A change had come over the barony. Ever since the radio broadcast, things felt subdued somehow, with the manic energy reduced in some way. Word spread fast, so even those who hadn’t heard the broadcast now knew. Work had not slowed though, not even in the slightest, and as the sun began to settle behind the Canterhorn far to the west, Sundance could sense the final push to get everything completed before they ran out of light.
The support columns for the gatehouse were completed and tomorrow, the arch connecting them would be constructed, along with the house on top. So much had been accomplished in one day, done by those brought together for a common cause. Ten homes had been completed, with ten more dug-out foundations ready to go bright and early on the morrow. The water tower over Corduroy’s infirmary now had a conical tin roof, and above that, a mostly completed windmill rose over the barony like a sentinel.
It would provide the infirmary with just a smidge of electricity, enough for electric lights, a cooler, a freezer, and an autoclave for sterilisation.
“It’s been quite a day.”
Nuance’s voice was almost a relief, and when Sundance turned to look, he saw Quiet beside him. She was dirty, grimy even, her pelt was peppered with gritty bits of gravel. Nuance appeared exhausted, but happy, and there was something in his eyes, some bright inner flame that blazed with purpose. It was almost as if Nuance had found his mark.
“Today, I’ve made friends. They respect me. They really do. And it’s not because they’re soldiers and they’re required to be nice to me.” The colt bowed his head and drew in a deep breath.
Beside him, Quiet sat down and began brushing away the stone grit caked to her pelt.
“It feels like they respect me in the same way the soldiers respect my brother, Radiance. Only… those soldiers don’t really respect me. I’m in the way. They have to guard me, protect me, and I’ve spent most of my life being a snotty brat. But these soldiers aren’t like those soldiers, and today, building the gatehouse, I wasn’t in the way.” The colt sighed and lifted his head. “I didn’t feel useless, or in the way. Can you believe it, Sundance, I actually helped.”
As the sun sank, dipping below the Canterhorn, Sundance could feel the coming twilight.
“I hope my mother is okay,” Nuance said in a softer, more muted voice.
“Worried?” Even as he said it, the question felt worthless, and Sundance cringed a bit.
Nuance did not respond right away. There was a deep breath, followed by another, something that was almost a whimper, but was more nasal, and then the sounds of small hooves crunching gravel. After what felt like a minute or more, Nuance spoke, saying, “Mother doesn’t like doing what she did today. She says it feels like failure. I’ve heard her say it so many times. She doesn’t understand why ponies don’t come together during times of trouble. It bothers her that they turn on one another, and that everypony is out only for themselves. She cries, sometimes, and it’s horrible to hear my mother cry. I can’t stand it.”
“Nuance”—Sundance hesitated, fearful that the coming words might be too bitter, and that the colt was far too young to hear them—“living in the city does something to a pony’s head. Kindness and compassion gets squeezed out of you. You only see the worst in ponies. Violence and crime. It’s… it’s the desperation, Nuance. It poisons the mind. Everything is for sale and nothing is ever free. Restaurants and prostitution, as my mother says. Don’t give a sandwich out of kindness, sell it for as much as you equinely can, so you can keep your rent paid. Love and affection? That can be sold too. My mother sees it every day, and I heard about it every day when she came home from work and vented.”
“But that’s… horrible—”
“Nuance, that’s life,” Quiet said.
“What do you know about all this?” Nuance demanded.
“My father has been outside of Equestria,” Quiet replied. “He’s been all over the world. I’ve listened to his stories, even the really bad ones. He’s been to the places where our Equestrian virtues and values are just jokes. And if you listen to him and what he has to say, he could tell you an awful lot about the conditions of our cities, and why so many problems exist.”
Eyes downcast, Nuance shook his head. “I wonder if my mother listens to him.”
“He tries to tell her, but she has a hard, hard time accepting what he has to say. Even with all of the evidence to the contrary, she wants to believe in the good that ponies can do. Well, all creatures, really. Celestia is an optimist and my father… my father has seen too much of life to be an optimist. I don’t know where I stand.”
