XVIII
Chestnut’s Journal: 4 May, 978:
It has become readily apparent that I must leave this place. I have gleaned much about my inner workings over the past year, and amoung these gatherings is the immutable truth that I cannot hide my monstrosity under this cloak of flesh for much longer. That much is authoritatively certain.
I have always known that I cannot help my possession of the... urges, but now I do not think I can help but to act on them. It is all unquestionably the consequence of my endeavors with the sheriff. One, in particular.
There was a riot. A conglomeration of intoxicated plebeians congregated outside of the jail, intent on lynching one of the detainees, who had previously assaulted a mare and her child in a public square. We attempted to stifle their entry with a barricade, but our pursuits were in vain. The mob flooded into the jail, wreacking havoc on everything in their fury. It was chaos.
They handily subdued the sheriff, but not a soul knew that I was working for him, and I was free to drift amoung them. I found that their madness was infectious. As I walked amoung them my anger burned in tune with theirs, just as baseless and undirected, and I lashed out along with them, fighting silhouettes in the darkened mass of flailing bodies.
It felt so good. The way my hooves cracked against their skulls, the dull thump of their flesh against my solid bone, the exhilaration as they went limp under the force of my blows... I have never felt so invigorated. I got to hear the pop of a stallion’s spine snapping beneath my hooves. It sounded divine.
Then the mob dissipated. It seemed the amusement had ended, but I was not prepared for the pleasure to abate. By the time everypony else had dispersed, leaving my comrade bleeding and unconscious on the floor, the prisoner they were after was dead, but his cellmates were still alive. I knew that their deaths could be blamed on the mob, for if both were eradicated there would be no witnesses.
I took the keys from the sheriff. I let myself into the single holding cell. I seized both of them, one in each foreleg, and hoisted them into the air. Never have I felt so powerful, never have I felt such a rush. The terror on their faces was ecstasy. I ended the first by crushing his skull against the wall, and relished the way his blood and brains spilled down to the floor. The second, I squeezed the life out of, and was able to watch him die slowly. And then I fled home, shaking, and reclined awake in the bed for the remainder of the night.
This was a month ago, and few urges have come to pass since. I believe my bloodlust to be temporarily sated, but I know that I must feel that exhilaration again.
But how? I could never lay a hoof on my family at the farm—I know them, they are close to me, and I feel guilt and remorse even thinking about the possibility. I cannot injure the ones I love, only such people as the faceless men in the mob, or the strangers, the criminals, in the cells. I could go into town and find someone there, yet I would be in possession of no mob to conceal my misdeeds and would most likely be apprehended, and besides, what if I were to do a good pony, someone who could have otherwise received my affections?
The only remaining possibility is the animals surrounding the farm, but they will not satiate me for long. The fear of a beast is not as rich as that of a pony. Additionally, there is the possibility that a family member will discover remains, or evidence.
What to do, what to do...
Chestnut’s Journal, 25 May, 979:
You know, it’s kind of funny. It used to be that mom couldn’t bear the thought of me leaving the farm. Now she’s the one who forced me to leave.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Finding all those old carcasses must have come as a shock to her. I think deep down, she knew she was going to see something like that one day, but she never could believe it until now.
I knew I should’ve hidden them better. It was a stupid mistake.
Still, I wanted off the farm, and I guess I got what I asked for. I never thought it would be so early, though. I figured I’d be able to keep hiding everything until I was at least eighteen, and then I could leave for the Guard. Now, to be out on my own, at sixteen... it’s kind of strange.
I guess I can’t say I’m scared. There’s really nothing to be scared of. Out here, on the road, I’m pretty much the most dangerous thing around. It’s just weird knowing that there’s not going to be anypony out here to help me if I slip up. I guess that just means I can’t slip up.
Being on my own isn’t without its benefits, though. At least there’s no corn out here. No work. No little siblings to take care of. Just me, the road, and this old, stupid journal. Princesses, I’m bored. I’ve been walking for hours, and I’ve still got another two days before I’ll be anywhere near Canterlot.
I should’ve thought to bring a book. I took food, I took a tent, I took bits, but I didn’t think to bring a book. I’d buy one at the next town, if I had money to spare. I’d steal one, but what if I got caught? It’s going to be hard enough getting into the Guard as it is, I don’t need a criminal record weighing me down, too.
Goddess, I hope they’ll believe that I’m eighteen. I certainly look it, at least, big as I am, and I’m pretty sure I’m still growing. And with all the training I did with the sheriff, there’s no way I won’t pass the entrance exams. I just have to get there.
Two more days of walking. Ugh. Kill me.
XVIII
“Behold these jewelled, merchant Ancestors,
Foregathered in some chancellery of death;
Calm, provident, discreet, they stroke their beards
And move their faces slowly in the gloom,
And barter monstrous wealth with speech subdued,
Lustreless eyes and acquiescent lids.”
-Siegfried Sassoon, Ancestors
Roads blinked. His stomach tensed. There was something in Celestia’s tone he didn’t like. Can you keep a secret?
Yes. But did he want to?
“Yes.”
