//------------------------------// // Life is a Test // Story: The Ash // by Raging Mouse //------------------------------// Chapter 25: Life is a Test “We have to assume that Cloudsdale has been lost.” Shining Armor’s voice was weak. In defiance of etiquette he was not looking directly at Princess Celestia, but down and to the side. She didn’t care. Her own gaze was nowhere near her captain of the guard. She was looking out through one of the clear windows of the courtroom, at the roiling masses of cloud surrounding Canterlot Mountain. She didn’t care about the reaction of the court either, though she understood those that shouted in alarm and didn’t begrudge the frankly disrespectful chatter that arose for a moment. It died down as everypony waited for Shining Armor to explain. He took his cue. “We haven’t had a missive from them for three days now. The last missive mentioned a temporary pause on weather control efforts to let their teams rest and recover. It spoke only of a day’s pause, however, and we’ve seen no sign of stable weather for three days now. My scouts cannot fly long in the ash-laden clouds, and have been unable to locate the city.” “What of the other cities? Perhaps Cloudsdale has drifted near one of them?” “It’s possible, but in that case we have no way of knowing. All lines of communication are broken. None of the squads I’ve posted to other cities have managed to contact me.” Celestia was silent for a moment before raising her head and speaking loudly. “I’m afraid this court will have to resume tomorrow. Stewards, find Princess Luna and ask her to meet us in the council room. Shining Armor, please accompany me.” He made a tired salute and went to walk by Celestia’s side as she left the court. They walked down the castle’s hallways in silence for the most part. Eventually Shining Armor couldn’t contain himself any longer. “Princess, have you any news... of my sister?” ~~~~~ Welder looked up at the nearly vertical wall of rock. A series of hand- and footholds optimised for his grip were slowly filling in, leaving no trace behind. One by one Twilight’s magic faded from them. He didn’t know what the future held, but he was certain that he’d remember this descent for as long as he lived. His first attempt at free climbing had involved a magical unicorn hovering next to him and forming cavities in the cliff face where it was most convenient for him. When he’d complained of fatigue she’d extruded a wide slab of rock for him to rest on. “Twilight, that was unreal.” The pony shot him an annoyed look. “I thought we’d already established that—” He silenced her with a wave of his hand. “That’s not what I meant. I just can’t deal with all of this strangeness.” Forest pressed up against the mountainside. Twilight led him directly away from the cliff at first, down a steep incline. There was a thick layer of snow, nearly reaching up to Twilight’s barrel, hampering their movement. After about an hour of this Welder was becoming very tired. “Twilight, can’t you magic a path for us or something?” “Normally yes, but this snow is mixed with ash from your world.” “So?” “It reacts poorly to telekinesis. Watch.” Twilight sent a blast of magic into a drift of snow by a tree. It started to crackle with blue-black fire. Welder stared at the pyrotechnic display while Twilight explained. “Put simply, you come from a universe with different physical laws. Some are actually very similar, but there are enough differences to render all the matter that arrived here essentially unable to exist for long in its current form, maintained only by a lingering aura of physical laws from your world. It’s decaying, falling apart into Equestrian matter and a mix of dark and chaos magic. We’ve already determined the exact rate of decay, but certain magics seem to greatly accelerate the process. I theorise it’s because they disrupt the physical laws holding the matter together.” “All matter from my world? But I am also made from that...” “That’s the hard limit I mentioned. I have less than fifteen days, at most, to figure out how to convert your physical structure to Equestrian matter while still letting you function.” “Twilight, that sounds impossible.” “It may seem like so, but I can’t determine that until I’ve made an effort.” They struggled forward in silence for a moment before Welder spoke again, short on breath. “Thank you. For trying, I mean.” Hours later a gray light seeping into the countryside announced that dawn was taking place somewhere beyond the thick cloud cover. Twilight glanced back at Welder and frowned as she saw him stumbling along, clearly on his very last reserves of strength. They made camp of sorts beneath the branches of a large pine so laden down by snow that it formed a solid roof. Canterlot was still too close to risk making an open fire, so Twilight heated a pile of rocks with her magic instead. A low rumble was heard as Welder held his hands out towards the rocks and he glanced down at his stomach. Twilight smiled at him. “Hungry?” “Uh, yeah.” “All right, let me see if I can fetch you some of your native food.” Welder never tired of watching the purple fire play over her horn and spout from her eyes. It was both unnerving and fascinating. Then something long and thin appeared in the air next to her with a small pop and fell to the ground. Welder leaned over and gripped it, but yelped and threw it down almost immediately. It had been intensely cold, much colder than the winter air surrounding him. He’d probably been lucky he was wearing gloves. “What the... That thing is so cold it burned!” Twilight shook her mane. “It must have been somewhere