The mare feels she's learned many things in the years she's spent working at the Tattler, and one of them is that there are times when she has to pay exacting attention to everything going on around her. It often helps to have all of the details before deciding which ones her opinion column is going to ignore.
For example, take the conveyance she's currently riding within and if she had any real choice in the matter, she would have had somepony take it back to the seller for a full refund. It's a carriage: an actual ground carriage, and resting rather poorly within this specimen is something like spotting one last representative of a biting insect species which most ponies wish to have gone extinct.
The rail system is still relatively new: the first trestles were laid about a decade ago. But ponies have needed ways of crossing the continent for centuries, preferably those which don't involve constant hoof effort or worse, waterways. Ponies make for poor swimmers, and the vast majority make even worse sailors. Add in the fact that just about every major river has sections which constitute their own wild zones, and Equestria generally prefers to shift both citizens and freight through land, air, and aether. The last is effectively instantaneous, while first two offer multiple directions in which to potentially escape any hazard. Encounters upon water generally offer a single choice of final voyage: straight down.
In this case, the escort network isn't available: those who are capable of bringing passengers along during a teleport are invaluable and when it comes to the meaning of 'invaluable', the mare can usually add in 'and they try to charge accordingly.' They also keep exacting records: every hiring party, every destination, and the mare knows the palace is watching. Air carriages... that might have been possible. But anything moving through a clear sky at night can potentially be seen from a good distance off. It could have been painted in the proper camouflage colors, towed by those with dark fur who were letting thermal sight guide the way, and the most crucial passenger would probably still insist on a light source. That one keeps adjusting the lumen level which emits from the device mounted in the ceiling of the passenger compartment. There's been times when she's tweaked it six times in three minutes. Over and over --
-- long before the railway, there were roads. And for those who didn't want to take the trot, you had the ground carriages. They could be a rather luxurious form of travel: the best were like occupying a rather small hotel which just happened to be mounted on oversized wheels. Some of them would travel in convoys: not just for mutual protection, but so that the procession could stop every so often and let everypony transfer over to the dining carriage. A number had ponies towing them, while others were self-propelled.
Being a carriage master usually required an appropriate mark. They had to understand the threats which bordered the roads and be ready to deal with anything which surged through the layers of protection. It helped if they could fight, or at least knew how to direct any accompanying security detail into battle. However, the capacity to conduct emergency repairs was an absolute necessity: not just the carriage itself, but anything cast or woven into it. Any carriage which didn't have an extensive array of defensive enchantments wouldn't last for long, and the same could be said for most of the passengers.
But then the rails had come. Which were so much more reliable, with the train cars capable of outracing a number of the more frequent threats. There was more space available within, a chance to stretch during long trips and with shorter ones, that reliability had offered something new to those few settled zones which were in close proximity: the option of the morning commute. Roughly a decade for the rails to just about take over, and where one ascends... another falls.
There's still a few carriages around, because it's hard to make an entire species go extinct at once. Some ponies prefer slow trips: something where they can get a good look at the countryside, or whatever's charging at them from the treeline. Others may enjoy being in a more enclosed space: one where fresh air is readily available, and yet pony body odors circulate forever. Sometimes, it's just the cheap option: the surviving carriages need a means of competing with the railways, and 'price point' is often it. A few just refuse to use the trains because the inventor was an earth pony. (The mare knows a number of ponies whose excuse for never having photographic evidence can be summed up as 'Mazein'. You have to use what the world gives you.) Or... it's the luxury of it. The comfort of existing within a carefully-crafted bubble.
The mare never got to use that kind of carriage: growing up in the Tangle generally isn't a ready path to the softer things in life. And when it comes to protective bubbles... that's how she sees the palace. The real Guards are the marble walls, and they keep reality out.
She's never taken a true luxury ride of any kind. The mare is one of the very few for whom the Tattler will grant an expense account, and every item she lists upon it also gives her up to ten minutes standing in the Accounting department so she can explain why food and water are necessary: this includes frequent jaw-tightened reminders that their precious numbers don't strictly need to eat. But she knows about carriages. Experience, witnessing, and envy.
In the hierarchy of fast-vanishing carriage species, this one has its own entry. It's a rattletrap.
(The mare is going to leave that part out.)
She supposes it might be good enough on a smooth road, and portions of her spine would like to know exactly where they might find one. Or any road at all, because the requirements of this journey...
