Alicornae: The Legend of Starlit Sky
Part III - Chapter 8: The War Room
* * *
The streets of New Selene were uncharacteristically quiet as Pinkie and Rarity traversed the worn stone. The only sounds to be heard were the occasional hiss of a steam valve and the few ponies that were still out in the open holding hushed conversations.
"I hope Maud won't be too mad about me being gone all day yesterday," Pinkie said, breaking some of the unsettling silence. "She knows I can handle myself, but even she can get worried sometimes."
"I just wonder how I'll explain all of this to my folks," Rarity added. "Sweetie Belle's a smart filly even if she doesn't get the best marks in school, and Father's always been good at spotting a lie. All these injuries will be hard to write off as a workplace accident."
"You could tell them the truth. That's what I'm doing."
"Pinkie, as much as admire your earnestness, I don't think this is the sort of thing you can just go on running your mouth about. What if somepony overhears?"
Pinkie looked off into the middle distance, an look of hard pondering written onto her face.
"Well, I just won't say it out in the open, now will I?" Pinkie replied. "Maud's a really good secret keeper, she won't blab."
"For as taciturn as she is, I honestly believe that," Rarity said, wincing slightly as she stepped on an uneven section of the street.
Another uncomfortable silence settled over the two mares, only exacerbated by the quiet streets. It felt like the whole city was keeping a secret from them, one that could burst forth at any moment.
"Do you really think we should've stayed out of it?" Pinkie asked, the cheer in her voice replaced by concern. "I mean, what if they need our help?"
Rarity sighed. It was a question she'd been asking herself ever since they'd agreed with Starlit and Chirox that the two of them would be better off not going back to the palace. For Rarity it had been a more obvious choice, as she was in no fit state to go, but Pinkie had put up a bit of a fuss about it.
"Pinkie, I know you want to help, really I do, but you need to face facts; how could we help? What could we possibly offer to two ponies who can't die and one that can shatter glass with her voice?"
"More than nothing!" Pinkie protested. "Even if it's just moral support, that's better than not going at all."
"Pinkie, look at me. I'm too injured, and if what Starlit said is true you and I wouldn't be able to actually go into that room without getting wracked with pain when Starlit does let her out. We'd be a millstone around their necks, end of discussion."
Pinkie opened and shut her mouth multiple times, looking like she wanted to keep arguing but couldn't form the words to argue with. Finally she just slumped her head forward and kept walking.
Sullen silence seemed to be the order of the day for the pair of them, and it only magnified the guilty feeling buried in Rarity's chest. If she weren't injured she might have braved another venture into the mines and the palace, but she had long since realized that life rarely gives what you want it to.
As if to prove her mindset correct, a familiar clanking sound echoed down the street towards them. What few ponies were still out and about ducked into whatever building or alley was convenient, leaving Rarity and Pinkie alone with the automaton. It's brass plating shone with a dull reflection of the overcast sky, and it's teal eyes stared forward impassively as it approached.
Pinkie let out a yelp of pain as the machine drew closer. Rarity saw her eyes clenched tight and her holding a hoof over the back of her head like she was trying to staunch a flow of blood.
"Pinkie? What's wrong?" Rarity asked.
"My head, it feels like… somepony just put a ton of rocks right on the back," Pinkie answered through gritted teeth. She fell forward as she reached up with her other hoof, and her writhing drew the machine's attention.
"Citizen C-2399, Designation: Pinkie Pie," the machine intoned. "Citizen B-0412, Designation: Rarity. Your presence is required by Council Order GE-362. Compliance is mandatory. Follow this unit or you will be pacified."
"Just a moment," Rarity answered as she tried to tend to Pinkie.
"Compliance is mandatory," the machine repeated, its eyes shifting to yellow. "Follow this unit or you will be pacified."
"I said just a moment," Rarity repeated, a hint of desperation worming into her voice. She had worked with these machines before, but it was quite a different matter being on the other end of their ire.
