— Chapter 14 —
Keep the Faith
“It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.”
–Chuck Palahniuk
The guzheng’s strings bent and wound the haunting strains of a solo requiem piece through my ears and around my brain. I could feel my neck moving up and down slightly to match the pitch, as though the music itself would grow heavy on my head in one moment and then light again the next.
My mother, Petal Poem, was the soloist, and she was up on the stage of a grand outdoor opera house on the base tier of Canterlot. My father, Cloudburst, was sitting next to me in the front row. Whenever I looked over at him, he was entranced, unblinking. I probably could have lit his tail on fire and he wouldn’t have noticed.
The stage faced the mountainside, the conical shelter over it constructed in such a way to direct the music outward, away from the rest of the city, with the mountain itself as the back wall. All around me sat ponies of every type and color, many ponies I didn’t know and a few that I did. Aunt Persimmon and Uncle Mainsail were with us in the front row, as was my cousin Sheet Music and her daughter Sunray, Princess Celestia’s personal student.
Princess Celestia herself had not attended; over the past couple of days she had been taking up the mantle more and more of her character and less and less of the AI, and that meant pretending she was busy with royal duties and unable to be everywhere at once. Through deft in-character language, she would slickly dodge my attempts to have more meta-game conversations with her. Just that day it had gotten to the point where she would only look at me in patient bemusement if I brought up Earth, humans, or anything relating. I had agreed to be her herald at my emigration reception, but she had thereafter refused to give me any business to attend to. It seemed as though she really did just want to be a royal alicorn in my eyes and nothing more. Aside from that, I wasn’t sure what she wanted from me.
The thunder of hoof-applause jolted me from my thoughts. I looked up to see Mom bowing humbly to the audience while red roses rained down around her from rows behind me. Dad put the tip of one hoof in his mouth and let out an earsplitting whistle which made me wince. He was young and strong and his eyes were clear. A stranger would probably make us out to be brothers, and given my larger size and slightly deeper voice, I would probably be made out as the older brother. Seeing my friends and relatives as ponies felt at once bizarre and familiar like that.
I looked back up to the stage to see Mom being flanked by two unicorn mares, one dark gray and the other an off-white eggshell. The three of them were sharing a neck hug while stagehoofs carefully carried the guzheng away into the wings. Mom and the gray unicorn trotted offstage over the small pond of roses while the eggshell unicorn stayed put. From the opposite side that the guzheng had disappeared, a huge hammered dulcimer was wheeled to center stage. The unicorn took her place behind it and, using her magical field, picked up the two mallets resting in their holder. The audience gave a short, quiet applause while she bowed, and then she began playing. I listened.
* * *
I couldn’t get to sleep that night.
The malaise of being a pony in Equestria had relegated itself to a background hum in my mind, generally unintrusive but definitely there. Everypony around me seemed so happy and comfortable—I wondered what was keeping me from that. Princess Celestia had said it could take up to a week to adjust to life in Equestria, but I didn’t feel on track for even that timeframe. I’d given a hearty attempt at her instructions to ‘loosen up and relax,’ and while catching up and hanging out with all my friends from Earth had been great, that weird feeling never really went away. We were all ponies now, and in a subtle way it felt like we were all still just playing a game.
The warm night breeze flowing in through the open window carried the scent of baked apples to me. My mouth watered and my wings twitched under the covers, almost on impulse to fly me to the source and then probably devour it. I didn’t budge.
I never flew alone, only with other pegasi (usually Dad or Pickup Spare and his buddies) and only when it was necessary to stay with them. I felt guilty having those wings. Flying was awesome and all, but why should I get the privilege of flying when two-thirds of my fellow ponies didn’t? Deep down, I knew it was just more of the mental shit that Princess Celestia told me I had going on. I was having a tough time in particular moving away from the notion that my happiness would come at the cost of somepony else’s happiness. I’d picture some earth-pony or unicorn looking up at me flying overhead and feeling bummed that they couldn’t join me. It was silly and I knew it, but I couldn’t shake it off.
