Freebie Mondays: My Little Domerin – Episode 7: Act 2

I promised my twitch chat I would take Domerin, the grumpy elf main character from the Aruvalia Chronicles, and turn him into a pony if they helped me pay for my replacement computer. I never thought we’d reach that goal – but of course we did. Because my twitch chat continues to be the most generous community out there.

For more details on the project, check the intro. (There are pictures of my characters converted into ponies there as well.)

This story is meant to take place in the same world as “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic,” though it’s unlikely any of the characters from the show will appear in the story. I have attempted to adopt the style of storytelling used by the show (including an episodic format and a ‘season’ instead of chapters in a novel). And some of the ponies that appear were created by donators from my chat. VoDs of the writing sessions are available on my youtube channel!

I hope you enjoy this crazy, silly little romp!
. . .

Recklessness was not a part of Domerin’s nature. He preferred a cool, calculated approach to most situations – where time and circumstance permitted. When they didn’t, however, he wasn’t above using any and every means necessary to achieve his intended goal.

Thus he planted his hooves at the top of the slope that lead back down to the sleepy valley village where they had spent the night and shifted his weight with calculated precision.

“I’m telling you, the grade of the slope is too steep,” Crescent protested, not for the first time. He had to yell in order for the words to reach Domerin’s ears above the mad din of the thunderstorm even though they were standing less than a foot from each other. “You’re either going to fall flat on your nose and break your neck, or you’re going to careen wildly into a tree and break everything else!”

“Do you have a better idea?” Domerin demanded, addressing his partner for the first time since they had galloped out of the trees and back into the clearing where they started this journey. Thus far, he hadn’t exactly been ignoring Crescent, but he hadn’t been willing to consider any alternatives.

It seemed the same thoughts that had been crowding his head finally migrated to his partner’s when he spoke because Crescent clamped his mouth shut and gritted his teeth.

“The battle has already been going on for several minutes by this point,” Domerin pointed out, hating the amount of energy he had to expend simply to be heard. He’d rather save that precious lung power for the stupid thing he was about to do. “And during combat, every second makes a massive difference in terms of power shifts and advantages. If we’re supposed to be in any way involved in the outcome of this struggle, we need to be present on the battlefield five minutes ago.”

“But I thought you said this battle has to happen,” Crescent protested. “You quoted its outcome to me and everything!”

Theoretically, that should mean that neither of them should get in any way involved in the struggle. To do so might divert the creation of their precious kingdom – just as they’d inadvertently done before.

But something in Domerin’s chest nagged him endlessly, gnawing at his insides until he couldn’t ignore it.

There was more to this than just delivering a child back to his worried parents. There was more to this than clearing up an ancient murder mystery that neither side had ever been able to agree about. Something told him this wasn’t the quick, simple fix he had been hoping for. And that same instinct warned him that he’d better act now if he didn’t want to find himself back here again, repeating the same endless loop until he managed to choreograph events properly.

“Knowing the outcome of the battle is what’s going to allow us to make sure it ends the way it’s supposed to,” Domerin called back, though he ended the statement with a growl as a sharp peel of thunder cut him off. “Listen, I know this sounds crazy-“

“There isn’t going to be anyone to save this kingdom if you get yourself killed, Domerin,” Crescent snapped back, finally revealing the core of his worries. Rain had long since plastered his golden hair to the sides of his face, despite the waterproof cloak hood secured tightly over his head. Even modern fabrics could only handle so much saturation, and this storm was relentless.

For a moment, Domerin almost relented. The wide-eyed, pout-lipped pleading of his partner convinced him that he couldn’t simply rush off without another word. But when he stepped back away from the ledge, the nagging sensation in his gut became a twist of dread.

“I’m not sure we can pluck you from another timeline if we lose you,” Crescent continued as he pressed his face into the crook of Domerin’s neck.

The warrior leaned close to nuzzle the top of his partner’s head, and he worried some of the moisture trialing down Crescent’s cheeks might actually be tears. He sighed as he stepped back and said, “You know me better than this, Crescent. You know I would never take a risk unless it was absolutely necessary. I hope that everything is going to proceed according to its own design from here. And if it does, we can take our waterlogged selves back to the princess’s tower and soak in a much deserved bath before sleeping for a week. But my gut tells me we need to be there. And the fastest way to get there is to slide down this slope toward the edge of the battle zone.”

