Melancholy Days

by Zurock

Chapter 15: Pride

"Uh... Twilight?" Applejack called with trembling hesitation.

"Yeah?" the unicorn returned with equal apprehension.

"We really stepped in it, haven't we?"

"Yeah."

All six ponies, and unforgettable Spike, were clustered around their solitary cell window. Constantly pushing on each other while packing their faces together to catch glimpses of the outside, they had witnessed the whole Drypony ceremony from their vantage point. Watching it had hardly been necessary though. The Drypony song and sound had crashed through the forest like bolts of thunder that could've woken a sleeping stone; a storm that could have been felt inside and out.

With the performance now over, the pony-sardine pile broke from the window and diffused throughout their cell, reclaiming the small comfort of personal space. But even with room to breath, the air felt stiff with tension. The heavy hoof stomps and powerful chants of the ceremony echoed in their ears, and a sense of lurking danger peered at them from every unknown crevice. Ignorance had allowed them to hold on to certain wishful possibilities, but with every crumb of knowledge they gained those hopes seemed to be fading fast. Twilight immediately took to strained pacing, burning a path in the floor.

As usual, Pinkie Pie appeared far less worried about their situation. She brightly contended, "Aw, I didn't think it was that bad! I really kind of liked it actually! Not great for dancing, but it had a nice beat and a bit of a silly sound!" She stamped her own hooves in rhythm; chaotically at first, before quickly falling into a steady pace. She became a toy soldier, marching backing and forth with wooden limbs and a still, set expression on her face. Bringing out a gooey deepness in her voice, pulled from somewhere that wasn't quite fully able to hide her silly charm, she copied the Drypony tune and sang:

Ba-bum! Ba-bum!
Put some frosting on a bun
Ba-bum! Ba-bum!
When you eat don't leave a crumb
Ba-bum! Ba-bum!
So yum! So yum!
I can't think of a cake pun

Even in that darkened moment, the unshakable cheer of the pink pony was able to produce a few low giggles from the others, bolstering their spirits.

By they weren't the only ones affected by the spontaneous song. The two guards still stationed on the balcony outside the prison hut looked into the room with narrow-eyed confusion. The mare and stallion pair had been among the original ambush party who had seized everypony. Since the ambush, the two had always looked upon their prisoners with unchecked contempt; with ridiculing stares peppered in hostile suspicion. Every prisoner had received the same cruel glances... except Pinkie Pie. As Pinkie Pie had continued being Pinkie Pie, they only ever had given her increasingly baffled looks.

While they peeked inside, profoundly lost, Pinkie Pie gave them a polite wave and a hello before they eventually turned back to standing watch, stumped.

Rarity spoke up, uttering sourly, "I'm afraid I wasn't really able to follow it all. Who's this Prideheart?"

Fluttershy shivered. "And that was a dragon, right? I mean, not really of course, it was just a costume, but-"

"Wryzard the Wretched, a Diablerie Dragon," Twilight said, coming to a standstill. "Sort of like a regular dragon but with a horn like a unicorn, making them capable of direct magic." Her eyes dimmed with a serious gloom. "Sinister and poisonous magic."

The only pony to stay staring out the window, Rainbow Dash cranked her neck about to ask with surprise, "Wait, you know about this?"

"No, not really. They used the name in the song and I recognize it from Equestrian history books is all," Twilight clarified. She hardly had to wrack her mind in order to summon up the meager information on the subject. "There's... there's not much to the story at all! They say, four hundred years ago, he came from across the sea and attacked Canterlot, but then he was banished back to where he came from by the Elements of Harmony. And that's it."

"Well," Rarity said lightly, drawing out the word, "suppose there's more to the story than what's written in history books?"

Twilight raised a hoof in a shrug. "I guess," she complained, "but I've never heard of this Prideheart character at all. I mean, this isn't the first time they've used his name but I didn't even realize they were talking about a pony until that song just now!"

"Sounds like he took a lickin' from the dragon before Princess Celestia did her thing," Applejack observed.

"No," Fluttershy earnestly countered, "in their song they said that the Princess didn't come and he protected the city."

"But she had to have come eventually, if the dragon was driven away by the Elements," Rarity pointed out. "They would have been hers at the time."

Beginning her pacing fresh, Twilight took their deductions together and pressed forward. "So, for one reason or another, he steps up and tries to stop the dragon himself, before it can be banished. He gets injured in the process. And..." She tilted her face in consideration and fielded a theory out loud, "... he blames Princess Celestia for it?"

Applejack's words came in like she was continuing Twilight's thoughts, "... gets his friends and folks together and skedaddles past the Pearl Peaks!"

"But why come here?" Rarity wondered. She guessed, "Because it was wild? Didn't you say that no other ponies were able to settle the land?"

