//------------------------------// // Waystone // Story: Clear Skies // by Amber Spark //------------------------------// With the Blossom now heading at a safe half-ahead speed of forty knots toward the North Unicorn Pass and nothing in the sky save for rainclouds, I’d decided it was time to investigate the so-called ‘Waystone.’ Putting Blossom on autopilot—and reflecting that I probably did spend too much on this ship—we both hurried down the stairs. It was only then when I realized that I should have sprung for the stairwell covers. It was cold up here. At least it hadn’t been raining when we made our run. But the lower decks, heated by the energy of the crystal core, were nice and toasty. Both of us lost our shivers as we made our way to the forward lounge.  I cast the spell to give us the Spellsinger’s Sight on the inner bulkheads, which revealed the same beautiful, rainy northwestern Equestrian weather I’d come to love. Then, finally, I asked Minuette to bring out Even Keel’s little ‘gift.’  I couldn’t wait to find out that it was a fake and we could move past the whole thing. Yes, I’m sure Minuette would be disappointed, but this way, it would make things simple for both of us. While I suppose there might be ruins or treasures to be found in the Equestrian Northwest, I wasn’t planning on being the one to find them. I would be quite happy just to sail over them and let other ponies go digging around in the dirt. Minuette brought back the ‘Waystone’ as if it were some holy artifact of the Pre-Unification Tribes. It was a small miracle she didn’t trip over her own hooves considering how hard she was staring at it. “Minuette, you’re going to go cross-eyed if you keep doing that,” I snickered.  Her eyes refocused on me and she gave me a snooty little smile. “Well, we can’t have that, because I think I’d be even cuter than you in glasses.” I froze as if she’d slapped me with a club of ice. I felt my cheeks get hot and finally stammered, “W-what? What was that?” “It’s called a comeback, Moony.” She smiled sweetly, her eyes sparkling with… something. “Now that we’ve both scored a point, why don’t we stop and you tell me about this thing?” I narrowed my eyes and raised an eyebrow, while mentally delighted to be on some other topic. “You were gazing into that like it held the secrets to the universe and you don’t know what it is?” Minuette sighed and floated the ball over to me. I snatched it from her magic, only to find myself surprised by the ‘Waystone’s’ weight.  “What I know mostly comes from Daring Do and the Maze of Kronnos. And since Daring Do is fiction…” Minuette trailed off, rubbing the back of her head and biting her lip.  “I can’t believe you got so worked up over something you learned about in a pulp fiction novel,” I sighed as I inspected the sparkling lines of light flowing across the six-pointed crystal in the center.  “Are you gonna make fun of me or are you going to educate me?” Minuette brushed by me and plopped onto one of the lounge chairs to stare out at the rain. “What, I can’t do both?” I asked as I dropped into the other one. Minuette shot me a dirty look. “Moony!” I held my hooves up and laughed. “Okay, okay, I give.” “So?” Minuette demanded. “Considering how much you’re talking about it not being real, you’ve got to know something about them.” “Waystones, real Waystones,” I began—after adjusting my glasses of course, “are essentially a combination of magical journal and magical map. Some are more of one, some are more of the other.” “What does this look like?” Minuette interjected. She’d already turned her seat to face me. She was even bouncing up and down. So much for being annoyed at me. “Which kind?” Looking at her eager face, I couldn’t stop myself. I had to humor the silly filly. It’s not like I had anything to lose, right? “This one…” I studied the way the outer casing of the orb seemed to shift around a little. “Is even between the two, probably. But there’s something else in the design that I can’t quite make out…” I narrowed my eyes and adjusted my glasses, but the outer casing—at first appearing nothing more than a sheet of bronze—looked odd. Like there was a texture or pattern there. Suddenly, a massive magnifying glass appeared before me. I yelped and scrambled back, only to see Minuette giggling softly—her horn alight.  “Guild spell?” I asked flatly. “You’d be surprised by the things they teach us in the Guild!” Minuette said, her voice as sweet as sugar.  I used my own magic to adjust Minuette’s conjured magnifying glass so I could study the outer surface. To my surprise, there were markings on it. In Old Ponish, unless I missed my guess. But the words didn’t make any sense and they were split up by all sorts of strange geometric patterns that flowed over the surface like an aerial map of streets in a big city.  