Chapter 3
Above and Below
Canterlot is a nexus of culture and commerce: It has theaters, a renowned orchestra, a thriving fashion scene, an expansive market, and obviously the permanent residence of Equestria’s rulers and the seat of government. Even more importantly, it is centrally located in Equestria and thus a hub for all major trade routes. Inevitably, fame brings notoriety—not all the streets of Canterlot are gilded, but few would admit it. Even fewer would admit that the gild doesn’t make the city.
Ditzy wandered through the streets of upper Canterlot, the half of the city that the average outsider was familiar with. It was all very nice: wide, clean streets leading anywhere you could possibly want to go; off in the distance she could see her hotel, in the other direction a concert hall, and in between a countless menagerie of pastry shops, haberdashers, spas, fancy restaurants, and various nooks that undoubtedly served as artistic havens for the knowledgeable. Dominating the scene, the royal palace overshadowed it all. The roads were arranged in a sunburst pattern, so they all eventually led to the gates of the palace itself. Very few homes existed among the plethora of buildings; Ditzy attributed this to the cost of living in such a desirable place.
It was all beautiful, quiet. Ditzy hated it.
It wasn’t that it was repulsive, it wasn’t—it was just lifeless! There was no hustle or bustle, no random street conversations, it was dry and parched. It was stuffy, orderly. The inhabitants rushed about, intent on reaching their destinations and not much else. All the vividness and exuberance of the inhabitants had to be crammed up somewhere, begging to be unleashed. Ditzy meandered until she reached a bridge overlooking one of the several rivers that ran over the side, tumbling down as waterfalls. Idly, Ditzy stopped. Where do they go? They don’t just flow outwards from the mountain; I would have seen it coming in. Maybe I can ask somepony.
The sun began to set in the west, and Ditzy decided to retire to her hotel. Hopefully, she would have more luck in the morning—she hadn’t exactly arrived early, and everypony was probably resting or asleep, and certainly not out wandering. Her mind kept drifting back to the waterfalls: she had seen them coming into Canterlot, on the bridge, and several of the providing rivers and streams flowed through the city itself. Still, she had never figured out where they went or where they originated from. They seemingly appeared out of the thin mountain air and disappeared in a similar fashion after dropping off the edges of the city. She would have flown off to find the truth herself, but security in Canterlot remained tense after the Changeling invasion some months ago: If you tried to fly in or out, you would find yourself in a cell until the Guard could determine if you were a Changeling or not. Not being able to see the end of the falls for herself only heightened her curiosity. Ironic, that in the most affluent city in Equestria the most interesting mystery would be the terrain. It looks nice, but there’s only so much you can do with aesthetics.
Ditzy arrived at the entrance of the hotel several minutes later; the door was opened for her by an attendant and she entered the lobby. Her first impression was of vacant space. It was ridiculously large, almost a cathedral in its proportions. Whoever had designed it had feebly tried to fill the magnanimous room, but it effortlessly absorbed their efforts, leaving it a grandiose, foolish display of folly. To Ditzy, it was a monumental waste of resources. Is it really necessary to have a reception room large enough to fit my house inside? It’s a terrible waste of space… what would they ever need it for? It doesn’t need to be so large to look nice.
In the center, a lone marble desk was occupied by a single blue-green, aqua-colored pegasus colt, his mane a bluer color compared to his coat, who was scratching away with quill at some paper. He welcomed Ditzy, gave her her room key, and resumed scribbling tediously.
“And if you have any questions or requests, whoever is at the front desk will be able to direct you to somepony who can help you.”
“Sure, thanks. I hate to ask, but—is it always this quiet in the city? I haven’t been in town for long, but it seems very subdued for being so important.” Ditzy said.
“Unfortunately, yes. It was a little more vibrant before the Changelings had their raid on the castle, but it has always been, well…” His voice lowered and his expression soured. “Snobby.”
