//------------------------------// // 2: Home // Story: Homeworld: Equestria - The Silent Hunters // by hiigaran //------------------------------// The foyer echoed as the double doors of Twilight’s castle parted for the lone unicorn. Several nearby banners hanging from the tall ceilings fluttered, briefly drawing the pony’s attention to their minimalistic designs of trees and landscapes. “Spike!” Twilight called out, as the doors shut behind her, once again causing the decorative fabrics to stir. “I’m back!” As her echoing voice faded, Twilight’s ears swivelled towards the source of approaching steps and headed towards them. Rounding a corner, she bumped face-first into the stomach of something definitely not a small dragon, and a tan-brown shirt quickly dominated her vision. With a muffled grunt, she pulled herself away and looked up. The tall, bipedal being grinned down at the unicorn. “Hello, Twilight.” “Mel!” Twilight jumped up in a blur, wrapping her hooves around the former Hiigaran Captain. Chuckling, Melarn Soban returned the gesture. “I’ve missed you too. You’ve been busy, I take it?” he asked, pulling away. “You have no idea.” Twilight rolled her eyes. Setting off in the direction of the castle’s library, she continued, “Day in, day out, nothing but reports of Turanic Raiders doing something or other, and it’s starting to get old. I just wish we could eliminate the problem once and for all. Am I—am I a bad pony for saying that?” “Under any other circumstance, I’d probably say it’s out of character for you, but those guys are a slippery bunch. I remember they used to give my commanding officer fits when I was still Sobani!” Mel followed alongside, placing one of his hands inside a pocket of his jeans, while the other swung freely as he walked. “No matter how many times anyone in the galaxy tried to hunt them down, the Raiders would just emerge later in some new location. Of course, I’m guessing I don’t need to tell you about that.” “Nope. I’ve gone through all known tactical reports multiple times. The most obvious conclusion I’ve come up with is that they owe much of their survival to some decentralised military hierarchy. But I’m sick of talking about Raiders all the time. These few days I have are meant to be my time off.” “Got any plans then? I was thinking of staying in Ponyville for a week.” “Eh, Rarity put the idea in my head to take a day at the spa. I figured I might as well, so I managed to work that into my schedule.” Twilight continued, levitating a rolled-up piece of parchment from one of her side bags and unfurling it in front of her friend. Skimming over the timetable, Mel snorted. “Of course you of all ponies would have a schedule with oddly specific timings for meals and restroom usage between activities.” “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. Can’t say I’ve ever run late though, can you?” “What about the time you weren’t able to write a friendship repor—” “Ah—we don’t talk about that!” Twilight quickly cut in. “You agreed not to mention it, if I agreed to never bring up your first reaction to cats.” “Hey, you’d have reacted similarly if you landed on an alien planet and thought you saw a triikor cub!” Mel retorted defensively. “Okay, they’re not as fluffy as Rarity’s cat was, but still!” “To this day, I still have mental images of giant Opals catching mice on a desert planet. Anyway, what are your plans? What are you doing here, anyway?” “I can’t visit one of my closest friends without being interrogated? Twilight, I am hurt!” Mel placed his free hand over his heart and feigned shock. “No, I’ve still got plenty of ears in both Equestrian and Hiigaran navies. When I heard Aurora will be staying in orbit for a few days, and a shuttle with significant escorts would be coming down, I figured you’d be on it. Guess I was right.” “Guess you were.” Twilight smiled, parting the doors to her library. “I assume you’ve seen Spike, then?” “I haven’t, but Starlight mentioned he’ll be back in the evening. Something about running some errands.” “Ah, so you finally met Starlight Glimmer then? After what? Two years?” “Well, I wasn’t breaking and entering, if that’s what you were implying.” “Ha-ha,” the unicorn replied flatly. Settling in on a sectional sofa near a window, she looked up at Mel. “So what do you think of her?” “Honestly? I had to ask if you were long-lost sisters or something.” Mel dropped himself in the middle of the adjacent section, sinking into the cushions. Looking back, he saw Twilight raising an eyebrow. “What? Don’t look at me like that. You’re both purple, powerful unicorns, with remarkably similar mannerisms. She reminds me of you when we first met, actually. I think that sort of answers your question, doesn’t it?” “Humph. Where is Starlight, anyway?” As if on queue, a knock came from the open doors as