“Mom? What's a “cavalry line”?”
Sunny Flight blinked for a moment as she registered the question. She had been levitating up a chopping board when it was asked, ready to pour the diced turnips into the saucepan, softening them up for mashing. As it was, the board simply hovered over the pan, tilted at a slight angle as if it was confused by the sudden question.
After a second or two, though, Sunny recovered and continued cooking – she was used to strange, seemingly out-of-nowhere questions from her daughter.
“Well,” She began, keeping an eye on the clock above the door, “it sort of depends – it can mean a few different things.”
“I know.” Icy replied, looking more than a little put out. “Every time I ask someone, I get a different answer. Well, one of a few, anyway.” She sighed. “Why do we even have words like that, anyway? What's the point of haemophones?”
“Homophones.” Sunny corrected.
“Yeah, them.” Icy nodded. “I mean, a bow can mean a ribbon all tied up or a thing that fires arrows. Why can't we just call the arrow-firer a bow and a tied up ribbon a... smilgop or something?”
Sunny smiled, amused at the tangent. “Well, first off, that's not a homophone.”
Icy frowned, though in confusion at her mother's words rather than annoyance at her pedantry.
“A homophone is when words are spelt differently and mean different things, but they sound the same when you say them, like eye and I”, Sunny explained, pointing a hoof at her eye and her chest respectively. “When they're the same word, spelt and said the same, that's called a homonym.” She smiled, satisfied with her explanation, before it dropped slightly when she saw that Icy's expression hadn't shifted into understanding. “Well, anyway, that's not important. The second problem is that, well, you're trying to apply logic.”
“...yeah?” Icy said slowly, as if preparing for verbal traps. “Isn't that what you're supposed to do?”
“Normally, yes. With language, no.” Sunny shook her head as she turned the flame under the pan down to a simmer, covered it with a lid and trotted over to the kitchen table, sitting opposite Icy. “Language is basically made up of every little thing ponies say. Once enough ponies say it enough times, it becomes part of the language, whether or not it makes sense.”
“Oh. So it's a kinda magic – if enough ponies say something, it automatically becomes true?”
Sunny shook her head, chuckling at her daughter's fantasy. “Sort of, but no. It's more like a really big suggestion. If enough people hear it and go “Yeah, that should be in the language”, it gets put in."
“Even if it doesn't makes sense?” Icy asked. She didn't look like she got it entirely, but the general idea was beginning to sink in.
“Even if it doesn't make sense.” Sunny confirmed.
“But that's dumb.” Icy declared officiously. “I'm going to start suggesting different words
for homonomonyms that do make sense.” She said, her expression briefly gaining a look of determination before it faded when the heard her mother's stifled snigger. “What? That'd work, wouldn't it?”
“Well, it could,” Sunny acknowledged, “if you explained exactly what your new word meant every time the word came up for every single homonym you want to replace and you could convince everyone that your word was better.”
Icy looked down at the table, embarrassed. “I could explain it.” She muttered weakly.
Sunny nodded, pretending to consider her idea. “Okay, so you wanted to a call a ribbon bow a...”
“Smilgop.” Icy repeated, showing far more care with remembering her own made-up word than many established ones.
“Okay,” Sunny began, “but I think that should be called a bow, but a thing that fires arrows should be called a paltrig.” She continued, coming up with the silliest sounding word she could from the top of her head.
Icy nodded, pondering the word seriously. “Okay, that could work, too.” She smiled, thinking for a moment she was winning the debate. “Okay, we'll call an arrow-bow a...” She trailed off, expecting her mother to repeat the word.
Instead, she put a hoof to her chin and looked up. “Of course, my friend says that you were right, and a ribbon-bow should be called a smilgop.”
Icy faltered. “Well, could we convince her to call an arrow-bow a... patrig?” She asked, taking a moment to recall the word.
“Paltrig.” Sunny corrected, suppressing a giggle at how silly the topic had gotten and how seriously Icy was arguing it. “And she says you should convince me to call a ribbow-bow a smilgop.”
“I... well, we could...” Icy trailed off, closing her eyes and sighing in defeat. “I still think a word meaning different things is dumb.”
At this, Sunny finally allowed herself a small laugh. “No argument here.”
Icy nodded, seeming to accept that as the closest thing to a concession she was likely to get. She went to hop down from her chair before suddenly remembering the reason she started the conversation in the first place. “Oh! Cavalry!”