So Ditzy had gathered, or rather, guessed at. She had not met many of them so far.
“One more thing.”
“Ask away,” The colt said, going back to his quill and paper.
“Where do the waterfalls go? I know they run through the city, off the sides, and then? Come to think of it, where do they start?”
The quill stopped scratching, and the colt looked back up.
“As to where the falls originate, I haven’t a clue. The falls terminate in a rather disreputable location known as Lower Canterlot. Although honestly…” He sighed, opting not to continue. He knew he wasn’t supposed to talk about the seedy parts of town, and he needed this job, yet he also knew he hated the self-absorbed air of upper Canterlot as much as Ditzy appeared to. What’s the harm in telling her? I could probably be entertained in this drought of a day.
Ditzy leaned slightly forward, inquisitive senses triggered. “What’s so bad about it?” she queried. “It sounds interesting enough.” In truth, she was dying to escape the stuffy atmosphere, and she wanted excitement more than anything else at the moment.
He looked at her with the full knowledge that he had said nothing about the city below, a subtle bored reading of her.
Tourists…
After a moment of hesitation, the colt dropped his quill, carefully looked around to check for observers, found none, and leaned in conspiratorially. “Technically, we didn’t talk about this, and if anypony asks you if we did, you heard it somewhere else. But since the reality is nopony gives a flying buck, so I’m going to talk anyways. Add that to the fact that I’m bored out of my skull, and you have a recipe for something slightly more exciting than sitting here all day.”
Ditzy stood, silent as a stone wall and now somewhat cautious. She was going to let him talk, but she also was smart enough not to get roped into whatever the hay he was saying. The fact alone that his tone changed spoke volumes—but whether it revealed him or the lower city, she knew not. There was something subtly unusual about how he addressed her, but she could not put her hoof on the deception.
“‘Lower’ Canterlot is the real city. It’s where the moving and shaking happens. The night scene. Excitement. Business. You would think by the way some of the snobs up here cover it up that it would be terrible, but it isn’t half as bad as the seedy parts of Manehattan or Las Pegasus, believe me.”
You have no idea. Ditzy’s posture shifted slightly as she listened.
“I could tell that you didn’t like it up here by the way you walked in. How about, after I get off work, I show you around? Maybe hit up a club, get around to something afterwards?” he said, raising an eyebrow suggestively.
Ditzy leaped back, wings flaring as if to flee or fight, in something quite different than a pleasantly surprised way. He did not just…
“You can’t be serious.” Ditzy said incredulously, resuming her normal position, wings folding back into place. She didn’t know whether to be flattered, insulted or confused. She wasn’t even sure he was implying what she thought he was implying. Is he trying to pick me up?
The colt just threw his head back and laughed. Ditzy started to feel a little perturbed: she saw him in a new light now, and it wasn’t the most pleasant one. He had to be pretty cocky to just ask somepony something like that. He has to be at least… well, actually, he probably isn’t that much younger than me. A few years, at most. Still, she didn’t think she had talked to him for five minutes. I don’t even know his name! What does he think he’s doing? She continued her irritated glance as he took the moment to compose himself.
“I’ll take that as a no,” he said, still grinning. Ditzy didn’t see the humor, and was honestly irritated by his completely unforeseen advance.
“My name is Quirk, by the way.” He held out his hoof, but retracted it after Ditzy reassumed her stonewalled silence and declined to shake it with an angry glare. Pleased was not a word Ditzy would use to describe herself at the moment. I can’t believe he just tried to pick me up like some sort of irresponsible teenage jaunt! That’s just insulting…
Resolutely ignoring him, she observed the papers covering the marble desk, collecting her thoughts. It looked like he had been writing on sheet music the whole time, and not actually working. Ditzy imagined he didn’t have to put in a lot of effort into this job; she couldn’t imagine this hotel had many guests given how expensive it was.
“Can you tell me how to get to Lower Canterlot?” Ditzy asked with as much politeness as she could muster. Just get me out of here.
