-When One Falls Another Shall Stand and Take Its Place-

Ponyville awoke the next day peacefully. It was a pride of the town that they were so easily able to recover from the hardships that wandered out from the forest nearby. Whether it was a young dragon on a greed rampage or a tantrum throwing Ursa Minor, the town was often able to bounce back almost as quickly as it had been swept into chaos. This recent event was no different, except that maybe it had been someone besides the local heroes who had resolved the issue. And the fact that it had not been monsters as the cause for the threat, but more ponies instead.

Indeed, rumors were abound in the small town; most centered on the new arrivals that had accompanied the beloved mares back to Ponyville, or the exact nature of the attack. Some had decided they were a band of wandering knights in the search of some truth in a pilgrimage and that it had been chance that they had arrived. A few believed that the attackers were actually enemies of the warrior ponies and that they had unintentionally drawn the town into harm's way. However, none disagreed that if the warrior ponies had not been there that things might have ended very differently.

In fact, it was a strange find that day that the ponies of Ponyville realized the leader of the small brigade was missing where he had been almost omnipresent the previous day. Only his two slightly built subordinates could be found, stood watch outside the Golden Oaks Library or escorting a few of the Elements into the early morning market. Thankfully things had a way of working out around Ponyville, unfortunately it seemed that things fell apart equally as commonly around Coalback.

The hospital's clinic was no operating theater, but it held more than enough supplies for the Pegasus's purposes. It was dark inside the room, he'd arrived just before sunrise and walked right past a sleeping nurse at the front counter. He began a search for supplies once he'd managed to lock the door. Bandages were what he really needed, he could make do without stitches or disinfectant if he had to. But the real problem came from the deepest point in the blade stuck fast in his back.

On the long walk here Coalback had worked the hole in his chest cavity even wider, which allowed more fluid to flood into his chest. However, his thick blood had congealed around the hole in his lung and held it shut in a tentative grasp. If he didn't stop the internal bleeding soon, although he had considerably more time than most, then it could begin to cause potential organ failure. He had to stop the bleeding somehow.

Cabinets clattered as he searched. Gauze strips, absorbent pads, a glass pitcher of medicinal alcohol, and a set of forceps were all he needed to get started. But with a sigh he gathered one other element; a sterile cup, normally used for urine samples, that he unwrapped, clamped between his teeth and slowly allowed it to be filled with saliva. It was the only thing he could think of that might help the bleeding.

With a grunt he took the forceps in his good hoof and, once sterilized with the alcohol, clumsily began to manipulate them into any position that they might be able to pull the dagger free from his back. The small clamp was able to lock closed over the hilt of the dagger, just long enough for Coalback to get a grip with. He realized the instrument was incompetent for the task, more suited to close an artery that to grab a blade, but it was what he had and he had wasted enough time with the dagger in his back. It locked with the jagged edges of metal around it and tugged against the flesh that had stuck to it with his own congealed blood.

He had to stifle a yell when the forceps slipped and the heavy blade sank back into the wound. His breathing came in harsh gasps, he could feel the tip of the blade digging into his lung lining, ready to flood his breath with his own blood again. He could already feel pressure from the blood that had trickled into the cavity around them. With a grunt he locked the little forceps around the dagger again and pulled. He felt the knife lock against the armor on his back, but only a moment before he was able to force it to overcome its friction violently.

Metal screeched as whatever edge had caught the blade was twisted and scraped. The dagger itself clattered to the floor, finally free. Something hot and wet rolled down his back underneath his armor, which was next to go.

Steady had been true to her word; as easily as the armour was donned it was removed. The straps took use of a design that clamped together the leather, which meant they could be released and tightened with only a flick of his hoof. He dug under the edges of his armour around the joints in search of those latches that would free his shoulder to make way for bandages.

The door shuddered behind him. Coalback jumped, his senses instantly tuned to the door and the pony behind it. He could hear their breathing and their heartbeat far before he heard a mare's demand to know who was inside.

"Go away!" Coalback grunted. The plates of armour around the shoulder of his wing fell away with a clatter to the floor, followed quickly by the other wing's and the ruined plate that had once sat between them. He managed to wrestle the heavy ringmail jerkin off of his back and slide his limp wing out, but the effort left him exhausted. He'd lost so much blood, the plates and ringmail were covered in dry, black blood and he could feel more slowly trickling down his back.

