Cardboard and papers and rolls spread out on the tabletop. Glasses and shades and telescopes were dumped on top of them.
As one, the doctors crowded around and chatted. Earth ponies plucked samples with their jaws or their deft forelegs. Unicorns levitated theirs over their heads. The one pegasus pony swooped down and carried off a couple of rolls.
In various corners, vices were clamped to paper. Other ponies pinned paper samples to whatever part of the wall was free. The pegasus dumped one roll on top of a cabinet and twirled the other in her hooves until a sheet dangled down, ready for inspection.
Those few ponies who hung back at the table now placed sunglasses on their faces, or raised telescopes to their eyes, or removed lenses and fitted new ones in. Many squinted, hummed, cocked their heads, or cast spells on their instruments. One enthusiastic earth stallion reared up. He lowered his faceguard with the air of one preparing for war and lit the flamethrower before approaching the roll the pegasus was dangling. Rather understandably, she blanched and started backing away.
In the midst of the rushing around and the flashes and the repeated adjustments of eyepieces, Doctor Stone Meadow blew through her lips. Her face was blank. Beside her, Doctor Caramel dropped the shades and glanced around the table for replacements.
“Can’t I have a go with the flamethrower?” Stone Meadow peered longingly at the flames spouting up to the ceiling.
“Definitely not.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” said Doctor Caramel with a sigh, “I don’t want to have to write on my report the words ‘gave the most dangerous piece of equipment to the pony from the asylum’.”
“Oh, you’re so silly!” Stone Meadow slapped her on the haunch, making her whinny in protest. “I’m mad, not dangerous! That’s a common – prejudiced – misconception. Most mentally ill ponies are just impaired or have daily difficulties. The stallion over there’s got more chance of attacking you than I do.”
“Now now, children.” A grey stallion with jaundiced eyes wandered out of the madness, telescope hovering next to him with a blue aura around it. “No squabbling over the toys.”
“Hello, Lance.” Caramel raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t it feel nice to know you’re not the newcomer anymore?”
Stone Meadow pouted. “That flamethrower’s the only creative element in this whole madhouse.”
The grey stallion Doctor Lance peered up at the pegasus pony, who was howling and who rushed past the three of them trailing smoke. “It is, isn’t it? A bit on the extreme side, wouldn’t you say?”
“Not extreme enough! If we’re going to deliver the ultimate immersive experience, we’re not going to get far when the only option is ‘self-immolation’. Don’t you think, Caramel?”
To her own surprise, Caramel found herself nodding. She was working next to a silver badge pony who’d barely been around long enough to know where the toilets were. Irritating as it was, however, she felt it was to Stone Meadow’s credit that the crazy mare forgot to wear said badge too. As far as she knew, Stone Meadow had shoved it into a locker during her first week and then simply forgotten about it.
Smirking, Doctor Lance focused, and once his horn was aglow, a parchment popped into existence before him. He placed a pair of glasses on his nose, each lens the size of a pea, and hummed to himself.
“Any ‘last-minute’ amendments?” said Caramel with a smirk. “Again?”
“Hardly. The Suit’s been on his best behaviour this time.”
His gaze strayed briefly towards Stone Meadow, who was staring at the ceiling with a grin on her face. Caramel could guess what that look meant. If the Suit was leaving the fire-stoking to them, it was only because he wasn’t sure how wise it would be to stray too close to the flames.
“He’s quite the poet, isn’t he?” Stone Meadow said as though describing a pleasant dream. “Scruffy, casual, blundering along as though absorbed in another realm of existence, one that no one else can see…”
“Yes,” said Caramel testily. “The traditional art major look. You’d hardly think he was the owner of a billion-bit industry.”
“Except when he feels like being a rich play-colt.” Doctor Lance sniggered and mimed walking in a thick suit. “‘Ah am as rich as Cree-o’-Salt, look upon mah works ‘n’ dee-spair, how you doin’ sweet pea.’ Then he can’t move for the jewellery.”
“He used to publish private commissions for Canterlot types,” said Stone Meadow to Caramel. “The usual stuff: exclusive legends for lords and ladies, royal libraries, Canterlot Archive filler. You name it, he’s had it written, published, or bound. That was in the old days of the exclusive patrons, obviously. He who pays the piper calls the tune, and all that.”