The Princess sat back on her haunches and crossed her forelegs. “Where to begin...” she wondered aloud. “Well, I suppose I should warn you, first of all.”
Roads’ eyes widened. “Warn me?” This just didn’t sound right. Even though Celestia hadn’t broken her usual soft, even tone, something in her voice was just... off.
“Mmhmm. I’m afraid you may be getting wrapped up in something more dangerous than you’re used to.”
Oh no. Not again. “I get the feeling this talk is only going to make that worse.”
“Your feeling is correct. Of course, you may choose not to act on anything I tell you—though I doubt it will help much. And the truth is... I need your help.”
His brow furrowed. What could he possibly do that Celestia herself wasn’t already capable of?
“I’m sure you must be wondering what the all-powerful Princess couldn’t do on her own. As it turns out, there are some problems that are far bigger than I am.” Celestia had already anticipated his thought, as she so often did. The Princess was always thought two steps ahead of her audience.
She sighed. “Roads—you may resent me for this, but it can’t be helped.” She peered intently at him. “Do you know why your last book was rejected?”
What? “The CSGU Publishing Board didn’t think I had enough evidence to support my claims. Why do you ask?”
The Princess shook her head. “Because that isn’t the real reason. The Board never even saw your manuscript, Roads.”
Roads’ jaw dropped. “What—why wouldn’t—?”
“I regret that it was even necessary, but I intercepted it.” She inclined her head. “There was never an issue with your research. Quite the opposite, in fact. That’s why I could never let the manuscript go to print.”
“You? Why?” Roads didn’t know what to think. What reason could the Princess possibly have to sabotage him like that? After all the time and effort she had put into his education and—
“I’m sorry, Roads. I assure you, I have a good reason. I assume Chief has told you about his run-ins with a certain group of Equestrian cultists?”
Roads narrowed his eyes. “Indirectly, yes. Did you talk to him about what happened on the island?”
Another head shake. “No. But I’m familiar with the way Chief does things. How much did he tell you?”
“He didn’t tell me anything himself, Summer did it for him. All she told me was that some death cult attacked his daughter, and he may-or-may-not have murdered dozens of them afterwards.”
“I see.” The alicorn nodded thoughtfully. “Unfortunately, Chief gave you only a small part of the bigger picture. Even worse, I can’t give you much more. But I can tell you this—aside from the growing racial tensions, this cult one of the biggest threats Equestria is facing right now. They call themselves the ‘Church of the New Dawn.’
“They are a huge group of fanatics from across the world, and we don’t know much about them. From what the Guard and I have gathered, they have been active across the country, and almost everypony we have arrested has been involved in a type of necromancy that hasn’t been seen in years. We can’t figure out how it works, or what they plan to do with it.
“The truth is, they have been killing guards and civilians left and right, in ways we don’t even understand, in a pattern we can’t figure out. We have managed to get exactly two moles into the Church in the past five years. All they have gathered is that the cultists are planning to bring about something called the ‘New Dawn.’ We don’t know anything about what that entails, save that it includes some alien type of summoning and portal magic. We haven’t a clue what they are trying to summon.”
What was Celestia talking about? What had Roads gotten himself mixed up in? “What does any of this have to with my manuscript, again?”
“I suspect that some of the magic involved in this ‘New Dawn’ has something to do with natural magic. Do you remember the letter I sent you before you left for the Triangle?”
“Yes, Princess.”
“I’m sure you remember that I mentioned that something had come up in
Canterlot that you would be interested in. If you would accompany, me, Roads, I would like to show you something.” She stood up and stretched her legs. “I’m sure you’ve been down the Hall of Hidden Tomes before, correct?”
Roads nodded.
“I’m going you the inside of one of the private rooms there. If you’re interested.”
She offered him a hoof.
“I’d love to, but—I don’t know if teleportation is the best way to get there,” he said, eyeing the Princess’ hoof. “I mean, you’ve what’s been happening lately...”
“I don’t think anything will go wrong if I take you. However, you would be well served to turn down offers from any other unicorns, for the time being. Please, take my hoof.”
Roads did as he asked. As soon as he touched the alicorn, a shock ran through him and he fell to the floor with a sharp cry. He writhed in pain as his lines were forced out of alignment. They were changing continuously, trying to accommodate her influence, but something was wrong.
The Princess bent over him, eyes wide. “Roads!”
“Its—fine—” he whispered through gritted teeth. His jaws spasmed
uncontrollably; he tried not to bite down on his tongue. All at once, his muscles locked, and suddenly he couldn’t stop shaking.
There’s something wrong with her lines. It’s like they’re... infinite. They divide into fractal patterns down to such a minute level that I can’t even fully sense them.
Finally, the cramps wore off as his lines, having used up the entirety of his energy trying to match Celestia’s lines, were completely drained. What was left was a faint, imperfect copy of the Princess’ lines. He stared up at the alicorn.
Just how much was she capable of?
The Princess looked back down at him. She spoke quickly, and quietly. “I had forgotten that something like this might happen... It appears we finally succeeded. I was starting to think I would never see something like this.”
A magical aura surrounded Roads, lifting him to his feet. “What are you... talking about...?” he panted. He was exhausted, his muscles as depleted as his lines.