As quick as she could manage Rarity dragged Pinkie to her hooves. She winced in pain at every step, keeping one hoof on the back of her head as they followed the machine. It's path was initially erratic, but as they went further and further towards the center of the city it became readily apparent where they were being taken, and the sight of the building terrified Rarity.
Looming overhead, made of monolithic grey stone carved into harsh, geometric angles, was the Council Offices. It was the single largest building in New Selene save for the palace itself. Rarity had had to do business there a few times simply by virtue of knowing Starlight Glimmer and being a part of her mad scheme, but the building itself never failed to send a shiver down her body.
Rarity had been supporting Pinkie's weight for the last few blocks, and coming up to the Offices caused her to cry out and fall limp. The machine that had been leading them turned to stare at Rarity as she tried to drag Pinkie forward before giving up. A few of her cuts reopened as she struggled, and she felt the scabs on her hooves rub against her bandages.
When Rarity looked up she saw the machine, as well as a small mob of its compatriots circling the two of them. Their cold eyes stared down at them on the cobbled streets, and Rarity could feel the silent malevolence to their gaze.
Slowly another set of hoofsteps broke the silence of the day, their sound gentle and dainty compared to the aggravated clanking of the automatons. The circle of machines broke ranks to let the pony through, a wicked smile on her face.
"Rarity, long time no talk to," Starlight Glimmer said, friendliness dripping off of her words like oil. "You need some help?"
* * *
Chirox had a long flight back home, and a lot on her mind to occupy the time spent in the air.
She thought about Starlit Sky, and her seemingly noble intentions. Her plan to free Her Lady was audacious and daring, to say nothing of her conviction in the rightness of her actions. Such staunch service to the good of all was commendable, to say the least.
Chirox knew what the cost of conviction could be. Conviction had cost her people everything; their freedom, their place in the world, and in many instances their lives. She didn't find the notion of conviction very enticing, as laudable as it could be.
She thought about Setting Sun, perhaps more than she should have. He was a stallion of intellect, and one of bravery even he didn't seem to realize. Such potential for change and greatness was also to be rewarded, and in any other age than this one it would be.
But he was tainted, that much Chirox could see. He warred with a demon in his mind, one far more insidious than he knew. The influence of this presence, and all the implications it carried with it, made him ill suited to the greatness his potential demanded.
Chirox thought of the other two, the ones who had decided that this was not their battle to fight. Their pragmatism, while cruel in theory, was kind in practice. Throwing their lives away on an unstoppable foe was insanity at its most basic definition.
Finally, Chirox thought of Her Lady. She held strong conviction, showed the potential to be a ruler unparalleled in this or any land, and was a shrewd and careful politician with acumen for kindness and pragmatism in equal measure. It had all failed her in the end.
The palace loomed through the cloud cover, and Chirox angled her flight down to swoop in through the highest tower window. The room was torn and battered by the elements, as it had been for centuries, but it was still home at the end of the day. Its worn blue-stone walls, loose pile of straw for bedding, and rotted remains of ancient books and works of art were as much of a home as anything the ponies down below could make.
Chirox didn't want to lose her home, and she didn't want to lose Her Lady, any more than she had already been lost.
* * *
The halls of the Council Offices were utilitarian to the extreme; nothing was on a wall that wasn't a label or sign, nothing was decorated in any appreciable sense, and everypony was bustling to and from their various tasks with minimal talking in between.
Pinkie had been taken away by a pair of the machines on a stretcher, ostensibly to treat her for whatever had caused her sudden migraine. Rarity knew enough about how Starlight operated to know when she lied.
"I must say, it has been an absolute nightmare getting ahead with the project without you, Rarity," Starlight said, her tone as jovial as the day they'd departed. "Do you have any idea how tough it is finding a talented geomancer in this town?"
Rarity remained silent, glaring daggers into the back of Starlight's head.
"Still not talking to me, huh?" Starlight continued. "That's fine, really it is. I don't need you to like me for you and I to work together on this."
