Catpone Cerberus

@Lucid_Nightlight "Yes and no." Ember said "Would I want to see him go down? Yes, would I do that myself? no." "Because I don't need to, I don't do my work to satisfy myself, I do it, because nobody else will, but in this case, there's plenty who will do it, I'm not needed." "Until of course it gets personal for some reason, then I'd be the first one kicking down his door." "Also...I just can't, i'm not gonna talk about it with so many ears and mind readers around, but the war took a mental toll on me, I need this break, for my own sanity." she had mentioned before that she was seeing a therapist, though she never did specify why exactly, or if she did, it probably wasn't the full truth. "*That you have to ask her, without audience.*" "*But, based on my own experiences and what I know about her, it's likely she would at least be open to the idea, I don't know how much you've spoken about such things, nor is it really my business, but I tried to ask her about the topic in general back at the caves, and she said she once was happy enough with her situation that she considered it, but then she lost everything.*" "*What I do know for sure is that she is at age that her instincts are probably starting to get annoying, many of us may be bit cold and see the whole thing as a chore at best, but we are still animals, and I can tell you, when you hold those instincts back for over a century, it's not fun.*"

@Lucid_Nightlight "Powerful leaders of powerful nations are outside my pay grade, besides, I don't have my equipment, nor do I have a quick way to get it, since I had no reason to prepare it, being on a break and all that." "I'm also just done with politics, I'm lot more comfortable in the shadows of the underworld." It was good to know one's limits, and Ember had found hers. "*I know why she's like that, it doesn't make me any less worried about it.*" "*I'm right here*" "*Yes, but you refused to talk about this before.*" Ruby was going to argue but fell silent, she didn't actually have an argument for that. Enduur got closer to Quasi to be able to speak to him outside Ruby's hearing "*In my personal opinion, you two should consider having offspring, having a hatchling to take care of could distract her from her more...harmful tendencies.*" Charis, who was still on Ruby's back, sniffed the meat Ruby was eating, and got a non-hostile blow of smoke as a response from Ruby, after which Danthe rolled her eyes and picked her younger sister off Ruby and gave her something to eat, Ruby didn't seem to mind Charis too much.

@StarlightMirage "Didn't have any plans, but after everypony is awake and we get Lunar's input, maybe we could visit the Canterlot library to see if we can find some of the books?" Frail suggested "I'm bad at coming up with plans because I usually just go to my workshop when i have nothing else to do."

@Lucid_Nightlight "You don't want to know." Ember said, her tone told that she knew but wished she didn't "And I don't think they are attracted to her as much as they are intrigued by whatever she's suggesting." "And don't worry, you're not her type either." in Ember's opinion, it wouldn't have necessarily been weird to have crush on both siblings, if those siblings were similar enough, in this case though, she fully agreed with him, she would have found it concerning if Arrow did fancy Cinder. She couldn't say anything more before Moonwatcher took the attention of everyone. "So he's getting so desperate to scare us that he's now threatening through visions? how pathetic." Ruby commented dismissively while eating, she still didn't really believe this whole future sight thing, and this was so on the nose that she truly believed it was created by Darkstalker himself "Besides, doesn't sound like anything new in my life." She had been in pain and starved before, and she had dodged death twice already, so in her mind, even if taken as a true warning, it wasn't anything to worry about. And the war part, well, she knew already they would end up in a war eventually. From the other dragons, Enduur was the only one to really react, giving a slightly concerned look towards Quasi, mainly concerned about Ruby's later comment. Cinder was too busy to pay attention, and left the room with few Nightwings. "Not going to be part of this war," Ember stated, mainly to herself, but loud enough to be heard.

@StarlightMirage "It does get stuck, trust me." Frail said humorously "I have more than enough experience on that." "But yeah, it seems we'll have the full group together in few days." she finished with the mail, after which she ignited her magic and the mail she had thrown into the metal bucket caught fire, the letters from her friends she put to a nearby cabinet and the others she had moved to side she put in the same cabinet to a different spot. "It has been a while since the last time."

@Lucid_Nightlight "That's a pretty low bar don't you think? Especially in the land of Friendship." Ember joked "You aren't half-bad either, we can actually have a conversation even though we disagree on some big things." mainly military. Meanwhile Ruby had started to interact with Charis, and with permission from Enduur, she let the young dragoness climb on her back, where Charis then went to examine Ruby's horns, Enduur had told her about black-horns, but she had never seen one before Ruby. As the young hatchling was busy looking at Ruby's horns, she and the two other dragons walked to get something to eat, picking the most raw meat they could find. Vix was just chilling on Enduur's head, which didn't seem to bother Enduur at all. Cinder had moved on from her day-dreaming and was now interacting with some random nightwings of various genders, seemingly flirting with them, which seemed to actually work!?