very cold then. Nudge it over by the stones and it will thaw.” Welder did so and waited. The frost vanished eventually, revealing a bar of salami in a plastic wrapping. Welder’s mouth was suddenly filled with drool, forcing him to swallow. He tested the package’s temperature periodically, and when the wrapping was warm to his touch he tore it open. The smell was... heavenly. With a frustrated sigh he laid the bar down on two sticks by the searing-hot rocks, assuming that the core of the salami was likely still frozen. Finally, finally he heard a sizzle from the meat. The scent had driven him insane twice over. He gingerly gripped the bar by its end, swallowed the excess drool while he moved the salami to his mouth, blew on the end gently to cool it down, opened his mouth – and glanced at Twilight. She was watching him intently, unmoving apart from a slight flick of her tail. He closed his mouth while staring into those pools of fire. Then he bent forward and grabbed the plastic wrapper, inspecting it. Ingredients: Meat (horse, cow, pig) 72%... He looked over the text and into Twilight’s unmoving gaze. He swallowed more drool. “Twilight.” “Welder.” “Out of all the foods. An entire planet’s worth. You managed to fetch this. Want to convince me it was a coincidence?” Twilight thought this over for a second. “Not really.” Welder lowered the bar of equine salami – and some hidden part of him cried. “Is this some kind of test?” ~~~~~ “We did not wish to test your loyalty, Captain Armor. We would rather not force you to choose between your sister and serving Equestria. We chose not to tell you of Twilight’s petrification so you could pursue your duties undistracted. She was perfectly safe, after all.” Shining Armor held Princess Luna’s gaze for a moment before lowering it. “What would you have me do now? Chase her?” Celestia spoke before her sister could answer. “We do not chase after Twilight. What threat she may represent will manifest itself in due time, and we must deal with more pressing matters. The capital is cut off. It has eight times the population it is designed to sustain and winter food stores are already running low, with spring a month away. We can’t contact the other cities – not even we dare flying in these ash-choked clouds and they cover all of Equestria by now – so for all practical purposes Canterlot is all that’s left right now. That means it is imperative that we survive until we can produce food again.” “How do we do that?” “The evacuated villages have stores of food that can be purified with the Elements. You need to arrange military expeditions to get those stores. I can only guess that these ash cultists will also want those, unless they can farm on snow, so you need to be prepared for a fight. Do whatever is necessary to secure enough food for Canterlot.” Shining Armor looked troubled. “Princess Celestia, these ashen... We’ve managed to identify some of them. They appear to be Equestrian ponies. It feels wrong that we are discussing violence against them.” “They have constantly used violence against us. Don’t forget that. They are enemies of Equestria, no matter their origins.” Luna interjected. “You can always ask one of the more combat-capable Element Bearers to accompany you. The Elements certainly seem able to neutralise these ashen ponies’ abilities. That could enable you to face them in a more controlled manner than all-out combat.” Shining Armor grumbled. “Balancing the safety of Canterlot and my soldiers versus the health and lives of some misguided ponies?” Celestia smiled sadly. ~~~~~ “Call it an empathy test.” Welder risked glaring at Twilight. “Could you have possibly waited until I wasn’t famished?” “Not really. Moral bounds are more reliably tested when crossing them is tempting.” Welder looked down at the fragrant and probably oh so delicious length of salami still in his hands. “So I guess you know we’re meat eaters, huh?” “Remember when you showed us your apartment the day you got laid off?” “Yeah?” “When you arrived home that day you immediately set to preparing dinner. Do you remember what it was?” “Bacon and-” Welder’s eyes bugged out. Then he slapped himself on the forehead. Twilight chuckled a bit. “The scent kind of carried. It’s not a scent we ponies often get to experience, but I’ve dealt with some local examples of carnivores who heat their meals. Oh, and I know about the leather sofa as well.” Welder groaned and hammered his forehead some more with the palm of his hand. Then he heard two dull thumps. When he looked up he saw, lying on the ground next to Twilight, a paper bag containing a frozen loaf of bread and a fillet of salmon packed in vacuum. He glanced at Twilight. “You’ll find that most Equestrians don’t care what you eat as long as it doesn’t come from a sentient being or a closely related species. I admit that most of your normal sources of meat are now taboo as a result, but it can’t be helped.” The bread and fish were torn from their packages and placed near the hot rocks. “You really don’t mind if someone eats meat?” “The practice does appear disgusting to us, but that’s cultural rather than moral – as long as you stay away from sentients. We eat living things as well, after all. Just because grass doesn’t react on a timescale that allows us to appreciate it doesn’t mean that it’s any different. Life is life, and we can’t survive on minerals and sunlight.” “What about magic?” “Diminishing returns. I can stave off hunger with my magic, but it returns with a vengeance. Only a kind of microscopic organism we have found can subsist on magic alone. There are theories that pure magic-eaters