‘Cross the Land

After I finally said my goodbyes to Lucine and got my ass on the move, I found myself coming up with song after song, all about staying strong in the face of an unknown threat, freedom, or civility to your fellow man. I felt like each of the songs had a moral to them that made them worth making in and of themselves, even if some of the words could be interchanged and used as propaganda. It was basically nice propaganda, I guess. I’d feel worse for that, but it helped pass the time as I skirted the border of Ponydaledale and started on my way into Toddton. Most of what I saw on the road was enough to keep me off of it, and as I closed the distance between Hooversdum and the next town, I couldn’t help but notice the Toddton advertisements that were along the road. Most of them had something or other to do with changing your identity or living as a Human with other Humans of all kinds, though I wasn’t exactly encouraged by the tones of the images. They used a symbol similar enough to Brimstone that made me wary of trusting whatever I was going to find at the next border town. If I could have done anything about my supply situation, I would have, but all I had were Luce’s plublass, my undlegar, and some important stuff to take along with me. Most of my money was on me in one way or another, however, I’d been sure to give Algmund and Gloss a hefty travel fund just in case they ever needed to spend some pennicals.

My conscious weighed on me heavily as I considered the sacrifice made so that I could live and the reason for my next step. I knew that I needed to get to Chorell and help as many of the slaves as I could since that was one of the main countries that used them, but then again I also needed to stay the hell alive. It was a curious conundrum, though the inner turmoil was honestly refreshing rather than just being aimlessly sad. I had another purpose and it was to set people free with my music. There was also plenty of time to think about the invitation I still needed to have examined and what it meant to me. It honestly sounded like some dark shit that I wanted no part of, although I considered worse things to be than a little evil. That alone made me want to do away with the note before I lost all sense of morality in my downward spiral, even after I’d thought that I was doing so well.

Halfway in my head and halfway into my surroundings, I came across an abandoned wagon with a goat-thing like the one I’d previously had. The wagon was unmarked and had a few supplies in it, however, the thing was that the goat-creature pulling the wagon was faster than I was at a walking pace and obviously had no interest in being my lackey. Eventually, I did catch up to the damn thing and climb into the back of the wagon for a bit where I learned that the wagon had hollow seats. It had been a good while since I’d gotten any rest, so I tucked my large frame into one as well as I could, curling up a bit to get inside. It was nice, cool, and dark inside the box, and after having put my bedroll down, it became a nice little hidey hole for a nap.

When the cart took off out of nowhere I knew I’d made the right choice in hiding before I could get myself eaten. If I stayed where I was, then I would most likely be fine and dandy for a good while, but then I realized that the creature wasn’t stopping any time soon. I had a few things in the seat compartment with me, such as my map, Clockly, and my knife, but I doubted that it was actually going to do me any good. My map told me that I was uncomfortably deep into the Ponydale border and that I happened to be going damn near toward the center of the chaos. The terrain went from being smooth enough (I guess) to being absolutely awful. For once I was thankful for the advanced, unnecessarily complicated structure of Septurn carriages and whatnot up until one of the back wheels broke off. There was a simple lock in place on the seat that I pinch close with my fingers, slotting a piece of metal into a shaped hole and that kept me in the box, being bounced a little as the livestock ran. Before I could really get my bearings, the animal I’d grown to appreciate over the course of my nap and ride thereafter came to a sudden stop with a raucous screech and the wagon tottered and teetered for a moment. Then the thing rolled completely over and I heard them.

The dead and the damned.

Their growling and yammering in their strange language was audible through the wood of my hiding spot, as well as the tearing of flesh and the ending cries of Goatmun the Horned One. I stayed exactly where I was with my eyes closed as tight as they would go for as long as I could manage, but then I heard a voice. The words were muffled and hard to make out, but I could have sworn that they said something about ‘Tying up loose ends’, which could have been bad for me with everything that was going on at the moment. In any case, I waited until the sounds were long gone and I couldn’t think of any other reason to stay where I was, so I opened the hatch and let me and my things fall onto the ground. The wagon was on its side so that meant I got out quickly at the very least. My hopes were high when I noticed that the scent of burning flesh wasn’t as pungent as it could have been, so I gathered my things and grabbed my pack from the other compartment, checking my equipment under the harbor of the wagon. Once I was sure that I had everything, I peeked out to see where I was and saw that the cobblestone road I landed on continued into the middle of a deserted town. Consulting my map told me I was in Equinaire, the capital of Ponydale. It was located on the eastern part of the province, but what confused me was how I got so far inland without noticing it. The trip should have been about a day’s nonstop travel, but then I realized that I must have woken up after a good deal of time. The compartment had actually been pretty cozy if I may say so.