"Neither do I." Jenna responded, leading the way, she knew exactly how to get on the roof in their school, and to nobody's surprise at this point, the way was the same here, though it would take a minute to get there, because they were at the wrong end of the building "It bothers me just how similar the things that are the same really are, even that f......" she stopped herself "...that photo, was identical."

"Even malls are empty at night." Jenna said, her demeanor had changed, and her voice told of her anxiety, but it was not the kind of anxiety you get when you think you're in danger, but the kind when you know you are. "Talon is a patient predator, we need to get back to the hotel before we are spotted,, that is a public place, but there we are also out of sight." "Trust me on this." she got up, and grabbed Oliver's hand harder than usual, pulling him with her at quick pace

@Starforce Frail simply nodded to Sparkly's conclusion, she didn't really have anything to comment on that, though on the second things she did add to "Can't say I have heard that saying, though then again, don't personally know anypony who has thought about the amount of stars too closely." it wasn't meant to be dismissive in any way, it was just a remark "Though be the reason of your appearance's location whatever, let's be glad it wasn't some underground tomb somewhere with no way out." a bit grim thing to think about maybe, but since the assumption was that it was random, Sparkly had been very lucky. Frail opened another letter, the envelope was perfectly uninteresting, but what was inside was bit more odd, there was no letter, and rather a paper cutout of Canterlot with a golden musical note, also made of paper, attached to it. "Isn't this a coincidence, Golden is also heading to Canterlot."

@Lucid_Nightlight "You can't really erase trauma, you can block the memories, but you can't get rid of the effects without fundamentally changing the individual." Ember pointed out "They are part of us." "And I agree on the effect of Ruby's past on her view on life, that's why I think she too deserves a chance, and like I said, we didn't really prove her wrong." "She was basically blackmailed into a war she did not care about, was thrown out like used tool when she wanted to stop fighting, and almost died fighting someone she originally had no interest in fighting, while those doing that to her constantly complain to her about her being evil and wrong, while doing the exact same things they blame her for." "I fully admit I'm part of that problem, I too kill while condemning her killings, and I'm not defending her actions, but my point is, we aren't exactly helping with her flawed world view." For the results the hourglass, Ember was overwhelmingly good, she wasn't perfect of course, but she was as good as anyone willing to kill others could be, and even that willingness came from view of necessary evil, in a imperfect world one had to sometimes go against their own morals to do good. Cinder however, was in the middle, as in, the exact middle, true neutral, she was a jerk yes, and didn't really follow the usual morals, but she also had no evil intent in her, and did have some limits, she was a menace, not a monster. For Ruby however, it was more on the evil side, no surprise there, nobody in their right mind wouldn't claim she was good in the sense of commonly accepted morals, but it wasn't as far into the evil as one maybe would have expected, and was actually closer to the middle than the far end of pure evil. This would also be true for Enduur, Danthe and Charis if Arrow checked them, though in different amounts, Danthe being in very similar position as Ruby, Enduur being slightly more toward the middle, And Charis, who by their kind's standards was still a baby, was more a neutral than evil, though she was more on the evil side than good side, this was probably mainly caused by their kind's lack of empathy, as even a baby was perfectly happy to kill someone bothering them without feeling bad about it. Vix, if tested, was overwhelmingly good, though bit less than Ember, as the company he kept had twisted his morals slightly. "Yeah, Cinder actually said something that made me realize something, seeing things in black and white like we tend with morality is not a good way to look at things." "Using my own work as example, those who I go after are unarguably evil, even they themselves don't disagree with that, but if one of them has a daughter for example, who they treat well, and I kill them, is that daughter really wrong to call me evil? Is it not evil to harm a child by taking away their parent? Even if that parent is pure evil?" "Would it then be evil for that daughter to kill me as revenge? or for me to kill her in self defense?" "Or what about my temporary alliance with my enemies? Am I evil for working with evil to combat greater evil?" "Morality is complicated, and I have come to realize that to try to simplify it with objects like this one brings more harm than good."