“I’d rather share my mother’s optimism,” Nuance said. “Otherwise, what’s the point of trying to make things better? We can’t just give up. It can’t be doom and gloom!” Gritting his teeth, the colt kicked at a bit of gravel, but missed.
“You share your mother’s optimism?” asked Quiet.
“What choice do I have?” Nuance snapped, his voice taking on a vulnerable tremble. “She never stopped believing in me. Kept telling anypony that would listen that I would get better. My mother made excuses for me. Always saying that I just needed some time to find my place in the world and then I’d sort myself out. What am I going to say? That she was wrong? That her optimism was unfounded? What leg would I have left to stand on?”
“I’ve always believed in you as well, you know. But I’m not sure I’m an optimist.”
“I know, Quiet. And my father… I wish my father was here right now so I could talk to him about my day. And listen to him about his day.” Nuance tried to kick at some gravel, but not much was accomplished.
A cool breeze blew, and carried with it the suggestion of a cold spring night. Sundance thought of what Nuance had said, of Quiet’s own words, and he thought of his mother. Perhaps it could be said that ponies started out as optimists, and under the right conditions, continued to be as such. His mother said you could spot a pony that was new to the city, because they were nice. They tried to do good deeds for others—but this never lasted, because sooner or later, they would learn the cold, hard reality, and would discover that no one would do anything for them.
There was only survival. Keep the rent paid, keep the lights on, and keep food in the icebox. Fail to do any of these things, and you fell down. The fall was long and the sudden stop at the end was enough to end some lives. Some never recovered, and they could be seen begging on street corners. Others turned to crime. Most turned to crime. To hear his mother talk, every single pony was just one rotten day away from a life of crime, that only good fortune and good circumstance kept ponies honest—but, as she was so quick to warn, one day, the bottom would drop out.
Hearing the crunch of gravel, Sundance turned his head and saw Skyla and Corbie approaching. Skyla in particular looked weary, her hooves dragged with every step, and her wings were lose against her sides. As for Corbie… it was hard to discern her mood. If something was wrong, and Sundance had good reason to believe that this was the case, Corbie was doing an excellent job of hiding it.
“We’re discussing optimism,” Quiet said to the others as they approached. “Or, as my father likes to call it, mental illness and delusion.”
“I’d rather think of it as plucky determination,” Skyla replied as she drew nearer.
“Why are we talking about bad eyesight?” asked Corbie.
“Sister… no… no… optimism, not ophthalmology.”
“Gotcha, Nuance.” A lopsided grin spread over Corbie’s muzzle.
“Sister… I can’t even.” Blowing a raspberry, the colt turned away from his sibling.
“Aw, Nuance… don’t be so glum. You and I, we shared a placenta—”
“Stop bringing that up!” Nuance bristled and squeezed his eyes shut.
“We didn’t share a placenta with Radiance though, and good riddance.”
“Sister—”
“We shared a cord, too,” Corbie said to Sundance whilst her brother squirmed and danced in place. “One cord, that split into two. We’re a package, my brother and I. We swam in the same baby broth—”
“Ugh!” After his loud outburst, Nuance stuck his tongue out.
“One day, I hope to be full to sloshing with baby broth,” Quiet remarked.
“Oh… oh, that’s a nasty mental image.” Skyla covered her face with her wing and then just stood there, almost unmoving. “Quiet, why?”
“How do you do it?” asked Sundance.
“Get full of baby broth?” Quiet replied in the form of a question. “If you don’t know, perhaps I’m not the pony that should be telling you. Ask your mother. Or better yet, ask an alicorn. Pick one. But not Skyla. She’s doomed to be the Alicorn of Prudery.”
Skyla snarled, Nuance gagged, and Corbie giggled.
“No, you weirdo.” Sundance looked at the foals around him and thought about the right way to clarify his words. “After today… with the radio and everything that happened. That’s a heavy thing. And now you’re here, cracking wise, and carrying on. How?”