He shakily took the cup from his mouth, now bearing a puddle of his drool, and slowly poured it across his shoulder. The wolf’s spit slowly seeped into the wound, it clotted the blood and began the healing process. A soft hiss filled the air as it hit the last remnants of metal shavings left in his shoulder.

The door shook again, more forcefully than before. "Open this door!" It was a stallion at the door this time, most likely security. When Coalback gave no answer the doorframe shook as the pony tried to force their way in. A growl grew in Coalback's throat and his anger lent him new strength. The flimsy door lock shattered under the force of the security pony's assault, and if it had been anyone else inside the pony might have appeared threatening.

The earth pony stallion jumped back only just in time to avoid his hooves being split by the damascus knife that imbedded itself in the floor where they had been an instant earlier. "Stay away!" Coalback warned, fury in his voice. Coalback’s chest heaved and he coughed forcefully, when he looked down blood had splattered across the floor in front of him.

It seemed then that the security pony realized the state of the intruder, and he shouted for a doctor. Coalback growled again, he could feel blood leak into his lung. He grunted and lobbed a nearby stool at the door. The security guard balked and scrambled out of the way, the rushing nurse just behind him skidded across the floor as she attempted to stop. The stool crashed against the doorframe of the cramped room and fell just inside, a short barrier that Coalback hoped to deter any more ponies from bothering him.

He lifted his left arm up, braced against his barrel in an attempt to allay the pain in his shoulder that ached and burned. He stopped to try to catch his shallow breath, which halted when his eyes fell on the dagger he'd pulled from his back.

With the light from the hall now on it, and a scratch across its thick blade that lacked an edge, he was able to see why his wound burned so. Silver glinted in the hall light below a thin layer of varnish.

"They knew," he hissed.

Dark whispers leaked from the pages, so infused with power and emotion that their construct could not fully contain them. But their history was pure, and Luna poured over every symbol of the old text. Its pages were covered in interlocking circles just to keep the words attached to the paper, and to anyone but her it would have been illegible. It was not in any language spoken by mortals.

These were her recordings of the time before her banishment. And though now she could see the madness overtaking her thoughts in her past self through this text its history was plainly there. This was during a dark time in pony history; the Grey Wars had ended and Discord had been imprisoned, but monsters and dark magic roamed free in the aftermath of the fighting. Little resemblance of their previous empires remained, and the ponies teetered on the edge of renewed conflict that would become the Solar Wars.

And spattered throughout every wilderness was what remained of the Grey Wars, the final struggle for a fading power that would end in the absolute disappearance of Men and their creations. Their demise came nearly 300 years before she was banished.

It was for this reason that Luna scoured the pages, in hope of some explanation or clue as to their eventual demise. Because with Coalback's return it would seem that they had been incorrect to assume their eradication: at least one had been able to keep their bloodline alive and the last remnant of them had returned into their midst.

Was it an omen? A sign of some new age to come -- of tragedy or prosperity? Or was it simply that he had had nowhere else to flee, and that in whatever shadowy land he had come from another calamity had nearly wiped them out? Surely a clue existed! Some note on their migrations or the shifts in their power, she was certain that with her previous fascination with beasts of the night that she must have dedicated some time to them!

Nothing.

She sighed and closed the book. Her head ached. It physically pained her to see the ruin she had become in those days, much as it poisoned her to attempt to control the lost Beast she'd made a knight. She hoped to save him from an absolute extinction, even if it seemed that was all he was after. Her nature demanded the preservation of life just as much as it allowed for the passage of time and the inevitable deaths that came with it. Balance -- Harmony -- demanded a check on their power as goddesses, and his kind had been meant to fill that niche; she was sure. Without them back in the world it would not matter if Discord found a way to overthrow them.

"Bah!" Luna grunted as she tossed the book aside. The moment it left her grasp it returned to its enchanted shelf, sealed with wards that would keep anyone else from seeing it.

Discord. Her mind felt sluggish and strained with just the thought of its name. Some historians had labeled the chimera god as her brother. How wrong they were. While it seemed that she and her sister truly did hold a relation to him, it was not in the same way. She and her sister shared the same blood, the same flesh. But Discord had neither. In more ways he was related to their Mother, and like many royals, he endeavored to replace her.

After all, Luna was only a Princess. It was her mother who was Queen.

