18. A Day In The Jungle
══════════════════════
T H E C O N V E R S I O N B U R E A U :
══════════════════════
CROSS THE AMAZON
By Chatoyance
Chapter Eighteen: A Day In The Jungle
The Big Truck was a tiny thing as it pressed onward over the rolling, bumpy desert. It seemed lost amidst the endless dunes and debris of what had once been the most dense, diverse and gargantuan jungle upon the earth since the advent of agriculture. But the tiny little vehicle threading its way between stumps was not alone.
Behind it followed other trucks, and cars, and cycles and buggies of all kinds. What had once been a small fleet of chasing vehicles had now grown into an armada. The original miners that had attacked the Mamá Gansa and lost a few compatriots trying to finish the job had called in every favor they had from every friend they knew. And those friends had done likewise. All wanted two things: the gaudy, noisy Big Truck with its diminishing accumulation of fuel, and the blood of the pair that had audaciously stolen it.
"I don't know how many! Many many!" Dropspindle had turned around and was using her sideview mirror now. She had begun to feel her cracked rib once more, and the effort of looking directly back through the rear window had become problematic.
"When it rains it pours. Heh. Morton Salt." Calloway was fighting the steering wheel as if it were an opponent in Street Beef Turbo X: Knacker Grabber Edition. The wheel often seemed to be using a cheat code.
"What?" Dropspindle still hadn't fully adapted to the random spouting of her compatriot.
"It's amazing how many things we say originally came from ad campaigns. Marketing is culture now, I guess."
"Speak for yourself, monkey-boy. My culture is traditional Equestrian!"
Calloway narrowly avoided a rather nasty pit in the ground. As he passed by it, he hoped it might catch one of the pursuers and wreck them. "Won't be for long. With nineteen billion humans gone pony, you'd better get used to old earth advertising slogans... and old earth everything."
"Doesn't mean all nineteen will make it. I don't think those boys behind us are going to be ponies."
Calloway was silent for a while. His face was grim and a little sad. "Yeah."
"Calloway?"
"Just thinking about WHOA!" He narrowly missed a dessicated section of log. "Sorry. You okay?"
"Ow... yes. That swerve... my rib is acting up today." Dropspindle gently massaged her barrel with a patch of thaumatism.
"This is difficult ground. But it's helping - we're staying ahead of those poor bastards. I just feel sorry for them."
Dropspindle seemed startled by that. Her ears lowered and she looked down, at her hind hooves dangling away from her, unable to reach the floorboards. "I... I should care about them too. I should worry for their survival, that they manage to get Converted in time. That they end up happy and contented. And here you are..."
"You've been through a lot." Calloway hazarded a glance in the rearview. So many cars. Why was this stupid truck so important? Or was it just pride? Had taking their special, fancy, flagship truck hurt their pride that much? Probably it was just there was nothing to do anymore and this was the most exciting thing that had happened to them in years. Men loved a good chase, a grand hunt, especially when they thought it was for pride and glory.
"I'm... I don't feel right, Calloway." Dropspindle's ears were flat to her skull, and her eyes were worried. "I don't feel like me."
Calloway nodded. "You aren't. I think you've seen too much, been through too much." The rolling dunes and debris was gradually thinning. The desert was increasingly cracked mud broken only by occasional historical attempts at underbrush. "You've had to face things you had no way to expect or prepare for. You've been tossed into the deep end, waaaayyy out of your element. Want some advice?"
Dropspindle clung to the seatbelt straps as best as she could and nodded.
"We apes evolved here. We know how this place works. We're part of this place. We know when to fight and when to run, and how much of each and how far to go. You don't. You're an alien from an alien universe. Stranger in a strange land. And..." The ground was very flat again - that would be an advantage to those that were chasing them. The Big Truck was better at rough terrain. Flat ground was a big equalizer. Calloway pressed on the accelerator, and tried to gain whatever lead he could before the mob made it past the dunes. "...and one of the big things we learn here is don't try to be something you aren't. Gets you into trouble every time. Stick with what you are, who you are. That's what works. Let me be the killer ape."
Instantly she was angry again. "BUT YOU TOLD ME TO HELP!"
"Yes! Yes I did! And you helped!" The rearview confirmed that the motor armada was now on the cracked mud plains. "We wouldn't be here without what you did! But you have to understand that ALL you did was scare those guys in that truck! YOU didn't hurt anybody! THEY reacted poorly. And found the only tree left in the Southamerizone. Which was awesome. But NOT your fault!"
"I don't know if I can..."
