//------------------------------// // chapter 02: "how I got these scars" // Story: The Price of Wings // by Arcict //------------------------------// The Price of Wings Chapter: 02 "How I got these scars" Written by Arcict Gray - - - - - - - - - - Journal entry: October 25th, 1375 FE Well, I'm on a farm now. Before I left on the train (the ride over was fun BTW) I managed to purchase a journal and some writing materials, hence this entry. I am still a little miffed over the whole history thing and being banned from researching it and stuff. It’s clear that Celestia doesn’t want me to learn something, unfortunately, I haven’t a clue what it is. She did let me take a book from Twilight's library (it's due back before the end of next month) that covers from 1300 (a few years after Ponyville was founded) all the way back to 15 BFE (Before Founding (of) Equestria). This tells that what I'm looking for, or rather what is being kept from me, is either in the most ancient or in the most recent history, and therefore not covered in the book. I suspect that it's the former, ancient history. I believe that whatever is being hidden explains why they also call this planet Earth. It seems most likely that I am not truly the first being to travel from my planet to this one. I suspect that Equestria has made contact with my planet before. But if that be the case, why try to hide it when it is so obvious? I suspect that exploration is not the only reason why I’m here. I’m not an ambassador, I’m and experiment. The only thing that makes me feel any better about this is that it might yet be a fairly big experiment. But big or small, I’m still just a rat in a maze... with no cheese (maybe my wings?). But, if that is the case, am I not thinking my way out of the maze just by figuring this out or is thinking about it just dragging me further in? That’s just paranoid thinking. If I doubt my own thinking then I’ll just end up trying not to think and that’s not going to help me. The only way to win is to figure it out before it gets to me, find the end before the end finds me. Reminds me of that one game whatever it was called, where you lose by thinking about it. To me, the only way to win the game though is to figure out the game, so you MUST think about it, you never win unless you're willing to risk failure. If I ever find someone who knows about that game, I'll tell them what I found by deliberately losing it, If you can't win a game by default then the game is faulty and you are given carte blanche freedom to play it however you want. I'll tell them that I played that game... and won. It’s maddening though, I know where the information I’m looking for is but I’m forbidden from going after it. If I try breaking that rule I could get kicked out completely (I lose) so what should I do, stay and try to think my way through or really risk losing and try looking it up anyway. I think it depends on how I want this game to end. If I don’t care how it ends I can just do whatever I want. No, I DO care, that means that I HAVE to make sure that the game ends the way I want it to. That means that if I go breaking any rules (or laws) I need to make SURE I don’t get caught unless I actually WANT to get caught. But I don’t want to go back, that much I DO know. So, that’s rule number one of this game, don’t get sent back. I guess orders or commands from Celestia (or Luna for that matter) could be considered rules but, they’re more like... the circumstances of the game, not the rules of it. The rules are things less likely to change, the circumstances change all the time. There are so many possibilities that wind up with me being sent back, especially if I start breaking the rules. That being the case, simply thinking my way through the maze rather than taking any actions is my best bet for now. Other than the whole mystery in the history there’s nothing else that really bugs me here. Maybe that’s why they relocated me, to keep me from trying to look into this whole history mystery thing. I might as well take advantage of the book while I still have it, if it's interesting enough I might even have it finished by the due date, otherwise I'll just have to skim through it. I mean, it's not like it's another Physics Today book or anything, but still. Is it odd that I find other people's history more interesting than my own? My new home is a small farm owned by Red Pepper (I swear, these names sometimes) but he's married to Orange Giant. The farm grows a variety of things in their main garden (yes, he specializes in peppers) but in the back is Orange's private garden, nothing but pumpkins there, really big ones too. This cutie mark thing fascinates me, while each seems unique yet there is a long history of cutie marks throughout the ages. If I get bored with my other history question I might try looking that one up instead. In theory each cutie mark is unique to each pony though there are rare occurrences where a cutie mark has a twin or near-duplicate, true duplicates are apparently very very rare. That said, there are some well known cutie marks that have shown up multiple times throughout history. Looking up a cutie mark's history is one way of understanding what it means, though it apparently varies from one pony to the next, meaning something a little different each time. I guess there wouldn’t be much point in looking them up until I get one, if I get one. We had dinner at Mr. Pepper's place. Despite the fact that everybody has a kind of nickname and even use it as part of their real name sometimes, they also have a kind of "house" name that works like the last name from back home, only they rarely ever use it. That would mean my "house" name is still "Baker", not that it matters, my family and specifically my family name is not what I am running from. Anyway, Mr. Pepper's house name is Melon (again, these names sometimes) so I had dinner with the “Melons”. Because they don’t have