//------------------------------// // Twilight: Storm Bells // Story: Game of Worlds // by DualThrone //------------------------------// “Trust the pony with gems on her flank to locate the endurance foci,” Penumbra said as she held one of the massive jewels in her magic, letting it spin lazily. “I understand why they would raise concerns, but they’re all extremely stable.” “Endurance foci?” “Quite,” Penumbra said. “The normal strain on the shaft teams can be mitigated by making the treadmills and harnesses to a high standard and fitting the traces to the individual pony, but there are times when the ship has to go fast, maneuver, or simply needs an outsized amount of power, more than could be obtained by ordinary effort. The options are the whip--as you can imagine, a stop was put to that notion with extreme prejudice--or using a stable foci to allow a pony to push themselves beyond their physical limits without harm. The second part--without harm--was the important benefit of the foci.” “Cuz otherwise, they wouldn’t get volunteers?” “That’s a factor, certainly, but not the deciding one.” Penumbra put the jewel back and turned to trot up the stairs to the main deck. “Training four hundred ponies to walk in perfect synchronization, stop perfectly, speed up and slow down perfectly, is an extremely long and difficult task. An expert team can also do double-duty as haulers so they’re a critical part of the imperial infrastructure. A team losing effectiveness from the loss of a single member is hard enough; losing a member to negligence is unacceptable and unthinkable.” “You sound like you speak from experience,” Twilight said. “Seeing as how I’ve been alive for thousands of years, Princess…” “I mean that you talk like you’ve explained this to others, numerous times,” Twilight said. “During the time that the Crystal Empire was still here.” Penumbra smiled. “That is true, but…” She paused, furrowed her brow, then nodded. “I slipped into the present tense.” “As if the Empire was still around, and you were explaining it,” Twilight confirmed. “You would hardly believe the number of times I was in that precise position,” Penumbra sighed as they reached the top decks and trotted across the immense wooden plane towards the gangplank. “We were always an anomaly to Equestria. No one understood why we’d want to live in frozen lands without plants or animals or growing things. A royal family that was openly a mingling of changeling and Equestrian nobility was disconcerting to other ponies, even during the long periods where the discomfort with the fourth race wasn’t so significant. That we called ourselves an empire caused acute discomfort because empires are expansionist, even though the only land we wanted to seize was more glacial plains that no one else wanted. “Being an Imperial citizen was… special. I felt comfortable among them, enough to linger for centuries, and I regarded them as my people. I made friends with them, attended births and funerals, marked the annual Festival of Matches by…” “Festival of Matches?” Dawn stepped around Twilight so she was following directly behind Penumbra as they started down the gangplank. “Like, Hearts and Hooves Day?” “Nothing like that,” Penumbra said. “We celebrated all the traditional holidays--although the annual Hearth's Warming Eve pageants would be unrecognizable to you--but added a couple of our own. The Festival of Matches was… well, have any of you heard the tale of the little match-filly?” “The lil what now?” “Little match…” “I know the tale,” Pinkie said. “I do as well,” Twilight said. “Not that I’m happy to know it. It’s quite tragic.” “Yes,” Penumbra said. “It was heartbreaking that of all the people to show the poor little thing the slightest kindness, it had to fall to a beggar instead of the thousands of citizens shuffling passed her with full purses who didn’t even look her way. But just one pony doing the right thing made all the difference, and the world is now better for her having lived to old age. The festival in her honor is… was my favorite.” “How many of our stories are based on things that actually happened?” Pinkie drew even with the zebricorn so she could look at her as they walked. “And how many have a twist?” “Very nearly all of them,” Penumbra said. “Ponies--all people really--tell fantastical tales about very real things all the time without realizing it. The ponies of the past were both worse and better than you think they were, and there are far too many tales about them that remain untold or are so badly mangled that they’ve become pure fiction.” “I’d like to hear one,” Pinkie said. “This isn’t really a setting for storytelling, Pinkamena.” “Do you have something better to