Chapter 9
--
Weeks of reassurance and patience by asari diplomats, as well as messages of good-will from leaders around the galaxy have finally paid off, as the cautious avian species [the raloi] agreed to send another delegation to the Citadel. – Top Story for 7/24, Citadel News Relay, 2186 CE
--
Riana rubbed her forehead with her fingertips, elbows on the table. The friction of skin against skin helped to calm her, and she’d never really needed to grow out of the habit. Levin sat opposite her, whilst Sev was looking into his carry case. All three of them were in the corvette, hovering approximately 2000 meters above the surface of the planet.
Levin looked sorry after telling her what had happened. Riana was content to let him stew in his own feelings of shame and anger, although a small part of her told herself that it wasn’t his fault. Everything that had happened till now had been reactive, a response to environmental threats. Right?
The easiest thing to do would just be to leave. No more trouble. Just go, and forget about this whole thing.
But another part of her wouldn’t let her do that. It was their fault that everything had led to this. Had they gone to another planet, none of this would have happened.
But you didn’t know. It’s not your fault.
She pushed that thought away. Guilt wouldn’t help now. Actions would.
Besides, the area was a mother lode of relics. The credits they could get would be enough to put them in the black. Even with the lowered interest rates, thanks to post-war reconstruction, the interest was high enough to factor into her mental equations.
Assuming you survive the experience. And, you can always try and avoid the ponies.
But could they? She’d rather have something known for certain, rather than rely on luck. Despite its tech, the ship’s scanner wouldn’t be able to penetrate tree cover, or search for heat signals thanks to interference – they’d be effectively blind down there.
She sighed. The other bases that were in the area weren’t exactly this well developed. Apparently, this ancient civilization liked to keep things centralized. Damn shame.
“I’ll go down and talk to them,” she concluded. “Asari were always better at diplomacy.”
Levin didn’t have the heart to roll his eyes, so he simply nodded. At that moment, Sev straightened up, holding a massive, heavily modified Claymore shotgun in his arms. He laughed; a big, booming laugh that seemed threatening yet childish at the same time.
“I see why there were issues,” Riana muttered glumly. “This'll be fun.”
-&-
They’d left the shuttle hanging in the sky on VI autopilot. The lack of nearby mountains gave the VI plenty of room to maneuver if something went wrong.
The three were in the shuttle, rocketing off towards the castle. The obviousness of such a move made it a sign of trust that the ponies were not going to shoot them down.
Everyone had brought along their own weapons, in case of emergency.
Sev and Riana sat in the cargo hold in silence. She’d told him not to speak, and he’d agreed; that had gone over surprisingly well, she thought. Then again, it was an easy promise to break.
The shuttle clunked as they came in for a landing. It wasn’t difficult – Sev had said there was a courtyard around the castle, which was obvious from such a high viewpoint. They’d landed in front of a large gate, on a roughly paved cobblestone road.
Well, that was good. They hadn’t been shot down on sight.
Levin opened the shuttle door from inside the cockpit before maneuvering out of the tight space and into the comparatively spacious cargo hold.
The door hissed open, and the three found themselves facing a squadron of fifteen guards, with more pouring in from the castle itself.
The guards at the front jerked backwards as they lay eyes on the interior of the shuttle, for there were the corpses of 10 ponies within.
“We found them outside the entrance to our ship, dead,” Riana said after a moment of silence. All eyes swirled around to meet her helmet’s faceplate. “We return the bodies for you to take care of.”
No one spoke for a moment. Then –
“Make way!” a voice shouted from the back of the crowd. The ponies parted, to reveal the officer that Sev had held hostage just hours before. “You!”
Sev didn’t respond, as ordered. They’d all holstered their weapons, to prevent any sort of misunderstanding – but his hand was straying dangerously close to the handle of his shotgun.
“We wish to apologize for our behavior, and return these corpses found outside our ship,” Riana said carefully.
The officer nodded slowly. “Escort them to the throne room.”