"And what makes you think we would?" Rarity asked.
"The fact that if you don't, your 'family' is never going to see you again. That's a big reason I got into politics, you know? I didn't want to be beholden to anypony's agenda except for mine."
"My family doesn't have an agenda," Rarity replied through gritted teeth.
"They don't? That's funny, because last time I checked they were completely reliant on you for everything. Sister too young to work, a father that's a cripple and a mother that's half-thestral for all anypony cares. Holding you back is their agenda, whether they know it or not."
Were it any other pony, were they in any other place, Rarity would have tackled Starlight to the floor and beaten her bloody. All she could do was imagine how sweet the satisfaction of seeing her pounded would be when she got the chance.
"Rarity, I'm humble enough to admit when I've made mistakes," Starlight said, her voice dropping. "Losing you on the project was a mistake, and the methods I've used to try and see my vision made real have been ill-conceived up until this point."
"The entire project is a mistake!" Rarity retorted, her voice echoing around the cavernous halls. A few ponies stopped and looked at her before resuming their business.
Starlight, for her part, continued her resolute walk forward. They were in a part of the Offices that Rarity recognized, facing an all-too familiar door that led to Starlight's study. With a swish of her magic Starlight opened the door, offering Rarity the first step forward.
With nervous step Rarity entered the modestly furnished office. There was a desk made of rich, oiled wood at the far side with a packed bookshelf behind. Off to the right side of the room was a workbench with a few mechanical odds and ends strewn about it, and on the left was something contained underneath a large tarp.
"Please, have a seat," Starlight said, offering up a comfortable looking chair in front of the desk. Rarity took it, if only so she could get weight off of her hooves, and Starlight took the seat next to it, turning them to face each other as she did.
"You've redecorated," Rarity noted. "It's a shame, really. This spartan aesthetic really does not suit you."
"Times have been tight, and I've been using more of my wages on materials for the project than for creature comforts," Starlight replied.
Rarity and Starlight stared each other down, eyes hard and faces firm. It had always been a little game they played when they still were on good terms, trying to see who would crack first, but now Rarity was deathly serious in her attempt to intimidate.
"You know you're not any better at this," Starlight quipped. "You still have that little nervous nose scrunch when you try to hold it together."
"And your lower left eyelid still twitches when you stare for too long," Rarity replied back. "Are we going to sit here engaging in a pointless ritual, or are you going to tell me why you scooped me off the street?"
"That depends," Starlight answered. "Are you going to tell me why you're conspiring with the mare that's trying to ruin my plans?"
Rarity held her mask, but only barely. If Starlight already knew about how she had been helping Starlit Sky then she had all the leverage she could ever possibly need.
"There's that nose scrunch again," Starlight remarked with a smile. "This doesn't need to be difficult, Rarity."
"You have a bad habit of making it difficult. How are your ears? A little bat told me that they got quite the ringing yesterday."
Starlight's eyes narrowed, almost imperceptibly, as her smile faded as swiftly as it had come. Starlight hated to get one-upped, and Rarity knew exactly how to push that particular button.
"They're fine, thank you. My personal guard are still getting fixed up thanks to that sonic assault, but they should make a full recovery as well."
"You talk about them like they're alive," Rarity said. "Have you grown that detached from regular ponies?"
"Oh, you talk about the commoners like they're your kin, that's precious," Starlight answered. "You're so much better than they are, why don't you ever act like it?"
"Because unlike you, you unsympathetic dullard, I don't see ponies as a means to an end. I don't send children into mines because their parents couldn't make it in to work. I don't make conditions so miserable for my workers that they'd rather kill themselves in a cave-in than continue with the wretched existence that I made for them. I see them as ponies, not as pieces on a board."
"But there was a time when you did," Starlight retorted. "There was a time when you were just like me, and were perfectly willing to send scores off to die so you could shape the world in your image."