“Just ask a guard that looks bored. The bored ones, which are most of them, actually, would do just about anything to kill a few minutes.”
Ditzy agreed with the assumed aside that she wouldn’t trust directions from Quirk, anyways.
“One more thing,” Ditzy said regretfully. Her curiosity just overshadowed her desire to exit immediately and be away from this amazingly brash and insulting pegasus.
Quirk swept aside the sheet he had resumed marking, rested his head on his hoof and said “Yeeeeeees?” while grinning and raising his eyebrows in a gesture that was undeniably suggestive.
Ditzy glared again; Quirk resumed laughing. What’s wrong with him?
I can’t lose my temper, not—nevermind. Don’t think about it. “Why didn’t you react to my eyes?” Ditzy said, seriousness pervading her voice.
Quirk stopped, shrugged, and replied casually: “You could say I grew up around some strange eyes. Didn’t find yours to be that weird, anyways.”
Her question answered, Ditzy turned for the door and began walking out of the oversized lobby.
“I’ll be here if you change your mind!” he called out, grinning again. He had to be joking, or at least Ditzy hoped he was. She put her hoof to her forehead and sighed a little as she trotted back outside.
~~~~~~~~~~
It hadn’t taken long for Ditzy to find a guard that was bored enough to spare a few minutes to give directions and waste another few minutes with small talk. Quirk was honest about that, at least, although she shoved aside the thought that he had not lied to her yet. She was not in the mood to remember him.
He neglected to mention that Lower Canterlot is entirely underground… Ditzy thought, as she continued along the descending path that hopefully lead to Lower Canterlot. The guard had directed her to an inconspicuous door in the side of the mountain, one of several entrances to the yet-ambiguous lower city. She had a vague idea of what to expect, but nothing firm—she wasn’t even sure of the wisdom of going. The upper half of Canterlot hadn’t been vivifying, but that didn’t mean that the other half would be any better. To add to that, the night wasn’t exactly young, but it couldn’t hurt to take a look, anyways. At least, she hoped it wouldn’t.
Reluctantly, Ditzy played back her conversation with Quirk several times, failing to identify what had caused him to start making moves on her. They had had a decent conversation going, he had seemed at least somewhat interesting of a pony (not that she had been thinking along the lines he had), but it had never strayed out of business. She wouldn’t have been averse to the proposition of a drink either if it hadn’t been accompanied by that “get up to something afterwards” clause. That was just rude and demeaning, not to mention a display of horrible taste.
The tunnel wound around in what had to be a downward spiral for several hundred feet. It was lit by what appeared to be a combination of haphazard electric lighting and magical auras left by those capable and unsatisfied with the cheap illumination. So far it made sense to Ditzy. For Lower Canterlot to be at the bottom of the waterfalls, it would have to sit just under the base of the mountain. Why it wasn’t built aboveground, at the base of the mountain, remained unexplained.
At the bottom, the tunnel narrowed and leveled out until a single unmarked door blocked Ditzy’s path. This has to be it. Ditzy stood about ten feet from the door, gathering herself. She took a deep breath.
“Here goes nothing,” Ditzy said, taking bold strides to the door and charging through before she could change her mind.
It swung open and Ditzy’s eyes widened, senses suddenly primed.