do?” “A tangled stemwinder about the Empire would be preferable.” Penumbra sighed at Pinkie’s look. “Very well. Does the name ‘Snowfall Frost’ sound familiar?” “Magical miser pony?” Applejack said. “Tried to magically remove Hearth's Warming Eve?” Penumbra stopped and turned completely around to look at Pinkie. “Excuse me?” “Tried to magically remove…” “I heard you but…” Penumbra sighed and shook her head, turning and continuing to walk. “This is what I meant by pure fiction. The notion of removing a celebration is absurd in the first place, but by the time Snowfall was at work, Starswirl the Bearded’s spell that allowed interdiction of decisive points on a present timeline had been secured beyond even the princess’ means of easy acquisition. At any rate, Snowfall wasn’t trying to remove Hearth's Warming Eve, she was trying to disassociate it from metaphysical interaction with the windegos.” “What kind of metaphysical interaction?” “The windegos ultimately represent discord; ever since the flight from the original homeland, ponies have represented harmony,” Penumbra said. “Discord and harmony are two side of the same coin, respectively representing fundamental forces in the world. Snowfall saw this interaction as something that was sustaining the threat of the windegos, so she tried to snap the chain that bound the two.” “That seems kind of ill-advised,” Twilight said. “Severing that kind of connection would have to be a very delicate process and the Hearth’s Warming Tale depicts Snowfall as a skilled alchemist but not a true magi.” Penumbra snorted. “Skilled alchemist. Her ability was roughly on par with Clover the Clever, who was actually a school friend of hers. You should know better, Twilight, you would know that the fundamentals that Snowfrost would need to formulate her conclusions are far above the abilities of an alchemist.” Twilight raised a brow. “Snowfall Frost, the miserly pony of a foal’s tale, was not only real but had abilities on par with one of the most famous artificers and runescription scholars in history… but no one knew she even existed?” “Did you know that changelings were real before meeting them?” “Point. So why is she a story and not a historical figure?” “Are you familiar with the Emeritus Question that fully flowered during the time of Starswirl the Fifth?” “I am.” She was sure that everyone who’d attended advanced education, or even who were very well-read, were familiar with the academic debate over the weighting of traditional status versus manifest merit. Starswirl the Fifth, usually called ‘The Innovator,’ had provoked a great deal of dispute over promoting the theories of Cadlilly Meadowbrook over noble-born herbalists with regards to disease control. The ultimate result had been the acceptance of merit as being equal to noble status and eventually, being superior. “Why?” “Snowfall was an early, and very earnest, ‘meritist’ before the argument began to gain enough traction to provoke debate,” Penumbra said. “As you can imagine, the nobility has a variety of ways to deal with upstarts that challenge them, and Snowfall didn’t have a charismatic bone in her body. She had very few friends because it took some time before ponies realized her fixation on hard work was not, in fact, a way of impugning anyone who didn’t spend sixteen-hour days working.” “Sounds like the kinda pony who’d slip between the cracks real easy,” Applejack said, “even without a bunch of nobles ignorin’ her. Plodding hard-working folk don’t make for excitin’ stories.” “And so she did,” Penumbra said. “She was not particularly talented at magic. Her mind worked neither quickly nor brilliantly but it did work extremely thoroughly. She compensated for lack of talent with a frankly unhealthy work ethic, dipping deeply into the territory of obsessive, but her fixations bore fruit consistently. Through sheer effort, she devised a theory about the relationship between Hearth’s Warming Eve and the windegos that thoroughly resisted disproof despite being wholly incorrect, and it was this situation that led to her misguided effort to sever the chain.” “Wholly incorrect?” “Yes,” Penumbra said. “Which was no fault of hers since there were only three ponies in the entire world who knew the true facts, and I didn’t meet Snowfall until after the incident mythologized in the story about her.” “The other two were Mum and Aunt Luna,” Dawn said. “Correct.” Penumbra stopped walking and glanced around, seeming to be trying to find her bearings. “Dawnbreaker should be coming into sight.” “We’re not that far from the Vigilance,” Twilight said. “Nor was Dawnbreaker supposed to be,” Penumbra said. “It’s an icebreaker and if the VLCCs didn’t follow closely