They picked her up in the dark, quite some distance from the carriage's starting point. She can't say exactly where, because she was blindfolded at the time. Willingly. And because she isn't stupid, she made sure those who arranged for her to be picked up also provided her with sighted company. She needed a bodyguard, because the area assigned was already somewhat off the road. It meant she heard the carriage before she saw it, especially with her ears straining to find anything which might be a threat. Springs not quite adjusting to the irregularity of the changing surface, expansion and compression spells failing to react in realtime. There was a lot to hear.
It's only gotten worse since she's been inside. There are two pairs of double-doors, left and right, and they don't seal very well. They keep jumping up and down within their hinges, while the pressed-in snap-lock keeping them together looks as if it's about to part from the wood entirely. The benches are poorly padded: combine that with the lack of kinetic compensation below, and any jolt to the wheels usually winds up grounding itself at the base of her tail.
There are times when the interior light flickers. This may indicate a substandard spell, a failing one, or that the one she's here to see should have stopped trying to adjust it forty minutes ago.
From overhead, she gets hoof stomps. Occasional mutters, frequent curses, both poorly muffled through wood. This carriage is one of the self-propelled varieties, which means it moves through unicorn enchantments. Slow ones. There's nopony outside hauling anything. But there's still two riding on top, because the carriage is off the road.
The interior compartment is lit, at least to some degree. But there's heavy curtains pulled across all of the windows, because the mare has been told that she can't be allowed to see the exact path. She'll ride until her current part is over, they'll blindfold her again, drop her off in a safe place (and she insisted on having somepony waiting there to watch over her), and then she'll get a ride back to the capital -- but the precise trail taken has to remain a mystery.
She can't see what's outside. But the two riding atop the carriage have their own means of examining the area, checking the rough trail which is taking them through the wild zone. Those devices are aided by a waxing Moon, something which is just about full, and all of it lets them keep watch for anything else which might be moving through the night.
There are times when she hears the outside watchponies shivering. Others when her own body threatens to match that rhythm. They are well outside the zone of weather control, and it's a cold night: far too chill for what the mare sees as a normal autumn under Moon, with blasts of wind trying to send ice into the blood. And the carriage leaks. The best ones are thermally sealed, something which should maintain integrity against physical gaps, but... that's pegasus magic, and nopony kept up the charge. There are blankets within, she was offered one, and it's far too thin.
The stallion on the opposing bench isn't using a blanket. She presumes his face has been warmed through having most of the heated air of his breath fail to get past the cloth which hangs low from the brim of the hat. The small gaps are just enough for her to get occasional glimpses of his pupils and because she recognized his voice, she suspects he's smiling.
The other female in the carriage didn't take a blanket. Perhaps she no longer needs one.
That unicorn does smile. Rather frequently.
This is her interview subject. The reason why the mare is here and desperately fighting to keep her notepad fully stable within her field. Without concentration, it would be jolted in near-perfect concert with her body. (Earth ponies and pegasi generally attach notepads to collars via flexible springs. It wouldn't exactly help.) But part of her attention is carefully being focused in that direction. When you only have one weapon, you need to take care of it.
She couldn't attend the party. And perhaps it would have been better to lurk outside the estate, waiting among the protestors to ambush any guests on the approach or during their departure. It'll certainly take her more time to assemble a proper picture of events once she returns to the capital, followed by still more hours used in properly distorting it. But this was a chance at an exclusive. Somepony else on the Tattler staff will get to be in competition with every other newspaper for the first pieces of party coverage. This interview belongs to the mare alone.
It just hasn't started yet.
Her subject greeted her before the blindfold came off, doing so in a rather familiar way: the mare knows when she's in the presence of a fan. But she was told it was going to be a long trip, starting the interview too early meant a good part of the journey might pass in silence... even with a fan, it can help for her subject to feel comfortable.
And her subject, who had just greeted the mare as if she hadn't seen another living pony in moons, was hungry for gossip.
It quickly reached the point where the mare apologized for not having brought a newspaper. Several newspapers. But her subject doesn't care. Any news about the capital. Anything that's been going on. And the mare obliged with little stories, small scandals, celibriponies who have yet to understand that there are multiple prices to pay for fame and one of them is the mare. Anything to put her subject at ease, because the other female in the carriage can be a little...
...'intense' won't reach the article's final draft. 'Focused' winds up surrounded by several layers of shielding qualifiers.
The mare has been trying to provide gossip, because that's what her subject claimed to desire. But somehow, the topic keeps coming back around to the same thing.
"So that's what really happened at the publisher's party?" Her subject's eyes are bright. There are times when they're brighter than the light source in the ceiling.
"It's what ponies will believe happened," the mare replies.
