The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi


Deciding Felicity's Fate

"Alright," Valey declared, stepping into the dining hall. "We got some stuff to discuss."

The entire crew sans Nyala and Jamjars was present, arranged around the ship's table with Valey and Shinespark at one end and Felicity and Senescey at the other. Amber and Harshwater sipped from mugs with baggy eyes and unbrushed manes, and Felicity didn't look much better, though she had made an effort on her appearance.

"Well?" Felicity began, slightly subdued. "I suppose everyone already knows why we're here."

"It would be best if you two explained that yourselves," Shinespark answered, hooves folded on the table. "We're going to do this fairly."

Senescey's ears fell, and Felicity nodded. "Right. We... have a confession to make, everyone. Everything that happened last night involving us and Prince Gazelle on this ship was staged. We planned it. Most everything went as we had designed."

The table was quiet for a moment while reactions sunk in. Eventually, sleep forgotten, Amber leaned forward with wide eyes and asked, "Why?"

"I second this," Gerardo added. "I've met a good share of actresses in my time, and if that was a display, the amount of effort required to produce it wouldn't be made for idle whims."

Senescey squared her shoulders. "There were two reasons. One was for revenge on Gyre, Stormhoof, Izvaldi and Everlaste... all the provinces that ruined our lives. The second was that we were working with Gazelle because our goals were compatible and we needed each other's help, and he had as much input into the way things were done as we did. It would have been easy for any of us to sneak into Stormhoof with the lights out and simply assassinate the lords we didn't like, but he wanted a spectacle, and we weren't opposed to making our enemies really feel their defeat."

Maple's eyes squeezed shut. "I don't like being betrayed like this, you know."

Shinespark cleared her throat. "There are going to be hurt feelings, but before we get too far into airing grievances, I want to know: what are your intentions toward us now?"

"Nothing hostile," Felicity promised. "You have a nice crew, and we've never wished to harm you. We like the way you do things, and in a better world, wish we could have been genuine friends. Unfortunately for that hope, our desire for revenge burned brighter. Now that we have it, yet have also slashed bridges with you, we're... adrift, as it were. We have no real further plans. We also aren't evil and still wish you no harm, which is why we decided to confess and apologize instead of putting up a charade or slinking off into the night."

Gerardo nodded. "You wish us no harm, yet you shook all of us by staging a murder and faking another on board our ship, which, if I'm understanding correctly, was all for the sake of making Valey cause a scene in Stormhoof for you. Why her? Surely there were a multitude of ways you could have settled your own scores without drawing us in."

"It's not fair to blame that on Gazelle, when we were complicit," Senescey replied. "But it was his idea. We warned him you weren't someone to make enemies with. The reasoning was that Valey could make the biggest splash and catch the most attention, because she had done this before. Since we had never let her in on our plans, she could have honest motives, as well. As what happens comes to better light, we hoped that some of the public would sympathize with why she invaded."

"Creating a controversy, were you?" Gerardo folded his talons in interest. "Why does this remind me of Chauncey and his musical events with the Firefly Sisters? You want to divide the public and force them to fight amongst themselves? Those against sarosians versus the ones in favor of saving your friends from a corrupt lord..."

Felicity tilted an ear. "Chauncey and the Firefly Sisters? I'm aware of much of that, but don't believe there's any relation. Not on our end, at least. What we wanted was for the public to watch and care. Revenge isn't just about killing. It's about tarnishing legacy and reputation, sending someone down in history as infamous for generation upon generation to remember, like the legends of Giovanni Goldfeather. Did we want Lord Everlaste dead? Yes, but what we truly wanted was for him to be the sphinx whose blunders made a mockery of the most fortified location on the coast's defenses. If he fired and imprisoned me, everything that happened in response to my removal would be on him. At least, that's how it was going to work in theory."

Amber slowly whistled. "You were in charge of watching the underground to make sure there were no covert plots, right? For batponies to get in through the darkness, like how Valey got in the first time? So you sent in assassins to kill the sphinxes as well, but wanted to make it look like both that and Valey were the sphinxes' faults? Wow."

Felicity smiled regretfully. "It's a little more devious than that, darling. Yes, we did have a completely unrelated team of friends heading in on Valey's heels to take out the royals in the ensuing chaos, but none of them were sarosians. We took special care to arrange that, to drive home the point that they walked straight through the castle's fallen defenses, and it could have been prevented were their standing army not down for the count."

"You put a lot of thought into ruining and destabilizing a government," Harshwater remarked, sipping from her mug. "Did you put equal effort into considering what would happen to the provinces in your wake? There isn't an infinite supply of sphinxes lined up to fill in if you destroy the royal families, and the one there is seems even less stable than the ones you were fighting. I've toured in Varsidel for years with my company. I've seen what happens when you weaken a nation so much that lawlessness and banditry take over and all the resources that would have gone to stop them are either vanished or used for war. You say you're not evil, but have you considered the equine cost of everything you claim as your goals?"

Felicity sighed. "A pity revenge is not an easier desire to control."