“Oh, right!” Sunny replied, knocking a hoof against the table quietly as she remembered. She picked up the timer by the cooker in her magic, setting it in case she got caught up with her explanation. “Well, it goes back in history a bit. See, a long time ago, way before even Celestia and Luna came to power, the three tribes didn't really get on.”
“I know that, Mom,” Icy interjected, sounding a little patronized, “I've seen the hearth's warming play.”
Sunny paused, making sure Icy had finished before continuing. “I know, but that? That was pretty peaceful compared to some of the stuff that happened before then. It was still bad, though.” She added quickly, not wanting to give Icy the wrong idea. “But, yeah, before that, there were times when the tribes fought. Big armies, big battles... a lot of ponies got hurt.”
“How do you know?” Icy asked before immediately answering herself. “Oh, right, sorry, I forgot, you've seen lots of stuff from the old days, haven't you?”
“I didn't study it myself.” Sunny pointed out. “But a lot of ponies have and they've figured it out. Anyway, the earth ponies had numbers and strength on their side, among other things, but they had one major disadvantage – wielding weapons.”
“What do you mean?” Icy was confused – understandable, considering two of her teammates seemed to indicate that wasn't a problem.
“Well, a unicorn could just wield a weapon in their magic. A pegasus could wield it in their wings on the ground and in their hooves in the air. But an earth pony? Mouth-wielding a weapon is tricky against a magic- or wing-hold, since the neck isn't designed for the same level of movement. The only real thing they could do is stand on their hind legs and wield it in their front hooves. Which they could do, sure, but they'd need to be really good, either through Talent or practice, to fight like that effectively.”
Icy nodded. “Being really good” seemed to be adequate explanation for her friends.
“So, to solve this problem, they created Cavalry regiments. A regiment is a part of an army, by the way.” Sunny explained as soon as she realized Icy might not know the term.
Icy rolled her eyes. “I know that, Mom. The JLE have fought the Monster's Regiment enough times.”
Surprising an endeared sigh, Sunny continued. “A cavalry regiment basically consisted on ponies riding on other ponies' backs. That way, they could use both their front hooves for their weapons.”
“That's a bit weird,” Icy pondered. “I mean, you have to use an entire other pony for that, and you'd be a bigger target too. They can't have been that good, could they?”
“Actually, yes.” Sunny answered. “You see, because you had two ponies with different jobs, they could both focus on their jobs exclusively. The rider could focus entirely on fighting and the mount could focus entirely on moving, while a unicorn or a pegasus would have to split their focus between them. A well-trained cavalry unit was usually worth two infantry... ordinary units at least.”
“Huh, okay.” Icy nodded. “So cavalry means ponies riding on other ponies’ backs.”
“Weeeell,” Sunny began, stretching out the word to postpone having to say what she would, knowing Icy wouldn't like it, “it can, but not usually any more. After the unification of the tribes, cavalry wasn't such a necessity anymore. It was still used, but not as much. So, the word “cavalry” started to mean a unit in combat who was focused more on mobility than aggression. More on moving than fighting.”
“So,” Icy began, trying to understand what her mother was saying, “cavalry means ponies who move around a lot in a fight?”
“Again, it can. But because a cavalry charge was a widely-used tactic, it can mean ponies who just move really fast straight at their opponents. Kind of the opposite, when you think about it.
As Sunny had predicted, Icy's frustration was beginning to show. “So, moving around a lot or moving a lot, but not moving around a lot?”
Sunny nodded. “Or it can just mean a pony who moves and fights by riding something else, not necessarily another pony or even another living thing, like bikes, chariots or... other methods of transportation.” She finished, giving a knowing smile.
This broke through Icy's annoyance a little as she thought about a couple of ponies she knew who that could apply to. However, she quickly became thoughtful again. “So, cavalry means... a bunch of ponies moving?”
Sunny nodded. “Pretty much.”
“And a cavalry line would be a bunch of ponies moving in a line?”
“I suppose so, yes.”
“Well, that... doesn't help much.”
“Sorry.” Sunny gave a helpless smile. “What brought it up, if you don't mind me asking?”
“That's okay, Mom.” Icy waved off her apology with a hoof. “It's just this thing that's...”
Before Icy could continue, the timer pinged and Sunny turned back to the cooker. “Oh, actually, hold that thought, I just need to finish dinner.”
“Don't worry, it can wait.” Icy replied, hopping down off her chair and trotting towards the doorway. Stopping inside it, she turned back to her mother. “Oh, by the way, what's a vanguard?”
“The front bit of an army.” Sunny answered without looking up.
Icy paused, expecting something more. “That's it?”
“Yep.”
“Oh. Okay.” Icy shrugged and trotted out of the room.
