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Marshmallows and Cotton Candy

by GentlemanJ

Chapter 4: Story Time

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Story Time

Thunder cracked, lightning flashed, and rain drove down in torrential sheets to douse the world in a soaking deluge. Terribly unpleasant weather for the outdoors, but for books? Twilight could imagine none better. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one because just as she was about to settle in with a new copy of the latest installment in The Circle of Ages, the library door popped open to announce a sodden visitor.

“Bite me, it’s rough out there,” a gravelly baritone called out as rain dripped from the broad brim of his weather-beaten hat. “Weather hasn't been this bad since Yinglong got a cold."

“Hey there, marshal!” Twilight beamed as she leaped from her armchair to rustle up some towels. “Haven’t seen you in a while. Another mission?”

“Series actually. Just fixed up the Breezie Gate before I got in.”

“In this weather?” the young scholar gaped. “Well hurry up and get yourself dried off. In the meantime, I was just about to put on a pot of tea. You like chai?”

“Sounds great. Thanks.”

With a smile, Twilight quickly rustled up a plush pile of terrycloth towels and handed them off before heading to the kitchen. That just left Graves to doff his dripping hat and coat before making good use of the towels’ fluffy goodness.

It’d been almost two weeks since he’d last been in town, what with an extended series of missions regarding a vengeful demigod, ancient constructs of immeasurable power, and some sort of large, green monster with a penchant for crushing and grammatically incorrect statements. In between those, he’d been busy with smaller concerns that, while not as life-threatening, just never seemed to end. All this to say was that after alternately being beaten to death with feathers and things of considerably greater size and mass for fourteen days straight, it was high time for road-weary marshal to do some unwinding. For him, that meant a relaxing day with a hot drink and a good book.

After he’d dried off, of course.

“So, anything happen while I was gone?” he called as he ran the towel through the dripping mass of his raven-black hair.

“Mm… nothing much I can think of,” Twilight called back over the clanking of kettles. “Rainbow Dash made up a new move called the Atomic Vomitizer, Filthy Rich announced plans to take Barnyard Bargains overseas, and um… oh yeah! Fluttershy and Big Mac are officially off.”

Gunmetal grey eyes widened into stunned silver disks.

“You’re kidding,” the marshal gaped, towel forgotten in hand. “How come?”

“Apparently, things were too quiet, even for them. Between Fluttershy’s passiveness and Big Mac being about as chatty as a tree stump, there just wasn’t much for them to talk about.”

“Thought that’s why they liked each other.”

“It was,” Twilight hollered over the rising whistle of steam. “They’re still friends and everything, but I guess they were just too much alike for them to really work as a couple.”

“Is that so?” Graves murmured.

The marshal worked the towel over his sturdy linen shirt as he mused over the dynamics of love and life. Too similar, eh? Never really thought that could be an issue, but then again, it sort of made sense. After all, the best fire teams didn’t have just snipers or just charge armors, but a nice balance of both. It was the groups whose skills covered for each other that survived.

Huh. Love was a lot like war. Who’d have thought?

Once satisfied that he’d gone from soaked through to only moderately damp, Graves finally set out to on his original quest. With slow and measured steps, Graves strolled the grand hollow of the tree and perused the shelves, pulling off texts in search of the perfect stormy weather read. Affair of Kingdoms sounded promising: political intrigue, warring nations, and characters dying more quickly than mayflies in June always made for a good romp. William Walker and the Chalice of Flames didn’t look too bad either: coming of age stories of a disenfranchised boy destined for greatness could be a fun little romp. Some, however, were less than optimal to say the least.

Dusk? Seriously?” the soldier scoffed in disgust. Honestly, if there was ever a vampire who behaved like that in real life, it’d have its fangs revoked, and don’t even get him started on the werewolves. How on earth–

Before the full fury of his ire could rise, the library burst open with a howl of wind and water as three thoroughly soaked miniature masses of mischief and mayhem careened into the marshal’s back.

“MARSHAL GRAAAAAVES! WE’RE BOOOOOOOOOORED!”

“… Um… ‘kay?”

Looking down, the soldier in question saw the diminutive figures of Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom – Ponyville’s resident scamps and mischief makers – clamped to his once more soaked trousers and staring up at him with the forlorn eyes of twice-drowned cats.

“So… you’re bored,” he repeated dumbly, still not quite sure of what to make of the situation.