"Because of the crystals," Twilight immediately corrected. She pointed to the gem on the tip of her horn cap, using her magic to make it flash unremarkably. "The crystals in this forest absorb magic, even ambient magic that just lingers in the air, and retransmit it as simple light. There must be a network of crystal caverns that run under the center of the forest, and underground springs that push the crystals up to the surface. They're what makes magic so weak here. The rivers also carry crystal sediment out of the forest, which broadens the effect into the surrounding land, though more weakly the further you go from the epicenter." She had pieced together these details awhile ago but it was this new context that they existed in which was so important. She explained to her friends, "The whole experience Prideheart had with the Princess and the dragon must have embittered him towards magic. So, he fled Canterlot and eventually discovered this place, where magic is weak, and founded Heartwood here, right in the center of Dryearth Forest."

Rainbow Dash suddenly chimed in, asking in an appalled way, "Hold on... you're saying these ponies have been here for FOUR HUNDRED YEARS?"

"Well, them and then their descendants. Prideheart is obviously long gone," Twilight reasoned. "But the children of those original pony expatriates have kept what he started here alive. Hiding away from magic, and Equestria, and Princess Celestia. Nursing that grudge for all this time." She came to a halt again and looked down at the floor. Murmuring low, with a whisper both awe-filled and horror-stricken, she said, "Nopony even remembered they came here. We didn't even remember the original name of the forest."

The group fell to silence, each absorbing what their astute friend had revealed and trying to come to grips with everything it meant for them and Equestria.

Or what it meant for them very personally. Fluttershy suddenly broke the still quiet with a gasp of, "The animals!"

"Uh... come again, Fluttershy?" Rarity asked.

Something unknown to the others deeply disturbed the shy pegasus, and she babbled nervously, "T-the animals... the D-Dryponies have... lived w-with... i-in the forest b-but... a-animals said... that t-they don't l-like the p-ponies... a-anymore... s-so..."

As the others gawked at her, unable to interpret her fast, quiet, seemingly aimless rant, she slowly backed down. Drooping onto the ground and burying her face into her forelegs, she whined silently.

"So...," Applejack picked up slowly, unleashing a thought of her own, "what about Beanstalk then? What is it they want with him? Why all the 'oohs' and 'aahs?'"

Twilight nodded. She had already considered that matter fully, too. "They called him 'the Walking Desert.' He's everything they want to be."

"Say what?" the farm pony muttered in confusion.

Yet again dipping into a teacherly mode, the unicorn lectured, "As ponies, we're inherently magical creatures. Unicorns cast spells, pegasi fly and manipulate the weather, and even earth ponies have a mystical connection to the land. But James is entirely and utterly amagical. There's no magic AT ALL where he's from, and no natural magic in him in turn." She pointed with her eyes out to the Drypony guards and asked her friends, "Have you noticed how there's no unicorns around here? How they bind their pegasi's wings? They despise magic here, to the point of avoiding it and denying it to themselves in any way they can. But then James comes along, completely and naturally magic-free..."

Rarity's eyebrow crawled up her forehead. "They're... jealous of him?" she asked, uncertain.

"No," Twilight shook her head. Taking a second to think, she eventually responded with an example, "It'd be like if Starswirl the Bearded suddenly came walking into Ponyville one day."

The purple pony's reference did nothing to alter Rarity's empty stare.

Twilight sighed, her eyes flattening, and with false belief she dully rolled out, "It'd be like if Fancy Pants suddenly came walking into Ponyville one day."

The resulting gasp was like an unstoppable vacuum, ripping the air from the room. "Not THE Fancy Pants! Highest of the high society of Canterlot, more refined than the silkiest and finest of sugars, not a day goes by where he isn't the talk of the town, everything he touches or praises becomes golden, when you abandon ship forget the mares and foals - he comes first, Fancy Pants?!" Rarity fanned herself, whipping up a hurricane and nearly hyperventilating. "Why didn't anypony tell me he was coming to Ponyville! How could you hear about it and not-" Reality quickly caught up to the panicked pony, bashing her squarely on the nose. Taking control of herself, albeit fumbling awkwardly, she coughed into her hoof and simply stated, "I, ah, see your point."

"The Dryponies have to work to avoid magic but James doesn't even have the tiniest drop of magic in his body. He's so popular here because he's basically what they dream about," Twilight commented.

Pinkie Pie scuttled up to her smart friend, pulling alongside the unicorn while giggling all the way. She threw her head against Twilight's and started to sing again. This time she mimicked the high, pitch-perfect singing of Poppy:

Twilight you know you're not wrong
But at the end of the song
They sang of place to belong

A land for them only

The confounded unicorn, pink mane clogging her face and smiling muzzle practically buried in her cheek, looked at her effusive friend and began to say, "Pinkie, what does that have... to... do... with..."

