//------------------------------// // Chapter V2: Depression // Story: [Redacted] // by McPoodle //------------------------------// [Redacted] - Chapter V2: Depression - Two Days Ago “Spike, is that you?” The ponies standing in line around Vinyl Scratch looked around them for a few seconds before giving up. “I don’t see him,” the pony behind her finally said. “But you did see a baby dragon, right?” Vinyl asked. “No. Believe me, if a dragon who wasn’t Spike just walked by, you’d know it.” “Huh.” Vinyl was certain she heard the sound of a small bipedal creature with scales walk right past her. But on second thought, the creature had sounded impossibly far away, and not even she would have been able to pick out the sound of a distant baby dragon in the busy square. Unseen by anypony, the invisible dragon made his way deeper into the city. All along he was carefully adjusting the parameters of his invisibility spell: if he made it too perfect, the amount of magic necessary would attract the attention of the unicorn guards circulating among the crowd. “Next customer!” When Vinyl reached the booth at the end of the line for the telegraph, she was surprised to find that Ozone Telegraph wasn’t waiting to take her message, but instead a rather dour-sounding unicorn equipped with a large black marker that smelled like rotting artichokes. “Where’s Ozone?” Vinyl asked casually. “He’s in the light- and sound-proof box behind me,” barked the unicorn in exasperation. It sounded like she had answered that question thousands of times in the past few weeks. “Where’s your message?” “Oh, Ozone usually lets me dictate it to him,” Vinyl said, gesturing at her sunglasses. “Why’s he in a box?” The unicorn sighed like she was dealing with an idiot. “The Telegraphs can transmit information to the four corners of Equestria. For the sake of national security, they must be restricted in what they see and hear.” Vinyl thought that was rather harsh. On the other hoof, she recognized that something should be done under the circumstances, even if the black box treatment would not have been her first choice. “You may dictate your letter now. Please keep your voice low enough to reduce the number of ponies who might overhear you as much as possible.” Vinyl shrugged to herself, then leaned in and whispered her message: Dear Uncle Philo, The IPO went off without a hitch--you would have been so proud of me! I’ve decided to volunteer for the Princess’ Army. For now, I am stationed in Canterlot as a morale officer. I’ll send you any updates as soon as I hear of them. Take care of yourself and the rest of the OCA. Don’t worry--I’ll be fine! Love, Vinyl P.S. Send any letters to me care of DJ AJ4X, Canterlot. It was a very long, and therefore very expensive, message to be sending by Telegraph, but Vinyl had indeed done very well at the stock market, and had plenty of bits to spare. No sooner than the sound of the unicorn’s pen scratching ceased, than it was replaced by the squeaks of the marker. This marking went on for nearly a whole minute. “That will be fifteen bits.” “What!” exclaimed Vinyl, at hearing the unexpectedly low rate. “Read that message back to me,” she requested firmly. “Very well,” said the unicorn, who then leaned in close to Vinyl’s ear to read from the now very-smelly piece of paper she had written on: [__] [___] Philo, [_] [_] [__] [_] [_____] [ [________] [___] [__] [__] [] [___] [] [_] [__] [_____] [] [_______] [_] [_] [_______] [___] [_] [__] I am [_______] [] [_______] [] [ [____] [______] [__] [__] [_] [_] [_____] [] [__] [] [ [__] [] [___] [__] [__] [] [______] [_] [_] [__] [] [_] [__] [___] [_________] [] fine[ [___] [___] [__] [__] [_] [_____] [] [] [__] [] [] [___] [_______] “That’s it?!” Vinyl asked indignantly upon discovering that the message had been redacted to within a hairs-width of its life. She reached forward to feel the page, wet with fresh marker. The unicorn stood up straight. “You were revealing vital Equestrian secrets! Who knows who might be listening in on the transmission?!” This despite the fact that the Telegraph family transmitted their messages telepathically, and for that reason it was physically impossible to “listen in” on them. “If you weren’t a volunteer,” the unicorn told Vinyl with a heavy dose of self-righteousness, “I’d be reporting you to the authorities this very moment as a possible subversive!” “What part of ‘Dear Uncle’ is subversive?” Vinyl asked incredulously. “It reveals your relationship to the recipient. If you were ever captured by the enemy, that could be used against you.” “The name of