//------------------------------// // V: I Think She'll Know // Story: Chasing Rabbits // by Shinzakura //------------------------------// From this high up, the sky seemed like it stretched on forever, and the ground was nothing. Beat had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity years ago to ride in a hot air balloon when one of her mother’s cousins, a pegasus that was a licensed hot air balloon pilot, had come to visit Radourmeire’s Rest. Only a foal of ten at the time, Beat had the chance to go up and ride and was amazed at how beautiful and small everything seemed from a pegasus’ view. Now, seated in her own saddlepack as a result of ingesting the pill that made her small, Beat felt the wind whip around her ad-hoc seat as Pinion made good to her word and climbed the skies out to the Mareington Gulch. She chanced peeking out of the pack at the ground below and bit off a cry of shock: what had once been the Mareington Gulch and the surrounding desert was a bigger, larger canyon, a massive gash in the earth that made the previous one look as if it were nothing. “Wow,” she could hear Pinion voice; the last time the pegasus spoke, the size in voice differential made her normal speaking voice loud enough to be ear shattering, so Beat had to cast a volume modulating spell; it worked both ways, as Beat’s temporary size made her current tones high-pitched and ear-bleeding as well. “Something wrong?” “Yeah. I used to fly out this way all the time whenever I needed to pick up something from Saltwater Reach,” Pinion told her. “Everything down there’s been destroyed. It’s going to take decades, even with earth pony assistance, to make it grow back to normal and even then it’s not going to be the same.” She sighed. “My older brother Trailblazer wanted to set up a tour guide service for any ponies interested in going to the Gulch and it looks like it might not be safe to do that for a long time.” “Sorry to hear that.” “Thanks. But I feel sorry for my brother; he and Grassie were dating and….” Beat heard the mare choke away a sob and continue to focus on her flight path; it immediately helped her to rethink her opinions on the mare she had previously mentally labeled Left Goon. “Just…if you can do anything about this monster, I hope you can, but I don’t know why going to that ancient castle ruins will help.” “Neither do I, Pinion, but it’s the only chance we have. Otherwise, two friends of mine are going to be throwing their lives away for nothing.” “I won’t let that happen,” the pegasus insisted and Beat could feel the increased flutter as Pinion increased her speed. It was late afternoon when an exhausted Pinion nearly crash-landed on the ruined slopes of the hillside that held the Western Keep. From above, Beat had seen the damage done; the hill that overlooked the sea was mostly destroyed and now the ruins sat on what was left, precariously perched over a makeshift bay, and by her guess, it would only be a decade or two at best before gravity and nature took its course and sank the whole thing into the sea. Landing harder than she intended, Pinion collapsed onto the grass. “We’re here,” she panted, stretching her wings out and laying on the scorched grass to let her heat bleed into the ground. “I feel like I’ve flown through a hurricane with one wing tied behind my back.” Beat struggled to climb out of the saddlebag, finally doing so and falling for what felt like a few feet before crashing onto a small tuft of unburnt grass that felt like landing on a bush, strangely enough. Focusing her magic, she withdrew the bottle containing the blue pill, though it felt like she was lifting a massive boulder. Letting it crash to the ground, she struggled with removing the top and pulling the pill out. In her normal size, it was nothing more than a slightly lengthened capsule, but in her current condition, it may as well have been larger than a loaf of bread. “You going to be okay?” she heard the booming voice of Pinion, reverberating through the ground because of the size difference. “If I don’t eat this soon, some ant might think I’m dinner!” Beat cried and immediately started chowing down on the pill, which tasted to her, strangely enough, like a blueberry muffin. She felt herself stretch, warp and woof and for a moment, she thought she could see sounds and hear colors as her mind swam in a strange, twisted way and it felt like she was moving low. Between this and the other pill she’d taken earlier to shrink, they had felt like no magic she had ever experienced before But then the world returned to normal and she found herself lying on the ground next to Pinion. Pulling herself back to her hooves, she helped the other mare up. “You ready?” “Not really. Do I need to go in there with you?” “Do you want to take your chances with whatever might still be out here, given the titanic caterpillar and the oversized insects that ran roughshod throughout our town?” That was enough for Pinion. She immediately began to remove Beat’s saddlebags and sword to return