//------------------------------// // Chapter 49: Puppis // Story: Hour of Twilight // by Starscribe //------------------------------// Jamie knew what to expect—she’d given to the Arcanum Well enough times to know that every vision came with a sacrifice. What price could possibly be worth what she would receive in exchange? Suddenly she was on two feet again, her body lengthy and stretched. She’d been living in space for long enough to start to feel it, her limbs lengthened such that that she experienced a few moments of disorientation. How was she supposed to walk around with two legs again? Far off in the corner, an air-recycler hummed with a discordant rattling sound. The air already smelled stale in such a small space, and it was not getting any better. “I got it,” Kari called, rolling off the top bunk from overhead. She drifted down in the 30% gravity, landing delicately on bare feet. Kari was taller than Jamie by almost a full head, her body covered in slowly-healing scars. With her laptop tucked under one arm, her military-ID code was twisted towards her, ink crisply black in contrast to the uneven, jagged red breaking her pale skin. Jamie sat up in bed, settling her game console to the side, watching as Kari clambered up onto a bookshelf with a set of tools. She smacked the filter with the side of a screwdriver, then fiddled around with it for a second. “Aren’t you supposed to turn those off while you’re working?” Kari glanced back to stick her tongue out. The scars had not reached her face, which the military had evidently repaired using a proper Bioforming, right down to eyes of steel silver. “If you’re an idiot, maybe. Just don’t stick metal through the induction coils and don’t stick your hand in. If I do, fleet pays for it. Workplace accident.” She removed the filter a few moments later, tossing it across the room towards Jamie. It was covered in rust around the edges, reusable membrane caked with grime. “You can wash it out this time. I’ll wait here.” Jamie caught it gingerly, wincing at the slime that covered her hands wherever she touched it. She clambered to her feet, without any of the enhanced dexterity of her roommate. She didn’t have fifty-thousand credits of military implants. “Wouldn’t you have to do some work for this to be a workplace injury? Clattering away on that computer doesn’t count.” Kari perched on the bookshelf, stretching out lengthwise so her legs hung over the edge and her head was towards Jamie. “They get me for a decade, they’re gonna wait until the implants they paid me with are nice and healed. What good is an interceptor pilot who unravels into Kevlar and titanium at the first acceleration?” Jamie worked the filter for a few more seconds, running her thumb along it. Under better circumstances, filters would be cycled by machine and washed by machine. But Persephone platform was rationed shoelace thin. It was how she ended up living with a recovering cadet in the first place, instead of alone. “Careful with that bookcase, Kari! Those are my models.” She leaned down over the edge, inspecting them. “Toys. Should’ve picked softer toys if you were gonna live in space.” Even so, she held still enough that nothing fell. Jamie crossed the room towards her, handing back the filter. “Dry this time. I don’t want another short.” Kari touched it against the back of her arm, then stretched back up to work. As usual around her quarters, she wore only the uniform tank-top and boxers, as though she was daring Jamie to complain about her horrific scars. But Jamie never did. Kari was flat and gangly, but pretty enough as far as military officers went. “There!” Kari slammed it closed a few seconds later, before leaping down off the edge to land centimeters in front of Jamie. She wrapped one arm around her shoulder, crouching down slightly and pointing upward. “And…” The filter began to hum—the quiet, steady rhythm of a machine behaving as it should. “Voila! We have a successful repair.” “Repair,” Jamie repeated, pressing up against Kari’s neck with her head. “Robots used to do that.” “Now robots are making people into soldiers,” she answered, reaching down and running one hand through Jamie’s short hair. Despite her incredible implanted strength, Kari had never hurt her by accident, never broken anything in their quarters. She didn’t now. “We have to do the little stuff ourselves. Like dinner. I guess it’s my night.”  She glanced to one side, at the calendar on the wall. It wasn’t even the right year, and most of it wasn’t even filled out. The part that was had “Kari” written on every single day. Their kitchen was a space barely big enough for two people to stand in. In this case, that was an advantage. It meant that Jamie could stay nice and close to Kari and claim she was helping. It had mattered once, even if it didn’t matter so much anymore. Kari dropped down beside the little fridge door, inspecting its contents wearily. She pulled out what was left—some leftover rice, a carrot, an onion, and half a bottle of wine. “Not exactly a lot to work with, is it?” She sighed, inspecting the cupboard next. All this was hers, of course. Nonmilitary citizens were down to nutrient paste now for six meals in seven. Those who volunteered got luxuries like hydroponic veggies. “I think I can manage it,” she said, after a few moments of squinting at the cabinets. “We’ve got enough for stir fry. It’ll be tofu again, but that’s the breaks. And with this much flour, I can do three cookies. Maybe four if they’re tiny.” “Why would those go together?”  