Alicornae: The Legend of Starlit Sky
Part III - Chapter 3: Pressure
* * *
Starlit couldn't help but feel a wave of barely restrained annoyance coming off of Rarity as they wove their way through her workplace. For a morgue it was astonishingly spacious and five floors high. Starlit assumed it was due to the astonishingly high population of New Selene; with that many ponies all crammed into one place, the amount of dead that poured in every day would potentially outstrip the entire population of her village.
Starlit had asked a few questions as they walked, and received terse, one word answers in reply that didn't tell her much. They only made a brief stop off by the storage room for personal effects to find Starlit's saddlebags which, mercifully, were untouched and still had all of their contents in place. Her sword and knives were missing, but after her run in with the machine she hadn't been counting on their being with her things.
More walking, more ducking around the scarce few ponies that bothered to be in the halls, and more silence followed. Starlit felt her heart pump faster, waiting for the other horseshoe to drop and for them to get found out, but it didn't happen. It reminded her all too much of being in Celestia's old palace.
"Rarity, how many ponies actually work here?" Starlit asked, doing anything to get her mind off of her nerves. "We've seen signs of maybe a half-dozen other ponies in a five story building."
"Is now really the time?" Rarity hissed back.
"It just strikes me as odd. I understand that not many ponies would want to deal with dead bodies all day, but this seems underpopulated even for a morgue."
Rarity hesitated in her answer as she led them down the last set of stairs to the ground floor, and to Starlit's freedom. She could hear the sound of ponies scurrying to and fro from the hall preceding the back door.
"If you must know," Rarity replied, "nopony chooses this position, they get chosen for it. There's a lottery the Council holds every six months or so among the unemployed, and if your name gets picked you go to the morgue for as long as you can stomach it."
"And how long have you been here?" Starlit asked as they exited the building into the back alley.
"Two years or so, not that I had much choice. I'm the only one in the family that can work, and after my first job tanked I had to take whatever I could get."
"And I presume it had something to do with gemstones?" Starlit asked, gesturing to Rarity's cutie mark.
"Has anypony ever told you that you ask a lot of questions?" Rarity snapped back. "Maybe I don't like to talk about things like this and I'm only answering you to be courteous to a pony who did me a kindness, but this is one step too far. I've stuck my neck out for you in the last hour in ways that, if anypony found out, would get me a life in prison at best and my head and the heads of my loved ones on the chopping block at second-best, and yet you continue to ask for more and more."
"Rarity, I'm sorry if I intru—"
"Oh, you're sorry, as if that's worth anything!" Rarity continued unabated. "Does 'sorry' get me out of a job I hate? Does 'sorry' keep my sister fed, or my lame father and half-mad mother alive? Does 'sorry' dispel the terror that plagues me every night that one day I won't come home from work and that everything I love and care for will be torn away from me for not following a law or rule I didn't know existed due to the manic whims of the Council?!"
Starlit stood stock still, dumbstruck by the flood gate she had inadvertently unleashed. Rarity had a wild look in her eyes, her beautiful face warped into a twisted mask of anger, sadness, and regret. Her cheek began to drip blood, no doubt due to one of her stitches coming loose during her tirade.
As Starlit remained silent Rarity slowly calmed, her breathing becoming more even and her face softening. Where once was hate and stress only sadness and embarrassment remained.
"That… that was rude," Rarity murmured, her eyes fixed on the ground. "You didn't deserve that."
"I may not have deserved it, but I think I needed it," Starlit replied. "Your personal life is your own, and it was wrong of me to try and intrude on that."
With a weight in her heart Starlit started down the alley to the main street. She still needed to get to the palace, but she wasn't about to put a pony who had nothing to do with it in harm's way. Rarity had her own worries and concerns, she didn't need Starlit's piled on.
"Starlit, wait!" Rarity called out. Starlit turned to see her cantering down the street.
"Rarity, you've already done enough for me, you don't need to do any more," Starlit said.
"There is still one thing I can do for you," Rarity continued. "I know a way you can get near the palace. On the northwestern edge of the city is an abandoned diamond mine that I used to work at. The Council ordered it closed due to a gas leak or some nonsense, but the tunnels go right up under the old palace.