“Have you met our parents?” Quiet’s words were spoken in deadpan. “Seriously. Have you met our parents? Nuance over there, his mom is the world’s sunniest optimist. But she’s also the powerful force of goodness that holds back the evil that threatens us all. And over here, we have Skyla. Her parents? The Alicorn of Love and the Alicorn of Virtue. Not only do we have to deal with all the usual stuff that foals have to face, but each of us lives in the dark shadow of our parents. We don’t have normal parents. They were born from alicorns and I was born from monsters. We are what we are. When no one is looking, we guzzle soda pop and have belching contests. We’re gross, we’re crude, and we tell terrible jokes. Somehow, in spite of it all, we’re still foals.”
“My sister can belch the entire dragon alphabet,” Nuance said in a near-whisper. “It’s terrifying. She gets it from our mother.”
There was nothing that Sundance could say—but an ice cold soda sounded good right about now.
“That’s the thing about being the son of Celestia.” A pause happened as Nuance took a moment to collect himself. “The sun always rises. No matter how dark the night might get, the sun always rises. Life goes on. And I guess, so do we. Sometimes, I don’t know what to make of it. Speaking of dark nights, I miss Mother Luna.”
“Mama’s colt—”
“Shut up, Skyla!”
“You still take naps with your mother.”
“So what if I do?” Nuance’s face purplefied and his ears quivered with outrage.
“Aw, don’t be upset, Nooncy. It’s sweet.” The spectre of a giggle could be heard in Quiet’s voice as she spoke, and there was something chaotic, something mischievous about her eyes. “Oh, by the way… Skyla, you left your stuffed Shining Armor doll in my room last night.”
“Oh,” Corbie gasped. “Roasted. Basted and wasted.”
Skyla’s mouth hung open, but only for a second, and she was quick to recover.
Uncertain of what motivated him, Sundance put the mood at risk with a hard question. “So… what do you think will happen in Fillydelphia? What do you think should happen? If you were in charge, how would you deal with it?”
Again, Skyla was quick to recover, and her expression became one of thoughtful contemplation. Nuance too, reacted, his expression grew troubled, and his ears pinned back. Quiet somehow maintained her chaotic mischievousness, but there was something different about her eyes, something that was almost frightening, as if something dark and terrible prowled her mental corridors. As for Corbie, she wore a blank expression and seemed to be more confused than anything.
“Princess Celestia gives ponies too much freedom.” Skyla’s words were muted, but clearly spoken. “The freedom to be bad and good. As I see it, when given a choice, ponies will do bad things if it benefits them. We do things differently in the Crystal Empire. Our laws are more strict. The application of justice is swift. But then again, we’re not as large as Equestria. So really, I’m not sure if there’s a valid comparison here.”
“Skyla, that’s terrible.”
“Nuance, I’m not wrong. Your mother takes a gamble… she takes a chance that free ponies will choose to do great good. And a few do. But let’s face it… most do not. For every pony that rises up to do great good, how many bad things happen every day? Fillydelphia is burning. Citizens are dying, Nuance. If they were just made to do what they were told, and what is good for all, this wouldn’t be happening.”
“But if we’re forced to do good, then what point is goodness?” Quiet’s leonine tail formed a fuzzy question mark. “With evil all around, the choice to do good means something.”
“So others need to suffer for this choice to matter?” Skyla shook her head. “No, for the good of all, citizens should be made to conform somehow. We must somehow reduce risk, not increase it. Order is a prize to be had… in the Crystal Empire, we value our order.”
“That’s tyranny—”
“Tempered with benevolence,” Skyla said, interrupting Quiet. “You live where I live, Quiet. You walk the same streets I do. How can you say what you just said? Have you no appreciation for the life you’ve been given?”
Quiet, scowling, did not respond.
“Skyla, you do realise that all of Quiet’s jokes about public beheadings and what not were just jokes, right? Her morbid humour.”
