//------------------------------// // Chapter 8 // Story: Whistling Rain // by Schwabauer //------------------------------// Once the butlers arrived with cake, and it was devoured, Twilight asked Celestia to step aside for a moment to talk. The pair quietly moved into a separate study, each finding a seat before Twilight addressed her. “IdontthinkthehorsesarelikeSaddleArrabianhorses.” She spat out rapidly, words blurring together. Celestia's smile faltered for a moment. Twilight continued spitting words out, “Theydontspeaktheydontreallybehavelikeintillegentcreaturesandtheyresistedleavingthestablestheywerein.” A silence fell for a minute, while Celestia discerned and processed what Twilight had said. Her face furrowed with thought as she did so, a concerned look also trickling into her expression. The silence dragged on a little longer, before Celestia sighed deeply and spoke. “I fear I made a mistake and acted hastily, dear student. I acted hastily on too little information, assuming Sombra had somehow made a return.” Celestia paused for a moment, before continuing. “We must send diplomats to set things right again. Twilight, you, and the elements shall depart tomorrow to use the Elements to fix soldiers frozen in stone in the fort.” Twilight nodded, and began to take note, before she paused, “We... don’t speak the same language, Princess.” Twilight said, looking at Celestia, “But we did capture one of the villagers.” As Twilight said this realization dawned on her face that they had essentially taken a civilian hostage. She face hooved herself and looked sheepishly up at Celestia. “And tell me, my student, why this was only mentioned now?” Celestia questioned, her eyebrow raised. She sighed and brought out her own parchment, scribbling something down rapidly. “I will talk to a captain in the guard to have a secure room arranged for our guest. Twilight, I hope you can translate this language quickly, so we can fix this problem and put it behind us.” “I will Princess, I promise.” Twilight said, determination setting into her face. She quickly turned to leave, her body clearly pointing towards the palace library. Celestia noticed this and held a hoof up, instantly stopping her. “Twilight, it can wait for morning. You cannot do this sleep deprived.” Celestia kindly. She gestured behind Twilight, causing her to turn and catch sight of Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash shutting the parlor door behind them as they trotted off to their rooms. Twilight looked back to Celestia, who gestured with her muzzle towards the bedrooms. Reluctantly, Twilight turned and trotted towards her room. Once inside she crept silently past Spike, who lay sleeping in his own bed just at the foot of her’s. She then crawled beneath the covers and the toll of the previous week had her asleep in minutes. That night she slept warmly in bed dreaming of the library. The next morning Twilight awoke late midmorning, the sun illuminating her entire room once she threw back the curtains, the soft shcifff of fabric on metal filling the morning silence. Her exuberant act of opening the curtains stirred Spike from his own slumber, bringing with him soft grumblings as he tried to ignore the bright light drifting softly through the windows of the castle. Twilight picked Spike up with her magic and carefully set him on her back, before she herself made her way towards the dining room for breakfast. Pancakes were sitting out for everpony to come and eat as they pleased. When Twilight and Spike, who was awake at this point, were also joined by the three princesses and prince, who were already halfway through a simple breakfast. Twilight joined them to eat, and everybody exchanged polite pleasantries before Twilight inhaled her breakfast and trotted off to the library. Spike, who had just been settling in to enjoy the well-made breakfast, jumped up and waddled hurriedly after Twilight, casting a forlorn glance at the breakfast laid out on the table. “Twilight! Slow down! Can’t we enjoy a nice breakfast before work?” “Spike, we can’t waste time on that. The Princesses are counting on me to find a way to set things right.” Twilight didn’t so much as glance over her shoulder when she shot back her retort. Spike merely shook his head and followed her, having learned not to argue with Twilight by this point. The Crystal Castle’s library was humongous, a sprawling labyrinth of shelves brimming with books. “Spike, I need you to find me any books on language translation. Magical or otherwise.” Twilight instructed. The two then set to work, carefully combing the library methodically for books that could aid them. They started by thumbing through section .400 in the library and picking out anything from the rather sparse selection, on language translation. Once