//------------------------------// // Unveiling // Story: Triptych // by Estee //------------------------------// She had never truly been the enemy. Somepony whose initial action had been to try and take just enough food to survive for a short time, while still leaving them with the bulk of their scant supplies -- ultimately, that might have created the first impression: 'I don't want to hurt anypony, but I need to stay alive, I need to fix this...' There had been attacks created by fear, abduction born from desperation. But somewhere within all of that was a good pony. Twilight had found herself truly believing that, even as she periodically reminded herself to harbor a few lingering doubts. Just in case. But Coordinator -- he had always been the enemy. And to think about just how much of an enemy he could have been all along, what he could have potentially done to her... Twilight caught sight of him every so often, as she moved about the party. He tended to stay close to the walls. There were times when she could just barely make out speckles within shadows. And not moving towards him, continuing to circulate, speak, and greet as if everything was perfectly normal, while knowing that the pony responsible -- -- or a responsible pony -- -- was right there... The seconds ground against her fur. Minutes rasped, threatened to thin her hooves. She couldn't attack. She couldn't accuse. She had to wait. Her enemy had at least one ally, one which now was doing its constant best to work against her, and it was called time. As long as the party goes on, I can't touch him. But if Quiet can't track down where this conference is, if we've got it wrong, if we're misinterpreting... ...if he gets away... Well, in a very wide-ranging sense, she did know where he lived. But he'd just tried (and failed) to blackmail her. Would he feel secure enough to remain in Trotter's Falls after that? It was possible: he had likely believed Twilight to be leaving in the morning -- unless she found some pressing reason to change her mind. Such as, just by way of example, seeking revenge. He could run. And Twilight couldn't do anything. She barely heard her own words as she greeted nobles, businessponies, those who felt themselves to be of some repute and so it was perfectly odd that Twilight still didn't know who they were. However, she did seem to be saying the right things, because nopony had a particularly adverse reaction to any of it. Or perhaps they were simply reluctant to point out any oddities which arose in the words of a Princess. Twilight spoke, and would remember very little of what she'd said to anypony. More of her attention was dedicated to searching. Most of what remained was busy with thinking. Why wouldn't he do it to himself? He wants the power. Maybe he knew there would be a risk. He wouldn't risk himself, not for the trial gallop. And if somepony else changed first and he'd been responsible for her changing, then he could control her, maybe speak through her... How much does he know? How much did she contribute? How did they meet? Where does she even come from -- -- slow down. He's part of it: he has to be. He wanted us to stop searching for her. It could be just the two of them, or there could be a third pony involved somewhere. But he's wrapped up in this. I know he is. (She knew that. It was so easy to believe it.) Still searching, and there were so many ponies to search through: it had to be hundreds now in the great hall, perhaps with more wandering off to find bathrooms, look at the various collections on the sly, hopefully not get into the library, and -- sneak off to where a conference might be? It seemed possible. But at the same time, some ponies would become bored, tired, decide they'd reached their limits, and venture back out into the storm. There was a natural flow of departure from most parties: for Fluttershy, when attending just about anything which wasn't merely the seven of them, it was a current which frequently had her edging towards the nearest exit. Some of the earliest arrivals might have already braved the inevitable drenching. Others would follow in their own course. The crowd would thin out and that would make it easier to search, but... I'll find them before then. ...Coordinator could slip out. A memory rose up. An angry speech regarding names, and how one hadn't been earned. Maybe it should be 'he' could slip out -- -- there she is! She hadn't seen Quiet, and she'd been looking for him as much as everypony else. So many others were currently lost to her view, perhaps due to bathrooms, stuntwork, or simply having finally made a break for it. But a sway of pink curls registered at the absolute left of her vision, and that allowed the relay to begin. Twilight diverted her course and within seconds, was next to a friend. "Oh, there you are!" Pinkie exhaled, the normal gush partially muted by a mix of the volume constraints from both party and open relief. "Rarity was looking for you. Actually, just about everypony was looking for you, at least for a little while. More than usual. The new usual. And nopony could find you. But here you are, and you're okay!" A brief pause, one which consumed half of her current decibels. "But Rarity didn't think you were. But it was a nice dance, and --" her volume dropped further, a speech truly meant for Twilight's ears alone "-- it was nice just to see you dance. Dance for real, and have fun doing it! Even if that one mare got really mad, and it was like Rarity's fur was trying to cut through her dress, and..." Pinkie took a breath, and the words fell all the way into whisper. "...maybe when it comes to your dance partners, you have to think about --" Softly, "-- Pinkie, can we talk for a few seconds?" The baker blinked. Nodded, then altered her own path. Twilight followed. They disposed of six have-to-greeters along the way, at least temporarily. But some tried to follow, and kept doing so right up until they reached the last refuge of all mares in search of privacy, at least for those who weren't currently being followed by more mares. It wasn't a particularly large restroom. (It could potentially accommodate more than two ponies, but anything over that number would have been waiting for the first pair to finish, and different stations would have been required for each.) They waited until the current occupants had left, and Twilight made sure to lock the door. "Rarity," Pinkie immediately resumed, "is really really upset. And that one mare, the pretty one with the green and a little bit of orange, who looks like somepony built a compost heap right under her snout -- she's furious. She went off looking for you. I think she kept looking for you after everypony else gave up, because she hasn't been back since. Or maybe she just got so mad that she decided not to come back. Twilight, I like him... Quiet? Quiet -- and it was nice to see you dance, because you looked like you were having fun, real fun like you haven't in a while, and