“And then some!” Scootaloo clucked with obvious irritation through her dripping mat of purple hair. “Do you know how long it’s been raining? Three days. THREE WHOLE DAYS! Honestly, if I don’t see some action soon, I’m gonna go bonkers!”

“Do forgive her,” Apple Bloom drawled with remarkable genteel decorum for one standing under such a wilted, pink bow. “She’s been goin’ a little stir crazy ever since our tobogganing cutie mark plan fell through the cracks.”

“Tobogganing?” Graves blinked. “In this weather?”

“That was the plan. We thought we could pioneer warm-weather tobogganing, but it turns out you really can’t well toboggan when there’s nothing to toboggan on.”

“I didn’t know toboggan was a verb,” the marshal mused.

“Verbing is time honored if often disapproved of etymological device,” Sweetie Belle piped up, her usually poofy pompadour now distinctly less so when dripping with so much rain water. “But that’s beside the point, which is that if we don’t find something to do soon, we’re going to explode!” That last statement came complete with squeaky voice crack, sound effects, and excessive hand gestures.

“Really. Explode,” Grave repeated dubiously. Sweetie Belle made more explodey noises, only much bigger. And explodier.

“So as you can see, Marshal,” Apple Bloom continued, attempting to be the voice of reason for her little troop, “we’re all a bit buggered out on account of the weather, and we were wonderin’ if you might be able to–”

“–bring us to Canterlot on a super surprise field trip?” Sweetie Belle interjected eagerly.

“–give us lessons on sharpshooting?” Scootaloo interjected even more eagerly.

“Take us on another troll hunt?”

“Show us how to do a five finger death-punch?”

“Teach us how to blow things up with our minds?”

“ –tell us a story or somethin' tah pass the time!” the country girl finished with a cry lest she be steamrolled by more immature insanity.

“Oh yeah,” the girls with varying shades of purple in their dos grinned. “That works too.”

Apple Bloom could only sigh.

“So, you came all the way down here so I could… tell you a story,” Graves repeated. He seemed to be doing a lot of that today. Understandable really, considering just about everything he’d heard made as much sense as snowshoes in July.

“Yeah!” the girl in the bodacious bow replied. “Why, I’m bettin’ that as a marshal, you’ve got a whole heap ah’ fun stories you could share, ones that’d keep us right entertained till the weather clears up.”

“Dude, that’s so true!” Scootaloo beamed. “You should totally tell us about a time when you went action hero mode, what with the crazy one man army and lots of fighting and explosions and blood and guts and stuff! The more gooey bits, the better!”

“What? No way!” the girl in cotton candy curls retorted. “If anything, he should tell us a story that involves a princess! One with heroic rescues and love and romance and happy endings! That’s a real story.” At this, the little athlete gave her friend the most deadpan of deadpan expressions.

“Sweetie, you do realize that he’s going out with your sister, right?”

“Well, he is now,” she replied with a very prim, and very familiar-looking sniff. “But this was all before then, so I’m sure there’s no harm in telling us now.”

“Oh come on!” Scootaloo groaned. “Didn’t we just watch your stupid pony princess movie for like, the eleventy billionth time yesterday?”

“Pony Power Princess is not stupid!” Sweetie Belle indignantly piped up. “And besides, that was only because I had to unwind after playing Zombies versus Cannibals with you all day. I mean, I mean, do you know how long it takes to get oatmeal and cherry jello out of your hair? Do you?!”

“Zombies versus Cannibals is a great game and you know it!” Scootaloo shot back. “You’re just mad because I managed to eat your brains twice!”

“No, I’m mad because you cheated! Zombies can’t run that fast and you know it!”

“Twenty zombie apocalypse movies say you’re wrong!”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah!”

“Girls, enough!” Apple Bloom cried, having to literally pull the two apart before they decided to engage in pugilistic combat. “I’m sure Mister Graves can find us a nice, non-argument causing story that we can all enjoy.”

“Psh, yeah right,” Scootaloo scoffed. “There’s no way that he knows a story involving both prissy princess rescues and copious amounts of parental-guidance-required violence.”

“Actually, I do.”

Three pauses.

Three blinks.

Then slowly, three little heads turned their wide-eyed attention to the raven-haired soldier.

“Yah do?” Apple Bloom queried in understandable disbelief.