What I could shake off, however, were the covers. I got out of bed and went to stand at the window, putting my forehooves up on the sill.
There was a hint of cinnamon mixed in with the apple smell. Apple crisp, or perhaps just a very perky apple pie. My stomach growled and I knew I had to get away from the window. I shut the panes and let out a sigh. I needed to talk to somepony.
Princess Celestia would have been “asleep” by then, playing her role to the hilt. I knew she didn’t have to sleep, of course, but I was still smart enough to take it as a cue not to disturb her. I looked out the window again, up at the gigantic crescent moon looming in the sky.
* * *
In my few days of living at the royal palace I had learned at least enough of its layout to get around to the important places: the dining hall, the main gate, the library, the throne room, and the royal dormitories.
I stood before Princess Luna’s bedroom door, let out a breath, and rapped my hoof gently against the oaken surface three times. In a moment briefer than I had been prepared for, the door swung open quickly, just far enough for a strange-looking gray pony to peek her head out and narrow amber eyes at me. The pupils were slitted, like a cat’s.
She looked me up and down once, then sneered a little. “Her Royal Highness does not require a stallion this evening, thank you,” she said in a rather noticeable Bittish accent.
The door creaked slightly, and my hoof moved faster than my mouth could. I blocked the door open before it could be closed in my face while I tried to explain.
“Wh-what? No! I’m just… I’m just here to talk with her.”
“Right, sure you are,” she said. “Now get—”
She cut herself off, one tufted ear swiveling to one side. I could hear Princess Luna’s voice somewhere behind her, muffled by the door.
“Oh, nopony, Your Royal Highness,” she said in reply. “Just some corn-fed pegasus who looks lost.”
Princess Luna’s voice responded. As she spoke, the strange cat-eyed pony’s lips puckered in annoyance. Then she nodded slightly. She backed away from the door, not opening it for me. I pushed it open with a hoof and stepped inside.
The mare who’d answered the door was already galloping out to the balcony, spreading her pair of strange, batlike wings. With a couple of flaps, she was gone, off into the deepening night. Princess Luna was lounging on a pile of cushions opposite her canopy bed, quietly reading a book plucked from the bookshelf behind her. A decanter and glass of red wine sat nearby, and every so often she would use her magic to take a sip of the wine as she read.
I stood by the door. “Am I interrupting?” I asked.
She gave me a dainty shake of her head. “Not at all, Prominence,” she said with a smile.
I looked to the balcony. “Who was that?”
Princess Luna shrugged with her wings. “Oh, don’t mind her,” she said. “The members of my retinue tend to be overly protective of me.”
“She called you ‘Your Royal Highness,’” I said. “Uh, do you also want me to—”
“Absolutely not,” said Princess Luna, shaking her head. “She only did that because you were standing there and she doesn’t yet know who you are. Please, relax. Call me ‘Luna.’”
I approached her and stopped a few paces away, settling down onto the carpeted floor with my legs under me. I looked down at the floor and chewed my bottom lip while I gathered my thoughts.
According to Celestia, this Luna was an independent consciousness that had been modeled off of a real human woman. There was effectively no difference between her and a “real” immigrant like me, in terms of thought processes, opinions and logic. I let out a breath and met eyes with her.
“All right then. So anyway, uh, Luna… you were human once, correct?”
The princess used her magic to set a bookmark at her current page. She closed the book and set it aside, giving me her complete attention. “Just like you, yes,” she said.
“How was it for you? Like, when you first got here.”
She tilted her head and her eyes went up to the ceiling. One of her ears flicked. “Hmm. Well… I was ready for it, for starters. I dare say nopony on Earth could have been more prepared for it than I was. More eager, certainly, but not more prepared. After I awoke as a pony, there was a lot of pinching myself… figuratively, of course. Lots of ‘is this real,’ ‘did this happen,’ ‘did I actually pull it off,’ ‘am I dreaming,’ that kind of thinking. It’s one thing to have Celestia tell you what’s going on, to talk to ponies who have supposedly emigrated, to look at server logs and diagnostics… it’s quite another to actually have it happen to you yourself.