The three got out of the shuttle; Riana first, then Levin, and finally Sev. The shuttle’s doors remained open, and the ponies began to drag their comrades’ bodies out into the sunlight.
The three were surrounded by a thicket of spears, although every pony gave Sev a wide berth. All in all, there must have been about 25 pony guards around the trio, and doubtless more in the castle itself. Sev kept a watchful eye over the unicorns, whilst the Levin and Riana looked nonchalant as they were led into the bowels of the castle.
The corridor towards the ‘throne room’ was wide and spacious; six ponies could walk side-by-side down the corridor, such was its width. Tapestries were draped upon the wall, alongside paintings of some pieces of land as well as portraits of some ponies. Stained glass windows sat were placed on the top half of the wall, letting multicolored beams of sunlight fall onto the opposite wall.
Riana took in as much of the artwork as she could in the limited time they spent. The paintings depicted landscapes, of which many seemed to be set in the countryside, near lakes and so forth. That didn’t tell her much, except that the society they’d landed in was still fairly basic. Of course, that assumed that the paintings were unbiased. The tapestries, on the other hand, were of two motifs; a red one with a symbol of the sun on it, and a black one with a symbol of the moon on it. The red tapestries were on the left, whilst the black ones were on the right. That probably pointed to a duo of powerful houses running the country, or a religious belief in two main gods. Lastly, the stained glass windows depicted a gangly, lean pony shape. In each window, two of such shapes were present, one blue-grey and the other white. These likely represented the leaders of the country or were the depiction of gods. Oh, the history I could garner from such a place!
Levin was also taken aback by the opulence of the corridor. He’d seen the slums down below, and the existence of such wealth pointed to either irresponsible governance or a massive government surplus. It was possible that such wealth existed through donations from rich families, although that tended to lead to corruption. The Turian Hierarchy frowned on lavish displays of wealth, believing that would lead to resentment and internal strife, fraying the sense of brotherhood throughout the society.
Then again, the Hierarchy said that there are no turian civilians. What’s right and wrong?
Who knows?
Who even cares?
Sev ignored the aesthetics of the corridor. They were unimportant, merely decorations meant to make the area look good. There was no use for such frills in krogan society; why waste resources on something ultimately useless whilst other clans were arming up? In any case, krogan eyes were more suited to spotting moving enemies than detail. Aesthetic merit would merely be lost on them. The guards in front and behind them were far more deserving of attention. At least they could actually do something.
The group and its massive escort reached a pair of giant doors that sparkled with a golden luster. On the doors were carvings that depicted ponies in various shapes, some bowing to a larger entity, some facing off against one another. Probably just a gold layering, reflected Riana. Gold is too dense to move properly, and too weak to be useful as a barrier. Seeing as this is a throne room…
The doors swung open slowly, revealing a large room lined by pillars, in which a red carpet lay from the door up to a pair of thrones. Currently, only one was occupied; a dark blue alicorn sat upon a black dais that was itself planted on a raised section of the floor. Stairs led down from the throne to the floor, and at the base of those stairs the officer stopped next to a purple unicorn.
The guards rearranged position to form a wide circle around the trio, giving the three the impression that they were standing in the middle of a forest clearing, surrounded by spiky trees.
The alicorn narrowed her eyes, mirroring the purple unicorn’s facial expression. “You’ve got some gall to be standing here. I should put you all in the dungeon.”
Riana groaned mentally. The possibility of getting out of the situation without violence seemed more and more remote. But alas, she had to try. The second Geth-Quarian war had apparently been born of misunderstanding and warmongering. And everyone knew the consequences that had wrought upon both ‘species’. She wasn’t going to go down in history as a bystander; not when she had the ability to act.
“We’re here to apologize,” she began, racking her brain and kneeling down in the process. Levin copied her, but Sev stayed standing. What was worse, his hand was slowly going for the grip of his rifle. She cursed silently. “We feel deeply sorry about what has happened, and we wish to amend it.”
She reached into a pocket on the outside of her armor. The guards tensed, expecting all manner of terrible devices to come out. When her hand went back out, the fingers were wrapped around a tube of orange medi-gel.