Caramel frowned. I spent most of my adulthood working with the stallion, and all I know about him is how he dresses and what a patronizing, pretentious popinjay he is. This creep’s been here a few days, and she’s already educating me about his commercial history.
“So what’s your big plan to wow him, then?” she said coolly.
Doctor Lance grinned at her. “Let’s just say it’s a kind of expansion.”
“Expansion?”
“Well, he’s a fan of science, isn’t he?” Stone Meadows winked at each one of them. “He wants to take another field and stretch it outside of exclusive practice. He wants to popularize it. Well, what better target than reality itself?”
Doctor Lance laughed and threw a forelimb across her withers as though they were bosom pals. “I like your style, kiddo. Can you believe this mare? Why haven’t we recruited her before now, eh?”
Caramel’s brow furrowed. “With bits of paper?”
Stone Meadow shrugged. “Why not? There’s a forest south of here where weather moves on its own.”
“And,” added Doctor Lance, “I’ve heard of a few creatures made out of nothing but constellations.”
“Not to forget that dragons shouldn’t by any measure be able to breathe fire without incinerating their mouths. Yet they manage!”
“Compared to that,” said Doctor Lance, “manipulating reality with bits of paper is child’s play.”
“It happens every day. Literature can take the mind to any kind of world without it ever leaving the room.”
Caramel frowned. “Oh come on. You’re not going to trot out some mystical nonsense, are you? You, of all ponies?”
“I’m deadly serious.” Stone Meadow reared up and towered over her, still grinning but eyes now narrowed. “Art and science aren’t ‘mystical’. We have gone beyond ‘mystical’. The creator of art and the discoverer of science… at the end of the day, they’re the same thing. Creation is discovery, and discovery is creation. The only question is where? Out there” – she pointed all around her – “or in here?” – she pointed at her own head.
Behind them, the pegasus screamed and something exploded, raining bits of metal over their hair and lab coats. No one paid much attention, simply because anyone who did had clearly just wandered in from another department.
“Outside for a moment.” Caramel nodded towards the reinforced steel. “Just you and me.”
Both of them squeezed through doors that would in another building have been used for a treasure vault, and found themselves at the top of a flight of metal stairs. Beyond were the hulking shadows of machines waiting for power; in the low light, they seemed broken and on the verge of collapse.
“I just want you to know,” Caramel said, “that I don't like being teamed up with you any more than you dislike being teamed up with me.”
“Well, really!” Stone Meadow pouted.
“Really. From what everyone else was saying, you're the perfect combination of creative insanity and unstoppable genius. Well, I've been working with you from the moment we left that loony bin, and what I've seen out of you so far is all insanity and no genius. That 'O Brother and Sister' act might go down a treat in that pit you left behind, but it's a choke chain here, and I'm not gonna stick my neck out for it.”
“Excuse me, Colonel Mustard, but I've been rewriting the rules of reality since I was old enough to bite a pencil. Think twice before you throw a gauntlet at my hooves.”
Caramel glared at her, not even bothering to hide the disdain anymore. “I knew someone like you once. Talked big, played up to the crazy image, loved every second of it. They didn't care what the rest of the world thought about them either, but it didn't end well for them.”
“Then more fool the rest of the world! For his sake and my own, I accept this as a challenge!”
Shock stabbed through Caramel's chest. Gritting her teeth against it, she lowered her horn, which suddenly flared and burned. For HIS sake?
“You don't have the right to do that,” she hissed.
The momentary gape of alarm vanished under the arrow-like point of tensed eyebrows. “What treachery be this!? You cannot be such a faithless philistine!”
The creak of six inches of iron snatched at their mutual glares; Doctor Lance slammed the door behind him, seemingly oblivious of two heated glares that should've laminated him to the wall.
“Snuggle time's over, sweethearts,” he said with a smirk. “We don't want ponies talking.”
“Let them talk!” Doctor Stone Meadow whipped her hair haughtily. “So poisoned be my character, as poison shall my words be received.”