“I’ve been waiting for one of you to reach this point for a while now. I always suspected it would be you.”
‘One of you?’ What did that even mean? The Princess had more people like Roads doing... what?
“I understand that you must have a lot of questions. What I will show you in the Hall of Hidden Tomes should clear things up. Here, take my hoof once more. I doubt it will hurt you again.”
Steeling himself, just in case the Princess was wrong—for once—Roads reached out and took her hoof. There was a brief pause as a shimmering golden aura formed around her horn. A warm breeze blew through his mane, and from somewhere nearby came the faint sound of chimes.
A blast of cool air caught Roads suddenly, ripping at his clothes, forcing his eyes shut. It passed in a second, and when Roads opened them again, he saw he was standing in the blue-lit hallway once more. A heavy, absolute silence enveloped them as the Princess led him down the hall to a door marked 42.
The Princess stretched out one long, regal foreleg, and tapped twice on the number carved into the wood. There was no doorknob. There was a low creaking as the knots on the door began to shift and turn, collecting just below the number. Soon, they arranged themselves into a pattern. Roads stared at it, wide eyed.
It was a face. It opened its mouth, parting wooden lips. “Well, Princess, you’re back so soon.” Its dark eyes shifted, looking over Roads. “And with a visitor this time.”
“Yes.” The Princess inclined her head. “I request entry, my friend.”
The face nodded as best it could. Somewhere below the mouth, five protrusions sprouted from the door. When the palm followed, Roads realized it was a hand. The Princess reached out and it grasped her hoof.
The face smiled. “So, it is you. Come on in.” With that, the face receded back into the wood, and the door swung open. Inside was a billowing grey fog that obscured Roads’ vision, roiling just at the edge of the frame. Not a single wisp of smoke trailed out of the room.
A barrier, he thought. Whoever enchanted this room did an impressive job.
Celestia turned to him. “Stay close to me when we enter the room. The fog you see is an enchanted gas. It’s harmless as long as it doesn’t come into contact with any living beings. But as soon as it touches anything that has a heartbeat, it becomes highly corrosive. It can dissolve a pony down to the bones in just a few seconds.”
Roads stepped closer to her. “Who set this room up?”
She glanced down at him, a twinkle in her eye. “I’ll give you three guesses.”
Of course, Roads thought as he followed the Princess into the room. The mist receded away from the alicorn, forming a bubble of safe air around the pair.
“The purpose of the gas is twofold. Not only does it keep out any unauthorized visitors, but it also prevents oxygen from eating away at the relics we store in here.”
“Which are what, exactly?” Roads asked. He looked around. Due to the fog, he couldn’t see a thing. He didn’t even know how large the room around them was.
“Ancient texts from the Pre-Equestrian Era. Druidic records.”
Roads’ eyes widened. “But that’s impossible, it’s been two thousand years! How could documents have survived that long? We’ve never managed to find anything from the druids before.”
“That’s... not entirely the case.”
“What?”
“We have never publicly documented anything from the druids. But we have recovered material from them before.”
“You have?! Why didn’t you publish any of it? I’m sure the public would be fascinated, especially given that we know next to nothing about ancient pony history.”
“I’m aware. However, I made the decision to make all information relating to the druids classified. I can’t allow any of this material to fall into the hooves of the cultists— and, most of it is unintelligible anyway. The druids wrote in hieroglyphs that we haven’t yet translated fully.”
The Princess led Roads to a table, upon which rested an ancient, tattered roll of papyrus, covered in mysterious figures and scrawlings, beside which lay a modern book, open to a page in Equestria. With a gasp, Roads reached towards the parchment.
“Two thousand years…” he murmured.
The Princess caught his hoof. “Please, you mustn’t anything. The natural oils from your hooves may damage the paper. These scripts were found in a sealed vault—they haven’t come into contact with oxygen or pony hooves since we found them. We’re afraid they will fall apart before we can completely translate them.”
“’Completely?’ So, have you read part of it then?”
“Bits and pieces, yes. I have several teams of historians, linguists, and cryptographers working on it right now. Before this discovery, all we had managed to glean was the legend of Titania.”
“Titania?”
“My mother.”
Roads’ eyes widened. “Wh—what?”
The Princess smiled down at him. “I am immortal, Roads, but not infinite. Like everything else, I have a beginning—and, eventually, will have an end. Have you heard anything of Titania?”
Roads shook his head.
“That makes two of us. Unfortunately, I remember almost nothing of the first three hundred years of my life, which were spent in infancy and adolescence. Unlike Princesses Cadenza and Sparkle, my sister and I were born alicorns, and our development was quite slow. Just as an ordinary pony cannot remember much before the first five to ten years of their lives, we can remember little from the first few centuries.
“As such, most of what I know about my mother comes from legend and myth. The story has it that there was once a time before that of the pegasi, earth ponies, and unicorns, back when there were just... ponies. They had no wings, no horns, no cutie marks, no special connection to the earth. They weren’t magical in the least.