my uncle is public knowledge!” “Public pony knowledge, perhaps...” “You didn’t even keep my name!” Vinyl pleaded. “How will he know it was from me?” “He will rest secure in the knowledge that somepony he knows is fine. As a loyal subject of the Princesses, that will have to be enough. Now will you be paying the fifteen bits that you owe, or will I be forced to disintegrate this message?” “Ugh, fine!” Vinyl said, and passed over the money. She heard the note being slipped through a very narrow slit in what must have been poor Ozone Telegraph’s black box as she walked away. Vinyl made her way to a newsstand she knew of bordering the train station. She had to walk slowly, pushing through a solid mass of ponies. Her ears were awash in conversations. Canterlot appeared to be full to bursting with refugees. Ponies fleeing from anywhere to anywhere were all stopped here for processing. And so she heard the same phrases over and over again: “Excuse me, ma’am, but have you seen this stallion? He’s my husband...” “I’m just looking for my brother...” “...son...” “Does anypony know what’s happening in Stalliongrad?” This last question was one Vinyl was curious about herself. She reached the newsstand and found a spot to sit and listen. She might not be able to read a newspaper unaided, but she found she picked up most of the news she needed by listening in on the conversations of the ponies who would gather here and debate each other on the headlines. A few minutes of surveillance did nothing to ease her curiosity. Speculation about the war was of course the top story. There were plenty of details about the speeches in the Senate, but it appeared that they knew next to nothing about how the war was actually being waged. What were the Princesses’ plans? Princess Luna was not in the capital, that was obvious--everypony assumed that she had taken personal charge of the troops, but where were they? For that matter, where was news of anything happening outside Canterlot? The latest news in Ponyville almost always showed up in the “local” section of the paper, if only as a way for the sophisticated city-folk to look down their long noses at the antics of the uncultured masses, but this time Vinyl heard nothing. The informal crew of news analysts that Vinyl relied on also noticed this problem, and asked the news vendor for an explanation. “Oh, I’ll give you an explanation,” said the vendor, “the doors to Canterlot are closed, literally and figuratively. Any pony who wants can come in, but nopony can leave.” The ponies accepted this revelation with equinimity. Canterlot was the best-protected city in Equestria, even when the Princesses were visiting elsewhere. If there was any one place a pony might choose to be confined in for all eternity, Canterlot was not a bad choice by a long stretch. The fact of this did not satisfy Vinyl, however. She wanted answers, and she knew where to get them. Vinyl Scratch’s internal clock told her that she had more than an hour before she had to report in, so she chose a route that took her past the palace. The DJ had had the extraordinary luck to have met both princesses on more than one occasion (she carefully refrained from classifying this luck as “good” or “bad”). From what she could judge of their characters, she was fairly certain that neither one of them would have instituted a security system as silly as the one she had encountered at the Telegraph booth. I mean, if the Princesses actually had a good reason to be that paranoid, surely they would have instructed their agents to fill in the spaces between the words, to make it harder to guess the original message? she asked herself. As she approached the plaza in front of the main palace entrance, she heard the growing voices of an angry crowd. Buzzing and shouting gradually coalesced into understandable slogans. “No dragons in Equestria!” “Dragon diplomacy is deplorable!” “What are they doing with those hands of theirs, anyway? Whatever it is, it can’t be good!” Vinyl stopped at the back of the crowd and listened quietly. There were nearly a hundred angry ponies here, lining the main route by which the Diplomatic Dragon Corps (or DDC) would pass every morning and every evening walking to and from the palace. “So what did the DDC do, anyway?” she asked a random protester. “They refused to let us tar and feather them!” she replied. Now dragons, being nearly indestructible, probably would have considered the application of boiling tar at least to be a luxury, but Vinyl supposed that their pride probably prevented them from acquiescing to the mob’s