Chapter 08: Changing Times
~~*Spike*~~
There was, Spike reflected, a really strange sound that the library made when it was really early in the morning. Or, rather, a really strange lack thereof. Like a sound-waiting-to-happen, drinking in the small noises of the night and transforming them into an expectant stillness. The library was filled with a kind of creepy hush, as if it were holding its breath while waiting to wake up.
Spike, carrying his pillow slung over one shoulder, took great pains to make sure he wasn’t the one to disturb the quiet of the night. He even went so far as to tiptoe down the stairs in order to not wake Twilight. When he reached the first floor, he stopped and listened for Twilight’s soft snores, which she vehemently denied even existed, before he made his way towards the doorway to the basement.
The first floor was lit only by the moonlight flooding in through the windows, casting everything in shifting blacks and silvery greys. Spike wasn’t worried, though. Dragons had excellent night vision, which made the room perfectly clear, though also black and white. Not to mention the fact that Spike was a dragon with a mission, one which his caretaker/boss/big sister Twilight had told him to put on hold for the night so he could get some sleep. She even trotted out that same old “baby dragon” excuse she always used to stop him from having fun. But how could he sleep at a time like this?
There wasn’t much risk of waking Twilight up, now that he was on the first floor. Still, no point in risking everything by moving less than carefully.
“The daring Rex Rover, diamond dog private eye, is on the case,” he whispered to himself as he moved slowly to the door that led down to the basement. “Can Rex transport his cargo safely through the shadowy underworld? Can he make it past the forces of darkness that seek to stop him? When all the world is against him, can Rex survive?”
“Hoo?”
Spike jumped and smothered a yelp before shooting Owlowiscious a dirty look. “Rex Rover, diamond dog private eye,” he whispered fiercely.
The owl just stared at him.
“He’s from a comic.”
“Hoo?”
“I said… Wait, you know what? Never mind. We’re not doing this again. I’m going down to the basement, okay?”
“Hoo.”
Spike frowned at the owl for a few seconds before shrugging and opening the basement door. “Just don’t wake Twilight. Okay, buddy?”
Owlowiscious nodded and answered with a definitive “Hu-hoo.”
“Right. Now where was I? Oh, yeah. The fearless Rex Rover, making his way into the deep… shadowy… uh… really, really spooky basement. Okay. No problem.”
Spike braced himself, took a deep breath, and stepped through the doorway. After a few steps, he stopped and looked down the stairs. He could see three or four steps down before the rest of the staircase, along with the basement itself, was swallowed up in a pool of inky darkness. And, while Spike was gathering his courage, that’s when the door swung shut by itself behind him, cutting off his only source of light.
There was something Spike learned that day. He learned that there was what he had thought was dark, and then there was dark. A dark so dark that, even with his night vision, he couldn’t see the end of his own snout in front of him. A dark that seeped into his eyes and right into his brain, paralyzing him and making his breath come in short, pained wheezes. Darkness that seemed almost liquid in its blackness, making him wonder if the rest of the world still existed, or if it had all just vanished.
He stood there shivering, and the thought made it into his head that maybe he was all alone. Maybe there wasn’t anything around him. Or, even worse, maybe there was. There could be something here with him, something that had been lurking below, waiting for the young dragon to—
“Oh, right. I’m a dragon.”
A short puff of green fire cast the stairway into oddly-tinted shadows. More importantly, it showed him where the light switch was.
“Much better,” Spike said a moment later as the lights came on. “Uh, not that I was scared or anything.”
His words were swallowed up by the basement, disappearing into a room that was crowded with Twilight’s scientific equipment, cobwebs and dust, and no shortage of spooky shadowy places that things could be lurking in. He cleared his throat and walked down the rest of the stairs with as much nonchalance as he could muster.
Under the stairway itself was a storage closet, which was the home of the winter blankets after Winter Wrap-up. Spike pulled one of the blankets out and put it on the floor as a sort of makeshift mattress. Then, nearly trembling with excitement, he reached into his pillow’s case and pulled out the purple and green tablet computer that Erin had given him as a present earlier in the day. Or, Spike realized, the previous day, since it was now extremely early in the morning.
Stylus in one claw and tablet in the other, he tried to remember Twilight’s instructions on how to turn it on. After a minute or two, he remembered the little button in the corner. Then he went to the icon called “Videos”, grinning when he saw how many movies were listed.
Spike scrolled through until he found the one title he was looking for. There was only one problem.
“How come there are so many?” he grumbled. “I can’t tell which one is the first one.”
He flipped through his choices, all while holding his stylus the same way he’d hold a quill. The movement started feeling natural to his hand pretty quickly.
“Oh, I get it! Some of these are sequels! The other ones… I don’t know, they must be side stories?” He frowned, concentrating. “Hmm… This looks like the first one, then.”
He double-tapped on his selection, just like Twilight had taught him, and the movie started up. Finally, he was going to see what this thing was all about! No more being put off or told that maybe they would get to it next time. He licked his lips in anticipation as the first words of the movie played over the tablet’s speakers.
”This… is Berk."
~~*Celestia*~~
When Celestia awoke, it was with a sense of peace and purpose. The obvious solution to a lot of problems had occurred to her just as she was waking, proving once again that a problem slept upon would often present its own solutions upon awaking. What had seemed like an insurmountable tangle of obligations and conflicting responsibilities had resolved itself into a nice, simple pattern, and now all that was left was to get everypony to go along with it.
