Alouette was agitated. Close to a rage. She was flying a wide sweep over the valley, checking out the weather and snow buildup. The air was crisp and clean--warmer than yesterday, but still well below freezing. The blizzard was dying down, and at this altitude the air was clear. She tried to enjoy the contrast of warm sunlight and cold air, but her thoughts kept straying back to the source of her ire, trying to understand. She wished some critter would be dumb enough to wander out into winter, so she could have the catharsis of stooping on it and tearing it apart.
As she returned to the ruined tower, she noticed Tev was outside, chopping firewood in the lee of the tower. She dropped down to the ground, and walked up to him.
He paused his activity when he noticed her approach. "Griffon."
She blinked, and, as always, thought, has he ever used my name? "Tev. Do you have a minute?"
"Certainly." He leaned on the axe. "This is about the human." It wasn't a question.
"Well, yeah. I..." she seethed for a moment. "He's so weak. How can he and his people even be related to the creatures talked about in the books? The ancient humans, they knew what they wanted, and they could make the universe give it to them with mere thought. How..." she shook her head, "how could a planet of gods be destroyed?"
Tev just stared at her for a while--long enough that she started to feel uncomfortable--before speaking. "For four years you have been the most devoted of us all. The most...fanatical." She flinched, Gideon's words about fanatics still fresh in her mind. "Yet, for that, you should know best of us all that the books we have are woefully incomplete, and most of them copied and interpreted a dozen times over. Interpreted by other fanatics, assuredly."
She looked down. "But, the truth..."
"I do not think we can know the truth through the books. Not any books the Watch has access to, at least." The canid sighed, and sat down on a stump. "This human is thousands of years apart from the ancients. And we are thousands of years apart from our ancestors. Our bond is weak, and perhaps partially wishful thinking." He paused, then looked into her eyes. "And yet we all know there is a bond. We all feel it. Perhaps he has not noticed it, or does not want to acknowledge it, or...or does not desire it. But the created know their creators." He fell silent, staring at the ground.
Alouette waited a moment, then felt her temper flare. She paced up to the sullen canid, beak flashing near his face. "Well then what are we supposed to do?! The Prophecy of Return comes true, but it gives us some weak, reluctant, hesitant man who feels nothing for us? Do we abandon him? Do we serve him? Do we," she spat the word, "worship that pitiful creature?" Tev simply returned her gaze, until she calmed herself and turned away, saying, "Sorry. I shouldn't be mad at you."
She heard him shift. "I believe it is too early to make a judgment. Whatever he is, it is clear that he has suffered much trauma in the past months. Even the ancients with all their power were still people, could still be hurt. I, for one, will stay with him, for now, and see what time shows us. See if he truly feels nothing for us." He rose up. "Whatever else, we are here for the winter, yes? It costs us nothing to wait and see." He returned to chopping firewood.
So nonchalant, but I know you feel the same things I do, old man. "Perhaps." She got up to leave, but then heard him pause.
"Alouette. If you wish to know if he is worthy of your care, perhaps you should talk to him. He is certainly more personable than the dusty books."
She curtly nodded an acknowledgment, and walked towards the tower. Perhaps I will. Eventually.
***
Trixie made her way up to the third floor of the tower. Gideon was sitting at the reading desk, several tomes open at once, scattered around the area. He heard her hoofbeats, and turned as she approached him. "Hi Trixie."
"Gideon." She nodded, and proffered the plate she was carrying, which had some bread, cheese, and dried berries on it. "I brought you something to eat."
"Oh, uh, you didn't have to do that." His stomach grumbled audibly, and he looked embarrassed. "I could have come down."
She grinned, "Dinner time was over an hour ago. I assumed you were simply too weak to make the trek at this point." She winked at him.
He ducked his head, "Heh, well, thanks. I guess I've gotten a bit distracted." He took the plate, setting it down after moving a couple of books out of the way. He took a handful of berries, and ate them, staring into space. Trixie simply watched him for a while, and eventually his gaze rose to meet hers. "Trixie, with all the shock of finding out where I am, I forgot one big question..."
She nodded, and smiled at him.
"Why are you here?" He gestured around them. "This place is obviously old and mostly deserted. The 'Halls of Justice' were a frozen ruin, yet Tev was there waiting for me. Why?"
She sat down, and licked her lips. "Well, we're the last adherents of an ancient group, The Watch. It was formed as your people departed our world, because the last humans to leave told us that they would return, someday. There are a number of routes through which this could have happened, and for many centuries, they were all guarded and watched."
Gideon digested that for a moment, and then raised his eyebrows, "But we never came back."
She nodded, "Over the years, money found better places to go, beliefs faded. Humans became more like mythical creatures. We still learn about them in school of course, but just in passing, and the creation stories are..." she shrugged "...sometimes left out. The Watch was reduced to volunteers and donations. The main manpower support at this point comes from Tev's people...several of the canid tribes still hold strong to the old beliefs." She got a bit of a shifty-eyed look on her face, "We also have an anonymous donor who I suspect might be a dragon, but I've not had a chance to pry into it, yet."
He blinked, "A dragon?"
"Yes..." she stretched her forelegs out, "giant flying lizard, breathes fire, hoards money and gems?"
A surprised nod, "We had legends of something like that on Edumea. I guess some things are hard to forget."
