//------------------------------//
// Otherworldly 
// Story: Daily Equestria Life With Monster Girl 
// by Estee 
//------------------------------//

There were times when the sisters needed to speak in privacy, and that occasionally provided a challenge.  Some Guards could be overprotective:  those who were often reluctant to let their charges get too far out of sight didn't particularly appreciate any order to back off and would generally interpret the command as something which had merely instructed them to find a place where they wouldn't be spotted.  The shortest-tenured staff members occasionally decided that if anything was so crucial as to require a lack of untrustworthy eavesdroppers, then somepony trustworthy had better be listening:  those ponies either grew out of it in a hurry or discovered that their tenure wasn't going to become any longer.  And in the first year following the younger's Return, those of the Solar staff had been a little too careful about staying close during any interaction, just in case It Happened Again -- even when none of them were entirely sure as to just what had happened in the first place.  

(However, that portion had slowly faded, and now the only times when true fear manifested was when the sisters were unsupervised during times of diplomacy.  The younger could often be viewed as diplomacy's alternative option.  In the eyes of the other nations, she was what you got instead of diplomacy, and very few palace ponies truly understood the effectiveness of having a bright smile being backed up by a lashing tail.)

But the staff merely worked in the palace, while the siblings had supervised its construction.  There were secret passages whose floors had only been touched by eight hooves, marble panels that swung open at the touch of a corona which had been selected from a list of two.  Both sisters had times when they had to slip away, and so multiple methods and pathways existed to allow exactly that.  The sisters had a way of vanishing when they most needed to do so, and any Guard incapable of being temporarily reassured by the signature-radiating notes they would mutually leave behind on their respective thrones was a Guard who needed some more experience.  

(They could generally get away with two hours.  After that, a truly good Guard was going to come looking anyway.)

The siblings had several places available for such conferences.  A few took place in the secret passages themselves, quite a number had been hosted by a forever-otherwise-closed tower, and one of the most recent was currently a little too close to a space that wasn't generally occupied:  neither was about to risk having the subject of their discussion overhear any of it.  In this case, the younger had waited until about two hours before Sun-raising was due, then woken the elder and brought her into the palace gardens.

The exactingly-landscaped portions which held no statues were themed.  Each section represented part of their nation, hosted plants which grew most naturally in that territory:  it was possible to trot across the whole of a miniature continent in about an hour.  For this conference, they had gone to the newest section:  that which held blooms that could wait years for the lightest touch of water, using a single brief shower as the chance to spring forth.  Life lurking under the surface of the sand, not so much dormant as endlessly patient.

It had taken quite a bit of pegasus magic to set up the proper conditions, reliably keep the humidity present in so much of the gardens away from the little dunes.  But the replication had been exacting, and so those who visited the new addition learned a basic fact of the desert:  that no matter how much Sun beat down on near-bleached grains during the day, Moon still ruled the night.  Under Moon, the desert was cold.  It meant that every so often, the elder would adjust her body's radiance, fighting back the external chill:  for the younger, just noticing low temperatures was generally a deliberate act.  

But they were both cold on that night under the cloudless sky, if only within.  The implications had come with their own ice.

The younger finished her review of the previous day's events.  Looked to the elder, and waited.

"I don't even know where to start," the elder sighed.  A little more dryly, "Just the fact that somepony's come up with a way to let that many unicorns truly combine their efforts...  that's a weapons-grade working, Luna.  The old limit was three, and you thought this casting involved...?"

"An exact number cannot be determined," the younger replied.  "It is the nature of the mudslide itself:  one might notice a slightly lighter hue in the flow, but watching it too closely provides time for the observer to be buried.  And my instincts say there was a single caster directing from the center of it:  somepony forcing the disparate signatures into something less than harmony.  Not having them work together so much as refusing to allow the smaller channels any chance at escape.  A single director..."  A thoughtful pause was followed by "But for contributors?  I would estimate a minimum of several dozen, and the upper limit may be well beyond that." 

"The least aspect of this is something we need to reverse-thaumgineer as quickly as possible," the elder half-groaned.  "Because we are going to need a counter to it, and fast.  That many unicorns truly working together could take out anypony -- us included.  We have to be capable of negating the central caster."