It was like a tape player running out of power and slowly winding down. Her jaw hung like a suspended scaffolding dangling in the wind. Her pupils shrank to pinpoints and there was a slow drain of color from her face, accompanied by the first beads of a cold sweat. In dark whispers, she breathed, "Heartwood was only ever meant to be a temporary home. They still want to escape magic completely. Which means..."

Applejack scratched her head. "Is... that what they want Beanstalk for? They think he can take them away from Equestria to somewhere without magic?"

Having never left the windowsill, Rainbow Dash looked out and fixed her eyes upon Willow Wise and James, both still standing on the balcony of the grand tree. The man's stance was bothered and shaky; the mare stared at him from the side, her eyes stained with bitterness and her face cross. That adoring veneration which they had last seen her with appeared absent. The observing pegasus mused to the others warily, "And... what happens when they find out he can't?"

Immediately Twilight tried to renew her frantic pacing but her legs locked up, dead and stiff. Her mind became so busy and overworked it couldn't get a response from her body. She and her friends had been waiting for the right moment to act; a plan of patience; but maybe time was more limited than they had thought. While they were held away in this tree-borne prison they were at least safe in the immediate sense. But, indeed, what would happen to James if...? What were the Dryponies capable of? Troubled, fearful, and overflowingly anxious, she looked up at the horn-cap sitting on her forehead. Deep in the throes of nervous doubt, she croaked, "M-maybe... it's time to get out of here."

Everypony looked at her, sharing in her worries but willing to listen. All except Rainbow Dash, who was more primed than ever. "Alright! About time!" she cheered as she pushed off from the window.

"W-well, hold on! T-there's a huge risk involved!" the agitated unicorn stepped back. "I'm still weighing the options."

"Oh, come on Twilight!" Rainbow Dash whined, excitement deflating.

"M-maybe James IS in trouble but we don't know that for sure. If we break out though, then it WILL be all or nothing. So, we... we have to be sure," Twilight floundered about.

"I'm sure!" Rainbow Dash protested. "I'm sure that every second he's down there with them they're getting less and less happy with him, so he's not getting anything done, and we have to do something ourselves now!"

Still, Twilight paused indecisively. "If... if only we knew how he was doing down there, then..."

Spike pushed forward, blaring something through his gag loud enough to interrupt the proceedings.

Again Twilight tried to interpret his muffled rambling to no success. The blurred sounds, like a choked horn, didn't have enough definition to be sensible words, and she apologized helplessly, "I'm sorry, Spike. I just can't make out anything you're saying."

He stamped his feet and snapped his tail, spitting a flurry of words out for his gag to distort. But still Twilight shook her head. At last, the dragon moaned in frustrated surrender. But he didn't stand back hopeless or defeated; he stood tall, determined, and tired of inaction. There was a sudden loud snapping; the sound of wound tension being cut straight through, and then the bindings that had been wrapping him so tightly flumped down onto the floor.

It caught all the ponies by surprise. Reaching up with his now free claws, Spike grabbed his gag with one to pull it as far from his face as he could, and then tore through it with his other, making a clean cut. He discarded the severed vines contemptuously and then told Twilight, "I've been saying, I can break free anytime I want, too! I think they were so worried about my breath they didn't pay as much attention to my claws as they should have."

Twilight was stunned. She stood for a moment completely flabbergasted, but her worries didn't escape her for long. She jumped in front of the dragon, hiding him from potential view of the Drypony guards who could look in at any moment. "S-Spike! If they see you've gotten loose..."

"They seem so much more worried about you that I don't think they've even been paying attention to me. They'll notice if any of you are missing but I'm small enough that I think I can slip away unseen," Spike explained the loose logic that drove him. He immediately dashed for the window. "I'll go check on James."

"Spike, wait!" Twilight called.

But it was no good. He didn't heed her words as he leapt up and caught the windowsill. With a few kicks, he was up and over, his little frame just thin enough to slide between the bars with an ounce of squeezing, and he vanished from sight.

---

Down below, the Dryponies began to break up. Many returned to whatever they had been doing before the ceremony, disappearing between tree trunks or up into branches. A few started to douse the flame and clean up the fire pit. Many others stood about and chatted with those that lingered behind; friends and neighbors discussed the current events like it was a break in a casual town meeting.

Up on the balcony, Willow Wise rose from her respectful bow. "Do you understand who we are now?" she asked James.

"Better...," he replied weakly. "... and worse."

He didn't need an extensive knowledge of psychology or a memorized recall of pony history to get a reasonable grasp on what was going on here. A mythology created around a hero, with a villain, and a destiny which was as splendidly glorious as it was inconsequently inevitable; perhaps it had unique details but this broad story wasn't anything new. And just like so many human stories, they've set it up as an 'us' versus 'them.' Or maybe 'us' versus 'her.'