"And it haunts me every day of my life," Rarity spat back. "What we did was unforgivable, but at least I try to atone for it."
Starlight didn't reply immediately, just further stared into Rarity's eyes. They were hitting the point where one of the would have to break off their contest eventually. Rarity's eyes stung and watered, and Starlight was half-blinking just to keep some moisture in them.
Starlight was the first to blink and look away, giving Rarity a much needed reprieve. She blinked compulsively and rubbed her eyes to get some feeling back in them, so she didn't notice when Starlight stood up and sauntered over to the tarp.
"It's just a little something I've been working on," Starlight said, patting whatever was covered up. It clanked with a dull metallic thump as well as a softer sound that Rarity couldn't quite place.
"And this is what you've devised to try and free the Night Mare?" Rarity asked, walking over to the covered up device.
"In a manner of speaking, but this is only part of the issue at hoof," Starlight answered. "You see, you were right to leave. Our methods were barbaric, and completely unfitting for accomplished mares such as ourselves."
"The there may be hope for you yet," Rarity said, feeling a small flicker of pride well up in her chest. Maybe she had learned. Maybe she could change.
That little flicker died the moment Starlight pulled the tarp from the device, and Rarity jumped backwards at the very sight of it.
Standing next to Starlight was a thestral, an earth pony, covered in small plates of armor and baubles containing what vivid blue aerosol light-gas. It's crusty, black skin had been flayed in places to accommodate its new armaments, and its eyes were fixed forward. Rarity recognized some of the stitches on its head as ones that the morticians made when dissecting them.
"Are you out of your mind?!" Rarity yelled, backing into the work table in her mad dash to eat away from the thestral.
"No more so than the Night Mare was," Starlight answered, as nonchalant as could be.
"How does that thing solve your problem?! What could a thestral strapped with bombs possibly do to help?!"
"You said it yourself, we sent scores off to die," Starlight answered. "With that sort of cost, I asked myself a question; why not use the dead? Why do we risk the lives of our workers in excavation when we could use those who have no hope?"
Rarity's eyes flew back and forth between Starlight and the thestral, trying to find the thread of logic that Starlight was operating on. Perhaps in whatever twisted hellscape that Starlight's mind existed in this was a good idea, but there was no way this was a sanctioned action.
"The Council will stop this, you know that," Rarity said. "There is absolutely no way that this will escape their notice."
"Rarity, Rarity, Rarity," Starlight replied with a chuckle. "The Council is completely complicit in this. How do you think I was able to get thestrals that would've gone to the automaton shops for this?"
Rarity's heart skipped at Starlight's statement. She felt like her ears had heard something, but she couldn't get the pieces of the sentence to fit together in her head.
"What are you talking about?"
"You didn't know? Oh, this is awkward," Starlight answered playfully. "Why do you think this city has so many morgues? We need thestrals to make the guards, that's how it works. Here, I'll show you."
Starlight stomped her hoof twice against the floor, and an automaton that had been posted outside walked into the room. It's impassive face and static eyes looked more menacing to Rarity than they had looked in her entire life.
Starlight quickly grabbed a hold of its metal head with her magic and wrenched it to the side. A snap of wires and grinding of metal plates echoed out of it, followed by the squelch of fluid and muscle as Starlight pulled the head loose. Its teal eyes fell cold and grey as it's body slumped to the floor, and Starlit could see wires, metal, and the bare remnants of a spine and neck in the hole. Viscous blood intermingled with refined light-gas leaked onto the floor, staining the blue carpet black.
Rarity vomited onto the floor at the sight of it, and fought to avoid retching a second time when Starlight pulled the metal plating off of its head to reveal the mottled black skin beneath.
"You've been in the morgue for two years and they never told you what they use these for?" Starlight asked, genuine confusion masked under a veneer of affability. She tossed the head away and stepped over the automaton's limp form to go to Rarity.
"Why?" Rarity moaned. "Who would do this?"
