//------------------------------// // Grape // Story: A Song Of Silk And Steel // by SilverNotes //------------------------------// We can do anything in dreams. We can be anything in dreams. Sometimes, Rarity is an earth pony. She's tall, strong, and sturdy, with hoofsteps that make the ground tremble. She can be a farmer tilling the soil, a craftspony working with stone, a chef in a kitchen, or a million other hooves-on careers. Sometimes she can take the ways that she's heard their magics described and almost put it together in her imagination into the sensation of resonating with the earth. Sometimes she's a pegasus, swooping and diving, whooping and hollering. She can be a weatherpony, a courier, a racer, an explorer of far off places, or anything else that has her touching the sky. Sometimes she aches for that sky in the depths of her soul, in way that only the phantom wings of her dreams can soothe instead of mere telekinetic levitation. Sometimes she really indulges in her fantasies, and she's an alicorn, presiding over her own court. A herald of the heavens, or merely a force that touches mortal hearts. An embodiment of some grand ideal that changes from dream to dream. Sometimes she craves that sense of command and wishes to feel that crown on her brow. Sometimes she's a griffon, a zebra, a minotaur... different faces, different places, different paths... living countless lives in her slumber. But sometimes she's just... Rarity. And sometimes she's Rarity, with her hoof on General Vixen's throat. The circumstances vary each time. Some nights she starts out being chased, hunted as food, and turns the tables on her attacker. Some nights it starts with a hunt for Vixen, stalking her way through changeling-occupied territory in search of her prey. Some nights it's a prolonged fight, some nights she gets in a lucky shot from the start, and some nights she has some kind of secret skill or weapon that makes the battle a trivial thing. In some of the dreams, Vixen's laughing right to the end. In some of them, she's hissing and spitting curses. Others are closer to the truth of things, and she's crying and begging for mercy, gasping the words out as the hoof's pressure gets harder. And on the rarest of occasions, the dream lasts long enough for Rarity to feel a twinge of remorse after snapping her neck. Rainbow Dash had never been very good at comforting other ponies. Rainbow could mingle, certainly. Scoring a job in the rainbow-creation department of Cloudale's Weather Factory isn't something a pony could do if they couldn't navigate a social situation or two. Knowing which ponies to impress and then knowing how to really impress them was an important skill, one she'd been learning to hone. It wasn't just enough to make a spectacle, it was everything surrounding the display, all the little moving gears that led to the moment when she made the world stomp its hooves in applause. Professional relationships weren't personal relationships, however, and that was where Rainbow faltered. Her closest friend in the world was a griffon, and griffons... reserved may have been a good word for it. There was a cultural inclination toward not showing pain or vulnerability, and while she liked to think that she and Gilda had known each other long enough that neither needed to put up a front like they would with a stranger or acquaintance, it hadn't given Rainbow much practice in how to comfort an upset creature. Is Gilda okay? I haven't seen her since Cloudsdale fell... It certainly didn't give her any idea of what to do when a pony was having a nightmare. They'd started harassing the changelings on the other side of the wall in shifts, some going out there while others took power-naps. She'd been coming off-shift, and strolled into the Pie family's living room to see Rarity on the couch, hooves twitching in phantom kicks and soft sounds of distress leaving her muzzle, and couldn't help but stop short. Her initial instinct said to leave the room, and go get somepony else. Pinkie's mother probably knew how to soothe ponies in this kind of state, even as stoic as the family acted. Moms had a sense for that kind of thing. At the same time, it felt wrong to just leave her as the thrashing intensified. What did my Mom do when I had nightmares? It took time to go through the memory, and then she cautiously approached. She extended her neck, and nuzzled lightly under the distressed unicorn's jaw, watching for any sign that her horn may reflexively light. "C'mon Rare, wakey-wakey..." Rainbow pulled back as Rarity jolted, but thankfully there was no bright light around her horn. Instead, Rainbow stepped back and watched the blue eyes that originally looked hazy and unfocused gain recognition, and the pulled-tight muscles started to relax. Rarity had pulled back her lips, showing her flat teeth, but those relaxed too, and she gave a shaky, "O-oh... Is... it my turn again?" Rainbow nodded slightly. "Yeah." With a moment's hesitation and a twitch of her ears. "You, uh... you looked like you were having a pretty rough time." Rarity slowly stepped down from the couch, and when her horn did light, the glow rushed over her coat, smoothing out the strands of fur. "...Did I?" "Yeah." Her voice got quieter. "I... know it's none of my business and all, but you looked like you were having a real bad dream. You kept kicking." "Hmm." The glow moved to mane and tail, making minute adjustments to the curls in the long purple hair. "Honestly, I don't remember what I dreamed at all." The words reminded Rainbow of a young flier who gave 'honest' speed averages that had been carefully rounded up. She gave a small flick of her tail. "At any rate, get some rest, Rainbow. I'll take over from here." Rainbow wasn't good with personal relationships, but she knew body language, and as she watched Rarity leave the room, she saw the twitches in her hindquarters. She'd seen it before in pegasi coming off an adrenaline