I found myself describing all of this to Minuette in detail, at least what I could make out of it. I examined every angle I could, floating the ‘Waystone’ to see every side. All the while, the six-pointed crystal remained perfectly stationary inside of its magical housing.  “So, come on… finish telling the story!” Minuette prodded me in the shoulder when I went quiet for too long. “You only got started!” “You interrupted me!” “I got excited.” “You’re usually excited.” “I mean… you’re not wrong. But that’s no excuse!” “You’re right, it’s not.” She blew a raspberry at me.  It was enough to get me to crack. I laughed and nodded. “Okay, okay. Let’s see. They usually take months to create, but after that, they can store a ton of locational data across a general region. There’s been some debate on what exactly a ‘region’ means, but that’s beside the point. Once you attune a Waystone to a region, it takes a lot of work to break that attunement. But figuring out the location of where a Waystone is attuned is pretty easy. You just have to focus on it and squeeze the thing lightly with your hooves.” Before I could react—or regret my words—Minuette snatched the orb out of my magic and gave it a light squeeze.  “Dammit, Minuette!” I shouted as I reached— The ‘Waystone’ lit up like a miniature sun. The white light was so bright I was sure ponies could have seen the glow from the portholes in the Blossom for a good twenty miles in every direction. I yelped and stumbled backward, falling right off my seat. Minuette squeaked somewhere behind the nova she’d just unleashed and I heard another thump. Then, there was a resounding crystalline gong that vibrated through the very hull of the ship. I felt my poor ship shudder at the abuse.  Finally, the light dimmed somewhat—though I could barely see from all the spots in my vision—and shifted into a soft, pleasant blue. A much higher-pitched crystalline chime sounded, then the light went out.  The ‘Waystone’ dropped to the carpeted deck between the two lounge chairs with a dull thud.  For a good minute or so, I did a few of my breathing exercises. Partially to control the massive spike of anxiety rushing through my body and partially to prevent myself from going over there and knocking some sense into Minuette with the damn Hearth’s Warming ornament!  But there was a third reason. A very, very important third reason. Namely, I had trouble believing that anypony would put that much effort into a fake Waystone. Everything we had just experienced was the textbook definition of a Waystone responding that it was—in fact—in its attuned geographical region. And now, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was one of the Waystones that could— I shoved the thought out of my head. That was a myth and I wasn’t about to give Minuette even more things to freak out about. Instead, I refocused on the topic at hoof. Namely, Minuette’s antics. “Minuette?” I asked, keeping my voice as calm and sweet as possible. “Uh… yes, Moondancer?” Minuette said from somewhere beyond the large blobs dancing before my eyes. “Do me a favor?” I staggered to my hooves and managed to find my chair. I flopped into it and closed my eyes. “Uh… what’s that?” I heard Minuette moving around and yelping occasionally. I didn’t really feel bad for her. “Don’t touch the Waystone again without warning me first, okay?” My voice cracked somewhere near the end as I rubbed my temples. “I’d really rather not deal with being struck blind again… or worse.” “Uh… yeah. I can do that.” Minuette thumped something else. “Ow.” I didn’t offer to help. Served her right. We stayed in silence like that for a time. Minuette was smart enough not to speak and let me finish collecting my wits. I wasn’t sure how much time passed before Minuette spoke up again in a tiny, timid voice. “Moony?” “Hm?” “This… this is a real Waystone, isn’t it?” I sighed. “Probably.” She squealed softly, but I didn’t want to let her get her hopes up. “It doesn’t mean it has data or that the data is good, though,” I said. The afterimages were finally beginning to fade. I glanced out the window and was glad there was nothing suddenly in front of us other than rain. “It doesn’t mean we have a treasure map, Minuette.” “Where’s your sense of adventure?” Minuette wailed. “She says while she’s sitting in the lounge of my own personal airship!” I snapped. “Okay, fine,” Minuette huffed, waving her hooves in the air. “But that’s kind of the point! Why have something this amazing if you’re not going to do amazing things with it?” “Minuette, I told you why I’m out—” “Tell me how the rest of it works,” Minuette interrupted, levitating it up between us.  