How could it have ever come to this? Even with all the mystery Princess Celestia had left unsolved through her silent reserve, never had he suspected that they would find something this hostile and desperate out here. Even when the first hints in Hamestown of something dangerous had been revealed, the back of his mind had wished to believe in strange coincidences over spite-filled ponies with inimical convictions. Even when he and the others had been caught in an ambush he had acted only in instinctual response, since the worst possible scenario shouldn't be possible here.

This was Equestria, after all. Maybe it wasn't a world he knew well... but there had been so much talk about what things are the RIGHT things, so many words on the evils of giving an inch to hate or aggression, and so much defense of the magic of friendship. Talk which had been so dearly heartfelt, and incredibly insistent, from a few of these ponies. He had seen a Princess who had spared a living danger, a group of friends who had taken in a stranger, and a farmer and a tinkerer who hadn't even been able to stay mad at each other for five minutes before, in the depths of true remorse, they had sought mutual forgiveness. But yet somehow this culture of enmity was still here before him.

Painfully, the discovery felt like a familiar lesson. This wasn't the first time he had seen more than sugar and gumdrops out of ponies. But the lesson hadn't been taken to heart, and now it was as if every judgment he had made was misinformed. And every time he thought he had corrected it, it was still misinformed.

He whispered, "How can this be?"

"We hold onto our past with iron reverence! It is the bedrock of who we are!" the old mare declared proudly. "If we ever were to forget the legend forged by our hero in the wake of the wicked Sun's foul betrayal, we would cease being the Dryponies we are." She stepped towards him and jabbed a hoof into his belly, telling him, "You must understand and embrace this if you are going to be one of us."

James inched away from her. Quietly, but purposefully, he said, "I can't be one of you."

For a moment, an offended snarl formed upon Willow Wise's face, but it immediately fell away. With a surprising amount of sympathy, she said, "I understand. So lost, you now find yourself hesitant and-"

"No, you don't understand," he interrupted in agitated haste. Feeling off balance, he gripped the nearby rail and took a large breath, fighting to keep himself together. Staying in the Dryponies' good graces may have been the only way for him to successfully help himself, Twilight, and the others, but it appeared more and more that the only possible way to keep from drawing their ire would be to remain totally silent. But the threat that a silent course of action carried... the places it could lead... James was at odds with himself.

Shaking his head in a brittle apology, still hoping vainly that Willow Wise would at least not cast him out, he told her much more calmly, "Lady Willow... I've seen where something like this goes, if you keep taking things in the direction you are. And it doesn't end well for anybody on EITHER side. This battle isn't one that HAS to be fought."

The old mare seemed to struggle to maintain her composure as well. "The battle is hers," she insisted, "and we must defend ourselves!" Again, with pervading sympathy, she tried to explain to him, "Some fights cannot be dodged, and some insults and injuries cannot be suffered soundlessly. It is a hard and wearying choice to make but, to survive, sometimes actions must be taken-"

As her sentences carried on, the man's jumble of confused and conflicted emotions caused him to almost laugh. The absurdity of this pony speaking to him about such outrageous things as the unavoidability of conflict, about 'fighting the good fight,' was otherworldly strange. Willow Wise halted her words when she caught on to how perturbed he was. Her increasing disillusionment with him was written plainly upon her face.

Looking down, James shook his head once more. Though this would be like walking purposefully into the line of fire, he couldn't help himself. He said to the pony, practically lamenting, "Don't... talk to me like you know what I am. I can, and have, stepped through thresholds I can never cross back from. I can make those decisions. I have made them. I'd make'em again if I had to!" He breathed out in exhausted awe. "But there's a time and a place for that. I've been there before. And, for me, it's NOT here and NOT now."

At this point, Willow Wise was actively trying to restrain her swelling anger. With a streak of insult in her voice, she questioned, "What? Would you demand that we don't even try to protect ourselves?"

Protect from what? He complained, "Everybody can defend themselves if they really have to... but you don't have to. You just want to."

Her eyes pierced him. In a boiling growl, she remarked, "I can see you don't understand yet, Walking Desert."

The railing was nearly torn off the balcony when James ripped his hand from it and balled up his shaking fist. He didn't want to be so unsettled about something so silly as a name but on top of everything else that had been going on, including the mayhem that his life had become just a few weeks ago, it was just too much to bear. Somewhere inside he embraced whatever doom he was bringing upon himself. "My name is James," he stated coldly.

"But you are also-" the elderly pony tried to force upon him.

"No! I'm not! I'm James, that's who I am!" His shoulders slunk. Hopeless and almost defeated, he added on softly, "I'm not a pony with a poetic name, and a special skill, and a butt tattoo. I'm just not. And I don't want to be."

With assumed authority, Willow Wise picked her head as high up as it could go, staring down at him despite being shorter, and proclaimed, "It's not about what you want. There are designs grander than yours and you have a part in them whether you realize it or not!" Despite all her anger, it still came across as the practiced rage of a concerned grandmother; as if she knew all the ways of the world and, no matter how the duty tasted to her, it was her responsibility to pass it on. It didn't keep her bitter eyes and great frustration from showing themselves, but the experience and control was undoubtedly there inside of her.

