//------------------------------// // Fourth Day, Morning—Uncomfortable Queries // Story: Cutie Mark Crusaders Fantasian City-State Historians, YAY!!!!!! // by Dragonborne Fox //------------------------------// The mess hall was abuzz with activity; everyone talked about the mass cute-ceañera that had taken place the day before. The Sunnytowners and Greenwood ex-villagers didn't partake much in the conversation, opting to just sit by in their own corners and ride it out. The guests of honor also kept to themselves, hoping to draw little attention their way. Of course, with four of them running the military, and one related to one of said four by blood, it didn't go exactly as they hoped it would. Regardless, though, it seemed the newcomers were integrating nicely, despite keeping to themselves. Furthermore, they hadn't said anything about cutie marks as of yet, so there was some hope that maybe they'd come around soon. If nothing else, nobody had stirred the trouble pot yet over the matter, which was a nice bonus. The Crusaders ate their food without a fuss, with Katie beside them doing likewise. Their eyes were on an older stallion at their table, sporting a beard and eyes that seemed as though life was recently breathed into their green pools, with thin legs and tired old bones that demanded rest. Also at the table, covered partially in wood and vines for some reason, was a baby in a high seat, beating his strangely wooden wings and drinking formula from a bottle. Sweetie Belle decided to ask about the tyke. "Is he okay?" she asked. Katie nodded. "As okay as… you can expect a blind foal to be, after all he's been through," she said tactfully. "I'm not sure we can talk about the plant matter covering him at the table, though," she added, turning to look the older stallion in his eyes as she said that. The elder nodded. "That… and Greenwood's new leader probably would slap me with a rolling pin if I tried anything," he muttered with a wince. The baby put the bottle down and squirmed, making faces until he was picked up out of his high chair and burped. Once burped, the baby was returned to his high chair, and he looked around despite the very heavy gray fog in his eyes with ears perked and attentive. "Greenwood has a new leader?" Apple Bloom asked. Katie nodded and gestured all the way up to where Anna and her cohorts sat. "Only one up there with wood on her legs," Katie said bluntly. Apple Bloom nodded. "And I take it that was a mess and a half?" she asked. Katie nodded again. "It involved the old leaders being buried, let's put it like that," she said. She flinched when a smoking seed the size of a hoof hit her on the side of her head from above, landed on the table, and puffed up into crimson-green smoke in front of her. "Where'd that come from?" Sweetie Belle asked. Katie sighed. "You don't want to know," the wraithling answered. "So… what's the baby's name?" Scootaloo asked, hoping to change the subject. "Timber Spruce. Anna named him," Katie answered, turning to the baby as he squealed at something at the edge of the table. "Did the doctors look at him?" Sweetie Belle asked, turning to their chaperone. Katie shrugged. "If they had, I wouldn't have heard much," she replied honestly. Timber Spruce turned to her and squealed again, flailing his forelegs in her direction. "Timber Spruce sounds like an Equestrian name…" Sweetie crossed her forelegs and contemplated the information she had been given about the baby in question. "Are you sure Anna doesn't have Mythonian somewhere in her family tree?" Katie shook her head. "Pretty positive she doesn't. We have magitek that tests for lineage or things like that, I think," she said with another noncommittal shrug. Twilight trotted over to the table and sat down on the other side of Timber Spruce, who turned in her direction and burbled. She gently patted the baby on his head with a hoof, and turned to the Crusaders. "How's the report coming along?" she asked. Sweetie grinned. "We got it halfway done!" she chirped. "We can show it to you when—" She stopped when Twilight teleported out of the mess hall, then straight back in again with the stack of papers for the report. "Oh don't worry, I got you three covered," Twilight said with a smile. Katie snorted. "You're not gonna red ink the hell out of it, are you?" she asked, a hint of suspicion in her tone. Twilight shook her head. "No, I'll just make pointers on a paper of my own if I find anything wrong," Twilight answered, and began perusing the budding report