//------------------------------// // Day 3, Morning & Afternoon: Chapter 18A: Status Check, Part 1 (Raven) // Story: On the Fine Art of Giving Yourself Advice // by McPoodle //------------------------------// Raven—Equestria, Celestia’s Bedroom. Two hours before dawn. “Six?” Raven asked excitedly. “Did you say six?” “Six ponies,” the Princess repeated. Raven had had to attend to her daughters across Equestria the night before, immediately after her conversation with Princess Celestia, saying that “Ponyville has declared some kind of emergency, but she always over-exaggerates.” When she had returned from her trance, her mistress was asleep, so Raven retired to her own room, located across the hall, to wait. The Princess had awoken abnormally early with plenty of news about what had happened to the two Twilights. Despite this fact, Raven suspected that something was being held back. But she knew better than to try to get the missing information through direct questioning. When Princess Celestia wanted to tell somepony something, she told it on her own schedule. “Are you sure it’s...them?” Raven asked. “Well,” Celestia responded with a crafty smile, “three of them were Rarity of Ponyvillle, and Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy of Cloudsdale.” “High candidates on the Generosity, Loyalty and Kindness candidate lists.” “My counterpart did not know the names of two of the ponies, as they had not been located yet, but she knew their coat colors, and in one instance the cutie mark. The mark was a variation on Twilight Sparkle’s and the coat color matched, so I’m certain that one was her. The other was the exact shade of orange of your Number One Honesty candidate.” “Applejack?” “The same.” “So we have five future Bearers locked down,” concluded Raven. “What about the sixth?” Celestia paused. “The sixth pony is not on any list. Her name...is Pinkie Pie.” Raven pursed her lips. “Are you sure?” “Positive. It appears that the Accords have been broken.” “By Harmony herself,” said Raven. “Perhaps this is a sign that it is time to finally integrate the rest of your family into Equestria.” “They’re not going to like this,” Raven said with a frown. “No, I don’t expect they will. But we never had a viable Laughter candidate that made it past getting his or her cutie mark.” “True.” “There is one other thing.” “Yes?” Celestia looked off in the distance as she summoned up the mental image her current counterpart had communicated to her. “The cutie mark of the pony Twilight Sparkle...it has a special significance to me. We will have to discuss this later—she will have a vital part to play in the future.” “More vital than saving Equestria from a dozen horrors from the dawn of time?” Raven asked incredulously. “Yes,” Celestia answered succinctly. “So, my counterpart has agreed to get all the ponies on Earth magically grounded, and then passed through the portal and into Equestria. At the same time, we will gather the humans here. I will return all of the minds to their proper bodies, and then the humans can return through the portal.” “Magically grounded?” Raven asked. Celestia nodded. “The passage of magic from the human to pony worlds is what caused the Mirror to malfunction, so I had a magic-grounding mat sent through the portal before I went to sleep. Our schedule going forward will be tight: we have until midnight tonight to get every creature to their proper body and world, or else any stragglers will be stuck for thirty moons. Do you have any leads on finding the humans in pony bodies?” “I have good news and bad news,” Raven replied. “My Ponyville daughter met Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy last night. They were on their way to Canterlot, for reasons they did not tell her at the time, but which are now obvious. If she had known, she would have had carriages sent over immediately. As it is, I believe I have the opportunity to interview them before they arrive—I believe that more than just the immediate family knows what is going on.” “And I would need to know who was told in order to contain the damage,” Celestia said, finishing Raven’s thought. “Precisely. I can guarantee you that this ‘Pinkie Pie’ will be in the palace by mid-day,” Raven continued. “So that’s five out of the six. The bad news concerns Rarity: she disappeared a day before the Mirror opened, pulled out of Ponyville by a mysterious force that only two ponies could see.” “Harmony again.” “Yes. Unfortunately, Harmony sort of nailed Her hoof to the ground in this instance, because nopony in any of the towns my daughters operate in have seen Rarity since she left Ponyville. It’s like she disappeared off the face of Equus. There is a search party organized by her parents looking for her, led by a good tracker. But if Harmony didn’t want Rarity to be found, she won’t be found.” Celestia nodded to herself. “Very well. If you’re handling the other five, then I will set out to find Rarity myself. I am very good at drawing attention to myself, and the publicity of the Princess of Equestria searching for a little lost filly is sure to turn up any number of leads.” “Some of which might even be credible,” Raven said sarcastically. “...Yes,” Celestia responded with a sparkle in her eye. As she finished levitating her royal