I was scared to get out and about and it was for very good reason. Purple flames could be seen in the distance, but they were gradually going away. Doors and windows opened around the town, most of them looking my way or at the gore that was spread around the sides of the road. Weeping and cries for help could be heard and it took me a second to realize that they’d only started once the threat was gone. The Ponies of Equinaire were scared, but at least they were smart about it. Chilling under the wagon, I started to play one of my songs meant to encourage people under the oppressive thumb of adversity.

Frosted Field by Gatian Gauner

O’ I stared across a frosted field

A frosted field of red

The frozen mist

The land was kissed

By the devouring dead

Few survivors stood the wake

Most of them did flee

What was once lost to them

A town or two or three

Heed my call and starch thyself

The battle is now done

The war’s not lost

There’ll be a cost

But I’ll pay it for one!

It was honestly less of a song and more of a chant, but slowly and surely the chant grew mong people until it was being quietly sung around me. I emerged from the cart and saw myself surrounded by people who were just glad to be alive after the deadly event that had just taken place. I whipped out my undlegar and played the tune along for the song and people started coming with weapons and cheers were thrown out as the spirit of the attacked rallied behind my song. It felt good to give hope back to people, but I also didn’t want to die, so I stopped playing before we got too loud. The chant died down and the town came around, people voicing shouts to hunt the undead that had accosted them and their home. I found it flattering that my song had jumpstarted them, but I was deathly afraid of the people going off and getting themselves killed over next to nothing. The next thing I knew, there was a group of people arguing against leaving and another arguing against going after the horde. I found it pertinent to play another song about living to fight another day and that evidently worked out for me. Things were looking bad in the capital without a leader in sight, but then someone cried out about a meeting at the castle for all survivors and everyone got moving.

I’d somehow ended up in the middle of an exodus to royal grounds, but I really wasn’t complaining about the huge audience I had for my sounds. Yes, it was super fucked that the particular concern on my mind was getting fans, but I was still working coward- toward, an overall goal and being opportunistic was just Gatian’s way. Seizing the chance and Carpe-ing the Diem were both easy, and I basically got myself a concert going by the time we all got to the castle. I was in front of the castle steps, singing a song about the horrid tyranny of slavery when a bugle sounded over my undlegar, signaling for me to stop playing. I joined the crowd and waited for the royal person to appear so I could make a song about them too, but then I saw Lumo Sheldrake himself, the King of the Ponies. He had both wings and a horn, the symbols of the royal bloodline and whatever. I didn’t really care until he stared me dead in the eye and nodded in my direction, giving two dudes the go-ahead to approach me. I stayed where I was while he started his speech and was collected handily by two Pegasi guards that looked worse for wear.

It was quickly made clear to me that I wasn’t being detained and that the King wanted my attention for some reason or the other. That alone was still worrying, and the state of the castle grounds were even more concerning. Things had gone to hell pretty well in the castle, and I was none too happy about being ‘incentivized’ to meet the King on the behalf of some mysterious benefactors. I would first be brought to the people who’d bought me (In less kind words) and then I would meet the guy in charge. However, before I quite realized what was going on, I was in front of a gal’s bed and she was very purple. By purple, I do mean that she was purple and that she was also a Pegacorn like Lumo. I assumed she was his daughter or trophy wife, but the smile on her face told me she was more innocent than I’d given her credit for. She beckoned me closer once I entered the room and one of the guards that had brought me whispered a warning in my ear. I didn’t really need it.

I approached the Mare in bed and asked, “Is there a song you would like to hear? I have one for everyone.”

She chuckled gently, placing a hand on her modest chest. The pain in her eyes was clear. “Play me something… Peaceful.”