That was a worry for later in the day, however. For now, Celestia had responsibilities that she couldn’t ignore. Her horn glowed a soft gold, lifting off her bedsheets as she stepped out of her bed. She stretched each leg and wing in turn as she stepped lightly to the eastern balcony of her quarters and regarded the horizon. It was still a dark purple from the night, though with a glow as the sun approached, burning off the last of the momentum that Celestia had given it the previous day.
Canterlot was still sleeping beneath her, the flickering streetlights looking like very orderly stars below her. Here and there, a pony moved in the shadows, early risers on their way to work or late sleepers on their way home. Celestia smiled down at them before looking back to the glowing horizon. It was time to start the day.
Outside of a few specific events, such as the Summer Sun Celebration, not many ponies had ever seen Celestia actually raise the sun. When asked, the average pony would likely assume that some sort of ritual was needed in order for their Princess to raise the sun. The truth was, after all this time, bringing the dawn had become a nearly effortless routine to her.
It started, as always, with Celestia gathering her magic and will. Power swelled in her and she held it like her breath, wings spread at her sides as she began to glow a golden color that matched the glow from her horn.
At one time, it had taken a circle of powerful unicorns to perform the ritual that Celestia now performed, drawing fresh runes of power into circles carved into the floor. Those circles had been infused with power, which the runes had helped to channel.
Celestia had long since gone past the need for such assistance. She concentrated, and an image of the ritual circle and symbols flashing through her mind so quickly that she barely even noticed it. With the power gathered and shaped, she gave it a gentle nudge. A comforting warmth ran through her entire body as her connection to the sun was established.
The truth was, nopony could move something as massive as the sun under their own power. Not even Discord, at least not without tapping into the highly dangerous primordial chaos itself, much like Celestia was now tapping into the power of the sun. This was not a secret, though very few knew it outside of the upper echelons of the Arcanum.
She basked in that warmth for a long moment. Of the few pleasures her day allowed, this was her favorite. Still, duty called. She drew on a tiny fraction of the sun’s tremendous, roiling power to give it a small push, adding to the momentum that kept the ball of fire, life and magic circling around the world.
The horizon glowed pink and orange as the sun poked its crown over the distant hills. From Castle Canterlot, the sun could be seen much sooner than from down on the surface. It would still be some time before the villages around the base of Mount Canterlot would see more than a gentle brightening to the east.
A calm satisfaction overcame her as she regarded the lands below. Ponies would be waking soon, starting their days warmed by the sun that she helped to move. Even after all this time, it was very satisfying to be so needed.
“Good morning, my old friend,” Celestia murmured fondly towards the rising sun.
It hadn’t always been so easy. The ritual to move the sun was dangerous, so much so that many unicorns had either burned out their magic or had died during the daily ritual required to keep it moving. And Celestia hadn’t always been as experienced as she was today.
When she was very young, the touch of the sun upon her mind had terrified her. It was a burning fury, untamed and wild. It was a storm of pure power, it was elemental flame and life and, if she wasn’t careful with it, a very quick death. A younger Celestia had struggled to master that fear enough to navigate the scorching tempest in order to prevent her own mind from being incinerated.
Celestia had realized centuries ago that this danger was most likely why the mages of old hadn’t minded passing the responsibility to a young and inexperienced alicorn. But after centuries of familiarity, the flood of power no longer frightened her.
She held the power for just a moment longer and then, with a sigh, released it. The glow surrounding her faded as she walked serenely towards her private bathroom and the elegant shower contained within. Moments later, hot water poured down her neck and across her withers and back, soothing and relaxing her in almost the same way as the sun itself did. Hot running water was still one of Celestia’s very favorite things. Life had been very different without it.
The humid air surrounded her, and once again her mind wandered as it often did at this time of the day. She was glad to allow it. This was the only time she had to herself, before the demands of the day started clamoring for her attention.
Celestia reflected briefly on her recent decision, which brought a small frown to her lips. Her ponies loved her, it was true. But, in spite of her best efforts to encourage them otherwise, they relied upon her so very much. She knew she was the rock upon which so many of them built their lives. She’d heard the joke before, or some variation of it, many times over the centuries: only three things last forever, and those are death, taxes, and Celestia, though nopony knew for sure about the first two.
This led her to memories of all the times she’d tried to give back control of the sun to the mages. Modern improvements to the ritual would cut the risk to nearly nothing, and it would be one less thing her little ponies relied upon her for. They’d always refused, of course. To them, as to most ponies, Celestia and the sun were very nearly the same thing.
That obviously wasn’t the case. Still, Celestia made certain that copies of the ritual were located in various places, including the Arcanum in Canterlot and the Mage’s College of Manehattan. Something as important as knowing how to move the sun was far too critical to leave with just one pony, no matter who that pony was.
The sun hadn’t always had ponies around to help move it. There were legends that she’d heard when she was very young, legends that spoke of ancient titans of massive power that moved the sun through a force of will. Those legends, as tattered and incomplete as they were, had been passed down to her by the very same unicorn wizards who had taught her the ritual that raised the sun. They had told her the stories in whispered fragments, as if afraid those titans would hear and return.
It was possible, Celestia had decided ages ago, that such titans had once existed. Still, she doubted it. The wizards, with their scant century or so of years, had never gained the familiarity with the sun that she had. In truth, the sun wanted to be moved. It was made to be moved. Who or what made it in the first place was the more pertinent question than how it was moved before ponies came along.