a room for me (and because it's still warm outside) I'm literally sleeping in their barn, the loft specifically. Because I told them I would be staying up later to write they gave me a little legume hay to munch on if I got hungry. It wasn't until later that I realized something. "I'm a horse, sleeping in a barn, with a belly full of hay; mom would be so proud." That's what I told myself. Then I laughed of course. A simple horse doesn't have wings, and the hay isn't what I'm eating so much as just chewing on, and I climbed up a ladder into the loft, something a horse from Earth would never do. (I could join the circus!) Actually, it was hard not to cry, this world is so foreign, it’s so strange and I get reminded every day that I don’t belong here. But that’s what hurts, I want to belong here and yet, sometimes things just seem to close in and I can’t help myself. Home. I just can't stop thinking about that one word, home. I say "home" when I mean "the other side of the portal" but that can't really last. If I want to stay here then, sooner or later, this needs to be "home" to me. I'm tired and it's been a long day (not to mention that I'm running out of daylight anyway) so I'm going to cut this short. First entry, Cobalt Skies. - - - - - - - - - Over the next few days Cobalt found himself getting up with the dawn, if not sooner sometimes. With the lengthening days the Melons actually got started on the morning chores before the sun was up, and that meant Cobalt often got an early wake-up call. "So," Cobalt said, not sure how to start that morning’s conversations, "did you know that we don’t have cutie marks where I’m from?" "It is pretty hard to believe" said Orange Giant, not looking up. Instead she kept her attention on selecting the tools she wanted which she deposited into a bucket so she could, as she usually did, carry them off to the garden. "Then again, so are a lot of things about you, and yet somehow we're supposed to teach you about some of the basics of life in Equestria, or at least farm work, not sure why with you being a pegasus and all." "Well, I mean, if I understand correctly," Cobalt said, following her as she headed out for the gardens. "The cutie mark is what ultimately determines what you do right? So, pegasus or not I could still use these skills, er right? I mean, it sounds a bit like a caste system or something but, er, is that right?" Orange turned to look at him this time. "You really don't have cutie marks where you come from, do you?" Orange asked him. "No ma'am," Cobalt said "I dunno what they are... really." "It is there to show what your special talent is." Orange said. "And, is that your only talent?" Cobalt asked. "I mean, some people are pretty talented, some seem to have lots of talents right?" Orange seemed to think about this a bit, slowing in thought as she carried the now full bucket over to the garden. "You can have many talents and many skills." Orange said, "but they're usually a part of what you are on a whole, and that's reflected by your cutie mark. Even if you learn a lot of things, that's what you're best at." "But, what if…" Cobalt said, "what if you change? Will your cutie mark also change?" "Not to my knowledge." Orange said. "I've always thought that, if given enough time, people could accomplish anything." Cobalt said. "That is, assuming a person had forever, they’d eventually grow to... well, into a perfect being really." Orange was silent for a bit. "Maybe," Orange said, "but we all have to start somewhere, that means that we’ve all got to take their own path to get to where we’re going. Even if we were all destined to be alicorns, we’d all have to take our own path to get there, we wouldn’t all be the same. I mean, look at the alicorns we’ve already got, they’re all pretty different” "Well okay I guess." Cobalt said, trying to take it in. "Still, I wish I had any idea what mine might be…" Cobalt got quiet, saying the rest under his breath "…or if I can even get one." The day continued as they worked on the garden, Orange using the bucket to carry the tools whenever she wanted to move them all together and only taking them out one at a time. Cobalt marveled at the evolution of this and wondered, with his home world’s ability to manipulate plastics, could they be able to develop tools that were easier to handle. His mind wandered, thinking of ways this world could benefit from his home world’s technologies. While he was between daydreaming and helping with whatever Orange called on him for, Red Pepper came back with a hoe to help chop up small weeds that were cropping up. Despite the lateness of the season he was determined his garden be weed-free. "You aren't weeding the other one?" Cobalt asked Orange eventually, looking over at the garden in the back, the one full of large pumpkins. "I work on that one myself." Orange said "it's my garden after all." "Oooookay" Cobalt said, not sure how to take that but feeling a definite sense of territorialism. Orange smiled softly, noticing Cobalt’s reaction "it's not like that. I’ve got a special talent with pumpkins so Red lets me have a garden just for pumpkins, all to my own. That’s why we moved away from Ponyville, my family home was in town and didn’t have much land for farming or working a garden or anything." "You used to live in Ponyville?" Cobalt asked before he could stop himself. "Yes we did," Red said, "But it’s hard to compete when you don’t have enough land to raise much more than a few pumpkins and maybe an ear of corn or two. Ponyville may be a small town but her family home was too ‘in town’ to be useful for farmland. And because it is a town, the land around there is more expensive. So, we came out here, only a few settlers around here so there’s plenty of land for expansion and it was really cheap too.” "Ponyville is a bit of a... small town with... a lot of farmland around it." Cobalt admitted, “at least, a lot of the land around it