It would be like sledding. When he was young and away at school, there had often been snow on the mountain slopes. On weekends, when there were no school activities planned, the teachers would let the students frolic on the snow mounds, and their favorite game had been to slide along the frozen surfaces of the steepest slopes using trashcan lids or shields they managed to borrow from the school’s supply sheds.

Of course it was different with snow, which was far more predictable and pliable than mud. And the descent would be much easier with some sort of surface to assist his hooves. But he didn’t have any other options. Even just stopping to talk about this was wasting precious time. Domerin could almost feel it evaporating into the storm as another fork of lightning raked the sky.

He hoped both his expression and his tone of voice said trust me. But in the end, he didn’t have time for any confirmations. He turned back to the slope, tipped his front hooves over the edge and pressed them lightly into the mud that now caked the hillside. Then he pushed off with his back hooves and tucked his body into as aerodynamic a shape as he could manage.

Within seconds, wind rushed past his face and ears. It formed a sharp whistle that he struggled to ignore as he used his body weight to steer around trees that appeared in his path.

It was terrifying, nothing at all like his childhood sled rides. The biggest difference was that he could feel the mud caking into the tiny crevices between his shoes and his hooves – not to mention the sensitive skin that lurked near the center of each limb. When it ran out of places to pack along his hooves, the mud slid up the side of his leg to cling to his fur, making each of his limbs feel heavy.

Then there was the friction. Pressing hard into the slick ground not only put a great deal of pressure on his muscles, the friction generated a certain amount of heat where his hooves slid across the cold ground. By the time he reached the midpoint of the slope, his ankles felt like fraying ropes and the skin along the base of his hooves burned.

Domerin didn’t have time to devote to his hurts, however, because he was too busy ducking out of the way of tree branches and trunks as he struggled to maintain the barest amount of control over his descent.

By the time the slope began to even out, Domerin was forced to admit he had lost control of his trajectory. He tried to dig his heels deeper into the mud to stop, but they were so stiff and coated in mud, all he managed to do was careen farther out of control.

So Domerin bent into his momentum and allowed his body to fall. Long years of practice fighting drills had taught him how to fall safely. And though he didn’t have any padded mats, the puddles the rain had turned the hard ground into served well enough.

He looked like a drowned rat by the time he managed to regain his feet – he was certain. But he had reached the base of the slope in only a few moments and he was still in one piece.

A sharp cry alerted him to the fact that a second figure was careening through the storm, and he barely had time to throw himself out of Crescent’s path before the earth pony made the same mistake he did and promptly tumbled into the tiny mud hill kicked up by Domerin’s fall.

The warrior was fairly sure his diplomat partner was going to murder him in his sleep over turning him into such a mud-logged mess. But by the time Crescent rose to his feet and shook off the muck, the driving rainfall of the storm had already managed to half clean them of the sludge.

Crescent just barely had time to narrow his eyes into an acid glare oriented in Domerin’s direction before the warrior caught a hint of steel scraping against steel through the din of the storm. It was followed by a pair of sharp shouts.

The noised granted Domerin all the orientation he needed. He put his head down and galloped into the tree line.

This, at least, he was used to. The weather might be miserable and the terrain unfamiliar. The stakes might be the highest he had ever worked with. But in the end, this was a combat scenario. And if there was one thing Domerin was comfortable with managing, it was combat.

He was dimly aware that Crescent had tucked into his wake, easily keeping pace with the unicorn as his hooves pounded through the muddy forest.

It took every ounce of willpower he possessed to slow at the last possible moment and once again duck into the nearby underbrush to observe the battle rather than charging straight into the middle of it to attempt to turn the tide.

For a moment, as Domerin peered through the breaks in the bushes, it was impossible to tell which warriors belonged to which side. Each was so mud and blood coated, the insignias that adorned their armor were hidden. In fact, it seemed half of them didn’t really have any form of indicator on their clothing, which meant most of these warriors were relying on familiarity with their fellows to ensure they didn’t attack their allies.

A dicey situation to say the least.

But his discerning eyes quickly picked relevant details from the chaos. He could see Aruvalia’s rudimentary banner, for instance, planted near the center of the clearing. Most of the soldiers huddled around it wore the same type of armor – armor that would have glimmered silver beneath sunlight if any had managed to penetrate the gloom.

Ryland and his troops had formed a rough circle around the banner. With their rumps to each other, they fought valiantly to turn aside the never-ending press of the clan warriors that threatened to surround them.

