//------------------------------// // Chapter 38: Maculatum // Story: Meliora // by Starscribe //------------------------------// For once, Liz didn’t pressure her into being brought along. Instead she seemed to be trying to get Jackie to turn around completely. Unsuccessfully. “Are you sure you won’t just make everything worse?” she sang nervously, as they ran together up the stairs towards the governor’s office. “You’re really going to piss them off. If you kill him…” “When I kill him,” Jackie corrected. “Ankaa is one of the strongest creatures of this generation. But compared to the champions of Charybdis, or the Great Queens, or… the world isn’t what it used to be. The noble heroes and terrible villains are all carvings and ashes.” “Okay, when.” Liz followed her through the conference room, which was packed with terrified ponies plotting their defense. “Just keep us safe for another few hours!” Jackie called, not even slowing down. “I’m stopping the deer army.” “It’s not the deer,” Lavender called, the only voice that cut through the confusion. “It’s Mundi. Our telescopes caught launches. Elliptical trajectories, all straight for us.” She stopped, turning slightly. “Battlecruisers?” Lavender nodded, then raised her voice to speak over the rush of other ponies who wanted Jackie’s attention. “The entire fleet. Almost a thousand ships.” A spacefaring warship for every trained soldier in Meliora. “How long?” “Four hours,” came the response. “Less, if they don’t reenter and bombard us from space.” “That’s exactly what they’ll do,” Jackie said. “How long if they stay in orbit?” “Two and a half hours.” Ankaa almost didn’t even matter. His army might kill them before that, but they wouldn’t be any less dead. If anything, she could have the satisfaction of knowing the invaders would get turned to ash not long after they took the city. “Can you move the heartwood by then?” There was silence in the room, silence that went on for nearly a minute. Eventually a tiny voice answered, belonging to a creature she hadn’t even noticed. Avery hovered in the air not far away, bobbing up and down. “Maybe. But I’m not leaving my ship here to be destroyed. Athena’s powers are incredible—if she believes we helped you, she will hunt and destroy us. The Fiore can’t hide from her unblinking eyes.” “Wait.” Jackie stuck out one of her wings, though not close enough to actually touch the delicate creature. “Athena will be dead by sunrise, or close enough that she isn’t a threat.” “If that is true…” Avery didn’t sound doubtful, only curious. The fae creature had a way of walking just the line of an acceptable question in Jackie’s own territory. “Then why do you need our ship? What difference does it make if I send it away?” “Because it isn’t even nightfall yet,” Jackie answered. “I need twelve hours, not three. Can you stay ahead of Athena’s ships for that long?” Avery’s expression became unreadable. Around her the air seemed to smell suddenly sweeter—the empty planter boxes burst into life, as the dried and dead lilies there began to pulse. Finally Avery landed on the table in front of her. “It is possible,” she said. “But what you ask, Dreamknife—is a great promise from us. One that must be met with a great promise in return.” “I have nothing more to offer you,” Jackie said, spreading her wings. “When Athena is dead, I won’t be worth anything in your promises.” It was as much of an admission as she could make, one that most of her ponies wouldn’t pick up on. But she wouldn’t lie to the fairies, not when they would have such great power over the future of Meliora. “You would not be able to pay it,” she said. “Unless you had secrets of magic that do not exist. Rather… if we breezies protect Meliora through this crisis, then at the other end of it we would wish to be united with you—forever. Wherever the Fiore landed to one day build a city, would be city to both of us. Where a princess’s role was required, I would serve. Until Voeskender’s stolen champion is returned and a thousand winters of peace between us are sealed by the unshed blood of the gray-eyed god.” She floated in the air in front of Jackie, little hoof extended with a smile. “Swear it, and we will live or die together.” Jackie took a step back, then pointed out the door. “Give me a minute with my advisors. We’ll call you.” Liz watched her go, holding the door open for the little fairy. But despite her words, she only looked relieved. You’re really that afraid of a stupid deer? I’ll be fine, kid. “You heard all that.” Jackie sat down at the table abruptly, smacking one hoof on the wood. “It sounds like shit, I know. Her demands are confusing, vague, potentially dangerous. If anyone has any better alternatives, tell me now.” There was a long, frustrated silence. Ponies glanced meaningfully to each other, and a few looked like they might be about to chastise her. But in the end, none did, and she was left with the weight of empty silence. Until Firelight finally spoke. “Athena… has been a god of our planet for many years, Dreamknife. Longer than you yourself have lived, if the stories are true. She guided life through the invasion of the seas. She fought beside us through a thousand little wars. Are you saying, honestly… that she can be defeated? By the likes of us?” Jackie didn’t hesitate. “Not by you, no.” She gestured, and with a little magic she conjured an image in the air before them. An image based on her memory, of a place that was not a place. Of course these were not enlightened ponies, and they would not see it as she had. It was an ancient city of gears and ruins, empty except for the laws that made it. A thousand thoughts risen from the Dreamlands lived there, and maybe genuine divinity too. But Jackie had only been there long enough to meet the Alicorns, and save them from themselves. “This is a place Athena cannot go—the place that governs the physical laws of the universe. Compared to this place, we are the dreams. I will go there, and Athena will finally die.” She didn’t want to say more—not that she thought the program would be able to do much to stop her. But she didn’t want to take the chance. Could there be traitors at her table? Athena’s eyes were not all-seeing, despite her own religious myths. “But if we’re dead, it won’t matter,” said Melanie. “We won’t be able to enjoy the new world after getting our justice.” “No,” she admitted. “And I don’t know any magic that can stop all those ships. I stopped one, mostly because Athena wanted me dead so badly. It is her who ultimately controls them. If I sneak aboard and kill their captains, it will