( want more of the Synchronicity canon? storiesfromthefront.tumblr.com . Careful! not safe for woonas.)
( want more of the Synchronicity canon? storiesfromthefront.tumblr.com . Careful! not safe for woonas.)
“Wow, Windswept,” Twilight commented at yet another set of palace guards dropping into a bow as she, the kelpie, Applejack and Pinkie Pie walked down the halls of the palace of Kelantis with Fluttershy doing her best to stay out of the sight of the ever-shocked palace staff. “You really seem to pull a lot of weight around here.”
“Yeah!” Pinkie added. “When Twilight walks through the palace back home she's lucky to not have all the guards make fun of her the whole time!”
“Thank you, Pinkie,” Twilight grumbled, “I'm sure she needed to know that.”
Windswept herself was grinning tightly as they rounded another corner under the opal buttressed ceilings and another set of patrolling guards saw them, double-taked, and dropped their heads low. It had been the same from every set beyond the initial two who encountered them on the Sunrise, both of whom, Twilight had noticed, had reacted with surprising concern when Pinkie Pie had given them lip. She gave the other girls, particularly Twilight, a look that spoke of amusement.
“You really don't know, do you?” she asked, a hint of disbelief in her voice. The others blinked absently at her. “They're not bowing to me, Twilight. They're bowing to you.” She grinned big, “Most of the guards here hate me, Twilly. I'm 'trouble'.”
Twilight was taken aback. “M-Me? Why in Equestria-” she paused for a moment before correcting her statement. “I guess we're not in Equestria. Well that makes it even stranger! Why anywhere would anypony...”
She had glanced behind her as she spoke, to check on the reactions of the other girls, and noticed a pair of palace staff peering at them from behind the corner they'd just rounded. They had expressions of shock and amazement on their faces, and nearly panicked upon being noticed, dipping into rapid bowing before taking off as fast as their kelpie fins could move them.
“Not just you,” Windswept corrected, “all four of you. But uh,” she chuckled and nudged Twilight, “mostly you.”
“But… why?” Applejack restated Twilight's question, now just as perplexed herself. “I mean, I'm pretty well known 'round the rodeo circuit back home but I'm just as lost as any needle in a haystack in a crowd in Canterlot. Why do a bunch of kelpies care who I am?”
“Is it just the palace staff?” Twilight guessed. “Did your princess tell them we were coming?”
“Maybe that’s it!” Pinkie offered excitedly. “It’s cause we've got legs! They've probably never seen leggy ponies befo-” her own statement was interrupted by a gasp of realization, “They've probably never seen DANCING before! Oh MAN! We could throw the greatest dance party this place has ever-”
“Pinkie,” Windswept cut her off, a look of panic gracing her face, “no dancing. Please no dancing. I'm working real hard to show kelpies the advantages of associating with land ponies. If you dance they'll never be able to take you seriously again. I just about died laughing when I first saw land ponies dancing.”
“Hey now,” Applejack protested, “we dance just fine.”
“Right,” Windswept replied with a snicker, “just about as well as you swim.”
“I think it’s a cultural thing, Applejack,” Twilight said, not so quick to raise her ire as her friend was. “Kelpies probably do all their dancing underwater and wouldn’t think of doing it on land. We'd probably look pretty silly trying to dance while submerged, and I guess what we do above the water they just don't interpret as a dance.”
Windswept nodded, “I was legitimately concerned for your mental health when you first-”
“I get it,” Twilight said firmly. “So if it’s not because we've got legs, why does half your palace seem to drop to their fins when they see us coming?”
“Not half the palace,” Windswept replied, “I imagine the vast majority of Kelopolis would do the same thing. There's probably not a kelpie alive who hasn’t heard of Twilight Sparkle and her companions,” she beamed. “You're national heroes.”
Windswept's statement was met by a sea of blank faces, with the exception of Pinkie, who was glaring at her suspiciously. Windswept worried her lip with her teeth and nodded down the hall.
“C'mere,” she said, “I want to show you something.”
Two hallways later, Windswept turned left, and brought her group into a massive foyer that contained within it a collection of statues all formed together to complete a single sculpted scene of six beautiful ponies trapped forever in time, and cast some three times their actual size.
“By Celestia...” Applejack breathed as she stared upward at the gleaming brass replica of her flank, set in frozen motion beside Rarity, who'd be carved out of what appeared to be marble, and Fluttershy, who hovered with wings forever outstretched, cast in brass.
“Mm-m-m-me?” Fluttershy stammered, a blush flooding her face, “oh my gosh, I'm… huge!”
“It’s a great view from the back,” Windswept teased, and Fluttershy's face grew redder.