a hefty collection of books was collected the pair skimmed the table of contents and glossary for any sections that may be more helpful. After two hours the selection dawdled to two books. One was titled Language Translation for Magicians and the other was titled A Comprehensive Guide to the Efficient Translation of Language and Spells. The books both suggested two separate ways to learn a foreign language rapidly. Translation for Magicians described a spell that could easily teach somepony a language, but it required a written book and a native speaker to work. The other book had a more tried and true method of using books and a native speaker to learn it slowly and steadily with word and structure translations. Twilight selected the former. Discarding A Comprehensive Guide to the Efficient Translation of Language and Spells and had Spike return it to its shelf. Twilight began thoroughly learning about how to use the spell. How to set up the room. The materials needed. Spells and sub spells must be layered over each other. Twilight sent Spike out to collect additional materials needed for the spell. As soon as Twilight was confident, she had all the spell’s facets memorized and noted down, she closed the book, and set to reviewing her notes until Spike returned with the supplies she needed. He returned with everything except for a native speaker and a book in the language. The components he did have were empty notebooks, ink, and quills. Lots of quills and notebooks. Languages were expansive after all. All the materials ready, Twilight set out to find the prisoner and try out this new spell. Until she remembered that she lacked half of the requirements of the spell. She stopped her stride out of the library. “Spike, I forgot something. I may not have a book with the language in it.” “Maybe he has a book on him?” “Where would he have put it? We went through his pack and found nothing of the sort.” “Maybe it was in a pocket?” “I hope so, otherwise this was a waste of time.” Twilight got up, gathered her notes and materials to talk to their prisoner. Out in the hall Twilight set out to find Shining Armor. After searching for a short bit, she found him in the throne room, waiting for petitioners and discussing resolutions with his wife. Twilight waited for a break to be called, before approaching Shining for the location of the bipedal prisoner. After a brief discussion, Twilight was escorted to the guest room that the prisoner was housed in. The two guards that escorted her stood at attention outside the door while Twilight and Spike entered carefully, locking the door behind them. Looking into the room, they saw their prisoner. It sat at the foot of the bed; head bowed, and eyes closed with its hands together in front of it. It spoke in its native tongue while in this position. The words it spoke seemed reverent and subservient at the same time. It’s speaking stopped when it noticed the two of them standing in the doorway watching him. It shot up, looking around the room for an escape for a minute and going rigid. Then it drooped, shoulders slouching and head dropping, seemingly resigned to its fate. “Hello... whatever you are!” Twilight cheerfully chirped. Twilight pulled out a notebook and waved at him, “Now I need you to give me a book.” The biped looked at Twilight with confusion on its face, and it took a step back. A hand hovered protectively in front of its chest, palm facing outwards. Its eyes flicked between Twilight’s book held in her magic, and her glowing horn. Its eyes grew, fear saturating them, and it said something in its native tongue that Twilight couldn’t understand. Twilight at once dropped the notebook into her hoof. Using another hoof, she pointed at the book, looking it in the eyes. The bipedal creature glanced at its breast pocket defensively, if only for a fraction of a second, before shifting into a slightly more defensive stance. Twilight spotted this and smiled slightly. She nodded at the pocket, and tried to keep a calm, relaxed tone to her voice as she said, “Please, I know it's there. Give me it. I just want to use it for a bit and return it.” The creature, anxiously and agonizingly slowly, began to inch a hand towards its pocket. It never took its eyes off Twilight. Twilight smiled slightly wider with an encouraging nod at him. “You can do it, just fifteen minutes and you’ll have it back.” “Eut sad hci muram, thcin ßiew hcI” it said, almost murmuring to itself rather than talking to Twilight. It finally reeled out the small pocketbook, which had an ornate golden cross embossed on it. The creature carefully set it on the bedside dresser before fleeing to a chair set at the desk. A desk with paper coated in writings. Twilight picked up the book with her magic, a twinkle in her eyes. Now