"Assuming it allows cooperation on any working," the younger observed.  "It may have been designed for this casting alone."

"I'm not willing to make that assumption just yet," the elder darkly decided, and a huge white forehoof compulsively shoved sand away.  "It's too dangerous."  (The younger nodded.)  "And then we get into the fact that this massed magical effort, something where we can't figure out the true number of casters and thaums involved, was used for a summoning.  Nopony's attempted a summoning in..."  

Purple eyes closed.  The pastel hues of the half-tangible tail fell still.

The younger knew better than to wait.  "Sister?"

"...me," the elder softly said.  "As far as I know, the last true summoning attempt was me."  Her eyes opened, and the tired gaze sought out sky-lofted craters.  "I can safely say it failed." 

The younger sighed.  "Tia..."

"Me," the elder sadly repeated.  "But it was nothing like what you described, Luna.  Nothing at all.  I remember...  a sense of reaching out.  It was almost physical, like I was being stretched.  As if I was standing at the bottom of Apnea's Pit and trying to touch Moon.  It...  started to hurt after a while.  After it failed, I felt like I'd been in a taffy pull for weeks... "

Each instinctively moved a little closer to the other, still facing each other across the sands.  Both gave the past some time to pretend it could fade.

Eventually, "Did you ever formally ban summoning spells?  During my abeyance?"

The elder snorted.  "It's one of those things where forbidding it doesn't exactly matter to anypony who was intending to cast it in the first place.  And to slap a saddle on that, it's also like banning unicorns from balancing their entire bodies on hornpoint:  you know it's virtually impossible and it's going to fail anyway, so you just picture thousands of crashes and don't think about the one pony who could actually pull it off.  It's not so much forbidden as ignored, Luna:  when there's an entire category of magic which just about nopony can work, a lot of unicorns just decide they're going to fail too, and the scant remainder finds out the hard way.  Plus there isn't much need for summoning.  I failed, and I knew what I was reaching towards.  Most casters are just -- biting into the dark.  Pushing their snouts into the abyss and clamping down onto the first thing they touch.  You can't even be sure that what you're pulling back is worth it.  I always felt as if Discord had a talon in the casting, because so many of the results seemed to be random."

"But not all," the younger quietly said.  "We know some are deliberate.  Controlled, even if that which came was not.  We were there."

"Clover's Pass."

"Yes."

Tails curled in, covered their marks.

"I could have wished to never remember that again," the elder sighed.  "I probably did a few times, especially after you weren't there to take the nightmares away..."

A plain statement of "I will be there tonight."

"But if this brings it back for you -- Luna, you've never been able to control your own --"

"-- it does not matter," the younger lied.  "Let us focus on the present again.  A group of unicorns, united by a working we have never seen before, trying to summon something.  The calling spell itself may be an old working, or it may be new:  neither of us had ever heard the journey described by the one who was summoned.  But the analyzer has recorded what it could, and those results shall be studied by our best researchers."  A pause.  "We will have to tell the Bearers, sister, once their current mission is complete.  And the performer shall need to stay in Ponyville for a time."  

"Trixie with a new kind of magic to study and steadily-building wanderlust, researching in direct tandem with Twilight -- when this generation's Magic is up against something she's never tried before." The elder almost smiled.  "We may have to reconfigure the disaster relief budget again."   

And then she frowned. 

"You have thought of something," the younger quickly said.  "Speak."

"They missed," the larger mare slowly stated.  "Badly."

"It is still possible that they were trying to summon her," the younger hastily interjected.  "We should not dismiss the chance of her being a fully innocent victim, but as we have no concept of what the casters were attempting to bring, she may have been the true target --"

"-- not what I meant, Luna."  Both forehooves were now dragging little trenches into the cold sand.  "Why summon anything into the wild zone?  What's there which she was meant to interact with?  If they somehow knew about her, if they had a spell which could see into where she came from and knew what that thing could do -- I can picture summoning her to fight against magic.  But you were there, and the most magic in the area came from the residue."