“This medi-gel will help to relieve the pain of the wound, as well as seal the area from microbes.” She hoped they understood what microbes were. “Spread it onto the wound itself.”
Fortunately, the alicorn appeared to understand. She pulled the tube out of Riana’s hands with her biotics, and promptly galloped away out of the room, presumably towards the wounded ruler. The three were left to stand awkwardly amongst a crowd of hostile ponies.
-&-
Luna inspected the tube as she travelled. The inside of the tube sloshed around like oil, viscous and heavy. It looked more like orange snail-slime than medicine, but if what the aliens said were true, then this would be a great help.
The aliens. She snarled, scaring off a few nearby maids. They’d sown enough chaos already; and when she’d given the large one his things back, she’d hoped that her sign of good faith would be appreciated. Apparently not.
Still, she found that she couldn’t blame them. She remembered her sister’s face – fury, frustration and sorrow present in each crease and wrinkle – as she prepared a spell to take their vessel down. She knew that face. After all, she had been on the receiving end.
The aliens had only wanted to survive. To escape. She understood why they did what they did. She would have had done the same, a thousand years ago, had she not been paralyzed by a moment of indecision. It was her own sister, after all.
Luna cursed herself, for her own weakness. That same weakness that had led to her exile. If she’d only have the strength to strike first…
Could she really blame them for acting to survive? After all, she’d done the same. Almost had done the same. Intent was the same, though. And intent made the difference between murder and ponyslaughter...
Well, whatever had happened before didn’t matter. That was all in the past. Even she couldn’t change the past, with all her power.
At least they’d attempted to make up for it. The large one hadn’t kneeled, a classic sign of disrespect. She would be mad had it happened a thousand years ago, but now she couldn’t be bothered to summon any hint of annoyance. Her own ‘loyal subjects’ did the same to her, anyways. They just thought she wouldn’t be able to hear it.
The one who’d spoken sounded genuinely sorry, and Luna had to wonder why she’d tagged along with the massive brute. Perhaps she was just playing along. The last one was a wild card; it had kept silent all through the encounter. That one would need watching.
She burst into the medical wing of the castle. All the doctors and nurses surrounded her sister, still unconscious. The doctors had pressed gauze to the bloody wound, whilst the nurses tended to her sister’s high temperature and checked her vitals. They weren’t good; she knew that much. The shards of shrapnel extracted from Celestia’s body lay in a tiny pile at the side, forgotten for the moment.
All the nurses looked up at the newly arrived Luna, who promptly ignored them. “Doctor; is this toxic?” she asked, holding up the tube of medi-gel.
One of the doctors, a junior one judging by his age, approached her. Normally they’d have bowed on sight, but these were special times. He took a nearby poison test kit and got to work, unscrewing the tube’s top and pouring a drop of its contents into retractable metal tray. The machine buzzed and whirred while the doctor tapped his hind hoof, waiting for the results. A minute later, he nodded. “It’s good, Princess.”
Luna needed no more encouragement. She levitated the tube, now open at one end, and barged her way to her sister’s side. The gauze had stemmed the flow of blood, but not stopped it. Carefully, she removed the gauze, eliciting a wince from her sister, and poured the goo into the wound.
The effect was instantaneous. Celestia sighed, seemingly contentedly, whilst the gel hardened over the wound. No blood escaped. Luna smiled. Things finally seemed to be looking up.
The nurses stayed by her sister’s side, as did a couple of senior doctors, but the rest of the doctors walked past her with a quick mutter of “Princess” and split off to help the other patients.
Luna thought about staying as well. Her sister needed the company.
No, she didn’t. She coped for 1000 years without you.
She remembered the damage to the gate. It looked like a buffalo had charged directly at it, the metal warped and the gate mechanism broken. They’d had to reset the cogs. If that was happening now to the guards down there…
She started to trot a bit faster back towards the throne room. The guards were the best of the best, were they not? So why should she worry?