When she stepped out of the shower, coat awry and her mane wrapped in a towel, she was greeted by her retinue of morning helpers. This included two palace staff who curried her coat, another who would brush out her mane, and another for her tail. Also present was Quillmark, her personal secretary and Keeper of the Royal Schedule, a title that Celestia had suggested some five centuries earlier as a joke, but which had stuck. Much like the Secretary for Remembering Where All of the Meeting Rooms Are, though that was usually shortened to Secretary of Rooms.
“Good morning, Celestia,” Quillmark said with a brief inclination of her head.
“Good morning, Quill,” Celestia replied pleasantly. It had taken her years to break her secretary of the habit of calling her “Princess” and bowing every time she spoke. “I see you’ve changed your manestyle?”
Quillmark smiled briefly, running a hoof through her lavender mane. It was cut in a short bob, parting around either side of her horn and curling up at her jawline. “Yes, I decided I wanted something easier to maintain.”
“It looks very nice,” Celestia said, both sincere and, briefly, slightly jealous. Her own mane, as much as ponies admired it, would never submit so easily to the shears. The last time she’d tried to have it cut, the stylist had eventually walked out of her own shop and taken up gardening on the far side of Equestria.
“Thank you. Shall we go over the schedule?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Celestia listened as Quillmark ran through her morning appointments, managing to pay attention in spite of the ministrations of the royal groomers. She’d had lots of practice, after all.
One somewhat surprising thing on the list was a request by Fair Trade, head of the Merchant’s Trade Association, for a meeting to discuss opening the gateway to Earth more frequently. Celestia considered that momentarily before nodding.
“Please let Fair Trade know that I will need to meet with the Arcanum before I can make a decision, and that I will meet with him in two days to discuss the possibility.”
“Yes, Celestia,” Quillmark said, making a note on her clipboard. “I think that was about it. Was there anything you wanted to add?”
“No. Wait, yes. Could you ask a runner to find my sister? I’d like her to meet me in the dining hall in half an hour.”
“Yes, Celestia,” Quill said, inclining her head once again.
As Quillmark went out in the hallway to speak to the guards, Celestia relaxed and let the grooming staff work her over, making her presentable for the day. When she imagined how Luna would take her announcement, a small bubble of laughter almost made itself heard.
She made do with a small, nearly-hidden smile. A Princess must preserve her image, after all.
~~*Erin*~~
A vast expanse of grey stone stretched in every direction, crazed with small fissures but with a relentless sameness that made it impossible to tell one direction from any other. The distant horizon shimmered a greyish-blue, promising no change for hundreds of miles, should anyone be foolish enough to attempt crossing it.
Erin stood in the center of the field of cracked grey stone, dread clamping her chest and making it hard to breathe. With her hands pressed tightly to her breastbone, she could feel her heart hammering inside of her ribcage. Irregular tremors came from beneath her, traveling through her shoes, into her feet and up her legs. She couldn’t see it, but she knew the tremors came from the motions of a great monster trapped below, lurching and pushing at its prison and attempting to escape.
That, alone, would have been enough to terrify her. Years of nightmares regarding the Black Tide, and here it was separated from her by an unknown width of fragile cracked and flaking stone.
But what was in the shack was much worse.
Twenty feet in front of her was a small, prefabricated white shack, flimsy and hastily-assembled from plywood and covered with white aluminum siding. There was a single door set in the front of it, and the windows on either side of the door had their blinds drawn. On the door was a simple black painted knob, set into a white aluminum door with no windows and looking completely normal. And yet it somehow inspired a sick fear in her that she couldn’t remember ever feeling before. She had to keep staring at it because, every time she looked away and back again, the shack was somehow closer.
A sound came from behind her, the scuffling of a hoof on stone, and Erin’s head whipped around. Nothing. The stone stretched on and on, completely empty. It was just her and…
Erin’s head turned slowly, almost of its own accord. The shack was right in front of her, now, the door close enough to touch. Movement behind the door, some creature thrashing what was left of its body on the floor.
A whimper tried to climb out of Erin’s throat, only to be strangled halfway up. Her hand raised, independent of her will, reaching out for the handle.
“Please,” she managed, her voice raspy and strained. “Please. I don’t want to open this door.”
“Then don’t,” a voice said in her ear.
Erin snorted and blinked, waking up with the icy chill of terror running down her back. Even as she tried to remember it, the dream cracked and melted like thin crystals of ice in the sun. All that was left was a sense of unease and the remembrance of terror as a voice spoke unexpectedly in her ear.
As she lay trembling on her couch, and even as the dream faded, Erin realized that she knew that voice. It was a voice she’d just heard the previous day, after all.
“I’ve got to tell Pinkie to stop showing up in my dreams,” Erin mumbled, still shaking with spent adrenaline. After a few seconds, the absurdity of her comment filtered through her sleep-logged brain. She started chuckling, relief flooding her as she realized she was safe, in her home in Ponyville.
A quick glance out the nearest window showed the brightening of the sky. Morning was close, and sleep felt like it was miles away, so Erin decided that she might as well start her day. With a grunt, she rolled off of her couch and onto the floor, only to stand there yawning hugely for a minute or more while scratching at her mane with a forehoof.
When she finally made her way to the bathroom, she had to stop for a moment to gape at the mirror before breaking out into laughter.
“Wow, talk about bed head.”
