Chapter Twenty-Four
Three Conversations About One Thing
I was fairly sure that my niece wasn't planning on assassinating me, but she had been acting a little distant since the confrontation with Big Bad.
"Uhmn… What exactly did Spike say to her?" I asked Loose Leaf.
She squinted and twisted her mouth to one side, thinking. "The first thing he said was… 'I'm a lot more than that, now!'"
I blinked in confusion, and then realized my mistake. "Leaf, why don't you just tell me the whole conversation as best as you can remember it."
She nodded, enthusiastically. "Of course, ma'am! First, the captain said, 'You're a good dragon, Spike! Why do you serve her? Why be the servant of an evil creature? You're a hero of the Crystal Empire and you could—' and then he interrupted her and said, 'I'm a lot—'"
"Right," I said. "You can skip ahead."
She nodded again. "Well, then the captain said something about you—I mean her being evil again, and the dragon said that they were partners and peace-keepers, and how could that be bad? Something about it was better to stop a war by killing a hundred ponies and making the rest fear a fiery death rather than letting thousands kill each other… And I've got to say that that makes a lot of sense to me, ma'am, but the captain didn't seem to think so."
"Go on," I prompted. So far, I hadn't heard anything that would warrant—I suddenly realized that, though I knew the term for killing one's uncle,[1] I could not bring to mind the specific one for killing one's aunt.[2] It's odd and irritating how gaps in my knowledge turn up at inopportune moments.
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[1] Avunculicide.
[2] I believe my confusion to be understandable, even though amitacide is now widely used in modern Equestria. Because there is no single word for aunt in Ancient Equuish, until recently, only the catch-all word for murder of a close relation, parricide, was used. There is some debate about which term is "correct," with purists favoring parricide. I prefer clarity to tradition, at least in regards to language, and so will use amitacide henceforth. (Hopefully, I will have little cause to do so.)
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"Well, they went back and forth for a bit like that and then the dragon said, 'This isn't just a philosophical debate, Flurry, this is serious!' and she said, 'What are you going to do, kill me if I disagree with you?' And he got sort of quiet and said, 'No, but…' and then he stopped talking. So the captain puts a wing on his muzzle and I was sure he was going to eat her, but I guess they know each other or something? I mean, she called him Uncle. That's not possible, right?"
"Long story," I said, remembering the day when little Flurry had first called him Unka 'Pike, and how proud he'd been. "Go on."
"She said she always admired him, and that he should be open with her. He still didn't say anything for a minute, and by then you… uhm… both of you had started to walk back, so he told her really fast and low about how one day a Bright Sparkle will show up, and ask her to work against you. He said not to do it. He repeated that and said how serious it was." She paused for a moment in thought. "Really serious. He told her she didn't have to join the Dark Twilights, but whatever she did, don't oppose them! Then he said, 'I hate it when I hear that one of you has been—' and then you were really close, so he stopped talking, but it was kind of obvious what he was going to say." She drew a hoof across her throat and made a shhhhhhkt sound just in case I was an oblivious idiot.
"So, from the way she was talking," Leaf continued, "I saw that she wasn't going to be sensible about it, and that if you were going to kill her sometime in the future, she could just avoid that by killing you now, and I thought I ought to warn you." She stopped talking long enough to draw breath and let her brain engage for a moment. "Which is a shame, because she's a really good captain, and you two seem to get along so well otherwise. I considered not getting involved, but after sleeping on it, I realized that if it's a choice between the two of—"
I held up a hoof to stop her flood of words. "Thank you. I get the picture." I lifted the needle in my magic again and held it up in front of my face, watching it shake erratically. I decided to put off the tattoo session as I had no desire to watch Loose Leaf bleed all over my deck.
I added the ink bottle and cloths to my field and passed them to Leaf. "Here, hang on to these. I'll do the tattoo after we get through the mountains. Wouldn't want to misunderstand any directions you gave us because of a swollen lip, would we?"