"There was the neurocypher, and she seemed to be immune," the younger considered.  "But there are other means to combat that monster.  And, put mildly, much simpler ones."  Visibly thinking harder, forehead creasing near the horn, "The only hoofprints in the area were hers -- and then ours.  I saw no physical signs of prior pony presence..."  Slowly nodding, "A summoning would generally attempt to bring that which was called into the presence of the casters, the better to try and assert some form of control immediately.    You are correct, sister:  whatever they meant to summon, whether that was her or another entity -- it was most likely not meant to arrive in the wild zone.  They gave her a road, and it fell short of the destination."

"We'll dispatch teams to study the area," the elder decided.  "See if there's anything we're missing, just in case there is some major magic out there.  One of the deep places, chaos terrain -- anything.  But for now, let's work from the idea that they missed.  At the very least, she arrived out of their detection range, or too far away for them to reach her in time."

"And this is where the press rather typically works against us," the younger irritably declared.  "If they did not mean to summon her, then it is possible that they have no idea of what occurred.  But if her arrival was their intent...  then there have been headlines.  Photographs.  For those who pay attention to what is, on this occasion, accurately labeled as 'news,' the nation is aware that a centaur has appeared in Equestria -- and the remainder of the herd would have been told by friends and family, for it is best to be on alert."  Darkly, "On watch for the monster.  We may have a group attempting to summon centaurs, doing so with unknown magic for a purpose we can barely begin to guess at -- and if a single one of them happens to be either capable of reading or less than allergic to outside air, they know they succeeded."

"Kick this in," the elder glumly added.  "They also know that we were involved in the search.  And since nopony's seen her since, the very natural suspicion -- currently being distorted into full-fledged conspiracy by a few of the finer 'editorial' columns -- is that we have her.  Which in this case, we actually do."  A little more dryly, "I'm not sure if it's coincidence or irony that we actually had the 'weapon of mass destruction' argument, only we were talking about the sword.  But in this case, the pro-Diarchy papers largely think we took her down quietly and put her in Tartarus:  whatever reasons we have for delaying the formal announcement are --" she winced "-- they say 'classified,' and I swear I can see Raque's fieldwriting placing a superimposed 'ineffable'.  Those who are a little more against us..."

"Remember Tirek," the younger finished.  "All too clearly.  And in that half-spoken, 'you cannot prove we meant to imply that' way which they have all mastered, suggest we have some undefined reason to use his powers for our own ends."

The sisters looked at each other.  There were times when such was necessary, and more when they simply needed the reminder that the act was once again possible.

"All of this," the younger quietly said, "over a single terrified child."

The elder blinked.  "...child?"

The dark head dipped.  "I misspoke.  Based on what the doctors were able to determine, added to what little I have been able to glean about her life through her nightscape...  most likely late adolescence.  Standing within the threshold of adulthood."

The white mare managed a smile.  "Young enough to dream," the tones of memory declared, "and old enough to start acting on them.  We were that age once..."

"I would like to believe," the younger softly replied, "that we still are."

Silence for a while, as the sky began to lighten and the endless call of duty approached.

"Afraid of so much," the younger finally said.  "Of what brought her here.  Of never being able to go home.  But in combat, she postpones her fear, and does so when so many others might not."  Almost a whisper, "And with me...  with me..."

Carefully, with the left foreleg now carefully reaching across the gap, "Luna?"

The younger didn't reach back.  "Nothing, Tia.  Nothing worth discussing, not on this night.  Simply a matter which has been on my mind for -- some time, and one I will speak with you about once I have resolved it.  I vow that this will not go unspoken -- but I am, in a way, attempting to analyze another kind of signature.  Grant me that time."

The elder slowly nodded.  "As long as we talk."

"We shall."  And both knew it was a promise.

The same feeling for both now, a sort of pressure against their hips.  As if the fur of their marks was slowly gaining mass.

"You're still visiting her dreams?"

The younger simply nodded.

Oh so very carefully, as if the words themselves might collapse the sand beneath them, "What are they like?"

Silence.

"Luna --"

Sharply, "-- it is my code, sister."  The surge of anger was familiar, and colder than the mist rising from dark fur.  "I never asked for the ability to dreamwalk, to visit the nightscapes of others.  To hear the calls which emerge from the midst of nightmare.  I am aware that so much of the time, I could be viewed as an intruder, at least during those occasions when others do not simply call me a voyeur.  When there was a chance that she was an invader, I went into her dreams and told you something of what I had learned, because to not do so would threaten our nation.  The same as I did in every war where the act was possible at all.  Now...  I am simply trying to understand the place she came from.  To understand her.  And unless a crisis appears, or the knowledge I gain becomes necessary to protect or save, it stays with me.  I cannot grant her privacy, not when we still do not understand what happened or why.  But what few of her secrets I might glean -- they remain in my custody, so that I might be worthy of my burden." 