A couple of quick strokes with the brush took care of the worst of it, though she’d be winning no prizes for grooming. Her stomach rumbled as she brushed her morning breath away. She mentally reviewed the contents of her new kitchen, and found her options to be less than appealing.
Aside from some staples she’d bought, there wasn’t much she could use to make an appetizing breakfast. Not to mention that Erin wasn’t the best of cooks even when she had hands. The type of disaster she could make in the kitchen with hooves didn’t really bear thinking about.
“I guess it’s more Sugarcube Corner leftovers,” she said to her reflection. She stared at herself in the mirror for a long moment, wondering what it was about that statement that bothered her.
It had been a couple of days, and the pastries were no doubt getting a little stale by now, but that didn’t bother her much. As she rinsed the toothpaste out of her mouth, it hit her that she wouldn’t be using Ascent again any time soon. This meant that any pony pudge she put on around the middle would be staying with her for a while. Which also meant, sadly, that her free cake ride was pretty much over and she had to start watching what she ate.
Erin scowled at her reflection. “Ain’t no way I’m givin’ up cake,” she growled. She poked a hoof at her reflection. “You tryin’ to take my cake? You think you’re mare enough to take my baked goods away?”
Her reflection didn’t have much to say on the subject, so Erin stuck her tongue out and giggled.
“I think that’s a vote for ‘cake for breakfast’,” Erin concluded.
Pony potbelly problems aside, she decided that she could always try to run the extra pounds off. And, since she preferred to eat after running, that meant ignoring her hunger for now, and walking past the kitchen to exit out her front door.
The early March air was bracing, to say the least. Winter was over, but that didn’t keep the chill out of the air, especially with the sun barely cresting the horizon. The air was crisp and clean in her nose and the early birds were twittering away in the treetops. She stretched her legs one by one as she looked around while planning out a route for her run.
Erin heard the sound of a door closing nearby and looked around to see her next door neighbor, a light grey pegasus with a blond mane, just leaving her house. Erin smiled and trotted up to the fence that separated their front lawns.
“Good morning!”
The pegasus jumped, her wings flexing slightly as she looked around. Her face relaxed into a smile when she saw Erin standing there.
“Oh, good morning! You’re up early.”
“I was going to go for a quick run this morning.” Erin said. “By the way, I don’t think I ever introduced myself last time we met. I’m Erin. I also go by Sunflower, if you like that better.”
The pegasus nodded. “I know. You’re the most popular subject of conversation around town these days. I’m Ditzy Doo, or just Ditzy.”
Erin blinked. “Ah...”
“I know what you’re thinking,” Ditzy said with a wink. “Ditzy is kind of a mean name, right? I mean, if you call someone a ditz, it must mean they’re a little goofy, right?”
“Uh, no, I…” Erin stammered to a halt. “Well, maybe a little?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Ditzy said waving a hoof. “I’m actually named after a flower, the ditzenium. Lovely silver center with golden petals.”
Erin sagged with relief. “Oh, really?”
Ditzy nodded soberly for a few seconds before bursting into laughter. “No, not really. But that’s my favorite joke!”
Erin joined in, giggling in spite of herself.
Ditzy shook her head. “No, no, sorry. I’m actually named after an aunt on Dad’s side of the family. ‘Ditzy’ was her nickname which, trust me, she earned. My mom thought it was a cute name but didn’t know what it meant.”
“So, your mom is a bit of a ditz?” Erin ventured.
Ditzy stared at her for a few seconds as Erin’s smile slowly turned awkward. Then she started laughing once again, much to Erin’s relief.
“You bet she was!” Ditzy said, grinning.
Erin breathed a sigh of relief before she returned Ditzy’s smile.
“Say, do you have any plans for tonight?” Ditzy asked.
“No, not really,” Erin said. “Just setting things up in the house.”
“Did you want to come over for dinner tonight? Meet my daughter? I’ll make my famous carrot casserole!”
Erin smiled. “That would be wonderful, thanks! What time should I come over?”
“We usually eat about six.”
“Should I bring anything? I have a bunch of leftover baked goods from my party at Sugarcube Corner, if you don’t mind them being a couple of days old.”
Ditzy grinned. “Oh, Dinky’s going to adore you. That filly has a sweet tooth. Sure, bring some over.”
“You got it,” Erin said with a sharp nod. The name Dinky seemed familiar, though she couldn’t remember where she’d heard it before. “You can even keep some, if you want.”
“You’re going to spoil us rotten,” Ditzy said, smiling and placing a hoof on Erin’s shoulder. “We’ll see you at six, then?”
“You got it.”
“Right,” she said, spreading her wings and flapping them a couple of times. “Well, it was nice meeting you again Sunflower, but I really have to get going if I want to be on time.” A couple of flaps later, and Ditzy was airborne. “See you later!” she called, waving a hoof.
“Bye!” Erin called, waving back. She watched for a few seconds as Ditzy flew away and then, with a happy smile and a growing warmth in her heart, Erin turned towards the semi-wild grasslands outside of Ponyville to start her morning run.
She started at a slow trot, getting the feel of things once again. Today felt like a clockwise day, so Erin turned right once she left the last road on the outskirts of town. The grasses were still wet with dew, and it wasn’t long before she was soaked halfway to the knee on each leg.