to her immediately. The two entered the only part left of the building, the western wing. Even then it still looked like it had seen better days from before the giant caterpillar had been unleashed. Preparing for everything, Beat pulled a small magic lantern out of her bag and took it in her magical grasp; she then did the same with the sword in case any remaining Covenant members were present. It wasn’t very likely given Milliner’s grotesque spell, but Beat wasn’t going to take a chance regardless. “Do you know where we’re going?” Pinion asked her. “Yes, I think I do,” Beat replied. While she wasn’t running, she certainly moved with a purpose. She moved into the area, and walked down the hall, through the darkened area and then down the hall with the books, and finally into the area with the statues. Nothing had changed at all, and while she still felt the sign of an immense magical power, she could feel that it was somehow hidden, stealthed away from her. “This place is a mess. Rorie was the fashionplate of us three, but I’d have to agree with her if she were to say that this place is just buried in dirt,” Pinion told her. “Yeah, I guess.” Beat felt confused. She was sure this was the place and that the answer led here, but she wasn’t sure why. It had to be something else. She reached into her saddlepack and brought out the letter. “One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small, And if you go chasing rabbits, and you know you’re going to fall, Go ask her, and feel ten feet tall” Come to where the beginning is the end, and the end is a beginning. Come…and Remember. -A&S A thought hit her as the words seemed to sear into her mind. With no fanfare, Beat immediately jumped out the broken window, right to where they had landed initially. Following her instincts, Beat gave Pinion the lantern and detached her left saddlebag. “Go ahead and set up our camp,” she told her. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take, so I’m going to assume we’ll be here overnight.” “Are you going back in there…without the light?” Pinion asked. Beat nodded. “I think this is something I need to do completely on my own,” she explained. “I think it has directly to do with me, because this is my ancestral castle and these are my family’s lands. Like I said, there’s something here that we can use to stop that thing…but I suspect that only I – literally just yours truly – can do this. So I’m going to leave you here and I’m going to do it.” “I don’t like this,” Pinion said. “I don’t either, but it’s the only chance we might have,” she said as she headed towards the gaping hole that led to the western wing. “Best of luck, Beat,” Pinion said. Beat turned and gave the mare a smile. “Thanks. I’ll be back as fast as I can.” Once again, she entered the halls of the western wing, though the last time she had been rushed and filled with purpose. This time, however, she carried herself as she did the previous time, peeking into the rooms filled with detritus and relics of bygone ages. She saw the damaged sword once more and this time pulled it out from where it had been crushed by the falling ceiling; to her surprise, the sword bore a cutie mark on its ricasso, a raindrop with wings. Beat thought for a moment about who the sword would belong to and remembered the name Airdrop, a pegasus that had served alongside Skyward Strike and had given his life to make sure that Skyward had survived to continue the fight against Nightmare Moon. Setting the sword back down, this time she did so gingerly, promising that if she made it through this, she would see that the sword would be restored and either given to Airdrop’s descendants, or placed in a position of honor. This sword had been history, was history and as a scion of history herself, she had to make sure that it was respected. Eventually, she entered the part where it had been dark. Part of her wanted to cast an illumination spell, but she didn’t; the other part of her wanted to go back and get the lantern, but for some reason, that didn’t seem like the right thing to do. “And if you go chasing rabbits….” The words from the letter suddenly made themselves present in her mind and she remembered her pet Oxford, and how both troublesome and loving the rabbit had been. Apparently, he had more secrets than she thought: it had not been a rabbit, but instead a rabbit spirit, an animistic force that had taken a liking to her family and stayed. And now he was gone, lost forever to history, leaving Beat with a strange pocketwatch and more questions than she had answers to. On a hunch, she opened the pocketwatch and a flash of warm, inviting light erupted from it briefly. A flare of light leapt from it and as it did, it coalesced into the very familiar shape of something she had known and loved for all her life. Standing there, now nothing but a glowing shape of light, was somehow her beloved pet Oxford, as if beckoning for her to follow. He immediately rushed off into the darkness, and with that, she followed him without