It was one of their oldest fights, something which had reached the point where every possible feint and counter had been memorized.  Each knew exactly which words came next and that was why the elder drew on a thousand years of isolation before looking away, all the better not to say them.

Finally, a cautious "...Tia?" broke the silence, accompanied by an outstretched dark foreleg.

"It's funny," the elder softly stated, with her tone openly declaring that it was anything but.  "I missed the arguments.  Even the ones we should have settled a long time ago.  I missed the bad times because at least they were times we had together..."  

The white head slowly turned back.  Hooves gently touched, and the sky lightened a little more.

"We've talked," the elder quietly said.  "We both know what the situation is.  We've consulted with each other.  But what you're seeing as the solution --"

"-- the necessary," the younger carefully cut in.  "As Zepyhra would have said, the needful.  I wished to do what I feel she needs.  But I also needed to speak with you about the risks.  They are --" this time, the dark features turned away for a moment "-- considerable."

"If you go through with this, making the offer -- then it's in your dominion," the elder reminded her.  "I can advise.  But it's your decision, Luna.  What are you going to do?"

The younger looked at the elder again, shifted a little closer while maintaining contact.

"We cannot imprison her indefinitely," she said.  "Even if the summoning was for her.  To charge an innocent with 'having been chosen by another' -- it is a poor choice of crime.  And should it truly have been a miscasting, then we would be locking her away for having been in the wrong place when uncontrolled magic struck."  Dryly, "I am certain that Sombra would have told us that our mutual leadership style was finally improving."

The elder wryly nodded.  "And I have no illusions about the truth not getting out.  There was a time when some of the staff members were using the cells to meet for -- private moments."  Which was followed by a weary shrug.  "Arguably my fault for putting in the beds.  And while they're sworn to protect palace interests, some of the dates they give limited tours to aren't.  They don't even have to reach her cell.  They just need to see that there's Guards watching an occupied cell, and the story will spread from there."     

"Not in the cells," the younger said.  "Never in Tartarus.  We could certainly grant her land somewhere nopony ever goes, away from all of the settled zones and air paths, a gallop to herself, and..."  Stopped, took a slow breath.  "I protect her privacy, Tia, as far as I can.  But I must say this:  it would be far too close to what she had before.  She is..."  

The elder waited, as the sky brightened and stars faded.  Waited until she realized there was no reason to wait any longer.

"It's a risk," the white mare finally said.  "She's going to be at risk for every day she's here.  And it's more than the public reactions, the things we can't stop.  When that cult --" winced -- "'group' -- we may still go with 'cult' after we learn a little more -- when they find out what's going on...  Luna, what do we tell her?"

"As much as we can," the younger replied.  With faint sarcasm, "Recently, it has felt as if not providing details has a way of working against us." And back to normal tones.  "Additionally, all I can do is make the offer.  She must accept it.  And she should not make that decision without being aware of those risks."  

"Agreed --" and then purple eyes widened from the shock of fast-arriving memory.  "What about the Princess Haylee gambit?"

The younger started at her sibling.  Laughed.

"You recall that?"

"I remember needing three days to get the streets cleaned up afterwards.  And that was with six deliberate downpours."

"Yes.  Well.  Elephants," the younger observed as red began to underlight the dark fur.  "Admittedly, other than that initial aftermath, it was successful.  For a time.  But in this case, Tia, I do not feel it is in anypony's best interests for us to imply the existence of a centaur nation.  We are having enough trouble with a very real single sapient without dealing with citizen terrors regarding a visit from imaginary thousands.  And you know that.  So why would you ever propose such a tactic?"

Wickedly, "It has been a while since the last parade.  And since I personally haven't seen elephants in decades --"

The blush wasn't exactly fading.  "-- and since I was the one attempting to assemble most of the downpours, I can safely state that if you desire to send elephants marching through Canterlot's streets, you may take responsibility for the cleanup.  We have cobblestone now, Tia, and I wish you fortune in finding a means of effectively washing out the hollows."  A dark gaze tilted towards the sky.  "Which brings us to our time.  Together?"

