The Hike
The seven ponies arrived next morning to see several war chariots bathed in the pink sunlight. Heavily armoured and very spacious, the chariots were equipped with high wooden walls to protect the two unicorn mages or two earth pony archers they usually carried. These particular vehicles were marked with scratches and scars showing they had seen much service throughout the War of the Sun and Moon. Princess Celestia was already in one of the chariots.
“Shall I join you Celestia? Never mind, I doubt I’d fit!” guffawed Vaultaire as Golden Triangle gave her a scandalized look. Celestia didn’t bat an eye.
“Thou shouldst laugh as much as thou can before we spike thy victuals with Poison Joke. Then the joke, shall be on thee,” said Celestia with a smile. Vaultaire stopped laughing for a moment and then burst into a weak giggle.
“You’re kidding Celestia... right?” inquired Vaultaire. To her dismay all the pegasus received was a wink from her alicorn friend before the seven ponies had to choose their chariots. Despite his attempts to get his nerve up, Byzas lost his nerve and ended up sitting next to White Tower. Barbican found Vaultaire taking a seat next to him. Golden Triangle had a chariot to himself and Sa’id sat with Chartres.
The chariots, pulled by teams of armored pegasi, lifted off and made their way to the majestic peak of Mount Canter.
Byzas couldn’t help but take his sketchpad out and start drawing the clouds and landscape as they shot by below him. For a pony who had never taken to the sky, the artist was dumbfounded by what he was seeing. Slowly, clouds and distant villages began to take shape under the pony’s steady shading.
However, as the brown dyed stallion continued to fill the pages of his sketchbook, his attention was drawn by his fellow occupant and it was then he noticed the particular thing White Tower was missing
Her flank was bare: a deep sky blue like the rest of her. Byzas was surprised he hadn’t noticed it before and paused in thought. The name of White Tower was a legend among earth ponies. Byzas had heard snippets of conversation from all over Equestria in his travels. None of the stories seemed to mention that she was one of the exceptionally rare adult blank flanks; ponies scorned by society as deviants abandoned by Faust. What was usually told was that she rose through the ranks to command a regiment of elite earth ponies. That was the only thing that was reliable because the rest of her background was filled with fanciful tales that Byzas could barely believe. An example of these stories was one rather crazy version that claimed White Tower had fought a dragon and Nightmare Moon personally.
It was then that Byzas noticed the mare he was thinking about was glaring at him with icy cold, blue eyes.
“Are you interested in me Spire?” inquired White Tower. Immediately, the stallion’s gaze stared back toward the horizon.
“Noofcoursenot!” spoke Byzas a little too quickly.
“Of course you aren’t. You’re more interested in a certain ivory unicorn mare,” said White Tower with a wry chuckle. Underneath his dyed fur, Byzas blushed.
“I... I... shoot is it that obvious?” groaned the stallion.
“More obvious than your thoughts on why I don’t have a cutie mark,” replied the mare.
“I-wasn’t-thinking-of-that!” protested Byzas, causing the mare to raise an eyebrow and ask:
“What were you thinking of then?” The stallion pawed at the floor of the chariot nervously.
“I was... um... feeling sorry for you... and um... wondering how it was like to live without a cutie mark... I mean... I’ve heard of what you’ve done... and I don’t think they look at you the same way now, but most ponies would have noticed when you were younger,” murmured Byzas. White Tower blinked. The stallion in front of her would never lie unless there was a good reason. In her opinion, Spire probably couldn’t lie to save his life. Most ponies had felt shocked at her lack of a cutie mark and shied away from her. Some ponies, like Barbican, had felt sorry and taken it upon themselves to help her. Byzas was the first to ask her what it felt like... to be an adult Blank Flank.
“It was difficult,” said White Tower shortly, her dark blue eyes still locked with Byzas’s.
“Um... how so? ” said Byzas.
“Other ponies... looking at me like I was... well, unnatural. They called me Blank Flank a lot back then and I got used to it after a while,” shrugged White Tower as she gazed back at the horizon.
“I don’t think you ever did get used to it,” said Byzas. White Tower’s eyes widened and she froze. “I’m a little older than you and I’ve taken care of quite a few fillies and colts. You can say I was the foal sitter back at my village. Your muscles flinch a little bit every time you say ‘Blank Flank’ and the way you say it is different from other ponies.” Byzas stopped and coughed sheepishly as he noticed White Tower staring at him. “At least, that’s what I think... oh horseapples,” groaned the stallion, his delayed memory reminding him whom he was talking to. White Tower advanced, backing Byzas up against the chariot’s high wall. Her practiced marching steps reminded the stallion too much of her training as a soldier.
