//------------------------------// // Abhorrent // Story: Daily Equestria Life With Monster Girl // by Estee //------------------------------// There had always been books, and there had almost never been a choice. Cerea's herd had possessed its share of writers. It was possible to arrange for the arrival of ink and paper (because while centaurs knew how to create both, doing so in quantity would deplete the gap's resources), and so new stories sometimes emerged from within. But it hadn't taken long for her to perceive the underlying twinned-yet-opposing themes which permeated nearly every syllable of centaur literature. There were tales of honor and adhering to a personal code no matter what the cost, compliance and looking out for the herd before considering the needs of an individual (if that actually became a concern at all), and every last bit of it would be saturated with what the filly could only perceive as claustrophobia. That was the better option. The ones who had retreated into claustrophilia, who saw making multiple species spend their generational existence within the gaps as the best of all possible worlds... that made her want to kick both books and authors across the room. (Some of those had spoken up at the first meetings. A number were still talking, and the only word for so many was 'Stop.') So for the most part, it was books from the human world, because smuggling those into the gap could actually be marginally easier than getting the publications which had been created by other liminals. And for the most part, those had arrived in bulk shipments: bookstores dumping supply upon going out of business, library remaindered sales, publishers tearing off the covers of last printings and tossing the results into dumpsters. (That last always arrived as a fresh wound to Cerea's soul, because someone who was always so careful with stories hated to see one hurt -- but at least it was a new story.) And the leaders of the herd had some degree of hard-won access to the Internet (cellular data from burner phones where the connections were always dropping out, because having a signal repeater too close was a risk which couldn't be endured and trying to get anything else would chance revealing all), but the creation of an online credit account... you needed someone on the outside who could buy gift cards to create a waiting balance, it was almost impossible to set up anything with a bank, and it all meant that ordering a title directly usually didn't happen. You took potluck, when the crates came in. It was all too common to get fifty copies of the same novel, which at least meant there was enough for anyone who was interested. Just about as frequently, there would be a multi-part publication and the herd would find itself in custody of Books 1, 2, 4, and 5: the third, sixth, and seventh were scheduled to arrive on the Twelfth Of Never, and so a certain young wizard hadn't so much escaped Cerea's notice as been put on permanent hold. Or it would be cookbooks, useless cookbooks for cuisines which would never reach her, atlases for the lands she could never see... On a truly good day, you might get a tourism guide. Glossy pages four decades old meant Cerea had been to Sicily a hundred times, had in fact tried for it as her second choice of exchange student destination. (The first had been the United Kingdom, because knights -- and then everything had gone wrong.) In dream, she had taken rowboats through the beauty of the grottos, while being completely unsure as to how a centaur was supposed to sit in a human rowboat. She loved the little island, did so without ever having stepped upon its soil, and usually finished a reread of the book through crying herself to sleep. But once -- just once... Six books. All six, which meant the series had arrived complete and whole. An adventure, and a rather strange one for the formatting, because it was the creation of a group. There were four authors. They were working with the blessing of a fifth, who had asked them to create something in the spirit of his writings. And they did not create as a mosaic, with each laying down a few verbal tiles within a carefully-edited whole. Instead, one wrote the first book, then passed it off to the next. Two wrote a book each, another composed an internal pairing, and the one who had the first also created the last. Cerea had been the only one interested in such an odd concept. But there was a dungeon which was the size of a world (several worlds, with gates leading between them), and the main character felt very much like a knight. He gathered companions who were strange, yet loyal and true. There was an adventure, it was complete and whole and she could be there from first page to last and it was -- -- bad. Some of the individual books worked. The fourth was especially good. But the authors hadn't created a master plan. Each simply passed their volume off to the next writer, and the typical result was the literary equivalent of giving someone careful directions on how to reach a destination and watching them merrily nod, followed by galloping off in the exact opposite direction. They did what they wished, under no guidance or directive to respect each