of the lighthouse.

“Don’t tell the Direction I was here!” Fire blurted in fear.

Argen narrowed his eyes.

“You were on the harbour when we landed,” he asked.

Fire nodded, ill-at-ease.

“Well... Apart from being in a restricted area I don’t see what you did wrong. You’ll just get punished by your schoolmaster for missing school,” he replied ironically.

“Are you crazy,” Fire erupted, spooked. “They will kill me if they learn.”

Fire cringed on his hooves, a dash of fear numbing his mind. He mumbled inaudibly, begging for the bird to spare him. Argen sighed in response.

“I know, stupid. I’ve been in the Direction’s good books for a long time. I understand they aren’t really lenient with the earthbounds.”

Fire was looking at him with puppy’s eyes. Argen grumbled, “Okay, I won’t tell.”

The colt’s eyes burst with joy and he covered the inspector with thanks.

“But it won’t be cheap,” Argen added with a smile.

“Everything you want!” Fire burst out.

“You’ll owe me a service.”

Fire’s relief crumbled. A knot birthed in his stomach.

“I don’t know the terms yet,” Argen continued. “But do you agree with my proposition?”

“Like I had a choice,” Fire whined hesitantly, kicking away a small pebble of coal.

Argen turned and faced his assistant, Little One.

“Can you present me your friend?”

Little One frowned.

“He isn’t my friend! He bullied me and broke my lamp!” the foal interjected.

“Hey that’s fake, it broke in the ruin,” Fire blurted.

“It’s true!”

“It’s not!”

“Silence,” Argen ordered as he facehooved, or rather… facetaloned. He stared at the two combative ponies through his claws.

“You’re giving me a headache. Explain, one at a time.”

Little One took a deep breath.

“I…”

“I wanted to play and I took Little’s lamp,” Fire cut him off. “And we climbed on the façade of the ruin.”

The blue-coated colt pointed the lowered scraps of the lighthouse.

“We fell inside and we broke the lamp,” he continued. “And there was the pegasus.”

“The pegasus?” Argen asked for details.

Little One and Fire narrated their short adventure within the lighthouse. When they broached the dead pegasus, both shivered.

“So, it was a mummy in the open air but his back was rotting?” Argen asked, hardly comprehending. Both ponies acquiesced.

“Yeah, he looked like a dried fruit,” Fire pointed out, jabbing Little One’s side with his elbow. Both laughed cynically.

“Well that’s new,” Argen alleged.

An idea popped in Little One’s mind. He dashed under Argen.

“Hey, what are you…”

Argen looked beneath him, intrigued.

Little One was digging in Argen’s ventral satchel. He muffled in victory and showed to his peers the strange shaped object he had found. It was a black cube hollowed in its middle with a cylinder-shaped hole. At the bottom of the opening, a circular receptacle surrounded a green gem. Finally, a crank handle sprouted from its side.

The box was half the size of Little One. Yet, it was undoubtedly light; the foal moved it with a surprising easiness.

“I’ve found this next to the pegasus,” Little One bragged after having the box set.

He showed the long strip of curled metal to his protector. Fire gasped, he had completely forgotten about it. He could not even remember when the foal had taken it from the pegasus. Another question galloped in his mind.

“What is that thing?”

Two bemused stares set upon the Murmanesk’s inhabitant.

“You’ve never seen a caster before?” Argen asked.

Argen believed it was a joke but Fire denied that altogether.

“We ain’t rich in Murmanesk,” Fire defended himself.

“Maybe…” Little One protested. “But you seriously never heard of it?”

Fire shook his head again.

“Well,” Argen stated. “Give him a taste of it Little One.”

Respectfully silent, Fire approached. Little One placed the band of metal inside the receptacle and pressed on it. The foal got back a click and smiled. Then, he put his hoof on the handle and gave it a couple of turns. It released a sudden backslash and a noise of static cracked in the air.

A greenish monochrome image burst out of the hollowed box. Fire had seen shadow theatres before. This was far beyond his understanding. It was a picture projected right into the air, and it was moving. Fire was taken aback, his jaw open wide. He stammered.

“How is that…?”

The image focused. The sorry face of a pony sprung up in the projection. He was a pegasus. His straw-blond mane was ruffled and some cuts appeared on his indigo fur. He was utterly panicked.

“My name is… Oh for the Direction’s sake, it doesn’t matter anymore.” A voice intoned from the box. “I’m the scrivener of Hoofston. I… oh screw this… I’ve been hired two months ago to keep tracks of the events of the Eastern Horizon. Yeah…. those monstrous hurricanes and lightning…”

The sound of an explosion boomed in the record. The pegasus gulped and cast a glance behind.

“I need to record this… Focus… Focus”

The pegasus took several deep breaths.

“One week ago, the Direction sent us a new contingent of inmates… Like the ones before and the ones before those ones… We know what’s next… They were told that if they go to the East and come back alive with some evidence… something relevant, they would be freed.”

The pegasus’s features were marked with disgust.

“They were all rapists, murderers and old renegades, all pegasus of course. I would like to see an earthbound trying to fly.” The pegasus gave a weak laugh. “Nopony ever came back from the East. The Direction should have them executed instead of sending all of them there. It would have spared us hoping for nothing;”

Another rumbled roared, closer this time.

“Or technically, nopony ever came back… until now. Twelve hours ago, a pegasus made his way back to Hoofston. He was elusive… completely insane! He kept repeating the same words.

It beckons

He convulsed repeatedly. That… That was horrible. His hooves were broken and he was covered in blood. And then it happened. I… Everypony… Everypony’s dead now and I’m trapped in the lighthouse. I can’t go out. I… I just want to go home.”

Something, probably a door, burst open behind the pegasus. The recorded tape failed to show the background scene. The pegasus leaped in front of the recording device he had used and bumped it over. A scream followed and the movie went black.

Argen’s caster clicked and the same greenish image of the scared Pegasus reappeared.

“My name is…”

Little One shut it down.

“What was that?” Fire breathed heavily.

“The last words of our pegasus,” Little One belittled.

“No, that… thing.”

Fire pointed the box.

“It’s a caster, also called pictograph,” Argen explained. “It’s a mechanical and magical device who can record and show sounds, images and, for some of them, even smells.”

Fire struggled accepting such a technology existed. And magic… it was the first time he heard this word. Magic should

“Have you ever used a punched card?” Argen asked.

“Yes. The Direction gave one to each worker for identification,” Fire explained.

Argen took out the strip of metal from the pictograph and exposed it.

“Well. This is quite the same, but the technology is far more advanced. The video is engraved in this small strip Little One had found, with a magic gem as a catalyst. That’s pretty simple to understand.”

Fire was lost in his thoughts. This invention was marvellous, he had to tell Candel.

“And no,” Argen clarified. “You won’t disclose to anypony what you’ve seen.”

He shot a disappointed stare at Little One, who lowered his eyes. “Thanks to my assistant’s hurry, you’ve seen something you should have not to.”

Fire tried to protest but Argen was unyielding. He grabbed the colt with his talon and lifted him to his face.

“Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not a good guy. That’s my last case before my retirement. I’m not going to let a brat like you endangered it.” With his beak Argen picked in Fire’s saddlebag and took out his punched card to read it. “I know where you live.”

Fire struggled, constricted in Argen’s claw, but gave up easily.

“Good,” Argen stated. “Now, you two, into my bag.”

Little One jumped in the satchel and Argen pushed Fire in, closing the bag afterwards.

“What was the pegasus afraid of?” Little One broke the silence with a whisper.

“I don’t know, maybe a monster?”

“There is no monster in the East,” Little One deadpanned. “Just nothing. Everypony, even a collier knows that.”

“Hey, I’m not a miner,” Fire protested.

“Yeah? So what’s your job?”

“I’m… eh… I.”

“Silence,” Argen cut through the muffled discussion. “We’re approaching the Direction’s cordon and I don’t want them to find you… Fire is that it?”

“Eeyup!”

A couple of voices welcomed Argen when he arrived at the checkpoint. The pegasi stood at attention.

“At rest,” Argen stated.

“Hello, Sir Tavis. You know the procedure… Have you anything to declare?”

“I’ve found a dead mare in the block.”

Fire swallowed silently. He saw Little One’s eyes were riveted on an object jabbing his flank. Fire looked at it. It was a perfectly cleaned skull. He bit his lips, shovelling down a cry of surprise.

“And also…” Argen gave a knock on his satchel. Fire tensed in stupor. “I went with my assistant Little One. Show yourself.”

Little One’s head emerged from the bag. The pegasi around jumped back with surprise.

“Hi, misters,” the foal welcomed with a fake smile. “How do you do?”

One of the soldiers pushed the colt back inside with his hoof.

“Sir, we have to warn you the Pit is momentarily closed. Something happened there and security law enforcement is currently in application. Even you can’t go there,” A well-shaped stallion explained.

Argen felt somepony move slightly in his satchel.

“A burst of gas?” he asked.

“Not this time, the Direction closed everything and a special team has been called. There is a whole wing of the tunnels which isn’t responding. There was an explosion, but it was scheduled.”

The soldier paused and gave a look at his stooges. Well, they were talking to Argen, an emissary who had a load of security clearance. They could tell him. The pegasus took a deep breath.

“Some ponies heard screams a few minutes after the incident. The tunnels have been silent since.”

He signalled to Argen he could pass. The bird took away from the checkpoint and turned in a narrow street. Nopony was there to spot his massive shadow.

“It’s okay, you can go out.”

Fire dashed out of the pocket and tried to flee. A talon caught him in motion.

“Let me go!” Fire cried, struggling with violence. “A friend is down there.”

Fire bit in a soft spot of Argen’s talon. The inspector yelped and released his grasp. Fire fell with a thump on the ground. A little dizzy, he leaped in the next corner and disappeared. Argen looked at his protégé.

“Follow him.”

“Why?” Little One complained.

“You’re small, you can go unnoticed. And there is too much problems in this city to believe it’s just a coincidence,” Argen croaked. “And I must pay a visit to the Duma. I have some unanswered questions. Now go.”

Argen flicked him away, and Little One raced in Fire’s stead.

“What did I put my talon in?” he grumbled.

The security barrier around the pit was impassable. Pegasi were patrolling on the ground and high in the sky, keeping an open-wide eye on any suspect movement. Everypony had been evacuated. Some speakers claimed intruders would be shot on sight. A stallion had tried and his body was now seared right out the street. Nopony was giving the dead any attention. The closest neighbourhoods were under curfew and every door was guarded by a pegasus armed to the teeth.

“Well, end of the story,” Little One sniggered.

Fire grumbled from the shadows. Both Little One and he were hiding from the patrols, walking in rounds like clockwork. Filled with coal, a cart had been abandoned in the middle of its way. Fire found it unusual. Even with a curfew on, the Direction would have made sure that the tasks in progress would be done before escorting the workers to their cottages.

“I’ve got an idea,” Fire finally affirmed. “Are you claustrophobic?”

“Eh, I don’t think so…” Little One hesitated. “Why?”

Fire smiled and dragged the foal with him to the next street. They waited a patrol to pass by and crept out of their hiding spot.

“Hide and seek,” Fire explained to his new found friend. “And why did you come with me?”

“I have to make sure you won’t get killed,” Little One lied poorly.

“Yeah sure,” Fire jeered. “Well follow me, it’s gonna be fun!”

Little One was not so sure. They turned at the next corner.

“Ouch,” Fire yelped. Rubbing his forehead, Fire raised his head. A dash of fear struck his brain.

“What are you doing here, earthbound?” a voice barked in front of him.

Fire was gazing at a pegasus, a sparkling spear separating them. The colt ran with sweat and the electricity bouncing off the tip of the weapon tickled his muzzle. Fire backed slowly, avoiding any stupid move.  The colt looked behind him, Little One had disappeared. He was alone, abandoned.

“I repeat…”

The pegasus was not given the time to finish. A brick indented the top of his helmet, knocking the soldier out who fell on the ground. Little One appeared behind him, one of his hindlegs stretched in the air, a pile of bricks at his hooves. He was panting, unsure about what he had done.

“Are you crazy,” Fire panicked. “They’ll kill us now.”

“I...Argen wants me to follow you. If you get caught there is nopony to follow,” Little One hissed. The foal scored a point.

“At least it was a really good move,” Fire assented with a wavering laugh.

The two young ponies skirted around the unconscious soldier and ran away, their hearts pounding wildly. They refused to slow down until they reached the border of Murmanesk. The city’s forest sprawled in front of them.

“The forest?” Little One deadpanned. “We’re not going into the mine anymore?”

Fire remained silent, running straight forward, forcing Little One to follow. Fire wandered randomly and stopped in a screech of hooves. Before their eyes, two huge blocks of granite dwelled in a clearing, bracing themselves over a tiny hole dug into the ground. Fire could still see the mark of Candel’s body in the dirt. Fire figured he ought to give an explanation to Little One.

“My friend, Candel, escaped from an outburst with an old evacuation pipe or something like this. It must be around here.”

He lifted up a branch and looked under a bush.

“We just have to find it and we go save her,” Fire reassured.

Little One grunted.

“We’re risking our life for a girl?” He frowned.

“You don’t understand.”

“Yes, I definitely don’t,” Little One sniggered with his childish snort.

Getting no answer from the Fire, he joined the search and started probing the ground, each bush and shrub. After half an hour they finally found it. It was a tiny entrance, enough to let a stallion crawl inside. For Little One and Fire’s situation it was easier to venture inside. But it was a pitch-black tunnel.

“You got any light?” Fire asked.

“Definitely, no.”

“I know these pipes go straight to the bottom of the mine. Think about it like a slide.”

“And how will we come back?” Little One replied, unconvinced. “Because I don’t know you but in my opinion it’s dangerous to go there.”

“Chicken!” Fire cackled and jumped head first in the pipe. Little One facehooved before leaping after him.

The pipe was muddied. A horrible stench plagued the air. During the descent some indents left cuts on Fire and Little One’s furs. Their heads reeled, the dark was not helping. At least one was enjoying the ride. Fire let out a cry of amusement during the whole sliding.

They fell flat inside a tunnel. Its walls were lit up with arc lanterns, bathing them with a flickering light. The mine was emptied of its workers and a deafening silence assaulted the two little ponies.

“This mine is creepy,” Little One remarked.

Everypony had left their tools on their working spot, abandoning everything they were doing. It was like the colliers had vanished during their shift. Explosives were spread on the ground. Pickaxes were hammered in the wall and the trolleys were on their way to the surface, filled to overflowing. Again, the silence was oppressive. They could even hear the dirt falling from the ceiling, the cracking of the restraining structure and the distant rumble of an uncertain origin.

They walked up to the surface, and reached the exit. The tunnel was short and should have been opened recently. Out, they were at the bottom of the pit. Pegasi flew in the sky and curiously nopony was looking at them. Nopony would have thought the intruders would come from beneath, at leat no pegasi.

At the edges of the open-cast pit, they could see a team of pegasi being prepared to a descent. They wore a light armour and had a sparkling pick under their wings instead of spears.

“Come, we must find Candel before they do,” Fire pressed his friend.

“I’m not sure. I don’t even know her.”

“You signed for it,” Fire grinned, and pushed Little One forward.

They penetrated the north wing. The smell of death swamped Fire and Little One’s nostrils. Even though light showered from the lanterns, an eerie atmosphere was flying around. Fire felt something wrong growing in his heart, a crude fear of the unknown.

The lift of the north wing was broken midway, forcing the two apprentice adventurers to use the security staircase. When they passed the cage of metal, nopony was inside. Little One spotted the massive layer of dust blanketing the stairs. Inevitably, a small unsettling idea germinated in their mind; that the miners could still be trapped beneath them.

The last set of staircase showed up. The reek had gradually gained in strength and the tunnel appearing underneath was illuminated by a thousand of biased lights.

“You’re ready?” Little One asked.

The foal’s voice was hesitant, he wanted to be reassured. Fire passed him and hurdled down the stairs, crying.

“Candel!”

Afraid, Little One ended the descent without any urge. He found Fire stuck in motion, awestruck. Little One focused on the inside of the tunnel and gasped.

Words could not disclose what was lying before them.

“It is when we stand on the brink of the end

When there is no weeping soul that can be mend

That we rise, that we fight against a grim destiny

I see dripping tears on you my little pony

Please stop and smile, please come and join me

That we do not pass this last moment lonely

We wandered on the earth that we call dreary

We roamed on a ground that we fear deadly

With all our burdens that we refuse to deny

Listen to the stars, twinkling high in the sky

Listen to the birds, chirping today nearby,

Open your eyes at the beauty of the outside

Isn’t there almighty rapids we swim riptide

Isn’t there majestic wonders we haven’t elide

Yet the end is near and it’s with you that I stay

Together on the trail we’re bracing to away

With around only a world that is going to fray

But I want you to know that you will be loved

So do not fear it, welcome it, my beloved…

Please do not cry and of course do not weep

We are running before a threat that’s meant to creep

Yet never forget that forever my love will be yours.

…will be yours

Forever my love.”

The End’s song

Sweetie Belle

Date of creation, Unknown

Act I, Chapter Three - The Gems

"Knowledge… Knowledge is power.

Who’s the stupid pony who ever dared telling such bullshit? You really want my opinion, ignorance is the true power. Keep ponies ignorant or perverted, and the evil-minded teacher’s power will end limitless. Hence, I hate school. You’ll never learn anything interesting there. Or at least you’ll learn nothing but what others want you to. Others… a vague word for monsters who trample the most basic rights of my kind, education. And thus, freedom.

I always dreamt about knowing what the old world was looking like.

What was the Pony country’s name? Equestrus? Equestra? I don’t really know. What was the minotaur’s appearance? How was the world before? Now, everything is locked away from our reach. And I keep dreaming so much… I dream about endless green meadows, fully grown trees, pure air and of course, stars and night. But once I’ve awoken and understood my plight, I see my hope being shattered like a mirror falling on the ground. Why is everything this way? What series of events led us to such dead-end?

At school, we only learn about rocks, gems, rocks, rocks and, you guessed it, rocks. We’re colliers, not literary-minded ponies. For the pegasi, we’re meant to be ignorant, and the only books I read were the ones I successfully managed to save from the recurrent books auto-da-fé all across Murmanesk.

And by being ignorant, we gave away our right to exist, to live and to think. We are Earthbounds, stupidity bound, all blind, all deaf, and all controlled. Forever...

Who knows how many secrets are kept hidden from us? Who knows how much knowledge has been erased and is now forgotten by Ponykind?

Sometimes, I find myself dreaming for a change. I hope that somepony will rise for us. For I’m too weak. I’m just a coward. And yet, the hatred remains, grows and blossoms.

I keep rambling... Good job Candel’, next time you’ll talk about originality… not your stupid despair.

Candelabra"

“Is everything ready?” somepony intoned, unassured.

“I definitely hope so,” a mare’s voice retorted.

“Silence you two. Tis not time to fret!” a last one shouted sternly. “We’re damn too close from da objective to be allowed to fail. We’ve got an openin’. We must take it before tis too late.”