has already been claimed I guess.” "It's a nice enough place." Orange said, noticing Cobalt's deliberate attempt to avoid being mean to the little town. "But we came here, and it has helped, we don’t make much, we’re still just a small time little thing but still, we do alright. It's small enough that we can grow our own food and pool our produce together to sell the best of what we’ve got over in Ponyville after each harvest and split the profits." "So, you go to Ponyville to sell your produce?" Cobalt asked, “actually I guess you’d have to, this trail doesn’t seem to get many visitors to sell to so...” “The Harvest Festival is a profitable Ponyville tradition,” Red Pepper said, “Every farmer gets together their goods and tries to sell them off. Many small communities near Ponyville, like ours, will head on into town to sell whatever they have and buy whatever they don’t have. It also helps that the Apple family usually has their annual family reunion around that time, so they're either away, which means more money for us because they've got all that squared away, or more potential customers because they come to Ponyville to celebrate it. The trick is to come out of it with more bits than you spend there. Over the next couple of days this whole community will be baking and canning and brewing and mixing everything together to make stuff to sell during the festival.” "Interesting," Cobalt said. "The only problem is that when we came here we realized that, well, the Burners live just down the road," Orange said. "The Burners?" Cobalt asked. "They're farmers, like my husband and me." Orange said, "but the mare, Pumpkin Pie, she's also got a pumpkin cutie mark as well so she also raises pumpkins like I do in my private garden, that means that we’re often in direct competition. Even though we pool our stuff together and then split up the prophets when we get it all sold off we often find ourselves in competition with one another." "Not… the same pumpkin cutie mark?" Cobalt said, uncertain. "No," Orange admitted "but it’s kinda disheartening because we had hoped it would get easier when we left, but with them here, well it makes profiting from pumpkins a problematic proposal." "But, if you've both got a knack for it," Cobalt tried, "then why don't you just both work the same patch together? Or is there like some kind of rule or something preventing that? There’s not a feud is there?!" Orange had to think about that a bit. “No, there’s no feud and certainly no rule or anything.” Red said when he realized that Orange wasn’t going to respond immediately. "Well no, no there isn’t," Orange said "I mean, she's never been a very... outgoing neighbor but... I always thought that was because we wanted to keep things... fair... between us. I mean, if we've ever shared more than three words with each other they were little more then 'hello' and 'good bye', but never mean-like or nothing." "But, if you did then?" Cobalt tried, “farming the same patch together, that is, sharing recipes and helping to prepare and... well, and cook and bake and all that jazz.” "Then we'd probably em grow even bigger and better… and MORE pumpkins then we ever would alone." Orange said finally. "we… We'd even make the job easier because there'd be two of us! What’s jazz?" “The most evil music you could possibly imagine.” Cobalt said, trying to keep a straight face, “but I guess there were various types of it so the phrase and all that jazz means, basically, everything else that just goes along with it, whatever it is.” The day continued, Cobalt being recruited to help with some of the chores, including weeding and harvesting some of the few remaining plants from the gardens. While Cobalt was thankful that the Melon's diligence kept most of the weeds from being too large, even so, pulling up weeds by mouth was no fun, and trying to do it by hoof without a tool was nigh impossible, and Cobalt was still too unskilled to properly use a tool with his hooves. By the time he was done, his mouth was fairly sore. "It's not just the little pokes." Cobalt said as he joined them for dinner, recounting for them how the day was. "It's also the strength, you guys must have amazing jaws for this kind of thing." "Well, we're not unicorns." Red Pepper said, "it's not like we can just levitate everything we touch." "I wonder what it'd be like to be one." Cobalt said in an off-hand way. "It don't do a bit of good to go wondering things that can't ever be and don't make sense anyway." Red Pepper said in a matter-of-fact sort of way. "All it does is make you lazy and foolhardy." "No," Cobalt said, just as matter-of-factly. "It doesn't. But what it does do to you is much worse." Cobalt didn’t elaborate on the topic and soon dinner was over and he was back to the barn to get some rest as the room he was supposed to be staying in was still not empty enough for anypony to really sleep or live in it. There wasn't much daylight left so Cobalt cracked open the history book to keep himself occupied until he had to squint under the fading light to read the words properly. Finally he gave up trying to read any further and used a small piece of straw as a bookmark to mark his place and went to sleep. - - - - - - - - - - Report: October 30th 1375 FE (2012 back home) To: The Equestrian Portal Project Authority, Sr. Administrator: Dusty Legend. CC: The US Stellar Psychic Alien Macrocosms; Admin.: Brian Majors. CC: My family, address on file. CC: Myself, for my own records. From: Cobalt Skies, AKA, Simon Carbuncle Baker Things are going fairly well on the farm, I have gotten used to the chores enough that I have begun managing them quickly enough to have some time left over, so I have started practicing flying again. I realized today that one of the reasons for the transfer might have been that others seeing me practicing flying might have made everyone uncomfortable. Being alone, or rather being surrounded by so few people