She picked up her pace into a gallop. The servants in her path leapt to the sides to avoid being trampled, and she absentmindedly resolved to apologize to them all later on. If they remembered the incident.
The throne room was up ahead, deathly quiet. Too quiet.
-&-
Riana gaped in amazement as the alicorn-creature used her biotics to levitate the tube medi-gel. The level of control over mass fields must have been immense! Those horns that glowed – they must have had nodules of eezo inside them. That meant they could control mass effect fields using their thoughts, not physical mnemonics like human biotics. Asari could also do something similar, thanks to their conscious control over their own nervous system – but this sort of delicate, precise control took literally centuries to master.
And the unicorns around her held their spears with similar control. Either they were older than they looked, or this ability of theirs was biological…
As the alicorn left, Levin and Riana returned to their standing posture. Their sudden increase in height caused the guards to back away slightly. Now I know how a krogan feels, Levin thought.
The officer and his purple friend approached the border of the barricade, expressions stormy. The officer had a bandage around the tip of his horn. Riana felt a chill, run down her back, and her hand strayed to her pistol. Aside from her, Levin was also reaching for his assault rifle, strapped on his back. Sev, meanwhile, pushed his way in between the two of them to stand directly in front of the pony pair. He looked to be unarmed, but Riana’s two centuries of life had taught her that looks could easily deceive.
The two ponies stopped when they stood abreast the spear-holders. All of the guards they passed gave them nods; an acknowledgement of rank.
Neither side said anything for 30 seconds. Then, quite suddenly, the officer growled, staring at Sev. “What are you playing at?”
From Sev’s right, Riana spoke up. “We are just here to make amends.”
The officer shot her a death-glare. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
She wasn’t fazed. “He’s under orders not to talk to anyone,” she said, gesturing to Sev.
For his part, the big krogan stayed silent.
“You harm our Princess and now you expect us to just forgive you?” the purple unicorn spoke. She must be Twilight.
“No. That’s why we brought the medicine. We hope to make reparations by healing your Princess. Please forgive us for our transgressions,” Riana replied.
Levin was impressed. Her skill in sweet-talking was almost as good as a politician’s. Then again, she’d lived over 5 times his current age.
“Come over here and talk to us directly. Don’t hide behind you companion,” the officer sneered.
Riana made to move to the front, but Sev held ups his arm to block her path. He shook his head. Her armor wasn’t as good as his for withstanding biotic attacks, and they both knew it.
Both sides lapsed into silence after that, broken by rapid hoof-steps and a blue shape that burst from one of the side doors. The blue alicorn trotted over to the ring of guards.
“I don’t know what that is, but it appears to have helped,” she spoke. “I guess I should thank you. Then again, if you hadn’t harmed her in the first place, this whole thing wouldn’t have happened.”
This alicorn wasn’t good at hiding her emotions. Sev could see that as clear as day. She seemed conflicted; happy on the one hand, probably because her country’s ruler was saved; but also angry at the fact that the ruler needed to be saved in the first place, thanks to the beings in front of her…
The alicorn sighed. “Why are you here?”
“We’re doing archaeological surveys…” Riana paused. She didn’t know the being’s name.
“It’s Princess Luna.”
“Very well. Princess Luna, we’re here to recover artifacts from the ruins of dead vessels of an ancient era. We only need to record and take a few relics, and then we can leave your star system.”
This seems to be going my way, Luna thought. She didn’t know of any ‘dead vessels’, although excavations had shown that there was a former civilization that existed before the time of ponies. And the faster the aliens were out of her mane, the better. “Fair enough…” she paused, encountering the same problem. The aliens hadn’t introduced themselves yet.
“Oh, my name is Riana,” the asari said. She clasped her hand’s onto Levin’s shoulders. “This is Levin.” Finally she gestured to the hulk. “And this is Sev.”
Luna nodded. “Very well. But I cannot let you three wander around my lands unguarded. You, Sev, have already caused enough damage.” She narrowed her eyes.
At this, Sev rolled his shoulders, but continued to stay silent.