question. The darkness suddenly gave way to light, as warm as candlelight, and as it did, the rabbit-shaped magical construct vanished, but somehow, she knew to keep going. A few steps more and she found herself in the hallway from her dreams: lined with endless shelves with innumerable books, each shelf buttressed on either side by a suit of ancient pony barding, an indicator that this was a place of honor and glory. Above, the stained-glass chandeliers, each covered with the symbol of a rabbit, gave an amicable, inviting glow, urging her to step forward and finish what she started. She made her way down the hallway, noticing the names of the books as she moved along: THE DEEDS OF STURDY SPEAR, read one. THE BEAUTY AND STRENGTH OF ROSETHORN THE RANGER, read another. So many of these books held the names of her ancestors and distant relatives, not just those she directly descended from, but their siblings, and other heroes who had served in the Western Keep. It was all a bit daunting and while part of her wanted to read about these brave ponies and their exploits and adventures, she knew she had to keep going. Something was awaiting her presence, something that had been long awaiting the return of a pony. Finally, she reached a pair of doors at the other end, just as she had before, but instead of being rotted away, these were sturdy, made of what appeared to be the finest oak and completely featureless, except for a strange indentation in the right door. She looked at it, then at the pocketwatch, realizing it was the same size; the pocketwatch somehow had to be a key, as well. Taking the chance, she placed the watch into the slot and with a glow of light, the watch vanished and the doors opened, revealing her dream to her once more. The great rotunda opened before her once more, revealing the gorgeously ornate window, the pedestal standing there, still containing the book on its surface. As for the tome itself, it now lay open, its pages glistening and glowing with potential. On the far left of the room sat the statues of the lords and ladies of the Western Keep, now polished to a beautiful sheen and gleaming, as if they were proud to be represented by such hewn marble. But the thing that most caught her attention was the table on the right side of the room. The human woman in armor sat down with the unfamiliar alicorn and the two chatted as if old friends. Finally, the human woman turned to Beat and gestured to the seat. “Please sit down; we have much to discuss with you and there isn’t much time.” Her accent was that of Trottingham, same as in the dream, yet there was something else about it that Beat couldn’t pin down. The alicorn lifted her own teacup to her lips and took a sip. “Oh, I don’t know; I think there’s plenty of time. Here in the Netherspace, we’ve got nothing but time.” The alicorn’s accent was like hers, standard Equish, and it only made Beat wonder all the more who the alicorn was. The young woman looked crossly at the alicorn. “Not now. She looks completely confused as is.” “Yes, I am,” Beat said, curtseying to both before approaching the seat. “Are you…are you two Faust and the Megan?” The two looked at each other…then broke into peals of laughter. “I don’t understand what’s funny,” Beat said. “Oh, I can assure you, she is most certainly not me.” Beat turned to her left and saw a pure white alicorn, far taller than the one seated, with blood red hair and blue eyes. “And I really don’t have time to gallivant around Equestria right now.” Beat’s head whiplashed to the right and saw another human, one with ruby and gold hair and cyan eyes, wearing clothing that looked nothing like the armor that the seated human did. She had what looked like a bag slung over her shoulder and carried a disposable coffee cup in her claw…if that was the right term for it. Beat blinked and rubbed her eyes, and when she looked again, the two were gone. “Sorry about that,” the human said with a smile. “But we had to show you we are neither the Queen of All and her faithful human companion, nor are we the former Princess of All and her strangely human daughter.” “I’m still amazed there are so many alicorns here,” the alicorn said. “Not to mention I could really go for some good coffee right now.” “All we have is tea in the Netherspace, you know that,” the human replied. “I know. Still doesn’t mean I couldn’t use a cup of Foalgers right now. That or a haybacon double tofuburger. I would do practically anything for one of those right now!” “That sounds entirely unhealthy.” “Yes, Miss ‘I eat things named kippers and spotted dick’, that sounds like the very model of deliciousness. Blegh.” “Would you two please explain what’s going on?” Beat asked. The human laughed and set down her own cup. “Sorry. We’ve been together here in this place for so long, we’re almost like an old married couple. Except that I had a weird old pedophile write a story about me once, then I got married, had children, got old and died and ended up here, I think. Still a bit unclear on