Dismal, shaking a little, and unable to stand straight, James replied both sorrowfully and with his own limited authority, "No. I don't know about magic, and destiny, and how they play together here or what they do for all the decisions you make. But me, I get to choose... for better or for worse, I get to choose for myself. I'm going to be what I want to be. And I won't be one of the Princess's ponies, and I won't be one of your ponies."

Willow Wise stared at him with hard eyes. And she stared and she stared. And then some more. And then, quite suddenly... she pulled back. Sighing with exhaustion, she turned and started to walk inside her palace hollow. She mused very loudly to herself, awash with disbelief, "This is not what I imagined it to be! So resistant and challenging!" Her whole head pricked up with that thought, latching on to it like a hungry fish on a hooked worm. "Of course!" she decided, "A challenge, yes! Our ultimate destiny is to be challenged and this is only part of it! What would it have meant if he had arrived so prepared for us already?"

James, for his part, was also dumbstruck with disbelief. With his helpless yet defiant stance against her, he had been all but certain he would be joining Twilight and others to languish in a cell soon. But again, somehow, even with his open and clear opposition to her, she had deflected all blame away from him. Even with his declaration against being what she wanted him to be, she still found a way to squeeze him into her grand vision; rotating and rearranging the puzzle pieces ceaselessly until she had another configuration that might fit. There was only one version of the world in her mind.

But his astonishment gave way to a sudden burst of confidence. Who knows if he was capable of even doing anything but, if he was so resistant to receiving her wrath, he at least ought to try.

He began to follow after her, calling for her attention. "Lady Willow..."

Excited, enthralled, and expectant once more, she whirled about to face him and said with a smile, "I should not be so daunted by your self-assertion and rigidity in the face of opposition! After all, you are only being like us! Prideheart proud! Strong! Confident! Standing for yourself against great odds as you must, because you must!" In her own mind her interpretation appeared so undeniably correct and retrospectively obvious that she chided herself for having ever thought otherwise.

She quickly genuflected towards him and humbly offered, "It would be despicable of me to take your pride from you. Time, struggle, and patience will win you over to us."

Sighing, James laid clear, "If it can be helped, I'm not going to do anything that would hurt any pony, on either side. Not one of you Dryponies, and not Princess Celestia or her ponies."

Still lightly agitated, and obviously trying to just roll with the punches, Willow Wise commented, "Battle won't be your role anyway."

"Role? Right... and what exactly was this 'Walking Desert' supposed to do?" he asked.

She didn't respond immediately. After a hollow delay, she started to walk towards one of the bending stairways and invited him, "This way. Come see how blessed you are, to be so free of the curse. Come see the profanity of magic; a power that the wicked Sun would uphold; a power that poisons."

Holding off on demanding a straight answer to his question, James followed her as she went up the steps. They led to a hallway on the floor above from which many more chambers sprang off on either side, like leaves spreading from a branch. If the contents that could be seen through the open doorways in passing were anything to go by, the rooms were many-purposed. However, they all shared the same constant decorations that the floor below did: carvings, paintings, and hoofmade trinkets; all placed, mounted, or hung everywhere. Each one was dedicated to depicting some facet of Drypony culture, practice, or ideal.

The old mare lead the man to the only doorway with any semblance of a door. It was no swinging wall of wood though, but a curtain of strings which had leaves of all kinds running down them, blocking sight of the other side. Willow Wise flowed through it without hesitation. James stopped only to take a breath before he crossed through.

The room on the other side was dim, owing to the crystal lamps within only glowing weakly and the door curtain defending against any outside light. This small and round chamber was, more than any other, a shrine to Prideheart. A long, low counter ran the circumference of the room and many small figurines of the pony hero decorated it. Above the counter, murals completely wrapped the walls of the room. Every evocation of his image always depicted him in his armor while standing triumphant and shining.

But, amidst all this imagery of the great Drypony hero, there was a solitary piece that was kept concealed. In the very center, opposite the door, a simple sheet covered the wall, hiding whatever mural was painted there.

Willow Wise paused before it. She stood with an apprehensive anticipation, having to prepare herself to even look at the hidden piece. The waiting moments at least allowed James the chance to take in the rest of the chamber before she showed to him what she had brought him in for. When she was ready, she gripped the edge of the sheet with her teeth and pulled it aside.

James immediately understood why this one depiction of their hero was not usually openly displayed. Of all the innumerable adorations of Prideheart that the Dryponies kept, this was seemingly the only one to show him AFTER his encounter with the dragon.