makes things a little easier for me because I can flop around in the air (or rather, not in the air) and cause very little disruption to those around me. I feel a little disappointed, back home we have a holiday, Halloween, that occurs at the end of October which corresponds to this month. It's one of my favorite holidays and I wish I could attend this year's Nightmare Night but there are so few young ones here that they just go to Ponyville to celebrate it and everybody else stays home. At any rate, my studies continue and while I can honestly say I appreciate the history book loaned to me from the Ponyville library I must say that I also find much of the history relatively boring. I've been asking around and I found that one of the holidays coming up later this year is known as Hearth's Warming day. I also learned that there is a pageant depicting the events of Equestria's founding. I would like to attend one of the pageants if I could some time during the winter. Historic events are usually more interesting as pageants and plays than in dusty old books anyway. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Journal Entry: November 4th 1375 FE (2012) Getting colder, of course, I woke up and actually felt shivers and didn't want to get up, or come out from under my blanket, despite the fur coat. I tried to float or glide down from the loft to the ground, it didn't end well. It could have been worse, I could have landed on something other than my hooves but I still didn't glide very well; how does Knuckles do this? There is a trick to this I know there is, maybe I'm just out of shape or something. Red started talking about finishing cleaning the upstairs room so I could sleep there. I feel uncomfortable about this, not just because of the imposition it would mean. I've been living in my parent's home and supported by them for years now, before I left that is, and I know how much that can make you feel like you can't go anywhere. It's a trap I don't want to find myself caught in again. I don't want to become dependent on these people, they're nice enough but that just makes the trap worse really, easier to fall into if I'm not careful. Of course, I don't really have a choice, if this morning’s shivers are any indication then I’ll need a warm place to sleep at night and this barn just won’t do. I’m helping them to move the stuff that’s up there, mostly mementoes from Orange’s kids that have grown up and left home. If I don’t help I’ll just end up feeling guilty. I can’t help but fear that Orange might be something of an empty-nester and that might make it a little complicated. I feel no ill will toward them, but I want to fly, I want to be able to stand up on my own, to be my own man and I can’t do that if I’m being coddled. I can honestly say that I will never get used to having a cart hooked up to me so I can pull it around. It wasn't hard, just embarrassing and it felt degrading. There are only very few countries, I think, where people are so poor that other people take a cart and pull it themselves (rickshaw I think it's called). Everything else is pulled by a dumb animal or by an engine back home. On the other hand (hoof, whatever) I suppose none of those here would feel that way. This body has a lot of power and if you don't find some way to harness that power (four legs and all of them are pretty strong) then it's kind of going to waste. Still, if mom ever saw me she'd have a total fit. And it was a bit cool, watching the cart getting pulled around by just my own strength. I am proud of the fact that I didn't complain and just let them do what they did and let me pull that thing around to wherever they needed it. They don’t pay me very much, Dusty that is, once a week if I make a report and even then they chastise me if the report isn’t a very good one. I’m thinking of getting a candle or something so I don’t have to stop writing whenever it gets too dark. I remember watching Twilight writing with a feather quill and me getting worried about what she would do if the quill got bent or something. I’ve had feathers pulled out before, in Canterlot, just so I would know how much it hurts so I would avoid it, a necessary pain I think, even so, I did not relish the idea. I think the memory came back because I was thinking about candles and writing and stuff. I could just buy some ink and use my own feathers to write. It’d hurt but if I’m careful with them so they won’t break or anything it shouldn’t be that bad. Then again, if I’m patient they’re supposed to shed or molt naturally every now and again anyway. Aren't they? - - - - - - - - - - Harvest time wasn’t easy for Cobalt. Most of the produce had already been harvested but the things that were still in the gardens were plump and heavy, causing Cobalt considerable consternation trying to figure out how to move them without damaging them. Retelling the daunting task seemed mildly amusing to Red, who had been doing his own harvesting and had filled almost a whole cart. They didn’t stop there but instead went on to help some of their neighbors finish their own harvesting. As they continued, more and more of the local farmers joined in, moving together as a whole to help the rest with their own harvesting. There came a moment when Cobalt became aware that Orange Giant had slipped away from the main group, at first he wondered if she was off doing something secret, then he realized that Pumpkin Pie was also absent even though her husband was with the group. Harvesting ended but that wasn’t the end of their work and they quickly set to the task of finishing up the baking and canning and other preparations for getting their food either preserved enough to survive the winter or spruced up enough to sell in market. Neither the festival nor winter would wait for nopony. It took days before they were done. Then they had to fill the carts with all of the product they’d created, carefully placing everything