“It was disorienting, for certain, what with learning to fly and to use my magic powers and the Equestrian lore and rules that Celestia had folded into the game, but after that, she just… she gave me what I needed.”
Luna offered me another smile. “Does that help, Prominence?”
I shrugged with my wings. “A little, I suppose.” A beat passed between us, and then I asked “So were you happy after that?”
“I was satisfied,” said Luna. I winced, and she giggled. “I’m sorry. Does that sound too much like something Celestia would say?”
“Kind of,” I murmured.
“There was no ‘light bulb’ moment, if that’s what you’re getting at,” she said, “no switch that got flicked from being nervous and fearful to being completely content and one with Equestria.” She shrugged with her own wings. “It just happens, like getting used to sleeping in a new house after you move in. It’s gradual, not sudden, not sharp. Life is like that, I realized, whether you’re walking on two legs or four.”
I looked over at the massive sextant out on the balcony and ran a hoof along the soft carpet beneath me. I must not have looked very reassured, because Luna spoke again.
“What have you been doing, Prominence, these last few days?”
“Catching up with my friends and family. Seeing how they’re living. Wandering around the palace. Waiting.”
“You’re not doing anything fun?”
“I’m waiting for Princess Cel—”
“I’m sure she’d prefer it if you dropped the titles and styles,” said Luna.
I cleared my throat. My pony brain wanted to call her “princess,” but the closeness of our relationship apparently superseded that. “Well. I’m waiting for Celestia to give me some herald stuff to do.”
Luna laughed, free of mockery. “Oh, Prominence!” she said at last. “Don’t you realize what Equestria Online was meant to do?”
I arched an eyebrow. The question was so direct that I thought it was a trick at first. “...satisfy values?”
“Satisfy your values!” she cried, bringing the wine up to take a sip before continuing. “You’re so concerned with what you think my sister wants that you’ve given no thought to what you want!”
“The herald thing was her idea, not mine,” I pointed out.
“You’ve got hooves and a tail now, so she got what she wanted already, believe me,” said Luna, fixing me with her gaze. “Your duties as Herald of the Sun will fulfill your need to serve and be valuable in that service, but even you can’t have such a one-sided measure of values, can you?”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Isn’t that enough?”
“You’ve got to stop assuming the limitations of Earth,” said Luna. “Celestia can alter reality itself here. Anything you choose to do will result in the satisfaction of your values. She will see to it. She probably isn’t willing to move forward with you until you figure that out.”
I thought about Mom, up there on the stage, playing an instrument I had never even heard her express an interest in as a human, much less played, much much less become a virtuoso at.
“All around you, your fellow ponies are no longer playing a game,” said Luna. “We’re just living life. Enjoying it. Embracing Equestria. You should join us.” She smiled warmly at me before going back to her book.
“How do I do that?” I asked her, but she pointedly ignored me, a smile still on her face.
I looked at the balcony once more. The clear, starry night sky beckoned me; I could almost feel it under my wings. It was a foreign, shivery feeling, but good, like feeling that first drink of cool water after half a day in the summer sun. My wings wanted to flap. Restless wing syndrome. I cracked a smile. It wouldn’t hurt to indulge—Luna had told me as much.
I wondered where I could go. It was too late to visit anypony on a sane sleep schedule and all the stores would be closed. I didn’t know the city at all, and Ponyville was a considerable way out, even for a pegasus. So I could fly, but I had nowhere to fly to.
The smell of baked apples touched my nose again. I grinned and started galloping for the railing.
* * *
The next two weeks flew by, and I flew with it.
I joined a pickup weather team and learned how to help make a rain shower for the earth-ponies’ crops. I sat in on a lecture at Canterlot University regarding the makeup of magic and its basis in friendship. I watched the Royal Guard practice their drill and ceremonies, both in the courtyard and in the sky above it. I delivered stock for grocery stores fresh from Ponyville to Cloudsdale, on my own back, carried by my own wings. Everything I did resulted in at least one new friend, and a few bits here or a badge there often came along with it.
