Yours is a sensitive position. Your attitude toward the nature of our world as it now stands will be determined in these early days, outside. I wonder: will you come to think of life on the surface as worthwhile, and full of love's potential, or as a cruel and pointless trial?

A smell of seared meat thickened and sweetened the air as we returned to Fluttershy’s Lament, under the ghostly light of morning. We’d come back to meet our escort into the Shy, on Keats’ instruction. I was glad to be in his service – to have some kind of structure around me. Now Wile and I had passed the outer gate and were at the foremost houses of the town, when we came forward to find a morbid scene, which would again upset my long held feelings that life was friendly and fair.

Two soldiers stood fully outfitted in the middle of the misty street. A mare and a stallion, and attending them: a small, young pegasus dressed in parade uniform, somberly playing a military drum. To one side the broad surface of the river was covered in froth and lather. While on the ground between the two soldiers was a shaking, sobbing knot of flesh: a pony-sized, difficult to interpret form, with a glossy, seared red back. This seared skin, I soon realized, showed where feathers should have been, on stubby, butchered wings.

The ruined little pegasus lay gasping into the dirt, circled around by charred sackcloth: the remains of her clothes, with what was left of her stubby wings painfully outstretched and trembling. Her hind legs kicked backwards and struggled to find purchase, but the little mare seemed unable to lift herself off of her face. Ahead of us the nearest houses stood impassive in the mist, sometimes with a head in a window, or with a few nervous forms under an arch.

I stood by with a knot in my throat, trying just to swallow, as Wile interrupted the unnatural silence, almost immediately unharnessing her hunting rifle. This meant sitting back onto her hind legs, holding the rifle up to her eye, and almost mouthing the bit that triggered it to fire. “Someone better explain this,” she said, with the rifle pointed the soldiers’ way.

“Lower your weapon, mudpony,” said the one on the left, a stallion, unperturbed. It was true: the way Wile was positioned looked fine for shooting rabbits from on a hill, slowly, but what chance did she have here?

“You just tell me what’s going on,” she said. “Your helmets are both in piss poor condition, I can tell; I’d get a good crack at at least one of you, and I’d be satisfied with that.”

The other soldier, a mare, indulged her, raising her voice for the benefit of the few townsponies within earshot of us. “What you’re seeing here is standard procedure: the natural consequence of any wastrel pegasi being caught in Enclave territory. This one was a pilgrim, come disguised in sackcloth, knowing full well it was forbidden for surface pegasi to enter. Star-crossed little mare. Unable to pray here openly, because of her wings. We decided to solve her problem for her. She’ll be welcome now. As she is.”

“If she survives,” said the stallion. The little burned mare was breathing heavily, still with her face down. All I could think to compare it to was what I’d read of the long, full pain of childbirth, because the mare seemed not to be with us at all, but far off in a private place, grappling alone against her pain. And still I felt closer to her, than to the very adult-seeming ponies speaking around me. Nearer to her high, blank realm of pain instead, where I felt I’d been once, in a different way – weeping over Shady Sands’ body.

“Since when is this standard procedure?” Wile asked the soldier.

“Our Commanding Officer’s slightest impulse, becomes our procedure,” she answered. “Lieutenant Colonel Hereafter has always felt sorry for these pilgrims, for one. He seems to see them as little orphaned duckling, looking over hill and dale for their departed mother duck. Harmless animals. So, he very generously allows them to come and go, assuming they aren’t surface pegasi. All he’s done here, in fact, is accommodate this mare. She’s as free now as you or any mudpony, to visit us again. And you’ll notice we weren’t needlessly cruel. We removed the offending flesh by laser rifle, and carefully at that. She hasn’t bled at all. Now all she has to do is bear the pain, and she’ll live.”

“You have to give her something for it. Some medicine,” I said, in a strangled voice; my throat tightening at the little mare’s efforts to stand, as much as at the smell of her burnt feathers, hair, and candied flesh. “Please, her breathing...”