They were ruled by an ancient force, some strange being that we have no knowledge of today... until the rise of Titania. At first, She was just an average pony who led a group of followers to uncover a source of arcane power. Then things changed. She and these followers became the first druids, the first ponies to wield magic. It seems she used this power to bring about something called the Ascendance. Until recently, we had no idea what this was.”
“And now?”
“I had suspicions that the source of her power came from ley lines, and these new documents confirm my theory. They describe ‘currents of power below the earth’ that she mastered, and utilized to fight the ancient force, which the texts just call it the ‘Other Thing.’”
“From what I can tell, she somehow banished this ‘Other Thing’ using ley lines. We’ve read that Titania then ‘Ascended,’ leaving life here behind and moving on to what the texts call a ‘higher plane of existence.’ On her way, she enchanting her followers into earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns. Then, she left behind two ponies that were different. The first two alicorns.”
“You and Princess Luna.”
“Correct. So, Roads, have you put it all together yet? Why I couldn’t publish your book, why I can’t show any druidic texts to the public?”
Roads nodded. “The cultists are after something and they want to use the ley lines to get it. You’re afraid they’re going to find out what Titania did. I still don’t get one thing, though.”
“What is it?”
“Why show me the inside of this room? I mean, it seems pretty dangerous in here, and neither of us can read ancient Equestrian, so why not just tell me what you’d learned from the scrolls in your office?”
“First, because I had to be sure nopony could eavesdrop on us. Second, because I wanted to see what you thought of something. Come here and look at the bottom of this scroll.”
She pointed out a page, and Roads inspected its lower portion, where one of the druids had drawn... something. He couldn’t tell what. It appeared to be the silhouette of a mare rearing, the insides of which were filled with spiralling, multicolored markings. In the center of her torso, just below where her heart would have been, the markings swirled together, outlining a circle filled with strange runes. Between the runes, two figures were locked in combat, one a pony, one oddly shaped, covered in limbs where there should have been no limbs. Above them, a diamond shaped patch was cut out of the page.
“What do you make of this?” she asked, peering at him.
Roads shrugged. “No clue,” he said.
“Not a thing?”
Roads shook his head.
The alicorn sighed. “Alright then,” she said. “I suppose its time we left. Even I can’t keep this mist at bay forever.”
Celestia stretched out a hoof and Roads took it. After a moment, the same breeze and burst of wind passed over him, and when he looked around he was standing in the Princess’ quarters once more.
“Princess?” Roads asked.
“Mmm?”
“Earlier, when you said ‘one of you...’ what were you talking about?”
“Well, Roads, I suppose I’ll have to admit that you aren’t quite as unique as I once had you believe. Until now, I couldn’t afford to let you know, but the truth is, I have many apprentices spread across the country investigating natural ley lines. I believe at the moment,” she said, “that there are roughly twenty of you, all working in different areas, on different projects.
“I think we probably could have found all that we needed to know by now, had I let you all share notes and resources, but I just couldn’t take that risk. If the Church had gotten to one of you, they could have acquired all of your collective research. So I’ve been forced to keep you ignorant of each other, so that the only pony with access to all of the ley research at once is one of the only two ponies. I can really trust. Namely, me.”
Roads cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t trust me, Princess?”
The Princess sighed. “To be honest, I can’t ever be completely certain that you haven’t been converted by the cult. However, as far as you have come, if the Church has access to your knowledge, all is already lost. So what I have for you is more of a de facto trust than a true confidence.”
“Well, I’m not part of the cult. I swear.”
She gave a thin smile. “Much appreciated, Roads, but that’s exactly what a cultist would say. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that I need your help, with more than just art analysis.”
“What do you need?”
“It’s hard to put succinctly, but if I had to put it into a single phrase... I need you to become a shaman.”
Roads’ brow furrowed. “Uh... ma’am?”
“A shaman. I’m sure you’re familiar with them.”
Roads nodded. He knew about as much about the shaman as anyone else did. They were secretive, disjointed bands of zebra sorcerers who worshipped the L’wha, powerful, mysterious collective consciousnesses housed in the bodies of large groups of certain animals.
They formed spiritual pacts with these nature gods, who in return granted them magical abilities different than that of the magi. Though they lived across Equestria, they weren’t Equestrians, and no one had any clue where they had come from, save that it was somewhere across the sea. And the shaman themselves certainly weren’t telling.
“Princess, I’d love to help, but somehow I doubt there’s any way—”
“That you could become a shaman? Well, not in the traditional sense, no, but you can get close enough to get what we need. Roads, do you know why it is that we know so little about shamanic magic?”
“The Blood Pact, right? They say anything to anypony who’s still, you know, ‘Locked,’ or whatever it is.”
Part of the terms of the pacts the shaman formed with the L’wha was the restriction that they were never able to share the details of their worship or magical ability with anypony who wasn’t “spiritually unlocked,” as they put it. Any attempt to speak, write, or convey the knowledge given to them by the L’wha would be rendered into gibberish by the magic of the Blood Pact.