@Blitz Boom Hopefully the suspicion wouldn't fall on Ruby either, she hadn't done it obviously, but she didn't really have an alibi depending on when it happened, after all, she had been in the forest with Leviathan and Charir most of the time since she left the casino, and it didn't miss her that her personality did make her seem like someone who could be a hired killer. Being suspected of something she didn't do would be a hassle. She made a mental note to herself, don't mess with the casino too much, she also wondered if her little manipulation games had been noticed by this 'surveillance', not that she was too worried, since she hadn't really done anything illegal, if ponies were stupid enough to give her their things just because she faked interest in them, that was really their problem, even if they gave them for specific reasons she never fulfilled, besides, it wasn't like Diego had right to speak, after all, casino's were just big scams made to steal money from weak minded individuals, honestly, from two of them she was the less bad one since she took only part of what they had. "We met that 'girly' briefly when we went to retrieve my property, didn't speak or anything, but I'll just say that if she was a changeling, she was damn dedicated one, can't say i have heard changelings enjoying meat like she seemed to." she didn't really know why she felt the need to mention that, but what was said was said, it wouldn't hurt, the casual way she said it in would have also probably been odd coming from a pony, if it wasn't for the fact that she was travelling with two carnivores and talking to somepony she had robbed a grave with, it probably would have been weirder if she wasn't unfazed by such things "But that aside, I guess we'll see you in Canterlot." lot of travelling it seemed, not that Ruby really minded, she did prefer the peace of travel over staying in these busy cities. ------------------------------------------------- "Fear is maybe not the right word, but I acknowledge the risk." Scarecrow stated "It is no secret my memory is what it is, and as events blend together, some things are forgotten." "And as I have expressed previously, my drive to do good is entirely a question of principle, a conscious decision, believe that no matter how many weapons pierce me, or how many creatures tear me apart, it is my purpose to defend those who cannot do it themselves." "So who is to say that I will always remember these principles? at any moment all that reasoning may just disappear like many other things have. or maybe something may happen, or I may meet someone or something that convinces me to abandon those believes?" He was quiet for a moment "And even now, I sometimes catch myself thinking horrible things, thoughts I don't recognize as my own, yet thoughts that I don't entirely disagree with, ideas fueled by my desire to not exist. Be it thoughts of horrible actions to anger someone powerful enough to wipe me out, or considerations to let madness kill my awareness, my existence is a test of patience, and nothing is forever." ------------------------------------------------------------- "Unfortunately it isn't much we have witnessed, because we only arrived to see the aftermath." Chega said, to which Sear continued "As she probably informed..." she was referring to Onache as evidenced by her 'pointing at' her with her eyes "...we came here in pursue of someone who she felt was trouble." unfortunately Onache had been correct on that "But as Chega said, we were too late, attack had already happened and whoever did it already fled." "We dropped Sheska..." she pointed at Sheska "...to the scene, as she has medical experience." "I used to be a healer and later a medic." "We then followed a trail of blood here, to a burning pile which we then extinguished in hopes to save evidence." After that Sheska explained her point of view "After I was dropped in, I worked to stabilize the victims until the transport for hospital arrived, there was plenty of witnesses to verify that." the added part in the end may have seemed bit odd, likewise her slightly cold tone probably seemed odd to Stargazer, but both of those were merely due to her general distrust of guards, sure this was not her world, and she had no reason to believe guards here weren't trustworthy, but when for your whole life guards had been the paragon of everything wrong in the world, the distrust didn't just go away in a day or two. Trox didn't say anything, as he assumed Onache's 'explanation' had included his presence.

@Starforce "Everypony's opinions are limited by what they know." Frail stated "I'm sure if I went into the past and told ponies that friendship is the most powerful force, I'd be laughed at there too." "That's just how it sometimes is." "My suggestion is that you forget the word impossible when it comes to Equestria, I have, because anytime I think I've seen it all, something weirder happens." "Like an individual from other world appearing in form of one of the princesses in my sand storage." she said humorously "Honestly, the weirdest thing for me is the location, why my sand storage from all the places?"

@Lucid_Nightlight "The ability itself may not be genetic, but the potential is, you don't see Ruby's kind being able to read minds regardless of when they hatch." Ember pointed out "From what I have seen from her, Ruby seems to be obsessed with getting better, getting stronger, her mind was used against her? she blocked it off, you used magical net against her, she made magical restrains no longer work on her, and if what Cinder said to me is true, she has now also increased her resistance against some magics." "So who is to say that for example hundred years from now, she hasn't figured out a way to unlock mind reading for Nightwings later in their life? You can have many opinions about her, I for one don't like her style of life, but you can't deny she's intelligent, and who knows what she can come up with if she manages to put her focus on right things." "I do agree with you on mind reading and seeing the future though, I for one would never want such abilities, sometimes not knowing something is the best option."