make no difference. They may not even be manned for all we know.” “What would you do?” Lavender asked. “It’s your city. Are you willing to give up being princess to the fairy?” Jackie laughed. “I was willing to give up being princess before I had it. The fairy… she seems to know what she’s doing. “Fairies are all about laws,” Liz suggested. “We should make her promise not to break ours. Like… like our own little Magna Carta. We can’t stop her from wanting things we don’t, but those laws were already the minimum we wanted, right? If we get those, then that will be enough.” We. One of the few ponies in this room who had somewhere else to go, but Liz spoke with the same conviction as any of these others. What was more, they didn’t object to her, even though she held no official office beyond Jackie’s assistant. She had been here since the beginning, her own survival as much in peril as theirs. “I agree,” Lavender said. “I would rather not, but there’s no other option here. We need the fae to stay alive. And we need you to succeed, Dreamknife. If you fail, we make a promise we never have to pay for, but we’re still dead.” “I agree,” said somepony else. No one objected—no one had better options. “Get the door, Liz.” Jackie rose from her seat, turning. The fairy buzzed in, smugly satisfied with herself. She knew. “We have one condition,” Jackie said, before Avery could say something self-congratulatory. “Whatever we build together will obey the existing laws of Meliora, those written as of now. Our freedoms are the minimum.” Her eyes narrowed, expression stern. “We founded Meliora to escape from slavery to one kind of god. It would be better to die than accept slavery to another.” Avery hesitated, considering. Jackie expected her to ask to see the laws, maybe to read them over right in front of them. But she only nodded, extending a hoof. “I accept these terms. Do you accept mine?” Jackie reached out with one hoof, moving slowly and delicately. “On behalf of Meliora, we do.” “Then by blood and stars and Supernal above, our pact is sworn,” Avery said. Jackie could feel the weight of fate settle on the city—but this time, it passed through her more that binding her. She had, in a way, abdicated the throne. A throne she hadn’t wanted anyway. I hope the one pony who did want it knows what she’s doing. But if she didn’t, the future ponies of Meliora would need a new hero to free them. “Then begin your work.” Jackie rose to her hooves, turning back for the door. “I still have to kill the deer. I assume the evacuation is already complete?” “All except the soldiers, Ma’am,” answered Satoru, her only general. “Then listen to me, all of you.” Jackie straightened, and as she spoke the room seemed to darken around her. “My last instructions as your governor are to protect Meliora as it emerges from the wreckage of war. When Athena is dead, Mundi will be destroyed. Don’t take revenge, don’t do to them what they did to us. Be better.” She lifted one hoof in a salute, the first she’d made without irony or sarcasm since the Final War. “Meliora owes each of you its survival. You will be judged for the way you rule when I am gone. If you let this place turn into Mundi, I swear my ghost is gonna come back and murder the fuck out of you in your dreams.” Her dagger was in her hooves again, though she wasn’t exactly sure how it had gotten there. Somehow, she didn’t think she would need it much longer. “Don’t wait for my orders again. Keep everyone alive.” She turned to Liz. “You’re the only one who doesn’t have a job—now you’ve got mercenaries to command. I’m… guessing you’re the only one they would listen to.” But Liz was crying. Apparently she’d finally realized what Jackie meant by these instructions, and why everypony in the room seemed so resolved. But she only nodded—didn’t say a word to object until they were on their way out, down the hall to Jackie’s office. “You’re not coming back,” she finally said, voice quavering. “That’s why Alex was so upset.” Jackie nodded. She froze, holding still as Liz settled her face into her shoulder. She wrapped one wing around her, though she could feel only the armor. “She’s the Alicorn of Death. I’m sure when we’re at the end… she’ll be with me there too.” “It’s not fair,” Liz declared. “You dying over this job. You didn’t even want it. That stupid… bat… tricked you into it.” “No.” Jackie stuck out one wing. “I wasn’t tricked, Liz. Part of the reason things got this bad are all the good people who did nothing. Ponies like me, who were too busy celebrating our victory to realize it was being taken away from under our hooves. But… more than that… I’ve lived a long time. I’ve seen things you can’t imagine. I think I’ve just about gone as far as I can. What better way to go out than in a big fuckin’ blaze of glory?” She sniffed, speaking through her tears. “Can’t let Ezri… upstage me, can I?” She hesitated, then extended the knife towards Liz, handle out. It was an ancient object now, much older than she was and with the taste of alien dreams on its metallic surface. A dagger eight inches long, with a handle of smart adhesive nanocloth, which knew when to cling to a pony’s hoof, and when to let go. An angel was worked into the metal, wings spread and eyes always watching in judgement. “I will not need this where I’m going,” she said. “A long time ago, your sister gave me this. Now I am giving it to you.” “B-but…” Liz was still crying. She took the knife anyway. Its sheath appeared the instant it was in her hoof, tumbling out of the Dreamlands and onto the floor in front of her. Liz would not be able to banish and summon this blade at will—for her, it was only metal. “But why me? I’m not a bat!” “Neither was your sister when she gave it to me,” Jackie answered. “But here we are. Oh, and… if Misty lives through my death, take good care of her too. Keep her with one of you as much as you can. Figments need people to stay sane. Order her into the real world as often as you can, and she’ll stay a pony. I know that’s what she wants, even if she might forget it one day.” “Shouldn’t you… keep this? To fight Ankaa?” Jackie hesitated. There was some part of her that wanted to get up close and stick that dagger into his gut, as she had with so many others. But that was simple, animal satisfaction, and she didn’t need it. “No… but you did just remind me of something.” She leaned in close. “Don’t be afraid to kill with that knife. But when you do—take a moment to look into the eye. Let it remind you that there’s an account to be paid for every life.” She chuckled. “Guess mine is about to be collected.”