There's another jolt. Several pieces of somewhat old fruit fly out of the bowl built into her subject's side of the carriage. The other unicorn mare, who's used to it, ignites her horn. Projections carefully collect the scattered foodstuffs, three at a time. There's.... something odd about those projections...
The food gets put back into the wall-mounted wooden bowl, which rattles as they pass over the next rough patch. Everything rattles.
"I've missed so many parties," the subject muses, mostly to herself. "So many..."
Stops. Stares at the heavy, swaying curtain covering the nearest left-side window.
"It wasn't my fault," the subject abruptly says. "It was an accident. I'm innocent."
She smiles. The mare's subject does that a lot, almost as often as she repeats those same ten words. They'll be in the middle of talking about anything else, and here come the phrases again. Sometimes she shuffles the order of the three sentences, perhaps for variety.
The stallion on the subject's right takes the same action he's been repeating since the second go-round: a hoof nudge to the flank. It makes the subject stop. But the smile, directed at cloth, lingers.
The smile has yet to line up with the words.
"It's tonight, isn't it?" the subject suddenly asks. "The other party. For the monster."
"That's why you're being moved now," the masked stallion tells her. "This is when it was the most safe."
It's stretching the definition of 'safe' by quite a bit, and the warped boundaries still don't manage to encompass going through a wild zone in a ground carriage. The mare is fully aware that she's taking several levels of risk tonight. And she would prefer an extra bodyguard, but... the agreement was that it would be just her in the carriage. She's not happy about that, but she's willing to work with it. If a monster attacks, she'll be on her own, but -- a mare who grew up in the Tangle has a better chance than most to take care of herself.
She doesn't want to think about this.
The mare's typical means of redirecting thought isn't present --
-- her interview subject is being moved tonight because the palace is focused on that party. More than half of Ponyville's police force is reinforcing the Guard: the mare assumes this includes their chief, and would feel a lot better about that if she could spot that particular pony in the dark. But with the capital concentrating on the noble's estate, and fewer ponies watching the borders... it was the right time to get her subject out of Ponyville and into a carriage. Something which will be described as if nopony had hired the conveyance, with the female on the opposing bench having been accompanied by ghosts. For the purposes of the article, the mare will have no idea as to whom the hiring party ever could have been, or if they even exist at all. That's going to mean ignoring a lot of details --
"They're celebrating it," the interview subject states. "Celebrating a monster. Something which has to be separated from society. Not invited within. Not even when it's just the palace forcing ponies to pretend." The other female angrily shakes her head, then returns the focus of that intense gaze to the mare's eyes. "Not that anypony who'd be willing to pretend should even be considered as a pony at all --"
The stallion nudges her again. The subject stops.
"Some of the ponies are there for their own reasons," the mare says. "Business. Even a centaur can be exploited." She was able to get a leaked script for the cheaper of the two projects, and wasn't impressed. "And others are there to... see if they can bring ponies around to a different point of view. The sane one."
"The one which removes it," her subject quickly tries.
"Once the pressure rises."
The mare has multiple sources, and understands something about the nature of the fragile alliance: something which will only hold until the centaur is gone. The parties involved are only working together because none of them are entirely sure that the feat can be managed alone and to that degree, they are cooperating. But the base state of their feelings regarding each other... that tends to manifest in subtle ways. Sometimes they aren't subtle at all. And when she considers just who some of the players are...
It's easy enough to work out how it was done. A Night Court representative just about always has to run for reelection eventually. Even when the representative is from a Tattler district, there's a campaign. And because it usually doesn't have to be all that much of a campaign, it mostly serves as an opportunity to -- look towards their eventual retirement. You just send the required funds ahead.
The mare is certain that Puff Weevil was offered a rather hefty bribe, along with a script to memorize and plenty of lead time for working on the lines. But she believes herself to know about everypony involved, and understands something about Puff's intellect. He would have been offered a bribe, with the transfer to be made after his performance. And once he made contact again, he would be told that the funds were on the way. Eventually, once the hoof knocking became too loud, he might be informed that they'd been delayed. This status would last for most of his remaining term in office, which might somehow be enough time for him to realize that a deal made without a contract involved was under no obligation to ever provide a payout.
She could picture him protesting. Screaming that he'd held up his end. He had. He'd been exactly as stupid as the situation required. And even Tattler district representatives tend to be... fungible.
If he somehow managed to take away any wisdom from the experience, it would be a free lesson regarding not trusting those who considered themselves to be his betters. It had to be free, because he would never see a tenth-bit from it.
