//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 - The Cimmareian // Story: The Tower of the Fallen Star // by Raleigh //------------------------------// Night descended upon the slavers’ quarter of the city, and with it the filth of the known world, fat off the profits of their equine cargo, emerged from their barges moored in the harbour and sought to spend their ill-gotten wealth in the multitudes of taverns, ale-houses, pubs, gambling dens, and brothels that inevitably sprung up where their kind plied their trade.  Theirs was not a respectable profession, yet the city owed its obscene wealth to their trade in flesh, not that those who lived in their palaces and towers on the hill in the distance would admit that the luxury in which they lived was owed to the taxes collected and skimmed on this buying and selling of lives.  As such, this quarter of the city was almost entirely given over to them, and no pony who would call themselves ‘honest’ would dare set hoof in the fetlock-deep mire of inequity.   Thence, by the light of guttering torches and brazers, the dim candlelight that slipped through the open windows and doorways of these establishments, ponies from realms as far as Zamarea, Ponphir, Hyponorea, and beyond roamed the refuse-ridden streets in search of such places where they could waste their tainted gold.  They drunkenly staggered through the narrow and winding streets, enticed by the light that poured out of these doorways.  The sounds that rose up from within, cast out into the darkness, coalesced into a vast cacophony of chatter, of hooves clamouring on tables, of shouts, of the shrill laughter of whores, of obscene songs, and of a myriad other sounds that promised a pony a glorious night of wanton debauchery. From one such den, nestled deep within this district and known to all for its fine ale and finer mares and stallions, another sound bubbled up in this symphony of sin.  Not enough to overpower the other sounds, but enough to be noticeable and certainly unmistakeable; from the top storey of this low, squat building and out of the window with its shutters flung open into the night, the sound of a mare’s cries of passion could be heard by all within a radius of fifty yards.  Deep, loud, but feminine, it set the imaginations of stallions who paused and strained their ears to listen afire with thoughts of the mare who made them.  It rose to a shrill crescendo with a single cry of climax, and then died away to a moan that was soon lost amidst the general din, and the stallions, disappointed, carried on, some in search of relief. If one of the pegasi in the streets below had been brave enough to fly up to the window and peek inside, they would see a towering figure, more than twice the size of the stallion beneath her, in the throes of ecstasy.  The couple were atop a bed of straw covered with rough cloth, and the stallion was almost eclipsed from view by the mare’s bulk save for his twitching hindlegs that peaked from under her bare flanks.  Her mighty chest heaved and her white coat was slick with glistening sweat, which ran in rivulets down the muscular contours of her body.  A pair of great wings spread from her back and a long, spiralled horn almost scraped the wooden ceiling above.  She smiled down at her partner, who had fallen limp under her. “By Ishtar,” he gasped between quick, frantic breaths.  “You make love like an earth pony.” Celestia chuckled, deep, warm, and throaty.  “I will take that as a compliment, my little stallion.” “Unrefined,” he said as he pulled himself up on his elbows and gazed up at her, “but relentless.”  His horn lit with a pale blue aura, wrapped around a flagon on the tabletop nearby, and brought it to his lips.  The glow reflected off the sweaty sheen of the mare’s coat. “We have little need for such ‘refinements’ where I come from,” she said, stroking a hoof as large as a dinner plate down the front of his chest. The stallion drank deeply from the flagon, and then offered it up to the big mare.  “And where would that be?” he said.  “Where the ponies are tall and possess both wings and a horn?” “Cimmareia.”  Celestia took the flagon with her hoof and downed the remaining two thirds, then tossed the empty vessel over her shoulder.  It struck the straw-covered floor behind her with a thud, spilling the last dregs to be soaked up by the rushes, and rolled to a stop.  She wiped the froth from her lips with the back of her hoof.  “And I am the only one with wings and a horn.” “A northern earth pony barbarian,” said the stallion.  “That would explain it.  Then you would not know how to use the horn on your head.” He pointed up at said appendage protruding from Celestia’s forehead, and somewhat self-consciously she reached up and touched it.  