Where Loyalty Lies

Blood is thicker than water. The full quote, rather misrepresented in shortening, reads "The blood of the coven is thicker than the water of the room." For the case of Princess White Rose, perhaps that misrepresentation is more apt. She is more well known now as Blind Faith, disgraced Captain of the imperial guard, and longs to be better than she is. You would not know it from the chances she has had to make it so. Each time, she falls short for reasons she does not know. She finds herself now led by the ties of the coven to a cell in the dungeon of an Empress who should long ago have faded to bones and rot beneath the earth: her mother. It is in this place that Rose - Faith - will find her next chance to define herself as she wishes to be. Chains bind her throat and hooves to one another, though they are hardly necessary after she has been sedated. She is led by the pulling of another chain to a new chamber within the belly of the dungeon. Its maw gapes open; the stench of its thick breath washes over her. The blood of a thousand or more before her remains hands sickly in the air. On all sides are devices ancient and stained, the purposes of which she refuses to imagine the purpose of. So pungent is the scent and so putrid the sight that she shudders, steps back to escape, only for the wooden end of an axe to be dug into the space between her wings to drive her forward. Metal clatters in jeering laughter at her as the thick iron band around her neck is tugged by another of her captors. She remembers when he had been a young, weedy thing, traipsing around in armor too large and mimicking the guards he longed to join. Pride lifts her head high even as she is dragged towards a cold leather table, and keeps her stoic as she is forced onto it, as each hoof in turn is clamped firmly down in restraints. Before she can writhe away, her wings are forced out and stapled to the leather. She swallows the sound rising unbidden from within at the sharp stinging pain. This is the first of a series of cruelties which need not be detailed here. What is of more importance is the time before and between each injury: in this time, Faith faces her first test, questioned by the armored ponies who had brought her here. Asks one, "How gained you entry to the palace?" Answers Faith, "Take me to the Empress; I shall answer to her." She does not bruise when struck. Asks another, "Whence came you?" Answers Faith, "Take me to the Empress; I shall answer to her." She does not bleed when pierced. Asks the third, "For what purpose?" Answers Faith, "Take me to the Empress; I shall answer to her." She does not blister when burned. Another takes each wound in her stead, and drops first to her knees and then to her side upon the floor of a little shop in Buttercup Brook. It is Mirror Mirror, for whom Faith has come here in the first place, who suffers from Faith's capture, though she is not yet in mortal danger. Not until the questions have been repeated and patience has grown thin. A wooden stake, thin and sharp, is held just above Faith's skin. The point parts her fur to rest lightly above her heart. Her stomach curls into a tight knot of cold dread. One of the guards draws back a hammer. She wonders whether the wound would kill her before it could be dealt to her partner. "You have seen already what little good that will do," Faith calls out. "Liuetenant Shade, this game grows tiresome. Take me to my mother and let her ask of me what she will." A pause hangs in the stale air, and for a moment, she expects him to ignore her words. "It has been long since I was a Lieutenant. Who are you that would know my name by sight?" The hammer does not swing. The stake is drawn back very slightly. All eyes are focused between the captive and the one she has addressed by name. The ghost of a wry smile crosses Faith's weary face. "I was your Captain ten and five winters ago. Has your memory gone with your rank?" Knight Shade eyes her impassively. She keeps eye contact, raises her chin so that the shadows slip away from her scarred visage. "My former Captain was a traitor to the Empress." "Of course I was. My own mother stripped me of my rank and made me a servant for saving her life. What child would not rebel against such treatment?" The two regard each other as silence pools around them, where her blood was meant to. At long last, he is the first to break away from her gaze. He gestures dismissively to the one holding the stake. With some hesitation, she lays it aside. "You were presumed dead. How are you in the palace and looking as if your sight were never destroyed, if you are indeed Blind Faith?" He struggles to look at her with the same apathy of her captive status now that her name is in his mind. It was she who had trained him and given him a path to his rank, she who he had admired and followed into battle without hesitation for years, and he cannot entirely bring himself to dismiss that, long though it has been. "You thought me dead. Now you see me alive, uninjured in spite of all efforts, and it surprises you only that I see? Take me to the Empress, Lieutenant. I have told you already that it is to her I will answer." She is rather pushing her luck by speaking with the arrogance of her former status, yet he does not at once return an instrument to her skin. "That is Captain, to you, and I am no longer beholden to your commands. The Empress is busy." "I am certain she is. Tell my mother I have come home; see then how busy she stays." There is another silence about