"Next week won't work for me, I'm not even sure if I'll be able to get away for the one the weather patrol saw moving our way over the Everfree for this week," Rainbow groaned. She slumped back into the cloud cushion she'd constructed from an extra bit of cover for the day, it was only supposed to be partly cloudy anyways.

"Come on, Boss!" Flitter lamented, almost desperate at this point. "Storm chasing is no fun when it's just us! When you're with us you make sure we push it to the next level!" she tried, desperate to convince Rainbow to reconsider. She and several other ponies from her weather team sat around with her, either to help negotiate with Rainbow or just to rest now that most of the day's work was already done.

Rainbow only huffed in irritation. As much as she enjoyed the tradition of storm chasing with the Ponyville weather team, her next few weeks were promising to be packed or to be anything but 'sleeping over' at Twilight’s place. "I'm sorry, girls. But with Wonderbolt tests coming up and with how freaky everything is right now I'm booked! Twilight says she wants to spend all week next week studying with me; and I really don't want to but I really, really need this to happen!" she grunted.

"Come on! I heard that some warm fronts from down South moved in over the Everfree and that that storm is totally getting bigger!" Cloudjumper all but yelled.

"It isn't up to me right now, okay?" Rainbow yelled in her frustration. "Right at the beginning of storm season too. Sheesh," she grumbled.

"I guess it'll just be me and the ladies then," Thunderlane said with a cheeky grin.

"Yeah!" Flitter smiled. "It'll just be us girls!" she guffawed. Thunderlane slumped as the mares around him began their uproarious laughter at his expense, which was not uncommon.

"Yeah, yeah!" Thunderlane deadpanned. "Laugh it up! You won't be laughing when you’re eating my wake!" he chuckled, his wing flung a clump of chilly cloud over a few of the others. One clump of sky fluff soon turned into two, then twelve, and soon every Pegasus perched on the cloud had been drawn into the fray of flying moisture. The impromptu cloud fight quickly destroyed the small stratocumulus they had all piled onto.

"Rainbow!" The group of Pegasi jumped back as a pink blur bounced up in between them through the thin layer of cloud below. "You have to come-" Pinkie began to say before gravity pulled her back out of earshot and underneath the clouds.

"Pinkie?" Rainbow spat out in surprise. She looked down the hole in the cloud to find the party pony returning to their height thanks to a rather large, and pink, trampoline. "What are you doing?" Rainbow asked as Pinkie came to the top of her arc.

"Youhavetocomequick! Coalback'sinthehospitalbut-" she managed to spit out before she fell back down. "Buthewon'tletanyofthedoctorsnearhim, andtheythinkhe'sbleedingontheinside, and-" she spat out on her next jump. "Andifhegetssickwecan'tthrowhimabigThankYouslashWelcometoPonyvilleParty!" she screamed in a panic.

Rainbow hooked her arms under Pinkie’s before she could fall again and another Pegasus got behind her to help keep the heavy earth pony in the air. "Hold on," Rainbow grunted. "What's up, Pinkie? You look ... freaked out," Rainbow noted as her eyes worked over Pinkie. Other than the grimace on her face, there was no limp mane or pale fur that would otherwise indicate something bad on an entirely different level.

"Well I got up this morning and was getting ready to put some donuts out when my tail went all floppy and my eyelids were all itchy and then my knee got all achy and that was a combo I'd never had before so I followed it outside and-" Pinkie paused to catch her breath for a moment and Rainbow began to slowly descend toward the ground far below. "-and then I found Nurse Redheart running around, and she was yelling about finding the Guard. So I asked her what was up and she was like 'I have to find those Guards, that big one is in the hospital trashing everything' and I was like 'that sounds a lot like Coalback, but I don't think that he'd do that' he's a pretty nice pony, he wouldn't just smash somepony else's stuff for no reason, I don't think. But then she was like 'and he's bleeding and he won't let anyone help him' and I went-" Pinkie demonstrated the large gasp she let out when she had spoken with the head nurse. "-and then I went and got Twilight and she went to go find those Guards and then I went to get Applejack and Fluttershy because I thought that if anypony could convince Coalback to let someone help him it would be one of them and then I went and told Rarity because I thought that she might be able to help the doctors fix anything that Coalback broke because it sounded like he'd broken a lot of things, but then I remembered that you were able to convince him to not be such a big meanie to that bartender in Canterlot when he wouldn't listen to anypony else so I came to get you because I thought you might be able to help!" she said as her hooves finally found the ground again and the Pegasi holding her let her drop back onto her hooves. "So let's go!" she yelled as she began a mad dash in the direction of the Hospital.