Her hoof stroked along her peculiar, elegant horn, which always felt alien to her touch, as though it was merely a crown and not truly a part of her.  Likewise her wings, which had been spread wide in the throes of ecstasy, awkwardly folded against her sides. “I might not know how to make things fly as you do,” she said, tossing her pink mane with a hoof, “or myself, for that matter, but foul sorcery and nimble flight are still no match for cold steel in my hooves.” “There is more to unicorn magic than making things fly.”  The stallion pointed his hoof to the open window, from which the sounds of revelry drifted into their quiet room.  The mare followed the line to the palaces in the distance, where the lords of the city resided apart from the great, unwashed mass of the town.  They were placed upon a hill, such that those in the slavers’ quarter, the grand market, or the slums might look up from their hovels, taverns, and brothels and remember who truly held the power in this city.  She could see, even through the small portal of the window, illuminated by sharp, bright lights that could not have come from mere candlelight or brazier, those glittering, extravagant homes.  Crafted in marble, gold, silver, and platinum, each seemed to have more wealth plastered on its facade than the mare had ever seen in the hoard of the wealthiest chieftain.  “The most powerful unicorns in the known world reside there,” he continued.  “Their magic is such that they can move the sun and moon, granting the world the gift of night and day.  They work tirelessly, consorting with the spirits and daemons of the outer realms, binding the forces of chaos to their wills to bring glory to our city and doom to our enemies.  With a flash of his horn, one might burn you to dust, or whither you into an elderly, frail mare, or suck your very soul from your flesh.  You are mighty indeed, but what is the cold steel in your hooves compared to that power?” Celestia tossed her head back and laughed, with a single, contemptuous bark of ‘hah!’.  Her matted pink mane seemed to float ethereally for a moment, before settling down her back to her wings.  “It makes no difference!” she said, showing rows of yellowing teeth with her wide grin.  “All of that magic is useless if I have broken their horns or smashed their skulls.” “I fear you protest too much,” said the stallion.  “You would not be so contemptuous of such power if you understood it.  A unicorn mage will teach you what your earth pony upbringing could not.” “For a price?” The stallion snorted.  “There is always a price,” he said.  “Speaking of which, I think that should be two bits.” Celestia had stopped listening, as her attention had been taken by a singular tower that stood out amongst the sprawling palaces and gardens of the upper city.  Unlike the elegant, flowing forms of the homes of the city’s nobles, high magi, and merchant lords, this was a tall, dark tower, visible against the night sky only due to the lambent glow of the braziers and magic light around its base.  It was round, apparently smooth as far as she could make it out, but devoid of the extravagant ornamentation of the buildings around it.   She was a pony of the wilds who knew only the mud huts of the earth pony peasants she had lived with and the tents of the nomadic yaks who crossed their land on ancient stomping paths.  The great cities of the unicorns were baffling and strange to her.  Yet she knew that the chieftain’s hut was the largest and his tent was of the finest cloth available, and the shaman’s likewise marked with the bones of beasts arranged into strange symbols.  Ponies in positions of power, be they earth pony, unicorn, or pegasus, seemed to feel the need to mark themselves as special, so for the occupier of that tower to separate their home from even the obscene wealth of their fellow lords implied a certain sense of hubris far above that which she had come to expect even for haughty unicorns. Celestia tilted her eyes up, seeing the blurry outline of her horn in her peripheral vision.  It was far bigger than those of the unicorns she had seen here, then again she was simply larger in general.  With her greater physical size came strength beyond even that of the fiercest earth pony warrior, and by her logic that meant she should have more powerful magic than these little unicorns.  Yet she couldn’t even pick a daisy with it. “That tower,” she said, pointing towards it.  “Who lives there?” “Ah.”  The stallion chewed on his lower lip and his eyes flitted from the mare above him and the tower in the distance.  He drew himself up on his elbows and sucked in a deep breath.  “That is the Tower of the Vizier.” “He is powerful?” said Celestia. “You are a stranger to our lands,” said the stallion, rolling his eyes.  “So, I shall tell you.  