behind it, the sea ice would start closing in around them.” “Maybe it started to move in a different direction?” “Very plausible.” Penumbra slipped a sextant out of her saddlebags and made it level on the horizon, raising the arm meant to make an angle with the sun. “Forty-five degrees should do the trick. Twilight, I trust that you’re familiar with the principles of reflective augmentation of a far-viewing cantrip?” “A reflective augmentation of a…” “Tell her yes,” Munin said. “But I’ve…” “...never heard of such a thing.” Munin grinned a little smugly. “Your conscious awareness might not have, but your mind did.” “How…?” “...are you meant to cast a spell you’re not consciously aware of knowing?” Munin shrugged. “It’s not hard, really. Just cast the base spell--a standard far-viewing cantrip--and your mind will fill in the rest. I know, it’s extremely uncomfortable and unfamiliar but you know a pony who practices it as part of her career.” Twilight thought about it a moment, conscious of Penumbra giving her an odd look, before it came to her. “Oh, that’s how Trixie’s special talent works. I suppose I never really wondered about the mechanics of how she can…” “Twilight, Penumbra is staring at you.” “Oh, right.” Twilight looked back at Penumbra. “Sorry, I don’t have many chances to use the spell.” “It is one of the more obscure variations,” Penumbra said. “If you would, please project the reception in front of me.” Twilight was tempted to mentally protest, but the hallucination of Munin was looking impatient so she sighed softly and let the magical energy from her font fill the framework of the spell as she always did. Between one instance and the next in the process, she abruptly knew exactly what to do in order to get the effect she wanted. The sensation was odd enough to make her stumble a little in surprise, nearly losing hold of the magic, before she returned to the proper frame of mind and calmly proceeded to form a construct like a long mirror through which she channeled the power to do what she knew the next step to be, and then the next, and one more step to finish. She instantly understood why Penumbra wanted the unusual variation of the cantrip: it allowed them to look down at the stranded ships and frozen sea from above, but as stable and stationary as if it was on solid ground instead of suspended in the air. Without thinking about it, she turned her head and the view shifted so she could see Vigiliance from high above. From the high angle, it blended nearly perfectly with the ice around it, and she could tell that it was deliberate camouflage instead of the ship being iced over. Various fixtures were built into the deck, breaking up the image of the massive vessel such that it didn’t really look like an artificial construction at all. “If you could shift your view to the right, Twilight?” Penumbra said. “Alright,” Twilight said and did so. At first, she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. The profile of Dawnbreaker was nothing like the two VLCCs behind it, starting with the fact that about a dozen of what were visibly smokestacks jutted from the structure. Where the immense cargo-carrying vessels were ungainly-looking and utilitarian, the icebreaker had the flowing lines and length of a military ship, a clipper but massive in scale. Even from the distance her far-viewing cantrip was positioned at, even at an angle with the mist of the frozen sea partly obscuring it, the bridge was clearly visible, towering above the deck with the dizzying array of pennants, banners, and flags hanging limply along the cables running from the top of the town down to the deck again. But the most important thing Twilight noticed about the ship was that it was exactly where Penumbra had said she believed it to be: several hundred meters in front of the Vigilance and as Twilight noted when she bumped the focus back to the left, not in the direction they’d been traveling. She ended the spell and looked at Penumbra. “What was the point of that?” “”I needed to be certain of something before we continued,” Penumbra said. “But I also wanted you to see the Dawnbreaker from a perspective that you would never otherwise utilize.” “Showing off?” Penumbra grinned a little at Rarity’s question. “If you had a hoof in making one of the national treasures of an empire, wouldn’t you?” Her grin faded into a small smile. “You are all the first to see Dawnbreaker for going on a thousand years. She was the pride of the Empire, the flagship, a marvel of engineering and innovation, carrying the very best sailors and propulsion crews. With my preparations made on the two trailing ships, she is the key to standing down the ultimate defense and advancing