//------------------------------// // 13 - Chaotic Touches, Part two // Story: Out of Cadance // by David Silver //------------------------------// The ground shivered as hedges manifested outside. Discord seemed to have no particular issues being in more than one place at a time. "Now, as I was saying." He was also near them, hovering and leering. "I don't think it's fair that they get to play, and you don't. Hardly fair at all..." Tempo huffed at him. "I doubt they are 'playing'. They've come to defeat you." "And they're doing a terrible job of it." Discord puffed at his chest with a sneer. "But they sure are trying, poor things. Back to you!" He pointed at her firmly enough to poke her on the end of the nose. "Let's have an argument!" Blueblood rolled his eyes at that. "I'm uncertain we've ever stopped that, foul sir." Tempo stomped a hoof. "You are the only source of irritation in the day." "Now that's not true." Discord floated on his back in a lazy circle. "You have as many questions as I do... Let's do a test! How much do you two truly love one another, hm?" He snapped his fingers, and the nature of the castle around them writhed and flowed, seperating them from one another swiftly. "This should be fun." Blueblood called for her in suddenly hostile and gloomy hallways, but saw no sign of Tempo. "Where is she..." Seeing no way but forward, he started down that corridor. "Dreadful thing, drawing us apart physically, but not in here." He put a hoof to his chest with a nervous smile. "I'll find you, dear, wherever you've gone to..." Tempo was far more methodical. Examining the room, she swiftly saw there was only one exit and began down it with an angry snort but firm steps. "When I find you, I will..." She trailed off that threat, coming upon a brightly lit, and large, room with untold many ponies in it, watching her suspiciously. They were all dressed like nobility, but there was no warmth there, only cold mistrust. "What is this?" "That's our question," huffed out the closest mare. "What are you, and why does Celestia play favorites with a doll? Considering where you came from..." "They should have just burned you," added a stallion. "And thrown what's left in the trash where you belong!" Tempo halted mid-step, recoiling as if physically struck. The ballroom of elegant pony nobility stared back at her with such overwhelming scorn that she fought the instinct to flee. Then outrage blazed up, scorching away her shame. "You...you all know nothing of me! Where I come from bears no weight on who I become..." Her voice wavered slightly. They knew her secret - or enough to piece together sinister implications. Still she raised her head defiantly. "Princess Celestia welcomed me as kin. My own merits lifted me to royalty this day!" Tempo stamped a hoof, magic flaring like a sunrise around her. "If my beginnings offend oh so righteous sensibilities, know too I chose compassion over cruelty at every turn since!" The silent herd of judging eyes bore down, so many shadows of past fears given form to haunt her ascendance. Still Tempo refused to waver before their wordless disgust. "I renounced wicked paths and fought for the light..." She trembled, glaring back fiercely. "Does overcoming darkness not make one noble too? Or do you simpering sycophants only measure worth by bloodlines and connections?" Their gazes narrowed, tension crackling. But Tempo stood firm, horn blazing brightly as a beacon against sinking night. If that was some trial of Discord's devising, so be it...but she would face the demons haunting her fledgling peace head-on, no more hiding. Blueblood wriggled his nose, detecting a soft and pleasing aroma of some incense. He entered a small room of dim light and soft trappings. Even the floor gave way beneath his hooves as if standing on a soft mattress. There was a mare there, looking quite similar to two he knew. The not-quite Cadance/Tempo swished her tail. "There you are... I was wondering if you'd find me." Even her voice wasn't... quite right. She was close, so close. Close enough that the little differences stood out in the uncanniest of valleys. "You poor thing, caught in here. Come over here and I'll make it all better." She sat, arms spread towards him. "You deserve a hug... Maybe more?" Her brows lowered. "There's a heart in this chest..." "Uncouth." He approached her only to push her over. "You are acting in a way no lady should. You do not know me nearly enough to make such an offer." The Tempo-facsimile gawked as Blueblood loomed over her imperiously. A fire kindled in his eyes, one that brooked no impertinent seductions. She squeaked as his hoof pinned her to the divan. "What enchantments fuel your pitiable ruse, I know not. But my betrothed is irreplaceable!" Blueblood trembled with rage and something more plaintive. "You think to break me with this farce?" He shoved away from her, pacing the suffocating chamber. "Show me a hundred lookalikes parroting honeyed words! None could move me save the true lady - she who lifted my benighted spirit beyond jousting words to that hallowed communion of souls no petty tricks may debase..." Blueblood rounded on the false Tempo, voice cracking. "So send your worst deceptions, charlatan spirits! A thousand lines may cast their lures - still I shall march to MY beloved's side untrammeled by cowardly doublings..." His impassioned tirade echoed through the stagnant air. The Tempo-puppet said nothing, empty eyes downcast while his heaved from exertion and swallowed back tears. "Now face me yourself, cankerous Discord!" His cry rang like thunder. "Do your worst, tyrant - but know naught can shame hearts welded fast in love's defense!" "You're being so cruel," spat out a new mare. "He'll never get what a stallion wants out of you, but you drag him along like that?" A stallion huffed. "A wife, like you? Who would suffer it?" He buffed his chest, shaking his head. "You talk the talk..." "Pretend the walk," added another. "But