the two, though this time, he does not break eye contact with her. The child he once was has grown since last they met. Finally, he speaks, though does not look away. "Sergeant Bramble. Do as she says." Bramble turns out to be the same mare who had held poised the stake. She must be young; her voice falters when she begins to question her orders. "Sir..." A withering scowl is enough to send her for the door. Uncomfortable silence dominates the twenty minutes that await her return. Feeling increasingly confident, Faith begins to roll the die of Mirror's fate in her mind, pondering what it is she will say to convince her mother not to command her execution. When the Sergeant scampers back into the room, trembling, to stutter out the Empress' response, Faith is so pleased by the success that she forgets to spare a thought for Mirror herself. --- Jonquil looms in a jeweled chair, clearly livid. Her usually pale face is red with fury and her right hoof taps an impatient rhythm on the armrest of her seat. Shards of fine china lay beside the door - just below a tea-stained patch of wallpaper. She smiles. It is a disturbing caricature of politeness. "Blind Faith. We had been quite sure you had perished long ago - yet here you are, breaking into my palace as a common thief!" Jonquil braces her forelegs on the table, leaning forward. Age refuses to show itself on her face. She must have fed recently. "Was the first of my treasures not enough to satiate you?" Faith mimics her smile to buy time. Now that she can see her mother before her, something in her heart shifts, and she wonders how best to make use of the opportunity provided to her on a platter. "You left me little choice for how else to enter when you changed the locks, mother. And you know how I adore a real challenge, not like that silly little riddle." The Empress' eyes narrow. She steeples her hooves, smile unwavering. "Do you call it a riddle that I asked you to return to me my own property? Whatever happened to my mirror, Blind Faith?" Hesitation stills her tongue for only a moment before Faith makes her choice. "I was young and foolish when I took - it. You can see for yourself it is not with me now, nor will you find it without my aid, for I have hidden it thoroughly over the years I have spent away." Jonquil's smile grows slightly, and her pointed teeth catch the lamplight. "You mean to blackmail me," she accuses. Her tone seems more amused than angry. "I mean only to make our positions clear, mother. One cannot make amends without honesty." "Amends. I see. Is that why you have not brought your little vagabond with you today?" Vagabond. She knows of the mare who had been imprisoned within her magical trinket, then. Faith considers the value of anger... and dismisses it. It will not be useful to her to stand atop a hill for Mirror's personhood. The more she thinks about it, the harder she finds it to concern herself with her partner in the first place. What use is she? Her magic is weak. She is dying. "As I have said already, I was young and foolish when I first left. I have grown up since, and I come with a proposal, one to which I know she would object." "Very well. Make your proposal, then." Jonquil angles her head to one side. The crown atop thick piles of mane catches and sharpens the light. "You want back your mirror. I am the only one who can restore it to you. All I ask in return, mother, is a festival thrown for the empire. A celebration to bear witness to our reconciliation." Faith tries to keep her head high and her expression even. Her heart thumps in her chest, nervous, trying to beat down the guilt she should be feeling for making the offer to return Mirror to her prison. "You wicked thing," the Empress purrs. An uncomfortable quality of delight is carried in her voice. It is the closest she comes to sounding proud of her daughter. "My dear little rosebud, you want back your status as crown princess. If only your potential had not been wasted all these years away." She considers the offer. Violet eyes trace over Faith, appraising the scarred pegasus. "The mirror's power... It is worth that. Perhaps we will turn out quite the happy little family after all." Here is where the the die will be cast and Mirror's fate upended once again, for Faith cannot help but imagine herself heiress to the empire, protected by the public eye from Jonquil's ire. It could be so easy to find the tree and take an apple with no one batting an eye until she was long gone. Escaped back to Mirror, leaving behind... Leaving behind that tiny semblance of pride in her mother's voice. Leaving behind an empire that could be hers if only she could dethrone its reigning Empress. Is Mirror worth that? She spends so much time laid in bed, or settled in a chair, struggling to work on some pet project or sleeping, her labored breathing the quiet reminder of how far she will go to protect Faith. And... Faith loves her, doesn't she? It is why she left in the first place, why she has spent so many years angering Jonquil. Her mind's eye conjurs the image of the unicorn; her sleek glassy mane, the silky peach fur, the dark lashes framing jade eyes that sparkle when she smiles. Somehow, the image of her chills Faith's affections. She is useful, but waning. Waiting too long will leave Faith with no opportunity either to enjoy the spoils of defying her mother or to reclaim the throne. And besides, this will put her in position to save Mirror from her own foolish choices. It is... a delay. Not betrayal, she tells herself.