my goal to its next step.” “They put the thing that turns the magical defense off on a ship?” Penumbra nodded. “Precisely. A ship that, after the defense was activated, can only be boarded by an Imperial citizen, or someone so familiar with our culture that they’d recognize certain signs and know that those signs were associated with a unique cultural event.” “So, just you.” “Yes.” “So if you were to be killed, the Empire would remain as it is forever?” Penumbra turned fully to Dawn and gave her a level look. “I have made provisions to ensure that if I was to die, others would have the knowledge to board the Dawnbreaker and dismantle the defense. Obviously.” “Well, it’s not obvious to…” “In which case, you are an idiot.” Penumbra turned away from her and started in the direction that Twilight had seen the Dawnbreaker in. “Come along. The rites to gain entrance are significantly more difficult and dangerous after night falls.” It wasn’t the scale of Dawnbreaker that made Twilight pause and do a double-take when she got closer to it; the VLCCs, after all, were much larger. Neither was it that the icebreaker had the lines and design elements of a warship; she’d seen that from above. What made her pause was how eerily modern-looking the icebreaker was. The hull was clearly clad in iron and enough was visible that she could tell that it was also copper-bottomed. The vessel carried no visible sails, instead appearing to rely on its shaft crews and some manner of machine turning the trio of paddlewheels integrated into the hull instead of beside it. One of the more interesting things about the vessel, however, was that a long structure with various ladders, towers, decks, windows, and other features ran almost from the stern to just in front of the towering bridge. It was a design she’d never seen before, and it took a sharp jab in her flank from Dawn to stop her from staring and analyzing it from afar. “Awful modern-lookin’ ship,” Applejack said. “Necessity is the mother of invention,” Penumbra said. “A icebreaking ram on a wood frame wasn’t up to the task, so covering it in iron was the only way. The frigid waters have a particularly aggressive breed of hullworm so copper plates were fastened on. Copper disintegrates iron bolts after a time so a solution to that was needed. And metalclads are more ponderous, so a solution to that was needed.” She gestured at the vessel, “The most capable minds I could beg, borrow, or steal--not literally, just an expression--got Dawnbreaker to the point you see it now, as a series of solutions and compromises.” “Over 500 years ahead of Equestrian experiments in copper-plating wooden hulls,” Dawn noted. “Those must have been some amazing minds.” “Warm-water hullworms aren’t aggressive or nearly so large,” Penumbra said, “and they’re marine so the constant movement between salt water and fresh has the unintentional effect of cleaning them off. Equestria didn’t need aggressive defenses against marine life infestation of its wooden vessels, so your nation was slow to recognize the need, slow to research, and slow to adopt. Equestria did not need, so Equestria did not invent.” “That, and most copper has to be imported.” “The essentials for more exotic industry do not favor Equestria,” Penumbra said with a nod. “But now that you’ve met Chrysalis and been formally received in her court, and a traditional alliance will be sealed by marriage after this is all over, things are going to go much better for you in the future.” “I mean, I can see how the courtesan sector…” “There’re copper mines in the Barrens?” Twilight said as a firm bap from Applejack cut Dawn off. “And tin, and bauxite, and calamine, among others,” Penumbra said. “It’s a blessing to Equestria that the changelings regard you with nostalgic fondness, because those deserts and scrub hide many treasures for the pony wise enough to perceive them.” “Coal?” “Yes, although the oleum nigris is significantly more abundant and valuable.” Penumbra smiled slightly and momentarily. “Perhaps you’ll help them develop it into effective fuel in the future.” “I don’t think they’ll be willing after what Maredusa…” “This resource stuff is interestin’ an’ all,” Applejack said, “but didn’t ya say that getting it all sorted would get mighty hard after dark?” “Yes, of course,” Penumbra said. “The point is that there are very sensible reasons why Equestria didn’t experiment with coppering their ships for such a long period after the Empire did. Those reasons aside, we need to walk to the bow to gain entry.” “What’s at the bow?” “The figurehead.” Twilight gave her a level look. “Really.” Penumbra smirked at her. “Ask a silly question, Princess, and you’ll get a silly answer.” “I’ve