//------------------------------// // Chapter 7: Nivalis // Story: Meliora // by Starscribe //------------------------------// Jackie was not an engineer, not a builder, and not even a bureaucrat. She didn’t have a magical memory and a lifetime of skills. What she did have was simple determination, and a ruthless confidence. An incredibly useful thing to have, once her city-bats learned just how difficult a task they’d set for themselves by leaving a self-sufficient fortress to rebuild civilization from scratch. More than a few of Jackie’s ponies asked to be returned to the city, liking their odds in Mundi better than their chances in Australia. Jackie did not give them that chance. “You were told when you signed up for this that there would be no going back,” she said, to an assembly of every refugee the next day. “I informed you then of the difficulty we would be facing. The hunger, the fatigue, the danger. I will not be providing a way back for any pony here. The magic that brought us here cannot be repeated. You have your work assignments—if you want rations at night, you will have to carry them out.” She glared out at a few of them over the stage. Spoiled ponies, that might as well have been the pampered pets of wealthier ponies. In some ways, Jackie herself had lived that lifestyle for a while. The difference was that she hadn’t let it make her soft. She hadn’t been raised that way. Her “children” would have some harsh lessons. Her chastisement did not make her popular with that group, either. Instead of being inspired to return to work, many of them attempted to steal supplies from the cache and run off. Unfortunately for them, Liz worked the cache. They’d brought pointed spears, but Liz’s suit had an accelerator rifle. So the group of two-dozen or so rebels ended up slinking off with nothing, vanishing into the jungle before Jackie’s own ponies woke up. According to Liz, they’d been planning on “building a ship to sail back to Mundi.” They’d stolen other things—tents, survival gear—basically everything they’d been given. Jackie didn’t try to get it back. They’d need every advantage they could get not to starve. “You plan on bringing those asshats back here?” Jackie asked Hat Trick, once she finally appeared again. “They’re going to get themselves killed.” “Maybe.” The thestral didn’t seem terribly worried. If anything, she seemed amused. “I was aware of the rebellion. I thought you might convince them not to leave.” “Got me confused with somepony else,” Jackie muttered. “Alex is the one who tries to keep the group together. I told everyone what they were getting themselves into, and they still came. So far as I’m concerned, anything bothering them now is their own fucking problem. Like they expected to be riding out into the sunset and have some robots build the city for us.” “I’m pleased we aren’t allowing Athena to rebuild our civilization for us,” Hat Trick said. “But I admit I’m a bit perplexed at your designs. Our population is too low to worry about environmental impact for centuries. What’s the point of all the… tree stuff?” “We’re going down a different branch,” Jackie said, not avoiding her gaze. Few ponies could lie as well as she could. “We’re probably going to be fighting ponies from Mundi before the end. Athena says she’ll stay neutral, but do you think that means she won’t let them keep all their tech as soon as they go to war? I fucking doubt it. If our cities were just Mundi without the oppression, they’d have all the advantages. They’d have a more diverse population and abilities to draw on, they’d have more people to make into soldiers, and they’d have all the same tech we were using. They’d win. “And not only that…” Jackie turned away from her, moving over to the tent flap and holding it open, so they could look out at the jungle. It wasn’t dark at night, not like photos of the ancient, pre-Event jungles of the past. There were thousands of little lights, glowing from the flowers, the leaves, everything. Just enough light to furnish her sensitive eyes with a perfect picture. “Every war is ultimately about resources, kid. We do things Athena’s way, and fast forward to the future… their spies get here, they see another city just waiting to be stolen from us. A city they know how to live in and maintain. They’re going to want it.” “Oh.” Hat Trick nodded. “I see where you’re going with this. You want the civilization to be so different that they don’t even want to enslave it.” “Exactly. They’ll get here from Mundi, look outside, and see a stand of trees. They won’t know that our ponies have lives just as good as theirs, once it’s all set up. They’ll just think that it looks like we’re living in the woods and screw right off home. Or if they do try to fight, their ponies won’t want to keep fighting for very long. What do they get if they win, our garden? I’m winning us the war before it even starts.” The younger bat nodded again, apparently more confident this time. “That… I knew we chose the best princess for this job. Or at least the best princess available.” She made to go, but Jackie blocked the tent flap leading out into the camp. “There was one more thing. I met an old friend of yours recently, down in the ruins. Eureka has been here the whole time. Or… ever since I got his fat ass out of Charybdis’s control, probably. I don’t think I saw him during the defense of Mundi… why the hell isn’t he the one doing this job? He was part of that nine-man cult you all had going, wasn’t he? He could probably re-found this whole place exactly the way it used to be.” Hat Trick wilted immediately at her words, suddenly looking away. There was pain in her voice as she replied. “I tried to convince him,” she said. “More than once. You weren’t my first choice. But not everyone handles loss the same way. He invested more of himself into Thestralia than anypony I know. Not just his inventions, but his blood. Seeing