If not for the tense situation they both had just come out of Starlit would've hugged her. It was a lead, and a solid one at that.
"It's not much, but it's something," Rarity finished sheepishly.
"It's much more than 'something', Rarity," Starlit said. "Thank you so much, for everything you've done for me today."
"Think nothing of it, please. Just do what you have to do, whatever that happens to be."
With a nod, Starlit trotted out onto the street, her head down to avoid the stares of the crowd and to hide the smile plastered on her face.
* * *
"Are you absolutely sure you don't want to gag her?" Silence asked petulantly.
Between Silence's complaining and warnings and Pinkie Pie's incessant chattering as they maneuvered through the streets, Sun found that his threshold for regretting decisions was far behind him. At this point he'd have given his right eye for five minutes of peace.
"For a prescient voice in my head you are astonishingly thick in places," Sun chided. "Even if I wanted to, leading her around like a slave would have the machines brought upon me faster than I could blink."
"All I'm saying is that it's an option," Silence replied.
"You know, you're being awful quiet back there," Pinkie chimed in, pulling Sun out of his internal dialogue. "Thinking about anything important?"
"Just marveling at the city, really," Sun replied. "This much technology and society all in one place has my head spinning."
"Yeah, it takes a bit to get used to, I'll tell you that for free. When I was a little filly I used to play in the alleys by running up the pipes and trying to see how high I could get. Then I slipped once and broke my tailbone, and Mom told me I had to stop."
"Do you know what the pipes are for?" Sun asked.
"Not the fancy brass ones, but the iron ones are mostly for pumping sewage and yucky stuff out of the city. I think the steel ones are for pumping water and light-gas."
"Light-gas?" Sun asked. "I can't say I'm familiar with that."
"They don't have light-gas where you're from?" Pinkie replied incredulously. "Boy, I'd hate to live there, light-gas is some amazing stuff!"
"Do you know how it works? What is it made from?"
"Couldn't tell you, truthfully," Pinkie replied. "All I know is that they get it from the gemstone mines on the north end of town. That's what Maud does for a living, and the pay's nothing to sneeze at."
"If it pays decently, then why do you two live in a hovel in an alley?" Sun asked, miffed that Pinkie didn't know any more about the light-gas.
"Well, it pays decently for a miner," Pinkie clarified. "It's not like she gets a guard's salary or anything. It's enough to keep a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs, and when that doesn't cut it she pockets a few of the gems that she digs up and sells them."
"Do you at least know what light-gas is used for?" Sun asked.
"Oh, just about everything! It keeps the streetlights on, it powers the Council robots, it keeps all of our factories and such going. Without light-gas the city would fall apart in days."
"Plus, just between you and me," Pinkie continued, sidling up next to Sun so as not to be overheard, "it makes an amazing firestarter. One ounce of that stuff will have your fireplace roaring in seconds."
"And they just pump it through the city? Isn't that dangerous?"
"That's why the pipes are made of steel, you silly-billy!" Pinkie chirped back as she bounced ahead by a few paces, leaving Sun dumbfounded.
"I can't tell if she's going to get me killed or is the only pony in this entire city I can count on for anything," Sun said to nopony in particular.
"I'd go with the former suggestion," Silence replied curtly. "Best to expect the worst in regards to ponies like her."
"And what would you know about ponies like her?" Sun asked. "She's got a lot of street smarts if how she's helped us dodge the machines and navigated us around the worst of the crowds is any indication. She may be odd and talk like she's going to die if she stops, but she's helpful."
"Just don't be surprised if her oddity becomes a liability," Silence answered.
Sun shook his head to try and dispel Silence's presence, but it seemed like she was done speaking for the meantime anyway. Just in the nick of time too, as Pinkie's frantic gesturing indicated that they were where they needed to be.
The building before them was stark and monolithic, the absolute antithesis of Sunspire's architecture and even a tad spartan by New Selene's standards. The slate grey walls were harsh and geometrical, there were only windows on the bottom floor, and the only signs that life could even exist inside were the omnipresent pipes that crawled up the side and entered through the roof.