other, and the one who'd written the first had carefully gathered up everything from the intermediary volumes just before starting into the last, because it was that much more fuel for the bonfire which destroyed everything she'd been trying to care about. By the time the last page was turned (because there was a certain morbid fascination which wanted to finish through bottoming out), she hated all of it. The ending hadn't ruined everything (although to be fair, it had tried): it was the lack of cooperation which had killed the series. Cerea had flipped the books around on the shelves so that she would look at page edges instead of spine, done her best to never think about them again... ...except for the art. She had invisibly trotted at the side of the explorer, been with him through it all, and felt those who'd created his journey should have given him more respect. She had also watched him sketch. Perhaps that was what had given her the choice for what she ultimately pursued as an artistic skill. For he did not know if he could bring anything back from the dungeon to his home (much less if that home could be reached again) -- but he had possessed two vital resources: something to draw with, something to draw on. And so at the back of each book, Cerea had found the sketches. Capturing the things he saw along the way, and it was sometimes surprising to see how different they appeared when compared to the visions which words had evoked within. Ultimately, those words, jumbled and tossed between the egos of four -- those failed her. But the sketches had a unity to them, something which made Sir Folliot (she had privately granted him a 'Sir') a little more real... She didn't know if she would ever go home. (She didn't want to think about it. So much of her current activity had been created in the name of not thinking.) But if she did -- what would she take with her? She doubted she would be allowed to carry much in the way of souvenirs. The disc wasn't hers, and it was possible that any other enchantments she might find would only work here. Without a truly stable passage, she would never ask a pony to risk coming with her, and... any stay beyond just long enough to say Cerea was telling the truth felt like a truly bad idea. Things from this world might stay with it. But if she could bring back anything... Cerea, hating that she was imposing, asking for anything when her mere presence was already doing so much (and the white Princess had told her that none had died, she didn't know if she believed it), but also in a position where she couldn't exactly go shopping any time soon and that had the benefit of being completely familiar -- had asked for a sketchbook and art supplies. Because if nothing else, she could draw the things around her, the practice might help what she still felt were meager skills, and... well, she could have asked for a camera, but sketches could be made after the fact. Additionally, a lifetime of listening to worried talk about digital composition told her that such pictures were too easy to fake. (She hadn't mentally adjusted for film.) Besides, the sketchbook was probably cheaper. She'd been drawing for hours, interrupted only by delivered meals, because it was something to do. Because at the moment she stopped, she would start thinking about suicides and fear and failure, she was going to fail, she'd been offered a chance which she didn't deserve, there were going to be consequences for that failure and -- -- she dipped the quill again, tried to focus on the curving lines -- -- that's better. It looks like her now. That little bit of extra shading around the eyes had done the trick. Hours spent in sketching, because it felt like something which could keep thought away. There had even been precious minutes where that had held true. But the drawings themselves... She went back to the first one she'd attempted. It needed more work. She'd been trying to get it right for hours, and -- -- the familiar scent reached her, and she carefully put the quill aside, closing the sketchbook before reaching towards the disc. The wire touched her ear just in time. "Um. I'm... um. Are you busy? Because there's some things we have to do tonight. Moon was just raised, and Princess Luna just told me to start doing some things with you. Not the usual things. Things about getting ready for training. And -- just getting out of this cell. Um. Can I come in?" The little knight sounded more awkward than usual and with Nightwatch, any verbal increase represented a pretty significant upgrade. "Yes." It wasn't as if she could really deny entrance to the cell. The door opened. "Okay. Oh." Black wings twitched, brushing the edge of carefully-worn saddlebags as they did so: Cerea spotted a bulge at the forward corner of the right one. "Good. You're dressed. Because you like being dressed, and..." The tail seemed to be on the verge of wringing itself. "Um... what were you doing?" "Sketching," Cerea explained. The blush didn't rise. "I just thought... it would be nice to make a record. Some of the things I've seen." The silver eyes brightened. "Did you draw me?" "No." And before the dimming could set in, "Not yet. There were some other things I wanted