Starlight entered. “Welcome back, Twilight! How was—” “Stressful,” Twilight cut in, holding up a hoof. “Don’t want to talk about it though.” “That bad, huh? Well, I’ve got something to cheer you up.” Starlight levitated a bundle of books over to Twilight. “I received those books you were looking for in the mail yesterday. Largest Kushan-La dictionary they had, too.” “Kush—wait a minute.” Mel frowned, slightly confused. “Twilight, are you learning my language?” “Umm … Mor.” Twilight nodded sheepishly. Mel grinned from ear to ear. “This is amazing! How long have you been at it?” “Khar okon ul see seevpay-da.” “Ha!” Mel clapped slowly. Starlight sat beside Mel. “Translation? I know two of those words had to have been ‘one year’.” “One year and three weeks, word for word. Galactic Common derives much of its grammar from Kushan-La, given how influential the old Hiigaran empire used to be. Conveniently enough, that means it shouldn’t be a particularly difficult language to learn,” Mel replied, turning back to Twilight. “Though that still begs the question of how your planet developed with Common when you’ve supposedly never had any external contact prior to my arrival.” Twilight scratched her head. “Hard to say. Recorded history doesn’t go back that far, I’m afraid. We may never know. Though I'm not sure if it's correct to call our language Common. Our vocabulary deviates slightly from true Common.” “Eh, whatever.” Mel waved his hand in dismissal. “I’m more interested in your language skills right now. Okay, okay, what is”—he looked around the room, before finally pointing at a collection of chairs—“that over there?” “Stuur. Or stuur-da if you wanted the plural.” “How about … this room?” “The library? Uhh, juukmaan.” Mel pointed at the window. “The building across from your castle that wasn’t there when I was here a few months ago?” “Glofka opat hiig. It’s my new friendship school. I’ll have to fill you in on what’s happened in Ponyville since the last time we met.” “Hiig?” Starlight interrupted. “As in Hiigara?” “Sort of. Hiigara is an old word made of two other words. ‘Hiig’, meaning ‘home’, and ‘ara’, meaning ‘world’. Homeworld is literally the name of our planet. In the context of ‘opat hiig’ however, the translation becomes ‘lesson home’,” Mel explained. “Alright, one more for you, Twilight. How many fingers am I holding up?” he raised both his hands, palms facing the Princess. Beaming with pride, Twilight answered with confidence, “Vargaf. I’ll admit though, I haven’t had much time to learn more than the basics. I think I’ve got the grammar down, given how familiar it is, but my vocabulary and pronunciation are lacking.” Mel shook his head. “Not at all. Your pronunciation isn’t too bad. You’ve just got a bit of a soft accent typical to one using Common as their main language. Aside from a few misplaced stresses, and forgetting to roll your Rs after a double vowel though, you seem to be picking it up nicely.” “I’d ask you to be my tutor, but juggling my friendship duties with everything happening up there”—Twilight pointed up—“plus dealing with this new ship development leaves little time for anything else.” “You need to set aside more time for yourself,” Starlight lectured. “I rarely see her these days, and when I do, she’s usually busy doing something work-related,” she explained to Mel. Twilight sighed. “Making time for myself is easier said than done. I can’t just ignore everything going on around me. Look at what happened with the Storm King. Perfect example!” “I feel so guilty for not being with you when that happened, Twilight.” Sighing, Mel looked at Twilight. “I’m sorry. Had I not been visiting the Crystal Empire—” “Don’t be,” Twilight stopped Mel. “Let's be fair here. You wouldn’t have been able to stop it all by yourself anyway. You're good, but not that good.” “Loving that vote of confidence there, Twi. Alright, fine, but that event was pretty much why I started concealing my old marine side-arm again. I may not fully understand magic and its power, but surprise and accuracy still counts for something where I’m from.” “It might have been for the best. Despite everything, I’m glad I got a student out of it. Maybe you’ll meet her in two years as well.” Twilight grinned, looking over the cover of her new dictionary. Her expression changed after she placed the book down. “Still, there’s plenty of work ahead of us, and not enough time to do it in. To make matters worse, we’ve got to deal with having changelings serving in our Navy now. And not the nice kind, either.” Mel hummed as he contemplated. “Are they the ones with the holes all over their bodies? Yeah, I can see why they’d be useful in certain roles. They’d make great spies. Plus, they’re good in close combat, aren’t they? More agile than a pegasus, right?” “They are, but whose wise idea was it