“We’ll better get out of your hair,” Riana said cordially. “Thank you so much for your hospitality.”
Luna nodded slowly. “Captain Armor, Twilight Sparkle, you two shall accompany them. Choose the guards you trust to go along with you. Oh, and Twilight – come here for a moment.”
Twilight did as commanded, and the two ponies exchanged words in quiet whispers. Sev narrowed his eyes; a plan to backstab them, maybe? If so, why would they do so in front of the three? Could this show of trust all be a trick?
The weight of the guns on his back suddenly made their presence felt, and Sev smiled grimly. Betrayal was an old krogan tradition. He should know. He wouldn't be taken that easily.
Luna finished her exchange with Twilight, who galloped back to Armor. She looked back up at the three. “Wait for a moment at the front courtyard. Guards, escort them there!”
Sev was no stranger to codewords. ‘Front courtyard’ could mean anything, but a guard escort suggested that the three would resist if they knew. And that suggested the torture room or the dungeon.
They marched out of the throne room and down the corridor. As they neared the turn that would take them to the dungeons, Sev tensed and balled his hands into fists – but the group walked past, and he glanced back at the rear guard to see their reactions. Some looked puzzled as he turned his head slightly, but the others didn’t appear to notice, or hid their emotion well.
The sound of his steps changed from a hard clacking to a softer mulching sound as the flooring changed from marble to grass and soil. They were back where they started – the shuttle was past the gate, door still open, but the bodies inside were nowhere to be found. The trio was herded by the ponies – how ironic – to the side of the path, and the group stood in the middle of a grassy expanse.
Armor turned to the group. “Guard the aliens here. I’m going to the barracks to request a squad and a chariot.” He left without another word.
Levin spoke first, after a short pause. “Well, this is boring. Wake me up later.”
Twilight butted in. “After all that’s happened, I think we deserve some answers.”
Riana nodded. “Go on, ask away.”
“What did you do to Princess Celestia?” Twilight snarled. It was quite cute, a pony snarling. Still, no one told her that for fear of exacerbating the tenseness of the situation.
“He shot her,” Riana replied, pointing to Sev to emphasize the ‘he’.
“Shot her?”
Sev nodded. The motion brought Twilight’s eyes back around to face him.
“Why?” The question phrased more like a statement. As Twilight spoke, tears started to come to her eyes, but she shook her head. “Why?” she demanded forcefully.
Riana looked to Sev. He took the move as permission to let him speak. “You and your Princess attempted to stop our escape. I could not let that happen.” His voice sounded flat; bored.
At that, all the guards tensed – the circle didn’t shrink, but the spears were now being held more firmly, and each guard appeared to be ready to spring them at a moment’s notice.
Sev didn’t appear to be bothered by the change at all. He merely tapped the ends of his forearms with his fingers.
Twilight’s mouth was agape. This being, Sev, didn’t seem to possess any sense of remorse or pity at all. First, the dead manticore; and then, her beloved teacher. It was like talking to a psychopath. Maybe he was a psychopath. He certainly acted like one. She recovered quickly enough.
“You could’ve…talked, or tried to signal to us that you wanted to go!” Twilight yelled. But inside her head, her thoughts were racing about like leaves in a hurricane. She had seen the two Princesses attempt to stop Sev’s escape. Luna and her teacher had attempted to pull the vessel closer to them, planning to continue to question him. He had to be punished as well – hostage taking, assault and environmental destruction were not light crimes.
Sev laughed. The sound was like thunder; loud and rumbling. “You and your Princess used your biotics first. I saw your horn light up. You did not give us a chance to talk. I responded in kind.”
“Biotics?” Twilight said, confused. “What do you – you mean magic?”
The word didn’t have an exact translation in the krogan language, so Sev shrugged. “Maybe that is what you call it.”
Armor chose that exact point in time to gallop in, cutting their conversation short. Above them, a carriage hovered in the sky, pulled by two pegasi. On the underside, Riana could spot strips of blue leading from the carriage’s underbelly, all the way up the carriage shafts to the yoke area. Is that eezo?