As though waking from a dream, Caramel noticed her glowing horn for the first time. The flames were extinguished. Hastily, she straightened up, trying to impress upon everybody present with her bent limbs and slumped backbone that nothing interesting had happened. After all, it was dark in here. Anyone would need light to inspect this floor for change.
“We were concluding our spiels," she muttered. “It seems we made a case for the insanity plea.”
“Feh!” Doctor Stone Meadow turned on her hoof and strode towards the steps. “If anyone needs me, I’ll be in my quarters.”
Doctor Lance watched her go, clank by clank, and tittered to himself. “Well, this ought to be good.”
“Yes.” Caramel’s eyes were narrowed. “Good. Right.”
The little filly Caramel closed her eyes and focused on the spikes of the crystal on the floorboards. Heat clustered inside her horn, and she was sure she felt it move before it scattered and died away. With a grunt, she stopped trying to concentrate. Her teeth ached with the effort of gritting against the pressure.
At the table, Mom lowered a steaming mug onto the surface and raised the newspaper to her face. There was a scrape; the mug slid over to the edge and crashed onto the floor. Without even looking around, Mom buried and rubbed her face in the pages.
“Gosh darn that table leg!” she moaned, slightly muffled, into the home advertising column.
Caramel hurried over, horn aglow. While Mom lowered the paper, Caramel bent down to examine the offending leg, which rocked slightly as she experimentally levitated and lowered it.
“Put the book back, honey,” said Mom with a heartfelt sigh.
“I’m reading it.” Caramel grunted and sweated before the book drifted over to her from beside the crystal. “Haycart says you can’t master magic until you master his techniques, so I’ve got to read it or I won’t know what they are.”
The glare this earned her was enough. She shoved the book back under the leg and stormed off. Behind her, Mom's horn summoned a dustpan and brush to sweep up the remnants of the mug.
“Load of ancient nonsense,” Mom muttered, and Caramel wasn’t sure if she was supposed to have heard it, because in a sprightlier voice Mom added, “Honey, why don’t you practise that spell outside? I’ve got some boring housework to do.”
Caramel bit the crystal and placed it onto her back, with some help from a well-placed elbow. “But you’re just reading the newspaper.”
To the filly’s consternation, Mom slumped and looked away for a moment. “Will you just do what I ask, please?”
A few seconds later, Caramel let the door slam behind her and scampered across the nail-and-plank veranda to the steps. She had no desire to be around Mom when the mare was in this mood.
It remained eerily quiet inside the timber home all the time she spent outside.
Caramel began digging out the satchel of tomes and tools from the dirt under the veranda, coughing and blinking against the sand she threw up. Jars rattled loosely inside, so she stopped to rearrange the books and jam the glassware into place until the rattling stopped.
Caked in sand, she scampered across the dirt avenue, ignoring the sleepy-eyed pony that shuffled across the road.
“Today,” she said to the sun, which was rising beyond the distant hills, “I’m going to find fairies!”
Anything, she thought, so long as I don’t have to do chores.
Leaving the inevitable trail of disturbed dust behind her, she crested the eastern ridge and peered out beyond the shoreline of the desert. Sands and crags crashed against the wall of the conifers, and beyond that was a dark green carpet, the stuff of fairy tales. It sloshed up the slopes of the mountains and faded with a growing joy into the light of sunrise.
She slid down the slope on her croup and hopped back onto all fours, running across the desert to the distant row of trees. Already, she could see the flower heads poking out like the eyes of crazed animals. Finally, she skidded to a halt.
Among the shadows and the trunks, she was in a still world. Unlike the desert, there was no wind; the locks of her mane slumped over her eyes. She strode forwards and bounced off a tree. Squint as she did, she was almost blind under the canopy.
“Come out, come out, little fairies,” she said. “Come say hello to your biggest fan.”
Despite the stars of colour in an otherwise total shadow, the filly almost got her leg stuck in an unseen burrow, and she constantly snapped twigs and stumbled over broken branches and bumped into trunks. After sniffing three different flowers and getting not even a scent from them, she growled and sat down at the foot of a pine.
With a groan of effort, she made her horn light up. “Better,” she said to the circle of grass around her.