"It's still hard not to see anypony who'd attend as a traitor," the interview subject says -- and, just ahead of the nudge, adds. "To all ponies, I mean." (The approaching hoof stops.) "But maybe they're just scared of the palace, when they shouldn't be. More than they are of the monster." A slow head shake. "It makes you wonder, doesn't it? How much fear they inspire, both of them? If it can force ponies to something like this? Love wouldn't be enough of a motivation. Not even respect would do it, and friendship..."
It's now possible to measure the speed of the negation in wheel jolts per neck shift. The first number is rising.
Something howls outside, and the hooves on the roof release a sudden patter of tension. The mare prepares to intensify her corona. Her subject doesn't seem to notice.
"It has to be fear," that unicorn says. "Nothing else."
The mare offers an encouraging nod. Listens for more howls.
"But there's more than just traitors in the world," the subject decides. "There's also the ones who might be tricked. Corrupted, or scared into cooperating next. The monster has to be separated from the worthwhile." More softly, "From children. I did hear about the children."
Another howl -- but it's moving away. The mare doesn't relax. She doesn't do that very often. True safety is a rather rare commodity in the world.
Wind blasts through the carriage, and does so at the same moment as a jolt. Her subject's corona passively gathers old fruit again.
The mare asked about refreshments shortly after coming in. Old fruit and water. It tells her even more about who hired (or more likely, rented) the carriage. Somepony who might understand that a proper drink helps interviews flow, but certainly wasn't going to pay for it...
"It has to be kept away from children," her subject quietly observes. "Separated."
The mare nods.
"Children," the subject calmly decides, "need to be separated from each other..."
The hoof nudges a little harder this time. Her subject doesn't seem to notice.
The mare... doesn't look at her subject's eyes, not as they were when those words came out. She will spend quite a bit of time in not writing about that unicorn's eyes. Some details need to be ignored. Or, once the mare reaches a degree of safety again, drowned.
"I was thinking about that," her interview subject peacefully adds. "I had some ideas. I could show you."
The other unicorn female turns her head again. Leans towards the dancing doors. The tip of her horn touches the wood, pushes, nearly knocks them open, begins to scrape --
-- this time, the nudge goes into the ribs.
"Perhaps," the stallion calmly offers, "we should start the formal interview now."
The subject blinks. Slowly turns back, and the timing of it added to the next jolt sends a heavily-bruised apple off her chin.
"Ow," the interviewee passively decides. Her horn ignites again. Projects...
...she catches the mare looking. Tilts her head a little to the left.
"Something wrong?"
"I just noticed that you have an unusual field," the mare evenly notes. "It looks a little more -- solid at the edges."
(The subject has yet to pick up anything with her mouth, even when it's in easy reach. A seated unicorn isn't even using a double forehoof inwards press. It's always the field.)
Her subject smiles again.
"I've been practicing," is the utterly calm reply. "I feel like it'll be important. Eventually."
Another gust of wind. Under the blanket, out of sight, the mare shivers, and her fur shifts against the grain.
The stallion's hat tilts forward, and the audible smile intensifies.
"It's a long trip," he states. "But we do have to drop you off eventually." This arrives at the end of a further incline towards the mare. "So..."
The mare nods. Drips the quill, stabilizes the pad again.
"I'm innocent," her subject begins. "It's not my fault. It was an accident."
Which finally gets written down.
"What was your actual intent in going to the apartment?" the mare asks. "I think that's what most ponies will want to know. Some do say intent is everything." For example, the mare intends to acquire a solid base for every distortion to come. "Especially if things come down to trying for Not Guilty By Sufficiency." It's a recognized clause in Equestrian law. You can break into a house if you know somepony is in medical distress within and can't reach the door. Setting that door on fire is going to take a little more explanation.
The interviewee has a rather odd expression now. It's like watching a performer search for a prompt box on the inside of their skull.
"She was keeping company with a monster," the subject carefully intones. "It's as if she didn't realize what that meant. We all remember what happened to anypony who got too close to Tirek. This one is just a little more... patient. It's trying to work its way in. But you have to care about ponies, don't you?"
"Whenever possible," the mare smoothly says.
A little faster than the previous words, "Even the ones who can't properly care about themselves. Or anypony else."
By contrast, it could be said that "Properly?" almost slips out. The mare hates that. She blames the water.
"When you think about it," the inteviewee calmly offers, "Guards are outside the herd. They think of one pony, maybe two. But when it comes to the herd, they don't care. And isn't that supposed to be the definition of a monster? Something which can't care properly?"
Her flank ripples from the impact. She doesn't notice.