Plunged into darkness, the trio crawled within a narrow tunnel made of concrete. The walls were blackened with dust and covered with lichens. All together, they pulled a bag with a rudimentary assembly of lashes. The satchel was incredibly heavy, and each time its content rattled on the ground, the echoes reverberated into the trio’s ears.

The bag rolled on the side and screeched on the floor. They ground their teeth.

“Be careful with dat!” the most assertive of the three berated. “Ah don’t want da contraptions to trigger before we’re done with dem.”

“Two stallions and a mare walk into a pipe. It’s like the beginning of a bad joke,” the mare muttered audibly, trying to ease the ambience.

A harsh silence welcomed her. She shut up.

In the tunnel, the air reeked and the humidity stained the ponies’ furs. Droplets of water fell on their foreheads, melting with the sweat dripping on them.

“I think we’re getting closer. I’m hearing whispers,” the mare asserted.

They all looked right into the bag. Blue light blasted their faces when they opened the central pocket. They gasped at the sudden blinding burst of light. They spent a long time doing a final check of the inside.

“We’re going to make history today. Finally,” the second stallion, the most careless of the three, bragged.

“Nah! Not history,” his serious peer foretold. “We’re going to pour some change into dat city. Tis fully suffice to me.”

The stallion with a strange accent glared at his friends. His two companions nodded in silence.

Argen swept off the dust glued to his feathers as he walked casually down the vast boulevards shaping the South of Murmanesk. This part, the wealthiest of the city, was called the Upper City by its inhabitants. Contrasting with the colliers’ blocks, the buildings and streets here had been cleaned of trash and dirt. The sidewalks were spacious compared to the overcrowded Lower City. Yet, the most blatant distinction between both sides of the industrial town was the pegasi. Nopony but them lived there. And it was with shooting stares that they glared at Argen. Here, pegasi were not used to strangeness, and thus, foreigners.

Everypony withdrew quickly from Argen’s way, giving him ten times the space he would usually need. Fear was easily readable on everypony’s features, and Argen could see up in the sky a couple of guards eyeing him, weapons tightened between their hooves. It was obvious he was not welcome. Each parcel of this district was a reminder of this truth. It would have been painful if Argen had not been used to such discrimination. The emissary sighed and resumed walking. Even his noble title was of no use in that place. He had a destination in mind and nopony, even the Direction’s watchdogs, would slow him down.

Lined up like toy soldiers, the shops shined under the dusk’s light. Dress, jewels and goods from all across the Federation were exposed behind the window displays. Argen was stricken with awe. Murmanesk was one of the most secluded places in the country. Such demonstration of wealth was rare even on the shards close to the capital. Murmanesk was immensely rich, no doubt about it. Argen even saw a heraldic carved in a blue dragon’s scale. Should not those creatures be all extinct now? Argen found himself looking at a shop selling quills and... Argen laughed. It was just an office supplies store. The stale name and symbol were written on an old plaque of ebony. An old red sofa had been erased from the frame with a plane a long time ago. It was a scrap and finding it in the Upper City was amusing. Everything was so shiny and artificial that the store plaque was slightly out of context.

Argen smirked and passed his way. In spite of the freezing looks he received, today was a good day. The sky was filled with yellowish clouds. Only the sun and the black and scary hurricanes reared their head in their respective place; the West and the East. As always; the forever lost blue sky was out of reach, hidden behind the curtain blanketing the world. Yet, today, no northern wind was here to freeze ponies to the bones. No flooding rains from the West and no signs of chaos from the population were noticeable. The city was strangely peaceful.

Argen finally reached his destination. It was a monstrous building. Eight stories high, the old architecture was impressive. Showing off majestic colonnades, the front square bordered two gates of silver.  And exposed before them, four statutes of bronze beamed under the low sun’s light. Four massive, metallic pegasi in flying stance crossed their hooves forever at the centre of the square. Argen felt minuscule when he passed under the quartet. He could now feel that fear everypony had when they were passing by his side. A blend of scariness and respect filled the emissary’s heart and he stopped. Argen chose to take time getting a closer look to the statutes. They have been undoubtedly created by the same sculptor.

Respecting parity, two mares faced two stallions. The first mare was holding a curved sword under her hoof. Complete plate armour covered her carnal body, only giving to see her face. The tip of her wings showed sharp metallic extensions, razor edges. Argen had heard about such tools. It was a deadly and horrific weapon only a few pegasi had mastered. The mare’s stare was imperious, filled with violence and unforgiveness. The visitors had to pass under her mighty eyes to enter the gate, strengthening the ill-feeling in every heart.

The second mare was dressed in a long and folding toga. A majestic golden branch of laurel circled her head like an empress’s crown. She had a foal in her left hoof, wrapped in swaddling clothes. The foal was silently crying. She beamed kindness. Yet, stillness was readable on the statue mare’s face.

Argen swivelled on his talons.

The first stallion was bulky. His features were filled with satisfaction. In his left hoof was held a complex brass compass. From his saddlebag hung on his bag sprouted hundreds of scrolls displaying runes and writings of a language that was now dead. He showed no weapons but a purse of ingot and a gear at his side. The last pegasus, as well as the second stallion contrasted with his three peers, as the statue showed an unsettlingly common appearance. It was slender and adorned with a few scars. Its bare stiffs showed a space emptied of cutie mark. In the end, the statute pictured a simple and anonymous pegasus closing the circle with his fellow peers. Argen tried to find words to describe the scene.

Each sculpture tended a hoof to the centre of the circle. Together, they held a scroll onto which was carved ‘Nation’. Together, they shaped a gargantuan play forcing respect into any witness’s mind. Argen lowered his eyes. Each pedestal was engraved with a single word.

“Power, Family, Industry and Unity,” Argen whispered.

“Eeyup.”

Argen tilted his head to the side. An old pegasus trembled on his hooves next to the investigator. He was looking at the sculptures with admiring eyes.

“You carved them?” Argen asked.

“Nope. My father did, a long time ago,” he replied. “I’m just the clean-up pony; I make sure that my father’s work keeps doing good impression on foreigners.”

“You do a good job,” Argen stated.

“Thanks.”

“But I don’t like the sculpture,” Argen added, vexing the pegasus. “You said truth; I’m a foreigner, an outsider. I can respect this sculpture but I can’t like it.”

Argen looked away from the statutes and fixed his eyes on the monstrous building. Constructed like a hemicycle, it overwhelmed anypony standing on the entrance square with its heavy shadow. Behind the windows Argen saw crimson velvet curtains and hundreds of blue lights cast from arcs hung on the walls. Such display of technological wealth was a waste from Argen’s point of view. But as was the government’s will to impress any commoner.

Argen pushed the gate inward and was welcomed by a pair of guards. He showed a pass and went up the marble stairs.

“Welcome to the Duma,” warned the clean-up pegasus from his position.

Argen sniggered and passed through the wooden doors of the Duma. The vestibule was massive and arrayed with the same red velvets he had seen from the outside. Mirrors and gold embellished the place that was so large Argen felt at ease. He could move freely without the fear of bumping a million bits worth jar of dirt. After a moment of amazement, the emissary walked past the vestibule toward a mare attending the reception. She was sitting behind a desk of varnished wood; and she was an earth pony. Argen fixed the space where the missing wings of the pony should have been for too long as the mare cleared her throat, calling the bird back to reality.

“How can I help you?” she asked with a fawning accent.

She was not pleased about Argen pointing out she was an earth pony and was not hiding it. She had a notebook in front of her eyes. Rows of names were written with a beautiful scripture and few drops of ink were scattered on the bottom of the sheet. Argen remarked the quill to blame in the nearest trash can.

“Yes,” Argen initiated. “I’m here to request an audience to the Parliament.”

“You have a pass?” she nearly spat.

Argen sighed and checked his ventral pack. He drew a tiny briefcase and gave it to the mare. She found several sealed and stamped documents inside. A photo identified the bird easily.

“I’m Argen Tavis. I was delegated by the Direction to investigate on the shardfall,” he explained.

The mare looked at him with doubting eyes.

“I need to talk to the Duma right now,” Argen brought forward. “It implicates the war protocol.”

Argen got the response he expected. He always got this reaction once he had mentioned this obscure law. The mare hesitated, looked at the clock hung high on the opposite wall, lowered her eyes and gave up. She took a deep breath and put out of a drawer a small stamp. She took out one sheet of Argen’s case and hammered it with the seal.

“Have a nice day,” she admonished, faking gentleness.

The mare showed a path with her hoof, indicating the way to the chamber of the Duma. Argen walked pass the reception after a brief thanks. The building was a maze. Hundreds of empty rooms aligned endlessly through hallways devoid of ponies. The silent would have been oppressing if a distant buzz had not been audible. The noise intensified when he went around a corner.

The walls were decorated with paintings and pictograms of current and previous representatives of the Duma. Over the past one hundred years, the place had seen more than a hoof full of politicians. The paintings were large and their eyes seemed to watch upon the bird with unblinking stares. Argen wanted to rip them off the walls and tear them down. He hated being watched, even by paintings.

Cacophony was slithering from under a massive door of oak wood. Grating on their hinges, the gate swung open under Argen’s strength. Raising his head, Argen scanned the parliament. Half of the seats were occupied by nothing but emptiness and the rest showed scared pegasi. They had been interrupted in the midst of a hot debate.

Built as a levelled hemicycle, rows of seats circled a stage. A single pegasus sat there behind a granite desk. He was old and slender, and his tanned fur had turned white. His eyes were burning with an inner flame. He looked at Argen in silence. The assembly on the other hoof was shouting threats and queries that turned inaudible in the ambient din. The chairpony at the center of the room raised his voice, stern and deep. Everypony shut up and dug their sides in their respective chairs.

“You’re the investigator?” the head of the chamber asked.

Argen nodded in silence.

“Well, you’re late,” the pony berated.

Argen hid his laugh. It was comic. The small pegasus was yelling at a black monster who could swallow him in a bite.

“I’m sorry Chairpony, but some unexpected events slowed my pace,” Argen deadpanned.

“Well, I’m impatient to hear about your discoveries.” The president of the Duma glared daggers at his peers. “The Direction has pressed us like apples to get the pit reopened as fast as possible.”

Dark rings plagued the chairpony’s eyes. He was tired and obviously angry. And at the moment, everypony was a convenient stock for his temper tantrum.

“Indeed, I’ve done quite a job since my arrival. I was given to see some evidence from Hoofston’s fallen shard.”

“So it was Hoofston’s,” some voices whispered.

“Yes, it was,” Argen pushed forth. “Within the smoke and debris I found the last remains of the shard’s lighthouse. Inside was a pictograph record.”

Every pegasus jumped on their hooves, willing to hear the following development. Argen snickered. Being this taken into consideration after being nearly thrown away by all of them was somehow rewarding.

“Do you know anything about the pegasi sent into the East?” Argen cackled.

A wave of whispers welcomed the emissary. Members of the Duma were bluntly scared. Some hooves trembled, kicking the parquet loudly.

“You’re speaking of the penal legion, aren’t you?” somepony asked.

“I guess so. But I’m here because I have questions, not to answer yours.”

“Damn, I knew that idea of the Direction was going to backfire on our arses,” the same pony growled.

“It’s not something we usually speak about with civilian pegasi,” Another politician added. “We avoided any reference to it to be honest.”

The pegasus’s nearest neighbour cut him off.

“It’s a good way to get rid of the unwanted pegasi. Those traitors are bad examples for earth-frees and earthbounds.”

“A pegasus returned,” Argen revealed, stopping the beginning agitation right away.

The silence was numbing.

“Is that some kind of joke?” the chairpony finally had the courage to say.

Argen shook his head.

“No. A pegasus came back from the hurricanes… and apparently, he was not alone.”

Argen was making things worse to stand for anypony. He was not even over yet.

“He came with something that may have brought down Hoofston’s shard. But of such threat, I’ve found no evidence.”

Argen paused and caught his breath. He disliked what he was going to say.

“I can’t tell you what happen there. But I can tell you what did not happen. Magic Erosion, that bane, is to be put aside. Second, we’re too distant from the Republic for it to be the origin of an attack. And it is not an uprising, Hoofston had a research purpose. It was to study the East weather’s outbursts, thus only scientific and militaries were present. Of course it was the last ground before the great nothingness of the hurricanes.” Argen paused.

“And now that Hoofston’s shard is lost for ever, Murmanesk has become his replacement.”

Argen clattered his talons on the wooden floor. Nopony wanted to hear that truth, but the inspector continued.

“Murmanesk is now the most remote land of the Federation, good job and good luck.”

The statement was harsh and stressful.

“You won’t let us down now, will you?” a fat pegasi asked with anger.

“No I won’t,” Argen replied with a twisted smile, dunking the ugly pony in his chair. “I’m here to talk about the war protocol.”

Argen’s grin of cynicism unsettled more than one.

“You know that the war against the Republic is a long-lasting, bloody and merciless show of power,” Argen stated. “In my role of emissary and investigator, I have to report any trouble within the nation to the capital. And this means I will have to report the recent events here.”

“So go forth, mister,” the chairpony replied, unhappy about it.

“There is only one tiny issue right now,” Argen purred. “I have been signified that you had to take upon an uprising after the shardfall and that you perform a… quick cleanse of the Lower City. You clearly know that the Federation is currently lacking of workforce…”

“Like the Republic,” a pegasus cut him off. “It’s a war to death, remember? And the renegades aren’t helping. At least we know that the enemy also has its own inner troubles. But it still means that we have to crack down on every earthbounds’ revolts… while it’s still in the womb.”

Argen frowned with disgust.

“Welcome to reality, mister Argen.” The chairpony grinned. “We are stuck into an endless war with the Republic. The total annihilation of our common enemy is the last resort we have. To bring back peace is what we’re fighting for. And if we need to sacrifice the well-being of this generation for the future of those yet-to-be born, I’ll do it. Twice.”

The assembly approved loudly.

“If we need to wipe out Murmanesk’s earthbound population to keep the Federation moving on ideologically, economically and of course, militarily, we’ll do it,” the chairpony concluded. “I think there are plenty of unemployed ponies in the country who would be glad to take upon the traitors’ jobs and make the trip to our shard.”

“Well this is not the topic of the discussion. Do not deride,” Argen bashed. “I’m talking about the war protocol. This means that currently, I can overthrow you for going against the capital’s will.”

The chairpony gulped.

“However, it is not my intention” Argen reconsidered. “I am preoccupied by the reason behind Hoofston’s shard downfall. And I have to clear the fallout zone to find evidence. Yet, I can’t do it all alone; the area is too vast for me to clear. In virtue of the war protocol, to protect the Federation, I am requisitioning one hundred ponies to check the whole area.”

Whispers spread like wildfire between the pegasi.

“You can’t do that. We need to keep the industries going on. For the secret project…”

The anonymous politician covered his mouth with both of his hooves. Stares riveted on him as he had done the biggest mistake ever. Argen could not stop himself from smiling. Since he had landed on Murmanesk’s shard, he knew something was off. This was the confirmation.

“Yes, thanks for confirming my suspicions. Following the war protocol and as an emissary, I command you to tell me what’s really going on here. Murmanesk’s seems to be a pearl in an ocean of mud. You’re too rich, too powerful and influential within the Federation for the geographical position you’re occupying. I would like to know the story behind that wealth.”

Every pegasus shouted in disbelief, anger and angst. The cacophony rose violently and echoed in the room.

“Silence!” Argen roared before lowering his voice to a brisk tone, “I need to know. If the Hoofston’s fall was an attack, I need to know why Murmanesk is so worthy of interest. You can’t build such an isolated city, from where no news and information go out, with only coal as a source of revenue. I repeat: there is something off happening here.”

The silence was hard to take, and only a clatter was audible. The chairpony broke it with hesitation.

“You’re right, mister Argen. We can’t go against the law and even more against the war protocol. But in fact, the secrecy about Murmanesk is something well known from the Capital as it is somehow an order from the senior level of the Federation’s power.”

Argen arched a brow. The clatter was clicking in his ears, annoying.

“So?” he asked.

“Murmanesk is the last shard providing gems for the Federation,” the chairpony stated with grief. “Every shard left except ours has gone out of stock. We’re the last shard and city mining useful gems for the war. It is our benediction and curse as well.”

The chairpony pierced Argen from side to side with his stare.

“This is a secret you’ll have to keep mister Argen. You may invoke the war protocol to get this information. But I use the same protocol to tell you now to shut the fuck up about it.”

The clatter, like the tick of the clock on the wall strengthened the tension in the hemicycle.

“But it’s not everything. We’ve discovered a new property of some gems. Something we didn’t expect… It’s…” The chairpony rose on his hindlegs. “That the one playing with his pen stop. That clicking is fucking pissing me off!”

Whispers…

“It’s not from anypony here,” a voice hesitated.

The chairpony looked around. Argen stared at his talons. He saw a pair of blue eyes looking at him from the opening of an ajar vent.

“G’d night Sir,” a voice with a strange accent toned from the pipe.

The pony a few hoof under fled in a wisp. Argen was stunned. The clatter came from there, stronger than ever. The clatter, the ticking… Argen looked at the chairpony, who had heard too. Argen burst open his wings, knocking out some pegasi with the blow. He jumped in the air, reaching the ceiling.

An explosion of blue and white followed, crackling in the hemicycle with arcs of electricity. The lights shattered and only screams rose before being silenced forever.

The harbour was agitated today. Pegasus were landing and taking off continuously, pulling their flying carts filled with goods. On the runaway stood an old pegasus. With a notebook he took the identity of each pony entering and leaving as well as their shipment content.

He did so for an hour and, tired, swapped with a colleague as he took a pause from his shift. Next to the harbour was the guards’ garrison. The pegasus entered and took a seat in one of the comfy chairs left empty in the living room. Coffee had been poured in cups and displayed on a table. He snatched one and drunk it slowly.

“Hey pony! What’s up?” a pegasus joined the empty circle of chair.

“Mmmh?” his counterpart replied, focused on drinking his cup.

“Well you’re not very talkative today…”

“I’m just concerned by the shardfall, my son is in the frontline guard and he was called this morning from his day-off to go into the pit. I’m afraid of what could happen to him,” the drinking guard sighed.

“Don’t worry bro’. Your son is going to do well. What do you think we are? We are Pegasi, not the vulgar crowd bound to the dirt.”

The pegasus father waved his hoof toward his friend, sweeping away his argument taken right from the propaganda.

“Nah! You don’t understand. My son is in the highest rank of the military. It’s not his role to go and baton the uprisings. Something really dangerous should have happened.”

They both shrugged.

“He’s gonna be fine!” the second pegasus assured. “Last time I’ve seen your little colt he was as bulky as a cart.”

“That’s not the matter. It’s just that it’s the first time he’s called for such trivial work. I’m worried. I…”

A flash burst through the windows. The earth growled and rumbled. A loud crack blasted the walls and the glasses in every frame shattered. The loudness deafened the ponies on the harbour. Within the garrison, the two ponies stood up, holding their ears with clumsy hooves. The torn apart curtains waved and clacked on their rods as the wind blew through the broken thresholds. A massive cloud of black smoke rose over the Upper City. They could see flames from their position, blue flames.