For a moment, everyone frowned. "So... that's it?" Valey put a hoof on the table. "Really? If it had been easier, would you have been straight with us and we could have been friends for real?" She shook her head. "I don't buy that. You're enough of an actress to fool all of us and make us think you were really in distress. You had me strung along. Bananas, what about your cutie mark? And you're telling us you plotted out a betrayal weeks in advance because your emotions got the best of you?"

"I-I..." Felicity cringed, her voice lowering. "Yes. You don't know what it was like."

"What's all this about her brand?" Gerardo asked, raising an eyebrow in interest. "It does something of which we should be aware?"

"Uh, yeah." Valey pointed a hoof at Felicity. "Explain that real quick."

Felicity nodded, standing up and showing her cutie mark to the table. "Of course. My brand allows me to influence the intensity of emotions in a radius around me. I can turn it on and control how heavy the effect, and from there it effects everyone equally. If you know about it and have had it demonstrated while you're paying attention, the effects are noticeable, but otherwise most never even realize there's something going on."

Shinespark drew a slight breath. "How often have you been using this on us?"

"Occasionally, but never for deceptive purposes." Felicity nodded at Valey. "I showed her early on. She can likely attest to this. I mostly use its calming side to defuse tensions, like yesterday around Crystal. The intensifying side is for special situations only, and I don't use that often."

Amber hummed. "So how do we know you're not using it now, to make us chill out and go easier on you?"

"She isn't," Valey interrupted. "I can tell when she is. But this is probably a good time for all of you to learn that too? Felicity, make everyone chill."

Felicity bit her lip. "As you wish, darling."

Her aura spread across the room, and most of the table blinked in thought. "You're right," Maple whispered. "I can feel something..."

"This is weird," Slipstream remarked, folding her ears.

"There. You can all feel it?" Felicity waited several seconds longer, then dropped her aura. "That's what I can do. If you know what it feels like, you still feel the effects, but will be aware of them. I promise that I have and will only use it either on request, with warning, or for the benefit of everyone involved."

"As far as I know, that's how it works," Valey confirmed. "Now then, back to my question. We're really supposed to buy that you can do everything you've done, but did it because you couldn't control your desire for revenge? Not the most consistent of emotional control, there."

Felicity nodded. "And as I said, our situation..." She took a deep breath. "You don't know what it was like. And if you're about to ask us to explain, I'm going to have to request that the children leave the room."

Maple gave a concerned glance at Starlight. "Is there any way we can get a version that doesn't require that?" Shinespark asked.

Senescey sighed. "It doesn't matter. Our story is just a story, and you've heard enough of it already to judge us. Felicity grew up with our mother in Gyre, and Larceny and myself were born there. We moved to Izvaldi, where our mother died and the three of us lived for months on contaminated drinking water."

"Right," Felicity added. "Us trying to reiterate and show you our pain would be more a testimony to our storytelling skills than our motives, regardless. The point is, yes, revenge was our priority. It is... what we cared most about. You can say whatever you like about our character for that, but it is how things were."

Valey groaned. "You know, you're doing a real good job of being pitiable and a real bad job at the same time..."

"What would you have us do?" Felicity lifted an eyebrow. "Maintain innocence? Provide some compelling story about how our hooves were forced? Going back in time and not having done it isn't an option, and even if it were, I'm not so sure we would. We do regret how things went down heavily, but we had a long time to consider our options and come to a decision, and we did it with full knowledge of every consequence involved."

"And you're remorseful, but not remorseful enough to have chosen Valey and her friends in the first place." Harshwater sipped again from her mug. "That's not a level of commitment or apology that are doing you any favors."

Felicity's eyes turned down. "Well, we never claimed to be good ponies, either. We thought that honesty would be the best route forward, the present being what it is. Yes, we had bigger priorities that were at odds with maintaining the best possible relations with you. Now we don't. As I said, I'm sorry things are this way, but we're working with what we have."

"And you're asking our forgiveness?" Shinespark asked. "I think the question everyone is dancing around is what will happen if we continue to associate with you, and you have a conflict of interest again."

"As she said, we don't have any other priorities," Senescey said. "I don't know what would happen if that changed, but this was a goal we had been building toward all our lives. Nothing like this would happen again lightly, or quickly."

Valey nodded. "I'm less worried about how fast it would happen and more whether you'd keep us looped in on the way. You realize how differently this could have gone if you told us what you were planning ahead of time and asked us to go along with it? Skipped the whole thing with Lord Gyre on our ship?"

"Yes," Felicity admitted. "It could have ended with you talking us out of it. Most likely would have, in fact, and we were... scared by the prospect of our lives' work ending in nothing when we were poised upon success."

"That's some backwards logic you've got there," Gerardo remarked, pointing a talon. "If we convinced you some route of action was better and you took it, wouldn't you still have done what you believed was best? If you were persuaded to believe in something more valuable than the whole of your lives' work, that would be a win for you if you were able to have it."

Felicity frowned. "As I said, we were... scared."

"As you said," Gerardo agreed. "Perhaps a change of topic, then? One other thing that's been on my mind is that if you really staged all of this, however did you get Lord Gyre to obediently play his part?"

Senescey sighed. "That's a bit of a longer story..."