@Starforce "If my casual way of talking about them didn't make it obvious, the idea of other words is not a new one." Frail explained "Ponies have been opening portals throughout history, in fact, some years ago there was a case when rips between some other world and ours started to appear, some of the creatures from that world almost fell into ours, though that one got fixed quickly and was never really explained." "My point is, there is information out there about different worlds, and if such knowledge is accessible by anypony who isn't a princess, Sunlight and Jade have read that information."

@Lucid_Nightlight "I actually meant the strength part more than the culture part." Ember specified "I wasn't worried about tyranny, and rather the opposite, Ruby's stubbornness will help them to deal with the Earth, while I don't support them any more than any other government, I rather not have Earth puppet a nation like this." "Though now that you mention it, their offspring would be terrifying, imagine it, a dragon with Ruby's, skills, durability and adaptability, but also with the ability to read minds." "They would be able to counter any strategy you come up with the moment you think about it." she looked towards Enduur and her daughters "Add to that Ruby's kind's apparent capability to be infused with magic with the biggest side effect seemingly being loss of limb or two, their bloodline could in theory become unbeatable."

@Starforce "Actually you may get to meet her soon enough." Frail informed "Lunar already mentioned it briefly but she confirms it here, she and Jade are coming to Canterlot for work reasons, so we can meet them when they get here." she turned thoughtful "I wonder if either of them knows anything about your world"

@Lucid_Nightlight "Yeah, that's the reality of this, but that's exactly why I'm conflicted." Ember stated thoughtfully "It's no secret that Ruby is exactly the type of individual I would go after if she wasn't several times my size and unscathed by my weapons." And a political leader, she didn't go after liked political leaders "But...I can't ignore that she's clearly the right one for this nation, the enemies this place will face are lot more...evil, than her, my ideals just won't work in places like this." "And I do believe in second changes, and can see Ruby's view point, nobody has really proven her wrong." "On topic of heir I'm also unsure, it's true they should probably hurry considering how long it will be until the offspring is mature, apparently Ruby's kind's full maturity takes 50 years, but in the other hoof, could anyone else do what they are doing? their experiences have an effect on their believes, and no amount any kind of upbringing can give that experience to their offspring, hay, my father was part of the guard, yet still, you know how I feel about armies. I believe that if they go down, everything will fall apart, regardless of if there's heir or not."

@Lucid_Nightlight "Crowds of strangers specifically." Ember admitted "And want to stay out of the middle of things, in case there's another...situation." she had left her equipment home, so she wanted to avoid violent conflict. "What's your take on all this? The nation, Ruby, the attack?" "I'm...conflicted." the crow was sleeping in Ember's mane, how did it manage to get sleep in all this noise? who knew.

@Starforce "Lunar is working on the quickest option, and I'm sure Sunlight will have something." Frail assured, picking up the next letter, which was a thicker than usual letter with cartoony suns drawn on it "Speaking of Sunlight." she opened it and looked inside, she then gave a folded paper that was in it to Sparkly "This is for you." it was a list of books, a very long list, with the name of the book, a library where to find it, the exact shelf in that library, and either 'whole book' or a specific page numbers. They were also categorized by skill level and by how dangerous a failed spell could be, it was almost like a database, but handwritten on a paper, or well, hoof-written, with very beautiful hoof-writing. Frail meanwhile would read a separate part of the letter.

@Lucid_Nightlight Ruby didn't much care for the guards or the conversation, she personally didn't feel like she needed guards, mainly because if anyone powerful enough to take down her or Quasi actually appeared, they wouldn't be much help, as evidenced by the amount of dead guards from just the last few days....they really needed to do something about that....and she was frankly more interested in what Enduur had to say, even if it at the moment was her talking about her past before getting captured, kinda went of topic from the challenge but Ruby was bit curious to hear what the homelands were like before she hatched. Cinder leaned on a wall not far from them, balancing a knife she made with her magic on her finger, while day dreaming about things better left unspecified. Though she did comment on the mention of her, she was starting to have very selective hearing regarding that "No matter how much you mention it, I won't apologize for killing what then was enemy troops!" Didn't hear them complain about all the individuals she killed when fighting on their side. Ember wandered on her own and headed to a more quiet corner of the room, parties weren't really her thing, and since she had not real connection to either party involved, so she just decided to avoid most things, she would go see if there was anything to eat or drink after the worst crowd would disperse a bit.