“This is bad,” The pegasus father’s friend gulped. “Where is your son, you said?”

“Near of the pit, in the North of the city… with nearly all of the guards.”

“This is really bad…”

A second explosion boomed, an aftershock.

Argen hauled himself from under the chunks of concrete burying him. He grunted and pushed on his talon to surface. Dust and remains of the Duma building dropped on his wings, torn and broken. He cried his rage and opened his eyes. He was bleeding.

The hemicycle had been blasted out, replaced by a massive hole in the construction. The wind, melting with aching smokes, slapped his face. The harshness of the air burned his lungs. The fire had lit the crimson velvet curtains of the chamber and flames consumed all around Argen.

“Nothing to brighten up my day, ain’t ya?” he whispered in pain with nopony to hear him.

A blue flame licked Argen’s leg. He fell on his side, feeling his feathers searing. Grumbling he violently preened the burning ones off. He coughed. The dust in the air slithered in his eyes. Argen crept away from this deadly place. Argen scanned the surroundings. Dead pegasi were strewn within the area, torn apart, broken, burnt, ugly and distorted. He heard a complaint and a hoof bumped his claw. Next to him, an emerging form trembled, lying under a lintel of wood.

“Help…”

Argen bent toward the body. It was the chairpony. Crawling, his hindlegs joints were reverted and bleeding. Two ribs jutted out of his thorax. He was hissing loudly. Gargling as blood drooled in his lungs, he was a limping-dead pony. Argen could do nothing for him. He put his talon on his neck ready to snap it and bring rest to the wreck of a pony facing him.

“You wanted to know why the gems are so important?” the chairpony gurgled. “Eh, eh, eh…”

Argen’s eyes narrowed.

“Spit it out! You’re dead anyway,” the bird warned, tightening the embrace of his claws on the rag-doll of bleeding meat.

“Dying with a look of disappointment on your face would be satisfying enough. You, sub-races, are always fucking everything up. We, pegasi, always have to sweep the dirt behind you all,” the chairpony smiled. “We did so for more than a hundred years.”

Argen grinned. He raised his talon, reaping the pony from the ground. And with his beak, the emissary cut the sinew off the pony’s hoof. The pegasus screamed.

“You’ll beg for death,” Argen stated. “Now tell me, you have a foal, a filly or a colt, haven’t you?”

The pony widened his eyes.

“You won’t?” he beseeched.

Argen smiled, this kind of bluff always worked. The fact he was an investigator helped, a lot.

“I will,” he sniggered. “Now tell me and your death will be fast.”

The pegasus quivered and slowly confessed.

“The gems, you know the pictographs… You think they are artificial products?” the pony crackled.

Argen screwed his pupils to the size of pinpricks.

“Spill…”

“It ain’t. They are magic,” the chairpony brought forth before Argen nearly squeezed his neck, unconvinced.

“Magic…” Argen hesitated. “True magic is dead one hundred and eleven years ago during the event, you liar.”

“No, you don’t understand. The gems… some of them… are medium to see the past and the present like recording devices.”

The pony started panting. Death was beckoning close to him.

“Nothing’s new here,” Argen deadpanned.

“They can also show you the future… Some of them… just a few.”

Argen dropped the pony, shocked.

“Repeat me that, you liar!” He shrieked.

It was too late. The pony’s neck had broken in the fall. Argen cursed himself and after a long moment chose to creep out of the ruins of the Duma.

The Upper City was strangely quiet. Every pegasus had locked himself behind their heavy doors, waiting for the Direction to come and clear out the situation. In the distance a zoom could be heard. The clamour of ponies, crying, shouting, screaming… dying? Argen fretted. He wondered where Little One was.

Revelation stuck him. They were at the pit. Did they go down, deeper in the mine? What if the chairpony was right? It was bad. Argen quickened his path and tried to fly. Pain burst in his wings. He could only bounce on his chicken’s legs. It was not comfortable at all. He had to move fast. Time was running out if he expected to find Little One alive. The Direction was probably ready to exterminate the witnesses of a secret that could kill ponies and reverse the outcome of the war.

Stench…

A horrid stench plagued the air; nothing but a smell of burnt flesh and drying blood. Fire threw up while Little One gave two steps back in the metallic staircase. The lights had been blown out with a rare violence. Only the glowing liquid of arc lamps splattered the walls. The last flames surviving on the hard-hats scattered around made the shadows flicker in the gallery. It was grim dark; gore and revolting. Miners’ body parts were strewn all over the place. The walls of the tunnels were covered with blood. Intermittently, chunks of coal fell off the ceiling.

“What happened?” Little One trembled.

“An AA,” Fire gulped.

Little One gave him a bemused look.

“An arc accident. Look.” Fire pointed with his hoof the glowing blue particles stippling the whole cavern and the bodies. “They used explosives to pierce tunnels. One exploded during the preparation. And Candel…”

Fire stopped and shivered in silence

“Candel!” he shouted, scared. “Where are you?”

He dashed forward with a horrible anxiousness harassing his mind. Little One did not even try to stop him, leaving Fire turning the cadavers over, searching for known faces.  Grins of pained death welcomed him. Fire started crying as Candel was nowhere to be found. All around Mares, Stallions, fillies and colts that had just got their cutie marks were scattered, broken. It was revolting. Fire stopped on the corpse of a pony and wept. Little One came closer and saw the stallion whose burnt fur wet with Fire’s tears. The body’s white eyes had swelled and blistered.

“Who?” Little One asked shyly.

“Candel’s father,” Fire blabbered, distraught. “He… he’s dead. Candel’s father… is dead.”

The stallion had always been a great figure of the colliers’ union, and thus, of Murmanesk’s working class. He dedicated his life fighting for the well-being of the earthbounds. And now, he was dead. And more than anything else, it was a stupid death. Everypony would have bet he would finish on the pillory of the Duma and Direction for being a big mouth. But no… he was a damn good arc engineer, and he died stupidly in an arc explosion.

“It’s so… unfair.”

“Fire?” Little One hesitated.

The young pony replied with a grunt. Little One showed a missing wall. A whole side of the tunnel had crumbled down; blown away was a better description. The edges of the hole, ten times the size of a pony, opened on a dark place.

“Your friend doesn’t seem to be around,” Little One explained. “If she survived, she must have gone down there.”

Fire raised his eyes, wiping his tears, and stared in the obscurity beyond the threshold. He gulped.

“Well, I guess we have to go inside...”  Little One squeaked. "Maybe she is in there."

Fire nodded hesitantly, the cavern was pitch-black.

Behind the two ponies, a corpse that had been flung against a spear of rock slid off its support. It fell in a loud thumb, startling Fire and Little One. By instinct, they jumped in the dark tunnel and stumbled. They hit the ground hard, head first.

“Are you okay,” Fire asked rubbing his forehead, wincing.

“Can’t see anything.” Little One struggled and bumped into something. “Oh sorry.”

“Wasn’t me!” Fire gasped.

They stopped and looked down. It was limp, squishy… pony-shaped. Fire and Little One craved for a light. From the opening the arcs had blown in the tunnel wall, the remaining and scarce light of the miners’ equipment casted a dull light in the cave. The weak beams lit up the form.

It was a pony, and a horrifying one. Lying on the side, the stallion had shrunk on itself. Wrinkled and dried as if all the fluids had been sucked out from within his skin. His eyes had withered into dust, leaving behind two deep and black holes. His mouth was distorted in a last scream of agony. Fire and Little One felt suddenly dizzy. The new found body was not alone. At least a hoof full of ponies was spread in the chamber. None of them were alive and all showed the same horrific aspect of the first stallion. All was petrified in the same expression of horror. Their death should have been atrociously painful. But something was afoot. In spite of their mummified state, they all presented a brand new miners’ equipment, unstained if it had not suffered from the arc explosion.

“Candel?!” Fire shouted in disbelief.

“What happened here?” Little One blabbered.

“They are just old rags.” Fire shrugged before taking a deep breath. “Candel?”

“No,” Little One countered. “They are colliers from your friend’s shift.”

Little One kneeled near a dead mare and triggered on her hard-hat, bursting a tiny flame from its mechanism. Now lit up, the colt could picture the cadaver. The mare’s metallic tag twinkled in Little One’s hoof, a name was punched on it.

“Let me see,” Fire deadpanned, unconvinced.

Hurried, Fire bumped Little One and took the tag. Argen’s assistant fell over loudly and pushed aside the mare’s hard hat. It rolled and clinked against a wall. A humming noise filled the atmosphere, scaring the two colts. Both young ponies raised their eyes as a slow blue wave spread on the wall, refracting the light coming from the hat. The surface was covered with hundreds of gems. All started pulsing with energy. Reflections of blue and green beamed in the antechamber. Fire and Little One screwed their eyes. The sound amplified up to an unbearable level. They covered their ears with their hooves and stared at the wall. A violent crack burst out in the cavern and echoed deep inside it. The light, glowing within the gems until now, converged in one big raw diamond. It focused and weaved out of the translucent rock.

As the glimmer snaked in the air and began to shape, a voice rose from the emptiness. A deep clamour of a stallion, wounded, angry, in disbelief.

“… can’t do that to me! Why did you send me there? I’ve sacrificed everything for this moment and now you’ve fooled me and ask me to throw my goal away! You sick goddess!”

Little One and his counterpart looked up. In the depths of the cave an image was standing still. They went closer to the stageplay. The character of the image, an earth pony, was a bulky stallion covered with scars and filth. Similarly to the pictograph he had seen earlier, Fire could not distinguish the colour of the stallion. The light pouring out of the gems was bright blue, so was the pony playing in front of him. Little One was amazed. It was coming from a raw gem still stuck in the wall, untouched. The foal’s mind boggled as he could not figure how this was possible.

The stallion’s talking image had a massive contraption on his left hindleg, up to his knee, like armour. His cutie mark was blurred, maybe covered with dust… or blood. Apparently, he had several cuts and was bleeding from his eyes. On his side was attached few weapons. The first arm was a spear. Not the one the Direction’s soldiers usually used. It was a forged spear. Its tip was large and heavy, and the shaft was made of wood. He also displayed a strange mechanism neither Fire or Little One could identify, a series of flat disk hung on a strap.

The stallion had talked to somepony outside the frame the gem had recorded. But when the protagonist’s voice rose, there was no doubt it was a mare; or a goddess if the stallion was right.

“You went through this epoch, and you’re still asking why? You’ve always been so stupid. Open your eyes. Everything was written even before the beginning of your own existence. Everything sticks to the plan, my plan.”

The image of the stallion flickered. A clatter echoed and a knife bounced at his hooves. A second clatter followed outside of the frame. The stallion’s look was heart-breaking. His face was deformed with disbelief, fear and anger. When his eyes left the knife, he could not stand steadily on his hooves.

“No, you can’t force me to make this choice. It’s unfair,” the stallion stammered.

“ But you will,” she took time to spell. “ Because nopony else was meant to do it. There is no escape for you. Choose one of the two solutions I offer you. Prove to me that heroes… there are no more. ”

From her position the goddess laughed at the stallion cringing on his hooves. He wept from the weight of the heavy burden thrust on his shoulders. He could not do the right choice and the stallion knew it.

“Now son,” the so-called goddess ordered. “Go forth and seal the future of this world.”

“I- I can’t…”

The image vanished in a pop and the light filling the cavern exploded in thousands of scintillating particles. They fell slowly on the ground, losing in momentum and brightness until they definitely disappeared. Fire and Little One came closer to the massive gems and put their hooves on its shining surface, waiting for some kind of reaction. Nothing occurred to their disarray.

“What was that?” Fire found the strength to blabber.

“I don’t know,” Little One replied, as shaken as his friend. “But, that shouldn’t be possible. Gems aren’t magic, are they?”

A third voice rose behind them.

“What are you doing here?”

The voice was harsh, deep, and military-like. Fire and Little One pivoted abruptly and found themselves facing a pegasus soldier. He was holding an arc spear in their direction. How long had he been there? Fire and Little One could not tell. They both gulped. The soldier looked around at the dead bodies. A polished round-shaped gem glowed at the tip of his necklace, casting so much light in the cave the flame of the hard-hat looked pitiful in comparison. For the first time, Fire and Little One got a clear view on the surrounding. The cavern was gigantesque; the ceiling was thirty ponies high. A patient enough pony could stack up a dozen of colliers’ cottages there and still get some space for a flying carriage.

A pair of wings passed over the pegasus’s head, ruffling his mane a little. A creature flapped mechanically and landed few meters away from him. Fire recognized it. He had seen the same model in the sewer. The small automaton was a bird made of copper and shining metal. His two red eyes fixed both colts. It stretched its wings and flew toward Fire only to print the mark of its talon in his forehead when it passed by. Few drops of blood slipped in his eyes. Fire felt a chill running beneath his skin, melt with pain. Was it the same automaton he had met during his escape through the sewers? A drop of sweat ran off his neck. The bird cackled and came back to its former position, next to the guard. Then it bounced to the closest shadow and disappeared.

“Answer!” the soldier ordered; his spear crackled with a spark of electricity.

“Ye… Yes mister,” Little One berated.

He punched Fire in the flank and yelled.

“Run!”

For a second, Fire and the soldier looked at the colt running away deep in the bowels of the earth. They looked at each other and Fire dashed away in Little One’s tow. The soldier shot at him with his magic spear before leaping behind the duo going deeper in the cavern. As expected, the air compressed mechanism thrust the tip of the weapon in Fire’s direction. It missed and exploded against the ground a few meters from Fire. The blue-furred colt felt pushed aside by the kinetic and electric shockwave. However, he did not stop and kept running.

As he fled from the soldier and his mechanical bird, Fire remarked that the cave was shrinking to a narrow tunnel where a small underground river was streaming. Little One jumped in. Without a second thinking, Fire followed and yelped as he felt falling. He hit the bottom of the tunnel and slid inside as the stream carried him away. It was sickening.

Fire landed on Little One and both emerged from the water falling on them. Panting, they had ended their race in a natural pool. The waters were terribly cold and when they finally put their hooves on its edge, they felt the chilling bite of the air. They wiped the water off their eyes. The newly found cave was a cathedral of stalagmites and stalactites that outmatched the height of the highest buildings of Murmanesk. Water burst out of the dark ceiling.

Lost in chiaroscuro darkness, the only present light came from an object displayed in the middle of the chamber. Getting over the coldness of this frozen chamber, Fire and Little One walked to the bright landmark. It was a grave, built of finely chiselled red gems. The light was coming from square-shape gems riveted to the stone. It was green, steady and unharmed by the time that had passed by since the erection of the grave. The tombstone was engraved with a simple sentence, it contained typos.

“Here lies last alpha of the diamond dogs,” Fire read. “died defending own wealth deep within the earth.”

The nameless epitaph was followed with a quote.

“Better break than bend,” Fire continued.

The buried diamond dog should have been a leader of a few words when he was still alive. Little One took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to picture how a diamond dog should look like. He had never seen one. Of course, everypony said they were all dead now. The only thing he had read about them came from Argen’s personal library, kept safe from the ravage of time and Federation’s revengeful army. Little One imagined a monstrous quadruped creature with bulky limbs and a mouth armed with rows of teeth like sharks. Like monsters, they should have glowing red eyes and probably a bad hygiene. But the stone mentioned wealth. They were diamond dogs of course, diamonds meant richness.

Yet, after scanning the surroundings, Little One felt slightly betrayed. This place was remote and forgotten, nearly untouched. The grave should date from even before the event that messed the world upside down. Nopony never knew the truth, but everything started in Canterlot. Canterlot, another word that had been devoid from its meaning. Did this diamond dog see it with his own eyes? Was it a city? A region? Little One sighed at his own ignorance.

A rumble forced Little One to snap out of his dreaming. He looked around and found Fire being busy over the tomb.

“Are you crazy?” Little One gasped. “Don’t you know that it’s disrespectful to scavenge the graves?”

“He won’t need anything anymore. And you weren’t so considered earlier with the miners.”

Little One’s mouth swung wide, but he said nothing. He took a closer look to Fire’s machinations. He had pushed the thin cover of gems sealing the top of the grave. The odour was unpleasant but with time, the smell of rotting flesh had lost in strength. Within the gem coffin was the skeleton of a massive creature; a monster of teeth and claws that would easily erase anypony off the surface of a shard. His claws were impressive. Little One smiled; it was not so different from what he had imagined.

“Now, hope that there isn’t any curse on that one,” Fire grinned.

The grave contained nothing helpful but an old and dusty book. Opening it, the colt gave a glance at it and hesitated. He looked at Little One and hoofed the book.

“Can you read it to me?” Fire asked.

“You can’t read?”

“I can!” Fire replied quickly, too quickly.

With a look of disapproval, Little One snatched the book out of Fire’s hooves and looked at the writings. After a loud sneeze, as the book was covered with dust, Little One started reading a random page. It was a diary. And surprisingly it was quite well written compared with what ponies would have expected from a common diamond dog. But the grave said it all. The tomb dweller was the last alpha and Little One remembered that this meant he would have been bigger, stronger and of course, smarter.

‘It’s the Last-Decade of the Late Harvests, the whining queen has come back! I can’t believe it. She messed with us few years ago with my clan and now she comes back. I can’t believe it at all.

And worse than anything else, she comes to claim our gems. And not any kind of gems, she wants the magic ones. Just… why? It’s our wealth, our treasure. She said she only need sample… But I know better. Ponies are all same. First, they ask for small gift and once you give it to them, they become unsatisfied. And then, they ask for more, again and again until you’re naked as worm.

I can’t let this happen at all. The underground is not their territory. It’s ours… mine. And I only deal with dragons and changelings. At least they are frank and easy to deal with. You give them gems, they give you fire and food. You give them gems, they give you gold. You give them gems and they give you lands.

Since new purple princess’s got to throne with the goddesses Moon and Sun, things go pretty bad for my liegedogs. Equestria grows too much. They thrive on my lands and push us away, again and again. They said it was for the greater good. Their greater good! Not ours. Everything is changing outside. They call it the era of science. I call it the age of bigotry and zealotry of ponies. All hidden behind their twisted methods and laws. They are always searching for power, knowledge and prosperity. And others, Diamond Dogs, zebras, Dragons, Griffons… No, not griffons… they work talon in hoof with filthy ponies. What we going to be? I remember words of young princess.

“There is no place in this world for backward cranky peoples.”

Oh, that gods of Under are my witnesses! I make her pay for that offense.

But I’m worried. Ponies thrive today while own citizens are suffering and starving under empty ceilings. We can’t fall for jealousy because one should know that annoying alicorns is tickling sleeping dragons. Sometimes it better to keep buried some dark knowledge because no one smart enough to understand. And magic gems aren’t toys you can freely use without expecting major issues.

They never ever get sample. They can go lick their horns to Tartarus and dance on Cerberus’s arse for me.’

Fire and Little One looked at each other. Little One found the will to break the ice.

“This is really old.”

“Just…” Fire hesitated. “Already above, they talked about goddesses… What are goddesses? And… alicorns?”

Little One gave back the same troubled face Fire showed.

“I have no idea.” Little One shrugged. “You went to school, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, school,” Fire laughed.