“I carry healing potions on me,” Wile said, harnessing her rifle again. “Let me by and I can help her.”

The mare in armor shook her head. “She’s to suffer out here in the street,” she said. “For your general education. Thus, the drummer.” Now again, she raised her voice: “Please, little ponies, learn from this. We’ve been very accommodating until now, don’t you think? Why should the soily, muddy-hooved likes of you be allowed to traffic the streets of our town? And worse, to whisper all the while in support of the so-called free pegasi, and for the heartless murderer Nature’s Call. Why should we be so generous-”

“Wile,” I said quietly, as the mare was making her speech. The stallion had turned a little too, toward their audience in town. I meanwhile had had an idea, watching the unfeeling eyes of their helmets. “If I cast a light over their eyes, could we get that mare away from here? If I blinded them, I mean.”

“How long would that give us?” Wile asked, quickly.

“Think of a camera flash,” I said. It was the only reference I had. “A hard one.”

“-why should the Enclave bear these flagrant insults, from you?” the mare went on. “We have, we are, but we may not forever. I urge you not to be ungrateful, and to remember who your friends are.“

After pausing to think, Wile said: “Yes. When I shout: take the shot, do it, and then follow me as fast as you can.” At that, Wile looked off toward a house in the mist, and shouted: “That’s it, comrade, do it! Now! Take the shot!”

The mare fell for this trick, and turned; the stallion didn’t. So, I targeted him, using as piercing a light as I could conjure, focusing it over the bulging eyes of his helmet. It was the same idea as providing a room with mocked up sunlight – but it took closer, harder concentration. And the light must have been much brighter too, because the stallion threw his head to one side, startled - maybe even in pain.

Within the same breath, Wile had drawn and fired her rifle, and at that close range: pierced the distracted mare’s armor easily, at the knee - after somehow identifying this as a weak point in the badly aged gear. Now, like a leaden weight the mare fell forward over this failing limb, and collapsed onto her face. The little drummer fled for cover in town at the shot, as the stallion started indiscriminately to return fire, still blind. Wile had already moved aside, and took no fire.

The soldier, knowing he had missed, started to struggle with his helmet, attempting to remove it. Wile wasted no more time, but moved to lift the butchered little pegasus mare onto her back, as heavy bells started to ring from the other side of town. She took a moment to make sure I was ready to follow her and then, with the mare on her back, started at a sprint for the outer gate, all the way hollering:

“Nature’s Call! It’s Nature’s Call!”

A few soldiers swept like broad-winged vultures overhead, losing us repeatedly in the misty, multi-leveled landscape. Lancing the clouds with laser weaponry, cracking the air as if with peals of thunder. Wile knew the terrain and didn’t hesitate - throwing us over what, in the thickness of the mist, could just as well have been sheer cliff faces. I was afraid of course, but I trusted that my hooves would soon meet solid ground again, whenever we cleared an obstacle. That is, I trusted Wile. Now I stopped with her to hide, breathing like a murderer in the shade, then started off again. And gradually, the gunfire behind us fell away.

It was much easier without it overhead. Wile slowed down, and I started to realize where we were. Near where I’d first started. In fact, it was Nimble’s cave that Wile would lead us to: the sheltered cave, up a slippery series of rocky shelves. First, Wile stood listening at the bottom of this climb, then started up it carefully. The little mare on her back began to slouch over to one side, and I hurried over to steady her.

Once we’d made it, Wile lowered the ruined mare down gently outside the cave, and helped her to drink from a bottle of healing potion. She was only semiconscious now, and responded to Wile like an infant foal. Her eyes seemed glued shut with a fine, silver lining of tears, but the potion at least started to regulate her rapid breathing, which had sounded so urgent and distressing. Finally, Wile and I took a breathless drink from her water canteen.

“You don’t have to pour it on, you know,” Wile smiled, and pressed my dripping wet nose. I smiled back, but it took some effort. Beneath us, the little mare’s back was in such horrific condition.