never seen a ship that is boarded from the bow,” Twilight said. “It’s not silly to ask what makes Dawnbreaker different.” “We’re not boarding from the bow,” Penumbra said. “We’re gaining entry at the bow.” Twilight thought about it for a few steps. “You have to perform the rites to gain entrance at the bow.” “Yes.” Penumbra smiled and picked up the pace. “Truth be told, I’m looking forward to this. It’s been over a thousand years since I had the chance to perform these specific ones. A lot of the rites of memory, of honor, of dedication, and the rest can be done at any time and place with the right material components. A few, however, can only be done at a specific place and time and are of deeper significance than the more common ones.” “Like, to you personally?” Dawn said. “And metaphysically,” Penumbra said. “Recall that Snowfall Frost tried to sever the metaphysical link between Hearth’s Warming Eve and the windegos. There’d be no point severing the chain unless things like giving gifts, celebrating with friends, and decorating had metaphysical significance--and quite a bit of it too.” Applejack snorted. “Drinking spiced cider at mah family’s yearly shindig is… what? Special some way?” “Not by itself, no,” Penumbra said. “What you do as a single pony is a bit, maybe a few bits, on a pile. But it’s not just you, is it?” “Nope.” Applejack drew herself up a little proudly. “Can barely fit all the kin in any two barns.” Penumbra smiled. “Yes your family are lovely ponies. But my point is that if I was to have three bits for every one of your kin at that party, I would have done quite a day’s work--but that’s just one gathering of Apples across Equestria, and the Apples are just a few hundred ponies among hundreds of thousands--and that’s just one celebration around the festivities.” “So each little thing ain’t much but when ya put them all together, it’s a whole lot?” “Precisely.” Twilight could see the turn of the bow at the edge of her vision, looking through the mild fog that had begun to develop when Penumbra’s glance fell on her. “Speaking of Snowfall, however, I recall that I never said exactly what became of her.” “Well, she failed,” Pinkie said. “‘Failed’ implies that she went forward with it. Luna had been paying close attention to her dreams for some time beforehand, which was useful solely because Snowfall’s focus was so tight that her dreaming mind manifested her thinking in fragments, and finally realized that not only had Snowfall formulated a tight theory, she had a plan of action that was dangerously feasible.” “What’d Auntie Luna do?” “Spoke to her,” Penumbra said. “She told her everything: the purpose that the windegos served, why there was a connection between them and Hearth’s Warming Eve, and explained the danger in breaking the connection. Snowfall put aside her entire plan without question, but Luna wisely perceived that her intellect was a power needing careful guidance and took her under her wing.” She smiled as they rounded the bow. “It’s why I respect Luna, and regard her fondly. She did more than she strictly needed to do, and Equestria benefitted from the decision.” “That’s interesting, but why do you bring it up?” “Pinkie wanted me to tell you the truth of a myth, and I have.” Penumbra smiled and gestured up at the figurehead suspended above them. “And now I will show you another.” Twilight looked up. The figurehead was so far above her that it was a little difficult to make out the details but she had the vague impression of a young pony draped in tattered rags cradling something in her hooves. She looked back at Penumbra to find that the zebricorn was in the process of unbuckling her heavy winter gear and sliding parts of it off. “What are you doing?” Twilight said. “Isn’t the cold here…” “Ex...tremely b...bad?” Penumbra said, her voice already going into stuttering. “T… that it is…” “But you’re taking your winter gear off.” “H.. have t… to.” Penumbra let the gear drop off completely. “R... r… rites… only w...w...work… s… sympa… pa… thetically.” “What does…?” “C… can’t… a… answer…” Penumbra opened a latch on her saddlebags and pulled out… a match. Twilight blinked at it as the zebricorn took a shuddering step towards the figurehead. “T… trust… m… m… me… go… gon… gonna work…” “Munin, am I watching our guide… kill herself?” “I don’t know any more than you do,” Munin said. “But I, and by that I mean you, are getting an odd feeling off that match.” “Odd how?” “Find out.” Munin smirked. “It’s not a really complicated spell.” “Oh, right.” Twilight used a moment of focus to bring up her magesight cantrip. The world immediately shifted into the unreality in which magical energy suddenly became visible to