“Of course I know that,” Skyla said with a dismissive wave of her hoof. “She said it as a joke, but that doesn’t change the fact that her jests hold a grain of truth.”
“So… what, we bring back the days of Sombra?” asked Nuance.
“Maybe not to that extreme,” Skyla responded, “but there has to be a middle ground. We’re foals. Why do we behave? We’re afraid of the consequences. Who here isn’t afraid of their parents? Let’s see a show of hooves.”
Trembling, Quiet raised her left hoof.
Sundance gnawed his lip, and thought about how terrified he was of his own mother. Officer Mom scared him. He kept himself out of trouble for fear of reprisal. The fear of what his mother might do had ruled his life—but his mother had also imparted bad things, like her own prejudices. A broad, almost endless horizon of confusion spread before him, and Sundance could feel his guts twisting into knots as he mentally acknowledged that his mother might not have done the best for him, that his better interests had not been protected.
He felt sick from the very thought.
“Quiet, your father is the scariest pony-shaped creature in all of existence, and you’re not afraid of him?” Nuance asked.
“Why should I be?” was Quiet’s quick reply.
“I get scared when Daddy makes that face of his,” Corbie was quick to say. “Nuance, you know, The Face. It’s the same face that Grandma makes when she’s fed up to her ears and she starts saying ‘oy vey’ a lot. And to hear father say ‘oy vey,’ it makes my blood feel kludgy.”
His sibling’s words caused the colt to shudder.
“Well”—Skyla stretched this word out to extreme lengths—“you learn something new every day. Quiet isn’t afraid of her parents. Why am I not surprised?”
“Should I be?” Quiet looked around with apprehension clear on her face.
“What makes you behave?” Corbie asked.
“I chose to be good,” Quiet replied, still doubtful. “My father has enough to worry about without me making things worse. I’m free to make my own choices, for the most part. I understand what is expected of me.”
“My dad is scariest when he goes all quiet,” Skyla said in a squeaky, fillyish voice. “Usually when Flurry does something dumb. It’s like that quiet calm just before a thunderstorm. You know the lightning is coming, you just don’t know when. Honestly, I’d rather take my chances with the lightning. I don’t want my dad going all quiet on me.”
“Twilight is a yeller,” Nuance said, almost shivering. “You know you’ve crossed a line when Twilight yells. She always apologises for it later, but when Twilight yells, she’s scary. I’ve been yelled at by Twilight a few times now—”
“So has Flurry,” Skyla interjected.
“—and now I live in fear of being yelled at again.” Nuance shook his head so hard that his ears flopped around. “It’s not so much the yelling, it’s the idea that Twilight is that disappointed or that she is so upset that she is forced to yell. I’m saying yell a lot, aren’t I?”
Quiet nodded and said, “I’ve never been yelled at by Twilight.”
“Well, aren’t you special?” Skyla’s snide sarcasm and curled back lip made her face quite unpleasant. “Aunt Twilight yelled at me once. I deserved it. To be fair, I was being a real snot to Nuance.”
“Well, I was egging you on,” Nuance said to Skyla. “I wanted Twilight to yell at you.”
“And you got what you wanted,” Skyla delivered in deadpan. “Good going, Nuance.”
“It’s weird seeing you act and talk like foals.” Sundance felt a curious sensation run up and down his spine as every foal present turned to look up at him. Corbie in particular made a face that was difficult for him to deal with, she radiated a sort of silent sarcasm that suggested a whole chorus of ‘duhs!’ waited to be shouted aloud.
Fearing foalish retribution, he changed the subject. “Should we be afraid of our rulers? Like we’re afraid of our parents?”
“Silly Sundance.” Skyla peered up at him over the top of her spectacles. “You are a ruler. You’re still having trouble with that distinction, aren’t you?”
“My question still stands,” he replied, resolute. “Should my subjects be afraid of me? I mean, I’ve done everything I can to make sure that they’re not afraid of me. Was I wrong? Did I mess everything up by showing them how not-scary I am? I feel a whole lot of doubt coming on strong right about now.”