spike, the restless legs of a pony who still itched to kick, because their body still thought there was something there that needed the kicking. Not my business. Everypony and everyone had gone through their own personal Tartarus, and the trot was ongoing, with not a single creature able to say when the herd would collectively reach the gates. For any of them to find any sort of peaceful sleep would be a miracle. They just had to take what they could get, when they could get it, and hope. Rainbow stepped up onto the couch, tucking her legs under her body and folding her wings. She lowered her head, closed her eyes, and with the practice of a mare who had spent her entire life sneaking naps whenever she could during work hours, dropped into sleep. Her dreams were no kinder. Fluttershy had never been very good at confronting other ponies. Her one and only coping mechanism for ponies doing something she didn't like, for so long, had been simple avoidance. If somepony was being too loud, or too aggressive, or too in her face, it was easy to either run away, or on the days when she needed that bit more speed--not much more, given her very little wing power--fly away. She never stepped into a public space without picking out several retreat routes, and she always knew the direction to go in to reach home the fastest. Her skill for bolting home as fast as possible during a blind panic could be held up as evidence that pegasi had a homing instinct. When she'd lived far on the outskirts of town, that had worked for her just fine. When they'd all moved to the forest refuge, she'd had to learn to be a little more assertive, because everyone was in so much closer quarters and there was nowhere to retreat to unless you wanted to take a walk through the nearby woods alone, risking attack. That didn't mean that it was her favourite thing, but she could put her hoof down. "The wonderful thing about Pinkies..." "Pinkie." "...Is that Pinkies are wonderful things..." "Pinkie." "...Our manes are made out of rubber..." "Pinkie." "...And our hoofsies are made out of springs..." "Pinkie." In fact, managing to reach the volume and force to her voice that the other pony heard her after four tries was a new record. She watched the mare who'd been pronking along on the tips of her hooves stop in her tracks, then turn her head to stare at her and give several bewildered blinks. "What's wrong, Fluttershy? Should I sing a different song?" Fluttershy gave the tiniest of relieved sighs, then steeled herself for the next part, explaining herself. "...No, there's nothing wrong with the song," she said, giving a slight smile that she hoped was reassuring. "It's just... shouldn't we maybe be... a bit quieter? Given that we're sneaking and all." The two of them had left the tunnels behind, and were now traveling through an area where she'd been told the rocks had 'grown wild.' She hadn't been sure what that'd meant, until she'd truly seen it. The stones really did almost look like living things, the way they rose from the ground in all manner of shapes, some of which reminded her of the twisting of tree trunks and branches, as if they were in some kind of petrified Everfree. It provided plenty of cover, to hide themselves, and Fluttershy had started to feel some tentative hope for their chances until Pinkie had started singing with sudden gusto. Confusion was still written across Pinkie's face, as if Fluttershy had said something completely nonsensical, and her ears twitched in ways that made them flop around, in the over-animated auricular language Fluttershy had seen in creatures with much larger ears than ponies had. "But this is a song for sneaking!" she finally said with disbelief. "It helps make my hooves extra light and bouncy." Before Fluttershy could process that enough to respond, Pinkie started to pronk higher, hopping a circle around her and then starting her way up some of the wild rock formations with agility that would be more at home in a mountain goat. And that was when Fluttershy registered that her hooves weren't making a single sound, the usual clip-clop of keratin on stone completely nonexistent, and her jaw silently fell open. Pinkie did a swan-dive off the jutting stone, landing on her hooves at the last second, still barely making a sound as she did and wearing the biggest grin that Fluttershy had ever seen. "See?" "That..." Fluttershy looked down at her own hooves, then up Pinkie. "...Really works?" "Of course! Why would I sing all the time if it didn't work?" She let out a giggle-snort. "Well, besides the fact that singing's fun, of course." She started to bounce in circles around Fluttershy again. "Come on, you try it too. We'll do a different one!" Her voice rose again as she started to sing, "Secret... agent mare!" "Secret... agent mare..." Fluttershy tentatively echoed, her hooves still clipping against the stone. "They've given you a number..." "And... taken away your name..." As Rarity took her place at the wall, her magic seizing up several stones, Maud gave the wall one last kick and turned to head toward the house, seeking her own replacement for the next few hours. She wasn't tired. She hadn't even been tired after digging the way out for Pinkie and Fluttershy. She couldn't recall the last time she'd been tired, even though she felt she had at least a vague understanding of what the state was. Fiction books--she did read novels on occasion, and the lack of books with geologists as protagonists had even had her considering writing as well--had their descriptions for the state, the heaviness in limbs that made them impossible to lift and the fogginess of the mind that made it hard to think. Ponies of the stone tended to just keep going, whether that was the constant alertness and drive of Limestone, the bouncing perpetual energy of Pinkie, or Maud's own steady strength. Even Marble could stay still and quiet for ages when it was required of her, never once nodding off. Still, not