with a slow, calculated grace. "Hrm… hrm… oh… oh… mm-hmm… just what I expected it to look like…" Katie turned to the trio. "Does she ever do this with your homework?" she muttered. Scootaloo shook her head, the motion echoed by her friends. "Not like this, even if we did ask nicely enough," she replied. Twilight shuffled the papers and began reading the next page. The elder turned to her and piped up, "What's all this hubbub?" "Just making sure this school report is foal-friendly," Twilight answered nonchalantly. "We Mythonians make sure everypony gets an education, regardless of gender or social class or potential disabilities." The elder's eyes widened at this, bewilderment shining within their pools at the concept. "That's… that's unlike anything Greenwood ever did, beyond teaching the mares… what was considered valuable…" the elder muttered. "What was valuable over there?" Scootaloo asked. "The kitchen," Katie said bluntly. "And only the kitchen." She turned to look at the Crusaders with her eyes slightly narrowed. "Or at least… that's what I assume. I'd ask Anna for details, but I'm pretty sure she'd tie me into a pretzel for asking." Sweetie frowned. "Did she come from Greenwood?" she asked. Katie nodded. "Because if Greenwood really did see mares as valuable as kitchens, then I'm not sure I should be talking to ponies who think like that. Rarity hates those types of communities, even more when they refuse to let anypony out, and I think she'd have something to say about that." Katie wilted a bit. "She already gave her opinion on the matter the night before you three came here. As for how Anna left Greenwood, I don't know," she replied. "And I have a feeling I don't want to know either way." In the time they spoke, Twilight flipped to another page of the report. She was grinning at what she saw, and the Crusaders noticed she hadn't taken out a quill or additional paper of any sort. She teleported away, and returned without the report. She looked at the trio with a smile. "It seems you've done a good job with the report so far. The illustrations you've made are detailed, but not to the point of excessiveness, and you have written enough to avoid spilling particularly sensitive information. Though, I do have one criticism, besides the fact it is unfinished," she said. Scootaloo frowned. "What's the criticism?" she asked. "Specifically, the fact that crusading, as in what you've been trying to do for your cutie marks, is mentioned in the report. Is that what really went down?" Twilight asked, her smile inverting. Glumly, the trio nodded. "Yeah. The Royale Catastrophe went down because ponies still crusaded for their cutie marks. We heard this from… the ponies who wound up making the Catastrophe happen to begin with," Sweetie answered, ears flopping downward as a horrible memory reel replayed in her head until she cast it out. "They really didn't earn their cutie marks until that point." Twilight's frown remained in place, but it did not deepen at all at the troubling news. "I see…" she muttered somewhat uncomfortably. Katie stretched her forelegs over her head. "So, do you three think you might earn your cutie marks today?" she asked, turning to the trio. Scootaloo rubbed a hoof against her chin, contemplating the question. "I dunno… and what would they look like if we got them here?" she muttered, wings buzzing as she thought. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom donned similar expressions, each of them trying to picture what their marks would possibly look like if they got them here. "Have you three considered what you're good at?" Katie prodded, popping some bones in her forelegs before setting them back down on the table. The Crusaders idly nodded, but didn't seem to have heard the question. Or at least, that's what the wraithling had assumed until they began thinking out loud. "Rarity said I have a good musical ear and I can read music really well, and maybe I just need to try something like a flute or a harp or something…" Sweetie Belle muttered. "Applejack said I was good at building things at the last family reunion…" Apple Bloom muttered, rubbing the side of her head with a hoof. "Rainbow says I'm really fast, but maybe my innate magic just needs something else to make it work…" Scootaloo mumbled, wings halting their buzzing as she tilted her head. As they sat there lost in thought, they started mentally preparing for another day of potentially remaining blank flanks, shuddering at the inevitable torment that Diamond Tiara