Icy sighed to herself, trying to focus herself on the worksheet in front of her.
As it turned out, she hadn't talked any more to her mother the previous night. Not that anything else had come up, it had just slipped both their minds, as many things tended to do. Unfortunately, this meant that she was up far later than she would have liked thinking about the riddle, trying to decipher it now she knew what part of it meant. A line of ponies moving... without a front bit or a back bit and without touching the ground. That last bit could mean pegasi, except that pegasi don't “gallop” in the air. Maybe it means some sort of levitation? But then why would they gallop at all? And so her thoughts went until she finally managed to drift off.
While Icy was by no means a stranger to staying up far later than she should, being used to it didn't help its effects. Specifically, the fact that she was incredibly groggy when the morning came and had to be practically dragged out of bed and rushed off to school to stop her from being late. That tiredness, combined with her mind being hung up on other things, made concentrating on her schoolwork a monumental struggle.
Deciding to take a quick break after the last maths problem, Icy looked up at the students around her. Having almost been late, she hadn't had a chance to get together with the others to compare notes this morning, so she wondered if they were as distracted as she was.
She was seated around the middle of the class and she knew that turning her head around might provoke the ire of her teacher (as she was still relatively new to the town and had not yet learned that Cheerilee had very little ire to provoke). That meant she couldn't see Archer, who sat near the back. However, Icy suspected she didn't really need to to read her mood – at a guess, she'd say “relaxed-bordering-on-catatonic”.
However, she could see the others. Dinky and Pip were sat next to each other, both working very studiously. Occasionally, when Cheerilee wasn't looking, they would whisper very quietly to one another, pointing at something in the workbook. It seemed they were helping each other out with questions they had problems with. The grateful smiles and silent giggles indicated that neither minded being bothered.
In fact, unbeknownst to Icy, Cheerilee was perfectly well aware of their collusion, but frankly didn't have the heart to stop them, as she found the whole thing absolutely adorable. Besides, it helped them learn and understand the problems, so as long as it didn't hinder them more than it helped, she saw no need to break them up.
Meanwhile, Lance was concentrating entirely on the problems, his pencil scribbling continually on his paper, both his notebook as well as a loose piece of paper, presumably for calculations.
Scootaloo, on the other hand, though she was definitely working on the problems, could not have looked more bored. She scrawled slowly on the paper in front of her, as if she barely had the energy to move it at more than a snail's pace. Although, to be fair, Snails' pace of writing was much slower, Icy could see, even ignoring how long it took him to mouth out the words. Occasionally, Scootaloo would look up at her friends to her left – Apple Bloom, whose pencil strokes were swift and precise, looking as if she was having no issues with the work, and Sweetie Belle, who did seem to be having a little trouble, but was gamely ploughing through her task without looking up. Upon seeing this, she would look up at Cheerilee, then her eyes might flick to Dinky and Pip if they were talking, then back down to her work with an undisguised look of envy on her face.
Icy smirked a little before she too went back to the book, happy that at least she was starting to remember some of her other classmates' names without difficulty. After a few more problems, the bell mercifully rang.
“Okay, class,” Cheerilee chirped, beaming as her students gave her their full attention, “time for recess. If you didn't manage to get to at least question 17, you'll need to do the rest for homework by Wednesday.” Her smile remained in place, unbothered by the groans that arose from many students. “After recess, we've got geography, so until then – be free, young ones!” She giggled at her own joke as the students got up from their desks. Fortunately, the gloom that had arisen when she brought up the dreaded H-word had been dispelled by her other announcement – at this point in their school lives, geography mostly consisted of colouring in pictures, so it was something of a favourite subject for many.
Icy quickly got her stuff packed up, hoping to spend as much time as possible talking over Magic Eye's puzzle with the others. As she went to the front of the class, she glanced over at Lance, who was putting his things away with much less urgency. She saw the loose piece of paper he'd been working on. As she'd thought, it contained numbers and calculations, but also, in the corner, was scribbled the riddle she'd been thinking about. The last line, To reach where we started and ride on once more, had been circled and a few thoughts were written underneath it.
In a loop?
Going backwards and forwards?
Spacewarp?
After a moment, Icy caught Lance looking at her out of the corner of her eye. She blinked, realizing she had been staring. “Sorry.” She said quietly.
Lance shrugged, putting away the paper and getting up from his chair. He tilted his head at her.
“No, haven't been able to figure out much.” Icy answered his silent query. “You've been working on the last line?” Lance nodded as they started to walk out. “Good idea. I've been thinking about the third one mostly. Also the first - what's a line without a front or a back?”
