There were, perhaps, two kinds of deadline. Those the girl was aware of, and the ones which only presented themselves to her in the final instant before time ran out.
The majority of her life had been occupied by the former. The next loss in a race against older fillies would start in fifteen minutes, and there was nothing she could do to stall which would not be seen by her mother as exactly that. The first plane is supposed to take off at this hour, so up the ramp into the cramped cargo hold and gain the initial lesson in a new education: namely, that humans often regard deadlines as something which only happens to other people, and so a flight which is supposed to launch from Nice Cote d'Azur at three in the afternoon is actually going to be sitting on the tarmac for two more hours while no one is allowed to leave it. Enjoy your first chance at claustrophobia.
The filly has a plan.
Enacting the plan requires setting a date.
And at the instant she does so, disaster stakes its place on the calendar. Waiting for her to catch up.
But there were also occasions when you didn't hear the ticking of the clock. Her first trot to the household had been one of those: hoping, hoping with her entire being that she had it right and there was a chance for her to find a human partner, someone who would fight alongside her, guard her upper back while riding atop the lower, perhaps someone in Japan was indeed worthy and the months of an exchange student's homestay suddenly offered endless chances to prove it...
Her hooves had unknowingly sounded out the beat of those final seconds before the deadline arrived, tapping their way up the street to his door. And then there had been two other girls, they'd gotten there before her, and she was in the fight of her life. Something where there was but a single prize, and the only way to be victorious was to come in first.
She had existed in a near-constant state of low-level war. She had shared a household with those who were, on the most basic level, battling against her. Technically, she had been sleeping with the enemy: Miia's early morning tendency to sleepily head for the highest body temperature in the house had occasionally made that literal.
It was war, and they were the enemy. That would have been the easiest way. The one where you never felt regret or pain for anything which happened to any of the others, because any defeat they suffered was simply one more rival dropping out of the fight. It... just hadn't worked out that way.
Cerea had been the knight upon that battlefield, or had at least tried to be. She was also the housemother, the schedule-setter, the rule enforcer, and she was all of those things because someone had to do it and it clearly wasn't going to be any of the others. Deadlines existed for things like sending homework in, updating papers, corralling girls out of whatever part of the house was about to be reconfigured next, and who else was going to make sure they were honored? Time passed: there was no way of stopping it -- but every girl had her own way of perceiving that flow. Lala could be too patient: if one deadline passed by, then another would surely come around again. Miia was distractable, Rachnera hated to operate by whatever standards someone else had set down, Suu was still trying to get a grip on the concept of 'clock', and Mero's movements were synchronized to the backbeat of internal drama: surely finishing (or, given the mermaid, tragically failing) in the actual last possible moment would make for a better story!
Papi was the worst there: the most trouble accessing any degree of memory and, too often, barely caring about it. The harpy often existed in something close to an eternal now, which meant she also expected that to be the time at which food, joy, and playtime were delivered. But there were exceptions to that state, and... they had been among the worst moments, because there was a human saying -- a curse, really -- for which Cerea had never been to track an origin, and Papi was its living embodiment. That the truest source of pain was to be just smart enough to know how stupid you were, and on the harshest days, when all Papi could remember was that she was supposed to have done something crucial, talons almost tearing at her hair as she desperately fought to recall just what it had been, shivering and crying as the slim body twisted against itself from the pressures of self-hatred...
They almost all hugged Papi, when it got that bad. The harpy existed in the now, and so perhaps comfort too could be something which felt eternal.
Each girl had their own way of seeing the world: their own personal distortion of time. But that was just perception of the flow: seven minds finding unique ways of tricking themselves. Time seemed to stretch, slow, compress and speed up -- but it always passed.
There were distortions in the last days leading up to the meeting. Lurking in the future was the moment when thought and breath would stop, placing cold hooves onto the final path.
It was the morning of the meeting with the children.
That much more of her time had run out.
It was something like getting ready for a date, and that very much included the last-second desperate attempts to once again solve (second-guess, change, clothing had been flying in all directions but one and multiple discarded blouses were draped across empty bunks, she had barely managed to keep her current bra on and that had already been changed three times) the problem of what she was going to wear.
In Japan, her wardrobe had been limited: the airline had managed to lose most of her luggage, which was an especially impressive feat when she considered just how much of it had been traveling in the cargo hold with her. But some pieces had made it through because they'd been shipped not as luggage, but under heavy freight. Her training armor had reached the new country, and... one date had seen her spend just about all of their limited time together clad in steel.
It had been something of a detriment to hand-holding. (Any true attempt at a hug would have likely broken ribs.)
Now she was trying to decide what she could wear in front of colts and fillies. If there was anything in Ms. Garter's creations which allowed the slightest chance to assuage terror. And sweaters had been put on, taken off, flung hither and yon because that was the sort of phrase which appeared in so many stories and if you were going to be flinging sweaters, hither and yon was as good a choice of directions as any.
A shorter skirt? She would essentially be lying on the floor, trying to bring herself that much closer to their level. Perhaps it was best to have just about the full length of her legs exposed, letting them see more of the familiar -- except that in a standard resting position, her legs would be folded. Any length of skirt sufficient to create decency would still drape them. Unless she hemmed the front alone, which would require her to figure out skirt hemming in --
-- she checked the watch, and immediately wished she hadn't.
Nonononono...
Not the pink blouse: she was half-convinced that it had soaked up too much ill fortune from the press conference to ever be worn at a meeting again.
Definitely not the yellow.
There was no circumstance under which she was going to show cleavage. She had certain doubts about whether she should display her arms. Being double-jointed would allow her to hold them behind her upper back for an extended period without major discomfort. So if the name of the game was to eliminate the unfamiliar, once those were out of the way, the next thing to do was clearly --
-- there were limits to what binding could accomplish, trying for even minimal results would likely bruise her to the point where breath became agony and in any case, there probably wasn't enough elastic in the world.
Hair. She had to do something about her hair. There was something she could use now: Nightwatch had brought in some mane-styling equipment, and one tool had enough of an edge to cut. Because the stylists who had worked on Cerea before the press conference weren't there, possibly weren't coming and even considering how little their efforts had actually accomplished, probably would have at least been able to provide a second opinion. Or, better yet, an order. The centaur was going to wear this, because that was what the Princesses had dictated. It would mean that for whatever happened, at least when it came to appearance, none of it would be Cerea's fault. Other than on the level of form and birth, and no one would have suffered had they not been born...
She desperately went for the trimming scissor-blade's jaw grip, awkwardly took it up in the fingers of her right hand and lashed her tail until she caught the end of that fast-swinging length in the left. How much tail fall did pony mares permit themselves? She should have been paying more attention. And just randomly hacking at blonde hairs would create something unsuitable for going out among humans, but the ponies wouldn't know that. She opened the blades --
-- they squeaked, and that high-pitched burst was almost matched by the frantic sound which emerged from her own throat.
Both noises stopped. The girl desperately turned towards the one occupied bunk --
-- black wings shifted under the blanket, and fabric rustled against the natural movements of life maintaining itself. The pegasus continued to sleep.