maybe a little more -- but you nuzzled him..." Another breath, which came as a slight surprise. Pinkie usually got a lot more words out of a single inhalation. "I think I know what his wife looks like now," she finished. "And what she looks like when she's furious." Helpless blue eyes moved their gaze over Twilight. Waited. Twilight took a breath of her own, one which informed her of just how much use the bathroom had been seeing: a few seconds were expended in coughing. "That's not important right now." "I think it is," Pinkie gently said, an odd undercurrent of insistence lacing the words. "I think we have to talk about it. I know Rarity needs to talk about it with you, as soon as she can, but she might still be searching the castle. And I heard some other things --" "-- it's about her," Twilight interrupted. (Anypony who had Pinkie in their lives would have to interrupt on a fairly regular basis.) "Everything else has to wait, because this is about tonight." The baker's eyes went wide. "Something's happening? No, that's a silly question: of course something's happening or you wouldn't --" There was a quick vibration of curls, and then Pinkie refocused. "Okay. What do you need me to do?" "You helped everypony set up for the party. That meant going through a lot of the castle. Did you see any rooms which nopony is going to be using right now?" Their group bath wouldn't be it, not with so many ponies potentially in need of facilities. A visible moment of thought, and then Pinkie nodded. "The birthing room." It wasn't quite perfect: there was always a chance for one of the Doctor's patients to arrive with something which could not be postponed and if so, it was the last room Twilight wanted to be found in: somepony might ask her to stay. But it was large enough to accommodate all of them, and wasn't the kind of place where most ponies would casually venture or snoop. "Okay. Go around. Find the others. I'll do the same. Make sure nopony can hear you. If you find somepony, tell them to find somepony else. Have them slip out one at a time --" This is so risky. We all need to talk, and we have to do it in privacy. But ponies are going to notice if all of the Bearers are out of the great hall. They might wonder why. We can't stay away too long, and -- if we're all gone, Coordinator can just slip out without any of us seeing... There were aspects of those observations which couldn't be helped. There was also one which had just acquired backup. "-- and we'll all meet up there, just for a few minutes: I think that's all we can risk right now. But you need to find Quiet, too." "...Quiet?" A little surprise, added to a tinge of shock, supersaturated with curiosity. Twilight quickly nodded. "Tell him where we're going, but not to come up unless it's an emergency. He needs to be watching Coordinator." "He's watching..." And there were things Pinkie had trouble perceiving: social lines which resisted crossing, a musician's desire not to change the tune, a crowd's total disinterest in serving as a soft place to land -- but there were others where she spotted the most crucial part before anypony else. With both wonder and an open touch of pride, "Twilight -- you asked for help?" It made Twilight smile. "He's with us, Pinkie," she told her friend. "But..." A small dip of the tail, and the blue eyes became slightly clouded. "...you didn't tell him about -- um..." Hooves rotated, twisted against the floor. "...you know." "No. I told him about her. But there were things I couldn't say, and that was one of them." (Pinkie nodded, her face flushed with an odd mixture of relief and concern.) "I'll tell everypony the rest when we're all in the birthing room. Just get everypony up there if you can, in --" -- how long did they have? Quiet had mentioned a time, something where it was currently too early -- and Twilight hadn't asked when that time was. It had been a mistake. She'd been so full of hope (and anger, a targeted anger at last) that acquiring a crucial piece of information had slipped her mind. She had to be more careful... "-- forty minutes from now. Unless you find Quiet first. And if you do, ask him what the time is. If it's less than that, or we couldn't get back down before then, tell me and we'll think of something else." Thinking fast, reminding herself that she had to think. "Try to find him first if you can. I don't know how long we have." Pinkie nodded, the downwards portion of the movements almost frantic as the unknown deadline placed extra weight against her mane. "I'll go! But I'll have to go up to your room. Or send somepony there. Because while you were gone, I found Spike and told him about the scroll problem, and he was really grumbly but he sort of understood, so that's where he is. Being grumbly." And they all had to be together for this. Not without regret, Quiet won't be able to come up. Not if he's watching Coordinator. But it still gave her a chance to let the others know. "Okay. Have everypony looking for each other and passing the search along except Spike: I don't want to risk having him down there. Just send him directly to the birthing room." Pinkie nodded, and they both headed out. But Twilight was finding more things to worry about by the second. They didn't have a plan. They might not have time to make one. They just had to do whatever they could... Well, Rainbow, and most of the sarcasm in the thought was self-directed, at least this fight won't suffer from overthinking. Coordinator was the enemy, and there were ways in which time was his ally -- but it wasn't an entirely reliable one. Pinkie managed to reach Twilight ten minutes into the search, and whispered a pair of words on the trot-by: "Two hours." They didn't have as much time as Twilight might have wished for. (On an emotional, completely unreasoning level, they had too much: she wanted to kick him now.) But they had enough for a quick conference, even though having ponies notice they'd all left might still turn into a problem. However, to conduct a briefing in stages... Maybe we should have. But it was too late now. Twilight was the one who found Fluttershy tucked into a different corner, and all she needed to clear it was to provide a reason for leaving. She saw Pinkie locate Applejack, briefly spotted a lightly-lashing purple tail (with half of its elaborate curling disrupted) going around the corner of an upper rim hallway. Pony by pony, the whispered word seemed to be getting out. But time was against them: she couldn't be sure everypony had been informed, she didn't know how all of those on the ground level would react to even a brief group absence, and if Coordinator realized something was going on... Pinkie talked to Quiet. He'll watch. There were clocks around the border to look at, and that helped her keep track. But she was trying not to look at them too often. Trying to act normal. Then again, maybe looking to see when a party will end is normal. Or had felt as if it was normal once on her first