Little One raised an eyebrow, not sure to understand his humour. Fire kept snickering and walked away, leaving Little One to his own thoughts. The foal snapped out of his pondering.

“Wait, what are you going to do?” Little One asked.

“Look.”

The ground was marked with hoofprints. They were recent and were not those of Fire and Little One.

“Candel came here,” Fire assured, trying to convince himself rather than his friend.

“What would you do for her?” Little One asked rhetorically.

Candel’s trail, if it was hers, was easily tracked down. The ground was murky and with the shadows the gem above the tombstone casted from his pedestal, the path was blatant. One of the walls of the gargantuan cave had an opening on its side and carved in the rock was a staircase. Each stair was polished by the water streaming off the wall.

The ascension seemed to last for hours. When Fire and Little One thought they had finally escaped from the depths of earth, they ended in a narrow tunnel… another one. The opposite side had collapsed. And through the stones, a minuscule breeze licked the colts’ faces. After a short investigation, they found that somepony had crawled inside a small crack of the subsiding. Shafts of light poured from it with fresh air.

The outside welcomed Fire and his friend. The collapsing was covered with moss, proving the underground passage was long forgotten. They were a mile south of Murmanesk, and even from there, they could see the black cloud rising from the city. The smell of burning buildings was noticeable even from such distance.

“Is Murmanesk always that messy?” Little One asked.

Fire shook his head. It was not usual and with a shivering hoof, he sighed. Candel was nowhere to be found. From his position to the border of the city no white shape was noticeable on the green and murky landscape. Disillusion was important in Fire’s heart and the colt started feeling Little One’s exasperation. Fire feared the foal was getting tired of the adventure. He was just following Fire without asking questions.

“Come with me,” Fire finally offered. “My father will know better.”

Little One lowered his head and walked in Fire’s stead. The procession went short-lived. Two pegasi, flying high, leaped and tackled Fire and Little One to the ground. One carried a long spear which tip was not a sharp pike, but an open hoop of brass. Its inner side was armed with small blades, leaving enough space to welcome the neck of an unfortunate pony. The two ends of the metallic circle folded in a way that anything trapped inside could not go out.

The weapon clattered around Fire’s neck. A terrible pain spiked on his neck’s skin. The colt fell on the ground, giving up under the expert manoeuvres of the soldier and his vile tool. Crying, Fire bit the dust and jerked around. A kick in his flank shut him up. On his own, Little One had shrunk on his hooves, fearful. The second pegasus admonished him with dreadful eyes.

“My, my, my… Look what we’ve got here. Some younglings that fell from the nest,” both soldiers laughed raucously.

Whacked in the face, Little One put a foreleg on the ground, stunned.

“Earthbounds are ugly!” the soldier threatening Fire snickered.

Little One’s orange fur and blue mane indeed contrasted with Fire’s green mane and dark blue fur in an awkward way. But for both young colts, this insult was a direct shot to their hearts. The pegasi focused on Fire and his forehead. The flesh wound inflicted by the mechanic bird earlier had just coagulated, the blood melding with dirt.

“Where did you get this?” the armed soldier spat.

Fire refused to respond. The pegasus gave a turn to his weapon. The tips of the inner blades bit Fire’s neck, ripping off a loud scream from him. Fire bounced on the side trying to dampen the pain. From his position Little One jolted on his hooves, only to get his head smacked to the ground by the other soldier. Little One’s turban flew off and hit the dirt.

A grieving silence ensued.

“Just… how…” the soldiers whispered.

Fire raised his eyes and saw for the first Little One’s tip of his head. A large part of his forehead was marked with an atrocious scar. Where should have been his forelocks was replaced with a scarred piece of flesh. It was not a simple burn, it looked much more like somepony had carved and cut out a part of his skull only to fix the aftermath with a white-hot firebrand. Printed onto the legacy were the outlines of a crossed out diamond. Little One’s face was praying that this moment had never happened. He rubbed his disgusting mark and gave a pleading look at the soldiers, curled up and started weeping. The soldiers never gave him the rest he had silently asked for. Little One spat blood after several punches in his side. Anger and horror plagued the pegasi’s eyes, leaving Fire alone. They showed a blind hatred for the foal. Fire used this providential situation to get free from the weapon.

Little One cried, unable to give back the blows the soldier showered on his bruised body.

“Monster!” they shouted.

Anger rushing through his veins, Fire cried out and gave a buck to the first soldier, forcing the second one to swivel and face him. Quick to act, Fire shot a shingle in the surprised pegasus’s face. The soldier limped and fell, shaken.

“Run!” Fire ordered, pulling his young friend on his hooves.

They ran into the narrow streets of Murmanesk, but Little One was not in condition to run properly anymore. On the path, ponies eyed Little One with horrified eyes and backed from him like ponies from a leper. But something else was off; Fire could tell it from a greater fear casted on everypony’s faces.

After a glance back, Fire saw the pegasi flying low. Their intent to flee from the soldiers was desperate. The chase lasted for a dozen of minutes while Fire used as well as he could the maze Murmanesk was to dodge each attempt of the pegasi to get him. At some points, Fire even thought he had lost them. The two colts slowed down, hoping for a short rest to catch their breath.

“How did you get that scar and mark?” Fire panted.

Little One was still crying and his heavy tears fell off his cheeks. His lips were bruised and one of his eyelids had swelled, covering his eye. He refused to respond and his hooves failed him. Little One fell and seemed he would never move again. Leaving him for a second, Fire looked around. Everypony was numbed with fear and agitation. The noise filling the city was deafening and, a few streets from where they had stopped, he could hear explosions, arc weapons’ explosions… Fire turned around, trying to stand still as hundreds of earth ponies cavorted.  A white shape caught his eyes.

“Candel?” Fire called. “Candel?!”

Nothing.

Little One glared with tired eyes at his friend.

“I’m a unicorn okay!” he blabbered. “A should-be-dead damn unicorn.”

Fire turned back and stared blankly at Little One.

“A what?”

A shout in their back echoed. The messy crowd jumped on the sides of the boulevard revealing the two pegasi and, at least, a hoof full of stooges. The shouted in Fire’s direction orders to get him dead or alive. Fire, back on track, pulled his friend up and jumped into the neighbouring street. The chase resumed and lasted until Little One and Fire dashed inside the latter’s home. They slammed the door on their hinges.

“Dad!” Fire cried out.

A loud bang smashed on the door which cracked. Still pulling Little One, Fire clambered up the staircase and burst into his family’s living room.

“Dad?!” Fire repeated. “Dad, we need help!”

His eyes lay upon the vestibule and his voice went hesitant.

“Dad?”

Fire’s father was busy manipulating a box of glowing explosive arcs with another Earth Pony the colt had never seen before. A second bang echoed from downstairs. A drop of sweat fell off Fire’s face. His father’s head rose. The large stallion’s stare stayed locked on Little One’s features for a dozen of seconds until a new bang made the walls tremble. Then, his eyes transfixed Fire.

“What have ya done?” his father breathed.

His voice was deprived of anger or rage. Only sadness and resignation was blatant in his tone. A third bang rumbled and the sound of a door shattering on the ground reached everypony’s ears. Fire saw his mother and sister entered the room. They were scared. Fire looked at his father, his lips quivering. He had made a huge mistake. Fire could only apologize.

“I… I’m sorry.”  

“We are walking on the middle of the roads

Without seeing the gifts far beyond its sides

And we are following nothing but the codes

Rejecting this century’s greatest rising tides

Why do we keep hurtling along the empty line

While we are seeking just a kind of a guide

What we’ve asked is nothing but a shrine

Where our hopes won’t always have to collide

Today we do affirm our right for freedom

To be free from the hordes up in the sky

So we’ll keep singing this rhythmic anthem

Until our voices get to break the dull lie

We took a coach to the racks of the Death

Laughing our asses at its damn sorry face

We will sing till we’re all out of breath

Because this song is a motherfucking race

They will hear our cry from North to South

They will know that we ain’t wingers

And they won’t shut the darn mouth

That’ll keep carrying the spirit of singers

Of course the party will be getting hot

Boiling up with the buzz of the heathen

Sons go and sing what you’ve been taught

You know this fever, I know you’re bitten”

Scraps from a banned Earthbound song

Le Manes’s shard

Act I, Chapter Four - The Way Out

“Somepony once said that what make us truly beings is in what we do, not who we are deep within. And what I can tell is that I totally agree. Death is not the outcome of making bad choices. Death is the unwanted child of emptiness of choice.

Whatever the outcome of a choice, that it wages destruction and disgrace upon us, or that it spreads in our heart hopes and valour, a choice is always praiseworthy. Because making a choice is so difficult, because it doesn’t only commit yourself but the ponies around you, because a choice is a change and a change is a bearer of fears, because a choice is a trail to ruin, or renewal… And of course, because a choice is what writes down the scrolls of fate our own story and those we carry with us.

Ponies are meant to go beyond the obstacles and ordeals that are thrust on their path. This is why we make choices, sometimes. Otherwise we just die and fall in the ditches bordering the way, only to be forgotten. Henceforth, we could draw a line between the ponies who do decisions and choices, and those who don’t. However this mere discrimination is too simple. We have to go beyond such, if I want to repeat myself, simple-minded truth. It is just our accepted belief.

The truth is that there are, among us, ponies we could call ‘frontrunners’ and other we could name ‘icebreakers’. Throughout eras and ages, only a hoof full of ponies had been given the hammer to shape the fate of Ponykind. Only a few were given the right to decide of the present and future of all. A future that somehow, came to be the world we live in right now.

Among these ponies were admirals, warriors, heroes, peace-bringers or warmongers, conquerors and leaders, idealists and egotists. And all had only one idea anchored, not only in their mind but also in their true soul. An idea that drove them to do great or despicable deeds. Some wanted to hear once in their lifetime the rattle of weapons and horseshoes on barren lands of endless sorrows. Some only desired to listen to the peaceful chirping of the paradise birds over the green meadows of the world, away from the growls of Tartarus.

All were motivated to fulfil this wish. And all made a fateful choice that changed everything. But among them were the frontrunners and the icebreakers, two opposed kind of ponies.

The frontrunners are the most impressive ponies that we could ever meet. They break barriers, overthrow records and stomp the scorched soils of their times, claiming the world as theirs. For their own ideas, they will lead, they will fight, they will kill and they will die. For their ideas, they will run to the war, first to come and last to away, first to cry out and last to weep. Yet, they are only frontrunners. They stand only for their ideas, for themselves. They go through the ordeals and predicaments all alone. They will survive whatever the costs. They will fight whatever the causalities, and they will sacrifice anything for their ideas. For these ponies, everything has a price on the altar of their biggest dreams… their greatest sins. And this, in the end, will consume their soul, making them monsters.

The icebreakers are scarce among the ponies that stand out of the anonymous crowd. This makes them even more precious than they are fragile. Like the frontrunners, they face and stand still in front of events that shatter realms and break worlds apart. They are the instigators of change. Their deeds are epoch-making and will bring the greats to their knees only to give us a new dawn of time, a fresh start. They do move forward as they will walk through rain and fire. They cross the seas and climb mountains to give what they think right its rightful place within the cosmic order. They are the ponies we need when the darkest corners of the world are filled with unspoken and atrocious monsters. They are the ponies that fight in the dark, the ones that go forward.

But unlike the frontrunners, they do not fight only for their desires, they also fight for principles they may not understand clearly. Yes, they are the ponies we need… but do we deserve them? They do not run for themselves. They break the ice. They open the way, pave it and mark it out for the ponies that follow them. They share their treasures and keep the burdens for themselves. They are the biggest insult Ponyking could spit on the face of Fate, as they are the one that can break destiny itself. Icebreakers carry worlds on their shoulders. But even titans of steel, they have feet of clay. They rise, fight and fall like flies. But the print they leave on the world remains indelible.

Ponies choose to be frontrunners as they hold their desires higher than anything else, and will never yield. Ponies do not choose to be icebreaker, but they do choose to accept this plight. They choose to carry the desires that may not be theirs on their shoulders because they know, or at least think, it’s what has to be done. Icebreakers are not heroes; they may carry the wrong answers to the world. Yet, they are the ones that open the way. Because we all know deep within our souls that we are all ashamed by this simple truth:

‘We are all waiting for sompony’s hoof to help us out of our own misery.’

We are hoping for this fateful hoof. And this is why icebreakers are wonders among the frontrunners that are themselves beads among ponies. They did not choose to be in this situation, but they do choose to get it together and fight, not for themselves, but for others… for the weak.

We are all hoping for this helping hoof, yet we are not ready to make any choice. So, here is my question: ‘Will you choose to stay weak? Will you choose to be a frontrunner? Or will you accept to pave the way for others? Even if this means you will die!’

Candelabra”

The chiaroscuro cavern was swamped with an increasingly emetic smell. Corpses were piled up across the dirty floor and only one light poured from the arc-light hung to the natural ceiling. The beams reverberated onto the gems blanketing the walls. Diffracted, the light cast shadows of blue, green and purple everywhere in the cold chamber.

A group of military pegasi was inspecting, with caution, the grim spectacle with a macabre and scientific interest. They were a dozen, sporting the symbol of the Direction on the armour protecting their flank and stiffs, an identical washed-out blue bolt of lightning piercing a black rock. The emblem had no real signification, but for most of the pegasi, it represented justice and force. Valour that could slay the strongest enemies that could be found. But at the moment the only enemies in sight were dead bodies strewn across the cave. And the atmosphere was darkening bit by bit as nopony could solve the mystery revolving around their deaths.

“What caused all this mess?” one of the pegasus asked dryly, tired from taking care of some earthbounds’ remains.

“I have strictly no idea Lieutenant,” a private displaying a red cross on his shoulder responded. He was clearly not at ease. “I… I just don’t see any wound that would have killed them. They aren’t like the ones found dead in the first part of the cave; those ones only have bruises and burns from the arc explosion. These ponies died from something else.”

The soldier hesitated. Throwing away his disclosed disgust, he rolled a corpse over, giving its face to see. It was a dead stallion. Moreover, it was disfigured by a silent scream of agony. The state of the body was hard to describe. His eyes had shrunk like dried fruits. His flesh and skin had withered like an old and wrinkled parchment. Its tongue was dangling out of his mouth like a loose leather strap, ripped off by its charcoal teeth. Somehow, the body had been mummified. Yet, the stains of blood that had dripped on his collier’s barding were still fresh.

“There is neither internal organ deficiency nor haemorrhage,” the forensic continued. He was perplexed. “They just died.”

“That’s nonsense,” the lieutenant sighed, shovelling his anger down his throat. “It’s like they’ve been cooked on the hoof.”

“Not even, they just… died there.”

Not satisfied with the coroner’s answer, the lieutenant left him to his work and walked past a few other groups of Direction’s investigators. Nearly all of them were teamed up in duo. After a minute, he stood in front of a pegasus. He was encircled by two of his peers. He had hoofcuffs and was mumbling curses.

His comrades glanced at the lieutenant’s eyes and gulped. One of them tapped his restrained friend’s shoulder, who looked up. A pony could not be paler. By instinct, the soldier’s stare riveted on his hooves, not daring looking again at his chief. The lieutenant could read through emotionless faces like open books, he was used to such play.

“What happened soldier?”

The questioned pegasus kicked a rock away and swallowed his saliva. He gave a long and slow breath afterward.

“I nearly got them, Lieutenant, those little…” he blurted and stopped, seeing his superior was looking at him with a hard face. “Oh, sorry Sir. I’m just… I just messed up.”

“Care to explain?”

“I was the first one to go down the stairs. Pegasi can’t fly in the pit, it’s too narrow. I was the first to see the scene,” he muttered before raising his head, only to stare into his lieutenant’s eyes with a pitiful look. “Two young ponies’d intruded the mine with nopony noticing. I just don’t know how they went down here without being caught. And… they did something in that cave.”

The soldier pointed the wall of gems surrounding a creepy scene that would give nightmares to more than one.

“They activated some shit and I saw a pony talking, as if a pictograph was hidden somewhere.”

His curiosity tickled, the lieutenant cut off the soldier before he could go on with his story.

“And you let them fly away?”

“They…” The soldier wanted to burst out but lowered his eyes instead. “They just jumped into the underground river hole right there.” He waved a hoof toward a corner of the cave. A small stream was flowing in a wide crack. “I was too big to follow them.”

The lieutenant inspected the wall, many gems had been shattered by an explosion and were lying on the ground, scattered among the corpses. He screwed his eyes and inspected something hidden beyond the dirt. It was the tip of a pegasus weapon.

“You… You used an arc-spear?” the lieutenant toned harshly in the shameful soldier’s direction.

“Understand me, Sir. I… I tried to stop them!”

“And you destroyed something extremely important in the process. Well done,” the high-ranked pony berated, nearly clapping his hooves. “I’ll take care of you and your lack of discipline later…”

Again, the soldier’s face went pallid. Following the Lieutenant’s mood, he knew he could end with his head at the end of a spear for this mistake. He shuddered, trying to cast away the gory idea.

The muffled sound of hurried hoofsteps clattered in the tunnel nearby. It was noisy enough to be heard from afar. The lieutenant turned over and left the arrested soldier alone. He stood in the frame of the hole arcs had opened and waited. Another soldier leaped through the metallic staircase in the back of the tunnel. He was limping, holding his bleeding side with a hoof.

“Lieutenant! You need to know!” He panted and winced under the pain. “The Duma’s been bombed by insurgents.”

Many heads rose in the cavern, hung onto the newcomer’s words. Tension crystallized the ponies around. If it was true, the situation was more than serious. Everypony wanted to know the next developments.

“Earthbounds’re revolting again. It’s complete panic above us. We need all forces available to restore order. A chain of command has to be restored,” he cried out.

The lieutenant stared blankly at the pony a few seconds. He shook his head.

“Anything else that matters?” he asked, his throat dried.

“My team got what we think to be the bombers with their close families.”

The lieutenant’s face brightened. A grin sliced his face from ear to ear.

“When?”

“Maybe half an hour ago.”

“You got them all!?”

The soldier running with sweat sat down and inhaled.

The massive chunk that served as the door of the cottage burst inward. The sound of exploding wood left no doubt about it. Standing stunned on the second floor, Little One, Fire and his family heard soldiers enter. They smashed furniture and doors alike, searching for somepony, yapping like enraged dogs. Everypony felt sweat rolling off their faces.

A foal started crying below. Fire’s family was not the only inhabitants of the house. Unfortunately, the ponies on the first floor would pay for some deeds they were not even aware of. Louds bangs echoed. The foal’s cry stopped all of a sudden. The silence left behind was deafening, sickening.

Fire looked at his father with watery eyes. He could not formulate words. His mouth stumbled over them. His tongue was petrified with fear. And no sounds could slither out of his lungs. Fire was ashamed, pained and terribly sorry. He let out a pitiful hiccup. He remembered the harsh words of Candel’s father, ‘Ponies must not be sorry for anything. When a pony does a mistake, it is his duty to fix it’. These sentences bounced into the colt’s head. His legs failed him. He put a knee on the wood floor, and nearly faint. Truth was hard to take and Fire could only contemplate his powerlessness. He would die if he did anything. He would die if he did nothing.