With a nod, I started No Way and saw that she was mourning, so I changed the ending lyrics to make it a little happier. Once I finished, I started freestyling The Scientist from memory and got it pretty well for only having heard the song a billion times in the span of just under twenty years. The Princess smiled as I played and breathed more deeply as I carried on, seeming to be in less pain as I played. I tried to think of the mildest, kindest songs I could play for her, but she was dying and there was nothing I could do about it. I sang her to sleep and watched as she exhaled for the last time, her body shuddering to a final halt. The final few notes of my song played out without words to accompany them and I sighed, sorry to see a fan go. I’d grown attached to my one-woman audience. She was a very good listener. The guard that had warned me against harming her came to check and see that she was gone, and once he saw that she was, he escorted me out of the room and into another where there was a pale Mare with a white mane sitting and… Well… She was staring off into the distance when I came i before turning her gaze to me.

“You played for her.” She murmured.

“... Yes, ma’am. She asked for-”

“A peaceful song. I heard.”

“... May I ask-”

“I am Rudy Rhubarb.”

“Oh. I wish we were meeting under better circumstances, Ms. Rhubarb.”

She squinted at me. “You’d rather meet me fresh off of beating up two of my favorite agents?”

“Would it be better if I left, or…?”

“Play me your favorite song.” She folded her arms and glared at me. I didn’t think she really meant anything by the look, but there was no telling.

I nodded and started playing Lake Sprinkle Sprankle by Delta Sleep for her, but she didn’t really seem all that pleased by the time I finished the song. She asked for another and I played her one of my own, the original song seeming to over better with my singular audience member. She had me play a few more of the songs that I made and kept looking at me with the same appraising, disapproving eye.

“You have talent.” Ms. Rhubarb said bluntly.

“Thank you.”

“As such, you will play for me and my cousin upon request. You will not leave our care until instructed. Am I clear?”

I raised a brow at her and strummed a few notes as I spoke. “What makes you think it’s a funny joke? I’ll not be tied under your yoke.”

She blinked. “Did you just sing at me?”

“Your offer smells poisonous, if I took it I’d be remiss. Don’t make me regret my time, let me be and we’ll be fine.”

“You’re singing at me, aren’t you?”

“I’m singing a song and strumming along, is your underwear cheeky or is it just a thong?”

Granted, the Mare looked to be old enough to have given birth to a Centurn version of me, but I hadn’t gotten laid in the better part of a month at that point. Nailing my potential captor seemed like a good idea to me. Then she said, “If you keep singing at me, I’ll hit you.”

“Please don’t hit me.”

“Then silence, Minstrel. There are better things for you to be doing.”

“Like what?”

“Like coming up with the battle anthem that we’ll take against the Char Horde.” Rudy Rhubarb said as seriously as could be.

“... Right. I’ll sure do that.”

She raised a brow. “Are you saying you won’t?”

“I just said I would.”

“Without a reward?”

I gave her a look. “I feel like my reward is being allowed to walk away untortured.”

Her brow furrowed. “We don’t torture.”

“Beatings count as torture.”

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“You’re a River Man, aren’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Rhubarb rolled her eyes. “Then I couldn’t get away with hurting you because I wouldn’t let myself. You’ve shown little in the way of ill will toward anyone that doesn’t stand in your way, and you even seem to be civil towards those that do. You treated my people well while you held them hostage, and Jaqeline was very adamant about leaving you alone. However, it would appear as though you’ve walked yourself into my lap, so why wouldn’t we become partners, hm?”

“... Partners?”

“I say that, but you’ll be working for me, of course.”

“Ah. Is there anything I’d have to do?”

“What you’re already doing, I imagine. Write songs, perform them, and maybe make some money.” Rhubarb smiled slyly, the charm of a mature woman not lost on me in the slightest. “We could always sweeten the deal, if you like.”

I clicked my tongue and smacked my lips. “Tell ya what; If I can get you off with my tongue in ten minutes, then I get favorable terms. If I can’t, I’ll still finish you off and you get the terms you want.”

“What makes you think I’d do that?” She asked, looking less than pleased.

I shrugged. “I dunno. I was hoping to get something out of it.”

“You feel pleasure from your tongue?”

“No, but you would.”

She raised a brow. “I can take care of that myself, though I don’t suppose you have any idea of how Ponies seal deals, would you?”

I thought about it. “The Gertts shake hands and I think the Chorets hug. How do Ponies do it?”

“With a kiss.” Rudy didn’t miss a beat, nor did she appear to be tricking me. There was something about the ruby-redness of her lips, however, that made the idea seem less appealing than it should have been.

