Dim couldn’t leave the hustle and bustle of this horrid place soon enough. This place was all the evidence he needed that disgusting primitives could not be trusted to rule, govern, or otherwise exist on their own. This place—along with Tortoise-Tuga—would always stand out in his mind as examples of the sort of anarchy that existed when commoners were left to self-rule.

Blackbird walked abreast of him and at the moment, he was doing his best to avoid looking at her. At the moment, things were complicated between them. She was happy, full of hope, she was jubilant about the news of her mother. Dim, on the other hoof, was not happy, nor full of hope, and he was enduring a most peculiar sensation right now. The reason for this was, Dim had a secret.

The shakes had settled in, nevermind why they had manifested, there were too many reasons to count, and now, the overwhelming desire to satisfy his urges were beginning to overtake him. At some point, some point he hadn’t noticed, coca and opium had ceased to be useful supplements to aid him, and had become cruel necessities. To fend off the coming jitters, he pulled out a thin silver case from the inside of his broad-brimmed hat, opened that, and pulled out a fresh clove and cannabis cigarette. The case was hidden back inside of his hat, vanishing away with a flash of magic.

It glistened somewhat, as it was, in fact, just a little bit moist. He jammed it into the end of his long, slender, silver holder, stuck that into the corner of his mouth, and lit it with a thought. After a few puffs, the horrible brain itch began to subside a little, and with this being a fresh smoke, the cloves were strong. Already, his tongue, gums, throat, and lungs began going numb. His body just never adapted well to physical exertion, like walking, and whatever problem his lungs had seemed to be getting worse.

At least the cloves were an effective painkiller.

“Where will we go first?” With just a tiny bit of magic, Dim punctuated his own question with a smoky question mark. It was a simple, but advanced trick, as he did not use ‘unicorn’ magic. No, this magic came from elsewhere, and should he harness it at full strength, firebreathing would be the result.

“I don’t know yet,” Blackbird replied, and she glanced at her companion out of the corner of her eye. “Any suggestions?”

“You’re asking me?” Dim continued puffing, and with each inhale, he felt his spasming muscles relaxing just a little bit. “What do you think your mother would have done?”

“I don’t know!” Blackbird snapped. “I didn’t think my mother would pull out her guns one day and go on a drunken rampage of revenge! I’m really upset and disappointed with her! Without my father around, she just sort of fell apart! She couldn’t hold herself together, not even for me, her daughter, and she had to go off on some killing spree! I really don’t know this part of her… it was hidden from me growing up.”

It was then that Dim heard it, a soft suggestion in his mind. The pink voice, once jarring, now almost seemed soothing. Don’t just stand there, say something nice Dim. Reconnect with your equinity.

Saying something nice proved far harder than Dim anticipated, and when pressured, his mind failed to deliver anything meaningful. After a few seconds of thoughtful puffing, he had this to say: “Sometimes, we don’t know our mothers as well as we think we do.”

“No…” Blackbird sighed out the word, shook her head from side to side, and then with no warning at all, she snatched away Dim’s cigarette holder. Ignoring his startled whinny, she took a few puffs, managed to inhale a bit, and then did her best not to sputter while she placed the silver holder back between Dim’s lips. “You’re right”—these words came out as smoke—“you’re absolutely right. And I’m so angry that I can’t think straight.”

He could feel something within his mind—the sliver—a piece of awareness within his own. After a long absence, the feeling was back, and the sensation unnerved him. There was intrusion in his thoughts, perhaps examining what he had done recently, and Dim came to a standstill when he could feel the shock and horror in his mind.

Dim! What did you do? Why? Why would you do this?

The pink voice knew. Of course she knew. With a somewhat heavy heart, Dim thought about his actions, what he had done, and how he had done it knowing that the pink voice in his mind would find out. Yes, his conscience would find out, and then moments like this one would happen. Almost stumbling, he forced himself to start walking again, and now, his movements almost seemed mechanical.

“He was too weak to free himself,” Dim muttered, not aware that his private conversation was being spoken aloud. “It was mercy that moved my hoof, not malice—”

Don’t lie to me, I can still feel the malice!