Domerin knew how this battle was supposed to end. He wasn’t sure he could consider his study extensive, given the limited resources that had been available in the princess’s tower. But this was a fairly pivotal moment in his kingdom’s history. Though harried and outmatched by the press of the hill clans, Ryland and his people were supposed to rally with the assistance of late arrivals.

The near defeat and the dire threat of the hill clans’ battle prowess would then cause the knight to send a message to the far reaches of the kingdom, summoning the aid of every settlement and ultimately granting them a cause that would unite them into a singular unit forever after.

Domerin held his breath as he listened for the rhythmic thump of hoofbeats through the rain or the trumpet or call of any approaching warriors. But the only sound that struck his ear beyond the grunts and cries of the warriors and the ringing of steel against steel was another distant rumble of thunder indicating the storm wasn’t ready to give up just yet.

A spear struck the knee of one of the knights defending Aruvalia’s banner and affected limb buckled, spilling one of the warriors in front of the crushing press of the hill clans.

Ryland barked an order that closed the gap, and someone managed to drag the injured pony to the rear of the defensive lines. But the shortening of the defensive circle allowed the hillfolk to advance.

It would only take a matter of minutes for them to fully close their circle around the defenders. And once that maneuver was completed, this battle would become a slaughter.

Pressing his hooves into the mud, Domerin backed along the bushes and tried to move a little farther from the frantic sounds of battle. He glanced toward the village and squinted through the gloom, looking for any sign that reinforcements were on their way.

But there was nothing. Just the quiet press of certainty that this was all going wrong.

At last he understood the nagging sensation that had driven him here. He couldn’t have warned Ryland before the battle, that would allow too decisive a victory.

But he couldn’t let the knight and his troops stumble at the finish line.

“Your daggers,” Domerin barked quietly as he dove back into the bushes beside his partner. “How many do you have with you?”

“At least a dozen,” Crescent replied with a wicked grin. But his expression quickly became one of confusion. “Why?” he added.

“Because I need you to sneak around to the enemy’s flank and make them think there are more of us than they are,” Domerin replied curtly. “We need to break this advance, and we need to do it now.”

He hoped the sense of urgency in his voice would prevent his partner from arguing with him. What he was about to do was riskier even than sliding down the hill through the mud with nothing to control his descent or break his fall.

If he made one wrong move during this encounter, he could shatter the fragile course of history they had just so painstakingly pieced back together.

But he could tell that Crescent’s mind jumped through all the same hoops his had, and he arrived at the same conclusion.

There was no time for a complex discussion on the merits of this choice. They simply had to act.

In seconds, Crescent ducked into the shadows of the underbrush and vanished. Domerin caught a dim glimpse of him sliding through the undergrowth behind one of the trees that lined the clearing after that, but he moved like a specter through the storm.

Trusting his companion knew what to do – and how to avoid being seen – Domerin turned his focus to his part of the task at hand. He summoned magic with the horn that protruded from his forehead and felt the warm glow suffuse him despite the chill of the storm.

Then the twin longswords strapped to his flanks rose from their sheaths and took a defensive stance in front of him, ready to do their deadly work.

Domerin pawed the ground as he stood. He oriented his head down and his horn forward as he gathered all the power his body possessed into his legs.

Then he charged.

As the hill clan warriors surged toward the rear of Aruvalia’s defenders, ready to close their circle, Domerin sent one of his swords toward the right side of the closing ranks and the other toward the left. The first sword cleaved deep into a shoulder, easily finding a joint in the – to him – outdated armor design. And with a grunt of pain, the leader of the enemy surge stumbled and rolled to the ground. Several of his fellows tripped over his prone figure, halting the advance.

His other sword struck along a warrior pony’s side. It was partly deflected from the joint by a sturdy metal epaulet, but it cut deep enough to draw a long, thin trail of red along the charger’s abdomen.

Enraged, the second assailant directed a heavy, double-bladed battle axe in Domerin’s direction, but he summoned both of his swords to form a cross in front of him and block the blow.

It seemed every eye on the battlefield was directed toward him now. The defenders in the center of the fray were slow to shift their lines and respond to the unexpected assistance, but the hill clan warriors were ready to tear to pieces the man who had interfered with the success of their plan.

Domerin probably would have been trampled from both sides if a dagger hadn’t appeared out of the rain to embed in the neck of one of the ponies midway across the clearing. Seconds later, a second dagger sank into the rump of one of the hill clan warriors.

