The first thing I was aware of was the fire.
Not the still fire of the Increate, beckoning me from beyond, nor those of our own making that drive us from behind. It was a fire I had seen before, nearly a year ago.
Once again, I stood beside my brother's pyre, at night, alone. The other mourners, what few had been willing to show their faces at the funeral of someone with such powerful enemies, had departed long ago, finally driven away by my ranting. This was where I decided to embark on a journey into holy seclusion, to finally cut all ties with my kind and every other being in the galaxy.
It had been here that, drunk on both grief and spirits, I denounced everything I could think of. First, the low-life 'burglar' who had taken my brother's life for a pittance, the powerful alien conspirators who had undoubtedly put him up to it, and the law, well-oiled with bribes at every stage, which ensured only the expendable tool would take the fall.
Then I had cursed the mourners and well-wishers. Those who had been too scared of reprisal to show their faces, those that had mouthed conciliating fluff while pointedly failing to admit his death had been an assassination, those who wailed inconsolably yet hadn't lifted a claw for him when he was alive... myself among the latter number. What a horrible, unworthy lot we all were! What did he see in us that he thought worth the risk, nay, the certainty of being helped into an early grave?
Our hierarch had delivered an eulogy before lighting the pyre, but even he was too fearful to say more than that the deceased had made powerful enemies while trying to do good. The theme of the message was one we had all heard far too often before, 'where is the Increate when the righteous suffer?' As he droned out the stock answer, I came to a conclusion of my own. The divinity and its blessings were gone from this world because we had decided, as a whole, that we didn't really want them. Why reason did I have to remain a part of this justly doomed civilization? Then and there, I swore that I'd present my case to the hierarch one last time. If he refused me yet again, I would take my inheritance, buy supplies and a berth and set off on my own, with his blessing or no.
The memories evaporated, but the fire remained. Was this it, then? Was this reminder of death, failure and inferiority all that waited for me beyond life? It was fitting, perhaps. I was at last alone in my own desolate universe. Nothing was visible outside the reach of the flame; only darkness on all sides. Within the fire the remains of my kin, wrapped in a blanket, slowly collapsed into ash. The bleakest despair I'd ever felt suffused my being.
And yet, as I stared into the dying flames, waiting numbly for complete darkness to cover me forever, they changed before my eyes. They were no longer chemical combustion undoing flesh, scale and bone, but the roiling, fusing plasma of a star. I hung like an orbiting planet in the midst of the night. Like the pyre, however, the star was dimming and dying.
As I watched its light fade further, I became aware of a pair of luminescent blue eyes hanging in the blackness near the far side of the star. She was here, too? Of course she was! Why not? Why should I be able to escape from anything?! Maybe she was dead too, or trespassing in the afterlife was yet another of her incomprehensible powers. I raised a claw in somber greeting, but her attention was wholly fixed on the cooling star.
"Your night will last forever," she said softly, speaking to herself. I don't think she even realized I was there, wherever 'there' was. "They'll never mistreat you ever again. Nopony will, because there won't be anypony to do it. When every last one of them is silenced, you'll finally have peace. It's harsh, but it's the only way."
As when I'd dreamed, I had no trouble comprehending her language even without the assistance of the translator.
Well, better to get this over with than drag it out and be accused of spying on her. I cleared my throat.
The effect on the dark princess was electric. Nightmare Moon's eyes looked up, wide and staring, turning one way and then another to find the source of the noise.
"No, go away! I told you never to come back here! You have to stay away. This isn't for you!" she shouted into the dark, still not having spotted me.
I waved again.
"I—what? Pangolin? You!? How did you get here?" she said, astonished.
Odd as it sounded, I was just as uncertain as she. And who had she been expecting? When I began to ask where we were and what had happened to me I was swiftly cut off.
"No! Get out! How dare you come here? Don't you have any decency?"
Out? Where was there to go? How could I—
"WAKE—
—UP!"
My eyes, or rather, eye snapped open to stare at the ceiling of the habitat. As such things often go, the fire and the sun, so fraught with import, became merely the light set into the roof, which was flickering in a way vaguely reminiscent of fire through my closed lids. I'd have to check the wiring.
Then it came to me that I was in my habitat, still wearing my suit, sans helmet, and, most likely, alive. Yes, definitely alive; I ached too much and too diversely for it to be otherwise. My right eye was particularly pained, and I couldn't see through it. I tried to heave myself out of the unnatural and vulnerable belly-to-the-sky position.
"How did you do that?" a familiar voice demanded from nearby. "My dreams should be inviolate! Tell me how you snuck in there or I'll..."