Rainbow Dash had been sculpted out of turquoise, with lines smooth enough to trace the path of the wind over her wings, and pink granite Pinkie Pie was near the front with forelegs outstretched toward the sky. The real pink pony mimicked the pose for a moment, and the very action of it caused hushed gasps and whispers to emerge from the kelpies who were making their way through the halls about their business. Each would bow whenever one of the still boggled land ponies caught their eyes.
“Yours was always my favorite,” Windswept commented to Twilight.
The purple unicorn was staring up at her rendition with mouth agape. It was sculpted of the finest silver, so polished that she could see her own reflection in it far below, like some filly trying to live up to the silhouette of her hero. Her mane was rendered as a wreath of flames that extended upward off her body, and her eyes were fierce, and purest white, cast with some sort of opal in the sockets. Were it not for the cutie mark emblazoned on her flank, she wouldn't have recognized herself.
“‘The Living Flame’,” Pinkie Pie read softly, and Twilight blinked and looked down at the golden plaque inlaid in the floor.
“Our name for the Element of Magic,” Windswept clarified. “You might also hear some ponies calling Twilight 'The Firemare,’ but that's sort of a specific name for her, rather than the office she keeps. All the Elements have names, you know.”
Windswept could tell by the stunned looks at the statue that the whole situation was boggling them a bit. “We don't even have something like this in Canterlot,” Fluttershy said breathlessly, “and Princess Celestia gave us medals there.”
Windswept thought for a moment. “It’s difficult to find a place to begin,” she said finally. “You ponies are… extremely important to us. You six, specifically, not land ponies in general. By and large, Kelopolis could care less what Equestria is up to, but you six,” she nodded, “you're special. In Equestria, you've had a great, big, loooong history of expansion and growth and peace and prosperity, beginning from the day you all arrived there to the day Celestia took the throne and took you all by the hoof and spread you out across the land. That pilgrimage has done a lot for you as a nation, you know? It’s given you cohesion, it’s made you strong and unified, but it’s also distracted you from some of the things that have happened in your distant past that are awfully important,” she made a face of disapproval, “and your Princess hasn't helped in that matter. If Discord hadn't come back, I doubt any of you would ever have known he existed to begin with. There's not a single kelpie born that doesn't know about the Age of Discord by the time they're old enough to not swim off in fear when the story gets told.”
“You mentioned,” Twilight said, “that your princess was a result of some of his… tampering, from the first time he was here.”
“Yours too,” the kelpie replied, and held up her fins before the immediate defensive reaction could manifest. “Hang on, hang on,” she said, “I'm just telling you what we're told, and what we believe. If you disagree, take it up with Celestia. Ask her why she has the horn of a unicorn and the wings of a pegasus on the frame of an earth pony. I'd love to hear her explanation. Princess Aurora has never hidden what caused her to look and function as she does today, and she's always said she wasn’t alone in her transformation. You can take that or leave it, it doesn’t change the story.”
When she was sure she wasn’t about to get pounced on, Windswept continued.
“When Discord was here the first time, it was… misery. Not the short term, localized chaos you six stopped. I mean global, total catastrophe. He ruled with,” she searched for words, “I wouldn't even call it tyranny, because it just didn't make any sense. It was a sort of unstoppable madness that rotted the mind and perverted the land and the oceans. At that time, Equestria was still relatively new, but Kelopolis had been around for ages. Discord actually constructed this,” she indicated to the structure around her, “out of the ruins of the original palace. He animated it magically and called it the Kraken. It was his throne, the vehicle by which he traveled the world and sewed ruin. It was also where he found and transformed Aurora, who was the daughter of the legitimate rulers of Kelopolis, as a punishment for her failed attempt to overthrow him. He wanted a puppet that would last for eternity without wearing out.”
“That’s why she's immortal?” Fluttershy asked in horror, “so he could toy with her forever?”
Windswept nodded. “If it’s any consolation,” she added, “I think Celestia and Luna made themselves immortal, through some other means I'm not aware of, so that they could have time to make sure Discord was defeated, and not have to quit the fight due to, you know, age.” She gave a little smile. “Much as the kelpies would love to take credit for putting Discord in his place so long ago, that honor falls on Luna and Celestia. See, for Equestria, that was your first great victory as a nation. Military victory anyway. For us, it was like… being rescued by strangers. We were thankful of course, but it stung. Kelopolis was a mess, and it took a very long time to pick up the pieces.” The kelpie looked back at the statues and sighed. “And, of course, some mid-way through, Luna fell victim to Nightmare Moon's influence and was banished, which went an awfully long way toward fueling the animosity between Celestia and my princess.”
“It did?” Applejack asked. “Were they close?”