She took the items and stashed them under one wing. "Good thinking, ma'am!"
"Please go aft and report to the captain," I continued, in a remarkable steady voice. "Give her and the helmspony all the details about the approach to the pass. Tell Captain Skyla I will await her pleasure in the matter of a planning session to determine how we will manage the passage, if she cares to include me."
"Uh…" Leaf shuffled her hooves uncertainly. "Aye aye, Ms. Nightshade." She waited a moment to see if I had anything to add, and then turned and trotted for the quarterdeck.
I blew into the speaking tube for the cupola, and when Ao answered, I asked if there was anypony else up there with her. When she told me she was alone, I stoppered the tube and flew up to join her.
"Did you happen to overhear the conversation between Skyla and Spike last night?" I asked her.
"Only the very last part," she told me. "Until you came back to the group, this one was in the air, keeping watch on the pegasi in stasis against the chance that the spell might fail."
I nodded. It was just like her to self-impose that sort of watchfulness. It was one of the many things that made her such a good adventuring companion. Another of her sterling qualities was an excellent memory.
"Ao, can you tell me exactly what you overheard?"
She did so, and my budding suspicion of a multi-dimensional Bright/Dark war evaporated, only to be replaced by a much stranger hypothesis. In that context, what Midnight Sparkle had said to me took on a whole new meaning that staggered me with its implications It was insane, unimaginably ambitious, and utterly mind-boggling… But it was also very much me.
"Are you well, Majesty?"
"Huh? Oh… uhmn… yes, I'm fine, Ao, just fine. I… I think I ought to go down and convince my niece not to assassinate me now."
"Majesty?" Ao's right forehoof had reflexively gone to the grip of her sword, and a bit of its blade shone clear of the scabbard in the evening light.
"What? Oh, right… no, it's fine." I stared off into space, wishing I could grip the cosmic wheels of that world and pull them to a stop for a while. Just a year or so. Time to think. But you know what they say, "If wishes were fishes, there'd be trout in the hayloft."
"Trout, Majesty? This one becomes concerned."
"Oh, did I say that out loud?" I asked.
Ao nodded, cautiously, still gripping her sword.
"No, honestly, it's okay. I just figured out something, and it's a bit of a shock." I shook out my wings and shuffled them back neatly at my sides. "I think Skyla's gotten the wrong impression about the... situation, and I need to go fill her in."
"Shall I accompany you, Majesty?"
I shook my head wearily. "No, and please stop with the 'Majesty' bit for at least a little while. I'm not a queen. I don't think I'm even a pawn… not yet, anyway."
Ao pushed her sword fully back into its scabbard with a little click. "As you wish, Twilight Sparkle. But you are not yourself, and this one will accompany you until this one is satisfied nothing untoward will occur as a result of this shock you have suffered."
I opened my mouth to reassure her, but she interrupted me. "If you are not a queen, you may not command this one."
Well, I was first mate, and she was… second mate or bosun; we'd never really formalized our positions. Because none of us had ever actually signed on, her argument for disobeying my orders had some merit, and I was much too tired and muddled to argue the point.
I sighed. "Hoist with my own petard," I muttered.
"As you say, Ma… Twilight," Ao replied. One glance at her aggressively neutral expression told me that she had not the slightest idea what a petard was.
Ao called up one of the unicorn rebels to take over the watch, and we flew down to the quarterdeck together.
Skyla looked up as we descended. "Trouble?"
Trouble? What an understatement! It was trouble on an enormous scale. "Not really, no," I told her. "I just need a couple of minutes to clear something up with you. Alone, if possible."
She gave me a wary look that made my heart ache. Loose Leaf was standing on the deck behind her, and gave me a little surreptitious high-sign with the tip of one wing. I wanted to smack the bloody-minded pegasus.
"Very well," Skyla said. "Ms. Ao, take command. I will return shortly. Keep us on this course; east by north." She turned to me. "Will my cabin do?"