night in the tree, waiting for everypony to recognize that her refusal to participate meant she didn't want them there, didn't want anything to do with anypony, didn't want friends... She spoke with ponies who would never be her friend. She spoke with those who simply wanted to use her. Some felt she could use them. She circulated alone, unable to control the current, and it felt as if the only thing keeping the party from dissolving into a fresh chaos storm was knowing there was a place she could go. Perhaps more than one. Her friends would be waiting in the birthing room, and after that... Let it be him. It almost would have been a prayer, if she'd still had faith in anything she could pray to. She was the fifth one in. Spike, looking vaguely nauseous (and prone to occasional glances at the scorch mark near the doorway), seemed to have been there the longest. Twenty seconds after she trotted inside and quickly asked the others to wait a little longer (with Rarity's steadily-lashing tail giving silent protest), Rainbow and Pinkie arrived together. "I know this has to be important," the pegasus muttered as she kicked the door closed behind her, "but I really hope it's good. What's going on?" Rarity took a half-step forward, moving away from the medicine shelf and what was now somewhat more comprehensive contents than Twilight had seen during her first involuntary visit. "I believe," she tensely declared, "that we have all been seeking answers for any number of permutations regarding that particular question." And then, just slightly louder and at least twice as harsh, "What is going on, Twilight?" Who almost stepped back, impacted by the sheer force of what felt like a verbal assault -- but then glanced at Pinkie, and the baker quickly shook her head. "We can talk," she said. "Nopony's listening. But we may not be able to stay long. Parties notice things because parties are sort of alive. So after a while, it'll notice we're gone, and it might just decide we're taking a break so we can gossip about everypony we've met. But if we're here too long, it might get mad, or even start to disperse because it'll decide we're done for the night." A small head tilt in Twilight's direction served as a cue. "What happened?" Twilight abruptly winced. "Twilight?" Spike asked. "Something's wrong? I know it's about her, but --" "-- no, that's not it." She'd just realized something, and so used a little of their scant time on a very important request. "Rainbow --" and watched ears perk "-- I need you to promise something." "Okay..." the weather coordinator cautiously said -- then, more quickly, "Which isn't me agreeing. Not until I hear what I'm supposed to be agreeing to." And with Twilight already knowing she was in trouble, "That no matter what I say, you're not going to go hurt anypony. Not right now. You can't. It might ruin everything." "Which means," Rainbow shot back, her left forehoof already beginning to scrape at the floor as cyan wings flared, "there's somepony I'm gonna want to hurt after hearing this. And you're telling me I can't?" "It's the mission, Rainbow," Twilight desperately tried. "Please --" "-- fine," and the angry stomp went into stone. "I promise. Just tell me there's some part where I get to put hurt on somepony who deserves it." "Maybe." Which was when Twilight felt her gaze go harsh. "But there might be a line." They were looking at each other. Rainbow could see Twilight's expression, had seemingly heard every undertone, and so the next question did not emerge as a joke. "A cider sort of line?" "I don't know." Although it was rather easy to picture, along with the signs which would need to line the route. Wait To Kick Coordinator Into Dust From This Point: Six Hours. "Then talk to us," Rarity softly insisted. "I believe we truly need to know what is in your head." She did, as quickly as she could manage. It took a little under a minute before Applejack's teeth reflexively (and very nearly preemptively) clamped down on Rainbow's tail, an action which almost immediately left the farmer just barely touching the floor, orange hind hooves retaining the lightest of contact as powerful wings furiously beat at the air. "I'm going to electrocute --" "-- Rainbow!" "FINE!" The landing was just about all at once, and Applejack's first move after release was to rub her aching jaw. "But if there's a line, then I'm first!" Twilight instinctively checked with Pinkie, learned nopony was moving in to check on any echoes, then went on. It didn't take long to cover the important parts. And then her friends were looking at her. Six different looks. Rainbow's was the easiest to read: she was furious, and concealing that upon their return to the party would take a real effort, one which might break at any moment -- shortly followed by her target's spine. Spike's reaction felt like a muted version of Twilight's own: a slow nod accompanied by the feeling that he was waiting, for he had been through the Gifted School years with her, and so belief came easily. Fluttershy was openly worried, but there seemed to be a deeper layer to that concern. Applejack was almost unreadable, taking slow breaths through narrowed nostrils. By contrast, Pinkie was bearing a rather visible expression of mixed evaluation and extreme concentration, almost as if she was trying to put all of her resources towards a single goal and finding herself becoming distracted along the way. And Rarity's tail slowly halted its movement, just before her horn ignited and the light blue field began to restore the curls. "There are other subjects," she quietly stated, "which we shall be discussing in time. But I recognize that time is not now." A near-loop was carefully added to the purple fall. "For now -- I have been listening to ponies for most of the night. I have heard the word 'conference' drift through several times. And there are certainly ponies here tonight who might not have seen each other in some moons, years, or not at all: ones from far away, whose accents cross the continent. Perhaps some are using the opportunity for other things: business, contacts, and connections. But 'conference'... that implies a large gathering. Pinkie, have you been hearing the same?" The baker just barely nodded, and it struck them all as a decided underreaction -- but she was still concentrating. Applejack took a half-step forward. "I ain't sure about this," she said. "About --" and a reluctant glance at Twilight "-- Quiet." Who instantly went on the defensive. "He's my friend." Rarity, a near-whisper, so soft that Twilight almost doubted she'd heard anything at all: "Oh, is that how you feel..." "Ah know he is," Applejack awkwardly stated. "But it's just kind of hard to believe we finally found the one pony who's going to help finish things. The one who helps us find all the answers. Most of what we've found just brings in more questions, like with Grape Indulgence and that talk in a closed room. It got us a little of the way there, but