A few minutes later, Erin decided that she’d warmed up enough and let out a wild whoop while breaking into a gallop. She grinned into the wind as it streamed across her, making her mane and tail flow. Her legs were warming up nicely, and she pushed herself a little harder, the fields opening before her as she ran.
Ten minutes later she collapsed, wheezing, in a field of daisies. She’d made it maybe halfway around what had once been her usual circuit around Ponyville before her legs had just given up, which is why she was now in the somewhat undignified position of laying on her side and gasping for breath while wildflowers tickled her nose and ears.
In her previous stay in Ponyville, she’d run laps around the village at much higher speeds than she’d managed today, without even breaking a sweat until her third lap. Today, though, she was already at her limits.
She wondered about it for a while, as she sucked in huge lungfuls of air while stretching her legs to keep them from cramping up. Of course it had to be the enhanced musculature of her old pony body that made the difference. She had turned down those enhancements since she hadn’t wanted anything that would mess up the possibility of using magic. Besides, earth pony magic was supposed to give her enhanced strength and endurance.
As Erin lay there in the daisies and idly contemplated throwing up in spite of her empty stomach, she decided that the earth pony magic must not be kicking in quite yet.
After an uncounted number of minutes, Erin finally levered herself back to her hooves. Her legs felt weak and as wobbly as a foal’s. A gallop was obviously out of the question, so Erin decided to walk for a while. It took a few minutes before enough of her strength returned for her to go back to a trot.
It had been a long while since running had been this hard for her. When she’d first started going for morning runs back when she was a teenager, she’d had many days when she’d wanted to give up or just stay in bed. A few times, she actually had thrown up, which is why she always ate after she ran these days.
As Erin switched back into a walk, she realized that she would just have to build her endurance up again the old fashioned way: no Ascent and no earth pony magic, just effort, sweat and resolve.
She laughed in the early morning air.
“This is so going to suck,” she said, her mouth turning up into a rueful smile.
~~*Celestia*~~
The Royal Dining Hall was once again outfitted for breakfast. Two royal servants stood against the walls with stoic expressions on their faces, waiting for orders. They steadfastly ignored the flying spoon that weaved and bobbed its way through the air, wrapped in a golden aura. The spoon, loaded with maple-syrup laced oatmeal, approached the tiny alicorn colt seated at the table.
“Yum, yum. Isn’t this delicious, Verdant?”
The colt turned his head away stubbornly. “Nuh.”
Celestia sighed. “It really is very good. And it will make you grow up big and strong. You want to grow up to be big and strong, right?”
Verdant scowled at her and pounded his little hooves on the table. “Nuh.”
Through the centuries, Celestia had dealt with stubborn ambassadors, intransigent nobles, cantankerous trade representatives and unbending foreign rulers. She had learned methods to sway even the most relentlessly headstrong to see things her way. All of that was simple and straightforward compared to getting a young colt to eat his breakfast, though much more likely to cause international conflict.
Honey Heart stepped forward. “If I may, Highness?”
Celestia smoothed away the frown on her muzzle as soon as she realized it had appeared. “I suppose so.”
“Thank you,” Honey Heart said as her horn lit up.
Verdant eyed her with evident mistrust in his eyes as she took the spoon away from Celestia. The nursemaid returned the look cooly, arching an eyebrow.
“You don’t want this, Verdant?” Honey Heart asked.
Verdant shook his head, scowling like thunder.
“Good. That means that I get to eat it all,” Honey Heart said. The spoon dipped towards her mouth and she mimed eating it. “Mmmm. Oooh, this is delicious!”
The scowl faded from Verdant’s face as his ears lifted from laying flat on his head. A glimmer of curiosity crossed his features. Honey Heart dipped the spoon back towards the bowl, moving the spoon quickly so as to disguise the fact that she didn’t actually scoop up any more oatmeal. Then she mimed eating a second bite.
“Mmm. This is so good! I’m going to eat the whole bowl, Verdant.”
“Ah!” Panic crossed the colt’s face and he flung both forehooves towards his nursemaid. “No, no, no!”
“What? But you can’t have any!”
Tiny hooves pounded the table. “No, mine!”
“But you didn’t want any before. You want it now?”
“Yes!” Verdant exclaimed, his bottom lip jutting out in a world-class pout.
Honey Heart frowned at him before sighing. “All right. But you have to eat the whole bowl, then. Alright?”
Verdant nodded his head vigorously and reached out with his forehooves.
“First, say ‘please’,” Honey Heart said, holding the spoon just out of the foal’s reach.
Verdant looked almost on the verge of tears. “Please?”
“Now, that is a good boy,” Honey Heart said with satisfaction, lowering the spoon towards the suddenly-happy prince’s mouth.
Celestia watched, her heart aching at being excluded and her resolve building to change the situation, as Verdant began eating his breakfast, the spoon still held in Honey Heart’s magical grasp. The soft click of the door opening distracted her, and she looked over her shoulder to see Luna stepping into the room.
“Good morning, sister,” Luna said. Her horn lit up, and several small pastries lifted themselves off of the cart and floated towards her. “You wished to speak with me?”
“Yes, Luna, though it can wait until after you’ve eaten. How was the Night Court?”
Luna had just taken a large bite out of a pecan tart. She rolled her eyes before answering, her words muffled due to the food in her mouth. “Dull. Nopony much wishes to speak to me, it seems.”
“You shouldn’t talk with your mouth full, Luna,” Celestia admonished gently, chuckling when Luna glared at her.