"The Night Mare," Starlight answered. "She knew what she was doing when she made the first of the automatons, and we're just perfecting her work."
Rarity felt a tightness form in her chest, like she had had the wind knocked out of her, and she made a mad dash for the door before Starlight stopped her with her magic.
"Ah, not so fast. We haven't finished our business just yet. Don't you want to know where your pink friend has gone?"
* * *
Chirox whiled away the day as she typically did; she spent some time floating amongst the cavernous halls, keeping her wings in check, and generally prowling the palace for signs of trouble. There usually were none, but the last twenty-four hours had taught her the value of vigilance.
She spent quite a bit of time in Her Lady's camber, gazing upon her obsidian cocoon with a critical eye. So many ponies were intrigued by Her Lady, wanted to release her for one reason or another. The maddening amount of rumors surrounding her made parsing the truth that much harder, but Chirox knew the truth. It was not palatable.
As the afternoon gave way to evening Chirox heard a disturbance coming towards Her Lady's chamber, and she darted up into the ceiling just as the interloper and her machines walked through.
Chirox wanted to swoop down and assault them again, force them to leave, but she hesitated when she saw that the interloper was accompanied. One was the white unicorn Rarity and the other, laid on a stretcher and with a sallow complexion, was the pink earth pony Pinkie Pie. She watched them carefully from her position on the ceiling, picking up the particulars of their conversation with her enhanced hearing.
"So, as you can see, my vision for awakening the Night Mare is far more benign than you might think," the interloper said.
"But why Pinkie Pie?" Rarity pleaded. "She's innocent in all of this, she just wanted to help a pony in need."
Innocence. Such a naive term, one that Chirox didn't much care for. Nopony was really innocent, although what they were guilty of was a different matter entirely.
"In all honesty, it's because she's convenient," Starlit said. "Any pony would've done, but I like the little ironic touches. Call it poetic justice."
Rarity looked like she was about to wheel off and attack the interloper, but one of the machines held her back with its cursed, stolen magic. The interloper chuckled softly to herself before moving Pinkie Pie off of the stretcher and towards the devices that had been haphazardly attached to Her Lady's crystal tomb.
Chirox watched with mounting horror at what the interloper was doing. A cylindrical pod rose out of one of the brass devices as they all sprang to life, opening to reveal a pony sized bed inside of it. The interloper had her machines heft Pinkie's body into the pod with a sharp hiss of their actuators. She looked almost peaceful as the doors closed over her prone form.
"What happens now?" Rarity asked, the begging just barely hidden underneath the question.
"Now, we wait," the interloper answered. "Draining the Night Mare's magic will be a long process, that much is certain, but it should prove to be the catalyst that we need to complete what she started all those centuries ago."
Chirox nearly lost her grip on the rafter she had been hanging from, barely maintaining her balance as she scrambled back up. She focused her eyes to try and see what was being worked on, but the interloper and Rarity had moved to the other side of the room and behind Her Lady's tomb.
The magical interference from the crystal blocked some of Chirox's hearing, at least enough that deciphering what was being said would be impossible. All she heard were sounds of a struggle, another hiss of steam, and the sound of a pod closing over. When the interloper left, Rarity was not with her.
Chirox glided down to the ground floor to find her fears confirmed; Pinkie Pie was asleep in one pod, and Rarity was slowly fading from consciousness in the other. Rarity and Chirox locked eyes before she slipped away, and Rarity mouthed a silent plea to her before her face slid away from the glass.
Both of the pods erupted into light, Pinkie's a baleful and dark grey and Rarity's a blistering white. The sound of shattering glass filled the chamber for a moment before being replaced by a deep, thundering beat, and a small shard of the crystal tomb fell away and broke against the polished floor.
Chirox beat her silent wings against the air, harder and faster than she had ever done before as she bolted out the door and down into the mine tunnel. Starlit Sky and Setting Sun needed to be notified. Plans had to be set into motion.
Chirox's Lady had to be kept asleep, no matter the cost.