The meeting was taking place at mid-morning, because the students needed to get up at a normal hour, have breakfast, gain transport to the capital (she had been told they were coming in from Ponyville, she wished she knew a few facts about their town other than the rough capacity of its cinema), and get home long before sunset. It wasn't taking place any later because Princess Luna would be one of the chaperones and asking the dark mare to remain awake too far into the day... there was already enough tension built into the meeting without adding that.
The meeting wasn't taking place too early, or too late, or at any time other than too soon. But it was happening during Nightwatch's normal hours of rest, and that meant Cerea would be alone.
(The little knight had offered to stay awake. To take whatever potion flipped her sleep schedule, to let her be there during the day. But Cerea already asked so much of the pegasus, publicly staying close had cost the Guard a home, and to request that the mare accompany her before the children...)
The centaur existed on the exposed edge of a potential panic attack, a single heartbeat away from having breath turn into hyperventilation as hooves desperately pounded towards anything which might serve as a hiding place for a body too large to readily conceal itself, in a palace where the best shadows had long been marked on a Guard-accessible map. And the only thing keeping her from getting worse was having her only friend asleep on a bunk, because that meant all the fear had to flow forth in silence.
This blouse. That sweater. Not that skirt and she could hear hooves approaching, there were hooves on the way and she needed something, anything, this was a soft sort of dove-grey and that didn't go badly with her fur (although she wasn't sure it really worked with her skin), the skirt could be blue and she was vaguely aware that there was some part of her own world's history which now had her upper and lower torsos at war with each other --
-- the door opened.
"Ready?" Acrolith half-whispered.
No.
The girl forced a nod.
"Do you want a stylist?" (Cerea immediately decided that any exasperation perceived in the next sentence had been imagined.) "When I left, the Princesses were still talking about whether it was best to use one again or just let you arrive in a more casual state. But there's enough time to do something with your hair --"
No more braids. Her ears were already seeking concealment and if all else failed, she could flip her hair in front of her face.
"No," she just barely whispered as her hands compulsively tugged at the fabric near her waist: blouse down, skirt up. "I... don't think it's going to get any better than this."
"We could --"
Her hands moved to her waist, turned palms-up, slowly raised until they were at the top of her head.
She could change her clothing. Twist her hair into endless configurations and styles. But she couldn't give herself a snout any more than she could force two torsos to become one, or take away a tail and everything, everything behind her forelegs while somehow being granted wriggling toes. That was something for dream. In the waking nightmare of her reality, she would always be a centaur.
"-- oh," Acrolith softly said. "Did..." The earth pony took a careful breath. "Did you eat?"
She had consumed food and given the speed of the metabolic process, there was a chance that the amount which had come back up was less than what had gone down. Also, breath mints obviously counted. Cerea nodded again.
"I'm just taking you up," the Guard told her. "I won't be in the room. The Princesses are already there. The children come in after you do. But it's a new part of the palace for you, and this way, you don't get lost."
I also don't get the chance to make a break for it. Not that Acrolith could keep up --
"-- I understand." She swallowed, which just about doubled her nutritional intake for the day. "I... don't think anypony told me what they picked for the location. Where are we going?"
They moved through a long, wide hallway which felt like a cross between a church and an art gallery, with multiple portraits and captured moments worked into the walls using a myriad of methods. The majority had been rendered in rock crystal, gleaming faintly from outer and inner light as centaur and earth pony passed -- but there were also a few relief sculptures, a pair of ancient oil works, and Cerea's attempts to look at anything other than the path ahead discovered --
-- at first, she decided that it was just a similarity of appearance. But then she scented lime, and recognized that the ponies had independently found the technique. Not every exposed surface in the palace was marble, and a true fresco could only be painted directly onto plaster. The ones in the long hallway were kept near the ceiling. (Humans liked to work on ceilings, but asking the pony body to lie on its back and arc the neck towards the roof was just begging for multiple injuries. Even unicorns would have been working with awkward neck cricks.) The colors were bright -- but some portions had extra clarity to their hues, and one fresco only seemed to possess what might have been its original palette along the edges. Hints of wall brackets for the mounting of scaffolding suggested there was some restoration work in progress.
Back to the rock crystal portraits. Some were of individuals, others had groups, and... there were monsters. Ponies battling against monsters. A rainbow theme figured prominently into several of the newer-seeming pieces, some of which seemed to feature the same ponies. Two areas where spacing suggested portraits had to be were covered with heavy cloths: works in progress, repairs, or revisions being made.
They kept moving. The scent of lime became sharper, turned into something fresh. She looked up --
-- the scaffolding hadn't been taken down yet. But another cloth was awkwardly tacked to that section of the upper wall, with both droop and the strength of the lime stating that the coverage had been done in a hurry. Any ramp used to gain access to the heights had been removed -- but that presumed it hadn't been a pegasus at work. She could smell lime and fresh paint, some of the natural chemicals which went into the brightest colors, xanthic acids were present and --
-- she almost stopped, then and there. As it was, her hooves faltered, and small nostrils flared as they desperately sought the information which would clarify the near-impossible.
That's not an equine scent.
It's almost lost in the paint, and that would distort things. In this case, it mixed it all up enough to weaken the base. But I know that isn't a pony. It's all wrong. It was there an hour ago at most, it came down and departed in the same direction we're going...
But the Guard had picked up on the hesitation.
"Something wrong?"
"No," she lied, which gave her the chance for another breath.
They had to keep moving, and it allowed Cerea to track the scent, at least until it went into a narrow corridor on the left: a passage they weren't following. But it was sharper at floor level, away from the paint. Easier to identify, for the aspect she could determine at all.
It's... canid?
She hadn't really seen any pets in the palace. They existed, at least in the sense that keeping animal companions was part of pony culture: Nightwatch had told her that the Solar Princess kept a gossip-free phoenix (and that just about everypony on both staffs cordially loathed the thing), while the dark mare had yet to look towards that kind of company. That, along with the duplication of species across worlds, suggested it was certainly possible for somepony to have a dog.
A dog which had been on a high scaffolding, attending to the newest of frescoes.
Two percent of Equestria's citizens were something other than ponies. Japan had seen Cerea meet her first kobold, although the sports club entrepreneur had been much closer to lupine. It wasn't hard to believe that a fully-sapient canine species could exist here, and one was working in the palace. She just hadn't scented any traces of that party's presence until now.
Under other circumstances, it might have reassured her. If she somehow got through her training, became part of the Guard (and nothing in her could truly picture it just then, hooves helplessly shuffling towards what she knew would be disaster), she wouldn't be the only non-pony among the palace staff. Perhaps there were others whom she had yet to find. Still the only centaur, but...
But she looked at rock crystal windows, paintings and sculptures. Failed to recognize most of the monsters, didn't know who any of the mares or stallions were, couldn't tell if the dragons were metaphorical or real, and had no idea what that one yak was doing there. And as she moved, she thought about the scent, because it put off thinking about what was coming for just a little longer.
Canid...