“A line without a front or back?” A voice to their left repeated. Icy looked and realized they'd been walking past Cheerilee's desk as she'd said that. “Well, that could mean a lot of things.”
Icy instinctively started to apologize, intending to get through things and get out as quickly as possible before she stopped herself – it couldn't hurt to get a bit of help. “Could it?”
“Oh, yes,” Cheerilee replied, “it depends what you mean by a line, hold on a moment.” She ducked down to the drawers in her desk.
Behind her, Icy heard hoofsteps come up behind her and Scootaloo saying “I'll catch you guys up.” Before she could turn around to question it, Cheerilee's head popped back up, a pencil in her mouth and a piece of paper in her hoof.
“Well,” she began, placing the pencil on the paper, “some ponies would say this is a line.” She proceeded to draw a simple square on the paper. “After all, I never took the pencil off the paper, so you could say that's all one line, just with some bends in it.”
“But it's not a line,” Icy pointed out, “it's a square.”
“Exactly,” Cheerilee said, smiling gently at her, “when most ponies say a line, they mean a vector... a straight line without distinct angles.” She clarified quickly, drawing one on the paper. “But, as you can see, that has a front and a back.” She continued, pointing out both ends with a pencil. “Of course, you could make a philosphical argument about which end is the front and which is the back and whether, if neither one is definitely one or the other, it can really be said to have a front or a back...” her rambling trailed off as she remembered she was talking to schoolchildren, “but that's, um...”
She chuckled awkwardly for a moment before continuing. “So, either a line has no distinct angles, meaning it must have a front and a back, or it has no front or back, meaning it must have distinct angles and so isn't really a line. But...” she smiled enigmatically, “there is a line that has neither. One that's between these two.” She pointed at the square and the line. “Do you know what it is?”
There was a moment of silence as the three students thought. It was broken when Lance tapped a hoof on the ground in realization. He hopped up onto his hind hooves, picked up the pencil in a front hoof and drew a loop on the page.
“That's right, Lance,” Cheerilee said, looking like she was having to physically restrain herself from giving him a gold star, “A circle!”
“A circle...” Scootaloo muttered, her eyes widening. “That's great, Miss Cheerilee, thanks for your help I've gotta go and...” were all Icy could make out before Scootaloo was out of earshot and out of the building.
“That's... fine.” Cheerilee tried to call after her before realizing how futile an effort that would be. She smiled at the two who were still there. “I'm always happy when my students want to learn.”
Icy briefly considered telling her that learning had little to do with it, but decided against it. “Well, still, thank you Miss Cheerilee.” Icy said, Lance nodding in agreement before the two trotted after Scootaloo.
Once the two were gone, Cheerilee shook her head. “I hope those kids aren't getting into too much trouble.”
Fortunately, it didn't take long for Icy and Lance to catch up with Scootaloo. She was with Archer, Pip and Dinky, standing under a tree to the right of the door. Pip was just passing Scootaloo the photo they had of the picture in the path. As Icy and Lance trotted up, Scootaloo put the picture on the ground and put her head right up close to it, looking over it and muttering to herself.
“Which one is it? Which one is it?”
“Which is what, Scootaloo?” Icy asked.
Scootaloo's eyes flicked up to her for a split second before returning to the photo in front of her. “Which of the pictures.” She answered.
When it became clear no elaboration was coming, Dinky decided to take up the slack on the explanation. “Well, the riddle and one of the pictures should add up to tell us where he's going tonight, and Scootaloo said she'd figured out the riddle, so she'd trying to...”
“You figured it out?!” Icy blurted out, suddenly excited. She winced when she saw Dinky's ears flatten at the interruption. “Oh, sorry, Dinky.”
“That's okay,” Dinky gave a wan smile, “I'd like to know too.”
This time, Scootaloo's eyes came fully off the photo as she rolled them. “A bunch of flying ponies going in a circle? It's kinda obvious, isn't it?” A hush came over the others as they tried to see the connection. “A tornado! A team of pegasi flying around in a circle is how you make a tornado!”
The hush continued, but this time a contemplative one as everyone considered the possibility. It was certainly an option, but...
“What about the spear?” Archer asked.
Scootaloo stopped, having started to look over the photo again while everyone else thought. “Spear?”
“Yeah, the rhyme says they've got a spear through their chest. That'd make it a little hard to fly, doncha think?”
“Also,” Icy added, “Pegasi don't really gallop, do they? I thought it might be talking about pegasi too, but I don't think it would've talked about galloping if it was.”