would dish out upon their return to the school should they return in such a state. The three then turned to their undead chaperone. "You think we could get our cutie marks here?" they chorused, uncertainty in their eyes. Katie's orbs twinkled enigmatically, and she tilted her head. "I think so. If nothing else, you might have some ideas for crusading here in the future," she replied. She gestured to where the higher-ups sat and added, "If they can get their cutie marks, which they have, on a planet not particularly known for that sort of thing, you can too." She leveled a hoof on Apple Bloom's withers. "It's just a matter of finding that spark, and using it." The Crusaders grinned at the encouragement. "Do you think we could practice before we see the factory?" Scootaloo asked. Katie looked up at where the higher-ups sat. She saw Lance spreading his wings and sighed as he dove to hover above their table, his wings keeping him aloft without brushing up against anyone else. "Well… that depends on what you want to crusade for," Lance said, frowning. "Like… singing cutie marks or maybe history-related cutie marks?" "Instrument-based cutie marks," Sweetie Belle answered. Scootaloo crossed her forelegs. "Something involving speed," she added. "Building things," Apple Bloom proffered. Lance crossed his forelegs, content to continue hovering in the air. "But… do you crusade for all those things at once?" he asked incredulously. He allowed himself to relax when the trio shook their heads to answer. "Alright… you three can practice. Just don't let it turn out like that paraglider incident, okay?" "We won't let it turn out like the paraglider incident," the Crusaders chorused, grinning. Lance nodded and flew back up to his booth, satisfied for now. Timber Spruce squealed, and beat his wooden claws on his high chair, earning a pat on the head from the elder. Before anyone else could move, all those in the mess hall heard was, "Daddy, I want to fly!" The Crusaders looked up, and found Lance pulling Maria back into the booth, her claws outstretched and wings beating a mile a minute. "Not like that, you aren't!" Lance replied firmly, his expression hardening into something that wouldn't tolerate any horseplay. "I don't want you to have a broken neck or something like that!" "But daaaaaaaaaddy!" Maria hollered, trying to worm out of Lance's grip to no avail. Katie facehoofed at the sight. "Oh damn it all, not this again…" she grumbled as her hoof slid down the bridge of her snout. Her other hoof joined in when she saw Anna's horn flash, aiding Lance in dragging the young hippogryph back to her seat. "Mommy! You're supposed to help me!" Maria complained, loud enough for all to hear. "No. That's final," Anna said, as firmly as Lance. Her expression had, likewise, twisted into something that wouldn't put up with any antics. The elder sighed, and buried his face into his forelegs. "And she's adopted a foal of her own… somehow, I worry for both her and the child…" he muttered under his breath. Scootaloo turned to Katie. "Can she fly?" she asked. Katie simply shook her head in response, hooves still firmly on face and ears pinned all the way back. "Ma'am? Do you need chitil glue?" a soldier called. "I'm good!" Anna replied, horn still aglow. Timber Spruce squealed in her direction. Twilight sighed. She turned to the trio. "Yeah… she's a bit of a clawful…" she muttered apologetically, rubbing the back of her head with a hoof. "Poor filly doesn't even know where to start with her cutie mark, and yet she's already gouged a pony's eyes out…" Katie grumbled into her hooves, quiet enough that the Crusaders couldn't hear her over the ruckus Maria was making. Apple Bloom turned away from the spectacle as it hushed down, and saw Mitta and Red Barrel coming over to the table. They sat, but seemed engaged in chatter. "So… you're older than me, basically, thanks to a curse that I hear wound up being immortal zombification," Red Barrel said, frowning contemplatively. Mitta nodded. "By several hundred years, at least," she affirmed. "I just… don't look the part, due to circumstances outside of my control." Red Barrel crossed her forelegs over her chest. "And how long ago was this curse laid, before the sealing of Faust?" she pressed. Mitta rubbed a hoof against her other foreleg, ears pinned back as she weighed the question. In seconds, she gave an unhappy answer, "Three centuries before Faust added the atonement clause." She shuddered as she added, "By then… everypony else in Sunnytown more