Imagine a society of ponies. Let them think, feel, and love. Give them language, art, and song: the songs can be especially important. Allow them to express themselves in any way they can imagine -- but every time they do so, adjust for the fact that these are ponies. Even with magic and a third of the population possessing wings, nearly everything they do must account for the equine form. Paintbrushes are held in the mouth: musical instruments need to be operated by hooves. It creates differences, and will do so throughout every aspect of their civilization.
They think, feel, and love. But they aren't human. There is no visible aspect of the biped about them, and yet it could still be said that there is something about them which mimics what one of the greatest of writers to ever walk the girl's world said about the heart of that strange species. That which appears at the point of contact when the descending angel reaches out to meet the rising ape.
They aren't human. They never were. But perhaps there are ways in which all souls are the same.
Imagine a society of ponies.
Now let those souls express themselves through dance. (For one lavender example, this can be done poorly.) What's required?
Well, for starters, you're dealing with hooves. Hard-set keratin can do a lot of damage to multiple types of flooring. (The girl is fully familiar with this issue, and continues to cordially despise poorly-fit circles of adhesive felt.) This means being very careful about what those hooves are dancing upon. Marble is right out: the echoes would drown out any music within the first few steps, and any stone porous enough to absorb sound isn't going to do well with repeated impacts. Without access to artificially-created materials...
We're probably going into the realm of the softer woods. Something which can stand up to all of those hooves without showing damage, especially when magic can enhance durability. But that allows some muffling of the stomping -- at least in selected areas, because it's a society of ponies and that means three species which are effectively wearing tap shoes at all times. So subsections of the central floor can be made of harder materials, meant to be used for those songs where the dancers become another instrument within the orchestra.
Expand the area. Ponies aren't as tall as humans, but they take up more room on the horizontal and they generally aren't going to be quite that close together. There are slow dances, but that doesn't mean that we're looking at compositions in which partners are constantly in physical contact. Even flank-to-flank becomes awkward in a hurry. For that matter, without benefit of arms, picking up your partner and swinging them around is going to be limited to fairly powerful unicorns and very strong earth ponies who decided to improvise while not realizing that when the base of their partner's tail hurts that much, sex is off the table. And the bed. Pretty much the entire house, but the chance to explore The Wonderful World Of Breakups has only just begun.
The area needs to be lit. Magic allows for the placement of glowing strips in carefully-recessed areas, but it won't hurt to have at least one grand crystal chandelier: ancient, imported, and if it happens to come down (again), it's guaranteed not to break. (The same can't be said for anypony caught underneath.) The marble does beautiful things to the highlights.
Dance often requires music and the height of readily-available sound replay technology is the gramophone, so we'll need an area for a live band. This is a stage, although careful examination of the little gap between floor and base suggests it can be recessed into a pit at need, either as a whole or in sections. Currently, it's occupied by a wooden box. This comes with a small door on the side, is tall and wide enough to accommodate about a pony and a half, has a clear window at the front, and is resting on a hastily-installed dolly track. The box occasionally shifts from side to side, because the camera operator within is a little nervous about having to be here and isn't quite sure where the best shot is going to be. Her opposite, somewhat-lower number in the box on the other side of the room is having similar difficulties. Neither is certain that their tracks are going to be enough, especially when the thin silver wires which stream from and through the box keep slowing things down.
There's going to be a refreshment area, of course. Mugs with hoof loops are still present, but all bottles have been removed and the common trough has been filled with water for the duration. There's still a few small tables and benches: a partial ring which starts three meters away from the perimeter of the dance floor, but they're small: the children's section has turned into the whole of the thing.
The silver wires stretch up to the walls and ceiling. Each terminates at the edge of a metal disc, slightly concave, ranging from three centimeters across to forty. This is something the girl was told about in advance. Film itself works as it does on her world: chemically. But the simultaneous recording of a soundtrack requires magic, and so the bronze discs have been set up around the room. This requires the wires to criss-cross sections of the air on a level which prevents any flight higher than three meters over the floor and would clothesline any pegasus who tried. The area gives off the impression of having been decorated with streamers for a strangulation party.
(They're making a documentary of sorts. The girl has more than a few bad memories about those who claim to be making documentaries.)
There's a feeling of age to the huge ballroom. Where hooves will not echo, time does. To listen closely is to move within a thousand lingering beats, being careful not to step through the ghosts as you go.
A few windows exist, but they're very high up and mostly serve as places to put extra discs. The scant portion of sunlight which reaches the room is currently hitting the front of the stage. One ray is cut by the horn of the white horse. She's standing near the base, and her weary eyes are using the light to read a rather florid newspaper article. (The girl just barely gets close enough for her limited vocabulary to make out a single word before the Solar Princess puts it away: opinion.)
The room has good air circulation: pegasus magic guarantees that much. It only feels as if every bit of atmosphere is pressing down with enough force to collapse withers.
One grand entrance exists: heavy, huge closed double-doors at the far end of the room, well away from where the girl came in. They aren't airtight, and that makes it possible to pick up on the scents which await on the other side. (Age has an olfactory signature all its own, and so does youth -- but there are ways in which all fear is the same.) There are multiple exits: the girl's nose tells her that one goes to a seldom-used kitchen, while others lead into restroom areas. All of those doors are open, because the guests who will soon arrive need the reassurance which might come from a choice of ways out.
The girl has no such luxury. Acrolith closed the passage behind her.
A ballroom for ponies. There's a pair of camera operators present, but their job is to stay out of the way and as far as they're concerned, being in the boxes gives them a measure of safety. (This is a cross-species, cross-world delusion: that to take a picture of something happening means the event is obligated not to touch you, because clearly that would ruin the shot.) For nearly all purposes, they can be dismissed. The true current population is two alicorns and, forcing herself to cross the distance which will bring her close to them, one centaur. Her hooves are taking their time about the task, the last possible stall -- but something else has reached the Princesses first, traveling well ahead of the source, and neither shows any reaction to that presence at all.
The girl had believed the alicorns were incapable of scenting her fear. Now she knows it. Because if they could, the meeting would have been cancelled on the spot.
"I won't do you the indignity of asking if you're ready," the Solar Princess quietly offered. "It's not something anyone could really be ready for. I just need to know if you're still willing to try."
The girl silently nodded, and the alicorns mutually evaluated the tightness of the movement.
"Then let us review," the dark mare stated as several small constellations in the slowly swaying tail began to rearrange themselves. "There are ten who made this trip, accompanied by their teacher. We will bring them in slowly. Should all manage to come inside, the occupants of this room will total sixteen. And that is the maximum. The presence of Guards might not offer reassurance, and should any express their fear through attack -- that is where Princess Celestia and myself will step in. Physical efforts will be stopped: magical ones negated. We consider ourselves to be capable of dealing with the task. For the same reason, your sword remains secured at the training area. Attacks are something you will not have to deal with, and --" the dark eyes smoothly met smaller, near-frantic blue ones "-- being without it makes you into less of a visible threat."
Helpless...
"What if..." Cerea swallowed, felt the little gulp pass under the disc. "What if some of them -- break? And set off..."