Armor stopped just as the carriage swung around and came in for a landing. The carriage was fairly large, at least in pony standards. It was about a meter and a half high and wide, and twice as long. This one wasn’t flashy; it was grey rather than gold, and it was covered in dings and scrapes that spoke of its age. Armor called out for a few ponies to enter – ‘Blade’, ‘Metal’, ‘Shield’ and ‘Trace’ all came out of the ring and got into the carriage. They all looked identical, up to the green brushes on their heads.
Twilight trotted back to Armor, giving Sev the cold shoulder. Armor smiled as he saw his sister approach, but his gaze hardened as it travelled over the alien trio. “You heard the Princess. I can’t allow you to wander around unsupervised. You”–
Levin interrupted him mid-sentence. “I’ll set the ship down in the castle gardens, then. Where do you want it?”
Armor’s face looked like a tomato for a second; such was his anger at the perceived insubordination. But his sister’s hug calmed him down, and he nodded to a nearby pegasus guard, ordering him to keep watch.
The three ignored Armor and headed for the shuttle. By now, the sun was already kissing the horizon, coloring the sky a pinkish shade. The pegasus guard flapped into the air above the shuttle, intent on following it.
They docked with the corvette in record time. The ship’s VI was managing to keep the thing steady even through the odd mass anomalies plaguing this planet – quite a feat, considering that it wasn’t exactly legal.
The pegasus had been left outside the ship; he hadn’t dared enter the airlock, and no one cared whether or not he did.
The ship spun on its axis until it faced the direction of Canterlot’s castle, and slowly jetted off, using the maneuvering thrusters. The main fusion torch engine was powerful, and Levin didn’t want to overshoot and end up in another country. He passed extra energy into the eezo core to decrease the mass of the ship, helping relieve the thrusters of some of the stress.
Riana switched the scanner to a radar system, used for planet scanning. She found an empty spot just large enough inside the castle walls – apparently a park of some sort, judging by the vegetation around it. Thirty meters wide by fifty meters long, it was a tight fit – but not impossible.
“You know we could just jet off now,” Sev said amiably from near the airlock door. “They’d never be able to catch us. Prison here would suck.”
“This is a show of trust, Sev,” Riana replied from her place at the scanner console. “This is quite odd though, I’ll agree – usually, when you attack a country’s leader, you expect immediate retribution, not a nice talk and then the chance to run around.”
“Could be those guards they send with us. Twilight and that Armor one have high biotic levels; I could overpower them if I got the jump on ‘em, but otherwise…”
Levin grunted. “Hate to say it, but I agree with the krogan. Back-up plans are always good to have.”
Sev smiled, just as the corvette touched down on the dirt with a hard bump. The lights flickered on after the eezo core powered down, and Levin dialed down the main power plant until it was just a soft hum in the background.
Just as well. Night had arrived.
-&-
They’d all chosen to sleep inside the ship; after all, sleeping on an actual mattress was much better than sleeping on what passed for padding inside armor. The 7 hour day cycle wasn’t difficult for Sev to adapt to. He was the first to wake. Sleeping on someone else’s property had always been a difficult task for him. The smells were all wrong and foreign. He’d been expecting to wake up with a knife in his neck or a bullet between the eyes, and that hadn’t done wonders for his sleep. Donning his armor, he caught Riana walking through the door separating the cargo bay and the living quarters, still rubbing her eyes.
“I heard clanking,” she said, and stopped instantly at the sight of the armored krogan. “Couldn’t sleep?”
Sev shook his head. “I’ll be outside.”
Riana nodded slowly. “Try not to piss any more of the locals off.”
Sev cackled, but she wasn’t able to tell whether he was serious or not. She turned back inside and headed straight for the kitchen area. That human coffee was good. She had her doubts when she’d first tried it; it was bitter and grainy, and she’d wondered why some of the humans swore by it, but now she’d grown a liking towards the strange drink. Shame Levin couldn’t try it, thanks to his dextrose based chemistry.