At that point the rear window exploded. Calloway and Dropspindle were showered with tiny bits of safety glass. The windscreen sported a neat little hole around which 'Cracky The Safety Spider' danced in their bumping vision. Calloway stared at the hole, and Cracky, and brushed some glass from his hair. "Look around! What's near us?"
Both human and pony wildly searched through window and mirror. Dropspindle saw it first. "The biker's back! A biker, anyway. He brought a friend, sitting behind him. Some kind of long metal thing. He's fussing with it!"
"Rifle of some kind. Blew out our back window. Which side is he on?" Calloway couldn't spot the attacker. The fast bike must have zoomed ahead of the pack for a quick kill and all the glory.
"My side... no, your side... mine again! And behind us! He's not getting closer!"
"I guess they learned from last time. Dammit. He'll probably try for our tires. He won't shoot the fuel, they want the fuel." The back of the Big Truck was solid with tanks and hoses, everything bolted or welded into place. Most of the impromptu gauges and dials on the dashboard were associated with those containers. Aiming at the back window was a hell of a risk... then again, if they thought they had no chance at all to win... or if they were scared enough to risk losing the truck entirely... humans would do that. They would definitely do that. Maybe the window was an accident. Maybe they were aiming for the tanks and missed? 'Scorched Earth' wasn't just for the former Russians of the Midasiazone.
"Shit." Calloway couldn't do crap about this new biker... or the same biker with a friend. This time he was being cagey, and they could nibble the Big Truck to death, get a lucky shot on a tire or someone's head, or a direct hit on the biggest fuel tank, and that would be the end of the ride. Dropspindle was already broken, the last thing she needed was any more human crap on her conscience.
Then again, if she was dead, her mental health would no longer matter. Dammit. This was the last straw. Calloway muttered under his breath: 'Celestia, Luna, whatever - if you're there, if you listen at all, let us get out of this, with Droppers intact, and I promise - I swear - I will get my pony on without complaint or hesitation. First chance. On my honor.' He tried weaving, desperate to see the bike and its riders. He caught a brief flash of red and black in the rearview, the bike weaving from side to side behind him. They were still frightened, that was clear. Good.
"Dropspindle. We're in a desperate place and I hate to ask you for this bu..."
"I'M ON IT! I can take those bastards out EASY!" Her horn was already glowing, her ears even flatter, her nostrils flaring.
"NO!" Calloway yelled directly at her, straight at her ear. She jerked at the shock, and used a forehoof to rub her pinna. "Listen! Listen to me Dropspindle. Yes, this is earth. Yes, sometimes we have to do violent things here, deadly violent things. But YOU AREN'T HUMAN! Remember your raising's girl! You are a pony, and you haven't killed anybody - yet. Keep it that way. KEEP BEING A PONY. You don't want any part of what we are. Scare those bastards, make them back off, make them lose aim... but NO KILLING! You understand me?"
"Then how..."
"Be clever. Find a way." Calloway swerved just as he noticed the rider on the back of the bike taking aim. The shot was loud, but there was no sound of impact. A miss. "If you kill, even once, deliberately, then you don't have the right to hate me anymore. Not one bit!"
"...YOU!"
He hadn't heard the first part of what she had said, but he had a pretty good guess it was another example of her newly expanded English vocabulary.
Dropspindle watched the biker pair as they darted back to her side and behind. It would be so easy to make a small thaumatic bubble right inside the curve of the nearest helmet and... no. No, no... whatever happened, live or die, one thing had to remain true: she was better than that damn ape Calloway. That had to remain true. His fault. It was his fault she was here at all. He was to blame, all of his kind was to blame.
There had to be another way. Make their jackets glow? The sun was bright, that spell was best in the dark. Perfect for moonlit parties in...
A wave of sorrow and loss crippled Dropspindle. She bent over from the emotional impact of it. Equestria. How could she ever fit in there again, after this? How could she ever take back her life after all that had happened? After all that she had seen and done? Later. That stuff was for later. The bike. The bike had to be dealt with! And no killing!
Okay, no glowing cloth. What else? Apport their duds? Make the naked apes even more naked? Would they even notice in the middle of their human bloodlust?
That wouldn't work. Probably just make them feel cooler and more sprightly. In this heat, it would be a blessing.
Take the color of their clothing away? Pointless. Wouldn't even notice. They just kept weaving, back and forth, taking shots, trying to...
Weaving! The jackets were some kind of... something hard and flat and shiny, but under them was loose woven cloth. Thin, but cloth. Cotton, maybe. Threads. Fibers. Ausokinesis!