her. She glanced at her friends to orientate herself, seeing magic flowing around and through them as it normally did, before she turned her eyes to the shivering Penumbra. The magic radiating from the ordinary-looking match Penumbra had clutched in her telekinesis was intense enough that on sheer reflex, Twilight jerked her head away from it and shielded her eyes. “Somethin’ the matter, Twi?” Applejack’s voice was genuinely concerned and out of the corner of her eye, Twilight could see the farmpony looking between her and the frankly bizarre tableau of Penumbra shivering violently while holding a match and stumbling towards a figurehead. “No,” Twilight said, dousing the spell as dots of afterimage swam around her vision, as vivid as if she’d looked at the noon sun. “Just… I don’t think that’s an ordinary…” The zzst of Penumbra striking the match was a sound more enormous than any Twilight could remember hearing, more so because such a soft sound should not have been audible at all, and abruptly, she wasn’t standing on a frozen sea in heavy winter gear with her friends. Instead, it was her third Grand Galloping Gala after being sent to Ponyville. There had been an early chill that year, so Celestia had gathered some of her sun and suspended it in the middle of the gala hall ceiling, the gentle warmth washing over everyone below it. Rarity had outdone herself in designing their dresses that year, and even the very rough-around-the-edges Rainbow Dash had drawn ample admiration and comments from how Rarity’s brilliant work had emphasized her slim athletic body and highlighted her vivid mane, something that Rainbow did her best to play off as girly and embarrassing, but Twilight had caught her looking happily bashful when she thought no one was watching. The food was delicious, Octavia Philharmonica and her marefriend had made a very pleasant blending of mechanical and string music that gave the Gala an exciting energy, and it was the first one that both Shining and Cadence could attend together. Given how soon after it the entire incident of the Guardian exploded onto the scene, Twilight remembered the moment as being the last taste of true joy before the plunge, the last taste of safety and happiness. A vision of safety and joy that flashed into being with the strike of a match. “Is that one of mine?” Twilight blinked and the vision faded, and she was back on the frozen sea next to an exotic icebreaker called the Dawnbreaker, and Penumbra was no longer shivering as a black-coated filly dressed in ragged scraps of cloth stood in front of her, looking up at the match. “Yes,” Penumbra said with a smile. “You are courteous to honor me so.” The filly blew the match out with a quick motion. “Who are you?” “I am the snow falling soft on the frozen field,” Penumbra said. “I marshal the winter to shield the weak. I am the light of the lamp in the mists of the storm. I am the shadow of my charge, falling athwart the path of my foes.” The filly looked steadily at her through the odd recitation, and then she beamed and threw her legs around Penumbra. Legs that Twilight abruptly realized were partly transparent. “I know you now,” she said, her voice bubbling over with sudden joy. “Welcome home, Light Shadow. Your empire has missed you, lo these thousand years.” “As I have missed it.” Penumbra gestured to Twilight and the rest of her friends. “Matchlight, I present my companions, five mares of Equestria who have walked my return with me.” “Hail fellows of the verdant south, lit by the gold and silver of the Sisters,” Matchlight said, bowing politely to them. “Be welcome, though I fear we are not quite prepared to embrace visitors now.” “That ends now, my friend,” Penumbra said. “The vigil is over, the danger is passed, the Empire is safe again. I request passage so I might call the Watch to their service.” “Passage you have, and I strongly suggest you make yourself secure atop Dawnbringer as not a one of you is well-suited to arctic water.” Matchlight smiled to Penumbra. “But I shall call my Watch from their long sleep, and return to my own. Be safe, Light Shadow.” The filly faded out of existence, and a cacophony of pealing bells exploded from somewhere above. Penumbra nodded and then turned to them as she picked up her discarded winter wear. “We should get up on deck, quickly.” “An’ why’s that?” Twilight felt a long, grinding shudder beneath her hooves and looked down. The sea ice suddenly looked darker than it had even seconds ago. Her eyes met Applejack’s and she could see that the farmpony had realized the same thing she had. “The Empire is returning, Applejack Apple,” Penumbra said. “And believe you me, sub-zero water is not good for swimming.”