"It would be very easy," the subject decides, "for a Guard to become a monster. Especially when you associate with a real one. So I wanted to warn her. To pull her back, before it was too late. The symbol was just... to make her think."
"About what?"
The words are accelerating. Taking on a rhythm. A verbal canter, almost like they're being half-sung. "About what she was doing every day, and whether she should step back. Fly away, because they can do that. I'm sure she could have found something else to do for a living. We always need more weather control in the world, don't we?" A sniff broke up the note. "They sure need it here. But she didn't understand that. Or she didn't care. If she cared, she would have lived in a cloud home. Away from real ponies."
It's as if the next impact bounces off armor.
"They could all live in the clouds," the subject states. "So could we, if they hadn't sabotaged the cloudwalking spell to make it wear off all the time. The same way they managed to ruin self-levitation."
The mare plans a number of edits.
"The symbol," the stallion prompts (and for the first time, his tones are nervous). "Stay on the symbol."
"But I guess that might not have been her," the interviewee allows. "Personally. She's too young." The prompt box is located. "So the symbol was a warning. Please think about what you're doing. Before it's too late. Before you lose yourself."
"And the fire?" Carefully, "To scorch it into the door, make it more visible?"
The interviewee snorts.
"That was her."
There should be a bottle. The mare thinks a little differently when the bottle isn't there, or when she hasn't been near one for too long. The wrong words come out.
"How was it her?"
And before the horror can reach the mare, her subject answers.
"They do things with heat, don't they?" A dismissive forehoof briefly kicks out at the air. "Part of their overrated weather sub-magic. And air currents, I've heard about that too. Probably feel things moving around, as long as air is being disturbed. So she knew I was outside, and she'd already been corrupted. She concentrated some heat into the harmless paint. And it caught. So it was all her in the end. All her fault, because she needed to make me look like a criminal." Just a little more softly, "Like a monster."
...somehow, the most amazing part of that is not having seen the stallion's foreleg move at any point.
Yes, that would be what certain parties would want the world to believe. But the mare has seen the reports. Read about the accelerants --
-- of course, those could be claimed to have been planted after the fact. Or falsified in print.
"Her fault," the subject half-chants. "For concentrating the heat. For living near other ponies." With a surge of volume, "They could all live in the clouds, away from us! Why don't they?"
The mare has several answers. Because some need to work on the ground, and a number come to love it. Because when it comes to the capital, putting every resident pegasus into the clouds is going to require -- well, just for starters, you're going to need a lot more vapor. The city would either be perpetually overcast or at the center of a view-obscuring ring, with the light of Sun and Moon only true for a few hours every day. And because a mixed family always has to descend --
-- the mare is instinctively aware that she shouldn't bring up mixed families.
And there are more words to come.
"She chose to be around somepony who could get hurt!"
...the mare knows those words. They're hers.
"And it's the family's fault, for not moving away when they found out she was a Guard," the interviewee expands the guilt net. "Or hers again, because maybe she didn't tell them what she did. Or lied. And it could be the foal!"
The mare blinks.
There's... sort of a boundary, in her profession. She wouldn't call it an ethical one. More a matter of practicality. She's always felt free to go after adults. Children can get in trouble, and there are generally no issues in calling attention to that because it fills layout space: besides, she can go two-for-one and also claim the parents were neglectful for not stopping them. Both children and adults have learned enough to know better, if not necessarily to agree with her.
But a foal hasn't learned anything. Something new in the world, waiting to be taught the right things. It can't make a choice because it doesn't have the basic information required for doing so.
(The mare has no children.)
(There have been times when she's thought about it. Briefly. But she has a job, and that takes so much of her time. She wouldn't be able to raise a foal, and she can't be confident in finding a mate who would do it properly --)
(-- the mare hardly ever dates. Even her biggest fans seldom stay for more than a week.)
(For longer than two bottles.)
All things considered, "How?" is the wrong word.
The subject waves her foreleg again.
"It could have decided to be born somewhere else." And before the mare can reconcile that, "The pegasi could all leave. The earth ponies, too. Just send weather and food in: that's all they're good for, so let that be what they do! It's living together which makes this happen! Being told we have to live with a monster!"
The stallion is now looking at his hoof as if something about it has stopped working.
"And there's no such thing as windigos, of course," the subject dismissively declares. "Just something to scare us into acting against our natural instincts."
Another blast of chill sluices through the carriage. Her subject has shown no signs of being cold. All of the heat comes from within. It seems to insulate the other unicorn mare from a number of things. Shields, really...
This wind is enough to get through the mare's field. The notepad flips through pages. She thought she was focusing more intently than that.