Luna rolled her eyes at her, but still finished swallowing her tart before continuing. “I had a mere two petitioners before I closed the court.” She snorted with annoyance. “Warding the Dreamrealms, at least, has provided me with something to keep me busy. I had to clear away several phantasms, a shade or two, and even a baku before I could even begin to monitor our subjects’ dreams.”
Celestia straightened up. “A baku? I thought they were extinct.”
“Apparently not,” Luna said with a shrug. “I felt a little guilty chasing it off, to be honest. They are not ill-intentioned, but they are not harmless.”
Celestia bit her lower lip for a moment. If Luna was already overwhelmed, then her plan was in jeopardy. What she needed was some way to take the pressure off, to give her sister more time. The answer came to her in a flash of inspiration.
“Ah. I have an idea.”
Luna was in the middle of biting into another tart, raspberry this time. She made a circular motion with her hoof to indicate that Celestia should continue.
“How would you feel about re-establishing the Dreamguard?” Celestia asked.
She expected a reaction to this thought, and Luna didn’t disappoint. She began hacking and coughing on her tart, pounding on her chest and bringing her glass of juice up to her muzzle with her magic.
Verdant, distracted from his oatmeal by the display, goggled at her for a moment before he began giggling.
Celestia smiled fondly at him for a moment before addressing his nursemaid. “Honey Heart, could you take the young prince to the nursery and play with him for a while?”
“Of course, Highness.” Honey Heart bowed and lifted Verdant onto her back before leaving.
By this time, Luna had finally recovered enough to croak out the word, “What?”
Celestia shrugged. “Why not? The ponies didn’t always have us to ward their dreams, after all. Why not make them responsible for it once again?”
Luna scowled at that. “And what then? Shall I once again be relegated to the role of the useless Princess? Stuck away in a tower, merely raising the moon when you’re too busy to do so yourself?”
“Ah, in regards to that,” Celestia began, speaking carefully. “I’m afraid I have an ulterior motive for wanting to free up some of your time.”
“And what, pray tell, might that be?”
“I would like to take a step back from the government, and turn over many of my duties to you.” Celestia watched as confusion ran over her sister’s face. “I wish to be more available for Verdant. Naturally, I would still be nearby in case you needed my help or advice, but you would be the primary Princess in charge, running both the Day and Night Courts on your own.”
Luna stared wide-eyed back at her. “I… I am not certain I am ready for such a thing, Celestia.”
Celestia smiled comfortingly back at her, reaching across the table to pat her with a forehoof. “You dealt with things well enough while I was injured a few months ago,” she pointed out.
Luna scoffed. “That was both an emergency situation and also for a very short term.” She looked away before mumbling, “And I am certain that the whole time I was making nothing but mistake after mistake.”
“Untrue,” Celestia said gently. “Besides, this time you wouldn’t be alone, and the transition doesn’t have to be sudden. We can take some time with it, though I would like to get this started sooner rather than later.”
“How… how long would you want?” Luna asked, her voice faint. “Years?”
“At least five,” Celestia confirmed before taking a sip of her tea. “He would be in school by then, which will hopefully free up more of my time.”
Luna looked torn. If Celestia had to guess, her desire for recognition and respect were warring with her inner belief that she deserved neither. It wasn’t only for Verdant’s sake that Celestia wanted this time away from the throne, after all.
Finally, Luna took a deep breath and gave a sharp nod. “I’ll do it.”
Celestia smiled. “Thank you, Luna.”
~~*Mikel Rost*~~
Doctor Edwards leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers under his chin, and frowned across the conference table. “So, you wanted to show me something?”
Doctor Mikel Rost, a thin, tall black man in his early forties, nodded and grinned. “It’s right here; hold on.”
Mikel stood and reached down to the large wheeled trunk he’d rolled into the conference room with him. He undid the latches and flipped open the lid, causing a hiss of outrushing, shockingly cold air that caused a mist to roll along the floor.
“Liquid nitrogen,” he said as he pulled on a heavy pair of safety gloves. “No idea if it helps keep this dormant or not, but it seems crazy not to at least try.”
Dr. Edwards’ scowl deepened. “Keep what dormant, Mikel?”
In response, Mikel heaved at something hidden in the foggy depths of the trunk. What he lifted out was a large, flat-bottomed globe of thick acrylic with a handle along on top like a kettlebell. When Dr. Edwards saw what was inside, he surged to his feet with a panicked shout, his chair shooting backwards and hitting the conference room wall.
Mikel rolled his eyes at him. “Relax, Tom. It’s dormant, like I said.”
“Good God, man! How could you bring that here?”
“I told you, it’s harmless like this. I’ve been studying it for weeks, now.” He grinned. “Did you know it looks just a little bit like brain tissue under a microscope?”
“Does anyone know you have it?”
“Robert Thomson does,” Mikel said smugly. “He authorized my research.”
Dr. Edwards’ eyes narrowed. “I’ll be checking that with him, just so you know.”
Mikel shrugged, spreading his hands in front of him, palms up. The globe sat on the table, a discolored ring spreading away from the globe as the top was damaged by the extreme cold.
“Properties is going to kill you for the damage to the table,” Dr. Edwards said absently.
Mikel shrugged. “They can bill me.”
More time passed while Mikel waited for his old mentor to make up his mind.
“And what’s in it for me?” he asked finally.
Mikel’s grin widened. “Co-authorship on any paper we write. I’ll even let you have top billing.”