The elder smiled.  "Please."

They focused.  Concentrated.  Sent thoughts and dreams of tomorrow up invisible, unbreakable threads.

There were ways in which it was an everyday sort of miracle.  It was the miracle required for every day to exist and in performing it together, the sisters felt blessed.

"You never did tell me where you got the elephants."

"True."

"...you're still not telling me where you got the elephants."

"Correct."

"Because?"

"Because I am fairly certain you would still be angry.  Additionally, our relationship with the majority of zebra kraals is currently stable, I can think of at least one subsection of Pundamilia Makazi where the statute of limitations will never run out, it has been eleven hundred and four years since the last time I was sentenced to death, and I would like to maintain that streak.  Are you hungry?"





Another hour, so that both could share a meal.  (There was no longer an argument among the kitchen staffs about whether that meal was called brinner or dinfast, mostly because the sisters' ears were both attuned to the words and had the reaction directly wired to their hooves.)  And then they went down to the cell.

The centaur (the girl, the elder forced, trying it on for size and finding it to be an awkward fit), demonstrating the typical timing of the late adolescent/early adult, had been in the restroom.  They'd waited for her, which gave the younger some time to finally discover exactly where that one missing book had wound up.  And then they were facing a sapient who was wearing an ill-fitting shirt which had been left behind by a visiting minotaur ambassador three generations ago, plus a repurposed and recently-reattached tablecloth.

They talked.  She listened, and her hooves shuffled awkwardly.  There were times when her arms went behind her upper back:  bringing them forward again showed the hands pressure-marked with red.  

Every so often, the blue eyes would close.  Unreadable features twisted under silver wire, scrunched before the first tear welled from between tightly-pressed lids.  And the younger stepped closer.

"We will continue our efforts towards sending you home," she stated.  "But we do not know how much time may be required.  And --" she took a deep, unseen breath "-- it may not be possible to perform that magic without the assistance of those who worked the original casting.  We may need the one who directed that effort:  any notes they have recorded regarding the spell, at the very least."

"And we can't keep you in the cells," the elder gently added, "because you don't deserve it.  But at the same time..."

"Tirek," the younger finished.  "Nopony can see you without thinking of him."

"Who..."  The girl swallowed, brought up her right arm and wiped her eyes on the folded-back sleeve.  "...who's Tirek?  I know it's a name..."

They told her.
What he had done.
What he was.

"...no," the girl whispered.  "I -- I'm not --"

The younger stepped a little closer still.  The girl stayed where she was, and the only movements from the centaur were produced by trembling.

"It is all they know," the dark mare quietly, too-steadily told her.  "No living citizen had seen a centaur before Tirek came.  There were never enough of them to create a nation, for they did not so much breed as appear.  He was their first encounter, and everypony who came within his range found the core of themselves pulled away.  It was violation on a level few could have imagined.  One could argue that we are still attempting to heal a nation in which much of the population was effectively raped.  And they are healing, because their magic was returned and the time they spent without it is being glossed over in so many waking hours -- but when they sleep, the nightmares remind them of what took place.  What they still fear, for he is alive, and their dreams care nothing for the fact that he is imprisoned, with his power broken.  All the dreams know is the terror."

"He stole our magic," the elder softly added.  "All magic.  He would have destroyed the world, and even the nations he didn't reach know that.  You bring it all back simply by existing, because trauma cares little for logic -- and that is why the ponies of Palimyno attacked you on sight."

"And then ponies saw what that thing did when you were holding it," the younger said.  (A little closer still.  The girl still hadn't moved.)  "You wounded magic.  It gave them an additional association, and that story has spread.  Worse:  it has warped.  Ponies tell themselves what they believe happened, and then they tell those who write it down.  I do not doubt that some minds have already created a menace worse than Tirek, and it has blonde hair and brown fur.  They will look at you, and they will see nothing more than a monster.  That is what we face, centaur.  We are battling an enemy formed from imagination.  We are fighting stories.  And so many will have already decided which tales to tell themselves."  The next words were spat.  "The things which, in spite of anything new they might see or experience, they will choose to believe."