The mage-lords of the city are the most powerful in all the realms, and the Vizier is the greatest among them.  It’s said that he caught a star that fell from heaven, and this is the secret of all of his magic.  True or not, he counsels the king in matters of war and trade, and weaves doom upon our enemies.” A star falling from heaven sounded implausible to Celestia; to her and her tribe they were tiny holes in the veil between this world and the otherworld through which the souls of the fallen passed into the next life.  Crom, her god, after a fierce battle with the ice daemons of the north had gathered the spirits of the dead and hurled them through the dark veil of night like a hail of arrows, the druids had told her.  And some, according to his whim, were the shapes of the beasts and monsters that stalked the gloomy forests of Cimmareia, to remind his ponies of what they should fear.  Perhaps something else had fallen from the realm of the gods beyond, through one of these tears in the veil, and was caught by this mage. “Can this ‘Vizier’ teach me magic?” she asked. The stallion squinted up at the mare, who still sat upon his lap.  These city ponies, she concluded, were a strange bunch; a Cimmareian would have already told her such a thing was impossible, that she was stupid for even considering it, and then she would have punched him, but here, that veneer of civilisation draped over them like a silk cloth over dung meant that they had to mind their ‘manners’.  She still wasn’t sure what ‘manners’ were, being things she couldn’t touch or feel, but it apparently meant not calling ponies stupid even if they really were. “You,” he said at length, his voice hushed.  “You would walk to the tower, knock on his door, and ask him to teach you magic as though he were little more than a tutor to the spoilt foals of rich slave merchants?” Celestia considered this, wondering if she was being mocked.  “Yes?” she said hesitantly. “You are a strange mare,” said the stallion, stroking his hoof over the curve of her flank.  It was firm under his touch, and he could feel the tense, heavy musculature beneath her coat.  He pulled at it, to bring the empty, blank space where a cutie mark should be into view by the dim glow of the guttering candlelight.  “Or a mere filly, if you still do not have your cutie mark.” “Few ponies have the luxury of finding their special talents where I come from,” said Celestia.  A sly, eager grin stretched the ends of her thin lips, as she edged back away from stallion and stroked her broad hoof delicately over the slim contours of his chest, quite unlike the muscular physiques of the earth ponies she was used to, further down to his trim belly, and kept going.  The unicorn squirmed under her touch.  She leaned over him, until her huge frame filled his vision, bent her head down and whispered: “Besides, could a ‘mere filly’ do this?” This time, the stallions and mares who had stayed to linger in the square below the window of this alehouse heard the sudden and exquisite yelp of a stallion, which was shortly drowned out by the headier, louder moan of the mare. *** Celestia couldn’t sleep.  She was tired, for her journey had brought her far from the fog-shrouded hills and dark forests of Cimmareia and she had walked every step of it, but she was no closer to finding the answers to the questions that tormented her ever since she realised nopony else in her tribe had wings and horns.  How long she had been on the road she couldn’t tell, having lost track of the number of times the sun had risen and set after nineteen.  The stallion, exhausted by his earlier exertions, had fallen fast asleep.  His smaller frame nestled against Celestia’s soft, fluffy chest, held delicately by her strong hooves.  She felt the gentle rise and fall of his chest as he breathed softly in his sleep, his warm breath stirring the coat on her breast.  The candles had spluttered and died long ago, leaving the room in a deep darkness, save for the cool, silver light of the moon shining through the open window.  It cast a white patch onto the floor close to the bed, illuminating a square of the rushes, and in this silver beam of moonlight the airborne dust had become tiny, swirling motes of light.  The sounds of the continued revelry of the night bubbled up from beyond the window and from the ground floor of the ale house below, but she only heard those as a pony immersed in water, straining to hear noises from dry land beyond. Her hoof stroked along the stallion’s side as she considered this.  She stared out of the window at that tower off in the distance, her thoughts running wild with the possibilities it held.  The stallion stirred, and her attention was abruptly dragged back to him.  