that she had all her components, she could begin the spell that would help undue this horrible mess. A squadron of dragoons raced out from the inner folds of the Prussian colony towards the Crystal Empire. Three separate standards waved in the wind as they galloped through the frozen wastes. One was a standard Prussian standard. Another was a regimental standard, and the final was a solid white flag of truce. In the center of the formation a sharply dressed man and a group of aides. The squadrons rode hard and light, covering three, four days by foot in one. That night the squadron and their charge camped out. They set up leather tents lined with wool and lit small fires all around. The next day they took a far more relaxed pace, moving at a steady trot. They wound through the snowy wastes watching for a pony outpost or town. The further south and west they got, the more vegetation the group found. Soon they entered forested areas, signaling they were near the frontier of the colony and the edge of the Crystal Empire. Not long after entering the trees they found the abandoned village. The squadron captain decided to stay the night in the half-built settlement, carefully leaving furniture where it was and cramming everybody into the finished and unfinished buildings alike. The dragoons helpfully put the left-out equipment in sheds haphazardly. Extra firewood was stacked nearly in the corner of every building. The next morning, joints stiff from an unusual breeze snuffing out their fires frequently, the squadron set out again. They once again moved at a steady trot. They passed by the burned-out husk of a fort, everybody removing their hats and helmets respectfully. The squadron’s heads all bowed when they trotted past the statues and shattered stone of hundreds of infantry and dismounted dragoons. Once past the outermost edge of the fort, and by extension the Prussian colony, the squadron replaced their hats and helmets on their heads and sped up slightly. The trees grew dense, and they had to ride single file, no established roads connecting the colony to anything else. They camped in tents around fires for the next several nights, ambling towards the Crystal Empire. Eventually the squadron emerged from the tree line to a large open plain, fields frozen over. Dotted about the fields were dozens of small farmhouses. Along the outer edges of the fields a simple wood tower surrounded by a palisade stood. The top of the tower was topped with the Crystal Empire’s standard, waving proudly in the gentle breeze drifting across the farmland. On the outer most corners of their vision were more of these buildings, all about a hundred meters from the edges of the forest. The captain commanding the squadron, his squadron sergeant, and a lieutenant escorted the well-dressed man and his aides towards the simple outpost. The captain turned to the sharply dressed man and said, in German, “Diplomat Hermann, wait here. I’ll bring out this post’s commander to talk.” With that, the captain dismounted and followed by his sergeant and lieutenant, approached the gate in the palisade. There were two ponies already standing, spears angled towards the captain and his command. The guards were both slightly nervous looking, shifting in their shiny armored boots. “Hallo.” Began the captain, in thickly accented, broken, ponish, “We… speak… to… King… you” The two ponies looked back and forth, glanced at the flag of truce, before one of them turned his head over his shoulder and shouted something in ponish very rapidly. All the captain could hear were “Message” and “capital”. After a moment, the pony swiveled its head back towards the captain. He spoke very slowly and enunciated his every word when he said “We will have a squad escort you to the capital. They will be here in a day. Set camp along the forest.” The captain slowly translated the statement in his head, his eyes moving along the top of his brow as he did, before nodding and marching back to the diplomat to inform him of the development. Merchant fleets, the life blood any good empire. Carrying goods from far flung trading ports into the inner holdings of the empire. These goods, so hard to grow or make in the empire, are highly sought after and are awfully expensive. Making it very profitable for the merchants, native traders, and empire’s tax service. Captain Fredrick was leading a merchantman trading ship, the SMS Bitteshon, into the port of a recently discovered port. The residents of this port were the mythical Minotaurs, a whole new market with unknown goods and preferences. The fleet he was a part of held dozens of different goods, in the hope of being able to barter their way into possession of something valuable. With any luck, this market would bring humongous profit to the fleet.