Pinkie was just preparing to enter, beckoning Sun to join her all the while, when the front door swung open. Judging from Pinkie's reaction, the unicorn that exited was the friend she had been speaking of.
"Rarity!" Pinkie exclaimed, causing the unicorn to jump slightly. "Just the pony I need to see!"
"Pinkie Pie?" Rarity asked. "Heavens, its been too long! How've you been, dear?"
"You know, just hanging in there. The gas business has been good for Maud and I, but that's beside the point. What happened to your face?"
"Oh, this?" Rarity replied, touching the bandages around her cheek. "Just a mishap at work, tripped over something that should've been put up. Pay it no heed."
Just loud enough to be heard over the ponies in the street, Sun coughed to grab their attention.
"Oh, right!" Pinkie said with a look of mild embarrassment. "Rarity, this is Setting Sun. Setting Sun, this is Rarity! We used to work together before her mine got closed down."
"We seem to be getting a lot of visitors in town today," Rarity said. "Pleasure to meet you, Sun."
"As is mine," Sun replied, "but you said that there were a lot of visitors today?"
"Oh, I just had to help a mare get her bearings a few hours ago, nothing you need to concern yourself with."
Sun's mind began to spin up, although the dots weren't that hard to connect. If Starlit had been killed then she naturally would've been taken to a morgue, and then the amulet would revive her in time for some poor mortician to see a dead pony get off of a table.
"Tell me, did this mare have a dusky blue coat, blue hair, and teal eyes? Go by the name Starlit Sky?" Sun asked.
To say that Rarity was stunned would be an understatement; she had the face of a pony who had just seen the dead rise, and Sun knew for fact that she had.
"You know her?!" Rarity asked. "Do you know she is quite hard to kill?"
"I'm aware," Sun answered. "And I'm thankful that this particular turn of events has shaken out in my favor. Is she still here?"
Rarity's eyes flitted towards Pinkie Pie, who had been listening with attention that seemed too focused for her personality. The silence hung thick in the air, and it was all the answer that Sun needed.
"Alright, where did you send her?" Sun asked with an exasperated tone.
"She was rabbiting on about needing to get into the palace, and the only way I could see her getting there is—"
"Your old mine!" Pinkie interjected. "Didn't that get closed down because the light-gas was leaking out of the veins?"
"But that was two years ago!" Rarity retorted. "There's no way it could still be leaking now, especially after the clean-up crews were sent in."
The fur on Sun's neck bristled and a series of excessively hateful words began to rise up from his chest, enough that they all cascaded and burned together into a white hot core of fury.
"You mean to tell me that you knowingly told a confused mare with no knowledge of the danger she was being placed in to go to a place that could ignite if so much as an errant spark hit the wrong patch of air?" Sun asked with cold malice.
"She seemed to be able to handle herself," Rarity answered, backpedaling under Sun's furious glare. "She's the one that stitched my face up!"
"A few stitches and the ability to survive a point blank explosion are completely unrelated!" Sun shot back. "You are going to take me to her right this instant, and the entirety of the way there you are going to be thinking up a suitable apology for putting her life in danger or so help me I will spend the rest of my life trying to find a suitable torture to put you through!"
Pinkie held a hoof over her mouth while Rarity looked to be on the verge of tears, her chest rising and falling in a nervous staccato rhythm. Only then did he notice just how quiet the street was, how loudly he had been yelling, and the pressure that encompassed his mind.
"Silence, I'm in no mood for this," Sun thought as he ran a hoof through his hair.
There was no reply from Silence, and the weight on his mind felt different from her influence. It felt more deeply rooted, more ingrained than her surface level pressure was and knotted at the back of his head. Whatever this weight was, he couldn't tell if it was from her influence or not.
Sun took a quick look around and found that a fair few ponies were staring at him, as well as one of the machines. Its eyes were still teal, which he had gathered meant that it was still docile, so rather than agitate it he walked towards Pinkie and Rarity. Rarity reflexively backed up as he approached.
"Pinkie Pie, you lead the way to the mine," Sun ordered. "You know every back road in this city and we need to get there in time to catch Starlit."
"And me?" Rarity whimpered, trying her best not to meet Sun's gaze.