Dropspindle's horn began to glow a light, bright, eerie shade of blue. Calloway blinked at how glaring it was. "What are you up to? Dropspindle? Droppers? What... what are you doing?"
"Shush! I'm weaving!" Dropspindle seemed almost gentle. Calloway drove straight, trying to help her by not losing her target. He would just have to hope she hadn't completely lost her soul.
In the rearview mirror, Calloway watched as the bike and its two riders slowed down rapidly and apparently stopped. Their heads, their helmets seemed to have vanished, covered in what looked like spiderwebs or gauze. The bright red and black was gray now.
"HA! You play with ponies, you'll lose your shirt!" Dropspindle had never figured out human gambling games, but she had heard some colorful expressions in Huancabamba.
"What did you do?!!" It was less a question than a command. Calloway watched, in quick glances, as the bike vanished from view behind him and was swallowed by the vast armada of chasing vehicles.
"I used ausokinesis on them!" She was grinning, ears high and a happy lilt in her voice. "I didn't hurt them one bit - did you see? Did you see how they stopped, safely? They didn't fall off or anything!"
"Yes, I saw! Great job - you didn't harm them one bit. But what did you actually do?" Calloway felt a great burst of relief. Dropspindle could have fallen entirely, she could have done something from which she could never recover... but she hadn't. In her moment of choice, in her Chapel Perilous she could have been taken by the soulless mad gods of earth, but she had remained true to her real and vital Equestrian soul.
"I rewove their undershirts. It was blintzing simple, I just had the fabric weave itself uncontrollably, cover as much surface area as possible. It's what we're taught NOT to do - 'never let the spell get out of hoof' - that's what my teacher always said. But I did - and it's probably still trying to keep them covered up!"
"It looked like spider webbing." Calloway felt like singing. She hadn't even noticed, but he had. Dropspindle had used a pastry expletive for the first time since she... had broken. Never in his life had he ever enjoyed hearing a pony swear in pastry so much before.
"Well... there's only so much cloth, so many fibers. They'll still try to cover everything, but they just get thinner until the spell wears out."
Calloway laughed. Who could have imagined that textiles could have a legitimate offensive use in combat? "So those shirts aren't going to try to conquer the planet?"
Dropspindle giggled at that. The sound was a heavenly chorus to Calloway's ears. She hadn't lost her soul. She wasn't completely destroyed. "No, silly. Spells wear out. Like my... um... that language... enchantment."
"Spanish?"
"Yeah, that!" Dropspindle's ear's flicked. "Anyway, I stopped them from hurting us, but I didn't hurt them!"
Calloway was beaming. "I am so proud of you! I was worried... nevermind. Ne-ver-mind. Just... keep being yourself, okay? I know... what you think of me, but I absolutely do not hate you in return. I admire you. I want to be Equestrian myself. I have no doubts, and no hesitation now. I want to go pony so bad it hurts. And it would hurt me for the next three hundred years if the price of that was... was you not being... you being turned into... just be a pony, okay? Just stay pony, Dropspindle."
Dropspindle was silent for a while, occasionally glancing behind them. The armada had fallen back, probably to deal with their enshrouded comrades. If they had any doubt of magical powers arrayed against them, that would be gone now. "I don't hate you. I'm... I'm sorry I said that. I'm sorry for... a lot of things. I just... this... this has been difficult!"
Calloway wanted to pat her, to reassure her, but after the incident at the soy plantation he was wary. Her emotional state seemed better, but that could just be in the moment. Better was not fixed. Whatever had gone wrong in Dropspindle wouldn't just vanish because she had bested the demon growing inside her. Sometimes scars never healed. "Yes... it has. But thank you."
"I did save us, didn't I?"
"Yes, you did, and I am grateful and impressed. But I mean about... not hating me. I don't want you to hate me. I'd hate that."
Dropspindle giggled. Calloway followed. "I'd hate having you hate me. That would be pretty hateful."
"Hate. Hate. Hate-ful. Hat-eh-ful. Huh."
"What is it?" Calloway felt a chill run down his back.
"That word. 'Hate'. It's hard to say all of a sudden. And it's like it doesn't mean anything. Hate. Haayy-tuh. Hay-tuh. Spatzle, that's weird."
"Let's... let's keep the talking to a minumum, okay?" Calloway hoped it was just her pony mind reasserting itself. There was no room in the uncompromised pony mind for hate, no place where it could live. "I'm afraid... I'm worried that... you said all spells eventually wear out. At least on this side of the Barrier with all the entropy and everything. If you lose English too..."