Light! Noise! A cacophony of sound, a barrage of movement, even myriad smells threatened to drown Ditzy after the silence of the tunnel. She was standing slightly higher than the roofs of the nearest buildings, granting her a panoramic view of the underground metropolis. There were buildings carved out of stone, built out of rock, wood—whatever material could be scavenged was used somewhere. Houses, bars, taverns, shops, restaurants ranging from the shady to the inviting, a bazaar, even an open-air theater all lay within a few hundred feet of Ditzy. She even thought she saw a stadium in the distance. Street vendors hawked their wares, the occasional sidewalk band played smooth jazz, the odd drunken pony stumbled along in groups or alone amongst the late-night crowds and fluidity of the streets that seemed to follow no set pattern but instead wandered at a whim amongst dark stone buildings of similar material to the streets themselves. She could smell the aroma of homemade food floating over from the bazaar and the alcohol on a pony that had fallen asleep, or perhaps fallen unconscious, not far from the door she had entered. She could see quieter sections of town in the distance, what could only be suburbs—or whatever passed for suburbs in this city of the stone. Looking up, she saw that a few hundred feet separated her and the ceiling of the massive cavern—and on the walls the occasional carved-out building, accessible only by the occasional staircase, pegasi, or a Unicorn ambitious enough to fly themselves up with magic. She could hear an orator in the open-air theater, or maybe it was a soliloquy from a play. Either way it rang out, amplified by the steps and dampened by the muffling sounds of endless movement it was eternally surrounded by. What a wonderful contrast to the order of above! What a display of life in all its stages! She could see both the young and the old wandering the streets, going somewhere but enjoying the journey. This city knew how real life is. This city is alive!
And there, in the distance, were the waterfalls, cascading down into pools that radiated with refracted light. They bathed the nearby scenes in a prismatic glow, lending them surreal beauty and a measure of peace in the center of the cavern surrounded by multitudinous unceasing stories of life disguised as markets, houses, taverns, theaters and avenues of chiseled rock. Ditzy didn’t move for a long time; she thought she could stand there for a thousand years and not observe all that was happening. It was the best kind of surprise, starting with shock and subsiding into appreciation and a solid awe for the miracle she witnessed. An entire city, forgotten by nearly everypony else but still vibrant, still very much alive.
And I would never have guessed that it was here.
It took nearly fifteen minutes for Ditzy to register the fact that she hadn’t moved since opening the door. She wanted to go everywhere—see everything, but how, where, what first!?
In the end, she took to the underground skies. It was incredibly easy to fly in large caverns—thermals tended to be amplified in enclosed spaces—but it was also dangerous to fly high due to the stalactites. Most cities had a way of doing that to you, lulling you into a rhythm and then striking you down if you lowered your guard. To Ditzy, it was another reminder that though the city was truly beautiful, she had to be careful. Being a veteran of notorious areas, she knew how dangerous they could be, especially the foreboding sections lit by few lights and haunted by many characters of ill repute. She didn’t dwell on that now; now was an adventure to be had!
Not to mention food to be eaten. Ditzy had worked up a ravenous appetite, which had been stifled by upper Canterlot but reawakened by the deliciously tantalizing smell of baked goods. Landing among a small late-night crowd of shoppers, she made her way towards a cart and was abruptly accosted by the sight of muffins lying among other goods.
No! Not now, not now, it can’t happen here—I didn’t…
Ditzy froze as her unconscious took over; and she saw it, that fateful day. Everything she perceived with her eyes faded out as her recollection overtook her. Desperately, she pleaded with herself to stop, but once it had started there could only be one resolution—to suffer through it until the end. The screaming and the pain ripped through her in a matter of seconds as her body and mind fell into the trap, leaving her locked inside her own memories.
~~~~~~~~~~
Chaos struck midday in Ponyville.
Or at least, Ditzy thought it was midday. She had taken shelter in her house, not far from her route, after unexplained phenomena—chocolate rain, gravity wells, a rapidly changing color of sky—had appeared, and they were just the start. When Ditzy joined the mailmare service, she had sworn to deliver through rain, snow, sleet or hail, but it had said nothing about gravity wells, so she decided to take cover while she could. Now she was inside looking out, hoping that Cheerilee would be able to keep Dinky and her class safe on the trip that had been scheduled that day. They were far enough away that Ditzy didn’t think it wise to risk her own safety just to check on her; nevertheless, her heart ached. It would just be selfish of her to invite danger on herself to find out about Dinky.