“That’s true,” the Princess replied. “But I have reason to believe that the shaman might be able to speak to you. A close personal friend, a shaman from the Everfree, the great aunt of Zecora—I’m sure you’re familiar with her—once managed to confide in me that being Locked had a lot to do with ley lines. Half of what she said came out as gibberish, but I managed to extract that much.”
Roads’ eyes widened. His heart quickened. The shaman could speak freely to him? Princesses... he might be on the verge of becoming the first Equestrian in history to access the knowledge of the shaman. Unicorn theorists had pondered for years what they had discovered, but none had even come close to discovering anything of substance. And now it could be him?
No, that was impossible. It was too good to be true!
But Celestia thought he had a chance. And who was he to question the Princess?
He opened his mouth, his jaw working wordlessly, an incredulous expression across his face. His brain couldn’t manage to put together a coherent sentence. “I—the shaman—me?!” he sputtered.
The corners of Celestia’s mouth tightened. “That is correct. My friend, the shaman, she lives in an enchanted place where I have never set hoof. I don’t even know where it is, truthfully. But I do know how you can get there. Do you know where the Aromatic Falls are?”
Roads nodded mutely.
“She has told me that should I ever need her aid, there is a passage behind the falls which leads to her... somehow. I’m not certain what’s back there. I want you to go there, Roads, and talk to her. I think she may able to set you further down the path to the secret of my mother’s Ascension, and perhaps even what it is that the Church of the New Dawn is after. Would you be willing to do that?”
“Willing? I’d kill for the chance to learn more about the shaman.”
“Good. If you’re able, I’d like you to relay whatever you learn back to me, but only in person. Any written or magical communication between us could potentially be accessed by the Church. As such, I’d like to see you back in Canterlot in a week or two. With your help, I might finally be able to get a step ahead of those damned cultists.”
Roads blinked. He’d never heard the Princess swear before. She was always so... regal. Calm, confident, at ease. Whatever it was that was going on with the Church must have really set her on edge.
“Yes, Princess.”
“Excellent.” The Princess sat back on her haunches, and her horn shone with light. From across the room, two large mugs hovered over to him and sat gently against the table. A golden halo shone above each mug, and a trickle of steaming brown liquid fell from it, filling the cups. The Princess offered one to Roads.
“So,” she said, “now that the important business is finished, I hope that you have time for something more relaxing. I have twelve minutes to spare before my next obligation, and would love to share some tea and hear more about your trip to the island. And besides,” she said with a faint smile, “three days ago, I mastered the transmutation of air into glucose, so I think you’ll find this is much better than the last batch I conjured for you.”
Roads smiled and took the cup. He raised it to his lips, and was about to take a sip when the Celestia’s hoof shot out and took him by the wrist. “Wait,” she said abruptly. “I’ve just realized something.”
Her horn lit, and she dipped the tip of a hoof dipped into Roads’ tea. She frowned. “Ah. I did it again.”
“What?”
“I have a habit of conjuring my tea a bit too hot, I’m afraid. What you’ve got in that cup is about two degrees short of boiling. I’d suggest you didn’t drink it yet.”
Roads lowered the cup. He would prefer to go without second-degree burns. Instead, he talked as his tea cooled, giving the Princess more details about the expedition. The alicorn listened attentively, even laughing out loud as Roads described Strongsteed’s theories about her “surprise attack.”
However, just as was getting to the best parts of his story, his rendition of the flight into the nexus—any mention of his father left out, of course—the Princess raised a hoof and cut him off.
“My twelve minutes are over, Roads. I’m terribly sorry to have to stop you in the middle like this, but I’m afraid I must teleport you away. I have a meeting regarding education budgeting that I must attend, though I would much prefer to stay and hear how this ends.”
She stretched out a hoof, and Roads took it.
“We’ll speak again soon. Goodbye, Roads.”
“Goodbye, Princess.”
There was another breeze and another burst of air, and then Roads was standing in his own room once again. He yawned and fell back onto his bed. His entire body was heavy and tired, from the dueling, and from the island. Another yawn. A nap would be so nice right now... how much time did he have until Summer showed up?
He glanced down at his wristwatch. 7:55.
Shit! She would be here any minute, and he was still covered in mud from the dueling fields and reeking of sweat. Springing from the bed, he stripped away his clothes and hurried over to his bag. He dug through it, searching for something that looked half-decent. There weren’t many options. He’d mostly packed for the tropics, there would be nothing to keep him warm here on the mountain.
After setting out his clothes, he sponge-bathed with a wet cloth, getting most of the dirt off, and threw on his fresh clothes. Turning, he looked himself over in the mirror. Roads frowned at what he saw.
His mane was even more unkempt than usual, and had grown longer than he liked it, and his face was covered in a scraggly half-beard that he had forgotten to shave off. After going a week without real meals, his clothes didn’t fit him any more; they sagged around his stooped shoulders and bagged up around his calves. He was swimming in fabric. Worst of all was his face, which had gone from thin and narrow, to full-on gaunt, his eyes sunken over dark, heavy bags, the flesh of his cheeks tight against his teeth. He looked like a shipwreck survivor.
I am a shipwreck survivor, kind of, he reminded himself. Hopefully Summer didn’t have high standards for him. No, she couldn’t possibly—if she had gotten with him in the first place she couldn’t even have standards.