“Saddle Arabia, two years ago,” Graves nodded. “Got called in to retrieve a–”

A whirlwind of motion interrupted the young soldier’s monologue as the three pint-sized terrors manhandled him into a nearby armchair and took beaming seats before him.

“Now Mister Graves,” the miniature farm girl began with a practically glowing smile, “You were sayin’?”

“I was saying,” the marshal continued as his spinning head settled and he regained his bearings, “that Princess Celestia sent me to Saddle Arabia a while back on a search and rescue. Princess Zul’hara had gone missing and the sheikh was hotter than the sun in August trying to get her back.”

“Now hold on just a second,” Scootaloo interrupted. “Why’d they call us for help? Don’t those desert guys have like, super-powered genies and stuff to take care of their deals?”

“They do,” Graves nodded with a slight smile at the insightful comment. “Except, they couldn’t use them on their own people.”

“Huh?” the confused trio sounded in three-way stereo.

“The sheikh came to Equestria for help because he thought his own people did it. If it were other countries, then those djinn would’ve been stomping around like Big Mac in cider season. But when it’s your own? Last thing you want to do is start off a full blown civil war.”

“But wouldn’t getting other people mixed up make it worse?” Sweetie Belle frowned. “I mean, that’d be like me calling in Twilight to beat up Rarity if we got in a fight.”

“Hey, don’t bring me into this,” Twilight chuckled as she walked in and set a loaded tray upon the center table, one replete with hot tea and new towels for the still soggy girls. “Here you go, Graves, fresh chai with just a touch of milk and sugar.”

“Thanks,” the grey-eyed marshal nodded as he took a sip of the piping hot brew. “So, you've got a point, Sweetie Belle, but it still works out for the best. After all, better that Rarity take it out on Twilight than whoop up on you, right?”

“And how," the cotton candy lassie nodded with hearty concurrence. Graves just chuckled as Twilight rolled her eyes.

“Right. So anyway, I get to Saddle Arabia and the sheikh tells me they suspect the kidnapping was done by the Cult of Sutekh.”

“The Cult of whut now?” Apple Bloom blinked.

“Sutekh. Demon god of blood and sand. Royal family beat it way back, but some folks got the fool notion that bringing it back, wiping out the country, and rebuilding on the ruins would bring in a golden age of prosperity.”

“That makes about as much sense as trying to fly with brick wings,” Scootaloo frowned.

“And how,” Sweetie Belle nodded with hearty concurrence once more.

“Crazy, right?” Graves continued. “But that’s what they thought, and one part of their plan involved kidnapping the princess for a ritual to restore his power.”

“What kind of ritual?” the purple-haired athlete asked as she inched a little bit closer in anticipation of delightful, gooey bits.

“Demon god of blood?” the marshal repeated, eyebrow arched. “What do you think?”

Three pairs of eyes went very wide as undeveloped, but enthusiastic imaginations went to work.

“Yeah, that kind of business,” Graves nodded. “Needless to say, the sheikh would have none of that, so he called Celestia. Course, this all had to stay hush hush – didn’t want them to know we were moving, you see – so I touch down, get my orders, and get to work. Or, I would have, except for one problem.

“What’s that?” Apple Bloom chirped.

“We knew who to find, but no idea where to look.”

“How about a phone book?” Sweetie Belle suggested.

“Er… cults don’t really list themselves,” the marshal replied with a crooked grin. “Demon worshipers don’t exactly have great reputations, so they pretty much stayed underground.”

“Then why don’t you dig them up?” Scootaloo suggested with the cheekiest of cheeky grins. Graves just rolled his eyes.

“So right then, we have no idea where they are. But what we do know is that the best person to catch a criminal is always another criminal. That’s how I ended up in the Rat’s Nest.”

“That doesn’t sound like a very wholesome place,” Sweetie Belle grimaced.

“Not at all,” Graves readily agreed. “Dirty tavern way off on the city limits where the law’s the lightest? You get the worst kinds of thieves and villains you can imagine. Hay, even the best would sell off his own grandmothers for a shiny copper, then stab you and steal her back to sell again.”

“So what’d you do?” Scootaloo asked with wide-eyed interest. “You go in and beat the crap out of everyone till they talked?”

“Don’t be a chucklehead, Scoot,” Apple Bloom scoffed. “There’s no way one person could’ve cleaned out a whole house fulla varmints.”