"As the reporters did at the conference?" the dark mare asked. "Once the children enter, their passage through the enchantment/threads/weave will briefly encase each in a private current of air. It will only last for a short time -- but in those moments of first sighting, their fear will be theirs alone."
"It's the best way we have to fight herd instinct right now," the white horse softly added. "We told them -- and their teacher -- that if any of them feel like they need to leave, they can. There's nothing keeping them here. They can wait in any other public section of the palace, or go to the gardens. But they have to stay on the grounds, because -- we'll need to get them past the protestors when the meeting ends. We don't need any of the children winding up in that group."
"There will be no Guards in this room," Princess Luna decreed. "But they will follow any children who leave it, at a distance. Ready to keep potential problems from compounding."
"No soakings unless it's necessary," the Solar Princess added. "It's not that warm outside, and puddles on marble..." The pastel borders of the flowing mane twisted. "In the worst case, Princess Luna and I will teleport them directly back to Ponyville."
The dark gaze of the younger shifted down.
"Is that what you are wearing?"
It didn't really reach Cerea's twitching ears as criticism so much as it offered a very temporarily postponement of execution. "I can go change --"
"-- an interesting choice," Princess Luna decided. "Soft hues. Fairly neutral. Nothing which clashes with skin, hair, or fur. I would call it suitable."
There were several ways to respond after witnessing a lifeline being cruelly snatched away, and the girl chose to take a deep breath. Then another, even deeper, fighting to reach the limits of lung capacity and rib cage --
-- Ms. Garter's somewhat-tight creation held, and so there was no need to send her back to the barracks for a new bra either.
"...merde."
The hiss of wires lasted less than a second. Both alicorns glanced at each other.
"In the interests of not creating a second incident in the Bulkhead style," the dark mare decided, "I choose not to tell you exactly what that translates to until well after the meeting ends. Shall I presume that hearing you curse of your own knowing accord for the first time is due to nerves?"
The centaur instantly blushed.
"I'm sorry --"
"-- take a moment," Princess Celestia gently offered. "Breathe, let it all sink back down. You have every right to be tense, and if the worst that happens today is our learning that your native tongue contains profanity, I'll consider the day a win."
The blue eyes closed for a few seconds. Breathing slowed, and clenched hands were eventually forced open.
"Better?"
"Yes," the girl lied.
Her eyes opened again, which let her catch the alicorns looking at each other for the second time.
"One last thing, for you alone," the white horse said. "Before we do the rest of the review with the children present. Somepony may try to touch you. We'll stop a kick, but -- if they just want to touch, and you're okay with the point of contact -- try to let it happen."
"Should you not wish such interaction, voice your concern and we will halt it immediately," the dark mare added. "But children learn through interaction, and this can include the physical. Touch might allow them to perceive you in a new way. As something --" the pause felt a little too long "-- more real. But should that attempt tread on any personal taboos, or if they try to touch you in a place which you consider private, signal us. A curling of your smallest finger will suffice." Her head tilted slightly to the left. "Or do you wish to forbid any and all such contact in advance?"
They won't touch me.
No one will ever touch me.
"No." It would be like forbidding herself to fly through flapping her arms. There was no reason to deliberately eliminate what was already impossible.
"Then let's start," Princess Celestia gently offered. "I'd appreciate it if you rested at this edge of the dance floor. Keep yourself directly in front of us." Or as much as Cerea could be, with some five meters between them. "Belly and barrel against the wood. And then I'll open the door."
It was temperate in the ballroom. But there were many distortions to be found in fear, and one of them began to alter her perception of the thermal as she carefully lowered herself onto soft wood. It was a rather grainy sort of brown, speckled with black spots. She didn't recognize the scent or sight of it. Possibly something which only existed here --
-- it had absorbed the sound of her hoofsteps. But her skirt served as a drape, falling down over her flanks rather than closing into a tube under her barrel. It meant her fur was directly against the wood, and she didn't know if it could absorb her sweat.
Watch the door. Don't move. Don't move at all...
Her tail twitched, and that alone nearly served as the whip to lash her out of the room.
Sunlight flared, surrounded the left door. Boxes shifted on dolly tracks as it swung open, and the filming began.
The teacher entered first: an earth pony mare, and Cerea couldn't identify the hue of her coat: close to magenta, but with too much purple in it for that. Pale green eyes surveyed the ballroom, moved to the centaur, almost jerked left in an attempt to escape -- but then slowly, carefully forced themselves back, just before they locked onto the target. The mare watched Cerea during just about every second of their time in the ballroom, and it was the careful gaze of a guardian who was constantly evaluating a threat.
A colt came in after that, and the girl began to recognize the problem with the private air bubbles: they kept the initial bursts of scent away from her. A tremble in grey, too-thin legs told her about the fear, and the unruly brown mane tossed from side to side as the colt visibly forced himself to keep moving -- but all she had to go on was his body language, and that was the way it would be until the personal currents ran out. If there was anything subtle lurking in the olfactory world, it would have to wait.
Some entered as individuals: an exceptionally white pegasus pushed herself forward with wings as much as legs. Then two entered together, and the color of the one on the left made Cerea start -- but the yellow coat was too soft, too pale, and she forced the image of surging vests to recede for a little while.
She noticed the bow in the mane, and wondered how the little earth pony had gotten it on. But that meant an extra moment of attention, and the filly shrank into herself under the weight of what had been meant as simple curiosity, while the orange pegasus who'd accompanied her managed to force out a countering glare.
Cerea looked away. And by the time she managed to glance back, there was a rather scruffy-seeming unicorn colt coming in, corona surrounding and compulsively folding a sheet of paper. Another earth pony, and this one nearly pivoted on his back hooves, came close to spinning himself into the floor --
-- the next earth pony was right behind him, and the white-streaked mane (something with a small indentation at the top, as if a near-constant source of pressure had recently gone missing) made the colt's twisting blue ear vanish within its flow. She seemed to be whispering something to him: Cerea could just barely make out that words were being said, but had no idea what they were --
-- it was enough. He steadied, began to shift forward again. The pink filly glanced to her right, at the little white unicorn who was so close by her side. More of a two-toned mane and tail for that child, all of it trembling as she moved, every hoof just so, shifting position only when the pink earth pony did --
-- but the pink earth pony didn't move in the same way. Every limb changed position in a way which felt familiar to Cerea. She wasn't sure why, because nothing about the way a pony moved should have reminded her of Japan and the household, but each step brought her mind to the familiar hallways and --
-- no. The ceiling.
The pink filly moved as if each of her legs was being pushed forward by surges of fully-internal pressure. A being of flesh and fur operating limbs coated in imaginary chitin --
-- which was when she realized the filly had an aura.
It was uncertain. It flickered in and out. But it was there at least some of the time, and it suggested a pony who was just starting to come into her own power.
It flickered and as the filly truly looked at Cerea for the first time, it flickered into solidity.
She didn't pull back. She was in the presence of the Princesses: the filly was nowhere close to that. But there was a force of personality there, something which was trying to focus itself upon a purpose --
-- the aura had solidified when the filly had looked at Cerea.