Scootaloo's brows creased. “Well... maybe it... he could have meant...” She kicked a hoof on the ground, sending up a little cloud of dust. “Well, what else could it mean?” She asked with a hint of petulance.
“Well, I had an idea it might be a flag or something.” Pip offered a little hesitantly. “I mean, a lot of armies have them, they're usually on spears or poles and they don't touch the floor.” He thought for a moment before shaking his head. “But I can't think of any reason they'd go round in circles or whatever the rest means.”
“Could be a tornado, could be a flag.” Icy said rapidly, her mind racing. “But there's something else. Something they're missing...”
She closed her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths, trying to slow down her thoughts so each lasted long enough for her to work on. She tuned out the others' talking and focused on forming a picture in her mind.
A Pony with a spear through them, she did her best to create an approximation of the gruesome image, censoring out all the blood to leave a pony on a pole, galloping along in the air, she set the image in motion, its form leaping forwards, and going in a circle. She altered its path so it went around her imaginary point of view. It looks like... something, maybe? It...
She opened her eyes, still holding the image in her mind, and held a hoof out in front of her, the leg almost completely vertical. She moved the hoof to the left in short hops along with the image. It's... hold on... She slowed the movement down to about half the speed, making the hoof, pole and pony move in a gradual bounce. Just like… She stopped the image’s hooves from moving, freezing them in place as it travelled.
“I've got it!” She cried. She shook her head to dismiss the image and looked to the others, expecting them all to turn their heads to her in surprise.
In fact, it quickly became apparent that they were all staring at her anyway as she had seemed to be having some sort of imaginary puppet show.
Nevertheless, Icy plowed onto her theory. “I think I know what it means – ponies on poles going round in a circle?” She paused a moment for dramatic effect before exclaiming: “A Merry-Go-Round!”
Her teammates' eyes all widened as they considered her answer. “That... works. That works pretty well.” Pip said.
“And... hang on a minute,” Icy continued, “isn't there a house in town that's made up like a merry-go-round?” She remembered looking at it when she'd first looked around the town. She'd passed by it a few times since, but hadn't honestly paid much attention. It was presumably a toy shop, what with the whole fairground ride theme, but she hadn't really felt like looking at any point. Also, not very many children seemed to go in there – from what little she had seen, it was mostly adults – so she wasn't sure how good it was.
“Yeah, hold on a mo'.” Archer said as she looked over the photo they had. After a second, she turned it upside down and put a hoof down on the point nearest the castle. Icy wasn't sure what it was – some curved lines with a couple of diamonds and another curve sticking out. “That's a dress, he's going for the Carousel Boutique.”
Part of Icy's mind made a note to ask what a “boutique” was – she thought it just meant a shop, but there might have been more – and what a dress had to do with it – dolls, maybe – but the rest of it made her hop to her hooves and start trotting away.
“Icy?” Dinky asked from behind her. “Where are you going?”
“To this carousel toy shop. Aren't you guys... coming...?” Icy trailed off as she looked over her shoulder at the others, still sitting down with the schoolhouse behind them. “Oh... right... school. I forgot” She muttered, trotting back in embarrassment.
Fortunately, said embarrassment was quickly overwhelmed by surprise as she felt a tiny, strong and unmistakable set of hooves wrap around her chest.
“Don't worry,” Dinky assured her, “he won't come 'til tonight, so we've got plenty of time. And we wouldn't have even known where to go if you hadn't figured it out!”
Despite herself, Icy found herself smiling at Dinky's sincerity.
“Well, anyway, now we know, we can go there afterwards. So, if you don't mind,” Scootaloo stood up abruptly and started walking away, still sounding a little sore, “I've got stuff to do. Lost enough crusading time already.” She finished in a mutter.
After an awkward pause, Icy spoke up, not looking away from Scootaloo's retreating form. “Geez, what's with her?”
Archer shrugged. “She's a mare of action. Doesn't like sitting still and thinking about these kinds of things.” She paused for a moment before adding. “Also, she hates that she can't catch Magic Eye.”
“I thought you said no one could.” Icy pointed out.
“No one has yet.” Archer corrected with a minute amount of force. “And yeah, but you know Scoots – little speed demon and all that. For the fastest thing on four wheels not to be able to catch an Earth Pony... 'sgonna be a bit of a sore point.”
Icy nodded. “I guess. But at least we know where he's going now – maybe we'll catch him this time!”
The others murmured hesitantly. Lance gave a shrug that seemed to say: “Well, anything's possible.”