She smiled at him. "Well, anyway, the canids take care of a few of the more-temperate sites still, though some have been abandoned. The Halls were considered one of the more likely return points, though, so we've always tried to keep it manned." She raised an eyebrow. "It's fortunate, you know: Alouette was the last cold-hardy recruit willing to come up here, and she joined four years ago. I've been worrying about what we'd do when Tev couldn't handle this anymore. In a few more years, we might have had to abandon The Halls during the winter."
His gaze was fixed downward, "Huh. Lucky..."
Trixie blinked, did I just say it was lucky his world was annihilated when it was? Idiot. She tried to think of something else to say, but drew a blank.
He looked up at her, and smiled. "I am glad you all were here. Even if it wasn't the dead of winter, it would have been pretty awful to end up here with nobody around."
She returned his smile, and blushed slightly, thankful he hadn't taken it the wrong way. I'm still an idiot, though. "So, ah, how are your studies going?" She nodded at the pile of books.
"Ehh," he glanced back to them, "no offense, but a lot of these are really...bad." He coughed. "I realize they've probably been copied and recopied, but it seems like the scribes weren't exactly impartial." He looked at her guiltily.
She simply nodded, "Oh I entirely agree! I could barely stand to skim through them when I first joined The Watch, and I've never gone back to them." She looked aside, quickly. "Though, um, I wouldn't mention that to Alouette. She's pretty into them."
"So I've gathered." He looked at her curiously, "If you dislike the books so much, why are you part of The Watch?"
"Oh, well." She smiled, "It's a bit of a story, I don't know..."
"I'd like to hear it." He looked sincere. "Eventually I want to hear from all of you. I figure it's a good way to get to know both my rescuers and this world."
She looked at him for a moment, then nodded, "very well," and took a moment to gather her thoughts. She sighed, "I used to be a traveling entertainer." Her hoof rose, unbidden, and she preened a bit. "I was The Great and Powerful Trixie!" A couple of tiny magical pinwheels fizzled off around her.
Gideon raised an eyebrow, and she blushed.
"Yes, well." She slowly sank to the floor, eyes fixed on a forehoof. "Trixie had a bit of an overblown ego back then, and...well eventually she became a bit of a liar too." A distant look came to her face. "It came back to bite her, in the end. Some unfortunate things occurred, and Trixie, well, she..." She blinked. "I. I escalated things even further. I did things I regret. Thankfully nopony was too badly hurt, but after that, I just felt so lost. I wandered around for a bit, doing odd jobs. I'm unusually diverse in my magical abilities, so it wasn't hard to survive. I didn't really know what I was doing, just...waiting."
Holding up a hand, he said, "Wait, what do you mean you're unusually diverse?"
She looked up, "Oh, well, most unicorns have a limited set of skills related to their special talent and cutie mark." She shifted aside her cape, and gestured at her own mark. "They might have especially fine control, or be able to lift more with their telekinesis, or create, summon, or find a certain item."
He glanced at her mark. "I had wondered about that. So your mark is related to some talent you have...what does yours represent?"
Running her hoof over her mark, she sighed. "Oh, I've never been entirely sure. I used to think the wand was telling of my skill at being an entertainer--I mean where else do you see such silly props used? Nowadays, I'm not sure..."
"Wait," he looked very confused, "you didn't decide on the mark, it was...given to you?"
She smiled, "Yes, sorry, you wouldn't know. A pony's cutie mark magically appears one day, when they discover and embrace their special talent." She reminisced fondly, "Mine showed up when I was entertaining some foalhood friends with some of the tricks I'd learned. As I said, I'm quite diverse: I can never do something as well as a true expert, but I can do a little of almost anything. I had such fun showing off, I sort of naturally fell into performing."
He fell silent, head resting on a hand, looking at her mark. She was just starting to get a little embarrassed when he blinked, and looked up. "Sorry, so you were just wandering...?"
"Oh, yes." She collected her thoughts. "So, six years ago I was actually quite a ways away, in Spurkane. I was on my way home from work one day, when I passed by a small, run-down theater that I had thought was closed. The fresh posters they had up promised great feats of magic, and heroic deeds, so I figured it was a performer, like I had been. I had nothing better to do, so I went in to see them at work." She grinned. "Turned out it was actually a history lesson by a recruitment group for The Watch."
Gideon looked surprised. "Recruitment?"
Nodding, she said, "there are a number of excellent storytellers that go from town to town, using magic to add life to the ancient histories. The one whose show I unknowingly entered, Stilled Lumière, is considered one of the best. Unlike what I learned in school, or later, from the books, the stories he told...they drew me in. I not only felt called to volunteer, I felt...a certain urgency. As if any delay would be a terrible mistake..." She trailed off, looking distant.
He waited a moment, then prompted, "So that was six years ago?"
She looked up and smiled, "Yes. There was about a year of, well, training I guess. Learning the histories, reading the books, visiting some of the return sites. Since then I've taken on Watch terms at several sites, but I've spent the most time here. I like the area, the tower, the ruins, but also...well I guess I felt the same sort of pull to be here as I felt to join up. Like this is where I was meant to Watch." She glanced at Gideon, and chuckled. "Perhaps I've a bit of the prophet in me, and I knew you were to arrive soon."
He returned her smile. "Well, as I said, I'm glad you were here."
She ducked her head, then stood up. "Well, that's my story. I-I'll leave you to your readings. Don't forget to eat, eh?"
Gideon nodded, and she made her way back downstairs.