The first pony fell instantly dead. The second reared and kicked their front legs – but that exposed their underside to Ryland’s spear, allowing him to strike a fatal blow to the underside of the right leg.

Shouts filled the center of the circle as Aruvalia’s defenders roused. Galvanized by the idea of assistance and the halting of their enemy’s advance, they redoubled their efforts to win free of their enemy’s oppressive ring.

Having rebuffed his opponent enough to gain some breathing space, Domerin summoned fire into one of his longswords and lightning into the other – a unique gift that had marked his fighting style since the time he first joined the queen’s dedicated military forces.

And that thought turned his blood to ice. The use of such a channeling technique would surely have been noted in their history books. He would have been touted his whole life for mimicking such a famed technique. Yet it had appeared nowhere in any of the accounts he read.

Cursing his own stupidity, Domerin doused both the flames and the lightning, allowing both blades to cool – hoping against hope the bright flares would seem like a trick of the storm played on the eyes of any who witnessed it.

It helped that he didn’t allow the blades to remain idle for long. This time, he spent both spinning toward the same target. The first strike knocked the battleaxe from the air, the second sliced deep into a rear knee, causing yet another of the hill clan warriors to stumble.

By then, one of the defenders had whirled and descended on Domerin’s assailant, preventing them from rising. Domerin recalled his blades and struck again to the right and left, still trying to keep the path to retreat open for his ancient ancestors.

Meanwhile, another pair of strategically aimed daggers darted out of the tree line from new locations, striking the opposite side of the circle from before.

“We’re surrounded!” one of the hillfolk warriors cried even as Ryland drove forward with a band of half a dozen warriors, opening a second hold in the enemy’s advancing line.

Domerin couldn’t hear every word spoken in the chaos. The storm stole most of the shouts from his ears. And his focus remained narrowed to survival and success – the only two things that mattered in this moment.

But as his sword opened another trail of red in the flank of another warrior, the call to retreat went up. It was repeated by the frantic throats of the hill clan warriors as they backed away from the soldiers harrying them and attempted to turn toward the trees.

Domerin imagined Crescent shuffling back in his direction, slinking through the underbrush so that he could disappear unnoticed into the storm.

It was Domerin’s intention to do the same. Except that one of the hill clan warriors clipped his shoulder in their haste to escape the clearing, momentarily knocking him off balance.

Instinctively, Domerin summoned his swords back to him, slashing with one to keep the warrior from descending on him while he picked his front knees out of the mud. And the accuracy of the strike was such that the enemy warrior fell even as Domerin pushed back to his feet.

By then, however, Aruvalia’s defenders had converged on him to drive away the last of the threats, and he found himself the center of a grinning circle of battered and muddy warriors who were looking at him as though he had just single-handedly turned the tide of battle.

Which he guessed, in some ways, he had.

Domerin swallowed hard, desperate to find an excuse that would extract him from the developing situation so that he could vanish into the ether and never be seen again. But it was far too late for that. Because even as he pulled his mind free of its tailspin, Ryland tromped over, extended a hoof to clap him on the shoulder and said, “What is your name, warrior? You’re one of the finest I’ve ever met!”

Panic had never before frozen Domerin in place. But he swore a solid thirty seconds passed before his throat managed to clear enough for him to draw a fresh breath into his lungs. By then, the gears in his head had turned – because always they were turning in some direction or another – and an answer had already come to him.

He opened his mouth to say Niremod – his name backwards. But he only got as far as, “Nirem,” before his throat once again froze.

How could he have spent his entire life staring such a simple truth in the face and never realized?

Nirem True Strike, the greatest warrior of Aruvalia’s history and the legend that had inspired Domerin to take up the sword melted out of the shadows in the midst of this very war in order to assist the fledgling kingdom to its first stuttering victory. While he was renown for his battlefield prowess and a touch of wisdom that evidently clung to him, not much was known about him before he appeared on the battlefield.

And according to history, he disappeared in a fog of mystery, leaving no body and no indication what may have happened to him.

All of it struck Domerin with such blinding force, he missed the cheer that burst from the throats of the warriors he saved before he managed to breathe and ground himself in his body again.

“Sir Nirem, is it?” Ryland replied once he managed to get his troops back under some semblance of control. “From whence does such a fine knight hail?”

Domerin swallowed hard so he wouldn’t stutter. The answer, of course, was that he was no knight. He was a captain of the princess’s Royal Guard several hundred years into the future from this day, but knighting had long since fallen out of practice for all but the most famed of warriors.