"I already told you what you're going to do," Sun answered curtly before taking Pinkie's lead. Rarity offered no protest, and Sun was thankful for the quiet.
* * *
The trip over to the other end of New Selene was harrowing, to say the least. Starlit found her diligence pushed to the breaking point as she tried to observe everything about her surroundings and stay hidden at the same time. Nopony really seemed to pay much attention to her, but since they didn't seem to paying much attention to anything it made her attentiveness stick out all the more.
A few of the machine-ponies that had killed her marched past, their impassive teal eyes locked ahead unless they were responding to a disturbance of some sort. Starlit had seem a pair launch some kind of strings from their bodies that, when they connected to a pony, sent them into a convulsive fit. Another one had used its artificial horn hold a pony in place like Sun had done to the thug in Appleoosa. Her amulet tugged in their general direction when they went past like a compass.
Everywhere Starlit went she kept a keen eye out for Sun, trying to find him in the listless crowds. If he was among the innumerable ponies that jostled her down the street Starlit couldn't tell, and it made the butterflies in her stomach more agitated.
Starlit had no idea what sort of resistance she may face at the mine, and the lack of knowing was eating her up. It could be nothing since it was abandoned, as she had been telling herself incessantly since the idea of resistance planted in her head, but there could very well be more of the machines there to prevent anypony else from trespassing. If Sun had been there then Starlit could bounce some ideas off of him, or at least feel more secure in having another set of eyes and ears.
The trip over to the mine took Starlit most of the day, and the sun was just about to go below the horizon when she saw her first sign of it. The ground which had until then been mostly cobblestone suddenly gave way to dirt and gravel for the next half-mile or so, as well as sloping downward precipitously. Once she got close enough to see the mine she ducked behind a large rock to hide from prying eyes.
The first warning sign came from the fact that there were work lights on in the distance, more of the flameless lamps that Starlit had seen scattered throughout the city, and in their light she saw ponies moving about. She was too far off to tell if they were ponies or machines, but they were there nonetheless.
"Rarity said this place was abandoned," Starlit thought. Given her vehemence at how she had lost her job, Starlit didn't doubt that Rarity was telling the truth as she knew it. What concerned Starlit was what had changed to re-open it.
A small cascade of gravel from behind made Starlit's heart skip and her muscles freeze. It could've just been her moving through that dislodged it, but Starlit knew far better than to trust that. With aching slowness she turned, trying to get the barest look at whoever was approaching her.
At the crest of the hill a trio of figures stood, their faces framed in the shadow of the rapidly setting sun. She couldn't tell what races they were or even how far away from her they were, but they seemed just as frozen at the sight of her as she was at the sight of them.
"Who's there?" one of the figures called, in a voice that Starlit would recognize in a heartbeat.
"Sun?" Starlit asked back.
"Starlit!" Sun answered, relief palpable on his voice.
With more speed than was safe for such a steep incline Sun half-ran, half-slid down the embankment to Starlit, followed by his companions. The details of his face slowly grew more distinct as he got closer, and she was relieved to find that he was unharmed.
Sun grabbed her up in a tight, warm hug, a tighter one than she felt the circumstances really warranted. They had been separated for the day due to her death, but this level of gratitude was a bit off-putting.
"Goodness Sun, I'm happy to see you too," Starlit said, pulling him off of her gently. "What's the fuss?"
"Considering what I now know about this mine, I don't think I'm making enough of a fuss," Sun answered, happy but cryptic. "I'm just happy to see you and relieved that you didn't go in there."
"What for? I was told it would be abandoned and it clearly isn't, but that doesn't seem like quite enough to warrant this reaction."
"I can field that question, ma'am," one of Sun's companions chimed in, in another familiar voice.
"Rarity? What are you doing here?"
"Doing my due diligence, I suppose," Rarity answered weakly. "There was something I neglected to tell you about this mine, something that could've gotten you killed quite horribly."
"That mine was used to mine light-gas," Sun interjected. "It's a substance that is used to power everything in the city, but it's also highly combustible under the right conditions. The reason this place was shut down is that one of the veins started leaking, and if you'd gone in there and, say, tried to light a torch you would've been blown to bits and alerted everypony in the area that you were here."