Discord appeared with neither fanfare nor ceremony outside of her house, a veil of haze subsiding as he did. Ditzy stared at him. A Draconequus wasn’t exactly a common sight, even amidst the other chaos that he so craved—and he caught sight of Ditzy peeking out. Discord stopped by her mailbox, and, never breaking his stare with Ditzy, who was too hypnotized by his glance to look away, simultaneously pulled a plate of muffins out from behind his back with his left claw and banged the top of Ditzy’s mailbox with his lion’s paw, unfolding the sides to transform it into an impromptu table. Leaving the plate on the mailbox which was now a table, he and his sinister grin faded like smoke into the checkered background that had once been Ponyville. He had come unanticipated, and had left with no explanation save the plate of muffins.
Ever-stranger…
It took a while for Ditzy to emerge from her house. She was by no means reckless—she came out cautiously, slowly, sneaking around with her wings out, ready to fly away at the slightest sign of trouble. Gradually, she approached the table as the sun turned green and the clouds froze in the sky. Stopping a few feet from the tempting muffins, she stared with curiosity and wonder. Muffins were the thing she loved the most, besides Dinky, and she wasn’t about to turn up an apparent offer of kindness. No need to take chances, though. Nearly crawling, she approached the plate, taking her time to make sure the Draconequus had disappeared completely. A few mere feet away now, Ditzy stopped to observe them (they seemed innocuous enough) and dashed a muffin to the ground.
“Oh, come now! Such a terrible waste of delectable baked goods! I’ll have you know, I toiled many long hours making them perfect just for you, my dear Ditzy Doo.”
Ditzy panicked and leaped into the air, turning around to face the voice—but Discord reappeared behind her, scooping her up with a lion’s arm and floating upside down back to the plate. Ditzy struggled futilely to escape his grasp as blood rushed to her head and Discord began speaking again.
“Didn’t your mother ever teach you anything about friendship, or sharing, or kindness? This is just my simple offer of peace between us two, a humble effort on my part to match your tradition,” he said, setting Ditzy upright on the other side of the table-mailbox as he sat on a high-backed chair that was most certainly not there a second ago.
“My mother also taught me never to accept food from strangers,” Ditzy deadpanned. How this Draconequus knew about Ditzy’s mother was more disturbing than the fact that he had seemingly complete control over the situation, but she had no time to dwell on it.
“Strangers!? Us? That simply must not be. No, I suspect that by the end of the day, we will be the best of friends,” Discord intoned, as he put paw to claw, his arms resting on the table, and started tapping his mismatched digits together.
“Now, won’t you satisfy my simple desire and just eat a muffin? Just one? In fact, I guarantee that if you eat one, eating more would be simply irresistible. It would make me terribly angry to have my honest desire for friendship refuted. They do say it’s all the rage nowadays to be friendly, and if that were proven false… well, suffice to say I might become so furious that I lose my tenuous grip on this reality and cause a portal to Tartarus to open right under Dinky and her entire class. I can assure you, it would be a less than pleasant detour.”
Discord’s grin deepened and Ditzy’s gut twisted. She couldn’t say no, not after that kind of threat. Not after he had threatened Dinky, let alone her entire class. I don’t know what he can do, but he knows about everything.
“Well, now?” Discord said, a monocle appearing over one eye as he pulled a pocket watch out of thin air and tapped it. “I haven’t got all day, you know. Chaos to rain and reign over, and all.”
Ditzy didn’t hesitate. She grabbed a muffin and, out of habit, balanced it on her nose. This was insane, moving too fast to figure out. She couldn’t hesitate: she had no way to determine if he was bluffing or not.
This is for Dinky. Ditzy steadied herself. She tossed the muffin into the air, and it eclipsed the sun as they turned a deep red. Time froze as it fell, almost to nothing, as all other vision faded into blackness until all she could see was the falling muffin silhouetted against the raging sun. The scream in the air itself started, at first an unsettling buzz at the edge of her hearing. The muffin was on the verge of Ditzy’s mouth—an instant from being consumed—
~~~~~~~~~~
Something collided with Ditzy, knocking her over and out of her recollection.