“How about a firm handshake?”

“What? I’m enough for a romp, but not the intimacy between?” She actually looked really amused by that.

“What can I say? I can bed and bolt, but kissing and telling isn’t my thing.”

“Come here and close this deal before I actually hit you.”

“That would hurt, wouldn’t it?”

She rolled her eyes. “It will if you make me hit you in the first place. Move those hooves, Mister.”

I sighed and walked over to her before bending down to seal the deal. The kiss was nice, but it was an empty gesture made to someone I didn’t really want to kiss all that much. Still, it was said and done with, so I sat next to Rhubarb. “What now?”

Rudy gave me some side eye. “Now? Now you play for me. Something that means a lot to you.”

Miss You was the first song I could think of, and by the time I finished playing that for her, Rhubarb was dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief and was smiling warmly. “I take it you liked the song?”

“It was splendid, Mister Gauner. Superb.”

“Does that mean I can leave now, or can I play another song?”

“Why say both as if you’d like to do both?”

“I’m down for both, honestly.”

“Play me another song, if you wouldn’t mind too terribly.”

I shrugged and started playing the chords to My Fellow Friend, a song I wrote about treating people with the same respect and dignity you expected. Rhubarb laughed at some of the sillier lines and asked me to teach the song to her, so I did and she was neutral when she gave me some interesting news. My music had an interesting, Terruc quality to it that confused the older woman but also drew her to me. It was enough for her to dismiss me to a nice room that I could call my own for awhile and get some much needed rest from the excitement of the past few hours. There were a lot of things that I needed to process, but for the most part, I was just glad to have a nice bed and a full stomach since there were a lot of worse alternatives. My time was spent doing some personal maintenance like manscaping and cutting my hair down so that I couldn’t get a full hand of it. I figured it’d be for the best to get rid of my signature locks in favor of a short, pragmatic style that wouldn’t get grabbed at any point. It was saddening to see my curls go, although it was considerably cooler and I felt better now that I looked less like myself. Gatian’s new ‘do was alright, but I ended up taking a pair of scissors I found and evening it out a lot.

After I found myself presentable, I found the time to write in my favorite journal and put ink on his dirty little pages. Yeah, you like this, don’t you, Booksy? You like it when I write words on you, don’t you? Little diary. Oh yeah, I bet you can’t wait to get splattered and-

I’m dirty-talking a book.

Bullshit aside, there are books in this room that are really interesting. Most of them deal on the history of Arca or Terruc Magic in general, which were all pretty cool. I learned that there was a ranking system to Terru pools and a system underlying in Arca that Lucine hadn’t been explained to me. There were only three general ranks to Terru pools, but they each had three degrees that widened the spectrum a bit. Everyone could do most ‘C’ level arcas, but even Lucine hadn’t been able to crest ‘B+’, even after years of training. There was also the fact that he was a tactile guy, meaning that he was less inclined to book-learning when he was still alive unlike myself. I absorbed knowledge from the books as best I could and found that I was around a ‘B-’ in terms of power through my own testing. It wasn’t out of the norm for a River Person to have a lot of Magic and just not know how to use it, so I resolved to ask Rhubarb to get me a teacher as payment for my services, whatever they may end up being.

Anyway, it’s a good time to get some rest. I’ll fill some more in when there’s more going on.

☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽

Waking up in an unfamiliar place left me disoriented and unsure of what my next move should be. I eventually remembered where I was and what I should be doing, which evidently wasn’t enough to motivate me to do any of it. I’d been living just to survive up until that point and the energy in me just… Petered out, I guess. It was like I couldn’t escape working for the Rhubarb Ranch as much as I wanted to, and I felt as though I was going to be playing some music on the battlefield if there was any bad luck in my future at all. With things going how they were my hopes weren’t too high in the first place, so I chopped every last one of their balls off and decapitated my dreams so that I wouldn’t be disappointed. Sad time was now, and now was happening in the shower with the bathtub filling up. I couldn’t help but look at everything I’d had and how I’d lost it all so quickly after getting it. Some things I could get back, most I couldn’t. It hurt to think that I was just aimlessly wandering around with a vague goal and an iffy way to do my business, but when I thought about the situation as it was currently, I turned off the shower and let myself sink into the generous tub, wondering if there was truly light on the surface or if it was a trick born from a drowning man’s mind.

