The past in Ponyville
“Come on dear, one more push and it will be done,” the nurse said encouragingly from the other end of the delivery stable.
Rarity screamed and clamped her hooves even more tightly on Spike’s scaled claws. Spike bit back his own protests and whispered comforting words in his wife’s ear. That was at least the fifth ‘one more push’; he spared a glance for the doctor, but the doctor’s face was not as encouraging as he had hoped it would be. It had been a hard labour already, and it was taking its toll on Rarity. Spike loved his wife with all his considerable heart, but even he had to admit that she was not the most robust of ponies. Oh, she had reserves of personality and inner strength, but she was not as physically tough as Applejack or Rainbow Dash.
Another contraction hit and Rarity screamed and swore in pain again. Spike was thankful that his hide was covered with thick scales, as his claw had taken a bruising. Again he whispered comforting words in her ear.
“Spike, you dragon, you,” Rarity snapped at him, “this is all your fault, if I ever let you touch me again it will be because--” Her words dissolved into a torrent of swearing and screams. “--and what is this doing to my figure!”
Spike leaned in closer and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Rarity, my darling, you will be as beautiful as always.”
Tears welled up in Rarity’s eyes. “Oh Spike, don’t leave me, I don’t know what I would do without you.”
Spike stroked her mane and reassured her that he would not. Rarity’s sharp mood swings were one of the things that he had gotten used to over the unending hours. It had been almost as tough on him mentally as it had been hard on Rarity physically, and he was worn out. He again considered if he should ask the nurse to fetch Twilight. She was just in the waiting room outside and her presence would be a great comfort to him, but he suppressed the urge. Rarity would really not like her friends to see her is such a state.
Rarity screamed as another contraction hit her, crushing Spike’s claw between her hooves again. Spike bit back the pain and tried not to let the worry show in his eyes.
===
A torrent of swearing in Rarity’s unmistakable tones drifted through the wall of the waiting room from the delivery stable beyond.
“Oh, my,” Fluttershy said, blushing a pink almost the same colour as her mane.
Applejack, sitting next to her, chuckled. “Yep, Rarity has a good set of lungs on her when she wants to use ‘em.”
“Oh my, where did she learn such language?”
“Flutters, sugar cube, I seem to remember you using that one when you where foaling little Sweet Apple.”
“Oh my,” Fluttershy repeated and cringed back in her seat.
“If ah remember correctly, ya ware swearing up such a storm I had to send AB and her friends out of the farm.”
“Oh dear.” Fluttershy moaned and tried to crawl between the cushions.
“Where is Sweetapple?” Twilight asked Fluttershy, hoping to distract her friend before she disappeared without the use of magic.
“Oh, Big Mac left him with Apple Bloom and her friends, they are such nice girls.”
‘Nice girls’ would not be the first description that came to mind when Twilight thought of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, but they had mellowed a lot since they had gotten their marks, and sometimes they at least managed not to destroy everything they started on.
Another torrent of swearing punctuated her thoughts.
“Oh, my,” Fluttershy repeated and blushed a deeper shade of red.
Twilight cast around for more distractions; if she did not distract Fluttershy soon, she would be able to use the pony to boil a kettle.
Fortunately, at that point the best distraction in Ponyville thundered through the door.
“Is it here yet? Is the new foal here yet? Can I see the new foal?” The pink streak exclaimed as it darted around the small waiting room, leaving a trail of magazines and, for some reason, confetti in its wake.
“Pinkie Pie,” Twilight called out, but the pink blur was too worked up to listen.
“Can I, can I, can I, is it a colt or a filly? I hope it is a filly like its mother, or maybe a colt like its father, but its father is Spike and Spike is a dragon, what do you call a half pony, half dragon baby -- for that matter what do you call a baby dragon?”
“PINKIE PIE!” Twilight tried again, but Pinkie Pie was too far gone to pay attention to anything in the mundane world of sound.
“Oh, I know, Twilight you are smart, I mean you are the smartest pony I know, probably the smartest pony in all Ponyville, no all Equestria, you know what baby dragons are called. But what if there is not a name for them. Oh! I know, we need a ‘name a baby dragon’ party.”
Another epic blast of swearing erupted through the wall.
Pinkie Pie shuddered to a dead halt in the middle of the room, just as if she had hit a brick wall. She tilted her head to one on side. “Oh, that is a doosy.” She turned to Applejack. “Is that even possible?”
“Pinkie Pie, cupcake,” Applejack said with a chuckle. “I don’t think she means it, she is just letting off steam.”
“So do we have a new foal yet?” Rainbow Dash asked from where she had followed Pinkie Pie through the door. More swearing answered her. “I guess not. Boy, Rarity can swear up a storm when she wants to; she is worse than Soarin when he misses a trick.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “Does it usually take this long?”