or less embraced the fact that there wouldn't be an out of the curse anyway." Red Barrel's brow furrowed. "Sunnytown's starting to sound an awful lot like Greenwood, give or take a few things…" she muttered, low enough that Anna couldn't hear her. She turned to the table she sat at, and blushed and winced upon realizing who was in her presence now. "And speaking of the towns in question, I really think we should stop having this discussion about them." Mitta nodded, also considering the presence of those around her. "So… what do you like most?" she asked. Red Barrel grinned, big brown eyes sparkling as she began to purr. "I love flying in the sky aboard my plane, even during fighting. It feels… it feels like I belong up there," she answered wistfully, chest feathers puffing up in pride. "Every time I'm airborne, every time I scout the area surrounding the Aerie… it brings back memories." Golden Chalice trotted over, snickering. Rose Windmill and Blue Crow both flanked her. "There you go again, talking about the sky. I know you're a workaholic, Red Barrel, but you really should take a few days to bring yourself back to ground level," Golden Chalice said with a good-natured smirk on her face. Red Barrel turned to Golden, still grinning. "But don't you enjoy flying too, Goldilocks?" she teased. Golden Chalice's smirk widened, though not in a smug way. "Yes, I will readily admit as much. However, you take it to new heights, even for a mostly skybound military force," she replied, with some snickering from Rose Windmill. Red Barrel elbowed Golden Chalice in the shoulder, still grinning. "Is that such a bad thing?" she asked. "Only if you don't take it easy every once in a while," Golden Chalice teased, elbowing her fellow pilot in the shoulder as well. "Oh come on, Goldi, we both know I take it easy some days!" Red Barrel mock-complained. "Only because I have to pry you away from your plane with a mechanical drone every day of the week!" Lance called from his table, to much snickering from the other soldiers that were present. Red Barrel took the snickering in good stride, and turned back to the Crusaders with a somewhat cheeky grin. "So, how did you three fancy your ride yesterday?" Scootaloo beamed. "It was awesome!" she answered, wings beating for a moment as the words left her mouth. "That was even higher than that trip we took to Cloudsdale!" Red Barrel's smile fell, just a little. "Cloudsdale?" she asked, tilting her head. "Cloud city in Mythos," Sweetie Belle hastily explained. Fortunately, Red Barrel didn't press for further information, and opted to nod instead. "And it's pretty high up," Apple Bloom added. "Higher than the peak of Canterlot's mountain, and you gotta get there by airship or hot air balloon." "Do I take it that pegasi live there?" Blue Crow guessed, garnering a nod from the three. "And they control Equestria's weather," Scootaloo piped up, grinning. Blue Crow lifted a claw and held it to his chin, rubbing thoughtfully. "Controlling weather… I wonder…" he muttered, eyes drifting upwards as thought overtook him. The Crusaders shared glances. Katie proceeded to speak up, "Yeah… about that…" She lifted a hoof and gestured around as the trio turned to her. "Have you noticed any weather-based structures here, like you have in Equestria?" The trio tilted their heads for a moment, then shook in unison. "Do you guys even know how to control the weather?" Scootaloo asked. Katie shook her head. "Haven't really seen many weather-based shenanigans here that aren't any form of trouble from the ectoplasms that run rampant," she said with a shrug. "Ectoplasms? You mean those little pixie things in the sky that control weather where pegasi don't fly?" Apple Bloom asked. Katie nodded. "Those little buggers," she replied simply. "It's worse if they merge to become giant lightning sprites." The trio shuddered at the mention, but it quickly went away when they remembered that, insofar as they knew, lightning sprites didn't really have much of a foothold in the Aerie compared to the slimes. Scootaloo shared glances with Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom. "Do you think the Aerie has a protocol for ectoplasms?" she asked. Lance proceeded to throw in his two bits from the table, using the megaphone this time, "The only protocol we have regarding ectoplasms is 'kill 'em all.'" Scootaloo sighed and turned to Katie. "But everypony in Equestria knows that ectoplasms just come straight back after a few weeks. They keep coming back no matter how