Dry thunder. Heat lightning. A dead, giant spider dragged through the commons area by one still-quivering leg. Subdued but sincere cheers from disturbed peasants who truly appreciated their resident spider-slayer. A group of old mares who huddled together and consoled one another. For Sundance, all of this was a lesson; ponies were ruled by fear. They lived in terror of all manner of things, and for good reason. But after fear came the sweet release, and Sundance wondered if, perhaps, common ponies wanted to be scared.
So, it was now spider season, the time of year when giant spiders went out in search for food and for victims to bind up in their websacks so that their young might feed. The spiders would sneak in during the night, when it was dark and all were asleep, and then wait in ambush. Thankfully, these giant spiders weren’t terribly bright, like some giant spiders, and couldn’t open doors. So everypony was mostly safe while they slept, though coming out in the middle of the night to go potty did put one at risk.
Sundance wasn’t having this; something would be done.
But what to do was the question of the hour.
This was the wilderness; spiders happened. So did owlbears and other things. Bears prowled far too close to the orchard and grew braver every day. Pawprints of giant cats had already been spotted in places far too close to home. Cucumber, by and large, had been the one to deal with these menaces. But the old soldier was gone… which left Sundance in charge of safety. Truth be told, he really didn’t know how to fight. Oh, he had the scars to look like a somewhat credible threat, but lacked the skills.
Overhead, the sky grew darker, the air grew hotter, but the breeze colder. It was as if the coming storm reflected the current tension. Trouble was a-brewing, that much was obvious, and the anticipation of what was to come grew unbearable. There would be more spiders—and the storm was sure to put on a show. Sundance’s feathers told him that this would be no mere summer storm, no common deluge, but something else entirely.
The dome homes were safe and secure; no storm could threaten them.
“Don’t feel right, Milord.”
Acorn stood shivering nearby.
“Last time it felt like this, we got hail. Not good for the crops.”
Sundance’s lips tightened into a savage scowl.
“And then there was that storm that blew over the old tower. Feels a bit like that, it does.”
“It does.” Pea shuffled closer, spat into the grass near his front feet, and gave himself a shake as the wind ruffled his mane and tail. “Once, when I was a colt, it snowed in the middle of summer. Snow as deep as a pony was tall. We lost all our crops. All of them. The Milord had to go and get food for us so we wouldn’t starve come winter. Rough times, those. A lot of the older ponies wandered off and went missing.”
Sundance knew without asking that those ponies most certainly didn’t go missing.
There was beauty in chaos, and desire in terror. Sundance stood atop the gatehouse and watched as the storm devoured the distant horizon. Multi-coloured spears of lightning flashed; blues, greens, reds, oranges, purples, every colour of the thauma-electric rainbow. A part of Sundance wanted to fly into the storm, to see and to experience it from within. It called to him, a booming siren’s song whose audible tendrils tugged upon his ears.
Hooves clip-clopped against the stone, and Sundance was no longer alone. Paradox slipped into his peripheral vision. She was worried, though about what remained unknown for the moment. He watched her as she eyed the distant storm, and wondered if she too, felt some urge to be drawn within. For him, it was the weather, but for her, he suspected that she would be attracted to the violence and explosions.
He’d grown fond of his cousin, and couldn’t imagine life without her. She was family, a confidant, and a trusted advisor. Of course, he still sought to earn her trust; while things were better, she still didn’t like to be touched. There were times when she was still fearful of him, and this pained him a great deal. She couldn’t help it, so he didn’t dare hold it against her. All he could do was give her plenty of space and hope that, with time and patience, she would heal.
“Princess Celestia gave me a book before I left, the Monstrum Grimoirum.” She paused for a moment as she often did when collecting her thoughts, or perhaps just steeling her nerves to remain so near to him. “It seems we are infested with doom weavers. As far as giant spiders go, they are unique. They can swarm, a bit like locusts can, but what makes these spiders special is that they practice mutualism, just like ants. Well, when they swarm, that is. Typically, they are solitary, but under the right conditions, when the eggs all hatch at just the right time, food is plentiful, and the environment is just right, they can swarm, and form a sort of hive-minded collective entity.”
This did not bode well…
“So, spiders have learned that friendship is magic.”
“Sundance, I won’t feel any guilt hurling you over the parapets, because you have wings.”
Teasing. Teasing was good. She felt safe enough to teasingly threaten him. Somehow, this felt like an accomplishment. He rather enjoyed her stoic grimace, her stolid reaction to his awful, awful joke. Paradox was beautiful, intelligent, and he wanted good things for her, a good life for her. She was owed that, even more so now that she’d been subjected to his awful wisecracks. The wind blew her mane back from her face, and distant lightning could be seen reflected in her eyes.