“Very, once,” Windswept replied. “In a way, they still are. There's a trust and understanding there that has come out of a relationship that has lasted for, quite literally, thousands of years. You don't just turn your back on something like that.” She caught Twilight's eye, and nodded, recognizing the look she saw there. “You've thought about it,” she said.
Twilight nodded slowly. “She’s going to outlive me,” the unicorn said, “by no small stretch. When I was younger I always sort of… prided myself on being the princess' personal student and friend, but as time went on I began to work out just how small I must be in the grand scheme of her eternal existence.”
“I don't think it’s quite as insignificant as all that,” Windswept spoke in support. “You're right of course, they will outlive us, they will have other students and other friends just as they have before, but they're not statues, Twilight. They have hearts,” the kelpie gazed upward at the royal motifs along the walls and seemed inwardly contemplative, “hidden though they may be, from time to time. When they pick a student, they pick a friend for life. And they know that, eventually, even if all the best luck happens, even if everything works out wonderfully, they're still going to have to sit idle while that friend leaves them for a place they may never get to themselves.”
She smiled a bit and stepped over toward the group of land ponies listening to her story.
“Aurora tells me about her previous students,” she said, with happiness in her tone, “all very different kelpies. Colts and fillies, artists and athletes and scholars. Amazing kelpies, every last one. I get to keep that knowledge; it’s one of the perks of the position, so to speak. And when she talks about them, I know they've affected her. They made marks in an eternal tapestry, and I get to add my mark to it too.”
“That sounds… terribly stressful,” Fluttershy whimpered. “I'd be worried about leaving a bad impression! I mean, we've seen how Twilight gets when she worries about messing something up for Princess Celestia...”
“All of Ponyville has seen how Twilight gets when she worries about messin’ somethin’ up for Princess Celestia,” Applejack confirmed with a small smirk.
Twilight's emerging blush grew redder and she shot her friend a glare. Windswept, however, only giggled.
“So what if you do?” she asked Fluttershy. “What makes a failure any less valuable than a success, to a being that lives forever? Do you know why Aurora picked me to be her student to begin with?” All three ponies shook their heads, which was to be expected, as it hadn't previously been explained. “It’s because I talk to myself when I'm sleeping.”
Twilight blinked. “You… huh?”
“Why would she care about-” Applejack asked incredulously, but Windswept cut her off.
“No,” the kelpie corrected, “why would you care about that? Why would I care? Why would any normal pony care? They wouldn't,” she smirked, “might even find it annoying. I've been told I say some questionable things. But she’s not a normal pony. She’s eternal, and in thousands of years of living, she'd never once met a kelpie who talked in her sleep. Not because they're rare or because she needed one, just because it hadn't happened. I was a surprise. It’s as easy as that. I was an experience she'd never had before. When you live forever, anything that makes you look twice is worth a great deal more than we little ponies might give it credit for.”
Windswept brought herself back to topic by glancing back at the statues in the middle of the room.
“The flip side is also true,” she said, “when you know you're destined to forever lose those you're close to, by virtue of simply outliving them, then things you can count on forever really become important. According to Princess Aurora, there are actually quite a number of eternal ponies littering the planet, all in various states of agreement or disagreement with each other. But as bad as it gets, even as much as Aurora and Celestia can't stand each other, there's a connection that's far too valuable to lose or give up.” The kelpie turned back to her companions to see if they'd followed along, and Twilight nodded slowly.
“Forever is an awfully long time,” the purple unicorn said, and Windswept nodded.
“They may hate each other’s guts,” she confirmed, “but I don't think we'd be able to comprehend just how much they love each other in our lifetimes. It's something only Forever will ever get to see.”
The five of them were silent for a moment, until Applejack took a nervous step forward and looked Windswept in the eye. Or at least, attempted to, but found herself staring at the floor instead, unable to hold her gaze.
“Windswept,” she said carefully, “listen, I… I owe you an apology. I've given you an awfully hard time ever since you joined up with us just ‘cause I really needed somepony to blame, and it wasn't fair of me.” She looked around the massive chamber and sighed, “But I think at this point you've pretty much pulled through on everything you ever promised us, after a fashion, and uh… well. I'm sorry. It wasn't very… 'Element of Honesty'-y of me.”
She looked up at Windswept's face, which didn't require much effort, as the kelpie was shorter than Applejack already. She was smiling. Not mockingly, but with a sort of secret understanding glinting in her eyes. She nodded toward the statue, specifically toward Applejack's gleaming golden sculpt.
“Go read that,” she said simply. Applejack parted her lips to ask why, but held her tongue, and stepped over toward the plaque.
“‘Applejack’,” she read, “‘The Steady Pulse’,” she looked back at Windswept, who's smile remained unwavering.
“Ever tried holding a seashell to your ear?” the kelpie asked.