to..." Her head dipped, and the unfamiliar weight of the long braid shifted along her upper back. "I'm probably going to be here for..." Cerea forced the breath to slow, desperately hoped that whatever the dark Princess wanted wouldn't involve going outside. "...a while. There's time to draw everyo --" She stopped. "-- everypony." It was just a word. A silly little twist of language. It wasn't supposed to hurt. "So I just..." Gently, "Can I see?" She nodded, because it was easier than talking. The pegasus trotted closer, then jumped up to the mattress. "It's easier to look from here," Nightwatch explained, reorienting to a position which would let her peer in from the right. "And hovering around books doesn't help the pages. What did you draw?" Cerea silently turned to the thick book's second page. Nightwatch stared. "I know it's not very good," the girl quietly admitted. "I need to practice --" "-- is that your house?" She felt herself smile. "Sort of. It belongs to my host family in Japan." A tiny shrug shifted the fabric of the most recent sweater: soft yellow, and still fuzzy. "We all lived there." "How many people were in the family?" the pegasus asked. "It looks big..." The centaur blinked. "I'm not sure." "Um. What?" He didn't talk about himself much. He usually talked about what was going on with us. The things we'd done. We never stopped giving him things to talk about. But when it came to his own life, he just... ...I lived in that house for months. I went through everything with them. With him. I barely know... "It was just one human," she quietly said. "He told me once that it was his parents' house, but they were in another country for their job. It was hard to contact them, but they knew he was hosting us, and... they didn't mind. They just wanted the changes reverted after we moved out." "Changes," the little knight carefully said. "Hooves and human floors..." Cerea winced. "It was felt glued to my hooves or carpets. The carpets were easier. And that was the least of it. The renovations had to reroute a lot of underground power lines to make enough space for Mero to swim." I know he lived there with his parents. Did I ever see a picture of them? There were some framed photographs of adults, but there was more than just two humans in them. There were so many bedrooms. Did he have siblings? Younger ones who traveled with them? Older ones that had moved out? "Indoor swimming," Nightwatch tried -- then smiled. "Is Mero a seapony?" Another blink. They have... "No. She's --" "-- it's a joke," the pegasus cut in. "Seaponies don't exist. It's just an old story. Um. Lots of old stories, but they're all just stories." Silver eyes squinted a little. "You can tell a lot about someone, looking at their house. That one looks friendly. Welcoming." She paused. "And like it's owned by someone with hands, because there's a doorknob and that's really awkward to put in your mouth. Levers are easier." "He was... nice," Cerea confirmed. It was the most she would allow herself to say. "So what else did you draw?" She turned the page. Nightwatch's stare immediately intensified, and did so at the same rate as the pony's visibly rising nausea. "Um... wings don't -- they don't go there..." Cerea quickly flipped the book closed -- "-- no," the little knight said. "Please. Um. Just... open it again. I just didn't -- I didn't expect..." Feathers awkwardly rustled. "Please?" She thinks I'm a monster. It was, in some ways, unfair. When in Cerea's presence, Nightwatch had less fear than just about anypony, and there were ways in which the centaur wanted to think of the pegasus as a -- -- I scare her. Still. Because among so many other things, Cerea represented a warping of the familiar, and that was true for all of the little horses. But for a pegasus, there was another distortion available. "Are you sure?" Shoulders and hips squared. "Yes. Please?" Cerea reopened the book. Silver eyes looked. "What's her name? Um. His name? Because there really aren't any --" The girl understood: the pegasus only knew one way to identify a liminal female and with this particular species, that qualification was universally minimal. "Her. Papi. She's..." It was the first time she'd really thought about it. Earth ponies, viewed as an average across the relatively small sample Cerea had seen, were the tallest and most muscular. By contrast, unicorns were frequently the shortest ponies -- but there were exceptions among both limited populations. And when it came to pegasi -- "...sort of like you," Cerea finished. "Sleek. Flying means she doesn't carry any more weight than she has to. But she's stronger than she looks. She can stay in the air while there's an adult human in her talons, at least for a while."' "Um. Is she nice?" There was a moment when she wanted to laugh. "She's... not easy to get used to. She's enthusiastic, for starters. She wants to do everything, she wants to do it quickly, she wants to do it now and then if she can't do something else, she wants to do it all over again. And she doesn't understand why everyone else doesn't feel the same way, or can't keep up. And she has to eat more often than the rest of us, so she sees our food as something that