“Most interesting to note, doom weaver venom is extremely valuable.”
“Just how valuable?” asked Sundance, who now had a morbid sense of intrigue.
“About a thousand gold bits per cubic centimetre of liquid.”
“Wow…”
“Well, the book is about ten years old, so that number might’ve changed,” she was quick to say. “It might be worth less… or more. The information is a bit outdated. I do find it curious though that the Monstrum Grimoirum lists financial information for various monsters and monster bits. I suppose it is alchemy focused.”
“Or Princess Celestia wanted us to make a profit from the monsters that threaten us.”
“That’s—” Her words trailed off; then Paradox stood silent and thoughtful.
“A very Princess Celestia thing to do?” he suggested. “Turn adversity into an asset. If we’re going to be plagued with spiders, maybe we can get something out of it. That is the way of things. Our troubles are good for us. Just look at how Equestria has prospered from the war. New technologies, rapid social change, a newfound sense of national identity and purpose. These spiders might represent an opportunity for us, if we are bold.”
“Princess Celestia knew that Nightmare Moon would soon return. That’s adversity. She sent her student, Twilight Sparkle, off to deal with it. Thus, Twilight became an asset. Your assertion rings true, Sundance. While you might not be the smartest pony, you are wise. Your rulership shows evidence of that.”
“Why, thank you, Paradox.”
“Don’t mention it. It is written in my job description as your court wizard that I should be encouraging, without resorting to hollow, meaningless flattery. This seemed like a good time to try it out.”
The peals of far-off cannonballs and mortar blasts of thunder crackled.
“Doom weavers are ambush spiders. They creep into a location under the cover of darkness, secure themselves a location where prey are bound to be, and then wait. The issue, as I see it, is that we don’t have a night watch. I’m going to try an alarm spell. In the past, I was able to cast small ones, like on the door to my room to keep out snoopers, but we’re going to need big ones, with broad detection radii. I’ll give it my best.”
“You’re smart, Paradox. You’ll find a solution, of this I am certain.”
“Uh, thank you, Sundance.”
“Don’t mention it.” He saw her smile, and his heart warmed considerably.
“I have a duty to these ponies,” she said to him rather haltingly. “Princess Celestia charged me with keeping them safe. Keeping you safe as well. It’s weird, because I’ve spent most of life not feeling safe. Not at all. Now that I think about it, this is probably Princess Celestia trying to turn adversity into an asset.”
“Probably.” Sundance found himself inclined to agree.
“What if a pony spent a thousand years teaching themselves how to turn every conceivable weakness into a strength of some sort?” asked Paradox.
Good question. Sundance did not respond, but watched the embattled horizon far to the south. Paradox also showed signs that she could be an excellent ruler, that she could be a reasonable, rational figure of authority. From the corner of his eye, he watched as her ears twitched and bounced with every explosion of thunder.
“We’re not like other ponies,” she said, sharing her thoughts with Sundance. “We have these thoughts… these realisations. There are these moments of spectacular insight, and then we strive to apply these to ourselves. That sets us apart, Sundance. I knew from an early age that I wasn’t like the others. But then I went to school… and in Princess Celestia’s school, I met others just like me. Blew my mind. I… well, I observed that ponies tend to come in two distinct varieties.
“Makes me feel awful to say it, but most ponies are content to let others do the thinking for them. They just go about their business and they would never think about if Princess Celestia spent a thousand years learning how to exploit her mistakes as advantages. And then there are ponies like myself… like you… we’re not like the others. Is it because we’re born to rule? I’m not sure I believe that.
“What I do believe is that we might be mistakes. Some sort of fault in herd-think. But by placing us in charge, Princess Celestia might have found a solution that keeps both types of ponies happy. There has to be a place for us, Sundance. Surely you’ve felt like a stranger in a crowd.”
Before he could respond, Paradox had even more to say.
“We are a mistake, Sundance. There can be no doubt of that. We’re not just mindlessly happy like the others. We’re not content with mere purpose. You and I, we require meaning. In doing so, others take offense to us. We’re called dreamers, or seen as pretentious, snooty ponies. Our intellectualism and compulsion to find deeper meaning just annoys those who are content with the simple pleasures of life. We’re accused of overcomplicating things, overthinking things, and we’re lectured by the others that we’d be so much happier if we just didn’t have our thinking problem.