Her eyes were blue, with a hint of grey. Large and liquid, like everypony's eyes -- but there was no softness there. None at all.
The white unicorn trembled. The pink earth pony shifted a little closer, and they came the rest of the way together. Stopping with the other students, at the far end of the dance floor.
The girl had never truly danced. She had taken no part in the time for love, stallions saw dancing as a fight with a disappointing lack of injuries, the one human she'd told herself she cared for had been so much shorter than she, plus her lower body took up an embarrassing amount of any dance floor and she couldn't look straight down to see where her forehooves were in relation to his feet...
...none of the children had fled. No filly or colt had broken. They simply stood, watching her as a trembling, vibrating line, roughly twenty meters away.
Somewhere behind her, Princess Celestia smiled. She knew the alicorn would begin with a smile, just as surely as she knew it wouldn't help.
"Thank you for coming," the Solar Princess gently said. "Just through entering the ballroom, through staying... you've done more than some mares and stallions could have managed. I hope you feel proud of that."
The white unicorn's trembling accelerated. The pink filly pressed tightly against shaking fur.
"The time allotted," Princess Luna took over, "is very nearly whatever is required. To a degree, the meeting ends when you wish it to. Should all parties be capable of asking and answering questions, then it may go on for some time. However, there is an obligation to send everypony home in time for their dinners. And if it ends quickly -- then it ends. But I hope for it to end when all parties have no more to say."
"No matter when it wraps up, we'll get you home safely," the white horse promised. "And when it comes to what you can say --"
The base of the teacher's tail went rigid.
"I'm not happy about this," declared the voice of an angry guardian. "I wrote you about this --"
Nothing in Cerea was surprised at tone or defiance. She'd seen what was in the mare's eyes. A parent could become an unstoppable force in defense of their child, and a teacher took the role for all in her charge.
Some parents --
"-- I know," Princess Celestia quietly said. "And my position remains the same. There are those who say that freedom of speech doesn't apply to children, Ms. Slate. That any rights are only gained with adulthood, just in time to find out how many means exist for others to try and take them away. None of that is going to happen here and now. The only way this works is if your class can speak freely -- and in this case, that means without censorship. Questions can't be stopped, or there won't be questions at all."
"You may ask whatever you wish," Princess Luna told the children. "Keeping your queries within the realm of decorum would be recommended -- but you shall not be halted for words alone. No matter what is said here, your teacher cannot reprimand you for it, nor may your parents levy punishments. True freedom of speech lies upon this room --" and Cerea wondered if the dark eyes had just narrowed "-- but even without other forms of punishment, that freedom still includes another: one of the most basic. The freedom to accept consequences."
"And the fact that you can ask Cerea anything," the Solar alicorn calmly continued, "doesn't mean she has to answer. There are answers she doesn't have. When it comes to anything she might consider rude, she's perfectly free to tell you so, and then leave it at that."
"Ideally, queries shall flow in both directions," the dark mare stated. "You have been asked to meet her -- but ultimately, it would be best if all involved met each other."
The girl was expecting nods: the most basic sign of obedience to what wasn't (but could have been) an order. But the children didn't move.
"Whenever you're ready," Princess Celestia gently encouraged. "Anypony can speak. As many questions as you need, or as few. If you don't have anything to say, you can remain silent. But after agreeing to come and meet her -- a chance to speak with her, when so many others wouldn't -- I'd hope you have something to say."
The air felt heavy and too still, with none of the scents reaching her --
-- the yellow earth pony cleared her throat, and took the smallest possible hoofstep forward. Keratin grazed the absolute edge of the dance floor.
"...yeah," that filly said. "Um... yeah. We've been..." Which was followed by a tiny cough. "...readin' a bit, here an' there. The newspapers an' stuff like that. Ah can say we've all been tryin' t' get ready for a while now."
Cerea blinked.
The centaur was still frightened. Bracing herself for the worst of it, when the worst was the only thing which could happen at all. And in the crowded, churning midst of her own terror, there was still enough room to wonder about the intonations. Admittedly, there were hints of regional differences in some of what reached her ears within the palace, but time living in the capital might have worn away some of the larger variations. Even so, she had no idea why the disc was steadily, without hiss, rendering the sounds of the American South --
"An' we all talked 'bout it." (The pink filly briefly glanced at the yellow.) "'bout how it felt like there were things which got -- left out. Questions adults don't ask an' when somethin' ain't been asked, ain't no answer gettin' into a paper." Shakily, "But that's why there's foal questions, right? 'cause sometimes, we ask the stuff which the grownups don't think about no more."
Right down to double negatives, offered the briefest distraction. How?
"For starters, the papers made it kinda feel like y'came outta nowhere," the filly observed. "An' Ah guess y'did, for Equestria -- but not for your home, right? 'cause there usually ain't one of somethin'."
Cerea's ears briefly twitched backwards, towards another source of sound. She wasn't sure where the little quarter-skitter of hooves had originated, but suspected it represented the sound of somepony in charge deciding that total freedom of speech might have been a mistake.
"So mah first question," the little yellow earth pony told her, "is kinda basic. Do y'have parents?"
This was all a mistake...
"Yes."
Head and mane bow dipped a little.
"Both alive?"
Her arms shifted inwards without her full awareness, locked under her breasts in a position similar to what she adopted when going to sleep. She just usually didn't put anywhere near that much grip pressure on her skin.
"Yes." And now every part of the watching world would begin to suspect a full herd. That much more to fear. "They were when I -- left."
"What do they do? For a livin', Ah mean."
"My mother is..." She had to force the breath. "...sort of -- in charge."
Under different circumstances, the question could have been funny. "So you're the daughter of a Princess?"
But the girl couldn't seem to find a smile, and was glad for that. It might have shown teeth. "No. Being in charge isn't hereditary. It isn't an elected position, either. It's about showing you can do the most for the group. That you're the best suited to lead. Being her daughter doesn't come with any special privileges. It just means..." Her shoulders slumped. "...I have to work harder."
The yellow filly's initial takeaway seemed to be "So there ain't no Princesses."
"No, there are. I knew one. But it usually didn't matter very much to her. And she wasn't in charge either. Her mother was the Queen."
Several of the children shuddered. So did the teacher.
"Queens ain't got a good reputation 'round here," the filly said. "Little too -- buggy." And before Cerea could even begin to work out why that word had been on the far end of the translation, "How 'bout your dad?"
She distantly wondered why her arms were starting to hurt.
"He..."
There was no way to have known her name.
"...does manual labor. Sometimes." Which was just about all you could rely on stallions to do, and it had to be suggested as a contest of strength. "It's mostly plowing."
Openly curious now. "Any siblings?"
"No." She had been a lone foal, and that was a true rarity in the herd. The population had to be maintained. To have but one child, especially from someone who was among the strongest...
The yellow filly nodded. Stepped back, even as the unicorn colt's corona put the folded piece of paper down.
"Sounds like there's a lot of centaurs out there," he decided. "How far away?"