we've just been holding until she needs it. When she plays, she has more fun than anyone. If she's tired, she's tired enough for three. Her body is small, but everything else about her is just -- more. She's..." Her words seemed to be running at the same quality level as her sketches. "...hard to put up with," Cerea finished. "But she's easy to love." "Did you love her?" The strangest thing about the words was that for Nightwatch, there was nothing strange about them at all. The disc had rendered them as a perfectly standard vocalization, with nothing more implied by the intonation than a simple question. If I said I loved Papi, she would see that as normal. Pegasi don't just marry pegasi, if there's marriages at all. They marry unicorns and earth ponies. Maybe griffons and donkeys, and even yaks. And mares unite with mares, which means stallions can be with stallions... Homosexuality was rarely seen in Cerea's herd, and was never welcome. It was understood that there was a time when adolescent fillies might spend happy hours together, because it was so much better than trying to deal with the crudeness of colts. That was tolerated, because every adult mare had been through those years. But when the breeding population was so small, and just trying to arrange for children required -- don't think about it -- special effort... If you were an adult mare who was capable of breeding, then you needed to find someone you could breed with. That was practicality. It was what the herd required. Love was for adolescents, and Cerea -- -- I didn't even have -- "Are you okay?" Blue eyes blinked. "Sorry?" Worried, with feathers rustling to suit as the scent of concern filled the cell. "You went quiet. Um. For a little while. I didn't know if I said something wrong..." "Like a sister," Cerea quietly said. "I loved her like she was my little sister. I think we all did." One more breath. "Princess Luna gave you an order. We should start following it." She closed the book. A book which was supposed to be reserved for all the things she might see. A book which was currently hosting those she might never see again. The little knight was leading her through a new section of the palace. They were still moving on the lower levels: Cerea hadn't seen a window yet. But they'd left the cells, and stone walls shifted into marble. "Um," Nightwatch awkwardly began, trotting about two meters ahead. "This is... um. The palace is old. Really old. Old enough that..." Paused, glanced back and up with that familiar neck angle. "Do you know what sieges are?" Cerea nodded. "It's old enough," she carefully said, "that it has to be its own city." Silver eyes widened. "Yes. How did you know?" Because that was in the best stories. When a war reached the point where it was at the king's gates -- or in this case, the Princesses' -- those inside had to be capable of fighting back, waiting it out, and finding ways to keep going. A truly superior castle design would have huge storehouses of food (although given the state of storage science when they had been built, that mostly meant smoked meats), and a few would even find room for growing crops: if nothing else, mushrooms could usually be kept going underground (and Cerea was now starting to understand what having earth ponies might mean there). You needed stables -- well, you didn't need them here -- and a place to store all the tack -- possibly the same... A siege was frequently about starving out those within, or making things so untenable as to force evacuation. So there were ways in which a castle needed to be a city, because hidden supply tunnels didn't always stay hidden. The more functions you could cram into the structure, the longer you could survive. Magic could only help -- but then, magic might be attacking... "It's just how the best ones are built," Cerea carefully replied. "You have everything you need to get through the siege. The enemy has to bring in their supplies --" although if they were at the gates, they could be presumed to have captured some of yours "-- and you can still make a few of your own from within. So this is one of the parts which was made to help with sieges?" The pegasus nodded, then began to trot again. "The Princess wants you out of the cells. Because you're in training now --" I won't get through. I can't. "-- and you shouldn't be in a cell. Not when you work here -- oh." She stopped again: Cerea pulled up just in time. "I forgot. I was supposed to..." Her head turned again, looking back along her own body. Teeth carefully nipped at the right saddlebag's lid, and a wing nudged the contents up from below -- -- the fist-sized cloth bag was casually head-tossed, and Cerea's right hand smoothly intercepted the surprising weight as the contents jingled to an internal stop. That sounded like -- "It's your pay," Nightwatch apologetically said. "Um. I'm sorry I forgot..." But she was already fumbling with the drawstring. "Pay?" Because exchange students barely had money (with the exceptions of Mero and Rachnera: the former had access to her family's account and it was generally best not to ask where the arachne got anything, just in case she decided to tell you), Cerea hadn't been able to get a job, she