jewelry in place, she asked, “Now if your daughter in Ponyville had some sort of crisis, and it wasn’t about the Bearers, what was it?” Raven pursed her lips for a moment. “She had recruited an outsider to the cause of Harmony. A griffon named Gilda.” Celestia stopped walking towards the door, and turned to face Raven. “And what did you think about this action?” she asked in a very serious tone. Raven sat down as she reviewed her thoughts. “I should have been mad. No, I should have been infuriated. It has only been ten years since an outsider lured poor Mustangia out of my network. He probably did away with her, Princess.” “I know,” Celestia said sadly. “But this time I wasn’t mad. Ponyville did the right thing. It was no griffon who took my daughter, and the griffons, for all of their silly pride, are far past due to having a chance to return to their former position among the nations. And this Gilda, from the memory that my Ponyville daughter played back for me, is a very promising candidate. For her enthusiasm...and for her independence.” Celestia raised an eyebrow. “I know,” Raven said with a sigh. “Being too lenient at first with my youngest is why she resented the control I tried to impose when it came time for her to come into her duties. Her independence cost her...and me...everything, denying me even the knowledge of when or how she met her end. And I know that most ponies hold uncontrolled independence so abhorrent that they considered ‘everfree’ a horrifying adjective long before the word was applied to that tragic forest. But harmony by definition is the reconciliation of opposites. Order with chaos. And control...with independence. “Ponyville was right. We desperately need a dose of independence to keep us pointed towards the end goal of Harmony. And perhaps...perhaps it’s finally time to let poor Mustangia go.” Celestia pulled Raven into a hug. “I’m going to make you late,” Raven protested around a wall of chest fur. “If anypony complains, I’ll reset the sun,” Celestia told her. A few minutes later, Raven was in the secret room at the back of the Canterlot Library, studying the files she had compiled on the various Element of Harmony candidates. Rainbow Dash’s file in particular gave her pause: Rainbow Dash is currently an excellent candidate for Loyalty, but that status is not expected to last, despite the “best” efforts of the Element Candidate Committee. A study of the lives of the Royal Sisters when they wielded the Elements, as well as the testimony of Harmony Herself, reveals that being a Bearer means more than being exceptionally good at that element. No, the candidate must live the contradiction between the element and its opposite, and in this way to move beyond merely embodying it, to obsessing over it. Honesty must have fallen to the temptation to lie, and to have been punished for it. She must have been the victim of lies that she could not refute. Only in this way is she truly Honesty. In other words, Prosperity is the enemy of Honesty. All of the Elements of Harmony have these enemies. In the case of Loyalty, and Rainbow Dash in particular, it is essential that her formative years must be a continual struggle full of betrayed loyalties. If she achieves fame before her personality has been fully formed, the resulting boost to her ego will destroy her chances of ever becoming the Bearer of Loyalty. Rainbow Dash cannot be allowed to attain her goal of entering the Wonderbolts for at least a decade after receiving her cutie mark. And this requires tough actions on the part of the Committee. The Committee is united in this opinion, including the three members who left their professions forever in shame over the actions they had to do to keep Rainbow Dash from achieving the goals that by any other standard she richly deserved. Twice the diagnosis of her learning disabilities had to be covered up before they reached anypony in a position of authority. And seventeen of her races were tampered with, to keep her from attaining a win streak that attracted undue attention. Raven sighed as she read over her own words. When she wrote them, it was with the sincere wish that some other candidate lower on the Loyalty list would be proved to be Harmony’s chosen champion instead, so that the poor pegasus could be freed from being secretly mistreated for half of her life. But now it appeared that she needed to double down. The Friendship Express. Shortly after sunrise. When the Ponyville Raven had upgraded Gilda’s party’s accommodations, from coach seats to a private berth, she had done it out of gratitude for how Gilda and Fluttershy had saved Granny Smith’s life and brought closure to her grandchildren. She was also hoping to incentivize Gilda to maintain her current course of possibly being an agent for Equestria. Now Canterlot Raven was grateful to her eponymous and identical daughter, because this gave her the opportunity to speak with the group in private, while pretending to be merely the secretary of the Mayor of Ponyville. Vanishing her non-functioning horn, she knocked on the door. “May I come in?” Windy Whistles slid the door open. “Raven, how good to see you!” “I was on my way to Canterlot for business, and wanted to see how you were doing.” “We’re doing great, thanks to you!” Bow Hothoof