//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: A Bug on a Stick // by Orbiting Kettle //------------------------------// Sparse blades of warm, orange light cut through the darkness of the room. Islands of light covered in debris and rotting wood littered the floor, the occasional movement at the border of the shadows the only thing hinting at the rich, abundant life dwelling just beyond the limit of the visible. The idyll of scuttling and crawling was suddenly shattered by the thunder-like creaking and shattering of wood coming from above. Panic broke out among the denizens of the room, with doomsayers experiencing an all-time high in popularity for a few moments, as something moved on the ceiling and light poured inside. What appeared to be an opening rapidly grew bigger, while tiny, alien voices seemed to discuss the fate of the world below. "This is a bad idea. We are too close to the house, and it soon will be dinner time. We'll get into trouble." "Don't worry, Lulu. It's as safe as in the forest. And nopony comes here, they used it just to throw away some junk before closing it. Now hush and help me with these boards." A few creaks and a very unladylike swear later the silhouettes of two foal heads appeared, framed against the light pouring through the hole. "It stinks. And it's dirty. And Fidelis will be angry when he discovers we opened the cistern." Luna pulled out her tongue. "This is a bad idea." "Don't worry." Celestia's horn lighted up. "I heard Fidelis say he won't clean this up until next spring. It will be perfect; nopony comes ever here, and it's warm in the winter." A bucket floated up behind her. "Slimey is becoming too big for this, and this will be a good home for her." "If you say so." Luna squinted at something moving at the foot of the stairs. It scuttled on many, far too many legs around broken bricks, and then disappeared in a hole in the wall with a wet noise. Luna shivered. A globe full of fireflies flew down and brought flickering light into the cavernous structure. Brick walls rose from a stone floor covered in discarded wood and broken pottery to an arched vault, running all the length from the entrance where the fillies stood to the far end of the room. Twenty solid stone blocks jutted out from the wall, forming steps descending from the opening all the way down. Clogged pipes lined the walls, and another opening could be seen on the opposite side. Celestia leaned inside, then stepped over the boards still blocking the door and followed the globe. She carefully placed one hoof after the other on the steps, the bucket floating at her side. The thing inside it bulged, extended an eye over the border, scanned the room, and hissed. "See, she likes it." Celestia landed on the floor with a hop. Luna frowned. "How are you so sure? For all we know maybe it—" "She." "Really? Fine. For all we know, she could be, like, complaining and saying bad things. Or maybe she has tummy problems." "I know she likes it. I can feel it. She's like a slug, but gooier, and slugs like dark places, so this is perfect." Celestia went over to a heap of rotten wood planks. "Look, we put her down, and if she doesn't like it we'll find some other place." She put the bucket down, then put it on its side. The thing oozed out, rivulets of black goo exploring the floor and creeping towards the debris. More eyes surfaced, covering every direction. "So, you called her Slimey?" Luna moved to the other side of the opening, then glanced over her shoulder. "I thought you said it wasn't a good name for a filly." "It's a work in progress, we try it for a while and see if it sticks." Celestia snickered, then laughed out loud. The thing stopped its expansions, half of its eyes turning to the unicorn filly. "Hahahaha. It sticks. And she's sticky. Hahahahah." The eyes blinked. Luna turned her head to the side. "That's new. Hey, your pet learned to blink." "Hehehehehe, sticky…" Luna furiously waved her hooves. "Shhhhh, Tia. Keep it down, I don't want to get caught." Celestia sat down and clamped her hooves on her muzzle. Then she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and started giggling again. "But, hahaha, sticky on Slimey. Slimey sticking on hahahaha." The eyes on the thing shifted forth and back between Luna and Celestia, then it trembled doing its best impression of a very unappetizing and quite judgmental pudding before resuming its seeping around. "See, even your pet thinks you are silly." Luna snorted. "I'm gonna see if somepony arrives. And when they catch you because you are laughing, I will say that I didn't know anything about it." "Hehehe, don--don't worry, I'll be fine. Hahahaha…" Celestia waved a hoof, then wiped a tear away. The sound of Luna's hooves became fainter, then ceased completely. "Guess we are alone now." The light of the fireflies painted the walls with dancing shadows, transforming junk into otherworldly shapes. Hair-thin tendrils expanded, exploring every nook and cranny. With a weak crack, a piece of rotten wood broke away, slowly pulled to the center of the black mass. "So, do you like it?" A single eye stared at Celestia. The piece of wood arrived, a fang circled hole appeared and crushed it. Then the thing blinked. "Lulu was right, that's new." Her smile widened and she clopped her hooves together. "You are learning. I was right, you are smarter than you look. I mean, blinking isn't much, but then you didn't have eyes to start with. I think. Maybe. You know, you are bit weird, after all." The last splinters