"I better take care of this, guys. Talk to ya later!" Rainbow called over her shoulder to the others as she winged after Pinkie.

They made for the hospital with a speed that only the fastest flyer and best partier in Equestria could manage. In only a moment they were able to go from one side of town to the other. But it seemed that even that was not enough to halt the scene that had sprung up around the hospital's entrance.

A mob had surrounded the door, where Iron Bar stood in full combat gear as an imposing bar on their passage. It was only once they got close enough that they realized almost every pony there held either a camera or a notepad and were lobbying for entrance or an interview with the stallion at the door himself. Pinkie managed to bounce through the crowd without any trouble and Rainbow met her by the door.

"What the heck is going on?" Rainbow tried to ask the Guard past the voices of the crowd held back only by the swing of Iron Bar's rifle.

Iron Bar made to answer only to be interrupted by a loud journalist who shouted "Miss Pinkie Pie! Who's your new Guard?! Why was the town attacked the same day that they arrived?!" Iron Bar turned back to the crowd with a grunt and stomped on the icy ground to make them back up. However the camera flashes resumed and similar queries continued to be shouted in their direction.

Iron Bar grunted at them and motioned for them to go inside even as he shouted "This is an operating Hospital! You are causing a blockage at the entrance! Remove yourselves at once!" He made for an imposing figure, but he was unfortunately not able to actually remove the crowd of paparazzi and it seemed they were aware. There was an emergency entrance that they were not blocking, so Iron Bar's words served as a weak deterrent.

Rainbow and Pinkie ducked inside, once the doors were closed the crowd was dulled into a low roar. Rainbow locked onto the other Guard instantly and she darted over in search of an explanation.

"You! Filly Bust or whatever your name is- What the heck is going on? What's with all the cameras?!" she demanded.

Filibuster snorted in irritation. "Somehow word got out in Canterlot that Luna knighted somepony, then after word of the attack two days ago got to Canterlot they all piled on the first train here this morning to try and find him: They all want the first scoop on Luna’s new knight and what he's doing," he explained. It was short, but it got the point across. The political importance of it was more complicated. The Lunar Guard had been all but rumor until Luna’s return, and with the legends of Nightmare moon so closely tied to them any news about them tended to attract a morbid curiosity that made the journalists drool at the potential headlines. This was no exception.

A crash echoed up the hall followed by a loud "Ekki snerta mig!" in a very familiar growl.

"This isn't exactly helping," Filibuster grumbled. "Coalback is in there bleeding all over the place and rambling in some sort of gibberish. He won't even let us near him, nearly took my head off with a cabinet door. It looks like somepony punched through his armour with a misericord, how he managed to walk all the way back here-"

Another crash drew their attention down one of the halls. "Go see if you can help him, we'll keep these jackals out," Filibuster said with a dismissive shrug. He shouldered his rifle on its spear shaft and moved to join his fellow at the door.

Rainbow walked down the hall toward the clump of ponies. A few nurses holding emergency kits and a rolling cot stood impatiently outside with Rarity and attempted to peek through one of the doors. Rainbow was just able to spot Fluttershy huddled at the end of the hall as they approached the group. One of the nurses noticed and made to stop them before Rarity could rush over to Rainbow and Pinkie.

"It's absolutely dreadful, Rainbow!" Rarity spouted as she grabbed Pinkie into a hug. "He got hurt after he left last night; those ruffians sprung a trap on him," her voice shook and her normally prim appearance was ruffled.

Pinkie bounced around them on her way to the door. "Come on-"

"Wait!" one of the nurses hissed as she grabbed Pinkie by the tail and tugged her back from the door. "Don't barge in! It's taken us this long to get him to a point where he'd let those two in there with him. We have to keep him from panicking again," she insisted. "He's stopped bleeding for now, but if he gets worked up again his injuries could get worse."

"Just leave!" Coalback yelled from inside the room, stress shook in his voice.

"We're tryin' to help you!" Applejack's voice echoed out of the room, just as frustrated and angry as Coalback's.

"I don't need help! I want to be left alone!"