The girl was shaking faster now.  Hair was being vibrated free from the pins, and the mounds had their own way of trembling.

"But --" the younger carefully went on, and unfurled her left wing.

The elder watched, kicked the surprise to its proper place in the queue, for the time since her sister's Return had seen a near-total absence of casual touching with anypony other than her.  But the wing arched forward, the tip made contact with the girl's right foreleg, and the centaur did not move.

"-- being the subject of a story is not a crime," the dark mare told the girl.  "Nor is being the focus of false belief, or possessing any degree of resemblance to what came before.  We are judging you by your actions -- and with those actions, you have saved pony lives."

"I...  I hit the statue in the first place," the girl weakly protested.  "I was saving ponies from my own mistake, and I didn't tell you about the neurocypher --"

"-- and I did not ask," the younger interrupted.  "Listen to me, centaur.  We cannot keep you in the cells, not when you do not deserve them.  You could stay voluntarily, as our guest -- but given enough time, those outside the palace would learn of your presence:  it is inevitable.  And the longer we keep you as a poorly mouth-gripped secret, the worse the citizenry's reaction shall be."

"We could give you an island to yourself," the older added.  "Send in supplies, bring you back when it's time to send you home.  But --" the white head dipped "-- that could be a long time in isolation.  And that's just another kind of prison."

"Or," the younger offered, "we welcome you.  We bring you out in front of the citizenry, flanking you.  Show them that we are not afraid, and hope that given our example and enough time, some of their fear will fade.  But..."  

The wingtip shifted slightly against the foreleg.  The girl didn't seem to notice.

"...it will not be all," the dark mare finished.  "It will never be all, for you have enemies whom you have yet to meet.  Those who have a vested interest in hating you --"

"-- I'm used to it."

The centaur's gaze had dropped, a split-second before the stark words emerged.  Her arms were at her sides, and both hands were balled into fists.  

They looked at her for a few seconds.

"Not on this scale," the younger quietly observed.  "For until we find your path home, there is no retreat point.  No place of safety, no people waiting to greet you.  You have been hated with purposeful intent, centaur:  I do not doubt that.  But this will be something beyond what you have experienced.  Something no one should ever go through -- and yet at the moment we place you under Moon's light, another kind of sentence begins."

"And it's more than that," the elder added, making the words gentle in the futile hopes of lessening their impact.  "We told you that somepony brought you here:  possibly by accident, potentially with intent.  If it's the latter -- then as soon as we say you're here, once we bring you into the public eye, you become a target.  They may try to retrieve you."  Carefully, "And that could give us our best chance to send you home, because it potentially lets us find out who they are -- but at the same time, they might succeed.  They might manage to snatch you away, before we can do anything.  And since we have no way of knowing what they'd planned for you..."

The girl breathed and for a full half-minute, that was almost all she did.  The blonde tail hung limp, shoulders trembled, and fingernails bit deep into palms.

"We will do our best to protect you," the younger told her.  "But honesty requires us to tell you the whole of it:  that there is a chance we will not succeed.  You could return to your home tomorrow, centaur.  But it might require moons of time to open your road, or more.  And until then..."

"Protective custody, on a voluntary basis, while knowing that we can't keep it up forever," the elder said.  "Your own territory, but -- yours alone.  Or we do everything we can to make you part of our nation for as long as you're here, with the understanding that we can never totally succeed, and simply trying may risk your life."

The dark wing folded, and the centaur reacted no more to the loss of contact than its establishment.  Not visibly.  

"You have the day to make the choice," the younger concluded.  "But ultimately, that choice is yours alone."

No response.  They hadn't expected one.

"Is there anything you want to ask us?" the elder offered.  "Anything at all?"

"Any options you have thought of," the younger added, "where we have not?"

The strange head moved in negation.  (It was odd, how that was the same.)  But the blue eyes were still downcast.  There had been no attempt to look at the siblings.  She wasn't looking at much of anything.

"We will see you shortly after Sun is lowered," the younger told her.  

They turned.  Began to leave --

"-- a hour after sunset," the centaur softly asked, barely choking back the sob.  "Please, if you can.  I need one extra hour.  There's...  someone I need to talk to."