Skyla pursed her lips, but did not reply. Nuance turned away, his ears rose, and what passed as a thoughtful expression (for Nuance) crept over his face. It was clear that the colt was distracted, and struggled to stay focused. Quiet wore a mask of serene calm. As for Corbie—the poor filly looked confused and bewildered, and she nervously licked her lips.
“My power comes from the love of my subjects,” Skyla said at last. “I will only ever be as strong as their love for me. I love my parents, but I also fear my parents. The relationship a ruler has with their subjects is not so different. My subjects will love me for my benevolence, but also live in fear of my displeasure.”
“Skyla.”
“Yes, Sundance?”
“I’m just a lowly baron, and one day, you’re going to be an empress. You want our relationship to be that of equals, but that doesn’t change the fact that you are my superiour. Should I be afraid of you?”
“Well, I—” The alicorn filly went silent and her stare turned vacant.
“He broke her,” Quiet muttered to Nuance.
Nuance nodded. “He did.”
Waving her wing in front of the frozen alicorn’s face, Corbie whispered, “Skyla?”
“My mother, she says you’re not a smart pony, Sundance—”
Hearing this, Sundance bit his tongue to keep himself quiet as Nuance continued.
“—but she says you are wise. Or will be, one day. If you live that long and don’t crash into Canterlot or get eaten by an owlbear. I think we just saw that. Skyla is smart. But look at her now.”
“Is it better to be smart or wise?” asked Corbie.
“I’d rather be charismatic,” replied Quiet. “Something, something, tomato smoothie.”
“I lack an answer,” Skyla said at last. “You buried a splitting maul into an owlbear’s skull. Several inches, if the story is to be believed. I’m pretty sure that by reasonable, logical standards, I should be scared of you. But I’m not. Not sure why that is. As far as grownups go, you’re pretty laid back and mellow. But there is that whole thing about getting a splitting maul stuck in an owlbear’s skull.”
“That was necessary?” Even as he said it, he doubted it. Perhaps some other way was possible, though he had no idea what other option might have been viable.
“Princess Celestia’s response to the events in Fillydelphia are also necessary,” Skyla said in muted tones. “The guardsponies were sent there to quell dissent. They came with food and offers of kindness. They did everything they could to make things better, and look how it turned out. Instead of gratitude and calm, they got anarchy and violence. Some of the guardsponies died. Now, Princess Celestia has been left with no choice but to restore order… by any means necessary. The fires have to be put out and the streets made safe again.”
“Trying to reason with an owlbear is impossible,” Sundance said as new understanding bubbled through his grey matter. “Fillydelphia became an owlbear and something had to be done. Am I understanding this right? See, I don’t know. Cucumber died… he died and there wasn’t much I could do about it. I keep wondering, what if I’d done things differently? What if I’d been smarter? I feel like I failed. Cucumber had to rescue me. He had to save my life. I failed—” His words trailed off with a choked grunt and he sat down on the hard, stony ground.
Wearing a sad smile, Skyla sat down beside him, and then scooted up against him. “Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned here,” she said, her words strained and raspy. “If Cucumber feared you, he might not have saved you. But clearly, he felt something for you. Call it love, or friendship, call it whatever… but he clearly felt obligated to do what was necessary. He did his duty so that you can do yours. That’s not failure. The guardsponies that died in Fillydelphia, they too, did their duty. Now Princess Celestia has to pick up the pieces and make certain that they did not die in vain. Such is the way of service.”
“It hurts…”
“I’m certain it does,” Skyla said, nodding. “Perhaps, when you get the chance, you should talk to Princess Celestia about it. You have something in common. Somepony has died in service to you, and many have died in service to her. Might make it easier.’
Sundance felt his barrel hitching, and he couldn’t tell if he was feeling anxiety or panic.
“I think,” Skyla said in her most princessly voice, “that we could all use a rootbeer…”