Dr. Edwards snorted. “We’ll be tarred and feathered if the wrong people find out we’re working on this.”
Mikel laughed, knowing that he’d gotten what he wanted. He reached out his hand as Doctor Edwards reached out his own. They shook hands across the table while the basketball-sized chunk of dormant Black Tide slowly warmed up between them.
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Hoopy McGee, you are the best. That is all.
And there goes the neighborhood.
Again.
Vaht?
Just thought I'd point out that Celestia actually has an aide called Raven or something, not Quillmark... but then again, with how ginormous her job is, it'd understandable that she'd have more than one, eh? XD And with how gigantic such a job is, they likely have to alternate as to whom works them since they lack the stanima alicorns have.
Found what I mentioned: http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Raven
I guess Celestia absorbs all of her food through her skin.
Also, I bet there's something important going on with Pinkie's dream shenanigans. I just want to see the moment when Erin makes a Pinkie Pie Swear, then gets horribly confused when she tries to figure out when she learned it.
You're not planning on having Celestia replaced, are you?
Wooo! New chapter!
It's nice to see Erin's back to making friends, and I would nominate Pinkie Pie for that Dreamguard gig.
Even nightmares have nightmares. They are us, and they are parties
Just one thing
Yeah, I make that mistake too sometimes.
Hmm... But how else are you supposed to eat?
Researching the Black Tide? This has BAD IDEA written all over it! What could possibly go wrong? Well you know, the whole planet being devoured again for one. The only possibly safe place to research it would be on an asteroid base in close orbit to the sun so if things do go wrong, the whole station shoots itself into the star. Of course this assumes that the black tide wouldn't just devour the sun...
they want to experiment on the ooze that nearly destroyed humanity....
.....slow clap.....human idiocy at its finest.....sigh.....good chapter though
*Whistles innocently*
I'm just going to sit over here with some popcorn and wait for the inevitable to happen... And no, there is no camera in my popcorn! What weird notions you people have...
(You can't distract ME with that Black Tide stuff! I know how to remember stuff from earlier in the chapter! I have a decent memory! I- OH! SHINY THING! GOTTAGETTHESHINYTHING!)
... And they just PLACE it on the Conference room table without ANY safety precautions Whatsoever. WOw. And these are two high level scientists, one the AUTHORITY on nanotechnology.
I don't know. Something doesn't seem quite right with that. Anyhow, great chapter, and I am curious to find out how Spike reacted to the movie he watched.
4775174 Yes, shouldn't that word be "talk," or something similar?
static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_super/2/20066/1063043-face3.jpg
4775083 4775117 4775129 4775174 4775284
Oh, dangit... this is where I realize that my editors pointed that out to me, I thought they meant something else and changed the wrong thing
Thanks for catching that!
Researching the black plague makes sense. When something almost kills you before you kill it, looking at a small piece of the dead thing makes sense. You want to learn all you can about it.
Also, it really shouldn't be that dangerous. The black plague was taking years or longer to kill the earth, and that was with a device specifically designed to manufacture it. Even if this small piece somehow becomes alive and starts self replicating, it is just to small to be a threat. They will simply kill it with fire/Celestia before it can become a threat. And if they have any brains, this research will be done on an earth with no life in a small staffed and well stocked building. That way, in the event of a catastrophic disaster, it still won't spread to Earth or Equestria.
Really, I would be far more interested in what they can learn from this.
This does not bode well.
This does not bode well at all.
Oh well, there goes my head cannon of Equestria's sun out the window, which was that long ago, before unicorns needed to move the sun, it moved by its own natural gravity, but then, one day, a bunch of unicorns got the brilliant idea to try to manipulate it, making the days longer or shorter to grow crops or something, and then when they f
ked up the suns orbit by doing this, they didn't know how to make it right again, since the calculus needed to determine exact orbits of celestial bodies is actually quite complex, and when they found what they had done, they tried to cover their trail, and fabricated stories involving old gods and the like.
However, if you wanted to have the sun "want" to be moved, then I guess you're going for something else then, which is fine as long as it stays consistent.
There is literally only one result of this showing up when google is used.
No, you idiots! This is the kind of stuff that makes fucking Sparks go "Nope!".
Ah, and Celestia takes a break. I just know there's going to be rioting in the streets and Twilight Sparkle becoming Twilight Snapple.
4775334 Get to the bunker! AHHHH! *Runs screaming in little circles*
Okay first off: MIKEL YOU F
ING MORON!
I can already see how that's gonna tie in with Erin's nightmare, damn it. Also, I really like your Celestia. Wonderful... I wouldn't call it scheme she's concocted. Either way, I can see it doing both her and Lulu a lot of good, though I also anticipate it leading to a lot of storyline complications. One can only imagine how much vacation time you'd accumulate after centuries of work.
"O meh gurd ur racist!" says the internet.
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No! The Black Tide with just consume the bunker! Follow me!
GET TO DA CHOPPA! *dramatic music plays in the background*
lol to the author's note at the bottom there.^^
Humanity:
th07.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/f/2012/109/1/0/let__s_poke_it_with_a_stick_by_johnjoseco-d4wwglo.jpg
Good
4775268
They remind me the typical scientists of "Alien": after five movies, they still don´t get experimenting with xenomorphs is a bad idea.
4775675 It ate the stick... This calls for... A BIGGER STICK!
Learning about the black tide is a very good idea.