demand. In between the slogan shouting, Vinyl picked up an absurd number of rumors about what was really going on in the war: The soldiers had been sent south because that was where the war was actually being held. The dragons hadn’t taken Stalliongrad, they had taken Cloudsdale. Princess Luna had overthrown Celestia and disguised herself as her sister. Luna was personally leading the pony armies. Luna was personally leading the dragon armies. The Dragon Emperor was in fact Nightmare Moon. The Dragon Emperor was in fact Spike, and Twilight Sparkle was actually a stuffed pony that Spike used like a ventriloquist’s dummy. The dragons had planted a sleeper army underneath Canterlot five thousand years ago, and were just waiting for the moment to send them erupting out of the sewers. And, finally, there was no war, and Trollestia was watching the panic she had created from a tower at the very top of the palace and laughing her tail off. “Let us have the dragons, Celestia!” a member of the crowd suddenly demanded. “Unless you want us to think you’re a lowdown dirty dragon-lover!” shouted another. “Maybe you’re the reason we haven’t won this war yet!” Vinyl gasped softly. Am I actually hearing a mortal pony accusing her creator of treason? she asked herself in disbelief. In response to the accusation, the gates of the palace opened and the trumpets announcing the imminent arrival of the Princess were sounded. Vinyl, not sure what was going to happen, edged away from the crowd and prepared to slip away to safety if necessary. “Citizens of Equestria,” declared Princess Celestia, as she stepped out of the palace, followed by a rather-large crowd. Her words were calm and rather low, but her magic ensured that they were heard by every pony in the plaza. She also sounded very tired. Vinyl decided to risk staying to hear her out. In the worst-case scenario, she hoped Twilight Sparkle or one of her friends would get her out of jail if she was mistakenly rounded up with the others. “You see before you all of the diplomats and ambassadors that have the honor to attend me at the Royal Court of Equestria. They number ponies and zebra, deer and griffons. And yes, they include dragons. They are all, every one of them, devoted to the cause of advancing our mutual interests through friendly negotiation. Many of the dragons you speak against represent clans that wish to ally with Equestria against the tyranny of the Dragon Emperor. Would you include them in your scorn?” “Give us the Emperor’s dragon!” shouted the angry pony from before. She was safely far enough away that the Princess’ guard could not easily catch her. “Ah, but without him, who would relay the Emperor’s surrender to me when I ask for it?” Celestia asked gently, causing a good part of the crowd to laugh loudly. “What’s really going on, Princess?” asked a voice. “What happened to Princess Luna?” asked another. Vinyl noticed that the crowd gave the Princess time to answer this last question, but she refused to say anything. “You can’t trust a dragon, Your Majesty,” pleaded a voice from the back of the crowd. “I can trust these dragons,” Celestia said in a somewhat patronizing tone. “But what if you’re wrong?” This apparently struck a nerve. “What if I am wrong?!” Celestia asked in something approaching the “Canterlot Royal Voice”. “My trust is never misplaced! And do you know why, my little ponies? It is because I do not trust, I know. I know what is in the hearts of each and every one of you, and what is in the hearts of each and every one of them! I know what is best for you, ponies, and I will carry this war to a successful conclusion. That is all you need to know. Now go home, ponies. Go home.” The spell accompanying these words caused the crowd to instantly disburse. Vinyl found herself unaffected, perhaps because it was pretty much impossible for her to go home under the circumstances. She stood and listened to the sounds of the palace for a few moments, before turning to leave. “Hmm...” From a window in the tower at the very top of the palace, a young female dragon noted Vinyl Scratch’s presence, and watched as she walked away. Or, to be more precise, it was a being that looked like a young female dragon. “Vinyl Scratch, alias DJ Pon-3, reporting for duty.” The other pony in the room, a young earth pony stallion, rushed forward to grasp her forehooves. “Pon-3, it is such an honor to meet you at last!” he exclaimed, shaking her hooves vigorously. “You’ve been an inspiration to me all my life! I turned away from the family business to follow in your hoofprints!” Judging by his faint accent and a distinctive scent in the air from his half-eaten dinner, Vinyl Scratch was willing to bet that DJ AJ4X’s “family business” was apples. “As a matter of fact,” he continued, “I snuck into your Canterlot premiere when I was just a foal, years and years and years and years...” “...yes, that’s quite...” “...and years and years and years and...” “...that will be quite enough, AJ4X...sir.” “Oh, don’t waste time with titles,” the stallion stated. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re my superior, not vice-versa.” “Well,” said Vinyl, gently disengaging herself from the endless hoofshake, “you do have the advantage of me in one area: how I may best serve Equestria here in Canterlot. Besides the music, that is.” DJ AJ4X drew himself tall on being reminded of his duties. “The job of morale officer has a good deal more to it than just DJ’ing. We are the Princesses’ eyes and ears and...I can’t believe I actually said ‘eyes’ to you, of all ponies. I’m such an idiot!” Vinyl laughed. “You don’t have to prance on eggshells around me, AJ4X, I don’t mind. So we just use our position to get a sense of how the citizens are feeling? I started on that job before I even got here.” And she told him what she witnessed outside the palace. “Yes, I was there too,” AJ4X said grimly. “It was a large group, so I’m not surprised I didn’t spot you. I’ll be writing up a report tonight, and I could use your input.” “Alright. What is our schedule for tonight?” “Let me get it. Each day, our orders will be left for us under the false back of the middle drawer of this desk. The lock on the drawers is the same as the lock to my house, and the same as the lock of the house that has been provided to you.” Vinyl heard AJ4X unlock the desk, open a drawer, and remove a wooden partition to retrieve a piece of paper, which after a brief study he promptly burned in the waste basket before putting the partition back and locking the desk back up. “There’s four different parties tonight,” he told her, “but the first one doesn’t start until ten.” “I figured there’d be a curfew?” “Not yet,” the stallion said as he slid on his saddlebags. “Come with me. There’s a late-night session at the Senate tonight, and somepony I want you to...um, hear. After that I’ll take you to where you’ll be staying. Have you eaten yet?” “No, I haven’t,” admitted the unicorn. DJ AJ4X dropped the saddlebags. “Well, that’s first priority. I’ll warm up some carrot and apple soup.” A half-hour later, the two of them found places in the second-floor gallery of the Equestrian Senate. Vinyl heard the chatter of several other spectators from all around the floor. Below, the floor was mostly empty, as only a few senators stayed to listen to the debate. “Fillies and gentlecolts,” declaimed one of those senators, a unicorn stallion. “Given the fractious history I have just outlined, given its isolated location, given its miserable climate, its suspect sovereignty, and the thousands of bits wasted every year in subsidies, I must ask the question: why are we fighting for Stalliongrad?” AJ4X leaned over to whisper into Vinyl’s ear. “That’s Prince Constant, leader of the opposition.” “That’s a curious statement to be making,” observed another voice from the floor, a voice that seemed centuries old yet full of equal parts strength and sarcasm, “seeing as the fall of Stalliongrad provoked this war, the declaration of which I remember you voting for.” “And that’s the head of the loyalists,” said AJ4X, “Professor...” “...Stein,” finished Vinyl. “We’ve met before.” “I made that vote, Professor,” said Constant, “before all the facts were in my possession. Facts, I do not need to state, that were known to the Princesses and yourself at the time.” “No,” the professor drawled, “of course you don’t need to state for the record, for the fourth time this week, the existence of facts that were given to you under the strictest confidence. But you did it anyway, out of the kindness of your heart.” “And you still insist on calling the event the ‘fall’ of Stalliongrad,” the prince sneered. “Let us call it what it is: the defection of Stalliongrad.” This revelation produced an uproar in the gallery, which the pounding of a gavel by the Senate chairpony did little to diminish. “You gave your word!” declared the professor several times as the crowd finally settled down. “I gave my loyalty to the ponies of Canterlot and of Equestria, and I will not allow this sham war to go on for a minute longer!” shouted the prince. “The ponies shall know the truth, and they shall know it now! Know, citizens, that