were much more common and more advanced in aeons past, but no real evidence.” Welder leaned towards Twilight, curious and eager. “When you say ‘pure magic-eaters’, what does that mean?” Twilight laughed. “Careful, mister. I could lecture about this until your ears fall off! Anyhow, I’ll try to summarise: That microscopic organism I mentioned is found all over the world. There’s versions of them in the air, soil and water. Other versions have been absorbed by the other life, where they’ve formed symbiotic relationships with their hosts.” “It’s what gives you magic, isn’t it?” Twilight was surprised. “How did you guess that? I don’t think it’s evident.” “I don’t remember much about my biology from school, but I know plants have this thing inside them that converts sunlight into sugar or something like that. I figured it’s probably the same.” “Well you’re right. Every pony has an organ in the middle of their backs, under the spine, filled with the things. It also regulates our body growth, by the way. I could actually show you! There’s a spell that makes the organisms glow as if the pony had turned transparent, letting their light shine through. Want to see?” He nodded, and his vision was immediately clouded by purple. He blinked and rocked backwards in surprise. Then he looked around. “Wow, it looks like the forest is teeming with fireflies! They’re even in the ground beneath us.” “Yep, they’re everywhere. And if you look at me you should see a big glowing cluster of them on my back, and another glow from my horn. Pegasi have them concentrated in their wings and related musculature, and earthen have them spread uniformly all over the body.” Welder looked at Twilight and started to squint. After a moment he raised a hand with a chuckle. He pushed his voice into a deep rumble. “The glow is strong in you, Twilight.” He laughed for some reason that Twilight couldn’t figure out. “You’re almost painful to look at!” “Huh? Maybe the spell was miscalibrated. Let me see— GAH!” Twilight flew to her hooves and craned her neck to look herself over. “This is way, way too many of them! What’s going on?” ~~~~~ “What’s going on with Twilight’s magic?” Shining Armor was escorting Princess Celestia to the Balcony of Dawn and Dusk. The pre-dawn castle was as silent as it ever could be, especially in these exclusively royal parts of it. “In truth I don’t know. I can only speculate it is a sign of her growing darkness. I don’t know of any other explanation for such... outbursts. Her petrification is probably all the proof we need.” A wince crossed Shining Armor’s face. “I – I still can’t understand how Twilight – my Twily – could have... could have turned to darkness.” “I don’t know exactly, but I believe she was enticed... by power.” ~~~~~ “Well, I think we have established that I’m becoming increasingly more powerful. I’m not even feeling tired.” Welder didn’t answer. He just walked forward in a daze, craning his neck and gaping awestruck, half-eaten bread loaf stuffed with salmon forgotten in his hand. Five full-grown trees circled overhead, following his and Twilight’s progress through the woods. “All right, what can I try now... Oh, I know! Mass transformation!” There was a light grunt in front of Welder side and a massive flash overhead. The tree trunks had turned into heaps of planks and the branches were now piles of firewood. Welder shut his mouth and tried to return some moisture to it. Then he took an absentminded bite from the bread. The five stacks of planks merged into one. Then they floated down and landed next to Twilight, who regarded them critically. “I’ll have to make a note to return here. This is good timber.” She walked on. Welder paused at the pile of wood, trying to guess how much weight they represented before awkwardly running through the snow to catch up with Twilight. “Uhh, wow. That’s all I can say, Twilight. I don’t know what you could do before, but this is just amazing. Hey, think you can grow replacement trees?” “Age spells, huh?” A short while later five fresh saplings grew so fast that they splintered the frost-gripped ground in the clearing where their seeds had been planted. Welder was giddy, clapping his hands and hooting in appreciation – a stark contrast to Twilight’s worried disbelief. He lost his jubilant mood when he noticed her expression. “What’s wrong, Twilight? Aren’t you happy?” Twilight turned her back on the unnatural growth and resumed walking, Welder by her side. “No, this is scary. This kind of power should only be achieved slowly and with great effort. The only comparable examples I know of are either alicorns or the most corrupt creatures in the world.” “Hey, maybe you’re becoming an... alleycorn... then?” Twilight snorted. “Alicorn. You don’t just become one. Whatever produces them is unknown even to themselves, they claim.” “Come on. That means it’s a possibility, right? I mean, wouldn’t it be cool if you had wings too?” “Welder, I don’t need wings. Between teleportation and self-levitation I can fly as much as I like.” Welder folded his arms and grinned. “Okay then, miss smartypants. You tell me what you think is happening.” “I think... I think Harmony – the False Harmony I mean – has been limiting my magical ability all my life, and now that its influence has been removed my true potential is awakening.” “Huh? Why would it do that?” “It was in part created to do just that. Remember how I told you about the magic-eaters? Well, the False Harmony was created right after ponies first learned to use their innate, eater-granted magic. They nearly wiped themselves out. You see...” Welder listened, increasingly aghast.