Ao obeyed, but gave me a very stern look, which I understood to mean, "Try to keep a lid on the crazy, please, and yell if you need me."[3]
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[3] My readers might think it unlikely that I could divine such specific information from a single look, but Ao and I had a lot of history together, and unfortunately, she'd had occasion to use the same expression a few times previously.
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Skyla led the way down to the captain's cabin. She walked to the desk and turned to face me, unsmiling.
"I would never, ever hurt you, Flurry," I said. "I know what Spike said to you and he's wrong. This whole—"
"War isn't nice and neat, Twilight," she snapped. "Ponies get hurt. Ponies get killed, even if—"
"It's not a war!" I shouted. I hadn't meant to to raise my voice, and Flurry's reflexive start made me ashamed of myself. "I'm sorry! But honestly, I've figured it out. It's not a war."
She raised an eyebrow at me.
"Didn't Big Bad Twilight seem kind of wimpy to you?" I realized what I was saying and shook my head angrily. "Okay, yes, she and Spike burned a fleet from the sky, but why did she do it? And why did she give them all a chance to parachute to safety? Why didn't she kill us for trespassing in her world?"
My niece was frowning at me now, but in puzzlement rather than anger. "Why don't you just tell me," she said.
"According to Ao, Spike said, 'It may be just a game to them, but it's deadly serious to the ponies around them.' Is that correct?" She nodded and I went on. "That wasn't hyperbole. It actually is a game."
Her head went back and she gave a little whinny of surprise. "What? That doesn't make any sense!"
"Big Bad isn't a simple villain with a hyper-developed appetite for power. She wants this world to be peaceful and egalitarian. So what does the good side want?"
"That sort of sounds like what we were working towards," Flurry admitted.
"Yes, and I'm betting the Bright Sparkles are no different. The two sides don't have different goals, they have different techniques." Flurry's mouth worked a bit, as if she were searching for words, but I rushed on. "I've travelled the worlds enough to know that if there were a war of that scale going on, I would have seen some sign of it. The two sides, bright and dark, are competing, but not fighting."
Flurry's expression softened, and I could see she was thinking it over. "But a game? With ponies' lives at stake? That still doesn't make sense to me."
"If there are two competing theories, their respective predictive abilities are what ultimately determines which is correct. Stern and ruthless authoritarianism focused on punishing wrongdoing, or shining examples of high moral character and a scrupulously fair government. Which approach is more effective at making the best world for ponies?" I opened a drawer in the desk and floated out my chess set. "Set up the boundaries," I said as I placed the board on the desk. "Lay out the chessponies, bright and dark" I said, as I placed the pieces on the board. "Play the game… and see who's right."
She shoot her head. "That's… That's… Even if you're right, that's monstrous!"
I shrugged. "Maybe I'm wrong. Ask the Bright Sparkle that comes to recruit you."
Her expression fell. "If I say yes, what will—"
"Nothing!" I hissed through my teeth. "The answer is nothing! I wouldn't harm you for any reason, Flurry. I love you, and I will protect you from any number of Dark Twilights if they try to remove you from the board."
"Remove? You mean kill me, right?"
I shook my head. "I don't think so. Maybe Spike gave you that impression, but I just can't see her being so ruthless with a family member when she had concern for enemies she didn't even know. If Big Bad was that callous, she would have killed us for interfering, rather than saving us from the fleet. Exile to a low or non-magic world for the duration of the game would be just as easy. For such a huge contest, the rules must have a lot of leeway in them, but I imagine that employing such a powerful magic user as you to tip the balance in borderline worlds has to be way over the line."
"I… I'm still not convinced," she said slowly. "The bright side has to be obviously better, right? Why would they need a game to figure that out?"
"Call it an experiment then. Science doesn't accept obvious answers, it only accepts hard evidence." I swept the chess set back into the drawer. "Equestria is a bright world, don't you think?"
"Of course!"