I snatched it out of her magic with my own magic. I did not trust her with that thing right now.  “If it’ll mean that much to you, fine!” I said, barely keeping my voice even. Thankfully, years of work with Mended Heart had actually done some good in that regard. “Once they’re in a geographical area and they’re activated, they’ll start to home in on the closest destination with gongs and chimes. Some variants even have magical arrows that will point in the right direction if you know the proper spell.” Minuette eyed the orb, but I pulled it farther away from her. She shot me another look. “You just said it was real and everything that thing just did seems to say that it’s in the right region!” Minuette huffed, crossing her hooves again. “Why does it need to be region-specific, anyway? That seems like… really complicated.” “It has to do with the way the positional data interacts with leylines.” I shrugged. “Too much distance and the connections become unstable. It’s why these aren’t common.” Minuette stared at me and blinked slowly.  “Nevermind,” I said with a sigh.  “Can you activate it?” Minuette asked, her eyes fixated on the globe. “Really, Moony? Can you turn this thing on?” I blew a stray hair out of my face and forced myself to consider the idea. I did have my entire personal library with me in my room. While I didn’t know off the top of my head, I had a fair number of books about magical artificing. Considering how important Waystones had been to the Early Equestrians… “I don’t know,” I admitted, my ears back. Her face immediately fell into something between a pout and a frown.  “Really!” I protested, my ears snapping back up. “I really don’t know. I’d have to do some research!” “You promise?” “Yes, I promise!” I groaned. “I’m not trying to be difficult here, Minuette, but give me a break. I didn’t think that was a real Waystone until a minute or two ago. And I’m still not convinced anything will be on this thing. Or even if it is, it’s probably already been found. I mean, it’s not like we’re in the Unknown West here. There are small towns and villages scattered from here to Luna Bay.” Minuette hugged herself tightly, staring down at the deck. “Look, can we… can we just try?” Looking at her like that, I finally realized I wasn’t the only one trying to get away from something. Though what such a bubbly and cheerful mare like Minuette could be running from… I didn’t have the foggiest clue. And this didn’t seem like the time or place to ask.  I could offer her one thing, though. It might end up causing more harm than good, but if I did it in good faith, maybe it would help smooth some ruffled feathers. After all, I didn’t actually have a timetable. There wasn’t anyone eagerly awaiting my arrival back in Canterlot or in Vanhoover. I was free, more or less.  I swallowed and wondered for the first time if that was actually a good thing or not. “Okay, Minuette. I’m willing to try. And if we get a location, I’ll even take us to it. Just… try not to get your—“ I was interrupted by a blue cannonball bowling me over and sending us both crashing back down to the deck. I nearly dropped the Waystone from my magic in surprise. I blinked a few times and looked down, only to see the other unicorn hugging me so tight I thought my horn might pop off my head. “Minuette!” I gasped. “Need… need air!” She squeezed tighter! Tighter! Somehow! I was pretty sure I heard breaking ribs.  Then she suddenly let go and popped off of me. However, she didn’t go far. She plopped down and focused that brilliant smile on me. Still lying on my side on the deck, I just stared up at those huge blue eyes, which seemed to dance in the low daytime lighting of the lounge.  I licked my lips and straightened my glasses. But before I could berate her, her ears twitched twice. “Thank you, Moondancer. This… this is exactly what I need right now.” Then, she bounced away. I didn’t see where. I didn’t care where. She couldn’t go far after all. It was a small airship, all things considered. Anyway, I had other things on my mind. Well, one specific thing on my mind really.  As I lay there, all I could think about at that moment was that smile and how it had been directed at me and me alone. Eventually, I swallowed an odd lump in my throat, pushed myself to my hooves, and tried to straighten myself out. Leaving the Waystone in the safe, I decided to head to the wheelhouse again.  Maybe a change in perspective would get that smile out of my head.