"Take a moment," the stallion smoothly offers. "We can wait."
"It's not a very good carriage," the interviewee petulantly declares as the mare begins to sort papers. "Why isn't it any better?"
"Camouflage," the stallion just as smoothly lies. "Something too fancy would have been noticed."
The mare very carefully redirects her own snort into a purely internal expression.
She will omit a number of things in the article, especially since she's about to have something very important to write about. But she never intended to identify the party who acquired the carriage, even when that pony has already so thoroughly identified themselves. All the mare had to do was think about it.
A number of ponies, including quite a few among the opposition, don't believe the mare is capable of true thought. She always tells them that if they could think for themselves, they'd be agreeing with her. And when it comes to the carriage...
The mare knows a lot of things about anger, and the most important is that it's profitable.
Take CUNET as an example. What do they actually do? Well, if you look at the membership as a collective, they get involved in protests. They write a lot of letters or rather, they send a lot of prewritten copies. But for the pony at the head of the organization, it's not just about what they do.
It's about what they dues.
Anypony can hold views which mirror CUNET: with pegasi and earth ponies, this takes some serious self-loathing. But if you want to join? It isn't free. The organization costs bits to operate. Picket signs don't assemble themselves. If you're going to book a meeting hall, then you're paying somepony temporary rent. There's also a newsletter: that goes out once a moon at the very least, or more often if there's a Crisis. (The centaur constitutes a Crisis unto herself.) That certainly costs money to print. And since there is a Crisis (and in fact, there always is), the pony in charge will use the newsletter to ask for help. After all, you can't expect the persecuted majority to fight on behalf of the deserving (and those unicorns who have yet to see the light) using just what comes in from the dues...
There can only be so many membership drives: ultimately, the list of ponies who might potentially want to join is a limited resource. But if you convince those who are already there that the Crisis has become Crises... you can hold a fundraiser. Then another. Donate to help solve this problem, all money given goes towards fixing the problem...
What does a pony get for their membership fee? A sense of belonging. The chance to interact with others who also feel that the world would be better if everypony in it would just acknowledge how superior the members have been all along. And you get a card, but it's pretty shoddy and tends to fall apart in a few moons. The one in charge always apologizes for that, but she has to budget: it's the same reason why the newsletter goes out on the thinnest paper possible, the sort of material where the right light lets you read a story on Page One and Two at the same time. If you want a card that will last, please upgrade to our Deluxe Membership...
The pony who joins gets to be part of a herd. To have their superiority reinforced by the walls of an echo chamber. The one in charge gets to tell them what the problems are. Because when the persecuted majority learns that everything wrong about their lives was caused by the rule of inferiors, there's always a problem. She tells them that their donations will help, she promises to put those funds towards the solution and here's the key: if you're the one in charge and you really want to make this work, you never win.
What would happen if CUNET fully won? If the Princesses found a way to step down, or agreed to become living gears doing nothing more than shifting the sky? If every belief the members had was manifested into reality, with the other species leaving the city, while pegasi and earth ponies were openly humbled before their betters? What is the first possible result of their perfect world?
Well, for starters, there's clearly no further need to donate anything.
The profit margin of hate requires eternal aggrievement. You find the angry ones, and you keep them angry. Tell them that new weapons are being purchased, and then dash those against the unbreakable wall. Oh, you need the illusion that something is being done -- so once in a great while, you might make a real effort in a minor skirmish. Claim that a district has just gone Tattler because of CUNET's efforts (when it's been tilting that way for five generations), or point to a protest which made the target move to a quieter settled zone. But when that happens, another problem has to be lined up and ready to go. The base boilerplate for the necessary fundraiser only needs a few minor adjustments.
The thinnest paper. Shoddy calling cards. And they're being passed out by a mare known for her lovely home, its expensive decorations, a kitchen which stocks the most exotic foodstuffs and if the hostess actually deigns to allow a favorite sucker the favor of a sample, she does so while wearing a beautiful dress.
What does it cost on a moon to moon basis, to be Mrs. Panderaghast? The mare imagines that CUNET's head doesn't worry about that too much. It's not as if the one in charge happens to be the one paying. Ask for as much as you can get away with, do as little as possible, skim the maximum amount off the top, and no matter what happens, keep them running on the treadmill. Paint the scenery of persecution on a looping roll of canvas, surround them with it. That's the echo chamber: running in place, contained by rage. And if you do it properly, the majority will never notice that they've been running for years and haven't gone anywhere at all.
