Myou've Gotta be Kidding Me

by DataPacRat

Spoiled Spoils

"Trinkets. Trifles. Trash!"

The only reason I didn't dramatically sweep the whole table clear was that doing so would make me hurt more, which would put me in an even worse mood.

"Is this," I at least waved my hoof dramatically, "really the best that can be found in the whole land? I could make better in my sleep - and, I'm pretty sure, I have, at least once."

The regent glared back at me. "You wanted magical objects. These are everything that I've been able to lay my hands on."

I shook my head in disgust. "I would have done better staying at home - it's not even worth the effort to pack up these lighters and heaters and coolers and sharpeners and softeners and... so on, to bring with me."

"Well, pardon me for not living in a continent full of unicorns."

"Eh - it's not your fault, it's mine, at least partly. I let my hopes for what I'd find override my good judgment... and, more importantly, my good planning. It seems like your cloak really is the most valuable piece. Tell me about it."

"There is a secret to its magic, without which it is useless - a secret it took me years to figure out."

"Yes, you're very smart. The sooner you finish, the sooner we can all move along."

"Hrmph. You're taking it from me, but not letting me have my last fun with it?"

"This whole world runs on story symbolism, at least a little. One of the most powerful pieces of a story is making things dramatic by putting a time limit on things, so the hero can save everyone at the last second. It's hard to do that - and I've already managed to break some of those story bits halfway through, which means that even if the world tries to push me to finishing things at the last moment, I'm as likely as not to break that and have that moment pass by before I finish, thereby dooming us all. Are you willing to bet your life, and the lives of everyone else, that taking the time for your 'fun' won't be just more than the time I need?"

"... and you're living with that pressure on you all the time?"

"Eh; I can rest a bit while waiting for the things I can't speed up. But even then it's always scribble, scribble, scribble, writing down any ideas I've missed coming up with so far. Right now I want to scribble down whatever I can about your cloak."

"Fine. To get it to work, you just have to be willing to kill whoever you're ordering around if they don't do what you tell them."

"... Lovely." I thought about the situations in which that would work; and, even more important, what having that option available would do to someone. This one thing alone could spur the creation of a continent-spanning, honest-to-goodness, Evil Empire. I instantly mentally dubbed the thing the 'Cloak of the Lesser Evil', and resolved to lock it away as securely as possible, not to be taken out for anything short of any even greater evils it could be used against - such as a world-destroying threat. After thinking that through, I took a second thought, and took another look at my assumptions; whereupon I asked, "Is there any other way to make it work?"

"Why would I need another way?"

"... Right. In that case - I want you to be fully satisfied about making the best use of the cloak. So I suggest that you use its full power to order me to help you to the best of my ability."

"You want me to order you to help me?"

"Not especially - but I also don't want you chasing after me to try getting it back."

"Well - I can't see how doing that would make my life any worse. So." He glared at me - presumably getting ready to kill me if I didn't comply. "Help me, as best you can."

Upon hearing those words, I ran my mind through what was becoming a well-worn train of thought. Equis getting destroyed would be about the worst thing that could possibly happen to the dragon before me; so I should do whatever I could to prevent that fate; which I could best do by gaining the maximum possible understanding of local physics; including figuring out the mysteries of magic; and, at this precise moment, acquiring that cloak to figure out its triggering mechanism, power source, and details of how it forced its targets to obey was the best way I had to maximize my chances of helping the dragon as much as I possibly could.

So I held out my hoof, and said, "I can best do that if you give me the cloak."

He stared at me for a long moment, then shook his head. "Either that really is what will help me the most - or it's losing its power, and me relying on it will put me in danger." He unbuckled the clasp, swirled it from his shoulders, and draped it over my leg. I tried not to wince.

I examined the thing - black, of course, and as soft as the lightest down; if my skin weren't covered in chemical burns, it would be quite comfy; maybe even moreso than the cloak the torc I'd gotten from the Great Battlefield could make. Of course, I'd read all the classical fantasy literature, and I knew that I didn't want that Evil Empire forming around myself any more than I wanted it to form around this dragon; so I gently (more for my sake than the cloak's) folded it up on the pallet in front of me.