to let them serve? We’ve got … history.” Mel shrugged. “Equestria never got along with the griffon kingdom before I fell from the skies. Look where the two nations are now.” “That situation was a little different.” “You expect it to be a disaster?” Twilight considered the possibilities. “Worse than a dragon suffering from a growth spurt in space. Which is actually why dragons don’t serve. No, a rogue changeling could incite mutinies, or turn our assets against us. Imagine they take over just one super-capital ship! The amount of damage one could inflict on our nation from low orbit? It could be the end of Equestria as we know it!” “I’m fairly certain the chances of that happening are next to none.” “But not exactly none. We have to be prepared. That’s why we’re only letting in a few changelings for now. Still, even one is unnerving. Chrysalis likely sent her best to keep up appearances, so he would be the most dangerous of the lot.” “What do your friends think about the situation?” “I know Applejack hates them the most,” Twilight answered without hesitation. “They manipulate, lie, cheat, and steal in the worst ways imaginable, so she sees it as the ultimate form of dishonesty. An ‘affront to honesty ’, as she said. Rarity isn’t a fan of the emotional theft either. She finds them the most repulsive out of all of us, I think. Probably the whole insect thing. As for Rainbow Dash, she wants to quote ‘go for round two’. Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy are actually trying to look forward to some kind of reconciliation, though.” “And you, Starlight?” Mel turned his head towards the second unicorn. “Ooh, you’re really putting me in the spotlight here, aren’t you?” Starlight fidgeted. “Uhh, I can’t say I’d feel particularly comfortable around one of those kinds of changelings, but then again, I’ve heard how you’re always talking about how bad things are, Twilight. From the sounds of things, these changelings might be a necessary evil. Then again, perhaps the rest are like Thorax. We just need to get to know them better.” Mel grew silent, as thoughts brewed in his mind. “Hold on, wasn’t Thorax one of those kinds of changelings as well, Twilight? I think you mentioned something about him turning into those colourful types, correct? The … friendly changelings?” “Well yes, but that’s different. He was more of a defector. The others are still under Chrysalis’ rule. Willingly, I might add. In the aftermath of the changeling hive incident, the entire population had the choice to either stay with Thorax, or leave with Chrysalis.” “I don’t think that necessarily makes them evil though.” “They’re making an active decision to stick to a lifestyle involving tearing the emotional energy out of their victims,” Twilight argued. “How is that not evil?” “I think I’d need to look into changelings as a species and civilisation a little more before I could agree or disagree with you. Not saying I don’t trust you, but based on my experience, evil for the sake of evil is uncommon. I think there’s more to this. Plus, I think it might be a little difficult to remain unbiased when you’ve been involved with several changeling incidents.” “Me? I’m about as objective as ponies come!” Twilight insisted. “Ehh,” Starlight started hesitantly. “You did kind of try to drive Trixie and I apart once, all because you held a grudge against her.” “I could forgive the ursa incident, but she tried to enslave an entire town!” Twilight retorted. “So did I. Successfully, too.” Mel blinked. “Wait, what?” “Long story,” Starlight muttered, looking down at the floor. “Not a particularly proud chapter in my life.” “Never a dull moment in Equestria, it seems,” Mel quipped, earning a glare from both unicorns. “So anyway, you were saying something about ship development? Heard rumours of a new ship type, but Wraiths and Shirys are old news.” “Likely the Amarok. Destroyer-class with permanent cloaking capabilities. Almost looks like one of those submarines you talked about once. Operates similarly too, now that I think about it, though the decks face the other way. No artificial gravity, so the nose is above you, and the engines are below. I'll give you details later. Right now though? I don’t know about you two, but I’ve just come from orbit with no food whatsoever.” Twilight got to her hooves. “Are either of you up for some dinner?” Starlight followed suit. “I’ve been meaning to check out McGarron’s for a while now. You two want to give that place a try?” Twilight was about to collect her books when she looked back at Starlight. “Isn’t that a pub?” “It is, but I heard they make some amazing dishes. The ricotta gnocchi is apparently one of their specialities.” “Alright, why not? Mel?” Mel stood up. “Starlight had me at pub. I’m in.” “Great! Let me just put these books away, and we’ll head out.”