It was a large sitting portrait. Painted with a three-quarters perspective, Prideheart was sitting quietly and gazing off towards the right. He had abandoned the station of a Royal Guard and thus no longer wore the golden armor that was always otherwise present. Instead he wore only a plain, brown cloak that was pinned together about his neck by a brooch shaped like a round, curved leaf. His white body shone bright against the stained, darkened background, particularly in the gloomy light of the crystals. A strong and prominent gold, his mane flowed down from the top of his head in short, thick, clumpy curls, disappearing into his cloak. The man had the impression that Prideheart himself had sat for this one, probably within the first few years after founding Heartwood.

More immediately distinct than any other details about him were the pony's marked injuries. His right eye was dead; no iris, no pupil, no color; nothing but an empty orb of an incredibly pale shade of green, nearly white. All around the milky marble his fur had receded and his flesh had turned black and rotten, corrupted and festering, peaked and poisoned. Thin, sickly veins pulsed with a toxic color underneath the tainted skin. His whole eye was almost like a bulging boil set upon a putrefying corpse. Spreading from the grotesque ugliness that infected his eye was a solitary streak of corruption. It escaped from the sick organ to his forehead, or perhaps the flow of poison ran the other way; from forehead to eye. The base around his horn had all the same decay as his eye. His horn itself was mostly absent; broken off low, nothing was left but a stump overrun with cracks that pitifully vomited an ill chartreuse light, and ghastly green pustules filled with something unknown and awful grew atop the jagged edges.

It was a horrifying sight to see, and it was no wonder that the bulk of the Dryponies' remembrances were of the prior Prideheart, before his fall. Willow Wise couldn't bear to look at the image for very long; she soon hung her head low, cycled through tired breaths, and wiped her eyes. Conversely, James was drawn in by twisted fascination; disgusted by the contorted physicality of the wounds yet unable to look away. But as he stared, he realized he was seeing even deeper injuries.

The painted Prideheart held his head up with dignity. HELD. It was the fact that he had to hold it up at all that caught the man's attention. All the other iterations of the pony exuded a natural dignity and honor; a proud heroism and a noble spirit that was so present and so inherent to his being that it burst out of him like the sparkling explosions of fireworks. Those Pridehearts WERE strength, honor, chivalry, and all those good things given body and form. But what those depictions flashed so readily and brightly and easily, this wounded Prideheart did only with intention and a determined effort. This Prideheart who was painted from a still sitting of the real pony himself had struggled to maintain his heroic and romantic air. And always carrying that noble burden, always forcing a valorous pride out of himself, quite obviously took its toll. He couldn't have been a very old pony at all and yet there was a sagging, aged tiredness to him; an almost spiritual exhaustion which coated him far more than his simple cloak did.

"Do you see the suffering he bore?" Willow Wise asked, still not daring to glance at the image directly. "The scars he took to protect Equestria when the wicked Sun wouldn't?"

James answered honestly, "I see... a tragedy. Something that shouldn't have happened but regrettably did."

"This is the evil which the curse that is magic can do. This is what the Sun brought upon him," the old mare heaved in disgust. She cast the cover back upon the portrait quickly.

"No," the man disagreed with a twinge of echoing sadness, "the dragon did this to him. And he did it to himself, by stepping up to face the dragon." But before Willow Wise could so much as bend her lip down with the start of a scowl, he leaned in and strongly expressed, "AND Princess Celestia did it to him too, for whatever part she played in it all; in making him feel like he had to act. That's what makes it a tragedy: so many terrible things coming together at once, and the greatest cost of it all unduly laid on someone who only did what they thought they needed to do in the moments they were given.

"And from all that tragedy...," he said as his voice fell. He gazed into a thoughtful emptiness and ran his fingers across his mouth. "... I don't get it... what good comes from making the Princess the devil of it all?"

"She failed him!" the old pony yelled in an spiteful and anguished cry.

"Maybe she did!" James readily admitted. "But that's not her doing THAT to him!" he countered as he flung his hand towards the covered, scarred memorial. Exasperated, he implored, "If she failed him, that's just her... failing! Not-...! I could ask her about all this, if you would be willing to allow me the chance!"

Although she felt stung by suspicion, Willow Wise still only conceived of the man as a cog of fate, some victim brought to them with a purpose, and refused to lay blame upon him. But even so, she hissed with predictions of futility, asking, "And what do you expect the wicked Sun would tell you, hm? More of the NOTHING she has shared with you already? Or more of what she wants you to hear; more manipulations for her own ends?"

Through the murky haze of his worries and doubts, unobscured memories came playing back in his mind like perfectly preserved film strips: Princess Celestia standing in the hall, standing on the balcony, sitting in the study; steeped in a reserved silence with an undisclosed pain behind her eyes. The soft, moving melody of her carefully chosen words on regret. Her owning up to a state of imperfection.

"I don't know what she would tell me," James expressed slowly. "That's half the reason to ask. But I think it would be something... about how she hasn't gotten over how everything happened yet."