not all of it. And... Twilight, he's been good to us. To you especially: I know that. But we're trusting here, and..." She took a deep breath, one where Twilight's eyes automatically went to the place where a hat would not have shifted. "...trust is hard. I trusted just about more than I ever did in my whole life a little while ago, and... I don't know Quiet, not as well as you do. I just know that you decided to trust, so now we've all got to, and --" Another breath. Orange hooves shuffled, and looked as if their owner almost wished to bolt. "-- I don't suspect him of anything," she went on. "I don't have any bad feelings or nothin'. It's just -- taking a chance. We've been taking a lot of those, and it almost feels like something has to go bad eventually. Or..." A brief pause. "...maybe it's me not feeling right because of everything, so he can't feel right neither." Fluttershy's head tilted, slightly down and right: the coral manefall swayed inwards. "...we've been trusting a lot," she softly agreed. "Taking chances. But we took a chance on Discord, and on her... I think we can take one more." Silence, filled only by Twilight's grateful look -- and then Applejack nodded. "Yeah. We can. Sorry, everypony. I'm just -- well, y'know." She looked as if she wanted to sigh, and did not. Instead, there was a small smile. "By the by, nice work there, Twilight. Telling the truth without tellin' all of it." She managed to smile back. "Let's just hope nothing happens with her if the green loop is up." "Ask Moon, 'cause that's more of a prayer," Applejack stated, and each word had its own shudder. "Anypony else?" Spike nodded. "I understand about the scroll and not going back down there. But I have to be with you guys if Quiet finds out where the conference is." "It's a risk," Twilight immediately protested. "When we don't know --" "-- it's the seven of us," he cut in. "That was the rule. Want to find out what happens if we break it?" His sister's lips briefly quirked. "It's a risk," Twilight repeated. "But so is everything else. All right, Spike: somepony will come up and get you when it's time. But if the scroll comes in, do whatever you can to keep its arrival quiet and small." He nodded, and she wondered if she'd just made another mistake. "I'll get Spike," Rainbow offered, feathers still vibrating with badly-repressed tension. "It'll give me less time in the hall. It gets me away from him." Now mixing in disgruntlement, "I was doing some great small-scale stuff for ponies, just with the space I had to work with, and now I can't because I might see him and just change course..." And that alteration would occur on instinct. "All right. We wait for Quiet's signal." "And hope he finds something where he can give one," Applejack added. "And that there's something at the other end which isn't the trotting horse apple just trying to get money out of a whole bunch of ponies at once." Her own tail was now beginning to lash. "Baked Bads -- wouldn't tell anypony about Mac's injury... yeah, there's gonna be a line..." And hope. False leads. Chasing the wrong tail. They could be going after exactly the right pony and still have something go wrong. "And hope," Twilight said aloud as she turned to lead the way out: nearly everypony else followed suit. "Let's --" "-- wait." And it had come from Pinkie. They all turned, looked at her, so close to the birthing table. Watched as her ears bobbed out of rhythm with each other. Twisted, rotated, nearly danced: partners with no interest in matching each other. And then they stopped. "I... usually can't use my Pinkie Sense when I want to," she said, with an odd hesitation in the words. "Hardly ever, and maybe even practically never for when I was a little Pinkie. But that's most of the time. I've had to try a lot lately, trying to find out if ponies were listening to us, and I feel like that's been getting easier, because I've had to do it so much. So I was trying to use it now. I wanted to know if this would help. And..." A horribly awkward pause, and the curls dipped. "...it's mostly a new sequence. I don't have anything I can compare it to, because a lot of Pinkie Sense is having it happen and then seeing what happens next, to make the connections. So I don't completely know what it means. I'm guessing, and guesses aren't good right now. But..." "It's okay, Pinkie," Twilight gently said. "We all believe in you. Guess." Pinkie briefly smiled. "I think," she finished, "something big is going to happen tonight. Something where things change." Spike's question was immediate: "Good change or bad change?" Which banished the smile, replacing it with a small, helpless shrug. "I don't know, Spike. I'm sorry. I wish I did." Finding a way to help her. Stopping Coordinator. Finding out what's been going on and making it right... Twilight knew that not all change was positive. But she had hope, and the emotion was so much easier to keep a mouth grip on when you had friends. "We'll be careful," she told them. "Let's get down there." In the time to come, it would be hard to remember certain aspects of the party. It was something like being with the Princess at the Gala, pressing hoof after hoof: after a while, ponies began to blur. It didn't help that she was paying more attention to those who wouldn't speak with her. Trying to listen in on conversations as she passed little eddies in the flow, discussions which frequently felt as if they'd just changed because she'd gotten close. It gave her very little to hear, and none of what they were speaking about concerned what she wanted to know. None of them even seemed to be discussing nuzzles, at least while she was in range. The party wore on, tried to grate away fur and patience alike -- but no matter how variable the seconds seemed to have become (and they were probably taking their orders from the shattered clock), they passed. It was starting to become late, and so ponies began to leave. That was natural. She hadn't gotten to see all of the arrivals: there had been ponies present when they'd all reached the hall, and she'd seldom been in a position to notice the stragglers, fashionably-late, and hopelessly-lost as they finally staggered in, the order of their arrival indicated by the progressive dampness of elaborate clothing, with the last pony in miserably squishing her way about the floor. But she'd been to so many of Pinkie's parties and so understood that departures, while not occurring as an exact reversal of arrivals, had a certain pattern. Barring fights, couples who'd come in together left the same way. (A big fight could lead to some of those pairings swapping members.) A pony entering alone might be fortunate enough to leave with a partner, and truly friendly groups tended to coordinate unless one member had a pressing need to get up early, or was trotting out with a formerly-single pony. (It felt something like watching the flight of dandelion seeds, an activity which she'd insisted was completely pointless