it all tumble down was probably just as hard for him as losing our friends.” “He should be in my shoes,” Jackie said again. “He’s a real princess. Like you said, he invented half this shit. He knows how to go down an alternate technological direction too. He knows how to build without Athena.” “Maybe,” Hat Trick agreed. “But I’m guessing you tried to convince him of that when you saw him. He turned you down.” It wasn’t a question. “Yeah,” she muttered, smacking the ground hard with one hoof. “I should’ve screwed up his experiment. He was harvesting the Compiler’s remains. God only knows what he planned on doing with it.” “Irrelevant for our purposes,” Hat Trick said, a little more firmly. “We can’t spend our time trying to comprehend the Alicorns. You’ve dealt with them longer than I have, you should know. They’re fickle in their desires, and difficult to control. We can’t force him into ruling. But you forced me, Jackie found herself thinking, though she didn’t say it out loud. And it hadn’t just been Hat Trick. Voeskender had forced her too, and in so doing would be forcing all the bats of their new nation. Even if his path presented some advantages—it still might not have been the path these bats chose for themselves. Except that Jackie didn’t give them any other option. She didn’t keep arguing, but flew back out the door to get back to work. And work they did, as hard and as long as ever Jackie had worked in her life. It was different than her experience in Motherlode, all those eons ago—at least these ponies were working for themselves, and not being forced to do anything dangerous. So long as they stayed away from the ruins of the Arcane Network, the greatest risks they faced on a daily basis were heat exhaustion and getting poisoned by Australia’s wildlife. Things went slow at first—they didn’t have a good mixture of pony talents, and dreamwalking did not become useful for anything except psychological services until the highest levels of mastery. Most of what they had to do was simple hard labor, performed without the benefit of hands to make the process easier. The second month was worse than the first, because that was when the food stockpile finally ran out, and the orchards weren’t anywhere near finished growing. A full half of their ponies had to switch to scavenging duties, wandering further and further afield and even hunting the giant insects for sustenance. Jackie didn’t mind eating moths—actually she quite enjoyed it—but in Mundi, eating bugs had been seen as a sign of the natural barbarity (and inferiority) of thestrals, so almost all of her ponies had been trained to hate it. Hunger could cure old taboos. Still, morale suffered, and a few more ponies wandered off searching for the “rebels.” Jackie could only imagine how much worse things must be in that camp, but she refused to go look. If the ponies there wanted her help, they could come back to the camp and ask for it. So far, not one of the rebels had returned. But considering the abundance of the jungle, she doubted they had starved. Yet. By the third month, they had managed to erect a few simple buildings using Voeskender’s method, and found the naturally-occurring groves of tropical fruit that seemed almost waiting for them in the jungle. The combination of a dry place to sleep (even if it was a communal sleeping arrangement in the pony way) and enough food in their bellies did wonders for pony morale. “Phase two will be expanding to basic city services,” explained her planning pony, Melanie. “The fundamental base of a functioning society is a formal division of roles. We’ve already seen many natural divisions take shape—some ponies have demonstrated a talent for managing inventory. Liz will probably be our first merchant. Others have shown a knack for finding food better than other ponies, and others have a talent for magic. It is imperative we create a functional economy as quickly as possible.” Jackie waved a dismissive wing. “That all sounds fine to me. Just tell me where the new buildings need to go.” Jackie herself had been working with the clearing teams—chopping down little trees and clearing the ground beneath their structures. They hadn’t been burning to clear, since that would also kill the trees they wanted to live in. “Just make sure whatever you set up doesn’t let bats end up enslaved like they did back in Mundi. Their lives have to be better here, that’s the whole point.” “It will be,” Melanie promised. “We’ll have a superior education system. Dalila, she used to work on a school board, she says we can use some merit-testing to assign places in our new public education system… which should be one of our first priorities… even if we only have a few dozen foals to educate right now. There will be many more once our situation is more stable.” Jackie didn’t really know or care what Melanie was talking about, but she did watch her closely and give her a stern glare as she explained it all. The pony smelled like she believed what she was saying, and talked like she understood it. That was good enough for her. “When you’re making work assignments, I want fifty ponies for the militia. The best filers you’ve got, though a unicorn or an earth pony would be great too.” “Do we… need one?” Melanie asked, voice skeptical. “I would rather our talented flyers be out finding food.” “Yes,” Jackie said, without hesitation. “Mundi hasn’t forgotten us. But I’m guessing they will underestimate us. Probably we’ll get some tiny force expecting to crush us completely with barely any effort. We need to make sure that doesn’t happen. And we’ve lost… what, a hundred ponies so far to the rebels? Eventually they’re going to get hungry enough, and see we’re not…” “As you order,” Melanie said, though she still didn’t sound convinced. “If that’s what we have to do.” “Yes. It is.” And the more of a waste they are, the better. Hopefully I’m just being paranoid.