He glanced at his watch again. 8:03. When had she said she would be here again? “Eight-ish”? What did that even mean?
Roads stalked over to the liquor cabinet and mixed himself a drink. Something to take the edge off. He took a sip. As the burning concoction passed over his tongue and down his throat he closed his eyes and smiled. It was perfect—heavy on gin and light on mixer. He should have been a bartender.
Except that then you don’t get to drink what you make, he thought as he finished the glass. He gave a contented sigh.
Then there was a knock at the door. His pulse quickened and a knot of anxiety formed in his stomach. She was here. Oh man. Oh Celestia.
No. Okay. He could do this. He could definitely do this. They had just gone through hell together, doing on a date wouldn’t be hard.
Unless he made it awkward. Oh Princesses. What if it got awkward? What if he ran out of things to say? What were they even going to talk about? Oh no. This was going to be terrible, he was going to mess everything up, it was all over for him, she was going to ha—
Another knock.
Right. The door.
He walked over and turned the knob.
______________________________________________________________
Summer sat on her bed, turning the orb over and over in her hooves. She stared at it as she caressed its smooth surface. It was a weird little thing, not more than a few inches long, perfectly spherical, and black as night. She held it up, looking at the way it caught the light of her lamp.
The flickering light barely illuminated its dark face, the small flame reflecting off the surface in a way that was just... not quite right. The lamp was sitting off to her right, but was reflected off of the top of the orb. Its temperature was wrong, too. No matter how long she held it near the flame, it never warmed at all, and if she left it on her windowsill, it never cooled.
She wasn’t even sure where it had come from. It had been rolled up in the map that the islanders stuffed in her pack, but she was sure she had never seen any of them handling it. She hadn’t even found it until this morning, when she had gone to look over the map before her meeting with the Aggregate.
Ugh. The meeting. Celestia, that had been awful. The Aggregate was always so preoccupied with the stupidest things. ‘Summer, how could you destroy a multi-million bit zeppelin,’ ‘Summer, we’re going to have to pay to get those docks fixed.’ They had wanted to dock her pay, but she ended up talking them out of it, reminding them that the expedition to the Triangle had been a suicide mission from the start.
After all, the fact that she had come back at all meant she had done better than the last six crews. Six! After she reminded them that they sent a total of twenty-seven ponies to their deaths, they quieted down. She’d walked out with a full paystub in hoof, and even a small bonus. Not quite what she’d been hoping for, but still...
She glanced over to the big bag of bits she’d traded the Aggregate’s pay voucher for. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. The pouch held far more than enough to pay her gambling debts—she and Roads could have their fare share of fun with that in the Underbelly tonight. Speaking of which...
Setting the orb aside, she stood and opened her dresser, looking for something to wear. The dresser was actually all the way on the other side of the room, but Summer’s apartment was so tiny it was only a foreleg’s length from the bed. She felt cramped, for sure, but this was the only place she could on her budget outside of the Underbelly, and she was partial to seeing the light of day.
The Underbelly, more formally known as the Shipping District, was the area where the river leading to Canterlot mountain met a vast underground lake, deep in the heart of the mountain. Hundreds of years ago, earth pony expedition teams had cleared out a huge area around the lake, allowing ships transporting goods and passengers to deliver their cargo directly into the city. Eventually, factories and mills sprung up around the shipyards, turning their raw materials into processed steel, textiles, and lumber, among other things.
Because the entire area never saw sunlight, it was instead illuminated by massive, bioluminescent fungi that the pegasi cultivated on its roof, leaving it in a permanent state of twilight. Nopony wanted to live there, so property rates were the lowest in the city. These days, the massive tenement houses sheltered only mill workers, sailors, and of course, all manner of criminals who were attracted to the area by its reputation as the most lawless section of Canterlot.
Between the mills, the crime, and the lack of daylight, Canterlot high society—and the Royal Guard—left the Underbelly alone, and over the years it had only festered. Now, any underground activity that went on in Canterlot literally happened underground. Summer had once taken up residence in a large apartment in the heart of the district, but had fled as soon as she could. The seedy surroundings she could handle—it was no worse than a jungle, really, you just had to bring a knife with you everywhere—but the lack of sunlight was hell. It left her depressed after a while, and depression just wasn’t her style.
So, now she was stuck in this trashy Old Town room above a run down bar. Like the rest of the buildings in the district, hers was poorly insulated due to its age and ramshackle construction. In the winters, it froze, in the summers, it stifled, but at least it wasn’t the Underbelly. At least there was sunlight.
Flat ground, too. Old Town was the first part of Canterlot that had ever been built, way back when the Castle was just a temple on a mountaintop and nopony wanted to live near it. Really, Old Town could only barely be considered to be on the mountain at all. Most of it fell in a valley between two ridges of the mountain, just behind the giant wall that surrounded the lower portions of the city. Her room was actually just a few feet from the wall, centered between the Fioran Way, the wide path that led from the front gate all the way to the top of the summit, and Bramble’s Opening, where the Equestrian River emerged from the inside of the mountain.