“No RD, it does not,” Applejack responded a little sharply, “not that you seem to want to find out.”
Rainbow Dash had the good grace to look embarrassed at this. She had been a bit put out -- and vocal about it -- when one of the Wonderbolts had taken time out to have a foal in the middle of their tour.
“But it ain’t a normal birth after all. As Pinkie Pie said, it is half dragon and there ain’t no telling how long that might take.”
“I tried to find out if anypony knew,” Twilight added, “but there was not much information in my books. So I sent to Canterlot for some more books. But they did not have much information, so I tried to find some information on of my own, but there is not much information on dragon hybrids, so I had to make up some theories.”
Twilight started to scrabble at the pile of papers in front of her. “But I was not certain on whether my theories were any good, so I had to read some books on making up theories, but they were not much help, so I needed to make up some more theories for my first theories.” Twilight’s scrabbling became frantic. “...and then all the different theories gave me different answers, so I needed to see whether my answers were any good, so I needed to make up some more theories to see if my first answers were good answers.”
Applejack got up and gently put her hoof over the frantic unicorn’s neck. “Twi, when did you last sleep?”
Whatever strings had been holding Twilight up broke and she collapsed in a heap “Oh, Spike, Rarity, please be okay.”
There was another stream of curses that abruptly broke of mid obscenity. Everypony in the waiting room held their breath, and then there was the faint wailing of new lungs.
Everypony breathed again. After a few minutes the connecting door opened and Spike folded himself through it. A small part of Twilight’s mind thought that her young dragon friend was starting to get a little too big for normal pony architecture, but the larger part of her mind was totally focused on the little bundle that he held one large arm.
“Is that the baby? Can I see the baby? I want to see the baby!” Pinkie Pie rushed up, bouncing up and down in front of him.
Spike put out his other arm and gently pushed the over excited pony away. “Twilight, Fluttershy, Applejack, Rainbow Dash,” he said as they pushed themselves up and walked over to him. “Everypony else,” he said, looking at the vibrating Pinkie Pie. “I would like you to meet my daughter.” He gently pulled aside a fold of blanket to reveal the tiny creature within. “I would like you meet Rough Diamond.”
-----
The present, aboard the airship Everdream
Starlight paced the floor of the little cabin.
“So where are they?” he asked impatiently.
Papyrus put the book back on the stand and looked at the pacing pony.
“My young pony, for the last time, I do not know.”
“Why do you not know?” Starlight said irritably. “You have been studying the book and the book tells you where they are -- that must be what she means -- so you must know where they are.”
“Nevertheless, I do not. And pacing round my cabin is not going to help me find out any faster. Why don’t you go and pace around on deck?”
Starlight looked down at his hooves. “I did that already,” he said, “they are trying to repair some of the damage that the Dark Cloud did, and they told me to get out of their way.”
Papyrus looked at his young charge. He and Rapier had promised Starlight’s farther that they would look after him. But his growing -- well, call it what it was -- madness was worrying the old scholar more and more. Starlight had been a lot better since they had started on this -- again, let’s be honest -- quest, but after they had found the stone orb he had started to deteriorate again.
“Well, you are not helping me make sense of this book by pacing around like that.”
“What are you having trouble with? You said you can read the language the book is written in, so why can you not just read it and tell me where they are?”
“Starlight, my young pony, it is just not that simple.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one thing it is not just a simple matter of reading the book. The book, is not a map to where these are.” He waved at the stone. “The book contains instructions or maybe a guide for a very powerful magical artefact, undoubtedly exactly as the title, ‘The Elements of Harmony a Reference Guide’, says.”
“The stones!” Starlight chipped in.
“Not as far as I can tell. The magical artefacts you refer to appear to be some sort of crystal or gem.” He flipped through the book’s pages and showed a picture to Starlight.
It was a picture of six gemstones, each a brilliant primary colour, arranged in a geometric shape. There was writing in a different ink to the rest of the book next to the picture, clearly added after the book was finished.
“What’s that say?” said Starlight pointing at the writing.
“That, my young pony, is the second problem. There are copious notes all through the book made by a unicorn who obviously had been studying the magical artefacts; she makes many references to them and to experiments she has done -- and constantly contradicts the main book. For example, the text next to that picture says. ‘Why are they shown like this? They have never looked like this. Does their shape change depending on their bearer? Is that why they look like our cutie marks?’ ”
“What the hay is a cutie mark?”
“Name marks,” Papyrus filled in irritably, “it was the term used in the time Twilight lived; our language has changed subtly since then.” He went back to the book “...and when she is not contradicting the book, the editor makes nonsensical statements like this one here. The book says ‘there are six Elements but only five are known, honesty, loyalty, laughter, kindness and generosity,’ then she has scribbled in the margin: ‘magic -- the sixth is magic, my element, my gift, the special spark that brings us all together.’ ”
“Hay,” Starlight interrupted excitedly, “those elements you just mentioned, what where they, truthfulness, giving, friendship, happiness?”