I nodded. "The old changelings, Discord, Sombra, Tirek, the Nightmare, the Storm King, Grogar… shall I go on?"
"But we beat them all! Reformed some of them, too!" She was actually so indignant that she stomped a hoof at me.
"Only by a hairsbreadth, and I've seen timelines where we didn't." I chuckled mirthlessly. "Random chance plays a part, so only in the aggregate can the most effective method be determined. First pony to ten thousand peaceful and prosperous worlds wins."
"It's nothing to be sarcastic about, Twilight! Even if they are trying to make things better, I don't like the idea of something so cold-blooded at all!"
"Well, maybe I'm completely wrong," I said, shrugging. "Time will tell. I just wanted to let you know that I'll never, never be a part of what you thought Spike meant. I don't like this grand game either, and I'll do whatever I can to keep our home world out of it."
Flurry lowered her head and said, quietly, "I… I'm sorry Twilight. I should have realized…" Then her head came up suddenly and she said, "But you do it too!"
"Huh? Do what?"
Her eyes grew wide. "Ponyville and Twilight Town. Bright and Dark."
"What?" I jerked my head so far up in surprise that my horn hit the overhead. "No, no, no! That's not the same at all! Twilight Town was an accident! I'm not running any sort of experiment with them!"
"But you keep up the appearance," she said, pointing at me. "You play the game! That's why you look like that now!"
"Ponies like what they're used to. I just—"
"They're happy, aren't they? The Twilight Folk, I mean. Most of them are pretty prosperous, right?"
"Well, yes, but so are most Ponivillians!" I protested.
"So who's doing a better job, the Princess of Friendship or the Queen of Twilight Town?"
"I… uh… Look, that question isn't even meaningful. One place isn't better than the other…"
"Oh, sure! No difference." She scowled at me. "Then why don't we ask Ao if she wants to move to Ponyville?"
I could see that we were getting nowhere. "When we get back, we're going to have to discuss all of this. We'll need a royal summit to figure out what to do about… well, everything. I will make sure you're included, and we will debate it all then. Will that satisfy you?"
She scuffed a hoof on the deck. "I suppose. But what if Mother decides I'm too young to—"
"Steal a ship, go pirating across the dimensions, and topple an empire?" I grinned at her. "Then start your own free city and declare yourself queen. That way, you'll outrank her."
Flurry snickered and the tension in the air fell away. "Don't tempt me!"
I grinned. "Well, we still have to get back, and there are a lot of dangers between us and the gate. We can worry about the seating arrangements at the summit later."
"Yes, and the Empire may be listing a lot, but it isn't quite toppled yet. We still need to—"
"Oh holy stars!" I cried out, interrupting her. "I completely forgot! Wait here, I'll be right back!"
I dashed out of the cabin and down the ladder to my own. I hurriedly rummaged through my files, grabbed a folder and galloped back.
"Here!" I said, thrusting a folded paper at Captain Skyla.
"What's… Oh, it's that silly declaration of war you made me sign…" She trailed off as she noticed the second signature at the bottom.
"Yep," I said gleefully as I passed over the agreement of unconditional surrender. "Both officially signed by His Glorious Imperial Majesty, Emperor Fauvel the Seventh."
She looked up at me, and I positively wallowed in her opened-mouthed expression of absolute shock.
"Congratulations," I said. "You won!"
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We worked our way slowly through the twisting smuggler's pass. The moonlight was helpful, but Ao and I flew ahead with shuttered lanterns to help mark the way through each leg. There were parts so narrow that Sirocco had to pivot the steering fins as far up as possible to clear the granite cliffs to either side.
Five hours later, we finally made it through to the high plains, and Loose Leaf guided us to a safe mooring ground as the eastern sky was beginning to lighten.
The plan was to stay hidden for the next couple of days while we made comprehensive repairs to Nebula. Then we would do a lightning run through the Western Territories, dropping medallions as we went, until we reached the Badlands gate.
Then we would go home.
Well, that was the plan, anyway.
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