//------------------------------//
// Postscript 
// Story: Javelin 
// by McPoodle 
//------------------------------//


Javelin

Epilogue






Seven Months Later


Twilight waited patiently throughout the day, appearing to pay no attention whatsoever to the small box on the table with her address on it; a box with “Equestria Acoustics” as the sender. Finally, after a liberal application of warm milk, Spike went to bed.

When she was sure she was alone (and likely the only pony still awake in Ponyville), she opened the box. There, nestled in a sea of packing peanut shells, lay the Trottman. “Unit Number 2” a label on its side proudly proclaimed. The purple unicorn levitated a slim paper manual out of the box and quickly perused it: as Vinyl had predicted, operation of the device was incredibly simple. There were instructions for using unicorn magic to charge the device, but Twilight saw that Vinyl had thoughtfully done this for her already. Nodding in satisfaction, she dropped the manual into the box, added a rolled-up pile of parchment, a pen and ink, and then floated the lot ahead of her down the stairs and into her laboratory.

This room, little used since the unfortunate affair with Pinkie’s tail, had been extensively reinforced to handle the stray energies that might be expected of both a powerful magician and a budding scientist, and one with perhaps too much curiosity to boot. This had the added side effect of making it completely soundproof. Twilight placed the box she was levitating down next to a comfortable cushion. From a nearby cabinet, she pulled out the pair of headphones which Vinyl had given her as a parting gift, as well as the compact disc and booklet she had found in a cave in the Barrier Peaks that now no longer existed. A second consultation of the manual, and the disc was soon inside the tiny player, spinning itself up to speed. A little more magic was used to plug in the headphones and put them over her ears. Settled on the cushion, the writing supplies carefully arranged, and the individual controls of the device imprinted in her mind, she was ready to begin, and there was absolutely no chance that anybody but her would hear the slightest peep of what she was about to hear. She hoped.





The unicorn took a big breath and she looked unsteadily at the eerie, nearly incomprehensible illustration on the front cover of the CD’s booklet. “Just remember,” she told herself. “This is a work of fiction. A work…of fiction. Nothing you’re about to hear actually happened. This is for translation purposes only. Translation…and a glimpse into the minds of the Ancients. After all, that ‘Javelin’ song was rather nice!”

Having steeled herself, she opened the booklet to the first page of lyrics and gently tapped on the device’s Play button. She was expecting some music, some singing, but instead the male voice that appeared in her ears spoke to her, in a slow, clear voice. It bore an accent she could not place, and a timbre that she had heard only once before. She understood all but three of the words she heard, and although the use of the phrase “no one” was unknown to her, she soon figured out that it was the Ancient equivalent of “no pony”.

And these were the words that she heard:



	No one would have believed, in the last years of the Nineteenth Century, that  affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space.

No one could have dreamed we were being scrutinized, as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Few  even considered the possibility of life on other planets and yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this  with envious eyes, and slowly and surely, they drew their plans against us.



These words were followed by the theme song of the album, a brooding and driving piece for strings, percussion, synthesizer and electric guitar.

There would be no sleep for Twilight Sparkle on that night.








My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is copyright Hasbro, with due respects to Laurel Faust for her brilliant re-imagining of the franchise. Most of the characters in the story are borrowed; Miss Addy Minster and Prince Steadfast are my own creations.

Pinkie Pie’s “serious” narration from Chapter 3 is stolen nearly word-for-word from the 1942 Goofy cartoon “The Olympic Champ”. “If–” was of course written by Rudyard Kipling. There’s also another obscure reference in the story, to an episode of a favorite cartoon series of mine from 1997, but I’ll leave it to the readers to find that.

The musical piece "Javelin" was composed by Michael Torke. The best recording of it I have encountered is on the “Summon the Heroes” CD by John Williams.

And the final piece heard was "Eve of War", from Jeff Wayne's Music Version of War of the Worlds. The illustration is based on the original album art by Mike Trim. The YouTube video selected to accompany it is Chris Oakley's imagined reconstruction of the 1978 promo video for the album. I wish to state for the record that I've seen the actual 1978 promo, and Mr. Oakley's reconstruction is much, much better than the original.

This story was inspired by my happening to hear "Javelin" and "Eve on War" on the same day. "Javelin" never fails to make me happy, and "Eve of War" never fails to make me uneasy, so I wondered: what would a creature that knows nothing else of humanity think of us if she heard those two songs?