So the promised bribe money won't be nosed over. And with the carriage? The cheapest one available, where any thaums placed into charging the defensive spells probably had to be provided by passenger and watchponies, plus it's not as if anypony was going to trouble a pegasus for a donation of power into the channeling copper. So the wind gets through, the shock absorption is horrible, the fruit is old and you take a very small ready-to-spit sip of the water before you risk swallowing, because that is how Mrs. Panderaghast pays for the next dress. One which is going to require a lot of extra fabric.
The shoddiness of the carriage tells the mare who arranged for it, because that's what anypony who can think would realize. But... there's another layer to that.
They're going through a wild zone.
The mare is fully aware that the drivers are trying to disorient her. She also knows that if asked, they'll say it's for her own good: after all, there's a chance she's going to be questioned after this -- it isn't a small one -- and she can't tell the palace about the path they took if she honestly doesn't know.
But the mare can think.
The hard part is stopping.
First: based on how long it took her to reach the pickup point, she has a very good idea of how far she went. Also, she would have had to be somewhere near Ponyville, because that's where the interview subject was.
Second... there's only so many places she could be left to wait, even with a bodyguard.
Third: the carriage has a top speed. It wouldn't have been a high one on a smooth surface, because the spells are just that weak. And it's going through a wild zone, where the ponies atop it have to keep checking the trail. There's only so much food in here, getting out to look for more isn't the best idea because any monsters will decide the ponies have fulfilled that goal for them, and every stop in a settled zone risks being noticed. This means the odds are that this is a more-or-less straight run. Drop the mare off, then proceed directly to their destination. Since there aren't exactly a lot of safehouses in wild zones by definition, that would indicate the other two passengers are heading for a town. The range offered by carried supplies doesn't provide a lot of options there: two of those are lost because the mare knows they aren't cutting through the Everfree. The howls are all wrong and besides, carriage-worthy trails barely exist. They would have cleared either of them by now.
Add in the fact that she can easily feel when they turn, has a very good idea of just how fast that horrible top speed is, and has more than a base guess at what her starting orientation was...
In terms of the settled zones, she feels they're currently off the map: that's been true for a while. But portions of the void between acquire labels, and the mare is almost fully certain that they're moving through an area which has been designated by the palace as Classified. And it's being traversed by a small crew, in a carriage with substandard, potentially undercharged security spells and not a working pegasus wonder to its name.
There are many reasons to designate a portion of the continent as Classified. None of them are reassuring. Just about any last one could lead to everypony on the trip becoming lost.
Getting killed.
Ever since she heard the rattletrap approach, she's been thinking.
'Trap' is most of it.
Perhaps this is what was truly seen as the best way to avoid being sighted. Risky, but... no witnesses.
Or perhaps Mrs. Panderaghast has decided having everypony on this trip being lost is an acceptable result. It might even be the preferred one. Let the wild zone do the work: the worst which happens to CUNET's head is losing any possible deposit on the carriage. The mare doesn't think that pony would personally attempt to kill, but if there's no effort involved in just letting somepony die...
Ponies who might become members -- that's a limited resource. But there are times when you can afford to lose a few. It's a lot like Tattler interns. The same way the newspaper's owner regards just about everypony on staff. After all, when it comes to those who hate, the vast majority of vessels for the anger are... fungible.
The mare has skill. It makes her somewhat more vital than the majority of the staff. It doesn't mean she can't be replaced. Without notice, without fanfare or much in the way of a career retrospective. The Tattler would pretend she was on vacation for a moon or so, then post the obituary. Her replacement's first task would be to find a way of insinuating that the fault for the mare's loss can be placed at the forehooves of the Diarchy: if there was no means of doing so, then the obituary would be in the smallest font available. And after that... somepony else would be running the boiler.
And yet the mare entered the carriage.
Some part of that can probably be blamed on the exclusive.
...she wants a drink.
Another bump. A jolt. The doors rattle. Fruit is fetched.
"Ready?" the stallion asks.
The mare nods, positions the quill. Her subject leans in. Waits.
Being looked at by the interviewee is... distinctive. It's as if the other unicorn isn't doing anything other than gazing in. Blinking certainly doesn't seem to be a frequently-chosen option.
"If you could say anything directly to the Tattler's readership," the mare asks, "what would it be?"
Her subject takes a slow breath.
"It's not my fault --"
There's a jolt from the wheels as they enter a turn. That goes into the base of the mare's tail.
The next is insubstantial, and reaches into her soul.