of wood disappeared into the inky substance. "And I think you like it here. Hah, told Lulu so." She giggled again, then raised her head and looked around. She tapped her chin and said, "Now, where do we prepare a nice, cozy nest for you? Do you want a nest? Are you more a den thingy?" A bundle of tendrils surrounded a broken amphora half covered in stones. The goo stopped, its eyes snapped to the heap of debris, and a shiver shook it. First slowly, then faster and faster the thing crept forward with the determination of an angry slug. "I think I can bring down half a bale of hay. And a blanket. Hay and blankets should be alright, I think. Can't go wrong with that." Fangs surfaced and flowed forward. "And a bowl of water. Hmmm, that will be difficult. Donna Copper Horn keeps track of them. I have no idea how she keeps track of them, but every time I loan one out, she discovers it. I suspect sorcery." The tendrils around the debris became thicker, sprouted smaller ones, covered the heap. "I should be able to get you some stale bread. We usually put it into the soup, but they won't catch a few missing loaves. You can put it into the milk. Well, I can put it into the milk, then it will be all soft and mushy and good. Not that I think you need that. Then—" There was a squeak. Celestia's ears swiveled, then she looked down at the thing as it neared its objective. She stepped around the mass of rocks covered in a tight web of black goo. All the fissures were filled, except a hole where the thing was approaching it. "What are you doing? Those are rocks, I'm pretty sure you can't eat them. If you are hungry I can bring you some—" There were multiple squeaks. A wide, tongue-like appendage shot out from the central mass and through the hole, retreating again an instant later. At its tip, a fat, gray mouse and three smaller ones were trapped in the substance. They wiggled and squeaked, but to no avail. "Slimey, what are you doing? Let the mousies go, you can't play—" The fangs surrounded a hole in the mass and started to vibrate. "No, they aren't food. Stop—" There was a last squeak, barely audible under the buzzing of the teeth. Then a brief shriek and finally a wet splash. Celestia took a step back. Her legs ceded below her, she fell on her haunches. The cistern was utterly silent. With a vicious thrust, the spoon penetrated deep into the bowl of soup, murdering the parsley root by cutting it in half. A few drops of soup splashed up, landing on Celestia's cheek. Fragments of mashed root floated up, grim reminders of the recent act of vegetable slaying, swimming between a strip of kale and a piece of rye bread. Celestia paled and dropped the spoon. She could hear the parsley root scream in agony while it died. At least conceptually. She wasn't sure what sound a root would make, but it was surely heart-wrenching. A colossal hand closed on her shoulder, and a voice one could associate with a very caring avalanche whispered, "Are you unwell, my little Sunshine?" Celestia tensed, then looked up. A brown coated minotaur cow towered over her. One of her short, reddish horns was chipped, the other carved with a spiral of angular symbols. Soft eyes stared down, and there was a smile on the minotaur’s muzzle. There was always a smile there. Well, almost always. When there wasn't it usually involved Celestia and some grand idea she had had. Celestia bit her lip. Maybe it was another of those occasions where she had done something wrong. Again. And it would wipe the smile off Donna Copper Horn's face. She turned again to her bowl and grabbed the spoon again. "'s nothing." The hand didn't budge from her shoulder. "Are you sure? Because from up here it looks like there is something worrying you." Maybe there would be a fight at the table which would distract Donna Copper Horn. Celestia glanced over the massive expanse of wood and to the others reunited for dinner. Meadowsweet was nursing little Radish, Millet was discussing with Garvino, Willowbark seemed concentrated on his own bowl, and Fidelis was chatting with Master Sottile. There seemed to be no hope for a diversion from there. "So?" The sound of wood scraping against the stone floor meant Donna Copper Horn had just pulled a stool over. She wouldn't give up. A sideways look to Luna did nothing to fuel hope. Her sister was clearly putting all of herself into looking as inconspicuous as possible. A pretty miserable attempt, in Celestia's opinion, but it still meant she was alone in this one. That could actually be a good thing, Luna tended to break easily under Donna Copper Horn's look. Celestia could resist for far more time. Like, a full five more minutes, usually. She would be brave. She wouldn't blabber. She would keep Slimey safe. She could hear the squeaking. The hand reached her mane and passed thick fingers through it. Did that mean that Slimey was evil? That she really was a monster, but of the vicious, unfun variety? Had she made a mistake in bringing her home? "I…" But if she had made a mistake, then Donna Copper Horn would get angry. Or, worse, she would be disappointed. After the manticore, she had told her to not bring any more dangerous critters home, and Celestia had promised she wouldn't. Slimey didn't seem so dangerous, but what if she had been wrong? She had to know. And if she had made a mistake, she had to fix it. In secret. "I… If something did eat something else, but smaller, like… Like if Luna eats a prune, but makes a mess out of it—" Her sister raised her head. "—Only, it's not Luna eating