“But, if we’re put in charge, it keeps us so busy that we don’t have to overthink our own lives. Gives us something to do. I don’t know about you, but I feel so much better now that I have a higher purpose. There’s just no time to obsess over my own troubles. Princess Celestia was right to send me here, even if I wasn’t wholly sold on the idea.”
Sundance thought of his mother, who often told him to turn off his brain for a while. Give it a rest. Sometimes, his overthinking annoyed her. As for his father, Sundance’s father kept quiet mostly. He said very little. But when Sundance had himself a moment just like the one that Paradox had right now, his father would slip away in silence and make himself scarce.
It bothered him somewhat that Paradox might actually have a point.
While her words lingered in this thoughts—perhaps too much so—his continued fascination with what she said didn’t mean that she was right. It just meant that what she said hit a little too close to home. Being sentenced to servitude was certainly one way to quiet down a chattery mind, at least in theory, though Sundance found that his mind had far more to say now that he was responsible for the lives of others.
The storm crept along the sloped, wind-swept meadows and drew ever-closer.
Paradox seemed lost in thought now. Perhaps she reflected upon her own words, or sought out more to say. Sundance couldn’t tell. Maybe she was fascinated by the storm, just like he was. What could she see from here? His keen eyes allowed him to see incredible detail, but he didn’t know how unicorns saw the world, or earth ponies for that matter. While both he and Paradox were ponies, miniscule equines of diminutive stature, there were physical differences between them.
A shout of alarm was heard, then another, and a third loud cry echoed up from the inside of the secured box canyon. Sundance reacted without thought, his head darted around to look for danger, his eyes going every which way. Another spider? A quick examination of the ground revealed nothing, and a fourth holler made his guts go tense. Just when it seemed that danger was elusive, he looked up—and that is when he saw the cause for alarm. Right above the waterfall, a hulking behemoth tumbled through the troubled sky.
It only took him a fraction of a second to identify what it was, and it was her! The strange night terror mare he met during target practice. Only, there was something wrong. He could see it from where he stood. Her wings? Almost shredded. How was she even flying at all? Scarlet rain trickled from her body as she thrashed through the air. Though she valiantly struggled to remain airborne, this was a battle she could not win, and she seemed to be on a crash-course for the water tower above Corduroy’s infirmary.
Suddenly, Sundance was in the air without even a single thought about it. Action taken with his body was swift and sure—he didn’t have to think, only do. A crowd had gathered down below, and from their cries Sundance gathered that they saw something quite different than he did. The bloodied nightmare plummeted drastically and Sundance swooped in, only to realise that he couldn’t save her. She was huge, solid, and in an uncontrolled deadfall.
If she continued on course, she would wipe out the water tower, and maybe damage the infirmary below the water tower. When he drew near—all of this happening in mere fractions of slivered seconds—he reached for her with both front legs. He couldn’t stop the crash, but he could change the outcome. She was solid, sturdy, a creature of legendary toughness. She might survive a crash into the water tower, but the water tower might not.
Wings flapping full force, he slammed into her, and it was as though he struck a brick wall. Immediately, he was wet with hot blood as he got one foreleg around her neck, and the other hooked beneath her left wing. Rough, sharp things poked him, tore at his skin, and in the places where these sharp prickles pierced him, he went numb right away. His wings clawed at the aether, trying to find traction, and he felt his butthole pucker tight from strain as it clenched tight to prevent his insides from squirting out. He felt woozy, weak, and his strength seemed to be fading fast. Why?
It didn’t matter why.
He pulled.
The both of them cleared the water tower with mere inches to spare, but the infirmary was still down below. Sundance tried to flap his wings, but for reasons unknown they didn’t want to move. Numbing tingles spread through his limbs, all six of them, and he was sapped of his remaining strength. He saw how close the roof was—too close for comfort, and when he knew that they would hit it, he made a rough choice. In a somewhat controlled tumble, he pushed the strange mare away and then he took the glancing blow, knowing that his body posed no real danger to the infirmary’s roof in the way that her’s might.
It knocked the wind out of him and prevented further injury to the stranger.
An eyeblink later, the ground greeted them both, but Sundance first. Most of the night terror landed atop him, and for the second time he feared that his innards might go squirting out of his hindquarters. She was a wet, heavy heap, drenched in blood. More prickly things, little stabby thorns perhaps, pierced his skin. The numbness spread rapidly and Sundance could no longer feel his hooves. He felt nauseous, queasy, and knew he would soon be sick.
Something was wrong, but he didn’t know what.