into place and on a bed of hay so that minor bumps and pitches in the road wouldn’t mess anything up. The next day Cobalt was surprised with a little gift. Red had asked one of the neighbors to take the old worn down blanket he’d used in the barn and re-sew it into a kind of cloak. It wasn’t very pretty, it was so old that its original light blue color had faded to all but a medium gray, but it was long enough that it covered his blank flank nicely. Cobalt thanked Red and wore it while helping to pull the carts toward Ponyville. It was fairly fitting, as a blanket in its prime it was thick and warm, but by the time Cobalt had begun using it was so worn in places that it made for a semi-decent, if worn, cloak. The road they were on was long and wound around as they followed the railroad tracks into Ponyville. Cobalt asked Red at one point why they didn’t just take a train into Ponyville. Cobalt was surprised at his response because despite having at least eight full carts apparently there weren’t enough ponies living in their little community to justify having a train depot or even a stopping point along the tracks for them; Ponyville was the closest place where they could even get ON a train. this surprised Cobalt because there were at least two railway lines that went within 2 miles of the farm. Cobalt at first was surprised that Pinkie Pie didn’t greet them with a surprise party, then he remembered that the community did this every year so she had probably already thrown everypony a party. Except for him of course, when he’d first come to Ponyville he’d learned that she had been expressly forbidden to throw him a party so as to help keep his presence a secret. Cobalt was able to meet a few of the other locals that were part of their little community as they worked to sell and move inventory. Cobalt’s skills not being well suited for advertisement found himself, more often than not, drafted to help move large bundles of inventory or to help reorganize a shelf or display when some of the inventory therefrom got depleted. The festival was the largest event that Cobalt had seen in Equestria and he soon had a new thought as to why Pinkie Pie had not thrown anypony a party today, the festival was the party. Despite sheer number of other booths and sellers that were at the festival, the inventory tent was emptied by more than half after the second day. - - - - - - - - - Journal entry: November 15th 1375 (2012) Winter has come, well, not quite but it began snowing two days ago and it’s still coming. It snowed a LOT yesterday and we spent most of the day just waiting indoors and double checking all the edges and stuff. If I was back home with the propane heating I’d be tempted to crack a window (I hate the heat) but here, there’s just no way that I could risk it. Unfortunately, this means that I don’t get nearly as much work or flying practice as I want to. There just isn’t as much to do as there would be otherwise. Red can see that I’m antsy, being indoors all the time and he got a little frustrated with me and said that if I was really desperate to “spread my wings” (his words, not mine) then I could just go out there in the blizzard and spread them. I didn’t, but I kinda wished that I had though, the whole day just seems a little wasted. There is a bridge not much more than ten miles from here, an easy trot, I could just run up to it and back, a ten mile run wouldn’t be that hard, even in the snow. That book led me to something interesting. I knew that Twilight and her closest friends were also the bearers of something called the Elements of Harmony. But what I didn’t know was that they were all forged from the same stone, something the book called an everstone. It elaborated a little into the overall rareness of everstones and describing both their suspected and witnessed power. Apparently, when the stone "matured" it was planted and formed a tree of some kind, and that tree formed the elements a long time ago. That reminds me, I need to get that book back to Twilight before the end of the month or I’m probably going to end up minus a wing or two. I asked Red about how the weather is managed since they have pegasi managing it. He said that the pegasi manage weather all over Equestria but they focus their direct efforts on the more densely populated areas, the weather here isn't as fine-tuned as it would be otherwise, a fact that just makes it all the harder to grow crops. That makes some sense I guess but he didn’t seem to know much about it. I guess I’d have to actually talk to some other pegasi in order to know more. Red told us a story about his grandfather and how there used to be many more creatures that abounded from around the Everfree Forest. One of which, a “timber wolf” whatever that is (apparently it’s something different than just a “wolf” (timber or otherwise) that I recognize), came too close to the homestead (I forgot to ask if “homestead” was here or somewhere else at the time) and his Grandfather had to fight it off using a halberd. Apparently timber wolves are tricky things because they can like regenerate or something, you have to burn them to finish them off which is what his grandfather had to do. I was in awe at the story but I doubt I could give it real justice myself so I’m not really going to try. I doubt “old grandpa’s stories” are really worth reporting about anyway. - - - - - - - - - - Just as King Sombra’s palace in the Crystal Empire was split into a light side and a dark side, so too were there other places that held such shadowy secrets. Canterlot was one such place, and though Princess Celestia was certainly not forbidden to enter yet she rarely ever did. Even Princess Luna, who visited more often since her return, loathed doing so. The entire purpose of that place was not only recent, but felt entirely unnecessary. They had Tartarus, but... Celestia felt that it was excessive. Without knowing the magic, a pony