I finally succeeded in rolling over onto my feet. Instead of replying, I reached up and gingerly felt my face. I feared to find some gruesome injury, but there was merely a gauzy patch taped over my right eye, and more pads stuffed into my nostrils to stop the bleeding. She... she had brought me back and patched me up? I owed her my life? Agog and light-headed from my ordeal, I staggered toward Nightmare Moon, who glowered at me with slightly more suspicion than usual.
"Hey, I'm talking to you! Ah, what are you—no! Stay back!"
Bleating joyfully, I threw myself forward and embraced her neck and one of her front legs, gripping with all six limbs and my tail. I was alive, alive! She'd saved me!
The object of my gratitude made a strangled sort of yelp and began violently shaking the leg to which I had attached myself.
"Get—stop—let go!" she cried, twisting her neck one way and then another.
When I didn't comply, Nightmare Moon used her magic to forcibly pry my claws from her hide and shoved me to the other end of the cell. She coughed and rubbed her neck with a hoof. "Impertinent little beast! You'd be dead without me! I drag you back here, I patch your broken face and you pay me back by spying on my dreams and then—then you try and tear my throat out! I should never have listened to that whining pile of sand."
I remembered her earlier advice in midair, and was just able to swing my tail to land on my side rather than skull. Through the fog in my wounded head it occurred to me that quadrupeds might not show affection in the same way my climbing species did. Still giddy with delight from my near brush with death, I rose and swore I hadn't intended to harm her. I had no clue how I got to...wherever it was, and I wasn't trying to hurt her, that was an embrace; a show of utmost appreciation! She had indeed rescued me from mortal peril, and I was glad! When those of my species wished to express goodwill—
Her anger became tinged with embarrassment. "I know what a hug is, Pangolin! Oh, just because nopony ever liked her, the princess must not know the touch of another being," she said sarcastically. "Surely it has nothing to do with you clamping those hooks around my windpipe."
There was a pause while she adjusted her breastplate. When she looked back at me again, most of the anger had drained from her.
"But... you mean it? You're glad you aren't dead, even if it means being stuck here as my vassal?" she continued in a quieter voice.
I nodded. How could she think otherwise? I reminded her I hadn't exactly laughed in the face of my own mortality during the numerous perils I'd been through since meeting her.
"Well, nopony wants to suffer, but afterwards, there's no more problems, right? When you're dead you can't get hurt any worse."
I allowed there was a wide variety of opinions on that subject. While annihilationists held this to be true, it was by no means the most common position. The controversial Vision of the Highest World attributed to the thirty-fifth Elder of Origin Island, in contrast, suggested—
"Fine, fine, you're happy and you don't know how to show it to a princess," she sighed. "I believe you. Here," Nightmare Moon raised one of her front legs to dangle in the air. "When you want to show respect to a member of royalty, you wait until she does this, and then you approach slowly, bow your head, and kiss her bell boot."
The last verb passed through untranslated. Apparently there wasn't a near equivalent in my own language. The translator beeped and made a tentative footnote with a pair of best fits: 'affectionate biting' and 'romantic tasting'.
The translator! I pulled it off of my suit and examined it. A light on the side indicated it was still set to record. I hastily commanded it to stop. Had it caught the other creature's words? How long had I been out? Was this the sort that overwrote the earliest recording when it ran out of space? I tried to figure out how to play back the recording from the beginning.
I hadn't quite got it when Nightmare Moon loudly cleared her throat. I looked up from the gadget to see her glowering at me impatiently, one foot still suspended and waiting for whatever it was she expected me to do.
I had something of utmost importance for her to hear, I said.
She looked offended. "You saying something worthwhile would be a pleasant change." She pointed to her raised boot with her other front foot. "Show me some respect, and then maybe I'll listen to you."
This wasn't my words, though! This translator, this machine that changed my language to hers and vice versa, could also record and play back things it had heard before.
" 'Re-cord?' A machine that plays? Either it's broken or you aren't making a bit of sense."
I tried to avoid technical jargon. The translator could remember sounds, I explained, and repeat them on command. While she was destroying those statues on the way back here, the one that dragged me away had spoken to me.
Nightmare Moon narrowed her eyes. She was annoyed with me, as usual, but she also looked worried. "You're lying," she said. "Those ones can't talk. I didn't make them to."
She could listen and judge for herself, I said with a shrug.
The pony glanced back and forth, avoiding eye contact. "No. I won't."
Now she was just being stubborn! I was trying to help her! What harm could it do to just listen to a recording?
"I don't want to. You always lie to me and try to trick me and you still haven't thanked me properly. Why should I listen to you?"