Triying to do so using the same safety rules usually reserved for making a volcano for a cheap science project is not.
Ah' didn't know birds uses Twitter in Equestria.
Always a pleasure to see this update. I'm getting "Replacement Marigold" vibes from the
HoovesDoo household. Once Erin realizes the symmetry the gut check is going to hurt for both of us.I can't wait.
Also, didn't the Tide's nanites already get SCIENCE!-ed safely to get Ascent? Unless that was from the ring-cloud thing.
Also also, that stuff's inert even when it's thawed. No signal to activate it; since the Elements only got 90% of it we'd have heard if the junk was still spreadifying.
Also also also, because I like this story and I like stories that I like to be the best they can be, have a free bit of editing I noticed during my perusal:
I believe the underlined should be "lay"?
4775323
Ah yes, the 'Oh god how did I screw that up' defense, well, it won't protect you from having the blame placed squarely at your...
wait...
what?
Dr Edwards... Enlighten me, have he been in this story before? And if so hwo was/is he? I can't remember him.
i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/5781729024/hE1B5B800/
4775324
Never underestimate a small problem...it has a tendency to snowball into a bigger one if left uncheck.
Curious about the dream, I wonder what it represent to Erin. And, I am also curious about these Dreamguard and how they will look. Then, there is Erin's Earth Pony magic not kicking in... Heh, so many things to be curious about as this story continue onward~.
As for Celestia's plan, I think that was very nice of her to help Luna out, even with the utter motive. Luna deserved to feel a bit more appreciate, and Celestia did say she would be there for her to help if she need it, so it isn't like she's being left to the sharks. Wonder how that will play out, though, when the 'adventure' part of the story eventually kick in.
Heheheh, I won't be too surprise if that was the real Pinkie Pie in Erin's dream.
C&C:
”This… is Berk.
> Add an ending quotation mark. Also, it isn't surprising to see Spike watching 'How to Train Your Dragon', heh.
4775268
Which he had already previously studied for some time under a microscope which would likely have not been cooled itself in the slightest.
One a slide, in direct light so he could see. Which would additionally heat it up more. Were it to take the few minutes he'd likely take to put it back in it would be fine.
Were he to wait until after an hour of a conversation, it probably would still be fine.
If it were in fact already active the entire time and was just taken in far too small a sample to have the individual slides become active again. The pockets all around the planet that were popping up after the initial purging would have been a HUGE issue beyond what was already addressed.
That he would so readily take out the entire sample instead of a smaller chunk seems the more suspicious aspect.
Why bother showing the full stock of (probably metal; heavy) your material when a slide of the material is likely already on hand?
Really? Dangerous world ending piece of blob and you just let it sit there? If that was me, and I was dead set on studying it, I wouldn't let it outside the tub of liquid nitrogen for longer than a minute.
They're treating the Tide as if it had manners and will wait for them to finish talking. You better have a good reason for this development.
4775388 Good to know I'm not the only one that immediately googled it.
Are you insane seems like a VERY good question. Granted I personally think they need to research it... but still a very good question.
If you need me, I'll be watching with a bucket of popcorn from the safety of a helicopter.
4776150
This is the black plague. There is no way they would leave it unchecked long enough to be a problem. That would require weeks at least of it not being supervised. It just can't be a threat in hours or days. Not without somehow getting supercharged or something.
4775987 The minimum precautions for studying it would be to set up a Lab on a lifeless planet in another dimension. For fucks sake the end of the world was narrowly averted once already, getting tarred and feathered nothing the right people find out about this they will get their asses assassinated.
When the method of raising the sun has been mentioned, one can immediately guess Celestia and Luna will somehow be unable to do it and it will fall to either Twilight or (although that's pushing it a bit) to Sunflower.
Of course, it might have been just a world-building tidbit and not foreshadowing at all...
An oh my... experimenting on that will... oh well...
It was (not) nice knowing you, gentlemen.
4775417 Or more likely, becoming Princess Twilight... -_-
4775360 My head-canon is that it worked on it's own until Discord did something to it using, let's say... primordial chaos?
Hmm ... you know, after reading the comments and the chapter, I'm not about to jump on the panic wagon yet. It's inert Black Tide, and Celestia crushed it's "mind" at the end of "Sunflower." And humanity's study of the Tide's complexity did give rise to project ascent.
So it's definitely a Chekov's Gun, but whether it's getting fired at or by our heroes in the future remains to be seen.
I had two massive "Oh shit!" moments during this chapter. One was when Spike started watching How to Train Your Dragon. The other was the ending.
Sure, let's lug around a chunk of the nanomachines that almost ate the Earth while we have no idea if our one "safety precaution" actually works. Hey, Twilight?
I need a facehoof here, stat.
Thanks much, Twi.
But does this mean that Erin's now attuned to the Black Tide somehow?
Yeah that little Black Tide piece is going to cause a lot of issues. Also that is a prime example of human curiosity over other thoughts is self destructive.
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4775334
)
why not? just because it once nearly consumed the earth?
What could possibly go wrong? I mean, they already use its tech with Ascend. roundstable.com/forums/images/smilies/excellent.gif
(but yeah, the lack of german/Swiss Scientists involved guarantee failure
Ok ok to be a little bit more srious I tend to agree to this here:
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Well it made me smile, so good job with that one dl.dropbox.com/u/21167245/FiMFiction/Emoticons/misc_Lyra_happy.png