“Dad, I…”

“Honey…” her mother added, seeking her husband’s attention.

“Shut up,” The bulky stallion replied. “Ah just need to think straight.”

The Earth Pony next to him grumbled.

“We have to attack, we can’t stay trapped up here,” he spat. “Plough, do you hear me?”

“Plough?” Fire broke in. “But Father, that’s not your n…”

A series of loud bangs echoed once again below. The walls shook. Fire’s mother hugged her two sisters, trying not having them crying. A waste of time. A voice shouting a raucous ‘clear’ rose from the first floor. The two young fillies started sobbing.

“There is somepony upstairs!” a voice toned.

Plough looked at his son, then at his partner. He still had the bag of explosives between his hooves. He grabbed one as horseshoes rumbled in the wooden staircase. He threw it in and jumped aside, pushing Fire and his wife over to protect them from the blast wave. The blue explosion shredded a wall of the house into pieces. Screams of pain rose from the rubbles that had replaced the stairs. The atmosphere went filled with dust and everypony coughed.

In the ambient chaos, Fire, his family and Little One had a short rest to build on. They needed an escape. Fire’s father bucked a window, shattering it to bits. Then he ransacked the kitchen and came back with a pair of knives and a table. Hurried, he ripped the latter from its legs. The neighbouring house was close enough to create a bridge with the remaining slab. He threw it into the gap, breaking into one of the frame built into the wall of the other cottage. He turned back and looked at his children. He was going to speak.

From the dust floating mid-air emerged a duo of pegasi, armed and ready to attack. Both sniggered.

“We order you to surrender,” they ordered. “Put your hooves on the ground and…”

One of the pegasi spotted Plough’s stooge. The stallion was standing his ground, blowing hot air with his nose. The soldier also saw the bag of arcs at the pony’s hooves. Negotiations ended instantly. The atmosphere went downward explosive.  The pegasus aimed and shot in a fraction of second, leaving nopony had the time to react. Fire closed his eyes and waited for an explosion. It never came. A disgusting sound burst instead. A gurgling.

The unnamed stallion gargled and kicked the bag of arcs aside in a jolt. Blood jetted from his neck, splattering the old and dusty parquet floor with large stains of dark red. The stallion trembled as he put his heels on a cable that thrust itself out of his throat. A thin barbed harpoon had gone through his neck, stabbing him from side to side. The jagged edge was linked to the mouth of the pegasus’s weapon with the cable. The stallion was desperate to set himself free. He crackled inaudible words and started fidgeting with pain and fear.

Everypony took a hoofstep back. Fire held his breath and winced. He raised a hoof to his neck, trying to chase the choking feeling away. Still flying, the Pegasus switched on a mechanism incorporated to the butt of his weapon. The cable began rewinding with a low whistle. The atrociously wounded pony jerked on his sides. The pain was too intense and he could not scream it out. Bubbles of red swelled and popped around his mouth.

Once again the stallion tried to get rid of the embrace of the harpoon struck in his throat. It was a horrible waste of breath. Like in slow-motion, Fire watched the pony getting pulled by the Pegasus, leaving behind him a large puddle of blood as if he was a useless mop.

Fire did not even know the stallion’s name. And he was already dead. Well, nearly dead. His starting body was reminding him of a dying bunny. Fire had seen one in Murmanesk’s market a long time ago. The tiny white animal had been passed over by a cart. Fire had watched meticulously the last moments of the animal with a morbid avidity. And right now, the dying pony was moving exactly like that bunny, pitifully… miserably, in fits and starts. A creepy comparison showed up in Fire’s mind. The pegasi soldiers had gone fishing and the stallion was the first catch of the day.

Fire swallowed his saliva when the pony gave up the ghost. He had seen him passing from a perfectly healthy stallion to the most miserable cadaver in less than five seconds. The colours of Fire’s face washed out, chased by an irrepressible crave to throw up.

A click rammed the ambient silence. The harpoon retracted its fangs and sliced back the dead stallion’s neck. Crawling on the ground, the edge took off and jumped back to its place, inside the mouth of the pegasus’s weapon. With an unsettling smile, the flying stallion stared at the collier family, stunned before him. Scanning them, he settled his eyes on Fire and Little One. He gave a look of utter disgust to the latter.

“We meet again you little pieces of shit,” he giggled and then transfixed the younger of the two colts. “I’ll take care of you first, aberration.”

The pegasus had a cut on his forehead. The shingle Fire had shot at him had left its mark. Small droplets of blood dripped over the pegasus’s face. The red outlined its traits, deformed with anger, pleasure and sadism. He was going to make him pay too. Behind the pegasus, the second soldier pull out of his military saddlebag a series of hoofcuffs. There were even pairs made for children.

“Now surrender calmly and nothing will go wrong,” The first military pony commanded with a slightly amused tone.

Fire’s father moved so fast nopony had time to bat an eye. The two knives he had brought from the kitchen had been lying on the ground. In a swift start he bucked them, aiming at the soldier carrying the harpoon. One missed but the other pierced through his fur and side. The soldier yelped and fell on the ground, shrieking from the pain. He dropped his weapon. The second soldier ducked to the ground, trying to reach it. A heavy hoof struck his throat hard. It flung him away from the harpoon. The soldier coughed, lying on the ground. He tried to catch his breath.

A hoof full of pegasi emerged from the dust still flying where the stairs had stood. Some had cuts and bruises. They had survived the arc explosion.

“Fire, you gotta flee right now,” his father shouted.

Fire nodded hesitantly. With Little One he jumped onto the improvised bridge. Ready to cross it, he gave a glance at his sisters. They could not move a centimetre. Stoic, their eyes were transfixed on the stallion’s dead body. Blood were splattered everywhere. Fire hesitated again. A wild instinct wanted him to come back in, to fight. Little One bit on his crackled goggles, pulling him away of the window. He made him cross the wooden bridge. Still looking at his father, Fire caught the stabbed pegasus fleeing away.

“Pay attention!” Little One shouted.

He pulled Fire over a second before a spearhead struck the makeshift wooden bridge. They jumped through the frame of the other cottage and a blue burst smashed the plaque into chips. Fire heard the cries of her sister resonated in his ears, followed by the roar of his father.

“So you didn’t catch the two colts?” The lieutenant asked with a dry tone.

The wounded pegasus shook his head. He was angry too. He rubbed his forehead and winced. His side was stabbing him. Two times he had been ridiculed by Earthbounds.

“You’re all fucking useless!” the lieutenant raged.

“We would have but… But the North quarters are a maze. It’s impossible to really manoeuvre through. Streets are too narrow, ponies are too violent,” he explained, ducking his head in his shoulders. “There are always causalities when we try something there. And you do know Sir that, at the moment, Earthbounds are on the loose.”

The lieutenant wanted to punch him in the face.

“What about the Duma?” he asked, hiding his inner feelings.

“I don’t really know. But some random news says that there’s a whole bunch of survivors. The families’re being evacuated toward the nearest shard until the uprising is over. The Upper City is being protected. And a curfew has been enforced. Earthbounds are shot on sight.”

The lieutenant sighed. It would be bad on his monthly report.

“I…”

“Lieutenant, you might want to see this,” a forensic called for from a corner of the cave.

The concerned pony swivelled and abandoned the soldier to his wounds.

“What do you want from me?” the lieutenant asked.

“Look at what I’ve found.” The medical examiner showed something stuck at the tip of a thin plier.

“It’s a white feather,” The lieutenant deadpanned. “What’s so interesting about it?”

“Do you see any white pegasus around?” the investigator wondered.

After a quick look at everypony around, the lieutenant shook his head.

“Now do you see a white pegasus among the dead?”

A second no answered back. The forensic was right. It was odd.

“Somepony else ran out of this cave.”

The lieutenant whispered some curses.

“Okay, keep doing the good job; I need to go to the surface. Pegasi above our heads need me more than you.”

Nopony replied.

“I need to help them,” Fire shrieked trying to run toward the broken windows. Little One held him back as much as he could.

“No you won’t, you’re just going to get killed.” Little One slapped him in the face. “You can’t do anything.”

“I…”

Fire held back a gag and looked deep in the eyes of this colt, two years younger than him. Forced to swallow his pride, Fire let tears flow on his cheeks. He sniffed. All had happened so fast.

They stood on the first floor of the neighbouring cottage. The house was empty of life but was a matter of second before pegasi would try to break through the door or the windows. Fire thought about his father, mother and sisters. They were so close, behind two walls of bricks, but somehow out of reach. Fire pictured the dead features of the stallion on each of his family’s faces. He shivered. His situation was hellish; for him, Tartarus had literally materialised in his life. Like a greedy maw, it had shattered and brought to ruin every hope and bonds he had lived with since he was born, years ago. He whined.

Little One patted Fire’s shoulder.

“We need to go.” He trembled.

“Crack that crap open, they must be inside,” a voice broke in through the interstices of the door.

A metallic battering ram banged on the door so loudly it brought Fire back to reality. The nearest windows shattered. A hoof slithered in the hole, trying to unlock the opening. Looking around, the two colts spotted a small window. Nopony was trying to go through. Was it an exit?

They threw a chair on the dusty glass. Breaking it, they jumped through and landed in the street. It was a narrow and dark alleyway between two cottages. Nopony was passing by at the moment. Yet it was a matter of seconds before soldiers rushed in to catch them. Two pegasus showed their heads in the passage. They shouted threats at the two colts. Both ran off in the opposite direction.

A hoof full of pegasi gave chase to the two young ponies. As expected, the colliers’ habitations were a labyrinth of small streets and paths. Back roads went through the ground only to surface a dozen of meters away. Keeping two moving shapes in sight was impossible. Byways were dark and impossible to fly through. It had been built over decade on the sole purpose to be a stronghold for the miners.

In less than a few minutes, the pegasi were already scattered, searching for any evidence of the two colts’ passage. Sometimes they did spot them, only to lose their tracks seconds after. It needed no time before the pissed off soldiers started barraging the ground. Anger was aimed toward any moving shadow. Whether it was a pony, a rat or their imagination… It did not matter.

“They’re here!” a pegasus called out, pointing with his spear two shapes weaving between two houses.

The chase started again.

Down below, Little One and Fire panted heavily, suffocating. The sweat blurred their eyes, paining them with a salty bite. Their manes were swamped with mud. The atrocious scar slicing Little One’s forehead was hidden under this layer of dirt. Once again they succeed in shaking off the soldiers. They turned left. A dead-end.

“Shit,” Fire let out.

“Found you,” a delighted voice cackled behind.

Turning around slowly, the two colts stared into the eyes of a pegasus mare. She was sweating a river while juggling with her spear. Joy was readable on her face and both Fire and Little One were sure she was going to enjoy the punishment.

“You sick kids made me fly too much for today,” she berated. “Time to go to sleep.”

Fire and Little One’s eyes widened with fear. The mare replied with a quick laughter and lifted her weapon, aiming at them.

“I don’t think so,” a deep voice denied behind the pegasus.

She was not given the time to face the unexpected newcomer. A massive claw cut down her back and buried her head deep in the mud swamping the street. Then, the huge shadow caved its talons into the mare’s back, throat and skull, making sure she would be quiet forever.

“Argen!” Little One beamed at the sight of the massive crow and jumped between his slender legs.

The colt hugged thankfully this figure, a foster father in his eyes. He patted the bird’s feathers, all moistened, humid and muddy. With a gentle pressure of his wing, Argen pushed Little One away. The orange clot felt sticky. He looked down his fur. It was soaked with red and shredded feathers.

“You… you’re hurt?” Little One blabbered.

Argen gave a short-lived cackle, trying to laugh. A sudden pain in his chest broke his mood.

“I’ve seen worse,” he coughed as if a knife was ramming his throat.

Fire stood between Little One and Argen, and let his stress flow out. He wept, his legs trembling, failing him. He fell on the ground.

“You must help me,” he cried. “My family’s just there, they need help! They will kill them!”

Argen sighed. And he whacked Fire with his claw, ripping off clumps of his mane, knocking him out.

Little One’s eyes widened in fear and shivered. He felt his mane itched like hell.

“Don’t hit me… master.”

Argen grinned ironically.

“I won’t. I just needed him to be quiet. I must take you out of here.”

All the events Little One had ran through rushed out of his mind in seconds. A heavy burden seemed to lift away from his shoulders. He sighed and fell.

“Are you okay?” Argen asked, hiding his worry deep behind his stoic face.

“I… I’m fine.” Little One paused and took a long breath. “This city is just a crazy hole.”

“This world is a nave of lunatics.”

Argen ransacked his ventral bag and took out a piece of fabric.

“Hide that wound, which I can’t endure to look,” he quoted.

His assistant chortled, and a tear rolled on his cheek.

“You’ll never tell me from where I come?” he brought forth.

Argen shook his head negatively and let out a small breath.

“It’s for your own security.”

Little One lay down the dirt, giving up his guard. The sounds filling the city reached his ears. He had been so focused on fleeing away he had cut himself from the ambient zoom. Distant screams burst randomly in Murmanesk, loud explosions crackled hundreds of meters from his position. He caught the whistling of a pegasus’s wings flying above him. A shadow in the sky passed by, unaware of Little One and Argen’s presences. Having narrow streets was a benediction, sometimes.

“We’ll go to the harbour. It’s the safest place at the moment,” Argen stated sternly. “I can’t work on the investigation with such mess. And…”

Little One shook his head, clearing his mind. Revelation struck him hard, like an alarm clock early morning.

“The mine,” the colt shouted.

He tried to get up. The adrenaline had worn off and the bruises covering his body pained him more than he had expected.

“The mine. There was dead everywhere. Sucked out like…”

Little One’s pupils went huge. Again he attempted to rise on his hooves but his backbone gave a series of small cracks.

“Like the pegasus in the tower!” he finished.

Argen stepped back, puzzled.

“That doesn’t make any sense. How…”

“That Candel, Fire is so fond of.” Little One gave a look at his friend, still unconscious. “I think there might be a link.”

Argen shrugged ironically. He doubted of it. Yet, a lot of things were off in this city. The ponies were crazy, the pegasi were… no pegasi were all the same everywhere in the Federation. This shard was not working sanely. Something had been brewing here for too long and was ready to explode.

“We go to the harbour right now,” Argen ordered, grabbing Fire’s inanimate body and placing him in his ventral pack. Little One jumped in and hid as much as he could.

Argen started walking. Limping was a better description and the pegasi flying over his head did not paid attention. Who was crazy enough to tackle a monster like that? Before disappearing in the next corner, Argen gave a last glance at the mare he had killed. Hidden by the shadows of the street she was silent, swimming in her own blood. Flies were already on her, savouring the feast.

The massive bird walked to an empty boulevard. Ponies had barricaded themselves in their cottages. Everypony outside could feel eyes watching upon them from behind every curtain. Argen shook his head and focused. In the middle of the road a group of pegasi were escorting four earth ponies. He limped in their direction, leaving behind some drops of blood. A soldier found the courage to stand before the bird and face him. His trembling limbs were easily spottable. The pegasus was utterly scared.

“You can’t pass, Sir,” He alerted with a shaky voice. “Those ponies are under arrest. They are accused of being terrorists. Those ones destroyed the Duma.”

The soldier paused and scanned Argen from head to tail. A piece of paper, dangling out of the ventral pack, caught his attention. A red symbol had been stamped on it. The pony’s mind went click.

“You were in the Duma, weren’t you?” he asked. “Could you recognize one of them?”

Argen took a closer look to the group of ponies. Two fillies were crying under their hooves-cuffed mother. A large stallion had been put aside. He was bloodied, bruised and panting. A large cut on his flank showed he had been swiftly tortured.

A pegasus smashed a baton over his legs. The earth pony yelped, bent and fell on his side. The fillies’ cries intensified. Argen stepped forward and leaned over the crooked form. The arches of the stallion’s eyebrows were broken. His eyelids had swollen and he had some jagged teeth.

The stallion looked up at the shadow covering him. His vision blurred, he blinked a few times. When he finally gazed into Argen’s eyes adrenaline kicked in his brain. His blue eyes widened. Instantly, he tried to repel his surprise. But it was too late.

“Speak,” Argen ordered.

The stallion refused to talk.

“Again. Speak,” Argen continued.

“Go fack yerself with an a’c-spear,” he murmured.

Argen growled. He titled his head toward the soldiers.

“Eeyup,” Argen stated neutrally. “I think it’s him.”

The pegasi’s features brightened with creepy smiles of content. Their stares were like daggers thrown at the Earthbound family. It was a matter of time before the stallion would be given another series of shots, bucks, smashes and baton strikes. Argen felt somepony jeerking in his ventral bag. Turning over, he gave a punch on it, mimicking a cough. The agitator inside went silent.

“What are you going to do with them?” Argen asked the military supervisor.

“They’re going to be executed on the harbour, hung or shot and left to rot as the law requires it,” he supported. “Well, I’d be glad to do it myself.”

The soldier kicked the stallion in the chest making his breath more erratic than ever.

“It’s a shame it’s an executioner’s duty.”

Argen shook his head sheepishly, pinching his beak. Again he felt something rummaging in his bag. Taking leave, Argen walked away swiftly and turned into another street, empty of life. Little One’s head ejected from one of the bag’s pocket. He was reddish with anger. He pierced his mentor with a killing stare, burning internally.

“Do you know what you’ve done?” he spat.

“I condemned a pony to death because he killed many others?” Argen shrugged then sighed. “Well, he will be beaten and tortured before… That’s sadder.”

“No,” Little One burst out. “You’ve just killed Fire’s father! And now everypony will see him being killed on the harbour.”

“You what?” a third voice rose, a bit muffled.

Suddenly Fire jumped out of the bag, his eyes red with tears, lost and flickering like candles. Awakening, he shot hurried and frightened looks across the street, searching for a landmark. Then, he ran away.

“Stop,” Argen shouted without conviction.

Fire disappeared in the next crossroads.

“Horseapples!” Argen enraged, and kicked the air in front of him.

The lieutenant flew past a flood of ponies. The mass buzzing in the street near the harbour was overwhelming like a torrent. Ponies were swimming against the tide. Ponies pushed each other fiercely. From his position, the pegasus waited for the moment a pony would fall, only to be smashed under careless stomping hooves.  

The harbour was not distant. From above and afar, the lieutenant could watch upon the devastation rampaging the city. Gargantuan clouds of black smokes rose slowly from the colliers’ quarters while in the background the eviscerated shape of the Duma was giving fumes and flames. The atmosphere was sombre, eerie. Below, ponies whispered that the night was coming. A chill ran over their spines and some stopped, trying to distinguish a beaming sphere low in the horizon. The wan sun stuck in the west was darkened by the ashes in the air.

The harbour was overcrowded by rows and lines of ponies; earth ponies being repelled, pegasi being selected. A terrible mess during a breaking records situation. Large shadows were cast upon the ponies waiting for a way out, caming came from three flying barges. Each needed to be manoeuvred by five pegasi, capable of moving slightly less than a hundred ponies. Attentive watchers could see that pegasi were the first to go in. The reason why they were the first was blatant. Why they needed to be transported was less evident; they could fly to the next shard. Of course they could, the only reason they did not was that shards constantly moved. Everypony needed navigators to travel, even the pegasi. And at the moment, they were at least two thousands of them hoping to embark.