My heart was heavy with the pain of loss and the consistency of it occurring in my life. My mind was clouded with sadness and some water. My eyes were also clouded with water, which made me realize that I was slowly drowning. There was nothing in me other than survival instinct driving me out of the water, to clear my eyes, or to take a breath. My body wanted me alive more than I did, and it took me a few minutes to come to the conclusion that I needed to live for something again instead of letting loss tear me apart. My mind went back to her, back to Tidrel. It was such a distant memory that I almost wondered if it ever happened, but there was the fact that I could see her face so clearly. Her eyes. I laid back with my head out of the water and wondered if I’d ever have a chance to meet the woman who’d stolen my heart again, wondering if I could take it back from a distance or if it had to be mailed back. Then I thought about Lucine and the father-figure I’d seen in him, even with as little time as we spent together socializing. We’d just had a bond like no other that I missed, and then there was Max, Sootina, and Gloss, my own ‘family’. My band and my manager, more like. Still, I missed them too, even if I couldn’t tell myself that I’d ever loved any of the three.

Taking my time in the bath had little to no effect on the amount of time I spent strumming the plublass quietly in memory of Luce and his jerky, sliding technique. I’d never taught him to keep his fingers on the frets at all times, but he’d done exactly that and it had given him a unique sound. I played No Way with his instrument and let the half of the whole harmony carry me into distant memories. Training in Grata non-Aquix, teaching him in turn how to play the plublass, and traveling took up most of the time in my head because that was mostly what we did. Our relationship had been pragmatic as well as personal. We both wanted to get better at something we didn’t really have a vested interest in, and the other was willing to teach as long as the former was willing to learn. We’d been close in our own way and it wasn’t until he was gone that I realized just how much I relied on Luce. I’d already mourned him, but the melancholy over losing another family to events out of my hands and a father to murder just ached into my fingertips and needed to be released through music. It was my therapy and my medication. My drug and my fixer. I needed to play as much as I needed to be heard, so I made this one for Lucine.

Luce’s Song

Verse 1

I be-lieve

Some of us

Born to the grave

I see

Much blo-od

Spray from the frey

Chorus 1

I feel I must atone

Scarred up by the wretched sight of your bones!

Verse 2

Mo-re fear

Entering

They wait at bay

Mo-re sears

Their flesh

Into a blaze

Chorus 2

I feel I must atone

Frightened by the bloody sight of your bones!

Final Verse

I thi-nk

You’d like

For me to slay

I thi-nk

I’m made

For judgement day

2nd Chorus

Why must we die alone?

Scarred up by the

Frightened by the

Troubled by the morbid sight of your bones

When I opened my eyes, I noticed something inside me. I felt like I was tickling a well of inspiration, something that I needed to get out into more songs. I grabbed a spare book I used for songs and started getting melodies and words down as fast as I could, flipping between pages like a madman as things fell into place straight from my head into the work before me. Soon enough I had fifteen pages of seven different songs, all of them ready to be put together and fine tuned. The thing was that it was now night time, I hadn’t eaten, and I was a little bleary-eyed from staring at ink and paper for so long. As to not damage my vision further, I focused on playing the songs rather than writing them down for a little while and earned myself an audience of two from a maid and butler that came to escort me to meet Prince Lumo Junior, heir to the throne and music aficionado ‘as no other member of royalty before him could ever be.’, as was explained to me.

I’d dressed in normal clothes, which were apparently perfectly fine for a performance in front of the Prince. My dark green shirt, army green jacket, and black pants seemed to have little to no effect on the guy, but I did take the time to study him as he showed me nothing but disdain. From what I could tell, Lumo looked almost nothing like his jet-black father. Junior himself was a greyish color with white spots spread about on the fur I could see, and his mane was different from his father’s as well. Instead of being an ashy grey, it was pitch black in a different shade than Senior’s coat. They did favor outside of their color schemes with their weak chins and alien eyes, making me want to deck both of them in the face. I knew that Lumo Senior was the King and Arcamagus of Ponydale, but what exactly that meant for his son, I didn’t know. I did know that the prick snapped twice and evidently expected me to start playing.

I looked at him like he was stupid and he gave it right back to me. “Have you no sense? Play.”

“Have you no manners? Request something.”

He drew back in his chair and I glared at him. “Guards! Should we teach this uppity little Human how we do things here in Equinaire?”