I heaved a sigh. If I went through this gratitude ritual, would she hear me (and the translator) out?
"Maybe."
Fine. Whatever. Close enough. She'd have to explain how it worked, though. I had no idea what this word 'chys' meant.
Nightmare Moon looked incredulously at me then started to chuckle scornfully. "Oh Pangolin, Pangolin! You are far too ugly not to know what kissing is!"
I still didn't understand, other than that I'd just been insulted. Was this 'chysing' something that only certain beings could do? Perhaps she could demonstrate it.
"A demonstration, is it? On you, I suppose? Well, aren't you bold all of a sudden!" she said, giving me a knowing look. "The handsome, naive stranger from parts unknown knows nothing of the world and innocently asks our heroine to teach him the ways of romance! 'What is this thing you call... kissing?' Please. It's the hoariest old cliche in the stories. Really, you ought to be more original."
It was romance, then! She was commanding me to participate. The last bit of the happiness I'd felt at being alive was extinguished not five minutes after it had kindled. After all the insults and abuse and attempted murder, Nightmare Moon was coming on to me?! When did this happen? I had heard of medical caregivers falling for their patients before, but here? Now? It was insane!
I took an involuntary step backward, apologizing for the miscommunication. While I had utmost respect for her highness and felt only goodwill toward her, I wished that—no, I assumed our relationship was of a decidedly non-amorous nature.
Somehow the blood rising to her face was visible beneath her coat. "What? No, no, it's not like that! I mean, it can be, but not.... I wasn't trying—" As if at the flicking of a switch, the embarrassed look fell from her face and her stare hardened. "...Wait, so you're saying I'm not good enough for you, Is that it? Is that it?!" she said, curling back her lip into a snarl. Her front leg still dangled in the air.
I should have quailed and apologized. I should have tried to smooth over this strange faux pas. Maybe I even should have sacrificed the rest of my dignity and played along with her little egotistical drama.
Really, anything would have been wiser than bursting out laughing uncontrollably at the sheer nonsensicality of it all.
I blame my recent brush with asphyxiation. Who knows how many brain cells I lost from oxygen starvation? It's a miracle I was still functioning.
My reaction caught Nightmare Moon by surprise, as she’d never seen me laugh before. That novelty may have been the only thing keeping her from punting me through the wall. "Stop that!" she commanded, stamping the hoof back down. "Quit laughing, you hyena! You—you braying jackass! Be silent! Nopony laughs at me!"
I wanted to, but I couldn't; it was just so absurd! I lost my balance and rolled about on the floor, helpless and half-curled in my suit. Nightmare Moon despised me. She called me an ugly monster. She was certain I'd twice attempted to murder her. She belittled me every time she opened her mouth, and now I was supposed to believe she gave a chipped scale whether I found her desirable as a mate?! Any female of my own species would be relieved to find herself outside my interest, but now she felt the lack?
It was the crowning ridiculousness of a season fraught with them. The dike of my fear could only dam the rising tide of absurdity for so long before it spilled over the top and washed me away. Of course, she wouldn't understand. This would drive her into another rage. Just as well to die laughing, I supposed.
And yet, as I howled helplessly, a strange thing happened. Instead of giving in to wrath, Nightmare Moon's mask of wounded dignity hardened and hardened on her face, becoming more outraged, more tragic, more unjustly put-upon. Between my guffaws I could practically read her inner monologue: there had never been a pony more ill-treated than her; betrayed, exiled, abandoned, and now, to top it all off, the hideous, stupid, scaly alien who twice tried to assassinate her, who endlessly tormented her with lies, had refused to obey her latest command...
...The disgusting, hateful, treacherous thing would not give her a chys!
The change that came over that pony was awful to behold. I could have sworn I heard something cracking and breaking inside of her as Nightmare Moon's face twisted one way and then another, trying to stay regal and tragic and righteously indignant. It was no use. Her eyes squinted, her cheeks puffed, her lower lip stuck out, her ears folded back, and then riotous laughter burst from her as well, all the more explosive for her attempt to hold it back. She had seen the humor in the situation.
There is not much to tell for a while. We just laughed at ourselves together, the hermit and the exile, all the tension and fear and the cold, unfriendly world outside momentarily forgotten. I had heard her laugh often before, but it sounded different this time. It was not the mad cackle she'd loosed when dreaming of killing her world, nor the cruel mirth she'd used to show delight in my pain. This time it sounded musical and wholesome, and rather silly in its own right.