"There's no way to reach it." Was she speaking too quickly? "It's a distance which can't be crossed --"
"-- but you got here," the colt with the scissor icon cut her off.
"That was magic," emerged as frantic protest. "Not mine, not anyone's. My herd doesn't have magic --"
"-- so there's a herd."
Another little skitter from behind her. It seemed louder this time.
They're winning...
"They can't get here." Her tail was starting to shift, tucking itself against her body, trying to hide. "No one can."
Orange wings flared.
"Things usually don't happen once," the pegasus shot out, just before she came down again. "If you could get here, then whatever happened to bring you could bring in more centaurs."
They haven't found the summoners. Not a hint, not a clue. They don't know how I got here, or how to --
"I don't want it to happen again!" No, don't raise my voice, both of the white ones just pulled back... "That's... someone else who's trapped."
unless it brought him, him and him alone, we'd be stranded together and
he has a family, I saw the pictures, it's his family
"But if you didn't do it, then you don't know how it happens, or how to stop it!" the fierce pegasus declared. "Or maybe you've been lying, maybe you came here on purpose --"
The Princesses weren't moving. Weren't stopping any of it, and the teacher was just watching Cerea. Freedom of speech --
"-- I'm not," and her breasts were heaving, she was clutching at her own arms to keep them from coming up to her head, she was breathing too fast, too hard, "I wouldn't have ever come if I'd had the choice, I wouldn't have come to a place where everypony hates me, not where there's nothing except fear --"
The pink filly's right foreleg came up. Went down.
It was a little sound, in its way, and yet there was still a moment when it felt like the only one in the ballroom.
All of the words stopped. All of them, as that aura flared again.
"I have a question," the filly said. "Lots, really. And what you just said kind of goes into one of them. So I'd like to talk now."
She glanced at the trembling white unicorn. The two-tone mane shifted with a bare nod, and the pink filly stepped forward. One full step, putting her forehooves on wood.
"You arrived in Equestria, somewhere outside Palimyno --" stopped. "Oh. I'm Diamond. I wanted you to know that, because you really should know our names. Everypony has one. Even the ones who aren't ponies, or who aren't anything any more. Anything real."
The words had been steady. But the aura had shivered, and it was the relentless inner pressure which made the filly take another step. Something which was beginning to disperse the private air bubble.
Cerea didn't have the filly's true scent yet: not enough of it had drifted forward. But she could feel it coming, just as surely as she could hear the cameras tracking every forced step.
"Names," Diamond repeated. "Apple Bloom talked to you at the start. Then Snips, and that was Scootaloo after. The white pegasus who spends most of her nights crying is Cotton. Truffle was the first through the door. We all have names. It's important to know what names are because when someone's gone, when you keep asking about them over and over and nopony ever talks to you, a name is all that's left --"
"Diamond." From the teacher, starting to move even as the Princesses still wouldn't, taking the first step towards her student --
-- the filly simply glanced in that direction.
"No."
The teacher stopped.
"That's Miss Cheerilee," Diamond informed the girl, continuing to move forward as she spoke. "She can punish us for saying the wrong things. Except today. Today is when I get to say no, and a lot of other things besides." Which was immediately followed by "You showed up somewhere near Palimyno. A couple of gallops away, I guess, since it took you a while to get there. And the papers said you vaulted the bushes because you were scared and hurt and looking for help, so buildings meant people and someone, somepony, maybe even a centaur who could help you. But they were scared. You know they were scared. But you were in Equestria, and you got out of the cell, so Equestria had to come and get you. The Princesses. And you said it, didn't you? That you would never come to a place where everyone's scared, where they hate you..."
She was halfway across the dance floor now, and her hooves had never made a sound.
"I said I had questions," Diamond said. "This one is from two ponies. Sweetie Belle and me. Sweetie's the one I came in with. Sweetie is the pony I almost died with. Everypony in Equestria is afraid of you, and you know it. There's a whole world out there, a great big planet with lots of countries and a whole other hemisphere."
One more step. One more aura flare, and then the centaur was within scent and power. Burned by fear and rage which existed as something other than disguise. The righteous fury of a leader who had seen those under her charge hurt, with nothing she could do to stop it.
The filly was small only to sight. For every other sense, she became the world.
"Why are you still here? Why can't you just go away?"
No one moved. No one spoke. It felt as if there was nothing she could have said, that there was no point to words existing at all. The disc could only translate sounds. There was no magic to convey an inner scream which had been building day by day since the first moment she'd realized that there might be no means of returning home, that she was trapped among those who would never touch or accept or love, the scream was in her ears and her tail was lashing against her own right flank and her hooves were scrabbling against wood, she was barely keeping herself from getting up, staring down at the presence which kept coming closer and the scream was getting louder --
-- but she spoke.
She spoke because she knew that words would only fail, and she couldn't fail if she didn't try.
"I... this is -- there's ponies trying to figure out how I came here, how to send me home. They might need me for some of that. And the Princesses --" she had to keep a grip on herself, and the segment of that which expressed itself through her hands was beginning to bruise. "-- they were kind to me, when nopony else was. Kind enough to give me a chance. It's hospitality, it's a debt which has to be repaid. I have to be worthy of kindness, to earn it --"
The tiny gasp had come from behind her. She wasn't sure whose it was.
"-- you could go anywhere!" And the filly was still closing in. "There's escorts and air carriages! Just tell the palace where you're going and they could always bring you back, maybe in seconds! He didn't reach all of the other nations! He did it here! So maybe the other countries won't be afraid of you, right? Because they weren't there, they didn't feel it! But I did! I feel it all the time when I go to sleep, I feel it over and over and so does Sweetie, because we were the last!"
The hoofsteps never echoed. The words did, even as the filly came to a stop two meters away. Staring up at Cerea from the heart of aura and fury.
"I don't --" Her words were stumbling over themselves, fighting for space in her throat and the panic attack was coming, it was coming "-- I don't know what you mean, I --"
These words were much softer.
"We were the last," Diamond quietly said. "He was coming. Everypony was trying to evacuate, except the Bearers. They were trying to figure out what they could do, so they were going to stay. It's what they have to do. But he was getting closer. It's funny, watching something move when it's that big. It's like seeing a mountain trying to creep up on you, except that he didn't care if we knew he was coming because he knew we couldn't do anything. His laughter got to us before he did. And he just kept coming, taking his time because there was magic in the Everfree which he could steal. He'd already finished with Canterlot, and that's where my daddy was. He didn't mean to be, he didn't want to be. He just couldn't get out of the city, not when just about every pegasus was grounded and the escorts couldn't teleport any more. Some of them got their magic back, and some of them were just... dead, they were dead because they dropped out of the sky from too high up and couldn't get into a glide in time. But he was trying to do anything to reach me, even without magic, because that's what a daddy does. Trains aren't magic. They're steam. He got one running. But he didn't really know how it worked, so he nearly made the boiler blow up, trying to reach Ponyville. To reach me."
Freedom of speech.
The prison of hearing.
The girl couldn't move. She only shook and trembled and waited for spreading inner cracks to finally reach her skin.