Dropspindle's ears, so tall before, slammed flat against her skull. She nodded, her muzzle tightly shut.
For some time, as they made their way across the lumpen desert of what had almost certainly once been Brazil, it had seemed as if they were finally alone. There was no sign of the armada of vehicles desperate to overtake them. But there had been signs of the greater reason that Calloway kept the pedal to the metal.
A wind was growing, a familiar wind, the same that had chased them all the way back in distant Huancabamba. It pushed at the sand and at them, granting marginal extra speed. It cooled the broiling air that they had still not entirely gotten used to. It wrinkled the global smog layer over their heads, rumpling the blanket of Man's thoughtless expulsions.
Dropspindle, unable to remain entirely quiet, had turned to singing in her native language. Speaking in Equestrian would not affect the enchantment that granted her the use of English. The sounds she made were strange to Calloway's ear, a barnyard of curiously sweet, complex animal noises that were also language. The tune of the songs she sang were uncannily earthlike, however, and some were distinctly catchy. He found himself humming and La-La-ing along with some of them, once he had heard enough of the melody. This made Dropspindle sing with much more gusto, a great smile on her muzzle, her ears high and her head bouncing along with the rhythm. During one particularly bouncy piece, she stomped base with her forehooves on her seat, the cabin walls, and the glovebox.
It was during a repeat of one of her earlier acapella efforts - while she did not know very many songs, the ones she did know she apparently loved a great deal - that Calloway noticed a gleam of silvern metal behind them. The bastards were coming once more. Not even two mind-mangling demonstrations of eerie alien forces could dissuade them. Then again, not one example that they had been given had directly caused any one of them any damage at all. They were obsessed, they were angry, but they were not utterly dim - they could recognize patterns.
They could grasp that however bizarre the powers used by those that had stolen their Big Truck were, the strange results were - of themselves - harmless. The armada would not be stopped by silly tricks this time, or ever again.
"Dropspindle?"
"ʨʢ₮₮ʚ¸ѯ ʘɸ¹ ɅǂƫƔȴɂǁ¬ƾ ʑɵѯѯʑ ȝʚ¤ϪΞѯґ ҩ¹ᴥ₮₹₺ⱴ¸ ʨʢʚ¸ ʘƾʑƔƔɵȝʚ¤¸¬Ϡϐ... Huh?" Dropspindle looked briefly embarrassed, her ears flicking down then up again to stay at a quizzical half-mast. "What? I mean..." She instantly closed her muzzle tight, remembering the issue about using English too much.
"We have company again. And I think... this time... they aren't going to be dissuaded by tricks." Calloway tried to give her a reassuring smile. "However clever they are. I think by now they know we aren't out to hurt them. Not deliberately, anyway."
"What do we do? Ulp!" She placed a forehoof flat to her muzzle as if trying to keep her own mouth shut.
"That's a very good question. I don't know. Yet. We have some time still, they're getting closer but they're still pretty far back. They're..." Calloway hazarded a glance behind, through the rearview. "Oh, jesus fuck."
"ϠϐϑϞѯ¬?" Dropspindle turned around, as best she could, to look out the absent, broken rear window of the Big Truck. "ʢʚʘɸ!"
"Yeah... I agree."
The armada was there, dozens of vehicles, all driving as hard as they possibly could in the same direction, following behind Dropspindle and Calloway in the Big Truck. The many cars, trucks, bikes and buggies were clearly making every effort to catch up - and likely pass by the pair in their stolen contraption.
Behind the armada of cars was something more important than vengeance or retribution or recovering stolen property.
The rising air pressure made Calloway's ears pop. The effect was so sudden and powerful he almost lost his sense of balance. The Big Truck weaved but did not crash.
The armada was coming, but it no longer cared about Calloway and Dropspindle, because Equestria was coming too, right behind it, and Equestria was coming faster.
Stats
Page generated in 0.03 seconds
Total duration
1,062 users online
1,944,460 hits today, 2,004,447 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Ooooh dayum! Its gettin heated!
I am curious what anyone thought of my use of (hopefully unearthly seeming) symbols to represent spoken Equestrian. One alternative for Dropspindle's singing, was to do this:
This is inspired by Houyhnhnms of Swift's Gulliver's Travels, which I have referenced before in my stories. I could have gone with this sort of thing, I still could. A third alternative is what I have already been doing for the last million-plus words:
My thinking was to try something different than the above, which I feel has become a dull and usual method of dealing with the problem of a form of speech not entirely within human vocal capacity. I don't picture native Equestrians sounding like dolphins or anything - they use language, they aren't making whistles, clicks and squeals. But I do, in my head, hear somewhat horse-like sounds, though more melodious and less earthlike by far. I just can't represent what I hear with the alphabet.