“She’s right,” the marshal shrugged, “especially since even criminals have rules. Out there, the Nest is a peaceable zone where local thugs can grab a drink in… relative safety. You start trouble in there, and the whole lot will turn to cut you down to chowder bits before you can even blink.”

“Then what’d you do?” Sweetie Belle piped up. “Pay them?” Graves shook his head.

“They’d lie through their teeth and disappear with the money faster than a will o’ the wisp at dawn. No, the only way that’d work is starting a fight.”

“But… but you jess said you couldn't start any trouble,” Apple Bloom frowned.

“There's starting trouble,” the marshal grinned, "and then there's starting trouble.”

“Huh?” came the tri-unison call.

“The Nest may be peaceable, but that don’t mean the patrons are. Fact is, nobody there trusts anyone else farther than they can throw them and a whole lot less for some of the smaller ones. The whole place is always about ready to go up like a powder keg and that was a very good thing. After I take a seat, all I had to do was wait for a guy with full mugs to walk by another guy who's lounging about, stick my foot out just so, and... boom.”

“No way,” Scootaloo gaped in abject delight. “What happened?”

“Exactly what you’d expect,” Graves chuckled. “Bottles go flying, chairs get broken, and I think at least three people went through the windows before the first knife came out, and it came out fast. All the while, I start making my way around the place and ask my questions. Took a few tries, but eventually I found it.”

“You found the princess?” Sweetie Belle squeaked in amazement.

“I found where to start,” the marshal corrected. “The Cult of Sutekh’s a pretty secret group: you’ve got to do a lot to be a member. Still, there was one man, a rat-faced fellow named Sehmayed, told me where to find the group's recruiter. It's just following the bread crumbs from there.”

“But how’d you get ‘im tah talk?” Apple Bloom frowned. “Applejack always told me that the one ah the only things fibbers and scoundrels hate more than the honest truth is a squealer.”

“Simple,” Graves shrugged. “I asked.”

“That’s it?” Scootaloo frowned. “That’s all you had to do.”

“It’s amazing what asking nicely’ll get you,” the marshal remarked over a swallow of tea. “Especially when you ask nicely while dangling them off the roof of the local bazaar.”

Immature giggles. The best kind.

“Well, ended up that the recruiter didn’t know where the princess was,” Graves continued as a faint glow of excitement began to heat up his silver eyes, “but he knew a higher up in the Cult. Later that night, I break into his place, take out his guards, and have a little chat with him. Politely, of course. It takes a while, but he finally points me to a priest – the inside man for the kidnapping job – and the priest finally tells me where the princess is.”

“Where? Where?!” Sweetie Belle squeaked, looking as if she might explode if she didn’t find out soon.

“The Howling Sands.”

Already wide eyes grew just a little wider.

“The… Howlin’ Sands?” Apple Bloom gulped. Graves nodded.

“ ‘Bout a day’s journey out, there’s a place in the desert where the land just… sinks. A hundred paces across, the desert just keeps on pouring down into this deep, black hole, a hole that howls like a wolf beneath the full moon’s light.”

“B-but that’s just the wind, right?” Scootaloo grinned, a shaky little thing more bluster than bravado. “Nothing to be scared of, right?”

“That’s right,” Graves nodded. “After all, it’s not like it howls even when the air’s still, day or night, never ending, right? Or that anyone who falls in never comes out? You're right. Nothing to be scared of at all.”

Slowly, the marshal raised china to his lips, masking a smile as he watched a chilled shudder ripple through his little audience.

“W-well, w-w-what’d you do?” Sweetie Belle asked through chattering teeth.

“Only thing I could,” Graves continued. “The priest told me they were sacrificing the princess at sunrise. We only had a few hours till then, so I rushed back to the palace, notified the sheikh, and got the fastest magic carpet they had to take me to the Sands.”

“Did you make it?” Apple Bloom gasped. The girls probably didn’t even realize they were edging in closer with every word. Not even Twilight realized as her mug grew cold and forgotten in hand.

“With only minutes to spare,” Graves nodded. “I landed on a stony hill, probably half a click away. From there, I could see them, the Cult of Sutekh, a hundred men in blood-red robes and snake-like spears of twisted bronze. They were at the edge of the sinkhole, the princess tied down amidst them on a stone tablet while they started pounding away on giant, rawhide drums. As they pounded, the rest joined in, slamming their spear butts into the sand and screaming some ancient language up to the high heavens, louder than sin and fit enough to raise a storm. Well, they raise something up alright, but let me tell you, it wasn’t something as nice as a little old storm.”