Wile gestured for me to wait there, and went into the cave. I stood helplessly over the mare, knowing that to touch her would only cause her greater pain, wishing that she would be carried far off from it now; spared in the cloud of a dream. Wile came back out of the cave alone. “No one there,” she said. “Our bad luck. We’ll have to take care of her ourselves.”

“What do we do?” I asked, in a more panicky way than I'd meant to.

“Sit with her,” Wile said. “Give her another dose of potion, once she’s metabolized the last one. I’ll swear by them: they’re like second chances in a bottle. Of course the poor creature will still be in pain, but if she can bear it for a few more hours she should be fine.”

“And her wings?” I asked, hesitating.

“Mind you, I wouldn’t say this in front of her, but: what wings? She’s lost a lot more than her feathers, Lem.” Wile stooped to examine her. “Most of what’s left of the flesh looks to be necrotic,” she said. “But I’d rather wait for a surgeon’s help than try to prune that mess away myself.” Prune, like in gardening. And at that an image came to mind of tree, wounded by lightning. Marked forever by its senseless lashing. “Still,” Wile said. “We'll have to clean and dress these stubs ourselves, which will hurt her.”

“She deserved this, why?” I asked. “Because she hid her wings under sackcloth, and visited town?”

“It’s hard to unpack the issue entirely,” Wile said. “The Enclave - and please don’t ask me why – despise the few pegasi that choose to live on the surface. And even pegasi born on the surface, for that matter...”

“They must know they’re in the wrong,” I said. “Hiding away up there. So they work their guilt out on these surface pegasi. Just like lightning striking - like it comes from the friction all contained inside a stormy cloud, and lashes out at random. These soldiers must all be full of doubt and conflict. I mean, their hearts aren’t cold and limp: that isn’t possible. They must still feel for the ponies they've abandoned down here, in a way. Or else the guilt they’re suppressing wouldn’t be so great...”

“Well, we can’t wait around for them all to have epiphanies,” Wile said.

“No,” I said, thinking, dropping my ears. “I guess we can’t.”

Wile had taken the little mare’s head into her lap. “It’s tempting...” she started to say. “To think of killing their soldiers as a total positive. You know, as if there would be no problem with it at all. Just one less to worry about.” Until she said this, I hadn't considered that Wile must have made a deliberate choice, to spare the two soldiers we met. “But there’s more to it than that,” she said. “Because I agree with you: their hearts can’t be totally cold and limp. They can’t be. They have families and friends: they have some capacity for love. So, killing them would mean killing off that capacity, and putting out some kind of light, which must have brightened up somepony’s sky.”

“But you’ve done it before?” I asked.

“I have,” said Wile. “And I still find it hard to say, for certain, that they all deserved it.”

“Well,” I said, after a pause. “No one but Celestia can say what they deserved. I guess what matters now is how necessary it was, in the moment, that those ponies should die. And it was necessary, wasn’t it?”

“I’m never sure,” Wile said. “Besides, with all my bias, how am I supposed to know what’s really necessary?” She looked down at the wounded mare. “Weren’t those soldiers only doing what they thought was necessary.”

She was right. As much as the solicitor had done in the Stable, when he voted for Shady Sands to die. I shook my head. “I guess I shouldn’t be answering you,” I said. “As if I know what I’m talking about.”

“It’s helped to admit it to you, though,” Wile said. “So let me admit it: I don’t know if I’ve ever really had to kill anypony.”

“Maybe that’s better than being sure,” I said. “Those two soldiers seemed so sure about what they were doing. So, maybe to do what you think is right, but to always question yourself, is actually the best you can do.”

“And to refer to the holy ministers for guidance, right?” she winked at me. “What would Pinkie Pie do?”

“That’s pandering!” I said, and it was a great relief to laugh again with her, however briefly.

