Equestria Broken :: MLP Fanfiction

Equestria Broken - Four : The Stage

Four : The Stage

"Please, leave all overcoats, canes and top hats with the doorman and from that moment, you'll be out of place and underdressed. I'm wrecking this evening already and loving every minute of it, ruining this banquet for the mildly inspiring and?" Panic! at the Disco - There's a Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered Honey, You Just Haven't Thought of It Yet

Clout quickened his pace and veered down a dark alleyway, away from a master whipping her slave. The stallion could hear the chained pony's muffled shrieks of pain around the corner behind him as he pulled out his compound bow. He shot an arrow upwards where it made a soft thunk on the wooden paneling on the underside of a roof. He climbed the rope and hoisted himself onto the top of the building. The thick leather pads on his shoes softened the noise he made on the tiles as he walked along the thieve's highway. Another, taller roof with rotten wooden beams blocked his path. This one not being too tall for him, he jumped, grabbed the ledge and pulled himself up with a grunt, the softened wood bowing with his weight. Padding to the top most point of the roof, he looked out and saw the city he lurked in.

Baltimare. One of the many cities that news reporters loved. This city was plagued almost daily by occurrences of aristocratic society plans being sabotaged, theft of precious cargo from poor merchants and security alike, freedom of slaves and destruction of private property. With so much trouble to document, there was no need to put rumors and gossip in the paper. However, it was rather difficult to determine who was at fault in most incidents. The rebels blamed the Kings, the King's guard blamed the ticks and the ticks blamed the rebels. With so much strife between everypony in the city, it was a bit difficult to determine who exactly ran the town.

Shade Nights troops patrolled the city streets here and there in small groups but they weren't numerous enough to enforce the King's rule. The aristocratic ponies hired muscle to keep their property protected but had no love for the lower class, or ticks as they called them. Everypony else blamed the ticks for feeding off of the King's generosity and not contributing to the land as much as they could so it wasn't unheard of that they would interfere with the higher class' functions. Many groups of rebels were seen out in the open in Baltimare and everypony knew they had control of part of the town with their sentries posted on certain streets to keep the Shade Nights away.

With the city in such disarray, nopony really cared who was in charge because crime was easy to get away with. It also left those ill with the blight to fend for themselves. On almost every street there were sick ponies dying and crying to every passerby for help. It was a small help that somepony funded the dead carts to haul the bodies to the soot mill but it wasn't enough to keep the plague at bay. Luckily for the crystal thief, the disease didn't reach the rooftops.

He could see much of the city from where he stood: the harbor that encircled more than half of the city, the damaged or repaired rooftops from many past bombings and the infamous broken clock tower. The tower's clock only worked when the supposed ghost haunted the place. Clout loved to go there when he was in the neighborhood if he needed to stay the night. It was lonely and quite peaceful not to mention the ticking of the giant clock helped him fall asleep.

To the West, the only direction that wasn't dominated by the ocean, the buildings rose up higher than the rest of the city, rolling higher with the land's hills and dipping low to sea level as it reached its grasp out east. The buildings West of the metropolis were smaller mansions and townhouses with much fancier architecture then most of the other buildings. A sure sign of aristoponies, their wealth and his main target for the night.

Lady Chrysanthemum Blue had been a younger noble but quickly acquired quite the name for herself in the past few years by flaunting her money and status since she inherited it from her deceased father. Most ponies of Baltimare thought she would be the one to take control over this small piece of Equestria only because her father was Lord before her but it seemed that someone didn't approve of her status and decided she was a threat to be taken out. That left her fillies to the workhouse, a sort of prison for the orphans and homeless. This wouldn't normally be the case if their father wasn't an unknown stallion who was most likely a servant or lower class pony. Bloodlines were everything for nobles and this fact made her children be seen as unworthy of their noble status for their mother having dipped her hoof in the pools of the inferior breeding stock. With that, no pony came forward as her consort.