all the way up the hill, right up until Rainbow had sent a single gust across the blooms, leaving Twilight and Pinkie to quietly sit back and watch a dance nopony would ever be able to completely replicate: subtle patterns which only the seeds truly understood and could never articulate. Pinkie had stayed with her the whole time. She'd said that when you understood dandelions, you could understand a little more about ponies. Twilight, unable to find the lesson, had never placed anything in a scroll. But there was a moment on that night when she looked at the flow and nearly perceived drifting puffs of future life.) What Pinkie had noticed was that some of them were leaving in clumps. "Do you see it?" It was a whisper, coming in from her left: Pinkie had taken up bodyguard duties again. "Those six. I don't think any of them have been near each other all night. Maybe it happened while we were in the Doctor's room, but now they're all leaving together. And that's not the main way out. Maybe they just decided they all really really like each other, but there's been some weird groups coming together, just before they go away..." She wanted to see it, and couldn't quite make it out. But she trusted her friend. "I believe you," Twilight whispered back: such communications were becoming easier as the crowd thinned, the party wound down to its natural conclusion -- and the time approached. "But we can't follow. We have to --" -- and from her right, a very soft "Twilight?" She'd been looking for him across so much of the night and the task had rapidly turned futile, just before threatening to go into a small-scale version of eternal. But of course, he would have been trying to stay out of sight, and Twilight almost considered it a miracle that Pinkie had managed to make contact. "Greetings, Lord Presence," she smiled. "The hall has missed your company. Why, one would almost think that you weren't particularly suited to parties..." "Or," Quiet wryly replied, "that one boon, and dance, are my limit." He subtly glanced around, and she wasn't sure what he was looking for. His spouse, perhaps -- but there hadn't been a hint of that mare for hours. (Twilight felt absolutely no guilt about that, which was overbalanced by the bale-tons of concern about what would happen when Quiet was finally in the same room with Bella Donna again.) "Do you have a moment? As we're getting a little scarce on those right now..." He nodded towards the bar, which was currently occupied by ponies taking advantage of last call, ponies who were too drunk to understand what 'last call' meant and were thus prepared to argue any alcohol-unfavorable definition for some time, and a great deal of uneaten griffon cuisine (modified). "Yes, I do," Twilight replied, keeping up appearances. "So..." The three began to trot together. Five hoofsteps in, they went through a dry place in the gradually-draining flow. And Quiet's warm breath wafted against her right ear. "I know where," he whispered. "I've been watching. I saw three of them slip away. And now Coordinator is heading after them. It's not quite time yet, but -- they're gathering. Maybe getting there early, before it starts." Both of her ears instantly perked, and she fought to get them back into a more neutral position. "What do you want to do?" she whispered back. "It's late enough," he softly replied, "for us to leave without getting too many questions. Softtread had to cover for your trip upstairs, and he'll answer anything anypony asks in a few minutes. Signal --" He stopped as they all went past a mutually swaying couple, dancing to music which was no longer playing. "-- the others," Quiet eventually resumed. "I'll meet you outside my library." And with that light hint of implied tease, "Do not get distracted -- actually, I may just lock the door. Especially if we somehow solve all this and you wind up leaving tomorrow, because then I'll know exactly what you'll be leaving with --" a wince, and then his words became more of a self-directed mutter. " -- teleport. She can teleport. Full inventory it is." Potential danger was rapidly approaching. The chance for answers added to the hoped-for organization of a very long kicking line. And she still felt the urge to giggle, something which felt so good... "Outside the library," Twilight whispered agreement. They reached the bar. They had a drink: non-alcoholic for all, with Quiet downing a full mug of wake-up juice. An incredibly drunk pony tried to tell Twilight about how his mark represented a talent for being in bed with a Princess and she had no right to deny destiny. Pinkie flicked her tail a few times until an overhead Rainbow spotted the movement and sped away to get Spike. The party was ending in fits and starts. There would be those who wanted just one more drink, where 'one more' was actually just about any number larger than one. Some would attempt to remain in the great hall for a while just in the name of staying dry, and there were probably a roaming few who were still looking for things they could slip into their saddlebags. But the party was ending and with it, the Bearers' officially-announced time in Trotter's Falls. Twilight would never return. This time, the seven of them arrived together, and found the eighth waiting outside the extremely (if pointlessly) locked door. The small stallion looked up at them with awkward-seeming grey eyes, shuffled his hooves a few times. "One of these things," he softly declared, "is very much not like the others. I feel..." A long pause, and then "...very out of place right now. Ridiculously flattered and nightmarishly overestimated. I'm not a stallion who goes on adventures, and... I'll try not to get this wrong. I just have very little idea of how to make it go right." Twilight looked at him, wished for words -- -- and Rainbow flew forward, landed in front of him. "You know how you do adventures?" she asked him. "You look for something you can do. Then you do it. You see what happens from that, and then you do the next thing. And when you're all out of things you can do, you're home." A small, oddly wry head tilt followed that. "Twilight doesn't go on adventures with ponies who can't get through them. She doesn't hang around ponies who aren't cool. If she wants you here, you're good enough." It was, Twilight considered, if not a blessing, the direct equivalent of a benediction. It was possible to see every last one of the words as they settled in behind his eyes. "Only you're home right now!" Pinkie chirped. "So maybe we're already halfway done?" "Hopefully much more," Quiet said, and forced a breath. (She would have to keep an eye on his breathing.) "All right. I saw the passage they used. It has some branches -- but there's only one destination large enough for anything approaching even the smallest of herds. My parents blocked that end off when I was young, so I haven't really been down there -- not in the room. But it would be easy to clear for a pony who knew the