Kari took her hand. “Because I like stir-fry, and you like chocolate chip?” She squeezed, then settled a knife into Jamie’s fingers. “Start dicing.” She gestured at the wall, fiddling around until the full-surface screen came to life. It was a political channel, showing the increasingly-tense peace talks between the Pluralist and Monolith factions. But after the bombing of that orphanage last week, there was nobody on the screen who wasn’t screaming. Kari noticed her discomfort and switched on the subtitles instead, though she kept the screen going in the background. Jamie hummed to herself while she worked, though she was helpless without her partner’s instructions. Any time she finished something she had to poke Kari and ask. That was fine—the cadet clearly enjoyed being useful.  Then she got the feeling something wasn’t right. Kari’s perfect dexterity faltered, and she dumped the last of their eggs all over the floor. The screen fuzzed and the screaming pundits all turned to abstract shapes, pressing and rolling over each other. Jamie opened her mouth to ask what was wrong—and suddenly she was on the couch beside Kari, wearing only a blanket. The empty bottle of wine pressed up against her side. Her face still felt hot, and now the confusion was familiar. She would only come to regret it later, when she learned it was their last night together. Instead of staying unconscious for the rest of the night, Kari rolled over with sudden purpose, climbing up onto the edge of the couch. The scars on her torso weren’t nearly as bad. Like her face, she’d apparently warranted better bioforming where it mattered. Most of these scars had already healed to thin red lines. “Kari?” She tilted her head to the side, confused. “You didn’t… shouldn’t… be awake right now.” The cadet shook out her silvery hair, brushing it away from her face. “You are… not… expected,” she said. It was Kari’s voice, but not the way Kari had ever talked before. Like she had to stop to look at a dictionary between every word. “How… you… be an Alicorn?” Jamie felt a fresh wave of nausea, far worse than any of her previous experiences in the Well. Persephone Platform and its many people were a distant dream, all dead or frozen now. But her mind didn’t fracture between a remembered identity and a real one this time—this had all happened. “I never see you again,” Jamie whispered, taking Kari’s hand in both of hers, pulling her back down onto the couch. She wrapped both arms around her, remembering anew what it had felt like to finally have someone who wanted her. “I don’t wanna wake up.” It wasn’t Kari anymore. She didn’t pull Jamie up onto her lap, wasn’t warm and affectionate. Instead her body felt stiff, like a corpse being puppeted by someone miles away. Jamie squirmed out from under her, standing hastily and holding the blanket up against her chest. “W-what’s happening? What happened to Kari?” “Can’t show… you that,” she said, voice wistful and distant. “You’ve come to give memories. All here. Everything you ever knew, everything you forgot. But you don’t know what happened to her. Maybe she was shot down while protecting Persephone. Maybe she froze aboard the Ozymandias, an interstellar mausoleum to last the ages. Or maybe… none of those. Maybe she just rotted away over thousands of years. You wonder, but do not know.” Jamie wrapped the blanket more firmly around her chest, growing hot in anger. At first she was afraid, but now she knew. This was the Arcanum Well—these were memories, not reality. She couldn’t be hurt here.  But this didn’t happen. How can I remember something that isn’t real? Normally, stepping inside was its own kind of death, where her present self watched but could not interfere. Now, though… she remembered. Solar had promised this was the most important memory of all.  “This is what makes me a warrior?” she asked, scrambling for her clothes. If Kari hadn’t thrown them so far… “This is the secret I was meant to see?” “Suppose. Yes?” The speaker was getting more articulate the longer they spoke. Not anything like Kari—her motions were still too forceful, without any of her partner’s gracefulness. But at least it made them easier to understand. “You came to see… stop Twilight. So much pain. No solution… except you? She should’ve listened to me.” You? Jamie squirmed into her jumpsuit, not bothering with anything else. Only back here in these memories could nudity matter again—she’d spent so long not noticing it that she’d almost stopped caring. “That isn’t how it worked before. Every time I came back here I gave up one of my memories in exchange for one of Flurry Heart’s. I was seeing the past of Equestria. Learning to fight. I learned magic from her. Learned some flight from her. So many useful things. I… wanted to know how it ended. How Twilight came back and Equestria turned into a nightmare.” “What does one pony do who watched so many they love die? All they protected… not matter.” Kari advanced on her, steps shaking the deck beneath them. Scars that Jamie had long since seen as part of her suddenly seemed angry red, like the thing inside Kari was going to tear her apart. “I should hate you, Jamie. You are one of them. You want to fight the one who saved Equestria.” Jamie backed up against the far wall, wincing at the impact. There was nowhere else to run.  