"Ha!" the elderly pony snorted sardonically. She stormed out, pressing past the door curtain, tearing through it like a tornado whirling through a cornfield. "You don't know her," she spat with assured confidence.

James didn't hesitate to follow the marching mare out of the room, telling her in turn, "With respect, neither do you! You only know a character that comes from a mythology you've created and honed for... God knows how many years it's been. Maybe I don't know her well but I've at least met her."

Willow Wise faltered for a moment as she walked back down the hall towards the stairs; her hooves clopping mistimed beats as she thought to turn around and say something. Ultimately she didn't speak and just continued on, reaching the stairs.

As they descended, James continued, almost rambling on, "You've been trying to tell me a lot about who Princess Celestia is; trying to convince me who she is; throwing it against what I know about her. But the Princess, she never said anything about you. Because..." He stopped midway down the steps and awakened. He realized aloud, "... because she wanted us to meet you and judge you for ourselves."

The old mare hit the bottom of the stairway and walked on, moaning without looking back, "What?"

But stuck on the stairs and gripped by the claws of revelation, James' mind was too busy turning itself over and he didn't answer her.

A leader who had let a man free out of compassion. A leader who had let a soldier go out of compassion. Which soldier? Him, recently. But maybe a wounded Prideheart too, some long time ago. Whatever the Princess had know about all this, she had never expressed it. And she had never expressed it because Twilight, himself, and the others weren't truly out here to do her specific bidding. They were out here to do the right thing, if they could.

It was a collapsing tower of realizations, crushing him as floor by floor of understanding struck him hard over the head. He was here because HE had chosen to be here. Chosen to ride a train, to investigate a mystery, to walk into a forest; they were his choices that he, himself, had made.

And in a pure, heartfelt instant, he made another choice of his own.

He suddenly raced down the steps and cut in front of Willow Wise. Falling to one knee before her, he locked eyes with her and pleaded with an open palm, "Lady Willow... I know that you are wise. Age and experience, time and life, they built you up into the respected and knowledgeable leader of ponies that you are. So, with all that's just happened, I know that you've noticed how strange some of it has been. Noticed how some things aren't lining up like they should. Haven't you?"

She held herself still before the man. Thoughts and feelings surged between their linked eyes until the mare suddenly turned hers away disquietly. She wasn't answering, but he had struck an uncomfortable nerve somewhere.

"That group of ponies that you had put away, that you think is some kind of strike force," James pressed on, "you had to have noticed they were such an odd bunch for what you were accusing them of? I mean, a farmer, a tailor, a baker...? They're not who should be here if the plan was subversion, right?"

Without picking up her eyes again, Willow Wise said, uncommitted and nearly mumbling, "A disguise... to more effectively hide the witch among them."

"Witch? No. She may be a powerful magic user for sure... that's what I've been told anyway, but I've never really seen it myself. She's not a witch though," emphasized James. "She's a student. She lives and works at a library."

"Only what... only what you've been given to believe so that you might do what is wanted of you." Still a weak and barely mustered response.

"Alright, that's okay, you don't need to take my word for it," he gently proposed. "I know you'll be able to see it for yourself if you would just investigate it honestly." He believed everything he was saying. Although her world conformed to only one solitary view that she stubbornly clung to, the well-worn elements of wisdom were so obvious on her that he could not doubt that she was capable of seeing beyond herself. She only had to start acknowledging that there was more there to see. As much as he could, he tried to keep himself encouraging and sympathetic. After all, he was on her side; just not in the way she believed or wanted him to be.

He tried once more, "Don't you have to ask, 'why?' Why send one unicorn saboteur hidden in a crowd of regular ponies? What's the point? Why not send a whole army of unicorns sweeping through the forest?"

Struggling still, Willow Wise responded with sporadic bursts of hastily cobbled together words, "Only... a few are... mighty enough to... overcome the thirst of the crystals... and they tried... to hide her... hide so we wouldn't... wouldn't suspect..."

Then, angry and seething with a rejecting frustration, she suddenly balked, "What's the point of these questions anyway?!" She turned aside, walking away from the man again, bringing hooves down hard on the wooden floor. "That witch already admitted to her intentions of sabotage!"

"She did? When?" James picked himself up and followed the disgruntled pony, but this time he wasn't so intrusive as to bar her path. "When you were shutting her down every time she tried to speak? You didn't accept anything she had to say unless it was exactly what you wanted to hear. In that case, why were you interrogating her in the first place?"

The old mare came to a stop on her own. Her throat rumbled; a harsh vibrating of her muscles that produced a grainy, buzzing noise. It was like she was forcefully holding herself back from answering.