Scowling, Dim’s lip curled back into a snarl and his voice rose in volume. His face contorted with rage and smoke rose from his nostrils, forming blue-grey curlicues. “It was an attempt to be merciful! I’m not very good at it! I’m trying, okay?”

“Dim, are you alright?” Blackbird moved herself in front of Dim, getting into his field of vision, and she waved her talons in front of his face. “This argument you are having with yourself is worrying me. Is that voice in your head giving you problems?”

“Yes!” Dim snapped. “It is questioning my noble motivations! I did what needed to be done!”

Confess your actions to your companion, Dim, and you will suffer less.

“Shut up!” Dim barked, and he squeezed his eyes shut while his whole body began to tremble. “I did what was necessary! I will suffer nothing for doing the right thing!”

Dim, trust that she will remain your companion after you confess your misdeed.

“SILENCE!” Dim’s voice crackled like thunder, it gave a physical push to Blackbird, who was almost bowled over, and set off a stampede of panic in the streets. A few windows shattered and it seemed as though the surrounding area quivered in anticipation for anything else that he might have to say.

Ye Olden Canterlot Voice had quite an effect upon the just and the good, but it had a profound effect upon the vile and the wicked. The tiny fragment of goodness, his birthright, the gift of his bloodline, it was now awake, cranky, and demanding some sort of meaningful sustenance. It lurked like an itch within his soul, existing in a place where it could not be reached, and there was no means to scratch it.

Dim felt guilty, but then again, so did every other living soul around him in about a three hundred yard radius. Tail slashing, it took Blackbird several long seconds to recover, and when she did, she spread her wings and with a few flaps, she got herself airborne. With a bit of deft maneuvering, she flew over Dim, reached down, snatched him up with great care, and then flew off in the direction where the vardo had been moored.

The vardo was right where they had left it, and it appeared to be fine. Dim, after having been put down on the ground, sat in the grass while trying to sort himself out. The pink voice wasn’t saying anything to him at the moment, and he could feel that the source of the voice was disappointed.

A short distance away, Blackbird paced in the grass, looking worried, fearful, and apprehensive. When Dim lifted his head to look her in the eye, she did not look away, which further confused him, and left him feeling unsettled. She was beautiful, even now, without her even trying, without making an effort.

“What am I to you?” Dim asked, and he felt a cold prickle of fear as the words left his mouth. What did he fear? He wasn’t sure. Consequences? An honest answer? “Tell me, am I just a means to an end?” He wasn’t even sure how long they’d known one another. Already, time was becoming a blur. He needed a fix, a means to patch the leaking ship that was sinking into the abyssal black depths.

He was adrift now, lost in a sea of grey, with no moral compass to guide him. For him, Luna’s stars did not shine, allowing no navigation. Puffing on the remains of his cigarette, he thought about lighting another, but had trouble determining what it was he really wanted at this moment. Blackbird was still looking at him, but she had stopped pacing. He could see her claws flexing and digging into the ground.

“I was wrong for trying to use you,” Blackbird said, and her usual cheerful voice was gone. “I was so caught up in what I was trying to do, in what I was trying to accomplish… I really don’t have a good excuse. I’m sorry.” She sat down and her long tail wrapped itself around her. “To be honest, I thought about ditching you here… just flying away and leaving you here. You scare me… I’ve been around some bad, bad types, but you… you’re the worst. When you killed those three guys, I knew that if you really wanted to have a go at me that there would be nothing I could do to stop you. The thought’s been going through the back of my mind and I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“I am the worst,” Dim agreed. Some things could not be argued.

“Aw, come on, don’t be like that.” Blackbird’s expression became pleading. “Look, my mother wasn’t so great, but she came around. You scare me, and I’ll admit that, but here I am, still trying to talk to you, and I’m worried about you because all of a sudden you started having an argument and it wasn’t with me.”

“Yeah, but are you staying… are you keeping me around because I might still be of some use?” Dim squirmed in the grass, and wanted nothing more than to be in a cool, dark room. “If you wish to leave right now, I will not stop you. Nor will I hate you. Perhaps it would be for the best. We have assisted one another. I am away from that dreadful island and you, you have your leads. We both have something we wanted, so this has worked out.”

