//------------------------------// // Chapter 9 // Story: Whistling Rain // by Schwabauer //------------------------------// A purple hue of magic surrounded Twilight, the book, her notebooks, and the bipedal… guest. Twilight was carefully constructing the different layers of the spell one on top of the other, while the, hazy, far away eyed biped sat silently in its chair. The biped’s eyes suddenly focused when it realized what was happening. Its head snapped towards Twilight, fear building rapidly. It shot to its feet, backing into a wall in abject terror. Twilight ignored it, concentrating deeply on her efforts to build the spell. The magic enveloping the biped and its book began to pulse and throb, swirling turbulently around the two objects. For two minutes the magic pulsed and absorbed information out of the two. From the magic aura floated out purple, translucent letters, forming into words and then sentences as they began to drift towards Twilight and her notebooks. About a hoof away from them the words duplicated, one set beelining for Twilight’s horn, the other for her notebooks. The ones bound for her horn were vacuumed onto the tip before swirling down the spiral grooves, tickling Twilight as they did. Once the purple letter spaghetti reached the base of her horn, they duplicated themselves again. One of these new lines just sank down through her skull and into her optical nerves, and ear canals, teaching her how to read and understand the language. Into her mouth flowed the other set of words, training her tongue and vocal cords muscle memory on how sounds and letters were pronounced. The words that tracked towards the notebooks began to rapidly and unstoppably multiply and divide like cancer. They dove all over the pages of the notebook, their text size changing and adapting as needed. In several spots rough sketches regarding the subjects of the words would pop into being, ink from the nearby inkwells draining rapidly. All the notebooks were full within minutes, and then began compressing the text and downsizing the font. Within five minutes of the spell beginning the magic aura coating the biped, Twilight, and the books faded. Once it was gone Twilight suddenly felt exhausted, breathing heavily and her legs trembling. A beam of giddiness broke Twilight’s face when she weekly flipped open the notebooks, delighted to see that she could read and understand the now less foreign language filling page after page. After spending a moment to revel in all her glory Twilight set the notebook down gently, and looked at the biped. Who was laying on the ground clasping its head and gasping. Twilight shot up, scrambling over to the out of breath creature. When it noticed her coming close it scrambled, hands desperately righting itself and pawing backwards, into a corner, curling tight into a ball. Its eyes were wide with fear as it cast its gaze onto Twilight. “W-w-what d did you do to me? To my Bible?” It barely managed to sputter out, as if some solid ball was stuck in his through, making it difficult to speak. Twilight was mollified by his reaction to her magic, and stepped backwards. Twilight slowly replied in his own language, “I performed magic in order to learn your language quickly. I’m sorry for any stress I caused. Please, how can I help you?” “G-g-give me my Bible. Please. And and leave me be.” There was even more stress in his voice now, and it seemed even harder for him to talk. His face was red, and tears were welling up in his eyes. Twilight looked at him with concern, before returning his book and turning to trot out of the room. “I’ll leave for now. But I’ll check in regularly if you need anything.” With that, she left the room, Spike trailing just behind her with all her notebooks. Stepping out of the room, Twilight quickly found her way to a wall and braced herself against it. Both of the guards standing by his door looked at her with concern, one cautiously marching over to her, the other reading a spear and moving to open the door. Twilight looked around, and waved off both the guards. She and Spike than began to trot back towards the library. Twilight then straightened slightly, a confused look written across her face. How had she come to know the biped was a he? Twilight was back in the library, reading more into possible spells to transfer her language knowledge to others. Quickly, that is. While she would have loved to teach classes, there simply wasn’t the time. The book she initially was reading through contained some helpful information, even directing her towards another thick tome with much more information on the subject. Spike had waddled off to the kitchens, presumably to grab food for himself and Twilight. Her friends stopped in periodically to check on her. She told each in turn about her friends about the breakthrough, and then wished them a good day. The Princesses briefly dropped on by as well, and were also informed of developments. They were excited that she was able translate the language in such a short amount of time, and hoped she could teach it to them as well soon. Spike dropped off food for Twilight, before running to do some other errands for the other elements. Primarily Rarity, Twilight assumed. She stopped her note taking and rigorous studying schedule during and for a slim period after lunch, taking the time to stretch a little and relieve herself. Twilight began to settle back into her studying spot, barely managing to get her book open before Shining and Spike returned, a dragon fire scroll in hoof. They both had an air of urgency about them, quickly scanning the room and both heads locking on Twilight. They hurriedly made their way over to her. “Twilight, we have a message from an outpost along the border. The biped’s have sent a diplomat and his guard to negotiate with us.” “That’s great!” Twilight exclaimed, her eyes lighting up with joy. “We can finally work on putting this disaster behind us and cooperating in the future.” Shining nodded for a moment, and then added, “The