that one.” “Well, as for me, I’ve got this stallion I’ve got my eye on and I hope he notices me. Because if he pays attention to my Court Mage instead, I’ll be kinda heartbroken, but at least I’ll support them. She is a dear friend of mine after all.” “Assuming they’re still around. We’ve been here for what, thousands of years now?” “I have no idea! It’s not like there’s a clock in here and I have no idea if time in the Netherspace is supposed to flow like normal time.” “Okay, for Celestia’s sake, will you two shut up and tell me what’s going on?” Beat, at the end of her patience, finally said. “Oh, sorry. This place…it does that to you,” the alicorn apologized. “Anyway, we’re in the Netherspace. It’s a place neither here nor there, not a part of Equus nor of Earth yet part of both Equestria and England, if that makes sense.” “No, it doesn’t. Who are you two?” “I’ll go first.” The young woman smiled. “My name is Alice Hargraves, though in my youth my surname was Liddell. A man named Charles Dodgson, who also went by the name of Lewis Carroll, wrote a story about me. He also tried to marry me when I was eleven, which even back then was extremely creepy, doubly so now. Anyway, I lived a full life, got old, died and my soul somehow became intertwined with the book. I might not even be the Alice Hargraves, but instead the embodiment of Alice itself. I don’t know and I’ve spent a lot of years thinking about that. I just know that I am comfortable with who I am now, and I am not some blonde dipshit in a blue dress working for a fucking mouse.” “Are you sure about that one? The book is public domain.” “The book is enough of a headache as is for me, Sunny, you know that.” “Sunny?” Beat said. “I guess it’s my turn to speak.” The alicorn smiled. “My name is Sunny Starscout and I am the Queen of Equestria.” Before Beat could ask, Sunny stated, “Oh, no, not this one – where I come from, I was originally born as an earth mare, and was raised on stories of Princess Twilight Sparkle and her paladins, and of the alicorns before her. My dad never quite told me whether the stories were history or myth. Anyway, we were building my castle in Maretime Bay and having to talk diplomacy with Zephyr Heights; as far as I’m concerned they can be a separate country. It’s pretty confusing.” “You’re not the only one lost,” Beat admitted. “Anyway, when I got here, Alice explained everything to me. She is the White Knight and I am the Red Queen. We had to fill those spaces, or else the original placeholders would do so and….” The alicorn shrugged. “Al, you’d better explain it all to her. This is all your fault anyway.” “Yes, sure, blame it on me because some old pervert wanted to write the child version of me in as a character in a political satire of the time that somehow got morphed into a timeless children’s book. I don’t think I need to say this, but humans are bloody weird.” Alice shrugged. “Anyway, it all starts with that bloody book on the pedestal over there – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. Best not touch it, though; it’s caused enough problems as is.” “How so?” “Do you know a creature named Radourmeire?” Hearing that, Beat then went on to tell them about the legends of Radourmeire and how her ancestor found and tried to rescue the poor creature, to no avail. The creature had been honored as much as he could have and was now central to part of the history of Radourmeire’s Rest, the former Radourmeire’s Refuge and to Potok barony and province as a whole. “I see. The poor soul,” Alice said in a surprisingly sad tone. “He was the first to realize what was happening and between him and Blanc, they ventured out to see if they could get help. Unfortunately, by then things had changed and what was topsy-turvy had become completely, murderously chaotic. May I ask, are you also familiar with a creature named Discord?” “The Calamity? Everypony is familiar with Discord! From what I understand, he’s reformed now, thanks to Lady Fluttershy, but before then, he was a monster,” Beat explained. “A villain, a—” “No he wasn’t. He was a victim. So much of what you think Discord was responsible for, I can say with certainty, without ever having met the chap or knowing what he did, he was not at fault. I gather that he is a chaos entity, but does your history indicate that he has ever slain someone? Taken the life of an individual?” “I’m not as versed in Calamity History as some others I know, but from what I remember from school, not really. Why?” Alice pointed at the book as a glare came to her eyes. “That book – that damnable book is to blame. That book has destroyed—” “Al, calm down. She’s here to help, not to listen to you pontificate. I think I’d better take it from here, since I’m somewhat of a third party and kinda neutral except not entirely. Trust me, like everything else, it doesn’t make sense.” The alicorn gestured towards the book. “The book is alive. Somehow, the book fell into this universe from the human one – or a human one, we’re still not clear on that