Applejack nodded. “It sounds like the ocean,” she said, and Windswept nodded.
“Its actually the sound of your blood moving through your ears,” she said, “but down here, that pulse, that rhythm, is everything. We live and die by the tides. The ocean can be steady as a rock, or it can be tumultuous and dangerous. Sometimes it can fool you into a false sense of security, other times it can look dark and dangerous when its really smooth as glass, just past the horizon.”
“Doesn’t sound like something worth trusting,” Applejack said, still unsure where this was going, but Windswept shook her head.
“It’s the most honest thing in the world,” she responded. “Honesty isn't always about 'being easy to read', Applejack. Honesty is about being reliable. Honesty is about sticking to your guns and knowing where you stand, and protecting those you care about and being willing to be that pony that speaks up when others stay quiet. The ocean compromises for no pony. It shifts and it flows and it moves as it always has, and as it always will, since before any of us were ever here, and the blood that flows through every creature in this world shares its rhythm, and its implacable will.” Her smile split into a humored, toothy grin. “You are the Steady Pulse, Applejack. You are the pony that honestly thinks other ponies should honestly think a little harder before they honestly believe anything a seemingly honest pony says to them,” she chuckled, “and I would honestly be disappointed if you weren’t exactly what you are.”
Applejack laughed a little, and a small blush touched her face. She wasn’t used to being talked up as anything other than a rodeo pony. “Never thought anypony would thank me for bein’ a pain in the rear,” she said, and Windswept giggled.
“It is,” came Celestia's voice from the archway that lead into the chamber, “admittedly, not the sort of logic we tend to do in Equestria.” The elegant white alicorn walked on quiet hooves toward the small group, who turned to face her. She was looking up at the statues, and smiling. “I haven’t seen these,” she said, “they almost do you justice.” She winked at them. “Almost.”
“Princess,” Twilight said, but Celestia shook her head.
“Seems I'm just 'Celestia' at the moment, little one,” she said, and chuckled. “It's been a long time since I've been without a title. I think I'll enjoy it while I can.”
Twilight nodded, “Celestia, why didn't you ever tell us about… this?” she asked, nodding toward the statues, “About the names of the Elements and the kelpies and… everything! There's so much here we never knew.”
Celestia nodded, and lay down on her belly to reach eye level with the others. “And far more out there in the rest of the world outside Canterlot as well, Twilight Sparkle,” she replied, “enough to fill more books than you could ever finish reading. Which is one of the reasons, honestly. There's simply too much in the world to sit down and tell you, I wouldn't even know where to begin. As to the Elements, there's less there to tell than you think, looking from within.” She smiled at them, and nodded toward the statues. “You look over there and see stylized representations of amazing heroes with wonderful, profound names and deeply nuanced metaphors that define them and think to yourselves, 'if I'd only known'. But you did know. When I look over there, all I see are the ponies I see right here, the same I've always seen. The Elements of Harmony were kept in stones and manifest in jewelry, Twilight, but they are and have always been simply ponies. Ponies who know themselves far better than they think they do.”
She chuckled, and tapped Twilight on the head.
“Your brain is getting in the way of your heart, my student. Knowing a few names and history isn't the same as knowing the Elements themselves. The Element of Honesty, for instance, is called the Steady Pulse, but that's not what it is. It’s a pony, named Applejack, who found value in the truth and chose to live by it. No magical stone or necklace did that for her. You remember our math lessons?”
Twilight nodded silently.
“What happens when you boil away all the unnecessary information in a big, complex question?” She asked, her tone reflective of a long history of teaching.
“You're left with a simple equation,” Twilight said softly, “usually much simpler than it looked to begin with.”
Celestia smiled. “I chose to spare you the trouble of cutting through all the unnecessary information surrounding the elements of Harmony. You six took the remaining equation and solved it together. Right now, you're learning about all the things that only would have bogged you down had you known them when the Elements first fell into your hooves. This,” she pointed to the statues, “grand and astounding though it may seem, is nothing new, Twilight. You have no need to worry yourself with 'living up to' this image. This image was made in the hopes of living up to you.”
Twilight felt a weight lift from her back, and was surprised at it. She hadn't realized just how much that idea was troubling her, but it had been growing larger in larger in the back of her mind. The fear that she had somehow deceived these ponies into thinking she was something greater than she was. Celestia, as usual, had absolved her of that fear.
The alicorn stood again, and faced her little ponies with a proud smile that made each of them (save Windswept, who in light of all the personal conversation had moved awkwardly toward the back of the land ponies and was staring at a spot on the tile with undue interest) smile back at her. It was a long-awaited breath of fresh air to all of them. When her smile faded, Twilight knew the break was over, and so did everypony else.
“Now,” Celestia said firmly, “here is the plan.”