I began to understand what Luna had meant; the more I kept busy, the less and less strange it felt to be a colorful pony in a storybook world. I was just me, Prominence the pegasus. I had once been a human named Greg, sure, but it seemed no more or less mundane than just an older phase of my life, one I looked back on with few regrets. I was proud of who I had been and what I had done, and word had gotten around about it even in Equestria—something I attributed to probably a combination of my parents’ bragging and Celestia’s machinations.
The more I did for others, and the more I did for myself, the more satisfied I became. Luna had also been right about divorcing happiness from satisfaction: weathercraft was hard, exhausting work, and sometimes I had to choose which friends I helped and spent time with, which could be disappointing. Everything always seemed to work out for the best in the end, however, even if I couldn’t see what that end was.
On my last day of my brief journey of self-discovery, I resolved to tie up a loose end from Earth. I asked around at the palace, which led me to Ponyville, which led me to the outskirts along the border with a rather ominous forest known as Everfree.
I knocked on Fluttershy’s cottage door with a hoof and took a step back.
I could only barely remember what she looked like from the most faded outer edges of my memory, but when she answered the door and stood there in front of me, the gaps were filled in. It had definitely been her.
She squeaked and lowered her head a little, her long mane flowing out in front of her eyes as she tried to make herself as small as possible.
“Hello, Fluttershy,” I said quietly, keeping my distance. “Do you recognize me? Do you remember who I am?”
After a long pause, she summoned the absolute boldness necessary to nod. Her eyes were still hidden behind her pale pink mane. I smiled at her.
“My name is Prominence now,” I said. “Thank you for being there for me. Without you, I…” I let out a nervous laugh. “Well, I guess I wouldn’t have made it here.” I gestured around me with a hoof.
I waited a few moments, but she didn’t say anything. It was just as well. What was there to be said, after all?
“Anyway, I won’t keep you,” I went on. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m grateful, and… I think I’m gonna be okay. Have a great day.”
She squeaked again. I nodded a goodbye to her, turned around, and took to the sky.
I was headed for a precipitation factory tour in Cloudsdale, but as I flapped to gain altitude over Ponyville, two white Royal Guard pegasi fell into formation on either side of me, easily matching my climb.
“Prominence,” said the guard on my left, “Her Royal Highness has requested your presence at the palace.”
“Your attendance,” added the guard on my right, “is highly encouraged.”
I knew that lingo well enough. I cleared my throat and looked ahead.
“Well, lead on,” I said, allowing the guards to escort me the rest of the way.
* * *
Celestia had been right. I was wearing white once again. This time, however, it was armor.
Royal haberdashers fussed around me in a spacious dressing room while I stood stock still at the pony equivalent of attention. Unicorn tailors took tape measurements of me from every conceivable dimension while earth-pony tackers pulled and hauled mightily to get straps into place and adjusted for my frame. I tried to keep the grunts and yelps under control, but they were positively manhandling me at certain points. I attempted to weather the situation by keeping my attention on my reflection in the mirror which ran the length of one wall of the room. He didn’t seem any less confused than I was.
It did slowly start to come together, however. I suppose with Celestia’s hint to me at the reception, it had been a foregone conclusion, but the royal armorers had agreed that, with my subdued yellow coat, plate armor enameled in white would provide a nice inverted contrast to the brass-on-white color scheme of the main pegasus force. As the haberdashers got my fittings dialed in and the armor pieces set and locked in place on the barding, I saw myself slowly transforming once more.
When it was all done and the haberdashers and armorers stepped away to let me look at myself, I felt my jaw drop a bit. The armor was metal, and though I didn’t know what kind of metal it was beneath the enamel treatment, the weight of it was distributed so expertly along my back and under my wings and barrel that I hardly felt the burden at all. My hooves were also shod in white, with plates along the front of my legs and encircling the base of my neck, low enough to give me as much flexibility as I might need. The cut of the flank plates allowed my cutie mark to show, signifying the uniqueness of my post—most other guardsponies, with the exception of other single-billet posts like Captain of the Guard, had armor which concealed their cutie marks for the sake of uniformity.