“Honesty, loyalty, laughter, kindness, generosity and presumably magic,” Papyrus corrected
“Yes, whatever. They were mentioned in the letter. The one to the Goddess.”
“Princess Celestia. Yes they were.” Papyrus was actually a bit impressed with Starlight’s logical jump.
“Yes, well, Twilight Sparkle said she hid them -- maybe it is not the book, but the letter that tells us where they are!”
“I did think of that, my young pony. But the letter is not anymore specific than the book is -- it mentions that Twilight took them and hid them in places important to their bearers, but it does not tell us where these places are. Or even really who the bearers where. No, my young pony, I am afraid that it is probably going to be a long job sorting this out.”
Whatever Starlight was going to say in response to this was interrupted by a splintering crash that echoed through the ship.
---------
“Okay, carefully. Now remember, it is going to be off balance with that rock stuck in it. So don’t go throwing it about,” Genoa lectured group the flyers who where holding the ends of the ropes.
“We know what we are doing,” Rainstorm retorted, “this is not the first time we have replaced a crystal pane.”
“And did any of the others have a damn great rock stuck in them? Or more importantly, were any of them on my damn ship?” Genoa shouted irritably back. There was no reply form the assembled ponies. “No? Good, so we do this carefully, and we do not try to pull any fancy aerobatics, okay?” Nods from the assembled ponies, slightly sulkily ones from the pegasi. “Okay flyers, take up the slack and let’s get that panel loose.”
The Everdream’s pegasi pulled the ropes attached to the damaged crystal panel taut, while the earth pony crew stepped up to its edge, pry bars ready.
Genoa watched from below and worried. Replacing a panel of the crystal canopy was not that difficult a repair job, compared with a lot of what could need replacing on an airship, but it was one of the more tricky ones to do without the aid of a repair slip. The panels of the canopy were designed so that they could be replaced in just such a circumstance as this, i.e. if they became damaged in combat and were a hazard to the rest of the canopy. All airships carried several spare panels, as well as spare sun lines and the rest, but it was still a tricky task.
The Everdream rocked slightly in the light breeze. Genoa’s blood froze as he watched the ropes the pegasi were holding go momentarily slack... and usually it was not something you would ever try while flying.
Normally, before any repair work was carried out, you would land your airship. Preferably on a nice repair slip, but failing that, any section of flat ground would do, and then shut down the spinner engine and the rest of the mechanics, so you could take out the damaged sections and replace them. But they were currently flying over a vast stretch of dark and gloomy forest, and even if they could find a clearing big enough to land the Everdream, he did not want to have a powered down airship sitting in the middle of a forest full of Luna knew what nasty creatures as night fell. So they were attempting to repair the worst of the battle damage while still aloft. ...and thus Genoa was currently on his last, much frayed, nerve.
The crew jammed their pry bars in the joint between the crystal panels and heaved the damaged panel clear, more ponies quickly looping a carrying net around it. More pegsai took up the slack and the panel, together with the large rock imbedded in it, was slowly lowered to the deck.
“How does it look?” he called out to one of the unicorns up on the canopy.
The unicorn stuck his head in the hole, his horn glowing as he probed at the crystal panelling on either side of the empty space. “Not as bad as it could be,” he called back, “we are going to need to replace this one.” He tapped a hoof on a panel. “It has got micro fractures all the way through it, and we should probably replace this other one as well, while we are at it. But the rest of them look okay for now.”
Genoa let himself relax slightly; it was indeed better than his worst fears.
The way the Everdream had been thrown about by that blast of magic, he had worried that some of the more sensitive parts of the ship’s workings would have been overloaded -- or the canopy fractured by the rain of rocks -- but so far, apart from the obvious panels, about half a dozen sun lines and some damage caused by the Dark creatures to the hull, the ship seemed to be in very good shape.
“Okay, let’s have that second panel out while we can get at it,” he called to the work crews. The pegasi flew back up and the ropes where restrung to the second panel.
Genoa paced the deck below as the work crew started to prize the second panel out of the canopy. With any luck, once they had replaced the panels in the canopy he would feel better about this, and they would not need to do any more dangerous repairs. Once they had gotten their repairs done he would ask Starlight where he might like to go next on the strange whim of his. Genoa trusted Rapier; he had not served much with the pony, but when he had, he had found him to be a very capable leader, and like all ponies in the Equestrian Air Force, he had known Starlight’s father. Lord Nothstar was famous and there were whole books dedicated to the tactics he’d used in the many battles he’d been involved in. But his foal. Well, that was another matter.