the city of Stalliongrad was approached three months ago by a dragon delegation bearing proof that the city had been founded on lands granted to the dragons by the legitimate pony authorities over five thousand years ago. Proof, I might add, that we have yet to see.” “Another addition to the official record,” said Pr. Stein sarcastically. “You are being most generous tonight, dear prince.” “The inhabitants of Stalliongrad had a free and democratic vote, and they decided unanimously to sever their ties with Equestria and align themselves with Draconia. A vote I am asking this Senate to confirm.” “Yes, that was a very interesting vote,” Pr. Stein observed. “Did you ever wonder how the dragons managed to produce a unanimous vote? If this body is any judge, getting a group of ponies that large to agree unanimously on anything is simply impossible. And yet this vote happened within a week of the ambassador’s arrival. Did that never strike you as odd?” “I do not judge by hearsay,” Prince Constant replied coldly. “I have asked repeatedly for the right to question the Emperor’s ambassador on the Senate floor, and you have consistently refused me. You cannot deny that he is here. So why don’t you produce him?” The professor said nothing. “Is it perhaps because you do not think Equestrians can handle an opposing point of view? Are you, perhaps, worried about the consequences to yourself if Equestrians learned the truth, the entire truth, about this war? Worried about losing Celestia’s favor, worried in fact about losing something a good deal more intimate than merely her favor?” “You, sir, are out of bounds!” declared a loyalist. “Am I?” asked the prince. “Am I?!” There was a tense silence on the floor. “Very well,” the Professor said, walking over to the door. “If this is a night for revealing truths, let us have the whole truth.” “Professor, no!” cried out the loyalist senator from before. “Admit the Emperor’s ambassador!” Stein ordered. If the revelation about Stalliongrad was shocking, the entrance of the ambassador was mind-blowing, as the entire gallery was silenced by a simultaneous intake of breath by everypony. Everypony except for Vinyl Scratch. “He...he...he...!” was all AJ4X was able to say. “Ah, ponies, it is good, to be among you, once more,” the new voice began. Now it was Vinyl’s turn to gasp. “It can’t be!” she exclaimed. But it was. The Dragon Emperor’s personal ambassador to Princess Celestia was none other than Prince Steadfast, Vinyl’s old enemy. “...brother?” Prince Constant asked in confusion. “Indeed!” replied Steadfast. Vinyl noted that there was something...off...about his voice. He spoke when he breathed in instead of when he was breathing out. And it seemed as if that breath was going into a pair of lungs not completely under his control. “He’s wearing...” AJ4X managed to choke out. “I come bringing the glad tidings,” announced Prince Steadfast, “of my master. Yes, the Emperor is my rider, and I will go, where he bids me!” “He’s wearing a saddle and bridle made from...from an animal!” the DJ finally managed to say. Several spectators backed away from the railings in a mixture of disgust and fear. But none of them were willing to leave. “All who oppose my master will be, over-ridden,” Steadfast intoned in his strange voice. “Just as Stalliongrad was over-ridden.” “Tell them what your master wants,” Professor Stein said coldly. “Tell them what you told me.” “My master is, most generous,” Steadfast said. “He does not need your, obedience. He is quite willing to live, in peace, with the ponies. All he wants is, the settling of the, the ancient debt, between our two nations. “Millennia ago, the dragons, were the dominant race on, the planet, and our magic, was supreme. But then one of your kind, an alicorn, put all life on, this planet, in jeopardy. It was the dragons, who tipped the balance, the dragons who, saved us all, at the price of their supremacy, and most of, their magic. All the emperor...asks is for, that debt to be, repaid. Give us the damaged, alicorn. Give us...Luna. By falling to Nightmare, she has proved, herself undeserving. Give her to us! We will drain, the magic, and life, out of her, drop, by drop! It will take, a million, days for her to, die, a million, days of the, most exquisite, pleasure...!” “Brother or not, you’re going down!” exclaimed Prince Constant, leaping over his desk to tackle Steadfast. Over the sounds of the beating could be heard the tittering of Steadfast’s laughter, growing more and more insane with every minute. The ponies in the galleries fled in terror.