right spellwork." And Coordinator was a Gifted School graduate, while Twilight was prepared to improvise. "So you can get us down there," Twilight checked. "Yes -- but I've been thinking about it," Quiet replied. "I don't think it's advisable to just storm the place, not when we don't know just how many ponies are inside. You're all Bearers, and I imagine dragonfire is a help in a fight -- but I'm pretty sure we're outnumbered. Plus you all need evidence. If we break in and he just gallops for it, he might manage to escape in a crowd. Too many ponies around would make it hard to aim a field bubble." "So where exactly are y'taking us?" Applejack carefully asked. "There's another passage, one I don't think he knows about," Quiet told them all. "Unless he had the foresight to replace dust, because I already checked the portion just beyond the entrance and found it unused. It leads to a fairly large hiding place, just above that area. One which allows the occupants to spy on those below." A small, wry shrug. "I'm not sure if that was originally intended as a means of watching invaders who might have somehow gotten that far, or if somepony just happened to enjoy voyeurism. But it gives us the chance to watch, and listen. You need evidence. A conference more than suggests talking, and there's going to be ponies he'll be talking to. We watch, we listen..." "And perhaps," Rarity inquired, "there will be an opportunity for Twilight to project a field bubble from above?" "Not without kicking a hole -- well, you'll see," Quiet replied. "I haven't been there in a long time, but I remember what it's like. Is everypony ready?" They all nodded. "One more thing," he added. "Let me go first. These passages were designed as defenses, which means -- I have to be blunt: there's traps. As Lord, I can shut them down. But the rest of you don't know where or what they are. So don't get ahead of me, because I do not want to end my adventuring career through explaining to Princess Celestia exactly how I managed to let one of you plummet into the sharp drop under the trapdoor. Because there is a sharp drop, which was maliciously placed with plummeting in mind --" Rainbow's mouth began to open. "-- to go with a shaft so narrow as to allow practically no room for a full wingspan," he finished. Rainbow's mouth closed. "Traps," Applejack tried. "Yes --" and then he facehoofed. "Sun and Moon, that just reached my ears. The Lord of the castle is leading the Bearers down a secret passage filled with traps. There's every chance that if I saw this in a story, I might start shouting at the page in a completely futile effort to keep the heroines and hero from going in there." Ruefully, "Actually, if anypony wants to back out now, I will completely understand." "...it's a little silly for the villain to warn everypony," Fluttershy smiled. "We would all be watching for traps now anyway." (Rainbow, perhaps recalling Daring Do Canon #6, quickly nodded.) "...we'll just -- be careful." "And if you somehow miss anything, or find a spell too decayed to recognize you," Twilight added, "we're all here." She could snatch ponies back, Rainbow might be capable of rapid evacuations should the width of the passage allow it... "And like Fluttershy said, we'll be careful. All of us." He took a deep breath, winced at what Twilight guessed to be a twinge from aching ribs. "Wonderful," and that emerged with more than a tinge of sarcasm. "The safety of the Bearers is now at least partially pressed between my hooves. If I wind up meeting both Diarchy and shadowlands tomorrow, in that order, my last living words will be to blame all of you for not talking me out of this." A small sigh. "Fine. Off to adventure, then. Which in this case means going down the hall, making a pair of right turns, and then pushing an armoire. Again." It was not dark. It merely wished to be, longed for it, tried to achieve it in nearly every moment of the trip, left them constantly fighting against it. At least some of the spells in the hidden passage had aged poorly, and those were the ones which illuminated it. No unicorn who'd been through puberty ever truly had to worry about the dark: Twilight had told herself that a few times over the course of her life, until the too-long night when she'd seen the first of the Nightmare's shadows. And as it turned out, she was now twice-wrong. Quiet's field was colorless, almost impossible to see in operation: she'd learned to watch for the hint of sparkles around his horn. And as it turned out, such a field could be intensified normally. Quiet could even bring his corona all the way to the full triple if he wished, with all the risk that would create -- and no amount of effort he made would make his horn shed any real light. There had been a working device just inside the perfectly-hidden entrance: it had given them enough light to see by. Twilight had been the second to peek inside as the others stood guard, watching for unexpected traffic in the hallway. She'd seen a narrow gap between stone walls, enough to allow her and Quiet ready passage, gave Spike room to spare, restricted Rainbow and Fluttershy's wings, placed Applejack on constant guard against scraped flanks (without weather, care, or regular travel, the inner surfaces were rough-hewn), and would have turned the life of a larger pony into torment. But then they'd all slipped away, the first device had winked out as they'd moved away from it -- and the second hadn't activated. So it had been left to Twilight and Rarity: the first stayed just behind Quiet so as to let him see what he was doing, with the other mare towards the rear of the line, showing the others where they could move. Pinkish and soft blue light moved across the harsh ridges, interacted at the center. (It was more than those two ponies were doing.) The result was a rather muddy violet, and there was a moment when Twilight thought she heard Rarity mutter about the sheer tastelessness of it all. The passage didn't wind: it couldn't, as it needed to follow the constraints of the outer walls. But it did bend here and there, and the turns were hard to navigate. It also slanted, moving steadily down. Down into the dark, with only ponies to provide light. Quiet's horn sparkled, and little glints of field pushed at the walls. Twilight was paying close attention, trying to feel exactly what kind of spells he was shutting down. Some of them were familiar, others were not, and all were old. "It's been a while," he whispered. (For what little discussion was taking place, they were just about all whispering, as if the passage was also pressing in on sound.) With open worry, "I've remembered everything so far, because we've gotten this far, but..." "I'm right behind you," she reminded him. "I know." A slow breath. "It helps." Another glint, followed by the soft click which created safety. And they moved down. Even whispers were dying out now, as they all shifted between layers of stone. Twilight could hear nothing