Rainbow huffed and pushed past the nurse anyway. She slipped in past the broken lock of the door and let a "Holy cow," drop from her lips.

Coalback was backed into a corner, most of the armor missing from his back. Blood, blackened and mostly dry, had soaked his barrel and glistened on top of what was left of his armor. Sweat foamed red with the blood around his shoulders and beneath his armour. One of his wings was held loosely at his side and the spotted feathers were rimed with scarlet. A swollen wound, ragged and purple, wept still more dark blood from between his shoulders. And the floor next to a smashed cabinet was smeared with even more. His ragged breathing filled the room.

Applejack and Twilight stood well back, careful not to antagonize Coalback. He paced in his corner, unwilling to approach or to calm himself. Coalback turned to Rainbow as soon as she entered and a growl slowly built in his throat. His head was low, ears slayed back, and his slightly pointed teeth were bared. But it was his eyes that stopped Rainbow right in her tracks.

Dark bags hung under the bloodshot orbs. Thin, sharp eyebrows were hung low in a way that could have been a scowl but just as easily could have been exhaustion that weighed them down. Crow's feet pinched in the corners as Coalback blinked and squinted at her with heavy eyelids. They were intense eyes despite the exhaustion that had taken its toll on them, but Rainbow managed to find the desperation hidden underneath.

Rainbow swallowed a lump in her throat before she started forward again. If anything just to stand next to her friends and offer what support she could. She didn't get far before her hoof kicked something heavy.

The knife clattered and spun on its guard, and the bloody tip stopped to point at the bloody stallion on the other side of the room. Rainbow held back a gag at the sight, it was almost too easy to imagine how that had been stuck in Coalback's shoulders not that long ago. A breathless growl drew her attention away from the chunk of flesh still stuck to the weapon.

Coalback’s breathing had escalated, but it didn't stop him from trying to growl. Blood trailed out of the corner of his mouth and Rainbow was unsure if he looked cornered and scared, or just plain rabid.

"How long has it been since you got some shut eye?" she finally asked him. Applejack and Twilight looked at her incredulously, mostly to shake their heads and try to keep her from talking. But Rainbow pushed it. "I know you didn't sleep last night, and I'm pretty sure you didn't the night before that. Why don't you just lay down and take a rest?" she said as calmly as she could.

"Can't," Coalback huffed. His eyes darted between her and the metal spike of a knife. "They knew! I don't know how, but they did! And now they'll come for me!" he shouted. His hackles rose and the wild glint in the pony’s eyes grew.

"Nopony's coming for you. We'll all keep watch and make sure," Rainbow said in the most reassuring way she could muster. "Just lay down and shut your eyes for a bit, okay?"

"No," Coalback grunted. "You don't know- you can't know. How could you? Too long ago, no ponies around. You haven't seen what they do to people who get in the way! What I've done to get away!" He backed up until his rear pressed against the wall and he could go no further. "You have to get away from me before I do something we regret!" he growled, his voice suddenly big enough to fill the room.

"Is that supposed ta be a threat?" Applejack grunted back, a warning tone weaved into her words.

"You don- you don't understand," Coalback gurgled as more blood leaked out his mouth. His scowl grew as a few errant drops of blood fell from his lips.

"I think I understand plenty! Yer actin like a cornered coyote!" Applejack yelled.

"I'm going to use a sedation spell, it should calm him down," Twilight said as her horn began to glow.

“Wait!” Rainbow tried to warn, but the damage was already done. Whatever care for not harming any of them vanished from Coalback and the fearsome, tooth bearing snarl returned to his face.

Coalback jerked his head under his wing, and with a flick the shield detached and was flung at Twilight. Twilight jumped and the shield crashed against a purple bubble with a shower of sparks. Coalback braced his front legs and bucked against the wall with a snarl. His hooves punched through the drywall without a problem until he found a space between the studs, another kick punched through the insulation and the outside stucco. Coalback twisted around and quickly kicked a hole out of the wall between the studs and squeezed through.

Applejack pranced in place before she decided to stop and check on Twilight. Rainbow rushed to the hole in the wall just in time to see Coalback disappear into the Everfree only a few acres away. A light snow had started to fall -- off schedule.

“Are you all right, darlin’?” Applejack asked Twilight as she helped the Unicorn stand back up.

“Just shaken,” she muttered. “Why do you think he did that?”