had been a constant drain on her host's finances and for someone to just give her actual money... "Yes," the little knight continued. "It's paid training. It always has been, because it takes a while and you sort of need to live while you're waiting to find out if you get in. Um. The Princess said she backdated it to when we went into the wild zone, because that was your first time fighting for the palace. And language classes count as training. So..." Golden coins were being poured into her palm, and their weight suggested the actual metal was still involved. Silver... "Those are new," Nightwatch added. "The silver ones. I mean, it's all new to you, but we just got the silver ones back. Um. I have some of the first ones. The real first ones..." Her tail twitched. "...it's a long story. Anyway, the silver ones are for Princess Luna. You can see her head embossed on the front. But they have the same value as the bits." "Bits," Cerea carefully repeated, because her head was still spinning. She had money -- "could set off a reaction" -- which she couldn't spend. "That's what they're called, when they're all together. But now the gold ones are -- oh, I hope this translates... sols. The silver are lunes. That's how they used to be, and now it's how they are again. And we'll work on numbers, so you don't give anypony too much or too little. But you're a Guard in training, so you get paid like one. It's just that..." The pegasus swallowed. "...you'd usually be spending on things like rent and food. And the Princess said -- that until it's safe to send you out -- you should live..." There was one definitive way to improve the look of the primary room, and Cerea had thought of it instantly. "Um," Nightwatch said from her lower right, which pretty much seemed to sum everything up. It was a very large space. It had clearly been designed to host at least twenty ponies, and so someone had decided that amount of space was equally suitable to storing several dozen pieces of furniture: depending on the size, this had been done either on, around, or under the ancient beds. There were also filing cabinets, all of which had their drawers hanging open and empty. Broken pieces of columns were strewn near the entrance: those seemed to be the most recent additions, and the closest one was partially covered in fossilized icing. There were a few books. Some of them had been tucked halfway under musty mattresses, and were doing a slightly lesser job of escaping than the ticking. The back of the room currently served as a practice area for siege survival, and the debris had been stacked into barricades accordingly. There was lighting in the ceiling. Some of it glowed. Portions flashed. A few buzzed. The one directly over Cerea's head was pursuing a life of ambition and had decided to do it all. It was possible to mark the population of the area as a rather temporary two. It was also potentially possible to bring that up to around two million, but Cerea had already decided the attempt was pointless: the dust bunnies were going to breed faster than anyone could count. "Guards go home at the end of the day," the little knight frantically apologized, each word emerging a little faster than the one before. "We haven't had a siege in more than a century. Nopony's needed the barracks..." There was one definitive way to improve the look of the primary room, and a complete lack of fire. "I can clean it out," Cerea quietly said. "It'll just take a while." And someone would need to supervise the process, as there might be something within which, in spite of all visual evidence, shouldn't be thrown away -- plus she couldn't take any of the garbage outside. "She probably hasn't been down here in -- a long time. But she just wanted to give you a place to sleep! Um. And wash up. There's supposed to be a restroom off to the right. With a group bath. Behind that -- that... the thing. The stone thing with the wood in it -- oh." "Sorry?" "I just figured out where that one piece of yak art wound up. They don't do very well when they try to get rid of art. Anyway, we can move it. With some help. And then you can take a bath. Um. Maybe not with a group." Silver eyes frantically took a census of the debris, only stopping at the point where some of the long-term residents became capable of applying for retirement benefits. "Oh, where are you going to sleep? Maybe we should just go back to the cells --" "It's all right," Cerea carefully told the little knight, because it wasn't. "I can clear enough to sleep. It has to be done sometime." "...you're sure?" It was horrible in the barracks. It would be hours of back-breaking work, and that meant something extra when a centaur said it. But it wasn't a cell. "I'm sure," the girl stated. Weakly, "Oh. Okay. But we'll need unicorns to fix the lighting. And probably somepony to check the plumbing. So there's..." The pegasus swallowed. "So there's a little more to show you..." Another new path. Cerea wondered how long it would take before it become an old one. Until every hallway was memorized, and she still couldn't get out -- "-- so we're going to one of the Solar kitchens," Nightwatch explained. "Anypony who works in the castle can eat