when it comes down to it..." Tempo trembled, fury and shame battling. "He wants more than just some mare to give him an heir, foul things!" A mare poked Tempo, near her enough to do so. "More than... But he still wants an heir, you cruel thing." A stallion coughed into a hoof. "There are other things he wants that you cannot give him, puppet." Tempo flinched away from their intrusive shoves, humiliation churning within. Still she clung to the memory of Blueblood gazing at her like she was his whole world made incarnate... "I-I give what I can," she forced out. "As does he, without complaint or condition..." Even if that meant pangs of longing she could not fulfill, his steadfast devotion never faltered. Tempo sucked in a sharp breath, hooves trembling at her sides. "What right have any to dictate the shape of affairs between consenting hearts? Are gentle words and caresses not affection enough?" The scornful unicorns reared back as sparks flew wildly from Tempo's horn. "Who are you vapid foals to define how passion must appear? If he yet stands proudly at my side, what lack you accuse means nothing!" The shadows of the ballroom blurred as anguished tears stung Tempo's eyes. Still, her voice rang clearly over their braying mockery. "Say my heart's too different and strange - his still embraces mine without hesitation! That is the only 'lacking' your crude minds could never grasp..." She advanced towards them fiercely now, the air smoldering with fury and pain. "So play deaf to a tune beyond your senses - we shall dance to kinder melodies far removed from your petty scorn!" With final cry she expelled the gathering power in a nova of cleansing light - feeling revelations take wing - before crumpling in a sobbing heap. The shadows retreated but still Tempo shook...for their thoughtless cruelty had ripped hidden doubts from where she'd buried them so long ago... Blueblood pressed past a dangling curtain into what seemed to be a brightly lit and sprawling workshop of busy ponies. They were working on other ponies that stood perfectly still. One hurried up to him. "Sir. Are you here to pick up your order, sir?" Blueblood perked an ear. "My order?" "Your order." The pony turned and led the way to one of many still ponies. "Made her to your exact orders, sir." He tapped at the pony, metal clanks coming from each tap of their hoof. "Every inch to specificiations, sir!" There stoof Cadance, or Tempo? It was neither, and Blueblood knew that. This one looked just like them, but had no spark. They gazed out with lifeless eyes. "She doesn't move." "Of course not, sir." The pony reached up to press some tiny button on the back of the doll, causing it to lurch to life. "There we are. Unit, this is your new owner." "Affirmative." The Tempo-facsimile nodded at Blueblood. "How can I serve you?" Blueblood stifled the urge to scream, civility hanging by an ever-slenderer thread. "Dreadful demon, you test me sorely indeed!" Finding no solace even in bluster, he resorted to petulant hoof-stomping. "This perversity exceeds imagination! You craft a soulless automaton and expect what - that I should embrace her over the true beloved whose every nuance and eccentricity stirs me so?!" He stormed up to the placid doll, mashing their faces close. "Harken here, witless simulacrum! However he may ply false flattery, to me your vacancy screams volumes..." Blueblood whirled away with a scoff, though his stomach roiled with unease. "As if I'd mistake bland obedience for those piercing glances that lay my very blood and bone bare by rapturous light alone..." The engineer opened his mouth but Blueblood bulled on heedlessly: "As if programmed platitudes could replace the honey-kissed words she whispers that provoke such sweet torment! No - never shall cold counterfeits eclipse the flesh-searing blaze of her unstudied devotion..." His diatribe's fervor saw him circling like a rabid beast now, all composure forgotten under passion's whip. "Let infinitudes of these plastic mannequins profane our semblance! My faith yet stands immutable..." He raised raging eyes ceilingward, still they shone misty with adoration. "Hear me, banshee spirits that bedevil us! Not all your baubles and tricks shall sully that which heaven and hell conspire in vain to parallel!! Now produce MY lady and end this pestilent charade!!" It all blew away like so much dust, and from it, another Tempo. A fake? This one was sagged to her belly, crying. Another method of that cruel trickster to get at him? Blueblood approached cautiously. "What trickery is this?" Tempo looked up, blinking her eyes clear as best she could. "Blueblood?" Just hearing her speak. Somehow, he felt it in his core. That was the one. He hurried to her, grabbing her tight. "Dearest! You're safe... What did that fiend do to you to bring such tears? Have no fear, I am at your side." She nuzzled into his sides, wiping the tears off into his fur as she stood up. "I feel very... silly..." She let out a soft sigh. "I'm fine... I'm alright, with you here." They touched noses, rubbing gently. That affection was one they could share and did gladly with swaying tails. "I'm so glad you're here." "As I am, beloved. As I am..." He glanced around the darkened room. "Does this mean we won over that cruel beast's machinations?" "I do not know if that rogue is done with his torments..." Tempo murmured into Blueblood's shoulder. "But reunited here, I feel I could weather far worse in defense of this." She touched their horns together gently. "Forgive my tearful lapse of faith, dear prince. They said some... It was awful. But your devotion reminds what the truth really is." Blueblood snarled at the dark. "Well, that monster had best not show his face before me, or I'll--" "--What?" Discord was before them, simply being there where once he was not. "Very lovely... But we're not done yet. You'll be pleased to know the Element Bearers failed miserably in their own way... Poor things. Shall we continue?"