Nobody asked what the something was. Nobody could speak. But the marshal saw the question shining in each eye and continued.

“It rose up slow, right up from that howling hole in the desert. A claw came first, big as a wagon with giant claws that could cut an ox up eight ways till Sunday. Three more came up to join it and together, they pulled out something monstrous. Gleaming black eyes. Fangs dripping with venom. Scales the color of fresh blood and big around as a man’s shield. Out of that pit, Sutekh arose, a demon once beaten now risen to walk the world once more.

“As he rose, the worshippers fell back, leaving the princess alone before the demon like dinner on a plate. Sutekh looked down at her, tasted the air with his long, forked tongue, and he smiled. From two scabbards at his side, he pulled out his weapons, giant curved blades of thick, rusted iron. These, he raised to the sky as he cried out, his rasping voice echoing across the desert. Soon, he'd have the princess. Soon, he’d be back to full strength and the sands would run red once more. There wasn't any more time. If anyone was going to stop him, it’d have to be right there, right then.”

“What did you do?” Sweetie Belle cried. Graves grinned.

“You wanna know?”

“Yeah!” all four cried. The marshal’s grin grew wider.

“Well, I was up far away. They hadn’t seen me yet. So quietly, I took out my rifle…”

His audience inched a little closer.

“… took a deep breath…”

Eyes grew to the size of tea saucers.

“... got myself ready, and…”

Expectant smiles on every face, Graves gave his biggest, cockiest, son-of-a gunnest smirk, and said,

“… I shot him.”

Silence.

Pause.

Silence some more.

“And?” Apple Bloom prompted.

“And he went down,” the marshal grinned, smug as Rainbow Dash after beating Applejack at, well, anything.

“Just… one shot,” she intoned. “That’s all it took.”

“That’s all,” Graves nodded. “Picture perfect placement between the cervical and thorasic vertebrate. Didn’t even have time to twitch.”

“But… but what about the action?” Scootaloo cried.

“And the romance?” Sweetie Belle squealed.

“Oh yeah. Well, the royal guards came in and cleaned up the cult. Didn’t see much of it – had to get the princess to safety – but she made it back just fine and married the Sultan of Istampbull a month later.”

“But you didn’t see it,” Apple Bloom said.

“New mission,” Graves shrugged. “But it happened, and that’s what counts, right?”

Pause.

Silence as Apple Bloom looked to Sweetie Belle, who turned to Scootaloo, who returned to Apple Bloom. There were no words, but as one, the three nodded, stood, and walked towards the door.

“Hey, where you going?” Graves called out, now slightly confused. “It's still raining.”

“Yeah, we know,” Scootaloo shrugged. “But after that story, the rain might not be so bad after all.”

“What, you didn't like it?” the marshal blinked.

“Like is such a... strong word?” Apple Bloom wondered. “It was more like your story, oh, I don’t know…”

“Failed harder than your sister trying to make dresses?” Scootaloo suggested.

“Exactly," the farm girl agreed with a bob of her pink-bowed head. "Long story short, Mister Graves? Your story was just plain awful.”

His mouth worked silently as the marshal gaped like a landed trout.

“Sweetie Belle,” Graves called as he turned thunderstruck eyes to the little girl. “You didn’t think my story was awful, did you?”

The girl with cotton candy curls made a few dainty adjustments to her dress before she turned to the marshal and gave him a neat little curtsy.

“Thank you for the story, Mister Graves,” she said in the sweetest, politest, cotillion class tones. “It was certainly an interesting experience.”

Wide silver eyes could only stare at the retreating figures as the library door quickly closed behind them.

Awful? Awful?! Aw come on, how the hay was his story awful? It had everything they wanted: action, romance, and a happy ending. Hay, he'd even given them the happiest ending of all: a clean, successful mission. How on earth could they hate on such a great story?

“My story wasn't awful,” Graves muttered, still not believing what he’d heard. “They just didn't get it. I mean, you heard everything, right, Twilight? You don't think that... ah, Twilight? ... Twilight?”

He tried to get the young librarians attention. Several times in fact, though she never did answer. After all, it’s hard to hear questions when you’re rolling on the floor with laughter.

**********

Next Chapter: A Wise Man Once Said... Estimated time remaining: 10 Minutes
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