Around me were guards, bristling with distaste while also drawing their weapons. It didn’t take a genius to know that few of them if any actually thought they had a reason to go after me, but apparently Prince Low-Blow (Or Loblo from now on) thought I needed an attitude adjustment. As such, I brought my undlegar to bear and let the hate flow through me. I usually don’t mind authority too much, but the Prince in front of me had earned himself a song in all the wrongs ways, and I was going to give it to him. The first note I played screeched into existence with an ear-shattering wail, followed by a hard slide into a blitzkrieg of a riff. I hadn’t intended on singing, but the words just came to me like I’d been intending on freestyling something super sick. The solo was great by my standards, but according to Lumo Junior?

Well, I was still glaring at him when he said, “... I… I’ve never…”

“You’ve never what, punk?”

“I have never… In my entire life… Heard such a raucous cacophony of such epic proportions! What style of music-”

“Thrash metal.”

“Thrash harder!”

“... Get me my other instrument.” I didn’t know how, why, or when the Prince decided that I was worth listening to, but apparently my music was mojo-rific and magical as the sailor girl. I think her name was Seres or something, but that doesn’t actually matter in the slightest.

The prince snapped his fingers and some of the guards that had closed in on me rushed off to go do the thing he’d asked while I took it upon myself to abuse my undlegar like it was my meat and I was a young man who’d just learned about microwaving a sock full of vaseline. That is to say, I made sure that every sound out of my guitar-thing was new and intense to the ear so that it would translate how I was feeling into raw noise. The songs had no rhythm, no beat, and no melody, but they harmonized all the same, and when I added my own growling vocals to the music, I had the Prince losing his shit to the point where he was moshing the fucking guards. The chaos in him soon spread to the guards and even the butlers ,though the maid in the skimpiest outfit ever seen was more concerned about getting the fuck out of dodge before someone realized she was gone. There was a part of me that wanted her to stay until I was done making sounds do ear pain hard, but there was also a part of me that wanted her gone due to the fact that she was killing my vibe, man.

Once the maid gal was gone, the shit hit the fan in the worst of was as the moshing turned into a full-on brawl, all the while I was just ripping strings on my undlegar with my fingers until I couldn't feel them anymore. When the pain was enough to make me stop, I saw and felt that my fingers were super blistered and that they fucking hurt. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I’d just done something I shouldn’t have, and the state of the room I was in spoke volumes of that matter. Guards were slowly picking themselves up off of the floor, though whether they actually got to their hooves was another story.The Prince lie on the floor, one leg bent the wrong way at the knee and an arm that was looking a little too flexible for comfort, and I was nursing some pretty raw fingers. Everyone in the room was panting heavily, bleeding, and/or limping. I was no exception, having pulled a muscle in my leg during a particularly dope riff.

No one really knew what had just happened, though I was well aware of the fact that I’d felt some manner of cathartic release in being able to hammer out the worst of my emotions. Inspecting my hand more closely wasn’t something I wanted to do since I was bleeding, but I’d killed animals before so it wasn’t that big of a deal. Still, my hand was looking worse for wear and would do with a soak in some salty water or a spritz of alcohol, and a lot of the guards were looking forward to getting the hell away from the Prince since he was coming ‘round as well. I decided to stay behind and nurse him myself since no one else wanted to do it, choosing to let him use my jacket as a pillow while I got his face cleaned up with my shirt. He looked up at me through blackened eyes that held much gratitude, so I smiled back and assured him that I’d have his six as needed. He murmured out a ‘Thanks’, which I was quite sure was the first time he’d ever said so without sass or sarcasm behind it. Getting the guy to his feet was beyond me, but I knew a couple pain relieving arca that would do him some good while I went to go get help. No sooner than I had stepped out of the room was I caught in someone’s grasp, and I wasn’t happy about that. Nor was I happy about the look on the Armator’s face when he looked past me and saw the Prince laid on the couch, still bleeding a bit.

I earned myself a quick beating that I was pretty sure I deserved, I just didn’t want it. After that little bit of bother was over, I took the time to go and see the darkness that had once swallowed me in the River. By that I mean I got knocked the fuck out and my utility payments got voided like a mother fucker out of nowhere. It was somewhere between relieving and worrying when I woke up in the dreamscape, a place I’d only been while lucid dreaming (Because that’s the only way to get there, duh), but my last appearance in the place had been on purpose. Being there without meaning to be was weird, so I conjured up a pina colada to make things more chill. I changed it into a mojito after a few dream minutes, but then something strange happened, and I mean something stranger than being beaten into super-consciousness. On the one hand, the images passing before my eyes were interesting, but on the other, I had a feeling that they were important.