"And I was just galloping all over Ponyville, because we had to make sure everypony except the Bearers was out and that had to be done properly. I was looking for the ones who were hiding, because you couldn't hide, not from a mountain," said the too-calm voice. "I found Sweetie. Because her daddy wasn't there. He's a hoofball coach, and the team was in Baltimare. It's hard, when things are scary and your daddy is gone."
Just for a second, the filly glanced back. At the one named as Sweetie, and then the yellow filly.
"I found Sweetie, and somepony had to make sure she got out. But by the time I found her, the mountain was there. And when mountains move, they don't notice anything. They don't care. It was a hoof like a cliff coming down on us, a leg like a landslide, and we both felt the pulling, I was trying to get Sweetie moving and she was trying to push me, but we both just stopped because it was like our souls were being pulled backwards and taking us with them. His hoof was coming down, and..."
Looking at Cerea again, through those unblinking solid eyes.
"...my daddy was there. Trying to reach us. His fur was all soggy, and his forelegs were burned from the boiler. He had to rub in cream three times a day for two moons, just so he could walk. But he was galloping for us, and I didn't want him to be there because the hoof was coming down and it was so big, his soul was being pulled too and he was stumbling, the Bearers weren't close enough yet and... we were going to die. All of us, when the hoof came down. Sweetie and I were going to die together, I couldn't leave her and I was screaming at my daddy to go away because he was just on the edge, he could have gone back but he just kept trying to reach us and --"
The centaur would never be sure if she had actually heard the words which seemed to emerge behind her, or if they had simply drifted up from the depths of her own shattering heart.
"...no, Diamond, don't..."
"-- then Discord was there."
There was nothing left in the girl which could think anything beyond a simple, unanswerable query of Who?, and that happened in the last instant before those solid eyes became liquid again, all at once.
The wood took in the tears, and did so just as readily as it absorbed the froth from the centaur's fur.
"And Mister Fancypants talked to us, he said it was his fault! Because he talked to Discord, and then Discord made a choice -- but we're the choice he made! He chose us instead of himself! He was there, and now he isn't anything! We keep asking how he is, if he's getting better, but no matter how we ask or who asks, even Miss Fluttershy can't get an answer and she was his friend, she was the only real friend he had and no one cares enough to tell her! He wasn't our friend, he never knew me and maybe he never even knew my name, but he made a choice! If we hadn't been there, if I'd found Sweetie faster or my daddy hadn't been looking for me, or any of it, anything, if we just hadn't been there, then maybe Discord would be okay and the Bearers would have done something and..."
She stopped, head and aura down. Salt and moisture darkened the floor.
The bronze discs visibly bowed outwards. Sought for the soft sounds, drank it in, and failed to keep any of it away from the girl's mislocated ears.
"...it's you. He took magic. You hurt it. And maybe you're not him, or maybe you're something like him. Maybe you're with him somehow, waiting for a chance. You're soft where he was stone, because that tricks ponies, makes them think you're safe. And if you weren't like him, anything like him -- then you'd leave. You'd know we were scared, you'd feel bad for doing it, and you'd just go away. But you're still here. Like a mountain, because a mountain doesn't care. It just crushes you. It doesn't even notice when it happens. It doesn't care. You don't care about us, because if you did, you'd leave. You're just like Tirek, just like him --"
"-- I've never even seen him!"
And she was on her hooves.
(She would hate herself later, back in the barracks. For having moved, for putting the filly in her shadow. For being so large, when others weren't.)
They were staring at her. All of them, staring up as foreign limbs stopped clutching at each other, leaving strange gestures beating at the air.
"There were pictures!" Diamond's voice was getting louder again, and the aura was intensifying. She could feel both of those things, and in neither case did the shattered girl actually care. "All you could see in any picture was him! Pictures and stories everywhere --"
"-- and I came in after that! I don't know who Discord is, or what happened at the end, or what Tirek looks like! I'm afraid to ask for a picture! Because all I know is my own stallions, my own stupid stallions and --"
She'd known there were pictures: that there had to be. But she hadn't asked, any more than she'd asked about what Tirek looked like. It had gone unvoiced from the moment she'd learned of what he'd done, and --
-- I know he was smart.
I've never met a smart stallion.
I was afraid that I would see him and want.
Want the one who killed.
How could anyone live with that --
"-- I don't want to look at him! To ever see him, because I'll look at his face and know that's what all of you see when you look at me! He destroyed every chance I ever might have had here without coming anywhere near me, he's a mountain which I can't reach or fight and I HATE HIM, I hate him because he pulled hope and love away from me and there's nothing I can ever do to get them back --"
But the filly wasn't done. A filly who had waited for her own death while providing company, and the little unicorn was shaking and crying --
"-- he killed ponies! Don't you understand that? Ponies lost their mommies and daddies, parents lost their kids, they think about that whenever they look at you and you're just here, you're big and strong and you hurt magic and you didn't lose anything --"
"I LOST MY WHOLE FAMILY!"
And in the silence which followed, six of the discs crashed to the floor.
The centaur's arms fell to her sides. The long legs slowly folded, and the mountain collapsed against cold wood.
Her eyes were closed. She wanted them to stay closed forever. The Princesses had trusted her, and...
...she had known she would fail.
She always failed.
She destroyed things.
Anything she touched.
All I wanted was one day...
...the hoof touched her.
It was a little hoof. Small enough for any sound of approach to have been absorbed by the floor. The angle was awkward, the pressure light, and it touched her near the center of her lower sternum. Just... touched.
She didn't look.
"You said they were alive," the filly reminded her. There was just a little bit of quaver in that voice: enough to be identified and, should it become necessary, enough to be denied.
"It's been months now," the girl whispered. "Months. I've been counting. I know how long the days are here, how long they are at home. All they'll know is that I went for a gallop and I never came home. There's no evidence, no forensics. They... they have to believe I'm dead: it's the only thing they could ever think. The whole program might be falling apart. Parents pulling the students back because they might be next. If one of us was kidnapped or murdered, then any of us could be. The whole household thinks I'm dead, if there's even a household left. And I can't go home, I might never go home, and... I lost them. I lost all of them, forever..."
She shook, against the simple constant pressure of that touch. She trembled, as sweat and froth fell away from her skin.
I'm dead.
I've been dead from the moment the road began to change.
I'm dead to them and they'll never know.
Maybe it was easier, being dead. Death wouldn't hurt as much.
Oh so softly, "You're crying."
Knights didn't cry like this. Another failure.
"Daddy talks about how things get changed in the press," Diamond said. "To make better stories. And sometimes monsters cry, to make you think they aren't. But they never mean it. So we weren't sure if you'd really cried."
She didn't answer.
"Do you miss your mommy?" The hoof moved a little higher. "I miss mine sometimes."
There were two things which forced her eyes open at that moment: the realization that she was in the presence of a child who had lost a parent to Tirek, and --
-- something colder.
She had said she missed her family, and that had been the barest truth. The loneliness and longing formed knives stabbing at her flanks.
She missed her family...