The lieutenant shook his head. It would not end well. He landed near of the garrison. Another one, older, went out and ran across the square. The old buck hugged the lieutenant.

“Father, stop,” the lieutenant hissed with a low tone. “You’re shaming me.”

The older pegasus shed a tear.

“I was worried, with all that silly stuff happening around.” He swept his hooves in front of everypony, showing the chaos raging before him.

“What’s going on? How about the evacuation alert?”

“It’s all going smoothly,” the older clarified. “The very important ponies are evacuated first. Others can wait. They are transferred on other shards until the troubles and delinquencies are crackdown, mended and fixed.”

He emphasised on the four last words with a growing angry tone.

“I…” the Lieutenant started but his voice died in his mouth.

His glare scanned a crowd moving like one mass of mindless insects. His pupils contracted to pinprick. Something was afoot. Was it that old buck, his flank bleeding? No. Was it that mare, conducting her child toward a less agitated area? No. He could not figure it out. Unless…

He spotted her. A pegasus, a white filly trotting by, lost in the ambient mess. White feathers, scruffy fire-coloured mane, pegasus’s wings hung to her back, and a pair of wing-cuff screwed on them.

“Meh,” he smirked, scowling at her. “A fallen.”

And she was white-feathered. The lieutenant focused. Was it blood smearing her immaculate face?

The soldier raised his hooves, notifying his father to wait. Like a shadow, he crept toward the filly, willing to follow her. She was limping, roaming among the ponies hurrying around her. She did not seem to have a clear destination.

The wandering filly was splattered with mud, and blood. The lieutenant rubbed his eyes. She was not wounded at all. Well, she had bruised and trembled, but she had nothing that would soak her with this much blood. She appeared minuscule among the crowd. Yet she was inspiring interrogations, fear, and of course, disgust. Ponies backed away from her with a wince. The pegasi, the pure ones, even insulted her. However, the filly was not paying attention.

She crossed the way of a pair of guards. Spotting her, they smiled and move in her direction. The lieutenant refused to interfere at the moment. The civilians stepped back, leaving a fairly large space to the three ponies. Forming a circle around them, the ponies gulped, knowing what was going to happen. Mane itched and ears twisted. The soldiers were often cruel and messy. Foals were among the spectators and many parents hoped it would not end in a gore bullying. They had to preserve their children’s innocence.

The armoured ponies stood in front of the white filly. Slowly, she raised her head, making the guards shudder.

Everypony around whimpered and stepped back again. The lieutenant dug his path through the ponies, forgetting to use his wings. Some ponies cursed but many were glad to put a pony between them and the scene. The lieutenant understood why. The filly…

“It aches,” she whispered.

Her mouth dangled wide opened and through the gap between her white teeth slithered a dark red drool. Her sweaty mane flowed over her forehead and neck like a liquid-fire. Dust covered her hooves and her tail was torn in many locations. The scariest was not all of this. It was her eyes. Two white burst open globe deprived of pupils and irises stared aimlessly toward the guards. The tiniest remain of smile had left their lips, now cast with fear.

Her cutie mark was beaming a pale blue light. Burning like a small flame. It was frightening and ponies shivered on their hooves, giving a step back. The lieutenant had never seen a cutie mark moving on itself. And the weak fire on the candle’s wick was flickering randomly, hypnotic.

The filly’s muttering were not loud, yet everypony around could hear her. She hesitated on the same syllable for a minute. Repeating‘e’ again and again like clockwork until it died in her raspy throat.

“It hurts so much,” she whimpered direly.

The lieutenant’s pupils contracted.

“What’s hurting you?” he asked with a quite spooked voice.

“The world,” she foreshadowed. “This world is dying and…”

She stopped, looked around, and growled.

“Everypony will die soon. They have to.”

This last sentence echoed more than it should have. Ponies trembled. A soldier stepped forward, glanced upon the moving cutie mark, then the wing-cuffs.

“Silence, you little witch!”

He raised his spear and knocked its butt onto her face. She shrieked and leaned on her side, curling up. She began sobbing. Three more blows struck her hard. Blood splattered the asphalt. Ponies, Pegasi or Earth Ponies, turned away, hiding the scene from their foals. Some stayed, fascinated by the gore. The filly’s sides had turned bluish. She coughed blood, spitting it between two jolts. The soldier laughed openly, calling his friends to join the fair.

A freezing wind blew through the crowd, like a low whisper. The soldier grunted and left the filly alone, searching for the eerie complaint’s origin. He felt something birthing in his thorax. Anxiety. He looked around, again, and saw the terrified glares his comrades gave him. He frowned. Why was he hearing a sizzling in his ears? The terror spread across the witnesses. He lifted his hooves before his eyes. Now, the soldier was scared.

His fur was melting, falling into clumps on the ground. His skin withered, wrenched, and wrinkled like a sponge under the sun. But there was no pain, only a crude horror that grabbed his heart. He screamed. Tried to. No air entered nor exited his lungs. He felt rotting, burning and searing from the inside. He jumped on his hind legs, sought help in everypony’s faces. Only fear could be read on them.

He tried to breath. Impossible. His eyes cracked and popped. Before he lost his vision, he glared at the small white pegasus facing him. Her stiff was beaming. His eyes met hers. Those ghostly white eyes shot open and pierced him as an arrow goes through flesh. They could be as white as the snow, but they also seemed like two open-pits. Two wide opened maw sucking the will out of those who dared looking inside. The soldier heard his bones crack, his spine shatter and his brain break into pieces. Again he tried to cry out. Silence gaged him. He shrunk on itself like a dried and smashed fruit and fell on the ground.

A hard thump echoed. The dead do not talk.

Silence settled across the harbour. Many ponies had seen the soldier die and the ambient buzz that had died around him had attracted attention. Ponies had gathered around the grim walloping before it tipped up. And now, ponies backed from the pegasus filly. She was standing in front of the cadaver, mute and stoic. Her cutie mark never stopped glowing.

“Candel?” an undecided voice brought forth.

Many eyes set upon a scruffy colt. He broke the circle and ran past the soldiers as if they were not there. He cast a glance over the cadaver and shivered. He swallowed his saliva and jumped over it. He could feel eyes looking at him like having red-hot embers pressed onto his fur. But her thought was all focused on Candel. Running in the harbour he had seen the strange gathering and heard gasps. Curiosity did the rest. When he had found out Candel was inside a circle, near a cadaver, his heart had nearly stopped.

He hugged her tight. And he wept in the hollow under her wings. She did not talk or even remarked his presence. She stood still. He looked at her in her eyes, saw their states and his eyes ran across her features. The blood, the bruises, the pain… All could be read on her. She had suffered. Fire turned his head and inspected quickly the soldier.

“What happened?” He held back a gag. “Candel?”

“Get away from her,” A pegasus took time to spell. “You have one second.”

Fire blinked and turned over. He dunked his head into his shoulders. A muscled pegasus making the colt looking two apples-high blew air on him. A rattling whistled in the air as he drew a curved sword out of its sheath fastened under the stallion’s wing.

“In virtue of the power the Direction gave me, I hereby decree this filly to die for murder,” he grumbled, chewing off the pommel of the sword.

“No, no, no,” Fire repeated.

The pegasus punched him aside and neared toward Candel.

She was smiling. It was not her gentle and innocent smile, Fire could tell it. It was something else. A creepy, evil and monstrous grin a filly should not make. Candel chuckled. The scene was so out of context whispers filled the airs. Panic ran beneath the skins. Nervousness numbed minds. Everything was going to topple over and nopony dared to interpose. Her giggles changed into a deep laugh. Even the soldiers stopped. She sat and titled her head on her left shoulder. She cracked her spine and a pop rung. Her smile widened from ear to ear.

“And what are you gonna do?” she cackled. “Kill me?”

It was enough. The soldier trembled with rage and charged, ready to put the filly out of her misery. Fire closed his eyes and waited for the slash to be heard. It never came. Lifting an eyelid he looked at Candel. Fire held his breath.

Candel hopped around the stallion, stuck mid-air. Fire blinked a second time and his eyes widened in a start. A blue aura was encasing him. In an instant the pegasus dried like a rotting flower. A second body slammed onto the ground. Ribs cracked open under its still warm flesh. The blue aura never faded away.

“Fire?” A voice cried behind him.

The so-called colt looked back. Little One was right behind him. He was now carrying a saddlebag. His eyes were petrified onto Candel’s silhouette. He whined as fear enshrouded his heart. Fire also saw Argen standing feet away from his position. He was watching over the crowd and his shadow made ponies run away. An ‘eep brought Fire back to Candel. The blue aura shaped into hundreds of tentacles and sprawled over the harbour. It crawled on the fleeing ponies around, mares, stallions and youngsters alike. And like dying roses, they wilted.

Fire and Little One hugged, shaking forcefully. They saw the aura creeping in their direction. They cried out for help and froze. It stopped, as if it was thinking, and bypassed them. Looking at the blue forms was to die of fear. But it held them back from doing anything stupid. Little One looked at his mentor. He had run or flown away as he was not amongst the fallen.

The wave of death bounced across the tarmac over a hundred of feet. The thousands of ponies that had stomped it were running without any restrain. Crying, shouting, screaming like animals conducted to the slaughterhouse.

A hundred of corpses were scattered on the runaway of the harbour. All showed the same withered aspect, gaving nausea. Pegasi had flown up in the sky and now ponies were pressing to enter one of the three barges. Everypony had fled from Candel.

The small pegasus stood high among the many dead, facing Fire. She winced and the veil whitening her eyes vanished, giving her back her beautiful hazel irises. She started crying and ran to Fire. Little One shuddered and tried not to come closer to the filly. He stumbled on his legs and crawled away from her, weeping in fear. He had wet himself. The stench grew.

Candel did not pay attention. She curled on Fire’s arm, crying loudly, seeking for a warmth hug in the hollow of his shoulder. Ponies were still fidgeting around as panic had spread like wildfire.

A horn roared on one of the barge. At the same time, explosions burst in the Lower City. Fire cast a glance around. The vision was hellish. Smokes, death, terror. He felt sick. He wanted to run away… Fly away. He chuckled ironically. He was stuck on the ground. The only way to get away was by the air. Murmanesk was a damn shard. Nopony could get out unless he had wings.

“In the mine, I felt so alone,” Candel finally explained. “Father died. Ponies tried to…”

She sobbed and closed her eyes. She tightened her grasp onto Fire’s hoof.

“And when I thought everything was lost. I…” She paused. “I just wanted to die.”

An explosion rammed afar. The ground quaked.

“In the dark I prayed for somepony to come.” Her lips quivered. “You never came there.”

“I…”

“I heard a voice in my head.”

From creepy, the situation went downward insane. A voice? Fire was doubting now. He gave a worried look at Candel, trying to hide his scepticism. Yet, the spectacle given to see around was a show that shatter all rational explanation. Candel had done something she was not supposed to. Fire could give her the benefice of doubt.

“It told me things I never wanted to,” she confided. “It was frightening. I felt naked… worse than that. And… And the gems glowed. I’ve seen what they held secret. And I ran away. I’ve seen too much.”

Fire’s heart stopped during a moment. A claw tightened his soul and tied a knot in his stomach.

“What did you hear?” Fire brought in, ashamed.

Fear changed into terror as Candel’s voice changed from her usual kind tone to a more nightmarish one.

“This world is going to end. And nopony will see the light at the end of the tunnel,” she announced.

Candel kissed Fire on the neck. He winced then blushed, pinching his lips trying not to look surprised. And he gave a shy smile, this feeling was all new, strange. Candel resumed talking.

“Yet, there is a way to stop everything and go backward.”

She laughed and the voice Fire knew so much came back, replacing the dark tone she had shown.

“I must go,” she explained. “It calls me. It beckons and waves at me.”

She pressed her hooves on her temples, squeezing them until drops of blood fell on her cheeks.

“I want them to go. It calls. It calls…”

“What is calling you?” Fire cried.

“The end.”

Shaken, Fire let her stand up. Her head was wobbling back and forth like a crazymare. She passed him. Fire felt her orange, red and yellow mane ran across his face, the touch sensation was raspy, long was now gone the time of smooth manes. He wanted to talk, but he was stunned.

Candel stopped next to Little One. She eyed him with an inquisitive stare giving to the colt the feeling he was just a prey between two predatory talons. She huffed and drifted away. Little One dripped with sweat and let all his contracted muscles go limp. On her own, Candel trotted toward the nearest barge. Ponies spotted her and ran or fly away. The atmosphere crystallized in her tow. After what she had done, forbidden, forsaken and forgotten magic or anything that could be called so, nopony dared stand against her. Pegasi guards had taken their distance.

From his position Fire could not see how the barge looked like inside. It was a massive carriage, more like a big crate of wood and metal. Only writing had been punched on a white plaque, screwed on its rear. ‘DH-47’ it read. Fire repeated the inscriptions dozens of times before he got up.

The barges rumbled and started hovering. It slowly took off in an overwhelming cacophony. Fire screamed Candel’s name. The sound went covered by the loud buzz of the flying building. And it flew away slowly until it disappeared in the horizons.

“We’ve got to follow her!” Fire shouted, forcing Little One onto his hooves.

The blue coated colt saw in a corner a duo of pegasi debating, harnessed to an empty cart. An idea popped in his mind. With a taint of anger, Fire took the sword the dead soldier had dropped a minute ago.

Little One left Fire to his own business. Something had caught his attention. At his hooves was a small carnet. It was torn at some points and old. Half of the pages had been filled with small scriptures. Everything was signed by a name.

“Candelabra,” he slowly spoke up.

Little One looked where one of the three barges had docked.

“When did she…”

Reality called him back as he heard a shout. Fire was threatening the two pegasi with the sword.

“You’re going to fly to that chariot’s destination!” he boomed.

The two stallions were scared. And the leather straps joining them to the carriage held them back from running away or flying... Fire was standing inside the vehicle, biting the sword pointed at the two stallions’ flanks.

“We don’t know where the barge went. You should ask the mapmakers!” they begged.

“Who?”

Fire nearly stabbed them. They hissed in stupor.

“They forecast the shard’s roaming and keep tracks of flying movement!” One of the two confessed.

“Where are they?”

“In the capital!”

“Take me there!” Fire ordered.

“I…”

Fire poked the stubborn pegasus with the tip of his weapon.

“Now!”

The pegasi nodded and flapped their wings. A shriek stopped it all. Fire turned over his shoulder, seeking for the scream’s origin. The no-pony’s land-like harbour was a mess of agitated ponies, cadavers, smokes and madness. It was like looking into a mirror and watching an even more twisted and crooked version of this abominable city.

Glancing over his shoulder he saw two young fillies, a mare and a broken stallion. His mouth dropped. He winced, shivered, cried, and finally cursed…

His father raised his head. His mouth was dangling open, the jaw broken. One of his hooves was screwed on the side and his stiffs that had sported cutie marks were covered with mud and blood. Her mother was afraid. No, not afraid, terrified. When she caught Fire on the cart carrying a sword, huge tears dripped off her face. She screamed his name.

The soldiers escorting the family glared daggers at the two colts and their two pegasi hostages. Among them were the same stallions they had fled from in the Lower City. Some had sworn to catch them only to quench their anger. Others had only wished for some fun. The destruction scattered on the harbour had given then an excuse. Fire covered his ears; he refused to listen to the coming statement. Yet, he heard it.

“Surrender or your parents will be killed.”

“No, no, no, no, no…” he whispered. “No, no, no!”

His hooves trembled as he dropped the weapon in the carriage floor under him. He looked at the cloudy sky, hoping to see the barges coming back. No black spot was visible. He looked at Little One; he refused to meet his eyes.

“Somepony help me,” he cried softly, glancing at his parents. “Tell me what to do?”

Soldiers took off all around, ready to capture the two colts. Fire hoped Argen would appear from nowhere, telling him to go away from Murmanesk. Forcing him to do so, using the service he owed him. But the emissary was nowhere to be found. ‘You come to life on Murmanesk, you live on Mumanesk and you die on Murmanesk as it is an open-sky jail’ he had heard from somewhere. Was it coming from Candel’s father?

“Please, tell me something?” he begged to anypony willing to hear him.

Alone. Being alone took its entire signification at that moment. The image of many faces, Candel’s, his father’s, mother’s, sisters’s, everypony’s flew past before his closed eyes. His heart beat faster and a pull dragged down it in his chest, like an anchor screwing him to the ground of the city, of the Pit, of that open maw that had swallowed so many ponies. The ties he was going to shatter if he left appeared clearer into Fire’s mind. He wept again.

Little One shivered at the sight of the coming pegasi.

“I don’t want to die,” he blabbered.

Tears broke on Fire’s face. He took a long breath and sighed. His eyes, red with passion, anger and shame, drifted in his parents’ direction.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered with shame, “I’m so sorry. But… I have to do something.”

Fire turned his gaze away, his eyes wet with tears.

“Fly away!” he ordered, “Fast, fast, fast. Never come back here. Please, go away.”

The two pegasi first look at themselves and they took off, fearing the colt would attack them with the weapon at his hooves. Fire curled up and shivered at the sounds of her mother calling him from beneath. He covered his ears once again when the call changed into a cry, then into a scream.

Fire bit his lower lips. He had not said goodbye, he had not looked into his father’s blue eyes, and he had not reassured his sisters. He had left, ran away, flew away like a coward. He bit his lips with even more strength until blood ran into his mouth. He hiccupped.

And he screamed as he never did before. A scream so loud the world would shake.

Argen watched the events stack on over the other until the silence was reinforced on the tarmac. A large number of ponies had seen everything. Stares were kept low, avoiding crossing the path of any pegasus soldier. Like sheep, the civilians formed rows. Like mindless beings, they waited for their turn. A pegasus stopped at his side. He was carrying another one, older, dead. He had been killed by the blue aura like many others.

“Why haven’t you done something Emissary?” The lieutenant asked with a pinch of anger melted with disappointment.

“There was not much than I can do.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Sir,” he retorted as a tear fell off his cheek. “You had a good time here, killing, watching but not acting, why?”

Argen smiled.

“You heard the filly, this world is in decay. It will end soon. And to be honest, I want to know more about that young lady.”

He ransacked his bag and pull out the clean skull of a mare, he handled it to the pegasus. The lieutenant frowned upon the macabre item.

“And I’m old,” Argen continued. “I hoped I’d have a good, slow-paced retirement. But now that I’ve seen magic come back to life, I’m thrilled. I thought the pegasus race had eradicated it when you took over.

He gave a sadistic smile to the Lieutenant.

“There are still mysteries to discover in this world,” he continued. “And I’m gonna discover them before this world crumble to its own demise.”

“It’s a game for you, ain’t it?”

“Exactly,” Argen snickered.

“You’re all monsters.”

Argen gave a surprised chortle. He sighed and craned his head toward the stallion.

“Tell me. Who exterminated the unicorns?”