At the moment, none of his notions of knighthood seemed to matter much at all, his ideals held no meaning, and any sense of purpose that he might have once held, he felt it blowing away like motes of dust in the wind. Even being a wizard for hire didn’t seem so appealing, it held no sense of romance, it fulfilled no sense of duty. A vast, chasm of emptiness yawned open before him, and when Dim peered over the edge to have a look in, he saw himself peeking out.

With a few blinks, the hallucination vanished and the world returned to whatever passed as normal.

“Hi, my name is Blackbird Coffyn and—”

“What’s this?” Dim demanded.

“—I am looking for my mother. The world didn’t quite turn out to be the place I thought it was, and now, I’m stuck pretending to be something that I am not. I’ve done things that I’m not happy about me doing, and lately, I’ve been getting confused about who I really am. I was in over my head a long time ago, but I’ve come too far to turn back. I can’t keep going ahead on my own, I see that now, I can see it clear as day… but I just can’t quit.”

“What are you going on about, girl?” Dim squinted though his goggles and he felt a peculiar sensation in his mind.

“Things haven’t turned out the way I had hoped,” Blackbird continued. “I’ve compromised all of my values. I’ve done things I said I’d never do. Now, as I get more desperate, I’ve even started considering those awful things I swore to myself I’d never do, like selling my own ass, because it is just about the only asset I have left to offer, but it occurred to me that there are creatures that would just take it and keep it and I would lose all of myself in the process. I don’t want to degrade myself. I am ashamed to say that I even tried to lure you along with promises of what might be. And I feel awful… I do… so I’d like to start over.”

Dim too, had once started over. Having fled his home and gone abroad, he had started over. He remembered how he longed for the world to give him a chance, just one chance, so he could prove his worth. He had become Harsh Winters, and as Mister Winters, he had made a name for himself. It wasn’t his family name that had made him successful, Mister Winters had been a nopony.

Now, a little girl was out looking for her mother, it was just the sort of quest that the knights of old most certainly would have taken. It was a just cause, a worthy quest, it was just the sort of thing that a would-be knight needed to establish himself. No one could refute the goodness of restoring a daughter to her mother. Something within Dim’s barrel twitched, and his head jerked.

It was a chance to start over. Not as Harsh Winter, but as Dim Dark.

“My name is Dim Dark, and I will help you. Now let’s get going before the consequences of what I’ve done catch up to us—”

“What?” Blackbird began blinking in alarm.

“I have many sins to confess, but the most recent may pose a danger to us.”

Springing away with a yowl, Blackbird moved to get herself hitched to the vardo.

Author's Notes:

Casey joins the hollow sound of silent people walking down
The stairway to the subway in the shadows down below
Following their footsteps through the neon-darkened corridors
Of silent desperation, never speakin' to a soul
The poison air he's breathin' has the dirty smell of dying
'Cause it's never seen the sunshine and it's never felt the rain
But Casey minds the arrows and ignores the fatal echoes
Of the clickin' of the turnstiles and the rattle of his chains

"Oh!" she said, "Casey it's been so long since I've seen you!"
"Here" she said, "just a kiss to make a body smile!"
"See" she said, "I've put on new stockings just to please you!"
"Lord!" she said, "Casey can you only stay a while?"

Casey leaves the under-ground and stops inside the Golden Crown
For something wet to wipe away the chill that's on his bone
Seeing his reflection in the lives of all the lonely men
Who reach for any thing they can to keep from goin' home
Standin' in the corner Casey drinks his pint of bitter
Never glancing in the mirror at the people passing by
Then he stumbles as he's leaving and he wonders if the reason
Is the beer that's in his belly, or the tear that's in his eye

"Oh!" she said, "I suppose you seldom think about me
"Now" she said, "now that you've a fam'ly of your own"
"Still" she said, "it's so blessed good to feel your body!"
"Lord!" she said" "Casey it's a shame to be alone!"

Why yes, this old song does have relevance. Why do you ask?