A sound interrupted Genoa’s train of thought. It was not a large sound; it would probably not have been noticed, and certainly anypony else would not have paid it any heed amidst the general creaks and groans that an airship in flight made. But Genoa had been on airships most of his long life, and he was well aware of all their little noises, and this was not one he recognized.
He stopped and twisted his head. The little sound came again. He did recognize it. He had heard it before, but he could not place it just at the moment. The sound came again and his ears twitched; it was coming from the pillar he was just walking past. Curious, he put his hooves on the railing and pressed his head close to the pillar. He heard the sound again, an odd creaking, snapping sound.
Icicles ran down his spine as he remembered where he had heard the sound before. He leapt back to the deck. “Stop!” he shouted up to the work crew, waving a hoof desperately at them. “Leave that panel alone!”
The sound was a crack working its way through the timber of the support pillar. The pillar must have been damaged in the fight and the crack had been slowly working its way through the grain of the timber, pushed by the gentle movement of the airship. The ponies stopped what they were doing and looked curiously down the second panel half out of the canopy.
“Get some bracing!” Genoa ordered desperately. “For Celesta’s sake, somepony get a brace in that space. The main support is damaged, the canopy…”
There was a loud echoing crack and Genoa realized that it was too late. He twisted around in time to see the pillar, now snapped clean through, start to fall. He looked upwards, fearing the worst.
He watched in horrified slow motion as half of the canopy started to twist and warp, the ponies of the work crew falling flat to the crystal, grabbing at support lines with their mouths, the flyers darting down to grab them as the structure buckled.
Usually it would not have mattered if one of the support posts for the canopy had broken. The canopy was designed to stay up while missing a few of the pillars. After all, this was a warship. But they had removed some of the panels; that had weakened the self-supporting nature of the canopy. Most of it was still being held up by the other support posts, but a section of it was not. Supported only by this broken post and its neighbour, and not the rest of the pillars, it could no longer hold the weight of this section of the canopy, as well as the ponies standing on it.
As the loose section twisted, the half out panel warped and, with a sharp crack, snapped. The two sharp halves fell out of the canopy, the spinning shards of crystal glinting in the light as they fell. Genoa watched helplessly as the two shards fell towards the front lifting envelope. The first shard landed on the top if the fabric bag, the razor edged crystal easily cut thorough the tough fabric, but the shard disappeared into the balloon leaving only a small hole that started to leak the lifting gas.
The second, on the other hoof, landed off centre and started to bounce down the sloping side of the envelope. Genoa thought they might have gotten lucky, but then the sharp point of the shard stabbed into the balloon and started to tear. The shard fell down the side of the envelope, its razor edge slicing a huge jagged gash in the tough fabric, sliding almost to the deck before it fell out. Genoa watched as the balloon, its side completely ripped open, turned inside out in an explosion of the lifting gas.
Everything seemed to stand still for a breath as everypony waited to see what was going to happen next. Then the deck under Genoa’s hooves started to tilt.
Genoa leapt for a hold as the deck started to tilt forward, the bow of the Everdream sagging downwards as it was deprived of its buoyancy. There were more shouts from above, and cracking sounds as the rest of that canopy section started to come apart, crystal panels falling out of their frames. The crew ponies that had been standing on them scrambled madly for the ropes, as their support came apart under their hooves, some of them losing their balance to slide and fall off the edge. Flyers darted in, trying to catch the fallers and rescue other ponies form the wildly swaying canopy, but he did not have time to worry about them. He pulled himself up the now sharply sloping deck to one of the hatches and stuck his head inside. He heard the chaos in the middle deck as everything that was not tied down started to fall bow ward.
“Tilt warning,” he shouted desperately down the hatch. A bit unnecessarily as he could already here the sound of ponies falling “Tilt!”
There was a popping, crackling explosion and he glanced up at the remains of the fore lifting envelope. Crackling green lightning was arcing from the raised base of the balloon and earthing itself all over the front of the ship; some of the crew ponies were not fast enough and got caught in the spitting web of magic, falling stiffly with their legs twitching. Genoa saw one of the pegasi hit by a stray bolt, her wings went rigid and she fell out of the sky, two of her friends darting after her as she dropped.
“Rogue lighting!” he shouted down the hatch. That first shard must have hit the spell platform at the base of the balloon and damaged it. “ Rogue lighting from the forward spell pate. Kill the feed to the balloons.” For a moment Genoa wondered if the ponies in the spinner room had heard the order, or if they had been knocked out by the tumbling tools and equipment inside the ship, but then mercifully the crackling lighting storm around the wreck of the fore lifting envelope ceased.
That was better, Genoa thought, as he half walked, half climbed up to the command deck at the aft of the ship. That dealt with the major crises, now just to deal with the minor one of the ship crashing bow first into the ground. Even as he pulled himself up the deck he could feel the ship start to fall.