She often wished she were a bit further from the Opening. Crime in Canterlot tended to radiate outwards from the Underbelly, so her building was constantly being vandalized and broken into. Twice, stallions had attempted to mug her just outside the door. Twice, they had ended up running off towards the hospital, trying to hold closed the large gashes her knives left in their forelegs and faces.
But at least there’s sunlight, she thought as she dug through the drawers. Finally, she pulled out a slim, dark green tunic, and a pair of black leggings. She slipped them, combed her mane, and eyed herself in the mirror. Yup. She looked good, as always. Before the expedition, she had packed on a few extra pounds, and now she was glad she had, or she would be downright skeletal. Every trip, she always lost weight, and after coming back to Equestria at the end of her first expedition looking like a famine victim, she decided the look didn’t suit her.
She flexed her forelegs and shoulders, admiring the way her muscles rippled in the mirror. Turning away from it, she twisted her neck, checking out her flanks. Mmhm. Still perfect. Roads wouldn’t know what hit him. As long as he didn’t spend too much time focusing on her bad eye. She’d gone back to covering it with gauze and bandages she’d swiped from the hospital, but she wasn’t happy about it.
Summer glanced over to the clock mounted on her rear wall. 7:30. She’d better get going. After pulling on a large, black greatcoat, she filled its pockets with all the essentials, trying to make sure she remembered everything. Money, check. Housekeys, check. Hunting knife, check. The pass Celestia had left her to get into the Castle Grounds, check. She was all set to go.
Swinging open her door, she stepped out into the narrow, uneven hallway that connected the three rooms the bar-owner’s wife rented out to anyone willing to pay far too much for way too little. Below her, the sounds of intoxicated bar patrons rose through the creaking wooden floor. She took the side stairway, which led directly out of the building, so that she could avoid running into her landlady, who still hadn’t forgiven her for breaking a table in a recent drunken bar brawl. The vindictive boor.
After making her way down the stairs, she emerged, shivering, into the cold Canterlot air. Around her was a jumble of squat, grey stone buildings, arranged haphazardly and half-covered in graffiti and sales posters. Before her was a winding dirt path that led between the crooked buildings to the Fioran Way. She trudged down the street, eyeing the grumbling, bustling passersby and trying not to step in any of the waste Old Town inhabitants poured from open windows out into the walkways. Sanitation magi would clean it all in the morning, magic-ing it away with whatever spells they used, but at night it always began to pile up.
Summer hated the city.
It wasn’t long before she came to the well-lit, cobblestone-paved Way, filled with heavily bundled pedestrians and carts pulled by Bramas, the massive, two headed, non-sentient oxen raised in the south by earth pony farmers. They could pull several times the weight of ordinary cattle, and also disembowel a pony with a swift flick of the head, so Summer tried to keep her distance from them. Also, their dung smelled terrible, and she didn’t want to step in it.
The torchlit path led her up and away from the diminutive grey hovels of Old Town, into the hazy atmosphere of the Commerce Section. The district was built on top of the central portions of the Underbelly, where the skillful earth pony builders had cut massive terraces into the sides of the mountain. Here and there, smokestacks rose from the ground, letting off fumes from furnaces hidden down in the Underbelly.
It was here that the processed materials from the Shipping District would be bought, traded, or turned into the consumer goods that were peddled by the hundreds of tiny shops that lined the roads of the Commerce Section. In these sturdy wooden buildings, washed out by the constant Canterlot winds, most of the business of the city was done. Much of the lower tiers of the Equestrian government were also housed here; on her way up the mountain Summer passed the headquarters of the departments responsible for the city’s sanitation, transportation, fire and storm protection, and general maintenance.
The streets here were better lit, and far cleaner; few ponies actually lived around here—this was where they just worked, shopped, and ate. If they had enough money, of course. If you worked in a mill in the Underbelly, you certainly didn’t come here often.
A frigid wind worked its way down the street, and Summer telekinetically clutched at the corners of her coat, wrapping it more tightly around here. She glanced to her left, catching sight of a magazine vendor set up in a shack on the side of the Way. She scanned the covers as she walked.
Equestrian Fashion: Dress Big, Dress Flashy! 4 Mind-Blowing Tips to Making an Unforgettable Entrance!
Victory Magazine: New Ways to Get into the Castle that Chancellors Don’t Want You to Know! From the Underbelly All the Way to Bantham - The Tale of a True Innovator. Plus: Exclusive Interview with the Archmage of the CSGU, Page 23!
Summer rolled her eyes. ‘Exclusive’? Please. Roads had mentioned once that the Archmage would talk to anyone who listened. She imagined he and Roads got along well.
Soon, she came to Wall Marius, the eighteen foot high stone barrier that that separated the Commerce Section from the segment of the Fioran way that led up the uninhabited sections of the mountain to Bantham Village, sometimes referred to as “downtown Canterlot.” She waited in line at the gate for several minutes, then presented her voucher to the frowning, mustachioed pegasus sitting at a large counter next to the door. He glanced from her ticket to her clothes, to her face.
“This is signed by the Princess?” he asked in a drawling monotone.
“Yes.”