Sev stepped out of the ship, relieved at finally being able to properly stretch his arms. The ship was about 8 feet tall, designed for turian height – coincidentally just high enough for him – but the thin corridors and tiny rooms weren’t designed for beings of his bulk. He stretched his arms upwards, feeling the shoulder joints pop slightly, and reveled in the sound. The humans said he’d get arthritis of some sort, but he’d always ignored them. It probably only applied to them – their puny frames didn’t even have a secondary nervous system!
It was still night outside, but the computer systems in his armor helped to counter that. The repurposed landing area used to be a multipurpose clearing, he saw; the land was flat and uniform, and around the ship he could see the grass had been blown flat to the ground, leaving circular patterns around the thruster nozzles. The ship itself was a strangely beautiful thing, lit by the moonlight – a blunted triangle, shaped like an arrowhead with the point sliced off. The rear of the ship expanded into two engine nozzles positioned over the airlock door, and two triangular ‘wings’ that were composed of strips of metal hung at the back, giving the appearance of a frill. Those wings were apparently useless, purely for aesthetic purposes. Supposedly, they were supposed to be related to the turian head-comb.
Sev started to shadowbox. It was an old habit from his Tuchanka days, and he’d never really lost it. The constant exercise was supposed to keep him in tip-top shape – a necessity in his line of work. Press ups and crunches were good for show, but they only stressed a limited number of muscles. A martial art was much more useful and strenuous an exercise.
The moon had sunk below the western horizon by the time he’d finished, just as the sun crested the mountains to the east. One pegasus flapped down from the top of the ship, yawning. Assigned to keep watch, probably.
Surprisingly, the low hum of the armor's servos hadn't woken the guard up – rather, the sunlight on his face had, and he flew down to a shady spot under the alien vessel to recover. As his vision slowly returned, he saw a massive blob slowly form into a similarly massive shape…
The pegasus yelped and flew back towards the barracks, discomfort all but forgotten.
Sev chuckled. This job was turning out to be more fun than he’d thought.
He focused his attention on one of the castle balconies. There had been, and still was, a biotic atop it – judging from its estimated power level, it was one of the two Princesses. As the sun’s rays lit up the castle, Sev could see her coloration – dark blue. It was Luna.
She’d been watching him, most likely. Still, no matter. She didn’t disturb him, so he didn’t disturb her. That unwritten rule had served him well for over six centuries, and he saw no reason as to change it.
Ah. Apparently the status quo was about to change.
Luna glided down from the tower. If he was a more poetic person, he’d say she did so gracefully – a perfect launch, flight and landing – but he wasn’t. How she did things weren’t important. The end result was.
The alicorn trotted over to him, keeping a fair distance away. “What compelled you to attack my sister?” she asked. There appeared to be no emotion in her voice; odd, considering her relationship to the victim. Maybe the sisters were enemies?
“She attempted to attack me. I retaliated,” Sev replied, whilst pulling the Claymore shotgun from the back of his waist. “And don’t attack me. I won’t hesitate to do the same to you.”
Luna narrowed her eyes at the perceived threat. “How exactly did you know?”
“Her biotics were up.”
“Her abilities were up?” Luna appeared confused; obviously the translator had faltered.
“Her horn was glowing,” Sev said. He kept the muzzle of the shotgun trained away at her, to lessen his apparent threat – but they both knew he could fire the weapon in a split second, and she didn't want to test her own magical strength against a weapon that she knew could kill her.
Oddly, Luna started to pace in a circle.
This was what humans did when they were thinking, Sev noted; asari tended to do so as well, but that habit was most prevalent amongst humanity. With the prevalence of Earthlike animals and creatures on this planet, maybe the humans and the ponies had the same progenitors. Some of the artifacts of gods on Thessia resembled Protheans, after all. Well, they resembled that Prothean that showed up on the Citadel alongside Commander Shepard. If the asari had prehistoric connections to other species, why couldn’t the humans?