“He’s a shadowy fellah, that’s what I say,” Applejack insisted angrily. “Maybe Rarity had the right idea a’ bein’ careful o’ this fellah,” she growled.

Rainbow snorted in irritation. “I thought it was needles at first, but it’s being drugged,” Rainbow grunted.

“What did you say?” Twilight asked.

“When I first ran into Coalback, he was freaking out over an injection they tried to give him. I thought he was just afraid of needles or something, but now,” Rainbow shrugged. “He must have heard you say that you were gonna knock him out and freaked. I bet it's PTSD.” She turned back to see the similar realization appear on their faces as well. “I gotta go after him before he hurts himself,” she grunted.

“What! No, Rainbow! Wait!” Twilight started in a panic.

“What in the hay do you wanna do that fer?” Applejack asked, equally concerned.

“You can’t just leave somepony alone when they panic like that!” Rainbow grunted as she started to climb through the ragged hole in the wall.

The stucco scratched against her coat as she edged through the large hole. Coalback had ripped all the way through the chicken-wire and left a pile of shattered stucco and drywall among a rat's nest of insulation outside. The dull clamor of the paparazzi on the other side of the Hospital pressed in on Rainbow’s ears and she rushed for the forest edge.

She rushed into dim forest, wary of its mostly dead trees. Rainbow followed a straight path in the vain hope of stumbling back across Coalback. She didn't know him well enough to say how far he would run, or if he would stop at all, or where he might try to go to. She didn't want to see him come back with even more injuries because he panicked and ran off -- if he came back at all.

The forest was behind the season, not quite ready for winter but done with fall. However this did little to help the choking atmosphere of the place or the heavy air that made Rainbow’s wings itch so close to the ground. The grass was still here, but crisp and half dead. And the trees seemed more sinister without their leaves: like feral abominations riddled with mange. The stink of rot, a strange smell in such cold weather but not uncommon for the forest, stuck to the back of her throat as she ran.

She slowed down as she entered a clearing, a wall of grey-barked trees all around her. She looked around for any sign of where Coalback must have gone, but as far as she knew he'd left no trail for anyone to follow. It was by sheer luck that she spotted the tiniest flash of dark red in the tall, dead grass. She trotted toward it, hoping and dreading that there was a trail to follow. If he'd started bleeding again then this would be harder than she thoight.

"Don't come any closer!" Coalback's voice rasped out from behind the trees, hidden by dying bushes and old curtains of dead leaves. Rainbow stopped instantly, unsure what Coalback would do if she pressed forward. She could hear his struggled breathing, and she had swallow a lump in her throat before she spoke.

"Coalback, you're hurt. You should let somepony help you," she said as calmly and as reassuringly as she could. She was very out of practice at doing this.

"The last time someone tried to help me I was locked in a hole for two years!" Coalback bellowed. The forest shook and what few birds there still were took flight and fled. "The last time someone tried to help me," he said again, "hundreds died, and a hundred thousand more followed. So just go away!"

"Not gonna happen," Rainbow said; stronger voice now, she had to sound confident and in control. "You need my help and you're getting it whether you like it or not."

A snarl shook out of the bushes and Coalback ripped out from the branches. He skidded to a halt in front of her, his larger frame loomed over her. He scowled down at her, teeth bared. But Rainbow stood her ground, she wasn't going to let him try to bully her into leaving.

"Friends don't let friends get hurt," Rainbow grunted up at him, her eyes locked on his. Their scowls matched each other as Coalback clenched his jaw. Out of the corner of her eye, Rainbow could still see all of the blood that had stained his fur. He breathed out a cloud of steam from his nose and Rainbow saw his anger ebb, just barely in the corners of his eyes.

"Friends ..."

"Yeah, that's right." Rainbow nodded and let her own scowl relax slightly. "Remember that? We're friends. And I do not leave my friends hanging when I should be there."

Coalback snorted, but he took a step back and finally gave Rainbow some breathing room. "What would you know? You can't help."

"You're right, big guy" Rainbow admitted with a shrug. "I know jack squat about you. But I know you've lived through some pretty heavy stuff before you came here: and I know what that can do to a pony." She waited, and when his scowl slowly left his face she swallowed her pride and continued. "My dad was a Search and Rescue pony. When a wildfire got out of control a crew went to go reign it in, but he went to the logging cabin where two ponies had been trapped inside by the fire. He couldn't get them out, he barely made it back himself. Mom left after that, we were a small herd so that only left me to take care of him. He drank, he got freaked out by all sorts of things, and it was my job to reign him in. One time I didn't and now he's in a hospital in Cloudsdale staring at a wall and drinking his food through a straw," Rainbow swallowed the lump in her throat again. "So I'd like to think I know what I'm talking about when I say that you're freaking out and you need to calm down."