The lieutenant shot a murderous glare at the emissary. In the distance the two others barges thundered as they were lifted up to the sky. An undertaker cross the frontier of the tarmac and walked quasi-ritually toward the slaughter in the middle of the runaway.

“Now tell me,” Argen articulated, “Do you remember why you killed them all?”

Argen chuckled at the silent Pegasus when no reply came.

“We are all monsters bound by blood. So let’s all appreciate the perfume of the end flying in the air until the beat of our hearts dies in our ears.”

The lieutenant shook his head in bereavement.

The trip will last long, maybe a week. We will make stops on some shards before going to the Capital. Maybe they know where the barge is gone. Every inch of my body quivers. I felt I was going to die on that shard. Everything is gone too fast.

Fire doesn’t talk too much. He just cried for hours and now he’s silent, deaf at my calls. We still have the sword to threaten the pegasi to lead us to the Capital. They look at us, sometimes. I think they fear us. Everypony has seen what that girl… Candelabra has done to other ponies.

Magic. Why am I so thrilled and jealous? She is a pegasus, I am a unicorn. And she is the one that has magic. It’s unfair.

Now my forehead aches. I remember how she eyed me. It was scary. I felt like she was going to devour me.

And I left Argen. Will he search for me? Punish me?

I don’t want to think about it.

Lit’

“I’ve been through so much troubles

For the beauty in your eyes

I buried my reason under rubbles

And screamed up to the skies

I’ve seen you suffer for so long

From your daily condition

When all seemed so wrong

These words went as redemption

‘I’ll find you, I’ll bring you back

Once again into the light

I’ll chase away that freight

For you only to smile’

I cried so much for what I’m denied

I envied those who can fly

They told me to abandon my pride

Until my eyes go dry

I only wished for a life gone tranquil

With my love only for you

Yet my heart dropped like ‘n anvil

Facing all I cannot undo

‘I’ll find you, I’ll bring you back

Once again into the light

I’ll chase away that freight

For you only to smile’

Thunder ‘n rain drumming in the air

I stare silently into the abyss

Seeking for only a light to flare

A light you would never miss ”

Act II, Chapter One - First Steps

“Fire hasn’t spoken for a week. I could say that I’m worried, but it’s worse than that.

With Murmanesk’s events, I fear something has been broken inside. He doesn’t talk, he doesn’t look at me, and he just sit there, silent. He always shies away from everything, even himself. Damn, he didn’t even react when the two pegasi took the sword and threw it away. It was our lever. I still wonder why they haven’t kicked us over the edge of the cart, like that scimitar. I guess we are pitiful and harmless. That’s all you can think of two colts, dirty and stinky in the back of a cart. This truth hurts so much, knowing my life is in the hooves of two pegasi that despise us openly. It’s difficult to sleep peacefully with that in mind.

Fire’s friend, Candelabra, is gone with one of the three barges, and if I want to kick some life up in Fire’s arse, I need to find evidence of her passage, a glimpse of something. Even a hair. But where shall I start? Where shall we start?

Murmanesk was and still is a hellhole. Argen had always taken me with him during his work, but I’m young and the Federation is immensely big. And with the war with the Republic and the Renegades, I wasn’t given to see much of the world. And the most obscure places of the Federation, where common law and logic do not apply, were still unknown for me. Of course, I wasn’t naïve enough to think the world was made of rainbows and sunshine but still... Now, I can say that I know things are fucked up.

For the moment, Fire and I are heading toward the centre of the Federation, the capital. I fear what I can find. Argen had often gone there but he had never brought me with him. I remember his description of the place: ‘a piece of misery wrapped in a silk of wealth’. I’m afraid. He told me it was a cut-throat area if you didn’t know where to go, from where to start. It was a Court of Miracles.

I’m stupid and I hate not knowing. And this diary. It’s so freaky. As far as I’ve read, it was Candelabra’s. Who was she really? She writes so well for a colliers’ daughter. And she is a PEGASUS. Why does she have magic, and I don’t? I’m the unicorn… she is the pegasus.

Why did I have my horn cut off? Argen told me I would be killed if it was revealed to the “pure ones”, those damn “pure-blood” pegasi. The common folk wouldn’t understand what I am. There is something kept secret about my people. And I don’t know what… But Murmanesk gave me an outlook of what is awaiting me beyond the threshold, hatred from the flying ponies, fear and lack of understanding from the earthbounds. Sometimes I really wonder what part of the past has been hidden. Like many, I wasn’t given to go to school. I’m an autodidact. Being a pariah is a difficult life.

Well, I should stop reading Candelabra’s words. Her spelling is influencing me. She writes so damn well.

Little One

PS: Maybe I should tell Fire my name, my real name… Why Argen had to come up with a fake one.

No, he would laugh his ass off.”

The emptiness stretched to eternity around the cart. There was neither up nor down. Only thick and intertwined clouds stood above and under the vehicle until they merged in the horizon, thousands of kilometres away, blurred with the distance. As usual, the sun hovered in the west, unmovable like a mighty landmark of bleak yellow. The vision was nauseous, sending chills down Little One’s spine as he stared blankly at the frightening sight with widened eyes. Standing on the edge of the flying cart, still pulled by two panting and fatigued pegasi, the young colt wanted more than to throw up. And somehow as he leaned over the edge, he wondered what would happen if he stepped forward. Would he fall? He had flown many times with his master Argen before. Yet, he never got rid of his fear of heights.

Little One shut out his eyes to a knife blade’s width, trying to outline any shapes appearing on the dull painting the clouds seemed to be. Bleak, beige and dark shades were everywhere.

“Are we there yet?” Little One asked with a lump in his throat as his legs trembled from the airsickness.

“Soon,” one of the tired pegasi spat, their wings flapping madly in the air, throwing gust of winds at Little One’s face.

The colt humidified his crackled lips and repositioned his messy and nasty scarf around his head. He had not drank for two days and with the constant wind he could nearly feel his orange skin wrinkle. He shuddered when thinking about the two flyers; they should be on the brink of death from flying madly like that. Little One took a deep, long breath and seeking a sign of hope in the horizon he brought forth hurting words.

“You can tell us if you’re lost.”

The stare he got back from the two pegasi highlighted how much they had been pained by the statement. One growled, still biting on the rope tying him to the cart. The other slowed down its pace and gave the earthbound’s pony a stern look.

“We know where we’re going! We would not be transporters otherwise. We’re hurrying ‘cause we might miss the window. You should care about your friend instead of asking stupid questions.”

Taken aback, Little One sat down next to Fire’s unanimated body; he was awake. Yet, he had stayed immobile for the whole week, only creeping at night when he thought everypony was sleeping deeply, to eat out some rations and drink water when these commodities were available. He was still in shock and even a herd of Pegasus soldiers storming on his back would not be enough to get him out of his stupor. Fire had taken the traits of a ragdoll, not answering any call, ears slammed shut and his voice dead by the gag crystallizing his throat.

“Fire, wanna talk?”

Little One received a grunt for sole answer and Fire rolled over his side, showing his back and rear to his friend. Little One huffed.

“Fine, you dumbass,” he berated with a dark scowl.

Raising up his head once again, Little One shot a perplexed look at the east. As usual, the black hurricanes were there, waiting like they were frozen solid with angry bolts of lightning slashing through their surface again and again. Sometimes a flash burst out larger than the others and even with the distance, Little One swore he could see shockwaves running on the dark storm behind.

Drifting away his eyes, Little One looked straight at the front of the cart, far away from his location started shaping a cream-coloured cloudy mass. It was remote, but in a land of nothingness a tiny stain was similar to a griffon in a closet, impossible to miss. A sigh of relief from the two pegasi alerted they had finally found their objective.

Little One cracked his muscles as he stretched on the wooden board of the cart, forcing his hooves on it. Two days he had been standing idly on that piece of flying wood and metal since they had left the last shard. He was still surprised they had not called the guard during their halt there, a small harbour used as a relay for the transporters and barges that passed by on a daily basis, forming the synapses of many trading routes inside the Federation, an archipelago made of many shards of many sizes.

“We’ve already told you, the guard would have arrested us as well for ‘accepting’ helping you. And paperwork and a rope around the neck are bad for commerce.”

Little One looked at the cart, empty of any goods except Fire and him. Traders? Meh, pass. However, Little One told nothing about his doubts, he knew that once they would arrive to the Capital they would abandon him as quickly as possible. Fire and he were burdens, but threats, they weren’t anymore. The fact that the two pegasi had managed to throw the sword away in the great emptiness of space was the proof.

Little One shook his head and focused on the strange cloud shape in the distance. It was gaining momentum at an extremely slow pace making Little One wonder how far they really were from it. But while Fire was still in a despondent and bleak demeanour, Little One watched a sip of dust flying away from the bottom of the cart. A sudden question came into his mind.

“Just sayin’,” he brought forth to the two pegasi, “what happens if I jump off the cart? Would I fall? In which direction?”

The two pegasi gave a questioning glare at the young colt, then grinned at each other. It was some creepy yet amused smiles.

In the two stallion’s tow the cart swerved on and off, making Little One scream like a madmare. The cart went up and down and tail-spun fiercely, Little One cramped himself to the cart, only to see he was still stuck on its surface in spite of a complete looping that would have thrown overboard even the bulkier of the ponies. Shaking, Little One blabbered.

“What did you do to this?” Little One eructed through quick and raspy breaths. Then his eyes widened, understanding what had happened. “How is that possible?”

The two pegasi laughed raucously at the small colt, who blushed in return and sought for a hideout behind his hooves.

“Sincerely,” the initiator of the unexpected manoeuvre began, “I don’t really know. All this stuff has always been working strange. Step out of the cart and I won’t guarantee what will happen of you. A shard can roll over without the ponies settled on it to bat a brow but step off its cliff and…”

He mimicked a flying shape with his hooves with a whizzing whistle.

“I never saw a pony stepping off. But we call them the ‘off-the-cliffs’. Ponies said that they fell somewhere and die of exhaustion, thirst and hunger before they reach the ground.” He paused and snickered. “If there is any.”

“Nah, you’re saying shit!” His stooge replied with a teasing voice. “When you do the leap of faith you go straight to the hurricanes. There, the wind will tear you apart. Or some says dragon ghosts will eat you if you go down too much.”

Little One failed to repress a smile on his lips. The last assumption seemed particularly stupid, yet amusing. How could a pony define ‘too low’ in a world where there was no ceiling nor floor and where the only landmark were a sun and a bunch of sombre storm clouds in a forsaken place nopony would never wander about.

The mass of clouds grew and grew over the hours until it filled one third of the space around the cart. Gigantic, Little One could not estimate its heights, and its dark shadow cast upon the pony quartet foreshadowed nothing good. The darkening shape was like a maw, which smoky teeth were going to close on the group. Muffled, a rumbling hum pierced through the fog, coming from afar.

“Are you ready?” one of the driver alerted. “It might shake a bit but it’s the last step before the trip’s end.”

He laughed cynically.

“Of course, you can just sit there and do nothing. Just watch. I won’t ask you to flap your hooves.”

The two pegasi snickered and, gathering together the little strength they had left, they leaped into the cloud with a roar. The ascension began.

The cart trembled and even Fire sought for reassurance in one of its corner. The smooth quivers intensified into violent shakes as they went deeper and deeper into the cloud. The darkness gained in momentum and blasted away the tame sunbeams that had warmed the two colts. An impression of a night clenched Little One’s soul as he stared around, seeing nothing but the sparks running through the sweat drop dripping on the pegasi’s faces, grunting and spitting they kept their pace.

With everything shutting out the sight, the growing in strength wind punched on the cart, making the nails and screws crack in the joints. Grunts changed into panting and one of the pegasi gave out a badly held shout. Up, always going up. The journey had no end and the rumble beyond the unfathomable fog rammed like thunder in the air.

Then a faint light seemed to birth beyond the veil of grey, brown and black. The gleam was weak and shadowed, but it made everypony think about a trail’s end, after clambering a steep and harsh mountain.

“We’re closing in!” a voice spat, coughing.

The thick and dusty cloud ended abruptly and the cart threw itself over a bottomless void. Little One would have shrieked about the terrifying view if his attention had not been focused on something that even kicked Fire out of his prostrated state.

A shard…

Not a simple, big shard like Murmanesk’s was. No, it was much more than that. It was The Shard! The almighty, monstrous, gigantic and intimidating floating mountain that seemed to tickle both the upper and the lower horizons of the world, or what remained of them. Gargantuan was not even enough to describe the monster that hovered ‘next’ to Little One, Fire and the two merchants.

The landmark was at least fifty kilometres high for two to three hundred kilometres wide. Looking exactly like a mountain a godly lumberjack would have sawed off, the monolith of rock was rolling slowly over itself. The two pegasi kept the cart away from the shard. And even if still a couple of kilometres had to be crossed, the shard was already the scariest and overwhelming spectacle they had been given to see. Its cracked and scattering sides were made of sharp and bulky obsidian reflecting the light of the sun hidden behind the clouds. However, what took aback the two colts wasn’t the size of the rock monster. It was the city built on its flat side where the metaphoric lumberjack’s saw had passed, cleaning a large and flat area that could nurture life.

A majestic spire of nacre buildings glittered with the slivers piercing the clouds, showering scarcely the city, a coiling of houses, castles, factories and routes. Built like a snail’s shell, nearly helical, the city was nothing but a pantheon of architectural prowess. Fire’s jaw dropped slightly and so did Little One’s. Bells, golden frescos and chiselled silver decorations beamed dully under the cloudy sky.

As both pegasi pulled the cart further up, Little One got a better view on the vast urban area sprawling on the surface of the shard. Circled by high wall of white bricks, the large spire watched over a flat land of insanely close cottages in bad shape, covered by the spire’s shadow. The whole outskirts reeked poverty and insalubrity. And dark smokes rose over the roofs.

The city’s size itself was hair-rising; larger than Murmanesk’s shard itself. Yet, it occupied less than a quarter of the shard’s surface. The three quarters left were reserved to many activities such as agriculture. Little One leaned over the cart’s edge and screwed his eyes to pinprick, curiosity kicking in. Over the meadows and wheat fields far beyond the city floated smaller shards. Anchored to the ground by heavy chains, they were spilling out an endless stream of water into artificial pool. Little One first pinched his cheek, and even gave himself a punch to his face. The watering shards were far too small to contain such volume of water. Nonetheless, it continued flowing out, slowly though, never stopping. Shaking his head, Little One tried to get rid of this physic-defying question.

“Better not think about it,” he laughed.

Little One coughed and looked at the air around the spire. Many shadows flew pass it in a round dance of carts, flying pegasi and monstrous vehicles he had never seen. The air vibrated with the agitation, and coming from the ground, heat haze washed over the walls of the city. From the top of the spire rang the mighty toll of a golden bell, fixed in the highest tower of the awe striking castle a pony could only hope to see once in his life. Panting, one of the pulling pegasi announced with a rather pleased voice.

“Welcome to Capital, pearl of the Federation.”

Fire and Little One let out a ‘wow’ of admiration and lost themselves into the contemplation of the city. An opening broke through the cylinder of clouds encasing Capital, and a large shaft of light poured over the city like a golden shower. Magnified, Capital gave reflects of rainbow that Fire and Little One had never seen, making their mouth drop even more. Little One was preoccupied with the thousands of ponies moving like a mass of ants beneath. Unfortunately, they were too small to catch who was who.

Little One took a deep breath, willing to smell the odour of such a magnificent city. He frowned. The air was raspy and induced a few coughs in his throat. While the cart lowered toward an area adjoining Capital’s white rampart, a poignant aching plagued his eyes and the air suddenly darkened. Little One blinked, desperate to wash away this uncomfortable feeling of having his eyes burnt with acid, his lungs drown in sludge.

A hiss settled in his throat and as the cart was a few meters away from landing, Little One gave a look at the sky, in the direction of Capital’s spire. The harbour was built on the eastern side of the helicoidally built monolith and the shadow of the Spire was cast upon the runaway, the near buildings, and garrisons. Little One gave a sheepish glance at the pilling up of houses, castles and towers. The low sun was hidden by the highest building, the thin and insanely high tower bearing the bell that had rung earlier. It was watching down at the ground like a teasing promontory everypony knew would remain inaccessible for the common folks. It was so high and distant it seemed eerily curved. And as the sun was stuck behind it at the moment, the shafts of light peered at the runaway through a thick and polluted air like the hooves of an angel that couldn’t reach ponies needing help. A strange night was cast upon the soil of Capital, and around the cart, the autochthones were ghoulish.

The ponies around the harbour, were they earth ponies or pegasi did not matter, had horrendous features. Their cheeks sunk inside their mouths with deflated skin like sponges under a radiant sun. Starvation, privation and despair built inside everypony.

In a loud thump followed by a short screech, the cart landed. The two pegasis shuddered at their painful wings as they folded on their numbed sides. They held each other with a hoof in a friendly embrace. They had done something extremely exhausting and praiseworthy. A yelp echoed in their back. Swivelling, they saw Little One had jumped on the ground, nearly kissing it. On his own, Fire crawled out of the cart with tired and depressed features. Giving a look around, his eyes blinked, trying to fight back the rising tears. He had swapped a world of demise for another one, and he had broken and lost the only bonds he had in the process, his family.

The two pegasi’s cheering went short live as a group of soldiers loomed at the end of the runaway, coming for them. Both looked swiftly at Little One. Sweat induced by a growing fear dripped on his neck. Grabbing Fire by the rump, he dragged him behind an empty cask, finding a hideout in its sombre shadow.

Little One gasped at the sight of the two pegasus soldiers. Massive and bulky, the two dark-coated stallions had copper-coloured armour that covered them entirely, their joints protected by a savant patchwork of chainmail and leather. Their eyes, questioning and haughty, scanned the two transporters. Nearing, Little One peered at them and heard a redundant click, the grating of heavy metallic tools on a few gravels, repeated again and again as the two soldiers trotted forward like the horseshoes of a long gone profession, cowcolt. The military duo was impressively scary, sending chills down the spine of the neighbouring ponies, looking at the wild interrogatory with interested eyes. Little One spotted the source of the noise; the two stallions had impressive weapons hung at their rump, two shiny claymores slid inside their sheaths. Again, the colt gulped, cringing on his hooves, trying to be the littlest possible.

“State your names, origins, point A and point B, your business in the Capital, and your pass,” the first of the two soldiers berated.

The two stallions backed to their empty cart, and Little One heard a click. The two transporters had hidden a compartment in one of the cart’s side. This revelation shocked the young pony, and a frowned pout slowly shaped on his lips. One week waiting idly inside that vehicle and his boredom had not been sufficient to unveil the trick. The soldiers inspected the two transporters’ identity, looking to and fro between their sweaty faces and the empty carts.

“You made the trip to Capital with nothing to sell?” One of the militaries asked, questioning.

Still panting, the two pegasi looked at each other. One nodded to the other with a tired look. He showed off a scroll of paper closed with a read, crackled seal.

“We’re just transporters, we take contracts. We are not merchants. And, to be swift, Murmanesk wasn’t going well when we departed.”