would have some difficulty in finding the way into the shadow world. Places were set up, out of the way, corners and nooks where nopony would likely go. They were set up in pairs, one, the first, was the trigger, and the other, the entrance. The trigger was a location that marked the pony there as able to go through the entrance, the mark only lasted for a few seconds, 20 at most, during that time, said pony had to reach the entrance location or be stuck and have to repeat the process. Once inside the shadow world, the pony would be greeted by a grand and horrible sight, the Palace of Shadows. A prison in, under, and at Canterlot. A prison that only a select few ponies were even allowed to know existed. The Palace was a thin and tall building that stretched high and was surrounded by a tall and formidable wall. Towers dotted the wall at the corners and at intervals along the sides. The palace proper was on one side, with a wide open area where a courtyard should be. Where the court yard should have been was instead a spiraling stone path that led down into the rock below, ending in a cave entrance. Behind the cave, Luna knew, was a twisty maze and labyrinth that was designed to mislead and redirect ponies further inside, to the belly of the cave. For it was the belly of the cave that was the whole point of the shadow world, the palace, wall, spiraling path and cave itself in the first place. The belly of the cave was a prison. The prison was separated into three chambers, the first of which was small and meant as a reception area. The second was large and grand, a cavernous circular opening where cells lined the walls along many many floors. Only the bottom three floors were empty, any attempt to escape and the prisoners would have at best a 4 story drop to contend with. The third chamber was smaller, darker, and narrower, it housed fewer prisoners, but these were kept away from each other. At the back of this third chamber were a few small interrogation rooms. There were many prisoners here, earth ponies that were chemically sedated, unicorns had their horns fitted with anti-magic restraints, pegasi had their wings chemically or magically paralyzed. It felt wrong, most of these were or could have been good ponies. Most, but not all, there was one that was definitively bad, that pony was Golden Scroll - - - - - - - - - - Prisoner number 1372-001 Name: “Golden Scroll” AKA: "Lord Sand" Arrested for: -ponynapping, -murder, -treachery of a national level, -attempted theft of national treasure, -theft of national secrets, -conspiracy to commit theft, -unlawful use of confidential information, -multiple counts of arson -possession of artifact(s) unlawful, -theft of national treasure, -interrupting legal flow of traffic, -uncouth public behavior, - - - - - - - - - - He was the only inmate that made the warden sweat. Everypony was convinced that his anti-magic restraint wasn’t working properly, despite having been replaced no less than five times. He had, amongst other things, the uncanny ability to somehow know things about almost anypony he talked to, things he shouldn’t know, dark secrets those ponies often tried to keep hidden. Even when locked away in solitary confinement he could learn things about the guards and inmates that they had never told to anypony. The guards were afraid of him, the other inmates were intimidated by him, and those were during his "well behaved" days. As Luna entered and approached the back, where Golden Scroll was being held she noted a change, a shift in the atmosphere. The prisoners were usually jeering and howling, making a cacophony loud enough she feared what they could do with a "Royal Canterlot Voice" spell. This time however, they were silent, hushed, the faintest of whispers emanating from their cells. And what made it worse, there was a strange familiarity to the whispers, like a rhythm or tone, like they were all trying to sing a song as quietly as they possibly could, as though they would get in trouble if she heard them sing it. The whispers crawled through the cavern, bouncing unnaturally against the walls, almost multiplying as they did so. The whispers seemed to grow louder, stronger, piercing through even her efforts to ignore them, what was this magic? "Princess Luna?" said a guard, snapping her out of a trance she hadn't been aware of even being in. The interruption had all but silenced the whispers, popping the spell like a soap bubble and pushing them back to their hushed and quiet tones. "Yes, what is it thou desirest of us?" Princess Luna asked. "Begging your pardon princess," said the guard. "But the prisoners... well, they've been doing this whisper thing all week and... and it looked like it was affecting you." "We... I had noticed, what is the cause of this?" Princess luna asked. "We're not sure... it's unnerving," the guard said. "Yes, it is," Princess Luna replied. "Find the source, and keep me informed if there is any further trouble." "Yes your majesty," the guard said. Luna continued through the chamber and into the next, trailed by the two guards she'd brought with her and the pony she was escorting, Dusty Legend. Usually there were two guards that kept watch over the inmates whenever they were in the interrogation room. Golden Scroll got four of the meanest and toughest guards the dungeons could afford. They were soon joined by the two following Princess Luna. The door to the interrogation room was opened and Luna and Dusty entered. There, in the back of the room, were two more guards, flanking the pony they had come to interrogate, Golden Scroll. Golden Scroll looked at them with mild interest. "So you've returned to my humble abode," Golden said finally. Instead of replying, Princess Luna used her magic to take a few pictures from Dusty's saddle bags and placed them on the table. "We have begun calling him The Black Rose" Luna began. "Pray tell, what dost thou know about-" Golden Scroll merely