from the hallway she was sure bordered the right side, couldn't seem to remember what was on the left -- -- there was no way to see the flash of lightning and in the silence of the passageway, the boom of thunder felt like an explosion. Some of them jumped. Two reared up. Applejack bit back a gasp as her right flank met the wall. But there was no stampede, no flaring of herd instinct using stress to steal away thought and replacing it with the need to run. Six of them had been through too much for that, Spike was immune, and they all allowed Quiet some time to get his breathing back under control. "I wish I was outside," Rainbow whispered -- and the lack of volume wasn't enough to hide the quaver which rode in every syllable. "I could shut this down if I had some time. I could get rid of all of that, at least around the castle. I could make it quiet..." Twilight glanced back, saw Rainbow's heaving rib cage, too-shallow breaths added to eyes opened wide enough to hurt and ears which constantly rotated, listening for any means of escape. The prismatic tail flicked and would not stop. "Easy, Rainbow," Applejack softly told her. "Easy..." "It's... not much further, right?" Almost frantic now. "Tell me it's not much further..." Rarity: rupophobia. A fear of becoming dirty: on another level, the dread of contamination. Rainbow: no room to fly, no possibility of even spreading her wings, stone surrounding her, the atmosphere so close and yet impossible to reach. For pegasi, claustrophobia was the second most common terror known. And Rainbow, so extraordinary in other ways, still retained one in which, for her species, she was just like nearly everypony else. "...think about the sky, Rainbow," Fluttershy whispered. "You'll see it soon. You know where it is. It's waiting for you. Close your eyes for a second and see the sky..." "I can't get there, there's walls, there's walls and dark and we're moving down --" "...think about how brave you were in the Diamond Dog tunnels..." "I could spread my wings! I could move! I can't --" "...you're Rainbow," Fluttershy softly said: yellow ears steady (if discolored by dual applications of fieldlight), the incredibly full tail showing no more than its natural sway. "You can do this." "I..." The weather coordinator forced a breath. "...I just need to know -- how far it is..." "Maybe sixty body lengths, Rainbow," Quiet gently told her. "Can you make it?" After a few seconds, "...yeah. I can." Bravado was trying to push away tremble and was, at best, battling to a tie. "You said it's -- a pretty big room up ahead?" "Much larger than this," he reassured her. "And we'll be looking down into a fairly significant space. But remember, we'll have to be careful: we'll be able to hear what's going on below while we're in there -- and for this, that means if we make enough noise, they might hear us." "Got it," Rainbow mustered. "Again. Keep it down." And a shudder. "Down... why is there so much down...?" They moved forward, as best they could. And about fifty-five body lengths later, with so much of it spent on a descent so steep that Twilight had to force attention away from her hooves... the passage widened, flaring out as if their part was the apex point of a triangle, creating enough space in the new portion for four ponies to stand side-by-side. Rainbow came within a hoofstep of bowling Pinkie over in her attempt to reach it. "All right," Quiet whispered. "We're past the traps. But we still have to be careful from this point on, not to be heard. Let's just hope the door cooperates..." He moved forward. Twilight followed, intensified her corona slightly until the heavy wooden door stood out as more than mere outline. Quiet's field exerted, and he stepped back as the door silently swung outwards. "Well, that's holding," he exhaled. "All right. Forward." They moved forward, into a fairly large, mostly empty space -- at least for width and depth: an extremely low ceiling provided what Rainbow's very soft snort declared as a significant flaw. (Everypony could stand at their full height, but Applejack's ears were mere tail strands away from stone, and the absent hat would have been due a trip to Fedora's shop.) There were a few old-seeming boxes stacked in two corners. The air was somewhat stale (although not as bad as it could have been -- Twilight could make out two small air vents in the ceiling), and dust lay thick upon the floor. There were no windows, and the door silently swung closed behind them. "Now," Quiet whispered, "if this spell has faded, I am going to look, and feel, like an idiot. Just remember: even if it works, sight is one-way. But -- yes, I know I keep repeating myself -- sound, if we're loud enough, will travel in both directions. It was a flaw in the original casting, nopony ever fixed it, and this possibly isn't the time to try. Ready?" Most of them nodded. Rainbow, with the air of a pony trying to do anything which would calm herself without making it look as if that was exactly what she was doing, had been caught preening her feathers. "All right," he said. "And remember, no matter how it looks, it's still solid." He glanced up at something metal within the ceiling, and the barely-visible sparkles around his horn increased in number. "Here we go..." The floor vanished. There could have been jumps. Yells. Desperate dives and instinctive scrambles for the door. But he'd warned them while the armoire was being moved, and so they were mostly ready for it. Rarity's reaction was the most severe: she quickly backed up, which only ended when the base of her tail was pressed against the door. (She'd already had a major plummet and, while taking responsibility for it, still had no objections to being on something opaque.) Spike, who'd seen a lot of magic in his life, slowly bent down and ran his claws across the surface before looking over to Twilight. "It's the Gilafim, isn't it?" he softly asked. It was and under other circumstances, Twilight would have proudly acknowledged Spike's recognition of the working. She would have even guessed at what had let him figure it out: the slightly changed texture of the stone, the way it was just barely possible to distinguish an outline of where the floor of one room became the ceiling of another. Gilafim's Revelation hadn't turned the floor invisible: it simply created an illusion of everything going on below, doing so with no perceptible delay between event and reproduction. It required a true master of the craft to execute and as the world's current foremost expert in that category of magic was currently busy with taking care of Moon, it was a spell nopony saw all that often. Twilight had been in the presence of a successfully-enchanted area all of twice, and the more recent of those workings had been cast more than two centuries before her birth. Normally, she would have taken a moment to admire the working. Internally, she might have even experienced a moment of pure relief in finding an enchantment