and somehow swapped, uh, ‘chaotic polarities’, for lack of a better term, with your local chaos entity. But in doing so, two things happened. A malicious creature was neutered because it received magic of a lesser chaos level, while the book somehow got his powers and in doing so, became alive. In turn, all those powers were shared between the beings in the book and things got…confusing. How am I doing so far, Al?” Alice shook her head. “The first to be affected was the Cheshire Cat. He had always been an odd bird, in a manner of speaking, but he’d never been malicious before. But by the time we all realized it, he had murdered several creatures and was trying to find a way to get to ‘the real’, which we had no idea what it meant; I thought that he was referring to my own world. It was Radourmeire, who had once been a sleepy, feeble creature, who had somehow grown courage and figured everything out. He convinced Blanc, who had been just as useless in the old ways, to go with him to ‘the real’ to seek help. “Things didn’t go well and for the longest time, both were gone – none of us knew what happened to them. Then Cheshire murdered the White Knight and the Red Queen. Both of them had, due to the chaotic nature of the book, become sane and knew that Cheshire meant no good. By this point, he had gathered the Carpenter, the Tweedles and many others under his banner. He was going from a curious creature who observed everything to a mad – a truly mad – despot. And by the time I knew what was going on, Wonderland was at war. And now he’s found a way to get to your world, by infecting the mind of the Huqqa – the caterpillar, who was just a knowledgeable soul, if a bit too much on laudanum and opium for his own good – and turning him into a monstrous, insanely murderous juggernaut. “So I stepped into the White Knight’s role. I think I may have sealed my own fate this way, but I’ve been tied to this whole thing for so long…like I said, I don’t know at this point if I am Alice, or Alice.” Beat looked at Sunny. “And how do you tie into this?” “I’m not sure myself,” the alicorn replied. “Our archeologists were researching some evidence of the existence of Discord, because honestly, all the stories about him seem to be completely unbelievable. But after a while, our archeologists hit a brick wall and since they needed some pretty extensive magic support, I was pretty much obligated to go.” “Why so?” Beat asked. “Surely you had enough unicorns available, didn’t you?” Sunny shook her head. “In my world, Equestria – the whole world, in fact – lost its magic a long, long time ago. As the first alicorn in thousands of years, I probably have more magic than anypony else and I can already tell it pales compared to you, who I assume is a typical unicorn. In any case, I joined them at the Ponyville archeological site and while looking around the area that our researchers believe was the home of Duchess Fluttershy, I found a cave located in the rotting remains of a chicken coop and when I went in…I found myself here. I suspect it was the book, or maybe somepony from the book did something to try to call for help and somehow breached my reality.” Beat was silent for a moment. “Then how do I play into this?” “Radourmeire apparently trusted your ancestor to take the book and keep it safe,” Alice explained. “And while this was originally a very secure vault, over time the magic of the book turned it into the Netherspace. Only those who have the true power and courage of your bloodline are able to access this space, or else it just becomes a room that means nothing.” Pointing to the statues, the woman said, “I take it those statues are familiar to you? If so, you were in the normal phase of this room, where the statues sit to inform the unworthy that they shouldn’t be there.” “I see. But I still don’t understand why I’m here.” The woman laughed. “Daft, isn’t she?” “Al, be nice.” Sunny looked at Beat. “It has been a long time – a long time – since we have seen one of your bloodline here. The last one was Skyward Strike, so long ago. And for the longest time, we simply thought that was because things had calmed down somewhat. But apparently something has happened in your world, and whatever it was, allowed the Huqqa to be free. I suspect either Cheshire freed him or something else caused the mad beast to roam free. And in its insanity, it is no longer the thinking, relatively rational being it used to be. We need someone worthy of your bloodline to stop it, and Blanc chose you.” Alice gave a smile. “You have his watch.” Beat looked down at the table and there, before her, was the pocketwatch that Oxford had given to him. But…his name had been Blanc? She now knew he had been a rabbit spirit instead of a mere rabbit, and that he had been named Mr. Grasshopper when her father had him by his side, but how long had the rabbit truly existed? “Blanc was the page of the Red Queen so long ago. When all this happened…he became Radourmeire’s right-paw assistant, the White Rabbit who