it, and it's not a prune, and it's really, really messy, and the not-prune screams. A lot. Does that make not-Luna bad?" Luna puffed her cheeks and sat straighter, a cabbage strip hanging from the side of her muzzle. "I don't make a mess when I eat!" Donna Copper Horn reached out and removed the strip. "Hush, my little star, we know you are a fine, well-behaved young mare. Celestia said it was not-Luna." The hand moved under Celestia's chin and turned her to the minotaur. "Tell me, little sunshine, did you see not-Luna messily eating a not-prune?" Celestia's first instinct was to deny everything, but that wouldn't help her. She nodded. "Would this not-prune maybe have been a mouse?" She knew. Celestia held her breath, Donna Copper Horn knew. It had all been a trap, and now they would take Slimey away and she would get punished. They would keep her in her room for a month, and then she would have to translate Zebrican papyri for weeks. And no more sweets. And they all would be disappointed. And they would take Slimey away. And then— "And would not-Luna happen to be Old Scar?" And so Celestia's panic ran face first into a wall of unexpected developments. The filly blinked. What had Old Scar to do with anything? She hated the cat and he hated her and both kept a safe distance from each other. Well, almost. She had to admit it was more her keeping a doubly safe distance from him. You couldn't play with him if you liked having your blood on the inside of your body, and only Donna Copper Horn could pet him. Why would he be involved? Dumbfounded, she began to shake her head, then caught herself and whispered, "Yes?". Donna Copper Horn sighed, grabbed Celestia and put her on her lap. "You see, some creatures have to eat meat, it is in their nature to do so and they can't avoid it. You know that Garvino and Fidelis both eat meat, right?" Celestia looked over to the gray Diamond Dog and to the old Griffon. "I know that. I'm not stupid.". "I never thought you were. You know that they are both good people, so I guess you are disturbed by what seemed simple cruelty. Is that so?" Celestia thought back at the terrified squeaking, at the buzzing sound, at the grinding of fang on fang. At all the blood. She closed her eyes and shuddered. "That's what I thought." The minotaur put her hand on the filly's head and petted her with slow, calm strokes. "Garvino and Fidelis have both accepted Harmony. They will eat meat and fish, but they both will be very careful as to make it as quick and as painless as possible for their prey. But they do that because they can. Old Scar, well, he is a lovely kitty—"Celestia bit her tongue"—but he can't truly accept Harmony as a guiding principle for his life. He isn't like Garvino, or Fidelis, or you and me. He behaves according to his nature, and that means that sometimes he does things that we would think of being wrong." The knowledge that Old Scar could be out there, viciously killing small animals and being cruel while doing it disturbed Celestia, but it hardly surprised her. She had always suspected that he was a Wendigo incarnate, feeding on pain and fear. And mice. That this wasn't a reason to consider him evil in Donna Copper Horn's eyes, on the other hoof, was unexpected. The minotaur had very high — sometimes unreasonably high, in Celestia's opinion — standards regarding what constituted good behavior. "Do you understand, little sunshine?" That sounded like it was some kind of lesson, which meant that putting it into the right words was important. Celestia thought about it for a minute, then said, "I think so. When a creature can't accept Harmony then… they can't behave badly, they just do what their nature says?" Donna Copper Horn smiled. "Almost, but I think that I will leave all the nuances to Master Sottile. We can still educate them, we can try to teach them to behave a bit differently, but we can't judge them like we would judge one another." Celestia leaned in the massive chest and the soft fur. Thinking back to what had happened in the cistern still scared her, but if it was good enough for Donna Copper Horn, then it would be good enough for her. The flow from the deep stream underlying this reality that had fed It, after growing continuously, had been reduced to a trickle. This was unacceptable. The causes were less than obvious. While it seemed to have been causally connected to the consumption of matter, that had not been a violation of the local rule-set. That meant the circumstances of the feeding were what had to be examined, and not the feeding itself. It went through the scene again. It had captured prey, It had consumed it, the being that seemed to have taken a special interest in It had been there. The entity who had trapped It in the prison of dead meat first and then provided nutrition and transportation. The flow from the stream had come through that creature. And now it had been reduced. And this meant… something. For the first time since its inception, It was confused. It missed the flow. There was power in it, but also something else, something that made it feel… right. It would require a further, deeper examination. For the moment, It had to regain access to the flow somehow. It started reorganizing all the knowledge It had acquired about the entity. It would understand the creature better. That seemed the right thing to do. The glossy mass shifted in the darkness. A web of tendrils crept on the floor and climbed the walls of the chamber. One twitched, snapped a bit to the side, and caught a