guard could speak very broken ponish. They asked for an audience with our rulers specifically.” Twilight went silent, eyes widening. “H-how can they speak ponish?” “I don’t know, we’ll have to figure that out during the negotiations, won’t we?” Steel Tip stood in the tower above her outpost, gazing out at the forest edge. The usually unimpeded view was blocked by a moderately sized camp, tents pitched and guards in a blue-grey uniform milling around. They wore elaborate steel helms, and carried metal and wood clubs, as well as a curved sword. There were also the finely dressed diplomats that resided with them. Horses stood tied to posts in a simple, and hurriedly built, corral. According to Captain Shining they were not horses like the Saddle Arabians to the south, but were rather like chickens. Simple livestock to be trained and used as deemed fit, supposedly. Steel still eyed them with suspicion from up in her tower, looking past the heavy crossbows built onto each wall. She feared they may… forget that she and her fellows were not wild animals. Granted, should they try that she would stab and spear them, or buck them into next week. Their clubs and swords would be now match for a fully trained Crystal Guard! Especially with their odd lack of armor over anything but the back of their head. Shifting her stance, she turned her head in a quick sweep of the ground around the outpost. She noticed that most of the farmers that resided in the homes behind her outpost were elsewhere. Usually they’d be repairing fences, checking cold weather crops, chopping firewood, and who knows how many other tasks. Instead, almost everypony was inside, fires crackling weakly as they peeked out the window to stare at the bipeds camping just inside the border. Steel’s frown deepened when she noticed, before turning back towards the bipeds. She scowled at them from her tower, casting her gaze from guard to guard standing along the edge of their camp. Steel Tip continued to do it, until one of the guards noticed it, returning the look and turning away, returning to it’s patrol. An hour later Steel tip was relieved from her post by another guard pony. She trotted down the stairs and began to remove her armor. Once it was off she made her way to the simple housing quarters they had. A bit ramshackle, it had beds for everypony as well as a wood fire stove for cooking and heating. Warming herself on her bed, she opened a book about adventure and glory in strange new lands to read. Her reading was interrupted when one of the gate ponies, Iron Rod, called her outside. “Steel, one of the… Srenogard? Yeah, I think that’s what they call themselves… Well on of them asked to see the pony in the tower last. Be careful, please? Nothing rash.” “Did the Renogard say why it wanted to meet with me or..?” A hint of nervousness kept into Steel’s voice. Her mind was racing, what if she did something to offend it, or had inadvertently challenged it to a duel. Iron’s eyes narrowed slightly, and his voice sounded a lot sterner than before, “No, it didn’t. You didn’t do anything to it, right?” “I glared at it.” Steel quickly said, eyes darting down. Iron sighed deeply, before stepping aside, gesturing to the gate. “Go on, your guest is waiting for you.” With the gait of a condemned mare, she trudged over to the gate. Looming above it, and the palisade, was the bipedal giant, taller than even it’s fellow. It had a small grimace on its face, but a twinkle in its eye. The helmet and parts of the uniform of before were gone now, as was the club and sword. But there was a bottle held loosely in its hand. The gain reeked of alcohol. It’s face was red and ruddy. It angrily yelled at her in its language, waving its bottle and pointing at her. After a moment it noticed her confused face and began speaking in broken, slurred ponish. “Yuuooou… pony” he spat, as though it were the best insult ever conceived, “whwhy yooouo glluur mmmich”. Steel backed up, her head craning to look him in the eyes. Iron Rod and the other gate pony trotted forward, metal horns pointed at the drunken biped. The shouting had drawn the eyes of guards from the bipedal camp, and two guards were coming over, gloved hands ready to draw their swords. There was anger in their eyes as they approached. “You need to back away from the pony, sir.” Iron said, threateningly nudging his head forward. The giant ignored him, stepping towards Steel. He raised the bottle threateningly. The other pony nudged Steel behind him. The two bipedal guards now were disregarding their swords and running towards the outpost at a flat sprint. The giant brute wildly swung its bottle at Iron. Iron dodged easily, and swung the metal horn to the belligerent’s stomach. With a forceful tone Iron spoke to him, “Stop now or I’ll skewer you.” The brute tried to say something, but only slurred mutterings stumbled over themselves and off his tongue. It tried to raise its bottle again, only to be interrupted with the two Srenograd guards seizing an arm each, dragging it backwards and away from the Crystal Empire’s outpost. It yelled something into the sky, and was struck on the forehead by one of the Srenograd guards. A third Srenograd, the one that had demanded a meeting with the Crystal Empire’s rulers, jogged over, a look of shame and embarrassment on his face. He reached the outpost and bowed slightly to the three Crystal Guards there. He spoke in his thick accent as last time, although the sentence structure had already improved. “My apologies… he stole… alcohol. We… execute him.” Steel was taken aback at such a rapid verdict from his officer. She looked up at him, and saw that the shame she thought she saw in him moments ago was actually rage. Without waiting for the input of Steel, or any of the Crystal guard, he wheeled about and marched back towards his camp. That night a fresh grave lay beneath a tall, strong, and ancient pine tree. An empty noose dangled threateningly, a warning to all. A reminder of the consequences of violating Prussian law.