“So sorry, can’t talk, have to run!” A mare said over the noise of the market, pulling Ditzy back up onto her hooves and then resumed galloping away from the center of town and what appeared to be the beginnings of a disturbance.
If the mare hadn’t pulled Ditzy up, she wouldn’t have been able to get up. Shell-shocked, Ditzy started noticing her surroundings again. Her recollection halted, she knew not what to do or where to go, or even if she should go at all, in her traumatic state. Emotions hammered through her mind, anger and fear of Discord, love for Dinky, and the pain threatened to overwhelm her again. Discord had made sure that only one of them enjoyed their ‘friendship’. To add to her troubles, it looked like a small mob was forming from where the mare had galloped. Ditzy knew better than to stick around.
I can’t move; I can’t breathe, but I have to anyways…
Absent-minded and tormented, she took to the skies and found herself a few minutes later at a small, quiet cove at the base of the falls. The thermals had carried her there, but she didn’t realize it at the time. It was behind one of the falls and unreachable by land. She could see nothing but the luminescent falls, the pool, and smooth stone walls. She was alone, mentally and physically, in the most absolute sense of the word.
Ditzy wept, violently.
I did it all for you, and if you could know without being pained I would tell you.
Not a moment of hesitation had Ditzy had after her daughter was threatened. She didn’t know if she could bear it any longer. What Discord did next was unforgiveable in Ditzy’s mind. She would do it again to save Dinky, do it a thousand times, she knew, but—Ditzy would never have been able to foresee the depths of cruelty Discord could take in his masochistic ‘friendly’ relationship. Especially what he had done to the memories of her mother. I can’t forget.
It would take a long, long time for Ditzy to move from that spot. Long enough that her own tears formed their own pool, and that pool eventually grew tremendous, trembling with surface tension, which at last broke. Her tears had poured out on the earth from the wellspring of her heart, and the sanctity of her sacrifice could no longer be contained by either Ditzy or an indentation in stone. Her tears flowed freely, swiftly into the falls to fuse with the waters, though Ditzy saw it not. Not a single ripple disturbed the pool despite the stream of tears; they fused immediately with the waters and became indistinguishable from the rest, flowing to somewhere only Celestia would know.
Hours later, Ditzy stopped crying. It was sudden and instantaneous—the pain had just evaporated, replaced by absolution. It was gone, banished, resolved. Tentatively, she got back on her hooves. She looked around, seeking the source of her solace. The falls caught her eye—and as they did, Ditzy gained the unshakeable conviction that she had to cry no longer, because those pillars of brilliant soothing, the falls, were her tears, and they would never stop falling. It was a very strange, irrational belief for a normally rational Ditzy, but it seemed irrevocable once conceived. Logic would not stand against it; all of her emotions rallied to it. The very will of the stones themselves seemed imbedded in it.
Stranger things have happened.
Ditzy thought for a short time, and then abandoned the venture. It was too much effort in a stressful time; she wasn’t about to try to deny something that just took away her pain so utterly. At least, not yet. An explanation could wait, and she was tired.
It was very late, and Ditzy was hurting no longer, but no less exhausted despite the healing. She laid back against a moss-covered stone, which was firm and yet yielding, cool on her back, curved to where it would embrace the weary. In that smooth-crafted gesture she lay, and for a moment wondered at what was to come; the world left behind was surely rolling on and her motherly instincts would not allow her rest so soon.
Can I go back now? Can I go back and be sure that I won’t hurt them, sure that I can protect Dinky? I’ll rest for a minute… Just a minute. Then I’ll go back to the hotel. It’s been too long already—I need to be home, I need to be with her… She thought to herself many things, but eventually all worries faded.
She slept long and soundly on a moss-covered stone, born away into the dawn.