Sev's guess was right. Luna was deep in thought. She knew her sister to be vengeful, particularly when the things and people she loved were in danger – but that meant that the alien had acted in self-defense. Of course, this had all stemmed from an altercation in the jungle; allegedly, a guard had been hurt. The only question was who struck first. Luna was well aware of the phrase ‘History is written by the victors’; the ‘facts’ about her banishment a thousand years prior didn’t exactly match her own memories. When confronted, her sister had said something about freedom of expression; Luna had stormed out of the room a moment later.
Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.
She’d have to find out herself. And that information would have to come from an unbiased source. Her sister and Twilight Sparkle would say that they were erecting a shield; the aliens would say that they were preparing an energy beam. Both were probably wrong.
But how could she find out the truth?
She’d been just out of her teen years when she was banished – spending one’s life in stasis, unaware of one’s surroundings even though one was fully aware of time passing – and she’d aged mentally into a mature adult in total isolation. That wasn’t conductive to a good mindset, according to the psychology books she’d skimmed on her return.
She sighed. There didn’t seem to be a way to know the real truth. Even someone apparently unbiased would subconsciously alter their wording to make one side seem worse. She knew that from the books about herself.
Sev was still pointing his gun at a spot close to her. Her behavior wasn’t like anyone else’s on this planet – she’d arrived alone, and as far as he could tell, she wasn’t very expressive. While the other ponies seem to make exaggerated facial gestures, almost caricatures of human expressions, she was somewhat more subdued. A tightening of the lips here, a slight narrowing of the eyes there. That pointed to a host of psychological issues that he didn’t really want to deal with.
She suddenly stopped to look at him. Maybe the alien would have a new perspective. “What would you do to get the truth?”
“What?” His reply was terse, snappy.
“I said, what” –
“No, why are you asking that?”
“Just answer the question. Please.”
Sev rolled his eyes under his helmet. “Nothing. I wouldn’t do anything. There’s no point.”
Now that was new. Luna’s eyes widened. “Why do you think so?”
Sev turned his head around, such that he could keep as much of the area in his field of vision. This conversation was starting to seem like a trap. The weight of the shotgun in his hand helped to calm him, though. “Truth doesn’t matter. Beliefs do.”
“Explain.”
Sev sighed. “You might have the truth. But if no one believes it, the truth might as well not exist, for all the good it does. Yeah?”
Luna nodded. “That’s quite a dark view of the world.”
“Maybe.”
The airlock door split open again, revealing two more lean shapes. Both of them were around the shuttle; Riana was tapping away at her omni-tool, whilst Levin checked the craft for any damage. It was unlikely there would be any – the Kodiak shuttle was tough, and they hadn’t been flying into anti-aircraft fire – but it was always good to check.
Luna turned away, and as she did so her coat seemed to shimmer. Biotic barrier, Sev noted. No wonder she wasn’t as afraid. She bade goodbye to him and flapped back towards the castle.
Sev ambled back towards the shuttle. By now, both Levin and Riana had strapped themselves inside, and they greeted him with a nod as he entered the cramped interior.
“Engine compartment again,” Riana said. “Now that we’ve got the blessing of the local authority, we shouldn’t be interrupted.”
The ship had been parked beside the castle barracks, a grey stone building detached from the castle. The clearing they’d landed in probably served as a training ground, amongst many other purposes. As the shuttle hovered out of the ship, leaving a trail of disturbed soil as it did so, they met a chariot. This was the same one they’d seen in the frontal courtyard the day before.
Captain Armor and Twilight Sparkle were present on board, but alongside them were two unicorns and two regular ponies – the four the Captain had chosen to accompany them. They didn’t seem unduly pleased about the situation, but no one on board the shuttle really cared.
Levin powered down and opened the side door. Following the plan, Riana was the one to speak. “Follow our craft.”
“That’s what we were going to do,” Twilight said.
“Good,” Riana replied, and closed the door. “I was afraid I’d have to handhold them.”
Sev chuckled, and Levin took the door closing as the sign to gun the engines.