I had to admit, I looked damn good. Dashing, even. I supposed that was the intended effect.
Celestia entered then, snapping me out of my self-review, holding a golden band and a folded piece of white cloth in her yellow magical field. The servant-ponies around me instantly fell into a bow, and I did the same, marking how easy it still was to move, even with the armor on. Whoever had designed it was a master at their craft.
“Rise, all of you,” she said, smiling at the assembly. She then looked straight at me, and her eyes twinkled.
“I decided to afford myself the honor of coloring you, Prominence,” said Celestia, “since it is my prerogative to do so anyway.” She lowered her chin slightly. “Please, extend your wings.”
I did so, and before I knew it she had unfurled the cloth and draped it down across my back, my wings sliding through two holes to keep it in place. I craned my neck around to see it. It was a tabard, small and simple, embroidered with Princess Celestia’s cutie mark on each side. As I looked at it, I felt cool metal settle down on my head, tucked behind my ears. I tried to look at it for a moment before remembering that I had a mirror in front of me. Even as I corrected myself, I heard Celestia giggle.
On my head sat a thin, simple circlet, little more than an unadorned band of gold, with a single white pearl set in the middle, centered just above my eyes.
“I hereby style you Herald of the Sun,” said Celestia. “You shall be a living extension of my will to all corners of Equestria, and it will be known.” It felt a bit much, to be honest, but I supposed that Celestia could have pulled out all the stops and paraded me in front of a bunch of ponies out in the throne room like she did with my arrival party. That would have been worse.
She looked past me to the lead armorer. “You have done an exemplary job with this latest design, Ferrous Fire. Please accept my invitation to dine at the palace tonight. Your wife and foal are invited as well, of course.”
The deep brown earth-pony stallion’s eyes lit up with joy. “Oh! O-of course, Your Royal Highness! Nothing could make us happier!”
She smiled at him. “Oh, come now, we both know that’s quite unlikely.”
They shared a laugh, and she looked to me. “Come, Prominence. I should like to put you to work at once.”
I turned and thanked everypony in turn, surprised at the beaming faces and hugs I received. Once I was at last free to follow Celestia out into the corridor, something occurred to me.
“Celestia, was Ferrous Fire a human too?” I asked her.
“He was!” she said, obviously glad I had made the connection. “He lived in Peru, in a coastal town called Mollendo. On Earth, you two were complete strangers, and had no impact on each others’ lives. But here in Equestria, I can intersect and interweave ponies’ lives on a global scale such to ensure maximum satisfaction for all involved. Your armor was a royal commission, but to Ferrous Fire it was labor of love, a magnum opus that he worked hard to perfect. I commissioned him, and your assumption of the duties of Herald was a milestone in his career. You couldn’t see it, but he received an achievement badge and a considerable sum of bits after I shared my approval.
“He was a fisherman on Earth, but here, he can live his dream of blacksmithing. He benefits you, and you benefit him. Nopony is an island, not even after emigration.”
Thoughts of other humans flashed through my head. My ears perked, pushing in against the circlet. “The family of five in Astoria? Did they upload?”
Celestia nodded, her eyes twinkling. “Well before you did,” she said. “Safe and sound, all of them.”
A palace guard and a mare in a French maid uniform stepped to the side as Celestia passed and bowed to her. She nodded to them with a warm smile. I looked away.
“What about… uh, Blevins?” I asked. “Blevins and his kid and all those folks at the—”
Celestia chuckled. “It’s a shame you didn’t watch the show, Prominence. Let’s just say I took some inspiration from the episode ‘Too Many Pinkie Pies.’”
A shiver ran from the tips of my ears, down my spine and into my tail, though I didn’t know what caused it. Then an image of myself as a human brought itself to the forefront of my mind. I remembered once more that sudden disorientation, then Fluttershy looking down at me.
“I had to kill you with kindness,” Celestia had said. Whatever had happened to me before Fluttershy brought me here, it hadn’t happened in an Equestrian Experience Center chair.