Some time later, when we'd regained our composure, she nodded to me and wiped a mirthful tear from her eye. "Very well, very well. I'll allow you not to fall in hopeless, totally unrequited love with me just yet." she said, pointing a hoof in mock-seriousness. "But see to it you don't take too long, or I might really be insulted."
I raised my belly in imitation of a salute and told her I'd do my best.
"Oh, and if I inspire you to poetry or song, see to it that it at least scans. I've had enough swains caterwauling doggerel at my balcony to last several lifetimes."
I blinked at this and inwardly wondered what happened to 'nopony ever liked her.' I refrained from asking. Might I be allowed to play her the recording now?
She covered her ears with her hooves like a petulant child. "No you may not! You still haven't done anything to thank me for saving your life. Since you won't kiss my boot, I won't hear this sound-playing machine until you do something else for me; something even grander!"
If I set the translator's volume to the maximum and went ahead and played it, she might be forced to hear the words of her foe whether she wanted to or no. Its statements were so vague, though. Would this wake her up to her situation? More likely she'd just use her magic to smash the thing if I defied her, doing the power's work for it.
What could I do that would satisfy her honor, then? Going through with this farce of courtly love was out of the question. Crooning romantic ditties through the branches over a lady's clutch was not my forte, and would most likely be misunderstood. On top of that, Nightmare Moon didn't seem to have a clutch or a nest to hide them in. (Did ponies even lay eggs?)
But, poetry... song... that gave me an idea! The translator would not be able to do justice to music or poetry, I said, but I did have a vast storehouse of the writings of the galaxy’s greatest sages and mystics. Perhaps, instead of an easily-misconstrued gesture, I could thank her for saving me by sharing the gift of knowledge, my only wealth?
The princess looked at me uncertainly, but with a slight interest as well. She'd probably read nothing new since her exile nigh on a thousand years ago, and couldn't use my library unless I and the machine translated for her. "What did you have in mind?" she asked tentatively.
I un-docked my tablet and flipped through the index. There was so much. Where should I begin? The Sixteen Excellent Precepts of Inward Justice? The Grand Hierarch's Meditation on the Desirability of Peace? Perhaps something lighter, like the Sayings and Aphorisms of the Eighth-Century Sages? Any of these would surely make the case for abandoning her quest for vengance far more eloquently than I could, and they would come from sources who hadn't tried to kill her.
As I read off the titles, she shook her head at each one, looking more and more disappointed. "These all sound like dry, boring philosophy, Pangolin. Is this what your kind read for pleasure? I don't want to think and puzzle and introspect." She arranged the tent and pillow into a pile and lay down on them with a sigh. "Don't you have any stories in there? Some pretty fictions about ponies not being abominable to each other? Find one where the innocent, upright youngest sister makes good. Let me leave this universe, if only in my thoughts, if you want to repay me for your life."
I suppose it only makes sense that a prisoner would have an appreciation for escapism. I cursed myself for throwing out the 'non-practical' bulk of my library in a fit of passion against frivolous literature. At the time, playing entertainer for a lonely princess had been the farthest thing in the cosmos from how I expected to spend my seclusion.
Instructing the tablet to display only texts marked as fiction yielded a single, lonely result: Inklings of the Increate, a collection of theologically-dubious folk tales and other public-domain works from a variety of species, each tenuously wedded to some moral precept. I had read the first couple, found them pedestrian and moved on to more fruitful areas of study.
My eye slid down the table of contents. The stories were organized by planet, most of which I'd never heard of.
I was about to pick one at random when one of the later parts caught my eye. A Tale of Terra, it read. Just one, in fact, and it was surprising there was that many. It was a novelization of some sort of drama which was itself an adaptation of another work of literature. The rights had somehow slipped between the cracks of the Terrans' draconian intellectual property laws in some forgotten age.
I thought back to the connections I'd discovered between that obscure world and the one we orbited. Curiosity tugged at my mind.
Well, why not? Perhaps we would both get something out of this.
"Have you found a decent tale among all that blather yet?" she asked impatiently.
I replied in the affirmative. She would like this one better.
She pulled the tent around her and settled into a more comfortable position. "I'll be the judge of that. Get on with it already!"
I nodded, cleared my throat, and began to read. The story opened on a small town, at night, in the midst of the snowy winter. Its inhabitants were praying fervently in their homes, and all for the sake of one person. The odd Terran name rolled awkwardly from my tongue.
It felt like a lifetime ago, when I had stared from the ship at the image painted in dark sand across the face of the moon. I had reminded myself how the Increate leaves signs and messages scattered across the cosmos, meaningless and innocuous to all but their intended recipient.
I had no idea what I was about to unleash.