sleeping would catch up eventually. They could keep going on beyond when other ponies dropped, but the drop was still possible, and there were a thousand other small things that could be going wrong below the surface of a pony who seemed just fine. Maud paused as the door opened, giving a single, slow blink as she saw Big Macintosh, already awake. "...Hey," she said finally. "It's time to change shifts." "Eeyup," he offered with a small nod, and started to walk past her. "You have a good nap, cousin Maud." She turned her head to follow him with her eyes, and she found the next words coming to her tongue. "It's been a really long time." Mac stopped, and glanced back at her. "Eeyup, it has." "Our families were both smaller back then," she commented. "No younger siblings yet." "Eeyup." "You really talked my ear off back then." "Eeyup." There were a few beats of silence. "How's Boulder?" "He's good." A few more beats passed, and Maud's voice dipped slightly in volume. "I'm worried about Pinkie." A smile twitched at Mac's muzzle. The Apples always had been oddly expressive; maybe Pinkie had tapped into some far-back part of the family tree, where their branch met the Pies', and that's where she'd gotten it from. "Fluttershy's tougher than she looks. They'll both be fine." "Okay." She gave a single blink, and one of her hooves shifted slightly. "Sorry for not visiting Ponyville." Mac shrugged. "S'alright. You had your rocks an' we had our apples. Some ponies are jus' bound to only see each other once every few years. Ain't somethin' I blame you for." Something about those words dug into Maud's heart like obsidian shards, and she struggled to figure out how to dig them out. "...I'll come to the next reunion," she offered. If there is one. Mac gave another little smile, bobbed his head, and started to walk away again. "See you there, cousin Maud." Maud turned away, back toward the door. Maybe she did know what it felt like to be tired. Just not in body. Because when she got inside, walked past the snoozing pegasus on the sofa, and reached her room, her heart felt weighed down in her chest. It was like something dense and jagged had replaced it, putting pressure on her ribs, like it might just fall through them to land at her hooves. She fell asleep the instant she hit the pillow. It was the end of the world, and Tough Cookie was the last pony left. Most mares would have broken, that from knowledge. Her cousin Cookie Crumbles wouldn't have lasted a day, she was sure. I should have written more. Her sisters, Lemon Cookie and Molasses Cookie, would have broken within a week, certainly. I should have hugged them more. Any of her neighbours... Well, it was obvious that they would've gone mad before long. I should have visited more. But Tough had been able to hold it together since the end began, because that was what she did. When Tartarus came howling to her doorstep, she would keep on trotting, because somepony had to. Does it still matter when everypony's gone? Right now she was doing what she'd been doing every day: patrolling her territory. The stones outside of her property had grown wild, and were getting wilder, and so she trotted along the border each day, making sure that nothing was encroaching over that border. She would normally go out and try to trim some of that back, but... that's how Chocolate Chip had gotten got, and so Tough couldn't risk it. I heard him screaming... It'd happened over a few short days. Papa had gone into town to do errands and not come back. Mama had gone after him to find out what was holding him up, and hours later, she still hadn't come back either. Worried siblings had tried to reach town as well, or neighbours, to find out what had happened, and had vanished one by one. Then Tough had seen one, buzzing above the stones. Equine shapes twisted, torn and blackened, with jagged horns, grotesque wings, and riddled with holes. Parodies of the pony form. And that was when she'd realized what had happened to her family. They'd become those things. She didn't know what the vector was. Her best guess was a bite, given that the beasts had fangs. So she'd holed herself up, ready to hurtle rocks at any of the flying chompers that came near her. Patrolling her territory constantly to make sure none had slipped in, ready to go for her in her sleep. Being constantly vigilant, because she was the last one left. What else can a pony do, at the end of the world? Tough Cookie needed her routine. She couldn't deviate from it, even for a moment. After patrolling, she would go through her food stores and other supplies, counting it all and making sure it was all accounted for. She knew that she'd eventually need to risk the outdoors to try to get more, but the longer she could make the existing stock last, the better. At least it lasts longer when it's just... one of me... Patrolling, Taking stock. Eating. Sleeping. Surviving. There hadn't been room for much else, because it was in the spaces when she wasn't occupied that Tough's mind started to wander, and much like how it was dangerous to leave her property's border, it was dangerous to have her thoughts stray too far. Maybe there's still somepony out there...? A steady trot, along the border. Noting the overgrown rocks, trimming the ones that crossed the border with a stomp of her hooves--fresh rocks would add to the food stores, and every extra meal was precious--and trying to drown out the sound of her own thoughts with her hoofbeats. What she didn't drown out, today, were the voices. "Secret... agent mare!" "Secret... agent mare!" "They've given you a number..." "And taken away your name." Tough Cookie's head went up, ears rotated forward. Briefly wondered if she was going insane. Then she recognized the intense coat hue, took in the erratic motions that ponies shouldn't to able to do, and realized that what was bouncing over the rocks was Pinkie Pie. Maybe it wasn't too late for the insanity instead.