He was certainly a pretty little stallion, though ‘little’ was a matter of perspective; tall for his kind, and rather leaner than the softer frames that she noticed most unicorns tended to possess here, which she put down to their magic allowing them to pick things up making them lazy and indolent.  As she gazed down at him, now with eyes no longer distracted by her wanton lusts, she considered the fact that she truly was different from any other pony she had met thus far even in this strange and diverse city. Celestia knew that she would never find what she needed in Cimmareia.  Here, in this strange city with its inscrutable customs most ponies had horns and some had wings, but never both at the same time.  She feared she would have to move on again and keep on searching, but the tower there, standing out from the glow of the city below by the way it blocked the light of the streets and the stars alike, tempted her with its promise of knowledge beyond what these common unicorns could tell her.  If anypony could provide her with some insight about what, exactly, she was, it would have to be the sorcerer who harnessed the power of a fallen star. As fun as it was, Celestia realised she would find no further answers being rutted by nameless stallions above alehouses.  She thought to rouse him and ask if he was ready for another round before she headed off, but he was sleeping peacefully.  There would be plenty of time for that later.  Carefully, she extricated her foreleg from under the sleeping stallion, who stirred a little but remained asleep, and rose from the bed. Her things were in a bundle in the corner, having been thrown off and discarded when the stallion had brought her into his room and their lusts overwhelmed them.  Celestia crept over to them, like a panther stalking its prey, completely silent except for the faint rustle of the rushes on the floor that would be drowned out by the noise of revellers outside.  Years spent learning to stalk and kill the monsters that threatened her tribe served her well in sneaking out of strangers’ bedrooms. Celestia had travelled light on her journey, and having been raised by earth ponies, was not above simple grazing.  She lifted her saddlebags and placed them on her back and under her wings, securing them in place with two straps over her barrel.  It would help, she thought, to find a pair that didn’t require her to awkwardly guide her wings through the straps to fit, having been made by and for earth ponies, but as she never worked out how to use them it seemed like a needless extravagance.  She had tried to imitate birds, but no amount of enthusiastic flapping could get her airborne more than a few feet off the ground for more than five seconds even with a running jump.  Perhaps she ought to pay a visit to the pegasi, as soon as she worked out how to get to their cities in the sky. Her saddlebags secure, Celestia picked up the most prized of her earthly possessions.  A truly massive sword in its scabbard, she held it reverently in her hooves and then bound it in place by straps across her back.  It was as long as a pony, and its breadth wider than a forehoof.  The tribe’s blacksmith was the strongest pony she knew, besides herself, and when he forged it he could barely lift it alone.  As she tightened the straps, she remembered what her father had told her when she was still small enough to sit on his lap, and he showed her his sword and explained the most important lesson Crom bestowed upon his earth ponies: only this can she trust in this world, and nothing else. Celestia tugged on the straps, making sure that her weapon was secure.  Happy that it would not move around and chafe against her, she sat down on her haunches and reached behind her head with her forehooves and gathered up her mane.  The long, pink hair reached just between her wings when she sat like that.  Using a technique taught to her by the war maidens of her tribe, she bound her flowing locks into a tight, firm bun so that it would not become a hindrance in battle.  She likewise replicated that with her tail, until it resembled that of a bunny just above her rear.  This was the ritual practiced by every Cimmareian warrior before battle, and though she did not think that this night would end in violence she had learned a long time ago that it paid to be prepared. Last was a cloak that had once been the soft, creamy-white colour of raw wool, but her time on the road had turned the outer part of it a sort of dark, muddy grey-brown with patches of grass stains and pale dust.  She opened it up and draped it over her body and clasped it around her neck, making sure that it covered her wings and as much of herself as possible; she had outgrown it a few years ago, and now it only reached just shy of the base of her tail.  