Kari was a soldier, after all, augmented to survive the incredible conditions of an Interceptor. She could crush Jamie into slime if she wanted. Instead of striking Jamie, the one controlling her plucked a picture frame off the wall. On it, Kari and Jamie had dressed up in Jamie’s makeshift cosplay. Before all extra fabric was requisitioned for the war effort. “Want to hate… but can’t.” She tossed the frame onto the floor at Jamie’s feet. The glass crunched, but didn’t break in the reduced gravity.  “Twilight never wanted to lose anyone else. Tried… so many ways to hold on. Loop in time, formaldehyde in our veins… and frozen in crystal. You came to see how it happened. You will.” The apartment faded around them. First the glass and space outside vanished, leaving only the floor covered with clothes and Kari standing over her, expression distant. “Your last night with her. Mine too.” Star Orchid woke to a sound that she did not understand, echoing through her chest and making her whole body ache. She felt wrung out, like she’d been up casting spells for a week straight, trying to prove herself to the regent again. It wouldn’t be the first time, though she never thought she’d ever have to endure anything quite so awful again.  Then her memory came rushing back. She’d been changed. Her body wasn’t right. Instead of helping Sunset, she’d become part of her scheme. There was no escaping it now.  She sat up, shaking off the blanket. She was already dressed, though no matter how long she wore it Star had a hard time feeling comfortable. If it gets even slightly cold in here, I’m going to freeze. It was a wonder that humanity could survive to vex Equestria as much as they did, with bodies so thin and weak to the elements.  The hospital room wasn’t empty. Sunset paced back and forth against the wall, her arms flailing about wildly beside her to keep balance. Star knew that disorientation well. She still felt the instinct to bend down and crawl, where she would be stable and safe.  The noise came from the other side of the room. She turned, and nearly jumped at the ones she saw there. One she knew—Discord, wearing an ill-fitting human uniform over a jumpsuit that didn’t fit. And a soft yellow pony, with a short pink mane and butterflies as her cutie mark. Strange that someone so young would be here. But Star Orchid had seen many strange things since she left the safety of the court. This was hardly the worst.  “Hey, you’re finally awake,” Discord said. His mismatched limbs moved over the keys of a… piano. It just looked like a slab of plastic and metal, suspended on gangly legs. But it sounded as rich and full as anything in Concord. It was what had startled her. Discord played an alien melody on that instrument, utterly unknown to her. I know the words of every master, and I’ve never heard that. It must be human, then. She balked at the thought—the Devourers were incapable of creating anything unique, weren’t they? All they touched must be destructive, taking love from the world. But just because she’d been taught that didn’t make it true. She was going to have to start processing that. “Is something wrong?” she asked. She reached up with one of the strange human paws, running delicate fingers through her mane. It felt at once softer and more unruly than anything she’d felt on a pony before. At least the color was right. “The… Iron Lord will be together with Ellie figuring how to save the world, right? We’re done.” Sunset stopped pacing, rounding on her. “Is that really how you feel, Star? If that’s true, I can go. But I don’t think you believe it. They don’t know they need us, but we do.” Discord didn’t lift his paws, apparently determined to finish whatever he was playing. It was beautiful and strange, stretching into a range of different tones in the same piece that only a unicorn could reach. Or a biped with incredible dexterity in both their forelegs. “Twilight has become quite… vulnerable, thanks to your efforts. Without her reserve of power, she will not be able to wake the dormant Unification Army soldiers resting in warehouses and caves in Canterlot.” “It’s not called that anymore, sweetie,” the little pony whispered. “It’s called Concord now, don’t you remember?” “We’ll always have Paris,” he whispered, voice wistful. “But neither Twilight’s invincibility nor the impressive mountain of cannon fodder was ever the enemy of freedom. You’re up against the greatest Alicorn in the world, with foreknowledge of our intent and ample time to prepare. I don’t think any invading army has ever even made it to the palace steps.” Star nudged one foot off the edge of the bench, then the other. She slipped down onto bare feet, keeping one hand on the bed behind her so she wouldn’t fall over. She could just about do it, so long as she didn’t move too quickly.  “We’re too late,” she said flatly. “Look at us, Sunset. Maybe we can walk if we go slow. But that’s it. We can’t put on a set of human armor and fight with them.” Sunset crossed to her, surprisingly dexterous for a creature that was alive again for the first time in almost a thousand years. “I know you weren’t a soldier, Star Orchid, not like I was. But they don’t have anypony quite like that, just ask around. The rebellion planned on another thirty years before they attacked, did you know that? They wanted training camps all over the world. They wanted to subvert the schools, disrupt infrastructure, get ponies in the palace to track Concord’s movements and get resources out of its path long before it arrived.  “They didn’t get to do any of that, because… I think the last shelter of humans in the whole world was about to be destroyed. If they wanted help, they had to move now. That way neither of us goes extinct. The Iron Lord needs everypony they can get. You have a gift, Star Orchid. We can use magic, but they can’t attack us with it in return.” “We can use magic.” She reached up weakly with one hand, touching her bare forehead where her horn ought to be. Of course there was nothing there, just skin and some messy mane. “Levitation seems simple enough. But I’m not sure how we’re supposed to focus on complex spells without a horn.” “You’ll have to figure that one out,” Discord interrupted, completing his piece with a flourish of both paws. “But Shy and I were here to warn you about something. Shy, you wanted to tell them?” Without a word exchanged between them, Discord retreated to the door. He folded both claws, glaring out into the hallway with that face covered in scars. Star Orchid could imagine how absolutely terrifying it would be to anypony who happened to be passing them. More importantly, Discord didn’t care about acting strange. “Things haven’t run smooth since you left,” the pony said. Star only watched her, slightly confused, but Sunset seemed to recognize her. There was something awed in her expression that Star couldn’t place. “I’m, uh… I always kept hooves off of what the rebellion was doing. I’m not very good with conflict. I don’t like the idea of ponies hurting each other. But I know more than they think I do. I’ve been listening. A few ponies have gone missing. Idea was they’d been lost in the evacuation, or stumbled into a leftover trap Equestria had waiting on the Harrow. But I don’t think that’s it.” She hovered in the air, both wings flapping so she was nearly at head level with them both. “There is a changeling aboard. I don’t know who they are, but going through the names of the ponies who went missing… I think they’ve been climbing the ranks. First it was a guard out on patrol, then it was one of the inventory specialists. Little things have been breaking down—food going missing. It’s all the same pattern.” Ellie is worried about this too. She’s scanning ponies’ eyes. Star nodded, expression bleak. “His name is Geist. He’s one of the oldest and most skilled assassins in Equestria. He knows the command structure of the rebellion, he knows the important people by name and personality. Enough to make him impossible to find.” Despite her age, the little pony seemed to recognize the name. Shy suppressed a gasp, landing awkwardly. “That’s… worse than I thought. He could be anypony, then… anypony except the Iron Lord. Can’t impersonate a changeling.” “Or Sunset,” Discord called back. Despite her shyness, he seemed perfectly able to hear. “There is a transponder in her body that cannot be faked. Star Orchid wasn’t grown in a tank, she was magically transformed. There’s not even a gram of silicon in her.” “I’m not a changeling,” she said. “But I’m not the one you need to tell about this. There’s… got to be a way to track them down. We can’t go into battle with a weakness hiding in our ranks.” “We don’t have a choice,” Sunset called. “Guess you may not have heard. Princess Twilight has a replacement Alicorn in her hooves. With a little effort, she’ll have a replacement to the crystal. A hundred lives or so into that thing, and she’s back to full strength. Might take her a little longer if she wants to twist time the way she did. But I’d bet on her just keeping it with her until the threat is dealt with. She’ll wait until she’s sure every creature who knows her weakness is dead before allowing another stationary target.” We can’t wait. There’s a changeling rotting things from the inside. Geist is still coming for me. Would he even care that she was still alive? “I don’t suppose no one knows I’m human now? Maybe we could make the world think that Star Orchid is dead?” “Too late for that,” Shy said. “It was quite the story. I think even Princess Twilight would be impressed with the magic. If she… wasn’t trying to kill us. I think half the rebellion probably knows it by now. It sounds like they haven’t made up their mind about whether or not it’s a good thing, though. Becoming one of them like you did…” Discord took one last glance down the hall, then returned, storming up to them. “I’ve persuaded the human command to requisition protection for the both of you if you’re brave enough to join the assault. Exchange passwords, and remain in frequent contact. That should be enough to thwart a changeling replacing either one of you. Unfortunately it will do little to protect us from the infiltration we have already suffered, but…” He shrugged. “If I know changelings, they won’t be on the front lines. That would involve too much risk. It will be someone in the command center. Be there. Find Geist, and kill him. Or if you can’t… you might be the only ones with a chance of beating Twilight.” He sighed, expression growing grim. “Don’t count on human magical immunity. I don’t know how those systems will respond to you.  If you wanted to test them, you’d need to risk having one of our local unicorns try and kill you. You’re better off just assuming it won’t work, and protect yourself as you normally would. If you can. Just don’t expect rescue from me, Sunset. I have far less magic than you do, ever since…” He reached up, feeling the scars along his face with one paw. “Is it true, Discord?” Sunset asked. “Did you really betray Equestria? Did you turn on your friends?”  He shrugged. “I was unable to do what the princess demanded of me. But all magic, even the chaos of thaumic potential unbounded—all traces to the same source. I could no more strike down her enemies than she could. But I wouldn’t have, even if I could. I’d never hurt family.”