there. It gives the cooks more to do than just serving the Princesses. You can always ask somepony to make something for you, and the raw bar never closes. But you usually can't make something for yourself without asking the chef first, because some of the cooks get really touchy about anyone using their equipment." "Raw bar?" Nightwatch had said eating meat made ponies sick, and now they were talking about oysters -- "Raw vegetables." "...oh." Nightwatch shuddered. "Unless it's Sizzler putting a special one together for a few of the ambassadors." More quickly, "Don't ask." Who? "I don't --" "-- don't ask. Anyway, I'll show you the Solar kitchen first. Then a Lunar one. You need to know how to reach both from the barracks, because we don't know what your training hours are going to be. And then we're supposed to meet somepony. Um. I don't know who. The Princess just said it was for the training. And that we might be met first. So we go down that next turn..." Cerea looked. Hesitated. "We go towards the glow?" Because what was streaming from the indicated turn had lit the marble with the sort of fierce deep red which normally set off messages of Stay Away in so many liminal minds. It was something very much like the color of luminescent blood. "Oh. Um. Yes. Actually, you need to know where that is too..." The glowing red metal door was extremely large. It had to be, just to accommodate the sheer number of locks. "That's the armory," Nightwatch carefully said. "You'll probably go in there eventually. But... not with the sword. It's too risky. And the spells aren't attuned to you yet anyway. I can take someone in, but... it sets off a signal on the upper levels. Just in case anyone ever made me take them in. And since you don't know how anything works, and we don't know how much of it would work for you..." She wasn't clumsy. But she also didn't know how crowded the armory was, and being around a concentration of magic you didn't know how to use felt like a pretty strong synonym for 'disaster'. "I understand." She looked at the runes of the pony alphabet which were worked into the arch of the door frame, and guessed (as it eventually turned out, rather accurately) the translation to be something like Don't Be Stupid. "So what's that door?" Nightwatch automatically looked to where Cerea's right arm was pointing, because arms were useful for that sort of thing and Ms. Manners could (Cerea's mind managed to censor most of it) hopefully figure that out eventually. "The open one? That's the repair shop. Because when you have this many devices and wonders, you need to be able to maintain them. Fix a few if they get damaged. So the palace has a specialist on the staff." With what Cerea now recognized as a small frown, "But the Princesses have been sending some of the oldest pieces to Ponyville. I don't know why..." Which was followed by a full-body shake, and a tiny shrug. "Anyway, that's safe enough, at least for looking. Although there's some things you can't touch." They moved carefully, with Cerea maintaining a set distance between them. (It wasn't trying to give Nightwatch some space -- well, it was partially that. But there was a rather extreme difference in their heights, and trying to look at the pegasus on floor level when they were too close together usually left Cerea staring at some degree of pony back and rather a lot of centaur bustline.) "Because it's enchanted?" "Because it's part of how they're fixed." The little knight reached the doorway first, arced a wing. "Like that one." Cerea looked. Her first thought was that in some ways, every repair shop was exactly the same: you had tools hanging on wall hooks, and you didn't know what most of them were for. In this case, some of them ended not in handles, but in what she eventually interpreted as jaw grips. Other, finer pieces lacked those, and she decided they were meant to be moved by a unicorn's horn light: this struck her as being mildly discriminatory. There were modified horseshoes, at least in the sense that they had been made to slip on over a hoof: some of those had tools jutting out of the forward end. Parts were scattered across shelves: twisted pieces of mostly-precious metals, along with what seemed to be a few partial housings. The few portions of wall not covered by shelves were coated with incomprehensible diagrams: the same applied to the whole of the ceiling. There was very little wood, a rack filled with vials of what her nose told her were some very rare oils, and multiple spools of both copper and silver wire. On the whole, it looked like a jumble. It also looked like the sort of jumble where the person who'd created it knew where everything was, and the fact that no one else could figure it out just created job security. "There's also a blacksmith shop on this level," Nightwatch quietly told her. "For repairing armor, and making new pieces." Cerea immediately looked at her. Then she backed up enough to get a proper sight line. "There's a smithy?" "Um. I just said that." I can -- -- except for the fact that all the tools would be designed for pony use: something which was already begging any number of structural questions. But even so... "I'd like to see it," Cerea