would help the fight against what had been done to us. But if you have his watch, that means like Radourmeire, his duty is done and he has passed his trust to you, the last in your bloodline capable of doing what needs to be done.” “But I’m just—” “The descendant of Blazing Lance, the first Lord of the Western Keep, who stood watch over the western ocean for Queen Faust and who secretly guarded a book from dangers without and within,” Alice said, rising from her chair. Standing at her full height, even though she would have seemed petite to another human, to a pony she was immeasurably tall, a virtual giantess. “I can see it within you, even if you cannot see it yourself: your bravery, your kindness, your honor and a stiff upper lip. You are truly the daughter of knights, even if you do not feel so.” Sunny rose from her seat as well. “Radourmeire once told your ancestor words that must be remembered, for they are all: knowledge is paramount. The knowledge to know oneself. The knowledge to protect another. The knowledge to know right from wrong and morality from depravity. You have that already, but you must know it deep within your heart if you are to save everything.” “But I’m not a hero. I can’t even pass the Guild exams. I’m not good enough, just barely above mediocre.” The two other female folk, the humanness and the alicorn, stood there, taking in the whole of the doubting unicorn mare, then looked at one another. “You are stronger than you know. You saved a prince when he would have given all to save you instead,” Alice told her. “When your town was in danger, your first instinct was to return and to save not only those you loved, but even those you cared nothing for. And even now, you have forgiven one of your former bullies, who sits outside and waits for you to return,” Sunny reminded her. “To us, there is no other finer sobriquet. Blanc was a sharp mind and a keen heart and knew what to look for when he needed to choose an individual to save the world. And he chose you – he knew you are a knight and that you are worthy.” And so, the alicorn, with a queenly air about her, had long, flowing mane of magenta, which contrasted with her apricot-colored coat and green eyes. Her armor was red and had a beautiful white surcoat with no adornment. Brandishing the sword briefly in her magical grasp, she held the sword out before her. “Remember,” the alicorn said. At the opposite end, the humanness raised her own sword in her hands. Her skin was fair, with soft brown eyes and a long brown mane that reminded Beat of fertile soil. She wore a brilliant white armor, and her surcoat was of red, also with no adornment. She held the sword briefly above her in her head as a sort of salute before bringing it to a rest, bladepoint down on the ground. “Remember,” the humanness said. A beautiful aura of light poured forth, out of the strong came forth sweetness. The window behind the book shattered as if nothing, and in the distance was the castle from earlier, now restored to its original form, shining and bright, beautiful and keeping watch upon the hill. Words, unclear and inexplicable, yet verbiage nonetheless, echoed and reverbed in her mind in one voice, then two voices then a multitude. And though she wasn’t sure how she knew, something within her told her it was the voice of Blazing Lance and her ancestors and ancestresses uttering something of vital importance to her. “Take the vorpal blades, Beatrix…and save the world.” The sun had long set when a light came flickering out of the ruins of the Western Keep. To Pinion’s surprise, it was Beat…but it was Beat like she’d never seen the mare before. The mare walked out wearing beautiful silvery armor, with accents of red gold, and a surcoat of red and white checkerboard, as if it was an amalgam of something. At her side, she carried two swords, rapiers with individual hilts of red and white. “Beat?” Pinion asked, nervously. Beat withdrew a sword. It had been rusty and damaged, but now it shone brightly in the moonlight, the silvery luminescence flickering on the ricasso. “This is yours,” she told Pinion. “I don’t know how I know…but Airdrop was your ancestor and had served my ancestress well during the final battle of this place. And now, the sword will be needed again, and there is no finer hoof to wield it.” Pinion looked at the restored sword of Airdrop and then looked at Beat with utter confusion. “But I’m no Guard, and I don’t know the first thing about using a sword!” Beat smiled. “You will know,” the unicorn said, as if she was now privy to some hidden truth that had never been revealed before and now she was its mistress. “All will be clear tomorrow.” “You’re starting to freak me out, Beat.” “I know. I was somewhat lost as well. But I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.” Another enigmatic smile, then a tired sigh. “Let’s get some food, and then get some sleep. We’ve got a long day tomorrow and we’re already running behind.” “We are?” Beat nodded. “We’re late…for a very important date.”