Images of a blue-haired woman, and yes I do mean blue as in her hair looked naturally blue, surfaced and showed me a billowing flag rising behind her before the image shifted. Next, a woman with a sloping jaw and gentle, kind eyes faced me then turned away, pointing at the stars above. The final image was of Stellara reaching out to me, so I struggled to take her hand despite the dream gaining control over my thoughts. My limbs wouldn’t move in the inky blackness, but Stella was so clear… She felt so close that all I wanted was to hug her and tell her that I forgave her, but it was out of my limit. I wasn’t saddened at the vision, but I was upset by it and the pain that was growing in my face. My left eye was swollen shut however, the right was open and ready for business. I saw that I was in yet another room, but this time it was a cell and I didn’t want to be in a cell. My arms, legs, and sides hurt, but nothing felt broken other than my will to exist at the moment.

Sitting myself up was hard, but looking around was harder. My neck felt like it had been sliced on all sides, and when I realized that I actually had been cut on both sides of my neck ,I panicked. The wounds had healed a little, but they still hurt to the touch. Neither had been sewn up, so I was wondering how in the bloodiest of fucks I wasn’t dead. It took a good few hours for the horrid truth to come crashing down on my head, and when it did, it was like the ceiling itself had given way. I was back in the bottom of the River, except instead of having thousands upon thousands of pounds of water crushing me, it was the weight of my own fate that got me to break down. Except I couldn’t cry. I could weep and I could whisper, but I couldn’t actually cry. I didn’t know if it was because I was dehydrated or if it was because of the obvious…

I was dead. My heart no longer beat and blood no longer flowed in my veins. Acceptance came to me in the form of razor-wire and lemon juice for minutes that stretched on.

Then I woke all the way up and found myself gasping for air, back in the room I’d started my day in. My head was pounding and I had a nosebleed, but other than those two things I was completely fine and in no mood to be bothered. When a familiar butler came to call, I denied him and waited until he left to make my escape out of the window with as much of my crap as I could carry. My stick had to stay behind, but I got most of my shit together and got to steppin’. It probably would’ve been a better idea if I wasn’t on the second story of the building, which would have been easily the third or fourth on a ‘regular’ estate. Climbing down was complicated and difficult, but I managed it without fully exhausting myself. I assumed that my months of diet and exercise had done me well since I hadn’t died. Well, I did fall, but I didn’t die which is the important bit if you ask me. Once I made it out of the castle, I made quick work of getting off the grounds and back into the city itself. My map was still in my pack up until I found a good point to stop and consult it only to find that Equinaire was larger than I thought. The map zoomed in magically and showed me the nearest exits, but those didn’t help me at the moment since every gate was probably covered by a guard who would soon be looking for someone with instruments. I needed to get out of the city and Ponydale as a whole pretty fast before either the Prince got hurt or Rhubarb enslaved me, and that only left me one option that I knew of. Walk out looking like I was supposed to be leaving, and if anyone stopped me, then I would cut and run as far as I could get. Picking a direction was the easiest part of the plan. I just thought enacting it would be difficult.

As it turned out, I was wrong. No one so much as spared me a glance as I walked through the capital, and getting out was as easy as blending in with the rest of the people leaving. Plenty of races once called Equinaire home, but with the tides of the dead coming and going, people were looking to either band together or get the fuck out of dodge. The capital wasn’t actually the biggest city in Ponydale, as I learned from talking to a few people on our way out of town. IT was close, but the military and political strength of the country was actually split. People were heading to Clyde’s Dell for protection and to join the muster that was gathering there under the order of King Lumo himself, though that wasn’t where I wanted to go. I had a place in mind and a few Chorets looking to go with me, so I joined my fellow yellow and tan brethren onward to Coranett for safety, refuge, and asylum, which I think are all synonymous in context.

I’m on watch with a couple other Moon People right now, but I think this is it for the time being. It’s about high time I left the plains and headed to the Corusan Mountains, don’t you think, Booksy?