“You couldn’t have learnt all of that from raising foals. How else did you do that?” demanded White Tower, eyes critically examining Byzas like some magical scanner. There was no way he could lie, so he told the truth, or at least part of it.
“A skill I picked up... sorry. It’s something most artists have to do. In order to portray pony emotion, one has to understand the features and particular signs a pony makes to indicate emotion and status. A good artist is also a good observer,” explained Byzas nervously. He saw the earth pony relax - he didn’t know why she did - but her shoulders loosened and her eyebrows lowered.
“So what else can you tell about me?” asked White Tower, tone less pointed, more inquisitive. Byzas took a good look at White Tower, brow furrowed in thought and his hoof scratching at his dyed mane.
“Um... your stance, steps and what I know of your background shows that you are military pony. The upright pose shows that you are confident in your own abilities. There is an overall tightness and control in your movements, showing you are very afraid of making mistakes. All of them signs of a perfectionist. You seem rather cold and distant, yet...” Byzas stopped and his already furrowed brow rose higher as his face twisted into an extraordinarily confused expression.
“Go on?” said White Tower, her voice soft and encouraging, just the right tone to get Byzas to continue.
“I was listening to your conversation with Chartres... though my attention was somewhat focused elsewhere, I can see you genuinely care about the ponies that you talk to... Such as just now you managed to get me to continue speaking,” concluded Byzas. He paused, trying to process the mare’s reaction.
“I should take you along on my meetings with those pesky nobles more often,” snorted White Tower. The stallion’s lips pursed in an expression of displeasure.
“Don’t, I couldn’t put up with those ponies before the war and I doubt I could handle them after,” groaned the stallion.
“You’ve had dealings with the Two Courts?” said White Tower, curious. The stallion shrugged nonchalantly.
“Only a few of the minor nobles, namely the late Lord Saddlestrong of Stalliongrad,” explained Byzas. The mare’s ears straightened as her interest was heightened.
“You must have been a pretty good artist to have dealings with him. That stallion was a coward... completely obsessed with his image. I’ve only heard of him from his son His Grace Crestrot and even that was enough to make me shiver.” Byzas laughed and continued to horrify White Tower about the lord as the chariots soared through the mountain.
The Mountain Canter...
Once the architects had arrived, they sent the chariots away and gathered around in a circle, carrying their laden saddlebags. In the middle, White Tower laid a map in the center, but it seemed completely indistinguishable. To most of the ponies the map appeared to be a bunch of circles.
“These are contour maps: the latest from our cartographers. They detail the approximate shape of the mountain through these circles, which represent heights. I’ve circled two spots with the appropriate cliffs and the appropriate space. We will check them out and if that doesn’t work, we will gradually ascend the mountain. Is everypony in agreement?” asked White Tower. The plan was accepted and the ponies set off.
White Tower led with Barbican and Golden Triangle following her closely. Vaultaire and Princess Celestia came next. Sa’id trailed the pegasus and princess, - bouncing up and down with every step - his bulging saddlebags somehow defying gravity the same way he was. Chartres and Byzas brought up the rear.
The scenery was pleasing. The rock face of Mount Canter was covered with green moss, accentuated by small meadows that dropped off of sheer cliffs. These allowed spectacular views of Equestria’s countryside, giving the ponies to relax their eyes and enjoy the hike.
They reached the first of White Tower’s locations, a giant, rocky spur on the mountainside; desolate and devoid of life. The spur was huge and to Sa’id’s initial investigation, had solid foundation, but the sparse vegetation around it produced only the following verdicts:
“No.”
“We think this is unacceptable.”
“For once I’m in agreement with the old fogey, nay.”
“NO! This would be madness!”
“Nononononono.”
“No! Why did I ever think of this spot?”
“Its firm... but it’s so boring!”
“I... agree.”
With that agreed upon the ponies trekked onward in the same order they had begun in. So, up and down they went, across narrow paths, streams and rocky trails, getting higher and higher up the mountain.