"I'm... I'm sorry," she whispered. "I know it doesn't mean anything, but I'm sorry. For what he did to your mother. I'm --"
"-- he didn't," Diamond quietly cut in. "She's... been gone for a long time. Do you miss yours?"
Her heart was shattered, and so truth drifted up from the wounds.
"I miss how she sang to me, when I was sad. But... that was a long time ago. Years..."
She looked down at the filly, and mostly saw a section of strong back and streaked tail.
"How old are you?"
"I..." A few tears were blinked away, if not the shame behind them. "....would have graduated from high school in the spring. I don't know how our lifespans compare --"
"Your mommy sang. Do you?"
She forced a nod.
The hoof dropped away. After a moment, the filly backed up enough to clear the shadow, giving Cerea a view of soft blue eyes.
"Singing is something which comes from the soul," the earth pony decided. "I don't know if monsters can sing. Maybe they can. But they wouldn't feel it." She solemnly nodded to herself: the movement of somepony who'd just made up her mind based on the lack of evidence found at the landing point of a very large leap. "There would just be sound. Will you sing?"
"I'm not good." Automatic. "Even in my own herd, I'm no better than --"
"It's still singing."
She had reached the point where she wasn't quite sure what she was protesting: only that a protest had to be made or singing would happen. "The lyrics won't translate. The words will, but a rhyme in my language probably isn't one in yours. And the meter won't match --"
"-- so don't sing words."
They aren't humans. They never were, nor are they centaurs. They are ponies, and there are times when that is enough.
But they think, feel, and love. They dance, and build places to accommodate that means of expression -- but dancing requires music. Even when it takes place in apparent silence, a song is always being conducted by the soul.
Build a room to host the dance, as they would require it to exist. But it also needs to be capable of conducting music: keeping the notes true as they move across the walls, allowing the echoes to maintain a touch of their source.
There is a centaur singing now, and she is not human. She never was. She has dreamed of it, and those dreams were some of the best and worst of her life. The best because even when the only thing which changed was her lower body, it left her as someone who could believe she belonged and in the heart of dream, knew that it would always be so. The worst came when she woke up.
She is not human. She will never be a pony, not in the waking world (and that dream is not so far away). She is a centaur and at this moment, she creates a song like nothing this world has ever known.
Her voice rises and falls through the notes. It changes octaves on a whim, and the transitions always flow. She's afraid to try lyrics, so she remembers classical compositions, soundtracks, tries to mix and blend tones and styles. The ponies know not of imaginary ships flying between the stars, or desperate races towards a heart waiting to be won. They only hear the sound, and imagine whatever they wish. Those dreams are the gift of the Vox Centaurai, although that description might send the disc into what would feel like an endless blast of venting steam.
It is quiet now, rebuilding its charge. There is never any need to translate music, for music simply is.
She sings like nothing else in the world. She is like nothing else in the world, and the little pink filly eventually lies down on the floor. Listening, because she got there first and so she gets the best spot: that's only fair. Those in the camera boxes try to figure out if it's possible to separate sound from film again, because they already suspect this reel is going to have a very limited release. They were sworn to secrecy if the need arose. They know the results will be shown to a few, but -- it feels like too much was said. The palace will not edit or censor -- but when it comes to the reel, they won't exactly distribute and... this can't be lost. They won't let that happen.
The centaur sings. Slowly, the little white unicorn approaches, rests next to her final shelter. The yellow and orange fillies are close behind. The too-thin colt never quite makes it to the group, stopping three body lengths away, and the teacher simply watches.
The Princesses...
No camera is pointing in that direction. Nopony is even looking at them. They have privacy in the midst of a crowd, something which hardly ever happens, and so there is no need to break it. Suffice it to say that they listen. There is always something new in the world for those who still care to look, and time can be gifted over for simply listening.
The centaur sings, and eventually the song ends. But then the questions come. They are about worlds and differences and loneliness, and some of them are questions which only children could ask. Some can be answered, while others cannot. The centaur wishes she could answer a few, and with others... she tries to remember that they're children. A newborn is a monster of desire constantly demanding satisfaction, and childhood creates the slow process of becoming something other. Some adults never fully succeed, or even truly try. But there are ways in which all children are monsters, until they learn not to be. Something which takes a society, and the occasional friend.
She has her own questions, and some are answered. But for the biggest one... it's too complicated, and requires a voice which isn't present just then. A promise is made: that words will arrive soon, once the final piece of the story is asked to add his part. She will learn what happened at the end of the battle, and that knowledge will arrive in three days. Three days before she learns something of the entity in the tallest tower, and the sacrifice made from choice.
The centaur will need to have those words read to her and when they end, she will find herself in front of the mirror again. Staring at the reflection of a monster, because she never allows herself to succeed for very long. Knowing, finally knowing what some see when they look at her, and hating that image all the more.
Towards the end of the meeting, a member of the palace staff risks a tiny knock on a passage door, because there is a message which the sisters have been waiting for. The younger grumbles a bit, the elder thinks about the dubious wisdom of an order to find them at any time, and the sealed envelope is passed through.
It's something they have to open and read together. But they need to wait until the meeting is over. The children leave, the teacher is trying to figure out if she can escape from having to show the finished reel to any parents, and the centaur is led out by a Guard towards a much-needed meal.
There are ten children. For three, the nightmares will have ended before Moon can be raised again. Two more have them slowly fade over the course of several weeks. One begins to compose a letter: something she would normally get one of her father's clerks to do on her behalf, but these have to be her words. Those are clearly the best ones.
The sisters are the last ponies out. The younger goes to her bed, but only after extracting a promise from the elder that they will read the contents of the envelope together. They owe the centaur that much, and...
...both are worried.
There are ways in which the meeting could have been so much worse. (The elder is planning on a silent self-kicking session regarding her own choice of class.) Some where the result could have been argued as the best possible outcome. But words were said, and one grouping...
The girl thinks kindness is something she has to earn.
The sisters need to talk. And before that can happen, the letter must be read.
Together.
Final Evaluation
They skimmed past most of the training-related details. The unique fighting style, the capacity to pick up combat skills at a rate which the Sergeant had never expected to see without an associated mark, speed and strength and thinking in ways no pony would because a pony's mind wasn't involved... they had been expecting all of it. Physically, the girl was a marvel.
The important part was at the end.
Requires validation, but won't ACCEPT it. Believes herself to be inadequate in all ways. Suspect parental interference from an early age. Did not require breaking down during training because breaking took place years ago. Constant outside social support system with multiple points of bracing may be able to prop up for some time, but rebuilding may be impossible.
Will always be questing for success, but perceives anything she accomplishes as temporary, inadequate compared to what others might manage, or as a setup for future failures. Forever fighting to gain a goal which she will never allow herself to reach. Is capable of taking on the duty, but one true breach may destroy her.
Guard suitability: BORDERLINE
Hiring decision left to Generals.
And when they both reached the last word, their eyes closed.
"You spoke the words, Tia," the younger finally said. "On the first night she stood before us. In a way, even then, you knew."
The elder silently nodded, and said them once again. Both repeating the sentence and pronouncing it.
"'She reminds me of Twilight'..."