Resting on top of the pile of black cloth (or whatever it was) was that brooch. A fairly small blue gem in the middle of a pony-hoof-sized circle of gold, with eight spokes; a silver ring curled around what was effectively the top spoke, through which was threaded the chain attaching it to the cloak. "And what about this?"

"It's just another trinket. It always makes its way back to its owner - and punishes anyone who tries to stop it, with exactly the amount of effort they use turned against them."

"What - it flies through the air, and pushes thieves out of its way?"

"Nothing so dramatic. Before it was mine, it was a fisherwolf's - and after it was stolen from him, he found it again in a fish he caught, along with the thief's hand. He said his mother lost it when their home was flooded, and her father lost it inside a prostitute. Before that, the stories get less credible."

"Oh really." I eyed the thing with more interest; that wasn't quite like any magic I'd yet come across. The gem implied it was powered the usual way, the same as my wands and Equestrian gem-torches - but instead of just firing off a spell or maintaining a simple effect... the way it was being described, it sounded like it came much closer to fiddling with the laws of probability to ensure a certain outcome came to pass - or, in other words, it sounded a lot closer to an Outcome Pump than standard spells, which might mean I could use it to focus in on the details of my theory that that was the basis of all magic. But back to the present, "And how to I keep it from making its way back to you?"

"It knows its owner. I just gave it to you - so until you give it away, or sell it, or die, it'll keep going back to you, and bring the cloak with it."

"So if I accidentally leave it behind somewhere...?"

"One way or another, it'll catch up."

A thought occurred to me. "Can it tell the difference between being left behind, and being put in a drawer?"

He grinned, rather toothily. "Why do you think I've been wearing that ugly cloak for the last five years straight?"

"... Dæven." Me and the crew tended to hang around docks and sailors a lot - so the parts of the language I was picking up the fastest were, shall we say, the saltiest.

---

I let the regent arrange for a couple of his griffins to pull me in a cart back to the docks, and to the Mikoyan. It seemed they'd been ordered to stay put - but somebody was on watch duty, because by the time we got there, every single individual was turned out on deck and leaning over the rails to watch our approach, regardless of their usual shift.

Captain Red took the lead, and walked across the gangplank to the dock. She glanced at the regent, then carefully looked at me from horn to tail.

"Yeah, it's me," I said.

"So many questions," she said, and sighed. "What needs to be told right away?"

"We can start getting ready to leave. He," I nodded at the regent, "should talk to Firebough for a few minutes - he'll be leaving soon, too, and I suggested he head back to First Settlement to be Firebough's regent there. And I'd really appreciate it if someone could crack open the medicine chest and my spa kit for aloe and burn ointment. Oh, yes, and we're going to need to go over the ship's security protocols again, soon; I was able to steal my goggles from you without a hitch."

"... one of these days," she said, as the griffins took my pallet out of the cart and carried it, stretcher-like, onto the ship, "I'm going to stop under-estimating you. I just lost all the points I'd saved up so far - and so did half the crew. Amethyst and Blanche are going to be smug about betting on you surviving for weeks - even after I saw you get eaten by a dragon, not get thrown up, and without a single wand on you."

"I may have taught you everything you know about wands - but that doesn't mean I taught you everything I know. We can talk more when we're on our way and without the extra ears. I don't suppose you know of any magic or potion or something to grow hooves quickly?"

"Maybe your zebra friend knew something, but I don't."

"Then I'm probably going to be staying off my feet for a good while, while I heal up. Again."

---

I was more than happy to watch the ground and sea fall away from us, as we left that city behind. It might not have smelled quite as bad as First Settlement - but that didn't mean I was endeared to it.