carefully requested. "Sometime." But there was something else Nightwatch had wanted to show her. "I'm sorry. I didn't see what you were trying to --" The wing arced again, and Cerea looked at the indicated shelf. Another spool, and a much smaller one. It mostly stood out due to isolation: the rest of the workshop was crowded, with just about every square centimeter in use -- but the spool had been given some space to itself. About two handwidths, and that was something which stretched out in all directions. "It's treated," Nightwatch quietly said. "So it's okay to be near it. But you shouldn't ever touch it, because it's not part of anything yet, and that means it's still dangerous. If you touched it --" Cerea was still looking at the wire. On the surface, it resembled the silver -- but it had been drawn even finer, to just about the width of a hair. And it was brighter, had more shine to it, reflected beautifully to the eye... "It's just platinum," she steadily observed. "Why is that dangerous?" The ponies seemed to treat two of the major precious metals fairly casually, which suggested some things about the local mining. It was possible that platinum was more scarce, but to call it dangerous -- Instantly, wings flaring and flapping in order to say it directly to Cerea's face, "Are you kidding? If you even touch that, it'll --" And stopped in mid-hover, with the black jaw hanging open. "...it can't hurt you," fell out on a tide of wonder. "It... it really can't, can it? It can't hurt you..." She looked at the spool. Went back to the pegasus, and then resorted to the phrase which served as a one-size-fits-all. "I don't understand." "You can touch it," the amazed voice told her. "Just... carefully. Not because it'll hurt you. It can't. But because you have to put it back exactly where it was." She moved aside and Cerea, locked in the perpetual pony proximity state of having no idea what was going on (while still trusting the little knight that there was no danger), carefully moved into the room. But she still had the coin bag, and the skirt she was wearing didn't have pockets. There was a chance she might wind up needing both hands... She doesn't think about it. She can't. It's not something she knows to think about. After a few seconds, she let go of the sweater's neckline, fought back the last of the blush as her next breath produced a slight jingle, then stretched out her right arm and picked up the spool. Nothing happened. It was platinum wire, drawn so fine that to run her fingers sharply across it might risk a cut. But that was all it was. Somewhere behind her, Nightwatch breathed. Did so as if breath was all there was. "What do you feel?" the little knight carefully asked. "Anything?" There was only one answer for that. "Normal --" -- wait. When I took back the sword in the forest... She didn't set the spool down. Not yet. "What does it do?" Which got her a completely factual statement, perfectly balanced between awe and fear. "It absorbs magic." Cerea's head turned just enough to allow the stare. "It's... how you make self-charging devices. And wonders. And -- everything," the pegasus quietly said. "It pulls magic out of the air, and then that power goes to the enchantments. There's some in your translator, near the core. Because there has to be. Without it... you need recharges. There's unicorns who can provide energy/power/thaums for a device, and I'm good enough to boost a wonder. But the charges always run out, when you don't have platinum. So you have to keep powering things up again, and some ponies make a living that way. Providing fresh charges, when the owner can't." "So why not use it all the time?" the centaur carefully asked. "It's too rare?" "It's... sort of rare." The pegasus swallowed. "Nopony's ever found any really big deposits. Just... craters. With platinum around the fringe." "Craters." She felt like she was on the verge of the answer -- "...it absorbs magic. Constantly, from everything -- unless you know how to tell it not to, and that's really hard to do. And risky. So someone can wear the translator, and the platinum won't absorb from them. Just the air. And any thaums it takes in go to the spells. But when you get a lot of platinum in one place, and it's not treated..." The next gulp mostly brought down air. "...it just keeps pulling in power. Small pieces can leak a little, unless they're stabilized. Big chunks... they're more stable. They hold the magic. And when it can't hold any more, when there's nowhere for the power to go..." Nightwatch shivered. "...you get a crater." Cerea slowly, carefully put the spool back. Exactly where it had been, and did so in a way which never brought it close to the little knight. "But you're safe," Nightwatch said. "You're... you can touch half-treated platinum, or maybe even the raw stuff. Whenever you want to. That's... that just feels strange to think about. That there's someone in the world who doesn't have to be scared..." She flew a short distance down the hall, landed again. Cerea cautiously exited the workshop. Prospector. When she failed as a Guard, it could give her a backup profession. One where she would have to keep going into new areas, constantly encountering ponies who were terrified of her and risking more mob attacks -- but it had to pay something. "You really feel normal?" the Guard checked. I don't know how to get home. The Princesses think I can guard them. When I couldn't even guard him. I shouldn't be here... 