much you try to get rid of them…" she muttered. Katie put a hoof to her chin and rubbed it contemplatively. "That sounds particularly annoying… funny thing, I know exactly how that feels for those who've tried to kill me permanently, thanks to immortality…" she said, to none in particular. "Sometimes unlife just plain sucks." A boom of thunder echoed in from outside, though it wasn't strong enough to shake up anything in the Aerie. Scootaloo sighed. "Guess there's no going outside today…" she muttered. "Hey, at least that means the factory's indoors," Katie chirped. "Less chance of lightning strikes that way." "And if we do get a lightning strike, the power won't black out," Rose Windmill added, still wearing the easygoing smile she sported the day before. "As I like to see it, that's how the ectoplasms say 'howdy do.'" "Wait, the power won't black out if lightning hits?" Scootaloo asked, turning to Rose Windmill with a brow raised. Rose Windmill nodded, closing her eyes as she answered cheerfully, "Nope. We have special lightning rods in place that redirect the strikes to charge some of our more powerful magitek, even though the charges are mostly miniscule. We store the excess energy from the strikes we don't use most of the time." Scootaloo smiled. "That's cool! Sounds like something Cloudsdale would do, even if they didn't make their own thunderstorms," she said, brimming at the thought. She turned to her own wings, and her smile turned wistful. Maybe if she could harness the energy of her wings another way… Blue Crow smiled. "I see that your inner hamster wheels are kicking into overdrive. I remember when I was a chick and my brain was bursting at the seams with ideas... " he said, his eyes and grin radiating genuine warmth as he looked back on his happier, carefree days of youth and innocence. Scootaloo and the others turned to him, wondering what was on his mind. "So… um…" Apple Bloom frowned as she considered how best to ask the question on her tongue, without coming off as insensitively ignorant. "I heard a little bit about the old gryphon leaders… did they do anything to you because you were born wingless?" Immediately, Blue Crow's smile fell, and darkness swam in his eyes as the question hit him. His companions' expressions likewise darkened a bit, and all four sets of shoulders slumped. "Believe me, they gave us a lot of flak for that, and even told us we were bottom rung on the pecking order…" Blue Crow answered uneasily, his frown growing perceptibly as darker memories came to once more rip his former childhood innocence away from him. "If we hadn't discovered magitek when we did…" He was silenced when Rose Windmill lifted a claw and firmly clamped it on his beak, her head shaking as she kept her gaze on the trio. "If you would like to see the old leaders, you are welcome to do so." Golden Chalice's tone of voice was clipped and curt, even as her eyes narrowed slightly. "But I wouldn't recommend it. They still see ponies as… harmless livestock. Easy prey." The trio gulped nervously, and nodded to signify that they understood what she was implying. Katie sighed. "Racists…" she grumbled under her breath. Her own sockets narrowing, she muttered in a hushed, angry tone, "Could've avoided a whole lot of trouble if those clowns didn't have the whole damn pastures of Fantasia all to themselves…" Her ears drooped as she continued seething in her seat. "Could've avoided a whole lot more if I could actually shapeshift… or had a tank like Lance's Valkyrie to run the whole lot of miserable bastards over with." "Well, on the plus side, the racists only have their own company in the Iron Hold," Red Barrel piped up, some hope daring to return to her darkened expression and glimmering in her eyes. "Everyone there is in solitary confinement, with soundproof rooms and nobody else to spread their toxic bile to." Scootaloo looked up somewhat incredulously at Red Barrel. "That sounds… harsh," she said, with the bluntness that only a growing child was capable of. "Harsh, yes, but racists have had the run of Fantasia for far too long now," Golden Chalice retorted, in a tone brokering no argument. "We were subject to it just because we weren't seen by many of our peers as 'true gryphons' for the 'crime' of being born wingless. I've heard the former changeling Kings and Queens were much the same way, spouting changeling supremacy and all of that." That came with so much nodding from the other soldiers in the mess hall that it was impossible for the trio to tell who