A new, bigger one was needed, but she felt rather attached to this old thing. Her meagre things collected, she moved towards the door, her hooves almost silent upon the rushes.  She stopped just as she lifted her forehoof to push it open, looked over her shoulder at the stallion left on the bed, and sighed.  Crossing the short distance, this time not bothering with being quiet, the stallion stirred, rolled over and groped out with his hooves as if trying to find her.  He opened his eyes and lifted his head off the bed, perched up on an elbow, and watched her dark shape approach through the gloom. “Leaving already?” he said, suppressing a yawn behind his hoof. “Yes,” she said, her voice hushed.  “I must find this mage.  If he is as wise and powerful as you say, then he can tell me what sort of pony I truly am.” The stallion stared up at her, chewing his lower lip.  “I can see that you are set upon this path,” he said.  “You think like an earth pony, too; when you have put your mind to something, there’s no talking you out of it.” “You are quite opinionated for a prostitute.” “I see many different kinds of ponies,” he said with a small, satisfied smile, “and I learn more about them in this bed than any philosopher in a lifetime of thinking.” “What’s a philosopher?” “A pony who spends a lot of time thinking about the meaning of life.” “Sounds like a waste.” “Oh, it is.”  The stallion shrugged.  “But if I can’t convince you not to go, then I can at least tell you what to expect there.  You seem to think you can just walk up and knock on his door and ask him to teach you magic.” “Is that not how it works?” said Celestia, tilting her head to one side.  “I learned about herbalism by approaching the tribe’s wise mare and asking her to teach it to me.” “That might work with your primitive earth pony tribes,” said the stallion, “but not here.”  His tone was slower and more patient, as though he was trying to explain this to a young foal instead of a pony purporting to be an adult.  “The Vizier will accept no visitors and will see nopony except on his own terms.  Ponies enter his tower all the time, but only in chains, and they are rarely seen to leave except a few as broken, soulless shadows of their former selves.  That is the fate that will await you.” Celestia snorted defiantly and shook her head.  “I am no whimpering slave!” she snarled, stamping her forehoof with a heavy, resonant thud that reverberated through the wooden floor, through the bed, and into the stallion’s heart.  He flinched a little.  “If he will not teach me then I will…  I will” -she paused to look out of the window again at that tower- “I’ll steal that fallen star of his, and take it to another mage who will teach me.” “That is impossible.  If it could be done then the thieves of this city would have done so already.” “Nothing is impossible,” snapped Celestia.  “Crom gives ponies the courage to overcome any obstacle, if they are strong enough.” The stallion closed his eyes, breathed in a deep sigh, and when he opened them again and spoke his voice was quiet, hushed, and trembling.  “The tower is ringed by a high wall.  You are big, so you might think that is no problem, but the grounds are patrolled not with pony guards but monsters bred by the Vizier.  Even if you pass through the grounds you must enter the tower itself.  Now, there are no windows, so you must take the front door, which should be no match for a pony of your strength.  Yet once inside you must ascend to the tower’s pinnacle, and there contend with the Vizier himself, who will not part with his fallen star without a fight.  You will have to fight with a sorcerer who has dedicated his life to accumulating magical power.” Celestia digested this for a moment, and then said, “You know a lot about this.” “As I said, a whore picks up a great many things from a great many ponies,” he said, his confidence returning.  “I see now, such talk only encourages an untamed wildling such as you.  Go on and ascend that tower, and should you make it out alive with that fallen star I shall be here waiting to hear you tell your story.” “And ascend your tower?”  Celestia’s eager grin flashed in the cold moonlight. The stallion grinned back.  “I’d like that,” he said.  “Mitra’s luck be with you.” Celestia rose and turned towards the door, and then stopped again.  She tugged her cloak to one side with her hoof, and rummaged around in her left saddlebag until she pulled out a small purse filled with only a modest amount of coins.  A few long strides brought her back to the bed, whereupon she took two gold bit coins from her purse and laid them one on top of the other upon the bedside table. “The gods can keep their luck, my little pony,” she said, bending down to kiss him delicately on his cheek.  “A Cimmareian makes her own.”