'Normal' was a rather shaky term. "Yes," Cerea lied. "Are you hungry?" She made sure the smile didn't show her teeth. "Yes." Just about all of the chefs had left the kitchen, leaving a single blood-red specimen (a unicorn stallion, with an oddly-liquid quality to his coat) peering out from behind the edge of a counter. "...sorry," Nightwatch weakly offered. For the rest of my life. "At least it wasn't a stampede," the little knight said. (She'd taken very little for herself and in any case, Cerea just needed more time to eat.) "They just thought it would be easier. Outside. And..." She sighed. "...I'm sorry." "It's all right," Cerea said, because it still wasn't. "How does that taste?" came across as a valiant attempt to change the subject. Like all of the other produce. Like something's missing. She took another cherry tomato, carefully chewed and swallowed. "It's good." With open pride, "It's grown by the most talented earth ponies. All of it." Maybe magic has an aftertaste. Or it was filling in for something. Something which was supposed to be there. And what little she'd found in the forest had been normal... It almost sparked a new concern. But she'd been on palace food for a while. She would know if she had been suffering a nutritional deficit, especially given the sheer quantities she needed to consume. It was just... an absence. "I think somepony's coming back," Nightwatch said. "I can hear hoofsteps." Cerea put down the carrot and, with the crunching noises banished, picked up on the little echoes. Someone was definitely on the approach: hooves landing with purpose, every echo produced by intent. "Maybe that's the pony we're supposed to meet," the Guard added. "About the training." Wings half-unfolded, tucked back in again. "Um. I was thinking about that. A... lot of ponies were. Because you have to be trained, and... I guess there's a chance the Princesses might do some of it? Except that they don't normally. Even if Princess Luna already had you out at the track to check your ground time and --" The pegasus' hind legs collapsed, leaving the tail splayed all over the floor and Cerea automatically turning towards the sound of the half-crash. "-- oh, Moon's craters," the mare half-whispered. "How long was she planning --" Silver eyes just barely came up, looked into shocked blue ones. "But there's a lot more to being a Guard," Nightwatch barely managed to rally. "And you need somepony who can teach you what we all learned. Um. And... you know... because they don't know you, and... I don't know who could..." The hoofsteps were getting close now. Their owner was near enough to be scented: an earth pony stallion, somewhere in the senior years because age had a scent all its own -- but so did health, and this one was in very good shape. "...because most ponies wouldn't be able to -- you know, not immediately, and -- I can't think of anypony." She paused. "Well, nopony active. But that's --" Which was when the forelegs went out. "What's wrong?" Because something was: she might not be able to fully recognize the expression at its current intensity, but she could smell the rising combination of shock and purest horror. "-- no, no, no," the little knight frantically whispered. "He's supposed to be gone! We all turned up at the retirement just to make sure! He can't be, he just can't --" And from behind them in the doorway, at the exact moment when the approaching scent no longer needed to follow the airflow around the corner, came the bellow: something which made hanging pots dance, sent the red stallion racing towards a storage locker while the bravest mare Cerea had seen pressed her forelegs over her own head and tried not to moan. It took exactly two of those syllables to make Cerea's ears attempt full retreat under her hair, plus three more to make her vow that in the name of such future protection, she was never using the braid again. "Greetings, Nightwatch! I am pleased to see that you have retained the absolute minimum degree of instruction required to not be dead! Now I see that I have a potential recruit before me! A recruit who, as the first of her species to reach me, surely has many things to teach an old stallion! In fact, this process has already begun, because until the moment I saw her, I did not know it was possible to stack manure that high! There is a Greeting Stance for your sergeant, trainee, and it is not the one Nightwatch has assumed: that is reserved for graduates! It starts when you turn around and let me see all of what I have to work with, because the view from the back has not been particularly impressive! And it ends when you are found unsuitable, graduate, or quit!" It was just enough of a pause to let three over-vibrated pots crash to the floor. "And Princess Luna feels that you will graduate," the old stallion stated. "So I can only hope that I am here to prove her right! My name is Emery Board, and you will call me Sergeant! Now turn!"