We examined the little mare as she opened her eyes. With difficulty, we’d washed and dressed the stubs of her wings while, still unconscious, she cried out and kicked at the pain. Still, she looked healthier now, which was a relief. Her coat was pale olive, besides where it was scalded pink. And under the fringe of a dry, tangled mane, her dark eyes had a tearful, shining quality like glass, specked with rain. Her cutie mark was hidden under a sore looking brand: a familiar mark, of lightning striking. Now I noticed, with another wash of concern, that this was the same froggy-eyed mare I’d met praying in sackcloth in Fluttershy’s Lament, saying: she’s been so good to us. She’s still so innocent. Forgive us for the pain we cause her, daily, in return.

“Well, you’re awake,” Wile said to her. “Just take it easy, and we’ll tell you who we are.” The mare’s eyes moved steadily, searching Wile’s face, and mine soon after. “I’m Wile, and I carried you here from Fluttershy’s Lament. We’re still in Pereine now, hiding from any soldiers that might be out searching for us.” At this Wile looked at me, to cue me in.

“Well, I’m Lemony Cream,” I said. “And-“

“You’re the Stable pony?” the little mare interrupted, in a quiet voice. “I was supposed to meet you...”

“Ah,” Wile said. “So it’s you we were coming to find. Then I’m very sorry we didn’t get to you sooner.” Seeing the mare’s slight look of confusion, she added: “Maybe you can’t feel it yet, but your wings – the damage, it’s...” She stopped there, as the mare moved quietly to sit up and see for herself.

Her mane fell away from her neck then, and revealed it to be long and graceful. When I’d first met her dressed in sackcloth, I’d seen her damp, widely set eyes as froggy. Now, without the sackcloth hood, and with her graceful neck, they looked more like a fawn’s eyes to me: unreadable, black and bright. It was hard to tell how she was feeling, as she examined her invalidated wings.

She faced forward again, unfazed. “Thank you,” she said, flatly. “For dressing them.”

We were both surprised she didn’t say more, and waited. After maybe a full minute, Wile started to seem uncomfortable, and said: “Well, uh... well I guess I don’t know what to call you. What’s your name?”

“Perigee,” she said.

“Well, Perigee, you’ve recovered very... well. You must be hungry. Here, if you’re up to it: I made us some soup.” She had. After a little moral deliberation, we’d borrowed from Nimble’s pantry in the cave. “It’s nothing to sneeze at,” Wile said, of her own soup. And she continued speaking somewhat nervously, as she served the mare and I: “The cheese isn’t too badly aged. And yes, the bread is a little stiff and stale, but it does fine in the soup.”

“Mm,” I said, or sort of said, once my mouth was full. “It’s very good.” At this, Wile smiled faintly at me, but looked quickly back at the mare, to see if she was eating. She was. But slowly, joylessly, not seeming to register that the food had any taste at all. There was no sign of an appetite at all in fact, from Perigee.

In the end, she didn’t even finish her first portion. Wile had already started on some coffee for us, and unpacked a flower-patterned tin of stale, ginger biscuits, all while looking with open interest at Perigee.

It seemed to concern her that this mare showed so little appetite. Or, more to the point, that she was so generally calm and poised, showing so little emotion over her ruined wings. I guessed that Wile was finding Perigee more difficult to read than other ponies. I felt instead like I understood her, somehow.

It seemed as if she hadn’t quite returned from the blank, faraway place her pain had sent her to. And now the decision would be hers, whether or not she should take the effort to return at all – whether or not this fretful life was even worth returning to, or re-engaging with at all. We instead were powerless, because even with Wile’s warm, reassuring food we couldn’t reach her where she was. Not now.

No living pony could. It would take some reassuring spirit. A Shady Sands, or six. Some friendly, interceding force inside. At least, that's what I wished for her: just what I had felt, helping me - encouraging me, in spite of pain, to live. To do what Pinkie Pie would do.

Footnote: Level Up!
Perk Added: Bonus Move: + Two extra APs per turn that can only be used for movement.