Coalback stared at her for a long moment before he finally sat down heavily on the cold ground. His armor rattled as he let out a long, shaky breath and looked away from her. “I don’t like doctors, or needles, or ‘medicine’,” Coalback whispered, so quietly Rainbow almost missed it. “They kept telling me they were helping me, and that I was helping people, as they cut me open and rooted around inside me. I will never let myself be that helpless ever again,” he growled under his breath.

“You don’t have to be, not in Ponyville – not anywhere in Equestria,” Rainbow said. She slowly took a seat next to him, which thankfully made his shoulders lose their tension.

“That’s what I thought about the Valley of Headless Men, I thought that no one would bother me there … I planned on dying there, but now I’m here instead,” Coalback choked out.

Rainbow was silent for a long moment, completely unsure how to respond. “Well, we’re glad you’re here,” she finally said. “If the Princess hadn’t asked you to come and keep us safe, we might not have been able to hold off all those ponies,” she admitted. “I was really freaked out when you jumped in there, and I was … don’t tell anybody but I was scared that you would get hurt.” Her ears folded against her head and she looked down between her hooves.

“I was scared, too,” Coalback rasped, “scared that I wouldn’t be able to stop.” When Rainbow looked back up he had his eyes locked on the trees around them. “The last time I lost control like that I ended up killing a lot of … a lot of people. But I kept remembering that you were still stuck outside with them and that if I didn’t keep it together that one of them could get away from me and go after you while I was distracted,” he said with a glance at her.

“You were scared? While you beat the crap out of those guys?” Rainbow asked, she dropped her concern in the wake of her confusion.

“I know I act scary, but … most of the time I’m terrified,” he admitted. “That I’ll hurt someone; that I’ll get run out of town; that a mob of furious ponies will come after me and I’ll screw up and I’ll hurt more people. Or that they’ll just look at me and realize I’m not normal like them,” he growled, the tension in his shoulders returning.

Rainbow scooted closer across the floor and reached a tentative hoof out to touch his. “I got some good news for you, dude,” she said. Coalback turned to her with his ears up in surprise. “Ponyville is anything but normal, you’ll fit right in.”

“I know,” the raven whispered from its perch at Clean Cut.

“That’s the one you think she wants?” he asked incredulously.

“He’s the first male that’s shown any sign of the same abilities as her,” Luna shrugged.

“Just because a bird starts whispering ‘I know’ at anypony who’ll listen doesn’t mean that it has any ability to read the Fates; only that it thinks it does. There’s more to it than that,” he sighed. “What kind of books do you like?” he asked the raven.

“I know,” the raven whispered.

“Not much of a conversationalist either. Merletta will hate him,” he concluded.

“Fine, let the raven decide for herself. I just wanted to offer a choice in hopes that he might help purify the bloodline,” Luna relented.

“Thank you, your Majesty.”

“And how useful has she and her ancestors been for you, Clean Cut?” Luna asked.

“Extremely, although I still haven’t solved how to be in two places at once. The only solutions I can find range from attempting to control more than one projection of my consciousness or time travel, neither of which is preferable,” Clean Cut explained. “But otherwise her family’s insight and guidance have been invaluable. Although Merletta has been a particularly entertaining companion.”

“Very good,” Luna said as she turned to leave. “We wish thee luck in finding her a mate. Fare thee well, my ever faithful student.”

“Farewell, your grace.” Clean Cut said with a bow.

“I know,” the raven whispered.

Author's Notes:

There, finally managed to squeeze out another one for ya'll. As always, tell me what you think, I love reading your comments.

Now, I might put this in a blog post but I'll tack it on here as well: I'm about to get VERY busy. AP tests are coming, I'll be graduating, moving, and hopefully getting a job. So writing may slow down to a halt for a LONG time. I've been pretty stressed about all of it and have been putting writing especially on the sidelines. I may not be back for awhile, but hopefully I won't lose how much fun it is to write these and I'll come back.

SNE