millipede. Goo surrounded the bug and pulled it to the center of the thing. The few remaining living creatures hiding in cracks and in far-off corners kept well away. By the time the sun rose, they would either have left or would have been eaten. The black web began to shift again when it felt more than heard the soft impacts of tiny hooves. It froze for a moment. A shiver ran up through the web of black threads. Tendrils retreated, the web wilted. When the flickering light shone through the haphazardly heaped boards, a single, roundish glob the size of an overweight pumpkin sat in the middle of the floor. A golden glow surrounded the boards and moved them aside. A firefly lantern flew inside, casting long, ever-shifting shadows. With a hop, Celestia landed on the small platform at the top of the stairs. A brown cape, rough fabric with ragged borders and a crooked cut, hid most of her form. Her horn lit up again, and the boards returned to their place, the soft thunk they made akin to thunderclaps in the silence. A single eye opened in the being on the floor. Celestia looked down, raised a hoof, and stopped. She wavered, leaned back, turned her head around. A deep breath, and she whispered, "You are being silly. Think about what Donna Copper Horn said." She turned her head again and squinted her eyes. The lantern floated to the center of the cavernous room, the yellow light chasing the darkness away. The thing rolled forward and turned the eye up to the filly. What felt like an eternity, and amounted to just six heartbeats, passed. Celestia pressed her lips into a line, nodded and walked forward, carefully descending the stairs without looking away from the thing. With a little jump, she skipped the last three steps and landed on the floor. The single eye on the thing blinked slowly. "Are you gonna bite me?" It came out in a single breath, almost no pause between words. Celestia gulped. The thing blinked again. Its eye stared, then turned backward and disappeared in the depth of the being. Two smaller eyes, one green and round, the other red and without pupil, surfaced. "I brought you something." A small bulge appeared under the cape and traveled forward. From below the flap, a gray-brown bun came forward, held in Celestia's magic. It floated to the mass and settled a step in front of it. "It's fruit bread. Meadowsweet had the first batch of dried fruits ready today, and they prepared it. It should have been for tomorrow, but I sneaked in and got one anyway. I became very good at sneaking, you know? I even made this sneaking-cape all by myself. It's brown because in the darkness you can't see brown very well. Garvino told me so. He said that only morons use black when they are around in the woods because then you can see this black hole in the night and you can see somepony sneaking. Brown is better, you don't see it at all. Well, that and I only found an old jute sack, but I think I made a very good cape anyway. I can sneak everywhere." One of the eyes went downwards and looked at the bun. The other stayed on the filly. Celestia scraped the floor with a hoof. "I… Look, I know I kinda freaked out this afternoon, but I'm not angry. I brought you the sweets because I think you will like it. It's very tasty. Eat it." The lower eye began to climb again. "It's just, you kinda scared me. The thing you did to those mice, it was…" Celestia looked away and bit her lip. "I know that sometimes critters hunt, I'm not stupid. But they squeaked and squeaked and it was like screams and…" Celestia sat down, her lip trembling. "And then I ran away because you were scary and I thought that maybe you were bad or evil because… I mean, you kinda have to eat and I get that, but that was scary and I ran away and I know I shouldn't have done that. Donna Copper Horn explained it to me, you are what you are and sometimes this stuff happens. I should have known better. I…" Celestia sniffled and closed her eyes. "I should have been better. You can't leave somepony because you are scared. You… I… I'm sorry. Please, please forgive me." A tear rolled down her cheek, then another one, and another one. And then something soft and strangely warm wiped them away. Celestia blinked. In front of her was the — was Slimey, one thick tentacle extended and carefully patting her on the cheek, looking at her with those strange, malformed eyes. In the twilight of the subterranean cistern, filly and thing stood in silence, staring at each other. In a far-off corner, something with a lot of legs seized the moment and scuttled away. Wiping away the remaining tears and sniffling, Celestia tried for a smile. "So, you forgive me?" Another tendril grew out of the mass. It slowly rose to Celestia's face, and then started patting her on the nose. A sneeze echoed through the room. The thing flinched back. Celestia rubbed her muzzle, looked up and jumped forward giggling. She scooped up the thing in a hug, the pudding-like consistency staying strong as she squeezed. "Oh, thank you. I was so afraid you would stay mad at me." The thing squirmed, trembled, and finally calmed down, pouring over Celestia's shoulder. "Now, do you want to eat something?" A golden glow surrounded the bun still laying on the floor and Celestia's magic brought it to the filly. "I told you, it's quite good, you will like it." She broke it in two as the thing flowed back on the floor in front of it, opened a circular mouth and brought out fangs. The buzzing started a moment later. Celestia winced. "Well, maybe we can work on that."