However, this leg of the journey wasn’t so nice. Tempers were beginning to fray and the ponies were growing tired. Barbican was complaining endlessly about the stupidity of the whole idea, not knowing that Byzas could hear him. In fact, the earth pony could hear so much that he completely forgot to talk to Chartres. Vaultaire was in gossip mode with Celestia and her topic was Golden Triangle’s archaic teaching methods. Unfortunately, she didn’t know said unicorn wasn’t as deaf as she’d believed. Finally, Sa’id’s endless nonsense chatter was driving everypony nuts; even Chartres, who also wasn’t used to physical activity and was exhausted.
At long last, the exhausted architects and the princess reached a wide, flat moor shrouded with mist, somehow formed on top of this mountain ledge. Small sickly shrubs and stunted grey birch trees sprouted from the mass of soggy earth. When Celestia gazed upon this she felt an immense sense of déjà vu, but she was unable to place it.
“Well this is... not ideal, but we can clear the land, flatten it and then we’ll be fine!” said Vaultaire cheerfully.
“It may be too wet to do so,” said Sa’id, frowning as he attempted to bounce upon the edge of the peat. The stallion finally succumbed to gravity and sank so deep, he had difficulty extricating himself.
“Well there are some firm bits here. I”m going to have a look,” called out Byzas as he leapt upon a rectangular object that stuck out from the bog. It looked like a large stone covered with moss, in the most peculiar shape. It was as if it had been carved. As the earth pony gazed deeper into the mist though, he saw many more of the carved blocks.
“There are a lot of these stones! I think we can cross the bog!” announced Byzas. Slowly, the ponies leapt from stone to stone as they hopped their way deeper into the grey mist. They finally made their way to the center of the bog, where they found a large firm area they could gather upon.
“Since there are so many of these stones and rocky bits, I don’t think the bog can be that deep,” said Vaultaire happily.
“Still we will never be able to build yon horrendous structure upon the cliff,” groaned Golden Triangle. Byzas narrowed his eyes. Vaultaire face hoofed and glared at the unicorn.
“Still obsessed with the towers Oldy Goldy?” retorted Vaultaire.
“Art thou still poor and leaching off our Princess, Baroness?” inquired Golden Triangle. Celestia sighed as the pegasus almost leapt at the unicorn. Only to have her attention drawn by Barbican.
“Why are we even talking about building the capitol here anyway? It’s a madpony’s venture. Probably will fall off the cliff,” snorted a tired Barbican.
“Well do you have a better suggestion?” replied Spire sarcastically.
"Obviously!” said Barbican, raising an eyebrow. The other stallion snorted and threw the niggling voice of nice Byzas right out of the window.
“Oh yeah... building it by a lake? That is the oldest trick in the book. I can hear you from the back you know. What do you have against me?” demanded the earth pony angrily. The two males, their egos offended trotted up to each other, eyes homed in on the other and hooves pawing on the mossy surface.
“Stop!”
The ponies turned to Chartres. The unicorn was shaking beads of cold sweat heaving down her side. She had felt a nauseating feeling in her stomach as they had arrived on the bog and now it was sickening. There was just a sense of wrongness about the place. They should not be here. The cloying, musty scent of the peat and tar was not comforting her, instead overwhelming her fears.
“Just stop! This place is wrong! Can’t you feel it?” stammered Chartres. Vaultaire snorted, confidence unshaken.
“Really Chartres... it is a bit dreary and creepy, but nothing some weather management and earth pony magic won’t fix,” chuckled the yellow pegasus. Byzas took Chartres’s comment seriously, although not because of his feelings for her. There was just something in those fearful blue eyes that made him concentrate his senses and he saw.
“Ohmygoshits! Sorry! She’s right, we can’t... and we shouldn’t stay. Sa’id! Concentrate your senses to the ground! Can you feel it too?” gasped Byzas. The earth pony stopped bouncing and stood still, only to have a dark pall fall across his visage.
“We need to leave, now,” said Sa’id, his normally, cheerful tone somehow swept away by some gathering storm. Vaultaire was unnerved, but she still thought it was just the somber weather. Sure, the mist seemed rather... oppressive, but that and the bog could easily be rectified. By the time weather and earth pony magic would have finished, the bog would be just a flat piece of land perfect for building.
“Come on you little ponies. Stop being such a bunch of scaredy foals! It’s just the fog and mud-,”
And at that moment, White Tower collapsed.
Author’s note: So today I kicked off the month of December with the another chapter... and possibly my scariest cliffhanger. For people who had wondered when is this going to get exciting... I’m the author and this proves I can MUAHAHAHAHA you readers at any moment with cliffhangers. If you’ve liked the story, fav it, if you’ve faved it, like it please.