which was still fully operational, because she didn't know how to tweak this one and trying to do so might just put a realtime image of what was happening within on the ceiling side. But she did none of that, because where Spike had felt, she had looked. "No..." she whispered. "Oh, no..." There was in fact a fairly large space roughly five Celests below, made seemingly more so by the displacement of furniture. She saw (mostly) antique couches, serving tables, lamps, and a book-holder which still held a tract. The majority of that had been shoved to the perimeter, and she was sure most of the lamps had been shifted around. A number were currently near what she identified as the room's exit door, brightly illuminating what appeared to be a hastily-constructed, slightly-raised crude stage: anypony coming in would have had to jump slightly onto it before entering. A single basic ramp led down to the floor level. She could see almost nothing of the walls, for every last one had been draped in dark fabric. It seemed to absorb the light from the nearest lamps, putting that portion into extra shadow. The movement of the furnishings had left a decent hollow, one which at least eighty ponies could fit within. It was something she could say with some certainty because there seemed to be at least eighty ponies below them. Or for most intents and purposes, it could have almost been eighty zebras, because... She heard Spike's sharp intake of breath as her little brother looked, the tiny gasp from Fluttershy to go with Rarity's snort, the one which was half anger and half sheer offense at the color. For every living thing below them (shuffling, shifting about, waiting and becoming impatient with it, a miasma of worry mixed with growing irritation and a need to get things started) was covered from snout to hidden tail in a thick black robe. "Who are they?" Twilight desperately whispered. "I can't see anything of them! And there's so many..." "That," Rarity quietly declared, "is rather large for a conference." "It's about the right size for a cult," Rainbow's limited reading experience decided: the pegasus naturally had no trouble with looking down from high places. "That would explain the robes." Cults meant worship: something Twilight didn't want to think about just yet or, if possible, at all. Instead, she continued staring down, doing so until extra details began to emerge -- none of which were helpful. Bulges at the sides of the robes indicated pegasi: a sharp rise under the hood was a unicorn. But that was all she could see. Rarity shifted her position, just enough to change viewing angle. "The hoods become masks," she softly told them. "I can see eye colors. And that is all. Unless somepony speaks in a familiar voice or finds some reason to disrobe, we cannot reliably identify anypony in the group." "...did they know we were coming?" Fluttershy managed to ask. "Are they hiding from us?" Quiet slowly sank down, carefully pressed his barrel against the still-there floor. "Maybe," he carefully suggested, "they're hiding from each other." Everypony looked at him. "So nopony there knows everypony else," he clarified, the words emerging with fair evenness under so much scrutiny. "That way, nopony could ever sell out the entire group. You know the pony who first spoke with you, and anypony you spoke with. That's it." Twilight managed a tiny nod, sank down next to him. (Pinkie came up on her right: Fluttershy timidly forced herself forward and finally settled down on his left.) "I understand. I think there were illustrations like this in some history books, in chapters about conspiracies. But... it's so strange to see. To see it actually happening..." "Eighty-two," Pinkie counted. "Eighty-four. Eighty-six..." "...what do we do?" Fluttershy softly asked. Twilight looked down. Focused on the crude stage and the feel of the floor against fur and skin. "They're still waiting," she told them. "And so will we." It almost seemed as if there was the faintest of murmurs coming through the wood and in some ways, it was a sound he knew by heart. The mixture of worry, fear, desperation, helplessness, and hope. For him, it generally existed on the other side of a birthing room's door, only intruding when emotions reached their crescendo -- or if there was an extremely large family praying that he would emerge with their newest love. It was the sound of the world as it held out for a miracle. He would provide. They were ten body lengths away, on the border for the deliberately-shadowed portion of the passageway. Ten body lengths from whatever might ultimately occur. "Is the medicine holding?" "Yes." Her voice was not as steady as he could have wished -- but he suspected some of that was from her own fears. She had been presented to ponies before, in the minutes before she was given further education towards the day when The Great Work would be complete -- but never more than one at a time. "Take this in five minutes." His field set the borrowed mug down: a quarter hoof-height of fluid shifted at the bottom. "Nothing else." "I will." There was some tremble to the words. He sighed. "A flaw in your education," he admitted. "My fault." Her expression told him she didn't understand. "We talked about speaking in front of the masses, but -- we hardly had masses to practice with. And at no point did I ever think about stage fright..." She giggled, just a little, and it made him smile. "You know you can do this," he told her. "You just have to do it in front of them. Show them. No matter what happens, no matter what you see -- show them your miracle." It seemed as if something flickered in her eyes, and it only came at the last word. As if the pain was returning far too early. But then it faded, and she gave him a small nod. "The next time the door opens. If I am still standing there -- that is when you come in. No other time unless I call for you. No matter what you hear. Not until then." Again. "But for now --" One breath. A breath which lowered the last of the inner walls, brought the memories back, summoned the past and prepared it to direct the future. "-- it's my turn." He trotted forward, as she retreated into shadow -- -- and then he stopped. Turned back. Asked the question yet again. "Can you feel her?" Her eyes slowly closed as her head dipped, weighed down by a different kind of pain. Slowly, as if every movement would rend her heart from within, she shook her head. "When the medicine is right," he softly reassured her. "When you're used to it. And if not then, when you're fixed. You will." And then a statement: "I know you will." She said nothing and with eyes still shut, she slipped into darkness. He turned to face the wood again. ignited his horn, surrounded the lever, pulled the door open. And with injured hind limb dragging as his forelegs pushed him up, without robe, without mask, fully within the light, his form exposed to the world as he readied his heart for the same... Gentle Arrival took center stage.