Twinned horrors accompany the sensation: something which drills through her skin, ignores muscles, pushes through long-healed fractures in bone and pulls at the heart of her, tries to pull her away. And the first is that she's trying to fight, she's distantly aware of gasps and screams all around her and above, everypony is trying to fight because that's the only possible response to this and she's losing. The core of her has been hooked, it's being pulled away and she twists and writhes, notebook and quill crash to the carriage floor as her field winks out, the carriage jolts to a stop and the sudden halt sends her off the bench, she barely feels the impact because everything is the pull and the loss.
But then she's sliding. The carriage was in a turn, it stopped, momentum has made it lean, and the mare goes into one set of doors. Her weight knocks them open, and she drops. Her notepad tumbles out after her, the ground is --
-- the pulling stops.
It's a surge of near-exaltation, all arising from having been released, and it almost makes her overlook the new wetness of blood within her fur.
The mare quickly forces herself to look up, makes sure the carriage isn't leaning any more: if it's going to come down on top of her, she has to move --
-- it's shifted back. Sonic propulsion: the unicorn female who's still within has yet to stop screaming, and the ones who were riding atop the carriage are cursing: shock, disorientation, and fear. The mare looks around --
Moon is nearly full: more than enough to see by, in an area where the vegetation is this sparse. There's only a few trees, none of them have leaves any more, and... there aren't any leaves on the ground, either. In the wild zone, they fall on their own. Even with the chill wind, something made worse by ground and pain and blood, the mare feels there should be some around. It's as if the trees haven't had leaves for a very long time.
But they don't look dead. Just -- warped. Twisted, trunks and branches as uneven as the ground --
-- she landed on her left flank, got her head raised in time to avoid having that slam into rock. It saved her from more wounds, because the ground is oddly rough. There's little nodules everywhere. Rock peaks into tiny mountain ranges, dirt refuses to smooth out. Pebbles are displayed to the world, and too many of them seem to end in small points. She's bleeding from a dozen tiny pinprick wounds, and it feels as if every one is leaking more heat than the carriage ever did.
Blood. Edges visible on just about every surface: even some of the bark has splintered outwards. Pain. Something metallic --
-- she automatically focuses, stares as the never-ending scream tries to distract her --
-- no. She thought she saw a reflection. Moon's light on metal. Something in the ground. The mare can't see it now.
She tries to get up. It requires two attempts, and she takes a few more tiny wounds for her trouble. Her blood is being absorbed by her fur. More was taken by the ground. Her horn ignites (and she almost wishes for something to thank, that her corona went ablaze at all), she gathers in her supplies as she risks a step...
The mare can walk. But the ground now seems to be aiming for the center of her hooves.
"Move!" one of the watchponies desperately shouts. "I order you to --"
"It's drained!" the other declares. "Every thaum's gone!" And then the fear begins to advance into terror. "We're stuck out here, and we can't move --"
From inside the carriage, a rather loud forced calm announces "We can move." The cloth-rimmed hat pokes out. "We'll recharge the spells right here. It's easy. If nopony here knows the trick of it, I'll teach them." The brim points down. "Are you all right?"
The mare makes a very rare decision.
"No." As it turns out, there's nothing refreshing about Honesty, even when it has to be released at high decibels to get through the still-ongoing scream. "Some blood, and I'll probably bruise. But it's minor. If anypony is prone to being set off by bloodscent, I'll go downwind. But that's not the worst of it --"
"You should at least take the other side of the carriage," the stallion decides. "For the charging --"
"-- I can't."
She wonders how he made the smile that audible. "It's not the least common gap in a magical education. I'll teach you --"
"-- I can't."
Stallion and watchponies are staring at her. The mare serves as a distraction from their own terror. But she holds fast. An interview is one thing. If anypony else can charge the carriage, then for her to do so would be -- aiding and abetting. She has to trot along the exact line between what's barely legal and what distinctly isn't. And adding her signature to the mix...
"...all right," the stallion finally says. "The four of us should be more than capable of --"
-- which is when the last scream resolves into words.
"YOU FELT THAT! I KNOW YOU DID! OUT OF NOWHERE! EVERYTHING GONE, EVERYTHING WAS GONE AND IT NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE, NOT BEFORE HIM, BEFORE IT, YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED, AND IT'LL HAPPEN OVER AND OVER AGAIN UNTIL IT'S GONE --"
The mare hears all of it. More than that: she gets the notepad open, and writes it down. She's already decided to make it into the heart of the opinion column -- no, the article. Because she can't prove every last bit of that statement -- but when it comes to suggestion, insinuation, and making so many others believe -- there's more than enough to work with.
There had been twinned horrors.
The first was that it was happening.
The second was that it was happening again.