Supportive and sensitive, he echoed, "I know you're able to understand that there are things out of place here. You're only having a hard time with it because you try so hard to see everything through this narrative that you've built. But shouldn't these oddities be looked at openly and seriously? If the Dryponies' destiny is so essential - so important - isn't trying to understand the full truth then also important? Can you really leave room for doubt?" He started to give his words space, but then jumped to add on, "Set aside the story for a minute and look at the things that you've seen for yourself."

"That I've seen?" she asked back, a darkness sliding into her voice. She spun around to face James directly. Now stern and completely unreserved, she blared, "Yes, let's speak then about 'what I've seen for myself.' Our enemies continue to build themselves up on our border! They dig in, more and more! And they've been waging a slow and deliberate campaign of aggression upon us! In our mercy, we've allowed them to stay there for far too long!"

James pulled back. Her sudden force was surprising. But, more startling, her certainty about these claims wasn't floating and faithful, puffed up with hopeful self-reassurance like so many of her other beliefs. It was quite real and tangible. "They... they what?"

"They stir the creatures of the forest, wielding them against us!" Willow Wise vehemently accused. Her words raged out, whipping and burning like fire. "Driving ravenous animals into our gathering grounds; taking our food! Shifting the patrols of predators and directing them towards us! Subtle acts of sabotage to weaken us and whittle us down, striking at us with the forest because they know that they cannot face us directly without the support of their awful magic!" She ground her teeth with vengeful anger.

A pit of nervous doubt opened up in the man's stomach, stalling his forward momentum. No immediate words came to him. This was, no doubt, a legitimate grievance on the part of the Dryponies. The animal trouble which the frontiersponies suspected they had been having was ACTUALLY happening to the Dryponies. And it was happening BECAUSE of the frontiersponies. But it wasn't on purpose! It had to have been a side effect of settlement's expansion.

Willow Wise noticed how he fumbled and delayed as he tried to generate a response and shadows of vindication started to creep up in her. James in turn saw the surety and sense of justified indignation which consumed her and he knew he had to say try and say SOMETHING, so he desperately explained, "The- the ponies of the settlement... they don't- they don't even know you're here! They can't... take you into account when they try to work with the ecosystem of the forest! They- they don't know what they're causing to happen here!"

He felt much less convincing as he pleaded, and indeed Willow Wise took him as such. Unconvinced, stark, bitter, and sarcastic, she grumbled, "Oh, how convenient for them. How woefully unfortunate for us. They get to strike ignorantly with all their innocence intact but protecting ourselves makes us villains."

James tried to fight back, "You need to understand-"

But much like with Twilight, she struck him down with a hoof to his mouth and a lone, controlling word: "No."

His sense of immunity deflated. He withdrew. When the old mare lowered her hoof down and set his mouth free, he said no more.

"We've spoken enough, for now," she decided as she turned away from him another time. With all her fuming temper ringing in each of her steps, she carried herself towards the exit archway, the haunted air of Heartwood just outside. Loud, but still under her breath, she complained to herself, "Broken Oak may have been right."

As she went, James followed no more.

She stopped under the archway to look back at him. Wavering indecisively between her weakened echoes of sympathy and her still bubbling anger, she asked seriously, "If I command you to stay right here, would you?"

The man shuffled over to the same floor-hewn seat he had sat in earlier and answered bleakly, "You don't have to command. You just have to ask."

The old mare frowned and gave a gloomy harrumph. She turned and went, her even paced clops fading down the ramp.

With a sigh, James took a moment to balance out his breathing before he dropped back into the seat. It was hardly possible to tell if he was making mistakes or doing the right thing. It was hard not to act in the face of this centuries old grudge and all the tragedies it could lead to, but now he felt he had judged himself correctly before: he was no diplomat. Maybe his blind stumbling in the dark had only added fuel to the bonfire that the Dryponies gathered around every time they danced and sang, reciting the tales scorched into their memory. Or maybe it wouldn't have mattered if he was a stellar negotiator, given how terrible his judgment and assumptions about ponies always seemed to be. What's more, hundreds of years of hate was no small thing to overcome.

There was a dark seed that had been planted here a very long time ago. Now, after so many years of waiting, it was so close to blossoming that the Dryponies could feel tingling anticipation in their bones and taste sweetly satisfying promises in the air. What possible way was there to convince them to kill this growth before it bore tragic fruit?

Though the active whispers of the forest, the living sounds of Heartwood breathing, floated into the hollow, he felt alone. The shaking of branches didn't stir him, the rolling murmurs of busy Dryponies somewhere on the ground or in the trees didn't move him, and the creaking scratches and secretive, snake-like hissings-

Wait, what?

"Psst!"

James glanced about, quickly tracing the noise to a window behind him. He ran his eyes in a circle across the room, unsure what was going on or even if he was alone or not.

"Psssst!"

He got up and quietly made his way towards the window where he carefully peaked his head out.

"Spike?!"

Comments

[theredguy]

[tomzon]

huehue,they ar vankors