“This is obviously a forgery. And a crude on at that. Couldn’t you have at least picked somepony less prominent?”
Summer shrugged. “If you think it’s a fake, contact the Princess yourself. I’ll wait.”
“You realize it’s a crime to forge a voucher?”
“You realize you’ll be fired if you turn me away without making sure it’s a fake?”
The pegasus sighed and rested his head on one hoof. “You know what? I don’t get paid enough to deal with this.” He grabbed a yellow stamp from the counter and pressed it against the voucher. “Approved. Next!”
The gate swung open, and Summer stepped through, glancing at the earth pony guards that stood on either side of it. They wore tired, bored expressions, staring off into space with glazed eyes. Summer remembered Chief telling her something about how there were no less interesting assignments in the Guard than gate duty. Apparently, he was right.
She followed the road around the side of the mountain, then up to a large plateau just below the summit, upon which scores of tall brownstone buildings had been constructed, complete with sharply pointed wooden roofs. Bantham Village. Home to the professionals and artisans of Canterlot who couldn’t bear to rub elbows with anypony who didn’t own designer elbow patches. The place was crawling with doctors, lawyers, architects, and big-shot writers, all the sort of ponies who couldn’t fathom life outside the city, in whom Summer had no interested.
As she walked through the pristine streets, she looked with disdain through the windows of high-class coffee bars at the stallions in suits who sipped espresso and puffed on long wooden pipes filled with tobacco and cannabis. She didn’t bother to hide her knowing smirk. There were two places to get drugs in Canterlot—for a week’s pay at an officially licensed coffee shop, or for three bits from the Underbelly street dealers who might mix in some ground argus root, if you were lucky.
Here, too, were newspaper stands, but now they carried a different stock. Her eyes slid over the headlines as she made her way towards the Castle.
Life & Arts: A Portrait of Up-And-Coming Painter, Rougehoof Cloudkeeper.
An Inside Look at Pegasus Architecture.
Canterlot Insider: Earth Ponies Demand Compensation for Pegasus Separatist Attack, Strain Parliamentary Relations. Representative Burberry Announces Intent to Repeal Nondiscrimination Employment Act of 996.
Hm. Politics. Summer simply couldn’t care any less. Her walk through the Village was coming to an end—she was almost to the walls of the Castle. Brantham wasn’t very large, after all. The Equestrian upper class represented a miniscule portion of the overall population.
When she reached the gate at the Wall Cenarius, which enclosed all of the Castle Grounds, her voucher was again checked, this time more thoroughly. A bespectacled unicorn went over the ticket with a magnifying glass, checking the Princess’ signature against a register of handwriting samples of Equestrian dignitaries. After several minutes, they let her pass, and she made her way across the grounds to the Castle.
She pushed open the heavy front door, and was greeted by a cheerful secretary, who helped direct her up to Roads’ room. When she reached his door, a small tingling of anticipation set in her stomach. This was going to be fun. Reaching up, she knocked at the door.
No answer.
She knocked again. A smile crossed her face as the door swung open.
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Shaman King opening just started playing in my head XD
Haven't started reading yet but... Cartological isn't a word. Perhaps you mean cartographical? Cartography is the art and science of making maps.
3718395 I don't mean to be rude, but you should really get a replacement editor for when he's gone. If it's unedited, it's a draft, and therefore not fit to be published.
3784536
Working on it. I try my best to self edit, but it doesn't always work out. Were there any particularly egregious mistakes in this last chapter that I can fix for you?
3784526
How the fuck has that been my description for two years and I never actually fixed it? Goddamn, I feel dumb. Good catch, thanks.
3784775 Lol, it happens to the best of us.
Pruzah vulon, zoh.
3784780
Nox. Laag eyvir, koriid.
3787453
Why?
3784756 I'm new to the story, actually, so I haven't got that far yet.
As far as chapter one goes, it's real good. Among the best I've seen. But it tends to be too wordy in places, and this is something I notice a hell of a lot in fanfics. Some sentences or phrases are just plain unnecessary given appropriate context. If I were your editor I would point some out for you.
With that grievance over with, something I liked a lot was Roads saying that the CSGU was his alma mater. The original latin of that phrase works incredibly well.
I don't like saying this, because it is terribly wrong often enough, but: dis gon be gud.
3787880
If you want, I can send you a link with comment permission enabled to the Google Docs I use to work on the story, I'd love to get your input on some of the things I should change. Purple prose is one of my biggest writing vices, particularly in the early chapters, so it's always nice to have someone come in and help me cut out those pesky extra words/phrases.
3788230 I am unsure about that offer, for many reasons. When I get up to speed on the story, I'll let you know.
But, about the story itself: I finished chapter 8 and gotta say, so far this is without a doubt the best fanfiction I've ever read. Don't stop here, of course, but christ, you're redefining a medium.
I'm certainly anticipating the rest of it, but I also don't want to spend another night without sleep. Godspeed.
Normally I don't look at stuff comprised entirely of OC's, but I realize after reading this that I've been doing myself a disservice by missing out on gems like this.
I don't like that there's segregation and representatives in Equestria...