The slathering of various lotions across my whole hide made me sticky, smelly - and almost made me turn into a puddle from relief from the sting of the burns. I'd had a long day, but managed to keep myself awake long enough to tell Red, Blanche, Amethyst, and Micro the outlines of what happened - leaving out the specific detail about the opals embedded in my reticulum, only saying that I had a last-ditch backup piece of magic I'd prepared ahead of time for just such an occasion.

I rather enjoyed the looks I got from them.

"So, in sum," I somewhat sleepily summarized, "The regent gets to play regent somewhere safer for him than that city; Firebough gets a somewhat better cover story for while he's away; we've handed off our prisoners to the local authorities, such as they are; I'm a little worse for wear; we've got two new facets of magic for me to try to figure out while we're on our way; and I might have acquired a minor curse for this brooch and cloak to keep sneaking up on me, which might be them trying to tempt me into becoming some sort of Evil Empress. Oh, and that manticore is still somewhere ahead of us, trying to play assassin - the regent kept it from killing his dad by ordering it to 'go away'. How was your day?"

Micro managed to keep a completely straight face as she said, "Oh - can't complain."

Red grumbled, "That's only because you didn't join the betting pool."

Micro didn't quite manage to keep a completely straight face as she said, "I've known her longer than you. I might not have been willing to bet on her having survived - but at least I knew better than to bet against it."

"Girls, girls," I complained, "I've got something like a massive sunburn in places where I didn't even know I had places, and I'm not looking forward to finding out how bad my nightmares tonight are going to be, but I don't want to add your squabbling into my dreams. I just want to lie down, let the pups nuzzle up for a while even if it hurts, and let tomorrow get here as fast as possible... and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. If I'm lucky, some, if not all, of my aches and pains will be gone by then. Think that's a plan that has any chance of succeeding?"

---

As it turned out, my dreams that night weren't nightmares at all. They were actually quite peaceful, mostly patchworks of your basic flying around the landscape scenarios.

When I finally woke up, I was somewhat surprised not to be in any pain at all. I just lay there, luxuriating in the absence of hurt, even if things did feel a bit odd.

And then I opened my eyes, and I looked all around, and I looked at myself.

And then I tried to say "Dæven" again, but all that came out was a sort of dry, grating 'kraa' sound.

---

(Author's Note: Barrel of fun's story, Wild Card, has had the second half of its crossover with Missy's future in its latest chapter.

Comments

[Forevermore]

Oh lord, what's happened to her THIS time?

[Nighzmarquls]

Could this be some transformation in my rationality fiction?

[DataPacRat]

1362409
It's not fairly obvious? Hrm; that wasn't my intent. Would it be better if I changed the second-last word from 'kraa' to 'caw'?

[Nighzmarquls]

1362420

Oh... a bird? meh but I suppose that could be interesting

[RealityDowngrade]

Woah, wait... the Wild Card crossover is in the future for Missy?

[JadeCriminal]

Spoilers below, close your eyes and scroll up.

Wait what? I could have sworn I was in the 90's chapters just a few minutes ago...

Anyways I caught up on a dozen chapters. Nice work as always yadda yadda want more yadda...

Now, my appreciation of your work aside: SHE SURVIVED GETTING EATEN BY A DRAGON! Yes I am grinning.

Hey wasn't there a mention of an artifact that lets your turn into a bird earlier? A cloak I think, one that requires specific mindset to use a power? And the broach likes to return to owner...

So hey, crossovers still abound. Any-pony know if Missy shows up in one of the other stories? I'd appreciate a link and chapter?

[scranity]

The slathering of various lotions across my whole hide made me sticky, smelly - and almost made me turn into a puddle from relief from the sting of the burns. I'd had a long day, but managed to keep myself awake long enough to tell Red, Blanche, Amethyst, and Micro the outlines of what happened - leaving out the specific detail about the opals embedded in my reticulum, only saying that I had a last-ditch backup piece of magic I'd prepared ahead of time for just such an occasion.

Taken out of context, this paragraph sounds quite different...