I tried something new, in this story, in this chapter. If there are any opinions, I would be curious to hear them.
Dropspindle will loose the ability to speak entirely soon. Equestria will eat them all sooner.
6254252
I like the Houyhnhnms, but very few ponies act like them. It is a shame because the Houyhnhnms are everything humans should be:
The Houyhnhnms are rational. They are what apes and equines should be but not.
As for the symbols, it is your story. Just so you know, Text-To-Speech reads the names of codepoints for which the voice does not have phonemes.
6254477
Does this mean that my choice here would make a nightmare of this passage for any blind or visually impaired readers? I have tried these symbols on what online TTS services I can find, and they just ignore the symbols entirely. They don't read them as anything at all. But you are suggesting that a better reader, or a different reader would... read them as numbers? Like 'Alt-Plus-Zero-Nine-Five-Four-Two' or some such? For each symbol?
How many blind readers do I even have? Anypony? If you are a blind or sight impaired reader who uses text to speech, let me know. That could influence my choices here, depending on the level of burden my choice here is making. You see, visually, I have selected unicode symbols that look fantastic - really alien, really curvy and otherworldly and not at all like any conventional writing that any language on earth uses. I was very careful to select the most science-fiction looking symbols I could. The text that Dropspindle speaks looks, visually, on the page, like something out of Star Trek. Naturally I am a bit chuffed and feel clever about that.
On the other hoof, I don't want to make any potential blind readers - if I even have any - have to wade through endless torment or suffer skipping randomly to find where the useful text continues. That would suck. I want to be good to everyone, if I can. But... rather than make arbitrary changes, I need to know if there is sufficient reason to do so.
I suppose, if I have blind readers dedicated to my stories, I would probably go with the Houyhnhnm option, if I had to choose. I think I want something there, as opposed to just shining it all on with vague references to how nice pony speech is.
Let me know.
6254605
I like the symbols, but I admit I also like it when an alien language is spelled phonetically. When I was in grade school they taught kids international phonetics (those characters used to show the correct pronouciation in the dictionary) because there are a lot of ways to spell each phonem in French, and there are a lot of them, compared to English. And then I learned English and read Tolkien...
6254252
I liked the symbols. It "reads" as alien yet pretty, and I could tell what was going on as soon as I saw it. I think I like it better than the transliterated Equestrian example. On the other hand, I'm not sure what my e-reader will think of it...
Is it even possible for humans to pronounce Equestrian language? Does it require parts we don't have? Would Calloway even be able to say, "Dropspindle" in Equestrian? And would that be her True-Name, giving him power over her?
6254605
On a MacIntosh, the MacIntosh reads the entry for the codepoint; that is to say, the MacIntosh reads the official name of the codepoint. The MacIntosh spells the symbols for the listener.
I love how stupid those men are.
They're probably wasting more fuel trying to get the truck back than it's worth.
Then again, if they were smart they probably wouldn't be In this situation at all.
6254252
Personally, I like the use of alien alphabets for alien languages. It's only appropriate.
In any case, the theme of this chapter seems to be "unraveling." Undershirts, language spells, reality... Just about the only thing that ended up more intact at the end of the chapter than the beginning seems to be Dropspindle's equinity. A very good thing, yes, but there are much more immediate concerns at the moment.
6255007
I can confirm this, as a developer with some accessibility experience -- OSX VoiceOver reads unrecognized punctuation by telling you what the symbol is. (I've done some work making YouTube more usable for visually-impaired people who are on the site to listen to the videos.)
I have not, however, tested to see how VoiceOver would treat IPA. If it would actually render it properly phonetically, then you could get the best of both worlds -- symbols that actually do represent how the language would sound to a human ear, that look like what a Westerner would consider an alphabet instead of hieroglyphics, that look sufficiently foreign while being tantalizingly close to something you MIGHT be able to read if only you knew the language... but also SOUND that way.
EDIT: I've tested it. It DOES read IPA! I went and grabbed the Wiktionary Foreign Word of the Day page, and it rendered this:
Pronunciation[edit]
IPA(key): [pæ.ˈtæjʰ]
as
"Pronunciation. Left bracket. Edit, link. Right bracket. IPA, link. key, link. patayh." (Or at least that's my best non-IPA rendition of what the word sounds like.)