laughed, interrupting her with a mirthless and jeering guffaw. "You look good," Golden Scroll said when he was done laughing at them. "Are you eating well?" Luna regarded him with clear disdain and disgust, but said nothing. "I sure hope it wasn't anypony I know," Golden said, then began his derisive laughter again. Luna didn't respond, Dusty kept glancing at her, like he expected her to do something, say something, anything. "Oh, hello Dusty, keeping her bed warm?" Golden jeered. Luna almost leaped at Golden Scroll after that. "You spiteful cur!" She hissed. Now it was Golden's time to do nothing, just sitting there, legs bound up in a straight jacket, watching the pair of them. Princess Luna, after a few moments fuming, managed to regain her composure and continued. "The third neightional bank in Manehattan was robbed by this pony, but nothing was taken," Luna pressed. "We know it was one of yours that did it. Tell us, why was one of your ponies robbing a bank if they didn't want to take anything?" "Do you really think they would want to?!" Golden said, disgust dripping from his words. "I gave them more than you ever offered!" "You were the one that brought them here!" Dusty said loudly, earning a blank stare from Golden and a reproachful glare from Princess Luna. "We didn't offer them anything!" Golden waited, still staring at them almost blankly. "So disappointing," Golden Scroll said finally. "You really don't realize the flow of information here do you? So let me spell it out for you. You wouldn't let me know about the going-ons of the outside unless it was in danger, and that this 'Rose' of yours was one of mine is obvious because you wouldn't have bothered asking me about it unless you thought I might have something to share. And you wouldn't risk letting me know where it is unless it was either not there but in a similar location, or because it has already been moved elsewhere. However, if it was the latter... well, you said they didn't take anything, maybe it's because they didn't find what they were looking for." Luna and Dusty shared a nervous glance at each other, Golden looking at the pair of them. Golden Scroll sighed. "And, which of your students do you think did this?" Princess Luna asked, keeping herself as even as she could. Golden just laughed again, spiteful and full of hate. Dusty looked at Luna, Luna kept her gaze intense upon Golden’s face for several long seconds. "Why is it," Golden said after he was done. "That every time you come here, you think you're going to get more out of me than I get out of you? What, are you going to take me to bed or something? Don't pretend you weren't interested in me... once upon a time." Luna kept her gaze intense for a few more seconds, then she turned away, breaking off her stare. “But I’m forgetting, you liked Ancient Sand, didn’t you?” Golden asked, looking at Luna, “too bad he’s gone, he wasn’t a bad stallion, he’d have made a good match for you.” This time it was Luna really did lose control, her magic slamming into him, ripping his chair straight out of its bolts in the floor and pinning Golden against the far wall. Golden laughed and laughed, enjoying the torment of being squeezed half to death against the hard stone wall. Luna kept her magic tight against him, pain and anger dominating her face. Dusty made a little squeak and Golden only laughed all the more for it. Several seconds later, Luna released him, allowing him to fall to the ground. Golden Scroll began laughing again. “We are done here.” Luna said quietly, turning and ushering Dusty toward the door. Golden’s maniacal laughing followed them as they left through the door, chasing them down chambers, laughter and whispers mingling in tone and rhythm as they made their way to the entrance. “We are sorry thou hadst to go through that.” Luna apologized quietly as they slowly walked down the hallways toward the maze that led back up to the surface. “I just want my father back,” Dusty murmured. "Someday, I'm going to make him give him back." “I dost hope that thou art correct.” Luna said. - - - - - - - - - - Report: (M/D) 1375 FE (2012 back home) To: The Equestrian Portal Project Authority, Sr. Administrator: Dusty Legend. CC: The US Stellar Psychic Alien Macrocosms; Admin.: Brian Majors. CC: My family, address on file. CC: Myself, for my own records. From: Cobalt Skies, AKA, Simon Carbuncle Baker It is hard to write right now. I have taken Red’s advice and started exercising out in the snow. The road has been fairly packed down even though there aren’t many people traveling down it. The snow hasn’t melted but the wind hasn’t been very strong either. When the wind does pick up it howls out there something spooky but that’s not very often. The days I spend crying are much fewer these days, the last one was over a week ago. The reason why it’s hard to write is because my training generally involves running (galloping) every day, all the way down to the bridge which is about ten miles away or so. That means pounding my hooves pretty hard so my legs (near the hooves) tend to hurt. It’s starting to get to the point where my legs are still sore in the morning. I’ve noticed that this tends to make me delay my run until later in the day but I suspect this is just going to make them hurt more in the morning (healing time and stuff) and I’ll eventually be pushed into making the run in the night. Red threatened to lock me out if my run means coming back in after dark, I think he was joking but the prospect is still risky enough to make me reconsider. I’m worried that if I don’t lose weight then I’ll never be able to fly. I give up, I’ve been thinking for nearly an hour now (also trying to give my foreleg time to heal) my pen just hovering over the paper, but there really is no silver lining to the chance that I might not fly. There’s just no way around it and in the end, the solution is simple. I. Must. Fly. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Dear Dusty Legend, I was told to try and write to you if anything odd or unusual happened, honestly the specifics were a little vague. Cobalt is eager to help. Whenever there is something to do, he volunteers and does his best but I worry about him. It’s not like he usually works himself too much, indeed he often makes the excuse that work ethic plus laziness and brains results in efficiency. True, he usually has a decent idea or two about how to do things easier but still, I have to wonder where he came up with such thoughts. I managed to slip into his room while he was out on a run and found his journal just lying on his bed. He is obsessed with being able to fly, as though he is worried that he’ll end up being forced to leave or be forced to go back home and he’ll have missed his chance or something. The thing is, while nothing has happened that is particularly unusual, I can’t help but shake the feeling that something is going to happen. Cobalt is all but fanatical with trying to fly. It’s to the point that he has taken it upon himself to exercise, galloping twenty miles in the snow to a bridge and back. I say twenty, it is ten miles there and ten back. At least it didn’t take any convincing for him to go out there with his cloak. He seems to think a simple fur coat is enough to weather winter alone, just what kind of place does he come from to get that kind of idea?! The thing is, I think he is hurting himself. He tries to hide it but we can see that he is in pain after each run. He seems convinced that he is fat and needs to lose weight and I admit he was a tad plump when he first got here but he’s not anymore. He keeps referring to his own lack of strength but he’s been getting stronger so much as thinner and already seems decently healthy to me. He knows he’s smart and he often comes up with ideas or wild theories or stories but he’ll often point out the “dumb mistakes” he’s made or say he “can’t” do something and that’ll just be the end of it sometimes. It is as though he genuinely cannot see the progress he makes and just keeps thinking that he’s still in the same place he was when he first got here. And what if he actually does hurt himself or something? Her majesty’s humble servant, Red Pepper of the house of Melon. - - - - - - - - - - Cobalt panted hard in the cold evening air, a slight breeze helping to cool his body as he strode at nearly a gallop down the road. He was convinced he had very little time. They were spying on him and he knew it. While he had no delusions about his journal being private yet he believed that it would remain such unless somepony had wanted to spy on him. As he considered this he realized that if he was being spied upon, then he wanted to know about it. As such he often left his journal out on the bed mostly covered by a blanket. But as a security measure, he left a small cloth hidden under the blanket but on top of the journal. Anypony that didn’t know about the cloth would simply slip the journal out and then return it later, disturbing the hidden cloth both when the journal was removed and then later when it was returned. It had been less than two days after he’d started hiding his journal like that that he found the cloth disturbed. He double and triple checked his actions, there was only one way it could have ended up like that. Somepony else was reading his journal. If they were spying on him then they didn’t trust him. If they didn’t trust him then he’d probably already failed their experiment, whatever it was and they were going to send him back home soon. Cobalt considered that they might wait until winter had passed to send him home. But even with the possibility, he just couldn’t risk it, not when he hadn’t even gotten his hooves off the ground yet. Down the road he increased his pace, the pain in his legs and hooves telling him he was still alive. As he approached the bridge that marked the turnaround point his hooves were killing him, especially his fore-hooves, they were really on fire. “I can do this, I’ll slow down to give my legs time to heal on the way back.” Cobalt thought. A minute later he turned around and began the long walk back. Five minutes later Cobalt returned to the bridge. “No way,” Cobalt said to himself, trying to push through the pain, “if major athletes can do it then so can I. I’m gonna work until I MAKE myself fly!” He jumped and landed a few times, flapping his wings furiously, getting no more than a few seconds air-time with each jump. Cobalt took off, galloping down the road, he was convinced he still needed to lose weight, increase his strength, work his heart, everything if he was going to get his hooves off the- *TING* Cobalt fell forward. The pain so blinding that he couldn't even register that he wasn't running anymore. For a while, his brain was a kaleidoscope of thought and pain as he tried in vain to sort himself out, finally, he managed to get some handle on the pain and settled himself into a kind of mantra. Breathe in, breathe out, cry, repeat. Breathe in, breathe out, cry, repeat. Breathe in, breathe out, cry, repeat. For what felt like forever, that was all Cobalt could do, breathe in and out while the pain forced him to cry, his cries growing quieter as he became more accustomed to the pain. Finally he managed to master the pain enough to try and get a look at the injury. The hoof flared again like lightning arcing through his skin as he dragged the injured limb toward his head so he could get a good look at it. What he saw made his heart sink. His hoof was split in two. The sound he’d heard must have been his horseshoe snapping, taking the rest of his hoof with it in its division. The split reached all the way to the skin. He was bleeding. For a moment it was all Cobalt could do, lie there on his side on the hard frozen road, staring dumbly at his broken hoof, slowly bleeding onto the cold hard dirt, a light snow beginning to fall.