I recounted how long I had been in Equestria and then bit my lip. I wondered how I had looked, from Fluttershy's perspective. Before I could stop it, I pictured my old human body, wherever it was, rotting and stinking in the sun, the flesh starting to slough off and turn gray, eyes sinking back into the sockets before eventually dissolving, carrion birds coming to eat at me. I pictured some other holdout, perhaps with an unwanted pony companion, passing by my skeletonized corpse, looking down and shaking her head, feeling sorry for me, wondering if I had emigrated.
The sudden blast of sunlight through a stained-glass window in the corridor brought me back to the then and there. I blinked rapidly and looked to Celestia, who was watching me from the corner of her eye, smiling as she always did.
“We’re here,” she said, and pointed at something on the wall, just past the window. I squinted past the dazzle in my eyes, finally able to see the double doors there. One of the doors had been propped open in a rather informal way, letting in a pleasant breeze from the outside to stir the air of the hallway a bit.
I followed her through the open door and out onto a large balcony overlooking the north slope of the mountain. The snow-capped peak above us glittered in the midday sun, and out over the hazy horizon I could see dozens of pegasi, either as black specks on the clear blue sky or weaving between the spires of the palace. Occasional flashes and glints of yellow light marked some of these pegasi as guardsponies, but there were also servants cleaning the roofs and visitors touring the palace gardens. I inhaled deeply, catching the faintest whiff of honeysuckle from the main courtyard on the other side of the wall.
“Are you ready for your first quest, Herald of the Sun?” asked Celestia.
“Absolutely, Your Royal Highness,” I replied with a theatrical bow. Wearing the armor definitely made me feel more the part. Celestia grinned at me. She must have liked that I was getting into it. The small dialog window appeared once more in my vision.
QUEST ACCEPTED:
“The Rain Insane”
Deliver hope to Hulehearth.
“Fly south,” said Celestia, “until you happen across stormclouds moving with the wind. Penetrate the cloud cover and locate a village populated by donkey-folk. Make contact with the mayor and tell her I am coming and will be there presently.”
“At once, princess!” I cried, taking to the sky as she laughed at my enthusiasm. I circled around the palace and struck out southward, sticking my forehooves straight out, trying to wring as much speed from my wings as I could.
Celestia had not been wrong. I could feel the old feeling coming back to me, the feeling of being in a car on the open road, speeding to somepony who needed my help at her behest. I felt my heart start to beat harder in excitement. I was right where I needed to be.
Ponyville passed by on my right, and far off to my left I could see the barest glimmer of the sea that I had flown over with Luna on my first night in Equestria. The wind was beginning to roar in my ears, so I flattened them against my head. The sudden relative quiet brought me to an almost meditative state. I was literally high above it all there, but the zenlike detachment let me truly appreciate the beauty of Equestria below. It was so big, so very unbelievably big, and the ruler of it all was of a mind to set me loose upon it.
I could hardly wait.
* * *
The stormclouds boiled low over the plainsland where the donkeys made their home. It took some effort to punch through them, accounting for the innate pegasus ability to manipulate clouds as though they were cottony fabric, but I finally got through. Once on the other side and under the assault of the cold and slashing rain, however, I saw the extent of the trouble the donkeys were in.
The sun had been completely blocked out; it was nearly as dark as night. The storm was dumping rain relentlessly on the village and, more importantly, it was flooding the lowland crops where the donkeys grew their food and exports. Nopony was outside to greet me, which I understood, and earth-ponies and donkeys built their homes to last, so they were in little immediate danger. I still had work to do, however. I still had to deliver hope.
I galloped through the loose slurry that the town commons had become, kicking up mud onto my pristine armor as I searched through the deluge for the largest house in the village. Once I found it—a splendid two-story affair with stucco walls holding up a thatched roof—I knocked a hoof hard against the thick wooden door and stood by.
I mused on the fact that I was once again wearing white in a downpour before the door opened and a donkey jenny poked her head out to squint at me. I felt a small puff of wonderful warmth from within the house on my neck.