exclaimed. “Could I come in for a moment? I wanted to see how well you were prepared for whatever you’re doing in Canterlot. I know some contacts that might be useful to you.” “Sure, come right in!” replied Windy, pulling the door wide. Gilda sighed. She, Rainbow Dash and Applejack had been in the middle of telling fascinating stories of their different Canterlots to each other, and now they needed to hold off, probably until tonight. Dr. Tarbell might be fairly clueless, but Gilda knew she couldn’t get anything past Raven. Either of them. Although of course Gilda did not know there was more than one. “What are you trying to do?” Raven asked. Dr. Tarbell looked up at her from his notes, trying to determine if a civil servant from a backwater town would be of any use to him in Canterlot. The fact that this particular backwater lapped directly up against the capital swayed him. “Rainbow Dash here performed a sonic magi-boom as part of getting her cutie mark,” he said. “We’ve already renamed it to ‘sonic rainboom’,” Rainbow added. She pointed at herself. “It should finally get this pony the recognition that she deserves.” Raven turned ashen, her heart falling into the pit of her stomach. Her study of Rainbow had convinced her that she should never be allowed to take credit for such an incredible feat. But the fact that the feat was a magiboom...that made this much more serious. Dr. Tarbell nodded, a smarmy smile on his face. “I can tell from your expression that you’ve heard of the sonic magi-boom. Am I correct?” “Yes,” said Raven. “It’s a legendary feat, tied rather heavily into pegasus breedism.” Tarbell frowned. “Breedism stuff aside, it’s the most-powerful manifestation of pegasus magic imaginable. Proving that it’s real will change pony history forever.” “Wow, really?” Rainbow Dash asked. Raven felt her heart fall into the pit of her stomach. “He’s being quite literal,” she said. “Dr. Tarbell, are you aware of the three legendary appearances of the magi-boom before the historical era?” Tarbell waved a hoof dismissively. “They are, as you said, ‘legendary’, and so may be dismissed.” “On the contrary,” Raven retorted. Turning to Rainbow Dash, she said, “I think it’s essential that you and your family are aware of the past instances. Just in case something like that happens again.” Tarbell snorted. “That won’t happen again. We are civilized ponies now. Just the bare fact that I, a unicorn, am trusted to act as physician for pegasus fillies and colts is evidence of it.” “Um...what did happen in these legends?” Fluttershy asked. “I’d like to know as well,” Windy said. “How bad was it?” Rainbow Dash said nothing for now, not being sure if Raven was using this situation to advance her own mysterious agenda. “The first magi-boom was performed by Cloud Dancer, thousands of years ago, long before the unification of the tribes,” Raven told the crowd. “The pegasi of the time saw this as a miraculous act, elevating Cloud Dancer and her best friend, who changed her name to Skybreaker, to be their rulers. Skybreaker used her new power to incite the pegasi to invade Griffon Aerie, at the height of the Griffon Old Kingdom’s power. The griffons not only fought the pegasi off, they then counter-invaded the old pony lands, and nearly enslaved everypony before being finally being fought off by a momentary alliance of the pegasi and the unicorns. Many ponies were lost in that war, but no pegasus would contemplate the idea of peace until the fall of Skybreaker, so sure were they that the magi-boom had made them invincible.” “What about Cloud Dancer?” asked Rainbow. “Couldn’t she have stopped this madness?” “Cloud Dancer disappeared before the war even began. It’s probable that her best friend did away with her for daring to oppose her.” Dr. Tarbell rolled his eyes. “What happened the second time there was a rainboom?” asked Fluttershy. “That was midway through the Great Frost,” said Raven. “A lot of the common pegasi were getting tired of the arrogance of the unicorns, but saw many reasons to side with the earth ponies. A pegasus-earth pony alliance might have forced the unicorns under King Bullion to back down from their grandiose posturing. A young pegasus named Rain Spell had a lot of ideas on how to unify the tribes, a lot of ideas that were frankly crazy. But that didn’t mean that he deserved to lose his life in achieving the second magi-boom in an attempt to get everypony to listen to him. In its aftermath, the pegasi allowed themselves to be convinced by Commander Hurricane that a conspiracy of unicorns and earth ponies were responsible for Rain Spell’s death, which led to his rise to power. Pegasi became convinced that the magi-boom was a sign that they alone would survive the coming apocalypse. That’s the reason why so few of them migrated to Equestria, and why pegasi were in the minority for hundreds of years afterwards.” “Now that’s just rampant speculation,” said Dr. Tarbell. “There’s any number of reasons why pegasus populations were so low in the pre-Discordian Era.” “This is really not sounding good,” admitted Bow. “What about the third one?” “Oh that one’s easy to tell: the pegasi unilaterally surrendered to Discord because he could perform a magiboom, and Commander Pansy could not.” “I...didn’t know