(I've snipped out some structural information that it also reads aloud such as "List, one item." because this is something a screen-reader user would be used to, and including it would give the wrong idea to a user not familiar with accessibility tools.)
I really feel bad for Dropspindle. Facing human hatred head on with an Equestrian mind.
Hm, that made me curious. Do you know that word "blin" is actually used as mild swear in Russian? Akin to "damn" in usage.
6256530
No, I did not! Could it be that the pastry, 'Blintz' is based on saying damn? An interesting thought!
6254252
I loved the symbol use! Very... I don't want to say 'basic', but it somehow fits. It's strangely relaxing, in a sense, to see Dropspindle relaxing enough to slip back into Equestrian.
I also find it both a sign of desperation and an intriguing bit of coming to terms with the situation on Calloway's part that he actually invokes Celestia and Luna. Seems like they're listening, thankfully.
I... hm. I think the biggest thing for me at this point is that the pair seem to be at least somewhat back to "normal", and it's a relief to see. I've not really connected to characters like this since... ... well, it's been a while. Fiddler's Green and Human in Equestria, it's been that kind of a while. I haven't been this captivated in a long time, and it's great to feel this feeling again.
6256688
Well, some researchers claim (and it really seems to be true) that "blin" is the most popular swearing in Russia, more popular than actual obscenities because of it's mildness. So you could say that russians swear pastry all the time :)
Dropspindle might have reverted a bit, but the change is still there. She still sees violence as the option it always was. Kotani is the one who has to talk her out of it in this chapter. She is exhilarated at the simplicity, the effectiveness, the utter immediacy of it. Something in her brain has been unlocked, a fitting contrast to how converted humans' capacity for violence is locked down and suppressed.
Were it not so relatively late in Chat's chronology of the Earth being swallowed up, Dropspindle probably would have booked it for the nearest PER center at the end of this adventure. Even if she decides never to kill, she is still now of capacities similar to the Chatoverse PER's human founders. She can use force; she could even be coercive if she gave it a shot, I bet. The ultimate infiltrator, a native Equestrian who got a taste of the action. Everyone would trust her, and in her wake would be a colorful highway of confused newfoals waking up from the princesses apologizing on her behalf.
6256984
That... is one hell of a cool notion. I am soooo tempted.
Well looks like you guys really went to town commenting on this chapter so I think I'll skip on saying anything real big since its probably already been talked about to death.
Still I'm glad to see Dropspindle has regained some of her sanity. I was really scared we were gonna lose here. Still I wonder how there gonna get out of this one the barrier is right on there tails.
Well Chay, you made me think of this... with a pony:
Brings back memories of when I was four.
*minimum
6254252
Whichever option you use in any given story, us Yahoos will appreciate it. ;)
6256688 Damn the pastries, full speed ahead!
After so many stories, I am glad to see the simplicity of another alphabet used to denote Equestrian speech. Considering the back and forth communication, that is the best choice. I have been thinking for a long time about the possibility of using horse and other animal samples to build a library of phenomes for Equestrian speech, but.... That is a level of dedication that I personally do not have.
… On a more serious note, I have been dreading this chapter since the last one. I imagined Dropspindle looking out the back window and opening up hornfields causing weapons to fall away with burnt hands still attached to them. I don't want Dropspindle to kill anyone, but I don't understand how Calloway could suddenly become the still small voice. Everything he has done and said has shown him as apathetic, and his thoughts never gave the impression that he was lying to himself or covering up jealousy.
Great job not killing anyhuman, Dropspindle! Except for presumably giving them mage plague by using magic so close to their bodies (or is the border of the field precise enough that it's safe?)
She's getting a little better, or at least not lashing out very violently now.
"Who I am?" is something I ask myself very often. I'm certainly not the saintly pony type, but lately, this very toxic and bitter vehemence I've been feeling lately just isn't feeling right or like myself either. Maybe I just need things to really slow down again to catch my breath.
That's one of the things I like about your stories, aside from the word palettes, wish fulfillment, attention to detail, world building, knowing someone else sees issues with how things are, is that it makes you think. Sure, some heavy stuff yes, but cake made of all light frosting doesn't make a good mental meal, though the reverse with hardtack all the time can be burdening too. Balance, "happy medium", that's something there to go for...that I need to once again.
Thanks again for the writing, and the breather, I feel better now. Needed that.
Looks like the armada will no longer be a problem.