Domerin was nowhere approaching the level of legend required for that kind of honor.

And yet, he dared not contradict the words of the man standing across from him, for history remembered Nirem True Strike as one of the greatest knights ever to have lived.

So ignoring the numbing sensation creeping up from the base of his legs, Domerin said calmly, “I hail from a settlement on the far end of this great kingdom from the one you occupy. And yet, I have answered the call of our young queen to defend the great domain she hopes one day to build.”

They were words that would one day be attributed to the personal he had just assumed, and that made them burn Domerin’s throat slightly as they escaped his lips.

But he could see now what he must do, and the scope of it was like a blinding light that set his entire head spinning.

Nirem True Strike was a hero whose praised would be sung throughout Aruvalia’s history for the deeds he performed during this war. The ripples of those accolades would cascade through history – even a young Domerin Lorehooves had been affected by them.

But he could see now that Nirem True Strike also wasn’t real. He had never existed.

In order for history to follow its regular course, Domerin would have to become this legendary figure. Which meant not only could he not extract himself from this war in hopes of maintaining its fragile position within the depths of history, he would have to navigate the twists and turns of its web with a shocking amount of precision.

And he could tell from the soft, horrified sound that escaped Crescent’s lips as he slipped from the shadows to return to his side that he, too, understood the dire situation in which Domerin had just mired himself.

*   *   *

It was difficult for Rose Draftmore to resist the urge to tap her hooves whenever she waited for something. She always feared this granted her an air of impatience, and she always worried that would make her seem haughty or aloof.

But the truth was, she did feel impatient at the moment. It had taken every ounce of effort she possessed not to send Gregory Barrow to check on the state of her kingdom every five minutes since Domerin and Crescent’s departure. As it was, she had just barely managed to wait beyond the span of time they had been gone during their first venture before she called upon the police constable to attempt to return to her capital city.

She didn’t know if changes would start to reflect before Domerin and Crescent returned through the portal. She didn’t know how the flux states she created with her time machine resolved into solid forms.

But she hoped to gain some sense of what might be happening without having to wait for another hard return.

Instead of tapping her hooves, she paced back and forth through the main chamber of her tower. She paused at one of the open doors to glance into the game room where Karly, Bard and Striker still entertained the endlessly energetic Rainbow Heart, and she tried to let some of the warmth that filled their laughter touch her.

But it didn’t.

At the end of the day, this situation was all her fault. The failure to determine what ailed the hill folk before they could turn to violence was her failing, and no one else’s. Now she had meddled with time and caused Domerin to doubt himself – since for which she would not soon forgive herself.

All she wanted was some small sign things were bound to work out in the end, some small indication that she could put things back together in the proper configuration.

Because the last thing she wanted was for all her old magic teachers to turn out to be right about the ever-increasing dangers of mucking with time.

At last, she heard the steady and unrelenting footfalls that indicated the approach of a pony in a hurry. She locked her knees in position so that she wouldn’t dart across the room and kick the door open. She waited instead until she heard the knock, then she quickly called, “Come!”

As the last time he had made this particular journey, Gregory Barrow bent double in the doorway as he attempted to catch his breath. But Rose didn’t need to bark an order to deliver his report. As soon as he was able, he glanced up and his eyes glimmered with a renewed sense of hope.

“It’s back!” he breathed. “The kingdom, the capital – it has been restored!”

Rose couldn’t help it; she breathed an explosive sigh of relief.

“So they have done it then,” she murmured. Somehow, Domerin and Crescent had corrected the mistake that threatened to erase Aruvalia from history – and their lives right along with it.

If the time barrier failed now, at least they would all have a home to return to. She still dreaded the possibility, but it would offer her some relief the next time she needed to lay her head down and sleep.

“But the capital is still damaged,” Greg warned as fresh breath filled his lungs and restored his vigor. “I could see the smoke before I even got close. Whatever timeline we’re in, I think it’s close to the original one.”

Rose exhaled and her nostrils flared, but she swallowed the rest of her frustration. “Then the work is not entirely finished,” she mused.

But they had made progress – and she would still take heart from that.

“We must trust that Domerin will get the job done,” Greg murmured with such conviction it at last infused the princess with the resolve she had been looking for.

“Indeed,” she agreed.

Because if anyone could accomplish the impossible, it was the captain of her Royal Guard.