The soldiers swept their hooves before the two pegasi, willing to cut off the conversation.

“We already know, one of the three barges landed here two days ago.”

Little One heard Fire’s ears twitched and the colt, finally back from his blank state, shot a look at the two plated ponies, ready to catch any of their words in spite of the ambient hum.

“Where are the other two?” one of the two transporters asked shyly.

Fire was ready to jump right out of his hideout but Little One shovelled his hoof in his mouth, a drop of sweat running across his face. Something seemed wrong in his eyes and ears. This metallic shriek of an eerie creature comforted his suspicions. Similar to Murmanesk soldiers’ pets, a small bird made of scrap metal landed on the side of the cart, eyeing the two pegasi with bulged and red glowing eyes. It cackled with a mechanic cough and clattered its sharp claws onto the wood. The two soldiers smirked at the creature, a long-lasting partner. As everypony had focused on the automaton, one of the military ponies snapped the building silence which a clack of his hooves.

“We don’t know, we’re not from the Cartographers’ guild.”

Ending straight the discussion, the soldiers fall back in another street, next to the runaway. In their wake shrieked the mechanical bird, which flew over the cottages, scanning from above the dull faces populating the overcrowded city.

On their own, the two transporters passed the barrel which shadows had hidden Little One and Fire from any sight. And it worked particularly well; no pony had spotted the two young shapes eyeing the common folks trotting by. Silent, they waited for the two stallions turned into a small byway. Yet, the two pegasi stooped and looked around, seeking for a threat. Assured that nopony would disturb them, they both pushed a hidden button of the side of their cart. A pop clacked in the air and a secret compartment slid open where Little One had stood during a whole week. The young colt facehoofed, Argen would be ashamed of him.

But something else caught his immediate attention. Inside the hidden box dwelled a series of arcs, glowing dully. It was nothing but explosives, exactly the same as the one he had seen in Murmanesk.

“Hide this, I don’t want somepony to spy on us,” the first pegasi berated.

“The Capitol’s branch needs them. Murmanesk’s has been wiped out. Now, we must focus on the castle,” the second whispered with angst.

They hid back the compartment, pushing it back into its former position. Then, slowly and ready to face any threat, they disappeared further into the narrow street.

Together, Little One and Fire waited a few minutes, inspecting the surrounding runaway and the houses bordering it. The massive shadows of the far away spire were of the utmost unsettling impression, spreading chill down their spines.

“We have to move,” Little One brought forth.

Fire’s hooves shook swiftly. The air was chill and raspy and the shadow cast on the two colts intensified the coldness. Fire snickered, breaking the long silence he had kept for a week.

“Do we even have a starting point?”

Little One raised his eyes to the cloudy sky, and brought his hoof to his face, knocking it hard enough to make him wince. Fire wasn’t easy, but right now, he was nothing but obnoxious.

“You heard the soldiers; we have to find something called the Cartographers’ guild. They must know where your friend is.”

“For what purpose, now?” Fire sighed, sliding his back on the barrel until his rump hit the dirt, silent. “Look at us.”

Little One complied and sat next to Fire. Slightly defeated, he looked at himself, an orange unicorn hiding his frontal scar and thus his true nature for a reason he had never been told. With clumsy hooves Little One tightened the scraps of fabric over his head, leaving nothing but clumps of blue and dusty mane falling over his eyes. Little One felt miserable. He had truly nothing left, the saddlebag he had, a gift from Argen, had been lost in Murmanesk.

Little One’s eyes drifted toward Fire, he had no barding or piece of equipment but a pair of cracked goggles. And they knew that with no items to trade, no money and a craving thirst and hunger, they weren’t given much chance in Capital. The sudden and heavy weight of despair swamped their mind and a long-lasting pain plagued their limbs. Little One shut his eyes and rubbed his achy forehead.

The sound of torn leather erupted next to him. Opening his eyes out of fear, Little One saw Fire’s goggles were gone. Seeing the wondering stare of his young friend, Fire palpated his neck and chest where the pair of thick glasses had hung until now. It was truly gone.

Followed by a loud whistle, a snicker echoed behind them. Jumping on their hooves, Fire and Little One looked up. A filly, roughly their age, stood on the top of the barrel, playing forcefully with the leather strap of the goggles, making it turn around her left hoof. In the shadow of the castle, her features appeared darker, her light pink fur was streaked with orchid purple reflects and her bright blue mane shone with the spark of purple in her eyes. Around her neck shone the glitter of a golden necklace. She loathed at the two colts.

“Look what we’ve got here,” she laughed. “Two nestlings fallen from the nest.”

“Give it back to me,” Fire spat at her, and jumped trying to catch his goggles, out of reach.

The filly grinned and mimicked a sad face.

“Oh, the bad girl stole ma glasses, I’ll call my mother and she will kick her ass!”

She gave a couple of snorts, sweeping inexistent tears off her cheeks and burst into raucous laughs at Fire, awe-stricken. The colt trembled, and filled with anger, he bucked the barrel away pushing the filly off her balance. Agile, the mare jumped and landed on Little’s head, crushing him under her weight and burying his face in the mud of the road.

“Oupsy,” she apologised, blinking her eyebrows in Fire’s direction, showing off a pouty face with puppy’s eyes. “Hope you won’t be too bad with me, daddy!”

Again, she laughed with a crystalline voice. Looking at the two colts, she stuck out her tongue and darted in the nearest street. Shaking his head to gather his spirit together, Fire leaped in her tow, and Little One, wrestling his face out of the dirt, loped behind with difficulty.

Sweat ran across Fire’s face as he leaped, leaned, slid and jumped between moving carts, hurried and shouting ponies and narrow and rusted stales. He passed by two soldiers and drifted under them. A question hit Fire hard. Since when were earth ponies soldiers? Fire had stopped and looked behind at the two armoured ponies, struggling to dig away in the crowd. They struggled a long time to reach the running colt, but quickly abandoned as the crowd and barding dampened their movement. A few meters afar from the soldiers, Little One appeared between two massive stallions, each pulling a cart filled with scraps and scavenged materials. Fire smiled; at least the young colt was not lost.

A wild pain burst in the back of Fire’s neck. Yapping, he turned back and saw a young mare standing atop of a pile of crates, his goggles on her eyes, juggling with a pebble in her hoof. She shot at him and hit his leg, wrestling another cry of pain out of him.

“Catch me!” she taunted. “If you stop whining, of course.”

What Little One had feared came true, all the anger Fire had kept hidden and unspoken flowed out in an enraged shout. Some witnesses took a hoofstep back. Many ponies stopped their goings-on and stared at two young ponies chasing each other.

“Come here, you thief!” Fire ordered without any success.

“Ee… nope!” the mischievous filly countered before jumping on another crate, showing off her agility.

In a long and powerful leap, she reached the balcony of a ruined and stinky cottage, bit into the ivy crawling on its crackled brick wall and hoof by hoof she hurled herself onto the top of the roof. She made a small dance of victory, blasting dust at Fire’s face below, struggling to follow her path and pace. Little One on his own was too small and weak to follow up. to keep track of Fire, he could only trust his ears, following the torrents of swears coming out of his friend’s mouth, and sightseeing his shadows each time the filly and he jumped between two close cottages.

The mare left impressed faces in her stead, twisting and turning over, making Fire madder at each of his failed attempt to catch her. Both were covered with the dust and junk left onto the top of the roofs as nopony could afford any cleaning in the Lower City of the Capital. The filly was a dark angel soaring in the sky, over the muddy and overcrowded streets of the heart of the Federation, making of the buildings the diving boards for her flightless and frail body. It was magic and sad at the same time.

Little One weaved between the legs of many anonymous ponies, crossing an open market where dealers and vendors rubbed their shoulders with smugglers, cut-throat ponies, beggars and thieves. Prostitution, despair, misery and poverty reeked from these ponies, were they earth ponies or pegasi. The latter had wing-cuffs. All of them. Seeing these tools, biting the flesh of so many ponies was a cold talon tightening on Little One’s heart, the image of Candel sparked in his mind. He remembered also seeing her wing-cuffs, left alone on the runaway of Murmanesk. She had freed herself, somehow, among the hundreds corpses of her magic.

Little One shook his head, chasing away those unhealthy thoughts. He had to focus on his chase, keeping track of Fire and the thief. He smiled, faces were ghoulish, watery, eaten away by sickness, malnourishment and endless suffering their daily lives had inflicted to their flesh, spirit and relatives.

Getting rid of the sensation of fear building up in his mind, Little One continued the chase from below, running with sweat as the heat from the over-closeness drove him mad. Bumping into a cart of cabbages, the colt dodged the long baton of the merchant, a moustached stallion showing a row of ragged and blackened teeth.

A crack hummed the air and the rumble of broken wood and bricks rammed inside a near cottage. Screams and shouts made the dirty windows of the cottage vibrated as the sound of two heavy falling shapes echoed inside. Little One burst through the entry door and find his way inside a tavern. Many ponies drank their blurry and muddy alcohol in old and crackled pints, loathing and teasing with many words the two young lads that had crashed into the middle of the place. Fire coughed a mist of dust, sprawl on the ground like a new born foal while the filly he had chased was already up, shaking her limbs, splattering her surroundings with dirt. She looked around, seeking for an exit; Little One was blocking the entrance and the windows would not move. She looked up with amused eyes, smirking at Fire lying at her hooves, knocked out. A rope stretched out through the ceiling. Little One followed up its way up in the hole with wondering eyes.

Going through the roof, the rope passed through a pulley and tied on the central pillar of the tavern, it held high a candelabra made of wood. A series of candles stood on its armature, their flames flickering weakly. The filly grunted. Like a whirlwind, she kicked in the air a knife that had been thrust off a table during the mess her journey through the ceiling had created. With a violent sidekick she flung the knife at the knot. The rope snapped and the candelabra began its fall. She bit the loose rope and rose in the air as the massive chunk of wood went down. It banged on the ground and rolled over, continuing its mad race on the ground floor of the tavern. Many customers cried out and jumped aside of the rolling furniture. A whipping sound rammed the air, Fire shouted, feeling his left hind leg being pulled over, the rope tangled around his limb. As the mare did, he passed through the ceiling, from where he had come. Still hesitating, Little One bit the cord and followed the track. One of his teeth cracked under the pressure.

The rope clacked through the pulley and fell through the hole opened in the thatch roof. Little One nearly hurtled down its edge, yet his hooves steadied themselves. Slightly shaken, he glared around, seeking for a landmark. His eyes settled upon Fire. Stopping was out of question for him, amplifying the fun he procured to the filly. She gained momentum and jumped over the street below, landing on a far cottage after a monumental and awe-striking move. She turned over and looked at Fire with pleading eyes, making Fire grunt. For him, it was nothing but feigned.

“Don’t follow me, you ain’t strong enough,” she warned, playing with the goggles in her hoof.

“Mind if I try?” Fire tried, his eyes bloodshot, panting, and spitting the phlegm he couldn’t swallow.

Fire ran across the roof, brought his hooves to the edge of the cottage and stretched all of his muscles jumped with a screeching roar. Little One shot open his eyes, looking at Fire’s silhouette flying over the street two stories below. He could see the tension in his back legs, the sweat running across his face, the stress scarring his features and the pain creasing his heart. Now and there, Little One knew his friend was bound to fail. When there is too much to hoofle, a pony always fail somewhere. For Fire, it had to be at this moment.

Fire saw the edge of the next cottage nearing. Yet, the smile had left the filly’s face, replaced with a negative shake, sorrowful. She bit her lower lip as Fire slowly began his descent to the dirt below. The air whizzed in Fire’s ears. The passers-by saw his nearing shadow and stepped away on time. In a loud thump raising puffs of dust, Fire hit the ground hard, knocking the air out of his lungs. One of his ribs cracked, as did one of his legs. And for him, everything went black.

Standing on the edge of the roof, Little One looked down at his blacked-out friend. Many ponies had gone closer. Some poked him, checking if he was still alive.

“I’m sorry,” the filly shouted back at him from the other construction. She shrugged at Little as he glared daggers at her. She rolled her eyes. “Oh, I’m not the one who jumped!”

“Oh, shut up you thief!” Little One croaked before drifting his attention back at Fire.

“Can’t you stop a second,” she countered with a pout that creased the dust on her face. “Look, your friend’s alright!”

Indeed, Fire was getting up despite the horrible shivers running across his legs. Shaken, his vision blurred, he stared at anonymous faces looking down at him with not-so-worried eyes. Grumbling, seeking for balance while his ribcage spiked burst of pain through his bones, Fire did not hear a loud warning that forced everypony but him to jump aside of the road.

Fire blinked, and screamed. Two heavy armoured ponies crashed into him as they could not stop their charge on time. Flung away, Fire hit the ground a second time and rolled over, a brick wall stopping his mad race nearly instantly. The pulling ponies neighed heavily and braking on their hooves stopped the heavy carriage they were pulling, a magnificent coach, glittering with gold and silver. Gasps and clatters of horseshoes later, many witnesses had fled from the scene. A few onlookers remained, and two pegasi flew up to the carriage position, landing next to the two soldiers.

“Why have you stopped?” one of the pegasi asked with a dire tone.

“We hit something,” the coach driver spat.

A glance over his shoulder, the pegasi saw Fire, lying on the ground. Shaken, his eyes blurred with dust, blood and fear, Fire blinked, trying to focus on his surrounding, to no avail. A heavy and reeking puff of steam blasted onto his face, waking Fire up in a violent jerk. Pain ran beneath his veins and his eyes wide open peered in two pairs of reddish, glowing and burning eyes. Four dots of fire screwed in metallic pony-shape faces were dunk in bulky corpses made of metal, pistons, springs and glowing blue arcs, sparking electricity of their surface. Fire screamed. These were not the metallic bird that had scarred his face a week ago in Murmanesk. These were two replicas of earth ponies, pulling a coach and breathing steam. Machines, two machines of doom. And next to them, a pegasus neared.

“Just a piece of…” the soldier blurted out with a smirk of annoyance before being cut off. Fire was just a waste of time for him.

“Father, are we there yet?” a young feminine voice slithered out of the coach.

“We hit something, honey. Please don’t make any scramble,” a deeper voice answered, muffled to a whisper by the thickness of the frame of the cart.

The coach door slid open and the voice that had echoed inside the vehicle became clearer.

“Come back inside, Daisy!” the fatherly voice advised with a pleading tone. “This part of the city isn’t safe!”

“See if I care, the vulgar ponies wouldn’t dare touch me. As much as you fear my father.”

“Please, Daisy.”

“And it will be Lady for you!”

Fire rolled over his flanks, trying to wrestle himself from under the two mechanical horses facing him. Stings of pain rammed his flesh and forced a shriek out of his lungs. Blinking, his stare drifted upon a small silhouette moving in his direction. Even the soldier stepped aside with a stoic face betraying a sudden craving to shovel down any misbehaviour.

“Oh, the poor little boy.”

Fire coughed, splattering the shiny dress of the mare standing in front of him. She repressed a yip as the red stains broke the whiteness of her robe, sewed with gold and set with rubies. Fire’s eyes focused and he finally saw the features of the noble pegasus, staring down at him as he was lying down the dirt. Her fur was as white as the snow and her mane was burgundy-coloured. Her beautiful traits was contrasting with the dull surroundings, putting everypony to shame as they could not stand such beauty. Her eyelashes flapped when she lowered her head, bringing her nose a few centimetres afar from Fire’s eyes.

“Candel?” Fire whispered, a drop of blood slithering between his ragged teeth.

His voice had been so low only her ears could have heard. The young mare who had not reached her twenties stepped back in surprise.

“No, I’m…” She stopped, a smile clearing her face.

“Tutor, bring this child in. It seems that your driver’s careless drive nearly killed something.”

A visage dashed out of the coach, a greyish eyebrow raised.

“You can’t be serious, since when a member of the royal family must care about…” Chewing on his words, the old buck glared daggers at Fire. “Such things as an earthbound? Daisy…”

Many witnesses had heard the word ‘royal’ and peeps at the mare, the coach, the tutor and the nearing soldiers built up tension as seconds passed by. Whispers crawled in the air and ponies, attracted by the eerie scene began rambling on forbidden ideas. One soldiers pulled out his spear, sparkling with blue electricity, making the stress reach a new height as afraid or murderous stares were shot at him. The lady mare stomped the ground with his hoof, making her tutor’s head dunk in his shoulder and a short silence return.

“I care about my pets,” she stated with the accent of a spoiled child. “And I could tell father you refused something to me. You know how annoying I can be.”

Mimicking a whining filly, the tutor’s face blushed with shame, fear and exasperation.

“Alright, alright,” the tutor gave in and looking at the coach driver, started shouting orders. “Bring him in and let’s go. This part of the city is creeping me out.”

The pegasi soldier lifted Fire and moved him in the vehicle under the eyes of the regal mare. A burst of laughter broke in.

“You should see your flank. You’re so funny!”

The pegasi met the eyes of the thief two stories above, mimicking the spoiled child with a pouting face. Tension built as silence settled between them with ponies watching in utter awe, waiting for anything to happen.

“Why are you taking him!?”

Little One cringed as pairs of eyes set upon his tired face.

“Why are you kidnapping him?” he blurted out, lowering his voice until he shut up.

One of the pegasi soldier watching upon the scene scanned the filly, still making fun of the mannered mare below. His eyes screwed to pinprick as he saw the golden necklace around her neck.

“Where did you get that item, you filth?” he asked.

The filly made the necklace clatter with Fire’s goggles in her hoof.

“I… dunno…”

And she ran away.

“Catch me those two thieves!” the soldier screamed.

“Why me?” Little One whined as he fled away, a duo of soldier flying in his tow.

“Come with me,” the filly shouted from the other side of the street as she jumped from a cottage to the next.

Little One nodded and jumped aside, dodging the grasp of the soldiers. Taking advantage of a beam linking together the two side of the road, Little One crossed the channel separating her potential saviour and him. The pegasi closed in as second flowed by.

“Trust me,” the filly shouted at Little One.

“Why should I?”

“It’s me or the arcs. I can see your face. You know what it does.”

Little One swallowed his saliva and the filly grabbed his hoof and jumped. Little One eyes widened in fear. Carried away by the filly’s momentum, he followed her leap over the nothingness. There was no cottage where to land. Looking down, Little One spotted a two meters thick drainage canal ten meters below. He screamed in fear as the free-falling sensation clenched on his heart and limbs. After a second that had seemed to last forever, the filly and Little One hit the water heard and sunk into murky and stinky water.

“Breath in!” the filly cried out as they surfaced, the pegasi still behind them.

“Why?”

The sound of a cascade rumbled in Little One’s ears and looking behind him, where the greenish torrent was carrying them, he saw an opening in a brick wall. The sewers of Capital.

The fall was long and led into a pit of darkness where sounds echoed and deafened.

Have you ever believed, that luck was behind every meeting?

Can’t we sometimes trust fate to share greetings?

Neigh, we say. Fate ain’t the master of my wandering!

I’m the captain of my ship, even it means I’ll soon be dying!

Neigh, I say!

Leave me alone goddesses and fate, it’s my turn to be epoch-making!

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