“Who goes?” she asked, shouting to be heard over the rain.
“Madam mayor,” I shouted back, “I am Prominence, Herald of the Sun. Her Royal Highness Princess Celestia will be here shortly to banish these rainclouds.”
“‘bout time!” The jenny peered past me to glance up at the sky. “Will she be long?”
“I don’t know exactly when she’ll be coming,” I said, “but her eye is on your village, rest assured.”
“Well, no use standin’ out there tryin’ to soak it all up yerself,” she said. “Get in here and get warm. I’ll put on some tea.”
I shook my head, and some of my wet mane fell in front of one eye. “If it’s all the same, ma’am, I’ll stand watch for her out here,” I said. “Thank you, though.”
She arched an eyebrow at me, but then shrugged. “Sure do grow ‘em strange up there in Cloudsdale,” she said, “but t’aint no fuzz off my nose. You know how t’find me!”
She closed the door in my face, and the wonderful warmth of the house disappeared immediately. I flicked my bit of mane out of my eye and turned around to survey the village.
The place was a mess, and deteriorating all the more. If I had known it was that bad, I would have suggested Celestia come with me. Perhaps that was what I was supposed to do, I thought. Perhaps I had already failed the quest and didn’t know it.
I shook the thought free of my mind and walked back to the commons at the center of the village. My tabard was soaked through, my shoes stained a dark brown from the mud. Physical discomfort was something I had learned to ignore, for the most part, so I flattened my ears against my head, shutting out the din of the rain, and thought.
My quest was to deliver hope to the donkeys. I told the mayor that Celestia was coming, just as she herself had instructed. Was that it? The mayor hadn’t looked very hopeful, even after I’d delivered the good news. There were several houses there; perhaps I had to tell every last household that Celestia was coming…
No. That would take far too long. The village would practically be underwater by then.
I glared up at the stormclouds. Something had to be done soon. Celestia might not have been there, but I was, and I’d learned the basics of moving clouds around, so there was nothing else for it. I murmured a quiet apology to Celestia for stealing her thunder and took off, up into the storm.
I’d learned during my mini-sabbatical that stormclouds, unlike regular white clouds, were fussy and difficult to work with. Separating them was like pulling a bit of taffy into two separate parts, except that if a pegasus let up at all, the clouds would spring right back into place and she’d lose all her progress. For that reason, storm-breakup duty was usually handled by a team of pegasi working in concert, but out in Hulehearth I was the only pegasus around for miles.
It was a matter of splitting the clouds up into small enough chunks that I could buck them away in different directions and the wind would carry them elsewhere. I worked the nearly-black clouds as best I could, pulling and pushing and hauling until I got a tear going down the center, then parting it with the chestpiece of my armor. The line of sunlight hitting the earth in my wake heartened me, and I redoubled my efforts.
It could only have been a few minutes’ worth of work, but it had taken a few days’ worth of effort. I bucked the final stormcloud into a nearby tradewind heading further inland and very nearly fell out of the sky just after. The donkeys were already filtering out of their houses by the time I touched down on shaky, exhausted legs. My wings were already starting to grow stiff as they began whooping and dancing for joy, and I mentally steeled myself for one hell of a soreness in the morning.
“Hurrah for Princess Celestia!” shouted a jack.
“Glory to Her Royal Highness, we are delivered!” cried a nearby jenny.
“Praise the sun!” crooned another jack, rearing up and holding out his forelegs in a Y over his head.
I stumbled over to the mayor, panting and shaking. I imagined I probably looked much less impressive than I had in the mirror at the palace. She gave me a small, sweet smile, and I returned it with a nod as the sun began to warm the back of my neck. I looked out over the farmland. It resembled a marsh more than a tilled field, with wheat instead of cattails, but I knew Celestia’s sun would make short work of the flooding. In fact, the donkeys were now in for a pleasant, if not waterlogged, rest of the day.
Confetti popped out from the corners of my vision, and as the tinny fanfare played in my ears I saw a new dialog box appear.