that,” Windy said to Bow. “Yeah, funny thing, isn’t it?” Tarbell said sarcastically. “So vital a piece of information, left out of all of the pegasi histories. Because it’s a lie!” “Or maybe it was omitted, so pegasi wouldn’t have to live with the fact that they surrendered their freedom over an overblown symbol,” said Raven. Tarbell rose to his hooves. “I will not stand for a suppression of the truth!” he cried. “Rainbow here is going to put on a demonstration of her Sonic Rainboom for the Princess. And then all of Equestria will know what I brought to them.” “You sound like you’re taking credit for it yourself,” said Raven. “Well maybe I am!” Tarbell replied. “Rainbow here was too stupid to know what she had done, and her cow-faced parents over there just saw it as another meaningless race to crow about. “So what if the Rainboom causes the pegasi to go crazy, or try to declare independence from Equestria. What do I care? I’ll be safe in Canterlot, turning the national panic into cold. Hard. Cash. Celestia would put the revolt down, putting the pegasi in their place.” “It’s Princess Celestia,” Gilda said in a low, dangerous voice. “Whatever. And don’t think of trying anything, catbird. I know seven different ways to kill you. There’s nothing any of you can do to stop the inevitable!” “I could decide not to do the Rainboom,” said Rainbow. “Then that would make you a liar,” Tarbell said, leaning into Rainbow’s face. “You’d be suspended from Junior Flight Camp, and you’d never become a Wonderbolt. Having nothing better to do with my life, I’d guarantee it. You can’t even imagine a life without the ‘Bolts, so you’ll convince yourself that nothing bad will happen and then you’ll perform the stunt. Or maybe I’ll use one of the mind control spells I know to make you do it. I didn’t spend a decade in S.M.I.L.E. for nothing.” Raven stood up, her expression as cold as a windigo. “Dr. Tarbell? I’d like a word with you. In private.” Tarbell snorted. “Sure. Like I’m scared of some mousy mudpony secretary to the all-powerful Mayor of Ponyville.” “I’m going to give you one chance to convince me that I should introduce you to Princess Celestia.” “I have my own contacts.” “I know. Mine is a lot more direct.” “I’ll have you wrapped around my hoof in five minutes,” Tarbell bragged. “One way. Or the other.” “Bring all your things,” Raven said coldly. “I’ll need everything for what we need to go over.” The two of them walked out of the berth. Less than a kilometer later, the Friendship Express slowed to make its way around a sharp turn. While it was doing that, Dr. Tarbell leapt out of the train, tumbling over and over down the hill. When he landed he got up, looked back at Raven in sheer terror, and ran away from that train as fast as his hooves could carry him. Back in the engine of the train, Raven burned all of Dr. Tarbell’s notes, as well as a copy of the evidence proving that Tarbell was embezzling tens of thousands of bits from Junior Flight Camp to fund his gambling addiction. “He failed to convince me,” Raven said when she returned to the berth. “As a matter of fact, I convinced him to leave the train altogether, as I believe you just saw through your window. I can guarantee you that the pony calling himself ‘Muck Tarbell’ will never bother you again. That identity has been obliterated.” Rainbow’s eyes narrowed. Meanwhile everybody else in the berth nodded. “I never did trust that unicorn,” Bow Hothoof remarked. Rainbow mentally added “push pony brains around like chess pieces” to the list of Raven’s supposed powers. It was possible that Tarbell was up to no good this whole time, but if so the personality he had so effortlessly maintained for months had collapsed the moment that Raven had had the chance to speak for just a few minutes, and everypony else was now acting like this was who he was the whole time. Just like before, the fact that Rainbow had no magic of her own appeared to make her immune to Raven’s spell. This time she didn’t even try to disguise the look on her face. “Now I apologize on my employer’s behalf that your time has been so grievously wasted,” Raven continued. “I can get you immediate return tickets to Ponyville as soon as we reach Canterlot. Unless there was some other reason you wanted to see the Princess?” “Well...yes,” Windy said hesitantly. “But the matter is rather sensitive. If not the Princess herself, can you get us in contact with somepony who holds a position of trust with her?” “Yeah,” Rainbow added a sigh. “Spitfire told us that we were in big trouble, basically for existing. We want to make it clear that we’re giving ourselves up peacefully.” Rainbow considered it highly unlikely that a pony as powerful as Raven was nothing more than a mayor’s aide. In that case, like it or not, Raven must have been telling the truth when she claimed to have the ear of the Princess. “Yes, I think I can do that,” Raven said, suppressing a smirk. (Sitting in a back corner, Gilda began to sweat...or whatever the equivalent of sweating is for a half-avian creature. Staying in Canterlot for any longer than a day would not be good for her.) Soon afterwards Raven excused herself, “for government business”. The train entered a tunnel for a few seconds, cutting off all light. That was how Raven left the train.