wasn't in agreement with the statement. By Tartarus, even the higher rungs in their own booth were nodding in assent. Which was probably a bad sign for all of Fantasia, if practically everyone actively serving in the military was in agreement. Apple Bloom couldn't see the ponies of Greenwood too well at her current table, but guessed maybe they might have agreed, too. "Greenwood was like that, too!" Anna piped up, slamming a wooden claw on her table. "I had to take the villagers aside and tell them to leave the racism at the door." Well, that made everything a little bit worse. One villager of that lot tried to defend himself, "But that's what the elders said was okay! That's what the old leaders touted! What if we get invaded again?" Anna turned to that villager in a heartbeat, her eyes cold, narrowed, and sparking with contempt. Apple Bloom turned to her upon hearing the sound of wood crackling on her legs. "And they ordered several horrible things, no? The Greenwood Blight ring any bells?" she asked, gesturing to the wood decorating her forelegs. "The three old leaders who trampled all over you, your wife, everypony else's wives, and their sons and daughters? The same terror triplets who trampled over me and my sister with absolutely no help from anypony else, but the single elder who's still alive? The other elders who sat around on their butts and did nothing while all of that was going on?! That house of horrors within Ashwood? That mad stallion who started it all?" "What would you say, if you had a daughter about my age when everypony found out about my existence, and she had to go through the same things I did? Would you condone their actions, or try to stop them? Because I know where I stand on the issue." Anna's voice grew colder and darker with each word spoken, the weird alphabet on her body briefly glowing as her horn flashed almost imperceptibly, turning blood crimson for the barest of instants. "If you try to defend those whackos, you're no better than them. And we will not tolerate anyone defending those nutjobs here at the Aerie. Is. That. Understood?" Apple Bloom stood up to try and get a better view of Greenwood's table. She saw a stallion standing, ears pinned back and wilting as he was chastised. Slowly, he sank back down in his seat with a nod, not daring to say another word about the matter except for an almost quiet, "Understood."  "I can't hear you!" Anna barked in an authoritative, militaristic tone that one would expect to be shouted towards a soldier rather than a civilian. The villager turned up and shouted out, his voice cracking as he replied, "Understood!" Anna nodded at him and turned to the Crusaders, adding another two bits to them specifically, "Don't. Ask." The trio nodded, and Apple Bloom sat down, unwilling to question what exactly had gone down for Anna to take on that tone of voice and that darkened expression which promised to lay on the hurt a thousandfold. The only thing she knew was that whoever decided to hurt her must have paid a pretty steep price for the pain and suffering that her tone and words had suggested had ensued, and whatever else that weird alphabet on her body might have implied. Twilight winced sympathetically as the Crusaders turned to her. "Yeah… just… I've seen enough to not prod the bear…" she muttered. "Let's just say I found one lead into Fantasia's… current state of affairs, and it doesn't look pretty." Fortunately, the children knew better than to press for answers; seeing Ragnarok twice was enough to inform them that it was probably bad ideas all around anyway. "Remember: no talky-talky in front of Bushels," Katie intoned, lifting her head to look Twilight in her eye and lifting a hoof to make a lip-zipping motion across her face. Twilight nodded, and turned to Timber Spruce as he squealed again. The elder stallion at the table wilted, looking ashamed of himself. "I can't relay it to the little ones here, right?" he asked. Katie turned to him and shook her head, making the lip-zipping motion once more. He understood, and kept silent on the matter. Whatever the terribly tragic story behind Greenwood was, the Crusaders mused to themselves, it could wait until they were older and could appreciate the fact that they were lucky compared to Lieutenant-General Windwood. For now, though, the day ahead waited before them yet, and it wasn't going to sort itself out. They just needed to find someone to escort them through the factory to fill in the report and maybe earn their cutie marks doing it.