Shiny carapaces fled from the light, but she paid them no mind. Instead, she focused on a small daisy by her hoof. A sniff: no scent still, but the white petals radiating out did remind her of a crayon drawing she’d once done of the sun.
“This pleases me,” she said with a smirk, and she plucked it from the earth with only a grimace on her face.
It was her hooves, however, that reached into the satchel to pull out the journal. She didn’t think her magic was up for two levitation spells in a row. When she opened the book, the masses of scribbling stared back at her. Pages were flicked aside by her muzzle, but she couldn’t find a free one.
“What is this?” One eye widened as she leaned forwards. “A recipe for carrot cake? When am I going to use that, silly? I don’t cook. Mare’s sakes, the things you get up to when you’re young.”
She grinned. It had been fun a year ago, but she still shook her head at the innocence of youth.
Something clammy snagged her hoof.
With a squeal, she leaped clean into the air, flipping the book over and trampling the satchel under her hooves when she landed. At once, she looked down at the clammy thing.
For a moment, she thought one of the flowers had bitten her. Under her horn’s light, a dull grey stem rose up from the soil and stretched over to her hoof, where three petals had clamped onto her. Even as she watched, what looked like three stamens wriggled free of the three petals’ tight grip and wrapped themselves around her hoof.
Caramel blinked and leaned closer. The flower must have sprouted up where the daisy had just been. She could see the layout of the twigs and leaf litter were mostly the same.
Then, the thing detached itself from her, and at once she saw her mistake. Rows of gums bubbled out of its maw. Black drool dribbled from its three “petals”, which flexed and closed like jaws. The three “stamens” were tongues. All three of them were sucked back in like spaghetti, and the stem curled round to let it look up at her. Tiny black eyes like beetle shells blinked.
“Ew,” she said, and she crouched down to look at it. “A wormy worm.”
The thing hissed and bared its three jaws. Her face shot back up, startled, but when the thing relaxed and closed its mouth, she leaned in close again.
At once, she pulled a book towards her and flicked through the pages. After a while, she pressed her hoof down smartly on an illustration.
“I was right!” she squeaked. “And you’re not just any worm, are you? You’re a tatzlwurm!”
She glanced back at the book, drawn this time to the text.
“Oo,” she added. “Not that big. A baby tatzlwurm, then?”
The tatzlwurm hissed at her, and then gave a tiny sneeze. Caramel giggled and held out a hoof, which it wrapped around, pulling its tail out of the hole.
“Dad says fairies guard flowers, and that you shouldn’t take the flowers because that makes them sad.” While the thing tried to bite into her leg, she tilted her head curiously. “Do you want your flower back, little worm?”
She lowered her leg to the daisy on the ground. After a while, the tatzlwurm slithered off and wrapped around the green stem.
“Must be boring,” she whispered. “Having to sleep under a flower all your life, I mean. You must have been stuck there forever, and nobody came to see you. Even your daddy. You must be very lonely.”
The tatzlwurm curled its head up and hissed at her, waving back and forth like a cobra.
“You need to read books,” she said. “It’s like ponies talking to you, even when they’re far away or dead. You’re in this book, look.”
She turned the book around so it could see the illustration, but it simply lunged at the words and stuck fast.
“Huh,” she said. “I guess you don’t like it either. It’s not very nice, is it? But you’re OK. I mean, you just eat ponies. You don’t send them off to their aunts when they break things.”
With a sticky sound, the thing detached from the book, trailing black drool after it. It shook its head to dislodge the spittle.
“I’m going to leave home one day for good,” Caramel said, lowering the book. “I hate home. And I’m gonna go to Canterlot, and then I’ll be – oh my! What have you done to my book?”
The drool began to spit and steam, and when it ran off the paper, the page was blank of ink and words. She snapped the book shut and shoved it back into her satchel, rubbing her hooves afterwards.
“My word.”
She pulled out a jar. The tatzlwurm gave a harsher hiss than ever when she levitated the creature, daisy and all, into the glass prison, and she slammed the lid down and sealed it.
“Right,” she said. “If there are no fairies, then you’ll do. Come with me, little tatzlwurm. And behave yourself!”
And she strode out of the forest, ignoring the hissing and banging coming from the glass.