Starlit's stomach dropped at the thought that she had been that close to her fourth death, but not so much as she thought it would. The amulet around her neck thrummed softly, and she found the feeling of it oddly comforting.
"Sun, you know what would happen if I died in there," Starlit replied. "I can't stay dead, so at best it would set me back by a few hours and at worst I'd get sent back to the morgue."
"Even so," Rarity said, "it was remiss of me not to mention entirely why the mine was shut down, and for that you have my deepest and most sincere apologies."
Rarity bowed her head, and Starlit could see her knees shaking ever so slightly before they lost the light. She glanced to Sun, his eyes set in a firm glare at the white unicorn while the third pony glanced back and forth between them anxiously.
"I accept your apology, Rarity, as well as any assistance you could offer," Starlit replied, her tone gentle but diplomatic. "If you and your friend could go and find us a safe spot to rest for the night I'd be much appreciative."
Rarity took off before Starlit finished speaking, and the pink pony followed closely behind, leaving Starlit and Sun to themselves. Sun watched the pair leave until they crested the hill.
"Sun, what did you do?" Starlit asked firmly.
"What do you mean?" Sun answered, his tone light and borderline flippant.
"I think you know exactly what I mean, Sun. How did you get Rarity to come along? When last we spoke she wanted nothing to do with me and just pointed me here, yet here she is with you and that other pony. What changed?"
Sun locked eyes with Starlit, and for the first time since they'd met she saw real steel behind them. His expression wasn't his usual thin veneer of calm that masked his nervous and worrisome interior, but rather a visage of indifference.
"She could've gotten you killed, Starlit," Sun answered, his voice as cold as iron, "and I convinced her to help me see you safely through this."
"Sun, she has a family," Starlit protested, "and she has no business being here and doing this for me. This isn't her mission and you had no right to coerce her into coming along."
"So what would you have had me do?" Sun countered, his tone gaining an edge. "Just give her a slap on the hoof and an 'off you go then'? She kept valuable information from you, from us. She could've jeopardized the entire mission."
"Sun, we can handle this, you know we can. We convinced Celestia to come back, and we've had a significantly smoother time getting this close to Luna. I can't die and you have your wits to keep you safe. However you convinced her to come with you, you didn't need to. Now go help them find a safe place to camp tonight, I'll be with you shortly."
Sun looked like he was going to protest until his eyes slightly unfocused, losing the steel that hid behind them. He shook his head like he was trying to wring water out of his hair, turning to go back up the hill as he did.
Starlit followed his retreating figure until he went past the hilltop, her mind a flurry of thoughts. She didn't want to admit it, but Rarity's expertise regarding the mines would be helpful. Starlit only worried about how she and Sun would get along; there was tension between them, that much she knew as fact.
With one last look back at the distant work-lights, Starlit went back up the hill.
* * *
Sun wandered around the gravel and dirt for a while before he found Pinkie and Rarity in the dark. They had found a pit in the ground that had a large enough clearing to form a makeshift campsite, but Rarity was nowhere to be seen when he approached.
"Where's Rarity?" he asked as he skidded to a halt at the bottom of the pit.
"She said she needed to take a walk, gather herself," Pinkie replied, her tone oddly terse.
Sun sat down in the dirt next to where Pinkie had started up a small fire. The flames burned a dull blue, their tips licking at the underside of a tiny cookpot she had positioned over it.
He stared into the flames for a while, feeling the pressure in the back of his head recede as he did. The color, though odd, was soothing; it didn't rage and sear the way normal fire did, but looked like it was caressing the wood it was consuming.
"Pinkie, I'm going to turn in," Sun said as he pulled bedroll off of his saddlebags, "but when Rarity comes back could you tell her I'm sorry? About this afternoon, and the things I said to her."
"Mm-hm," Pinkie murmured as she took the pot off and checked its contents. The scent was heavenly, but Sun was in no mood to eat. He laid his bedroll out on the gravel, grateful for a place to lay his head.
"Goodnight, Sun," Silence said to him, the weight of her words pressing on his skull. He didn't reply, only pulled his cloak around him and drifted off to fitful sleep.
* * *