@Lucid_Nightlight Quasi may have not been looking for answer, but since Ruby was still in a hearing distance, she responded "*Because those like Darkstalker have a need to make things dramatic, they can never just shut up and attack.*" When she got to the other dragons, she greeted all of them, the the two older ones with a nod, and Charis by lowering her head to her height and letting her touch it, she may have been cold hearted, but even she knew how to treat a hatchling. She then started speaking with Enduur and Danthe, commenting about the assassination attempts before proceeding to discuss the challenge from Danthe.

The reason for him to not feel satisfied could also simply be because he didn't really succeed tormenting Ruby, the reliving of the past broke Ruby's mind, practically killing the Ruby part of Ruby, making her a mindless wild animal, in a way, it was too effective. There wasn't actually any animus magic involved in my rough plan, but that could be used to explain the temporary immortality for example, I'll now write the whole thing I thought about, keep in mind, this was equivalent of day dreaming, so I'm open for changes. For the capture, I thought about having at some point later (later as in the RP timeline) let's say, after the wedding is over and most quests are starting to leave, new assassin or several appear, they fail, as to be expected, but there's marking on their body (runes of some kind) which start to glow after all of them are dead, Quasi is the closest to them/it, but Ruby is the first one to notice it, and charges to push Quasi out of the way, ending up getting hit by the spell in the rune, which happens to be some kind of transportation spell, thus disappearing. What exactly happens to her is not mentioned, as the events happening to her happen off-screen so to speak, and as Quasi tries to figure out what happened to her, at some point some hours later, (maybe even the next day), they get a message, it's either a audio recorder of some kind, or magical audio message, and from it Ruby speaks, sounding unusually defeated, saying some message she's clearly forced to say, while also speaking in her native language what basically is plead for help, with added cries of pain to make clear the situation is not great for her. This ultimately confirms that it was Darkstalker behind the disappearance and Quasi and rest react accordingly. Next time Ruby is heard from is after Darkstalker's defeat, when she's found in a room chained, badly bleeding and generally just in awful state, and depending on how long the rescue takes, starving and dehydrated, basically in a state that she should not be alive, wearing a metal collar with runes on it. That collar is enchanted slave collar with two main purposes, it keeps the wearer alive regardless of their physical state (and keeps them sane), and makes the wearer's body to follow any and all commands from the "owner", regardless of if the wearer wants it or not. (While the wearer is fully aware of their body doing things against their will) (This kind of control would also explain how it gets through Ruby's mental protections, since it does nothing to the mind, just the body) (It also does allow free movement if there isn't any active orders or orders are dismissed, so she doesn't need orders to do basic things, it's just that she can't resist doing things ordered.) Cinder from all people knows what the collar is, and knows how to "reset" it, but it needs to have a set "owner" so the control is given to Quasi until Ruby has healed enough for it to be safely removed (since it keeps her alive) As I see it, this situation would make sense, firstly, Darkstalker is just simply evil, so he would probably enjoy causing suffering, but it would also be practical, since he wants to bring down the nation, and probably hopes torturing his freshly wed wife would make Quasi just surrender, since Ruby for sure wouldn't surrender if it was other way around (thus the message) in the original thought everything mentioned was already in the collar, though it could be made so that the not dying and staying sane parts are added by Darkstalker through Animus to what used to be just an obedience collar.

@Starforce "I actually don't know much about the Friendship school since it's very new and is in Ponyville, I imagine they teach friendship and magic of friendship, and I don't think there's any skill requirements since so many non-ponies go there too, I think that after we get your appearance to be less... painstaking, to keep up, then that would probably be a good place to start, you'd probably get experience in socializing with different creatures of Equestria." "The school for gifted unicorns in other hoof, well, it's in the name, and you will need some more practice before that's an option, it's not an easy school to get into, nopony I know personally have gone there."

@Lucid_Nightlight Quasi's scales may have been as hard as Ruby's, but they weren't as thick as hers were, so she wasn't overly worried. "Tell Queen Glory we found her rainwings, they are used to make weapons by Darkstalker." she didn't really have anything much to comment on the topic, she had asked a question and gotten a response to it "*This explains why she targeted you, my dress is made of my kin's scales but covered in metal, the blade wouldn't have gone through.*" she started heading towards Enduur and gang, she was glad they came, would have at least someone to talk to about something else than politics. (see OOC)