QUEST COMPLETED:
“The Rain Insane”
If you have something to give, then give it. Don’t give it up.REWARD:
Pot of Hulehearth soil × 1
The mayor nudged me with a foreleg, and I looked from the fading box over to her.
“Sometimes folk forget that just ‘cause the sun ain’t shinin’ on them don’t mean it ain’t shinin’ at all. Thank you for bringin’ it back t’us.”
“It was my pleasure,” I said, and meant it.
* * *
The Hulehearth soil was waiting for me in my bedroom when I got back, sitting in a simple clay planter pot on the windowsill. I didn’t notice anything special about it, but it was my first tangible reward for doing a good deed in Equestria, so it held sentimental value, if nothing else.
I wriggled out of my armor and drew a bath, hot and relaxing. After I was clean and dry once more, I flopped onto my incredibly soft, comfortable bed and slept like death.
A knocking on the door awoke me sometime after night had fallen. I rolled out of bed, already feeling the soreness in my wings, and saw my armor had been cleaned and neatly arranged by the full-length mirror. Still a little weak-kneed from the day’s exertions, I ambled over to the door and opened it slowly. The servant-pony on the other side of the door, a dark blue unicorn mare wearing a page’s smock, gave me a pleasant smile.
“Sir Prominence,” she said, “Dusk Court has concluded, the moon has been raised, and Her Royal Highness wishes to know whether you will be taking dinner in the hall this evening or here in your chamber.”
“Oh, I, uh…” I looked over at the mirror, with my armor nearby.
I hadn’t seen Celestia since she had sent me off; I figured it would be good to speak with her regarding the nature of my quests as a herald.
“I’ll be at the dining hall, I guess,” I said. “Thanks for letting me know.”
She bowed her head a little. “Of course, sir,” she said. “Dinner will finish seating in fifteen minutes.” Before I could say anything else, she used her magic to gently close the door.
I looked over at my armor again and sucked a tooth. I didn’t know if there was a dress code for dinner or not. Most ponies didn’t wear clothes as a matter of course…except for those on the job and aristocrats and nobles, like the kind a princess would invite to dine with her. I decided to play it safe. Besides, somepony had gotten my armor sorted for me, so I figured I might as well get some more mileage out of it. The fact that it made me look awesome certainly didn’t hurt either.
The rule of thumb (hoof?) with the armor was to work from the center of the body outwards. It seemed at first to be something a single pony wouldn’t be able to do on his own, but everything had been expertly adjusted to fit me like a glove (horseshoe?) and it only took a bit of visualization to see how it all went on. My first solo donning of the armor took me ten minutes, but as I strode out the door I felt confident I could get it down to significantly less with a bit of practice.
I trotted through the palace corridors to the dining hall, wanting to hurry without looking undignified to passers-by by galloping. I let out a sigh of relief as I slowed down to a walk just before rounding the corner to appear in front of the dining hall’s open doors. Nopony had been served yet. I stepped inside quietly.
The huge, long dining table was nearly full of ponies, most of whom I didn’t recognize. Celestia sat at one end of the table, Luna at the opposite end. The table itself must have been nearly forty feet long. The room was lit for the nighttime meal, which meant no torches, only candles, keeping the light low and the shadows dim and fuzzy. Opposite the table, a large fire snapped and popped in the massive fireplace, helping to cozy up the huge hall a bit. Royal standards and banners hung from the rafters while thick tapestries adorned the stone walls.
Naturally, there were no open cushions near Celestia, with social climbers vying for attention and favors. There was, however, a cushion right at the corner by Luna, which I gladly took.
“Good evening, Sir Prominence,” said Luna with a chuckle. “Have you been getting on okay so far?”
“Pretty well, Luna,” I replied, “thank you for asking.”
“Oi, Corn-fed!” came a slightly familiar Bittish accent. “I don’t care how good of a gigolo you might be, you do not omit the style when addressing Her Royal Highness.”
I looked across the table. Sitting at the other corner, at Luna’s right hoof, was the strange gray cat-eyed pony from a couple of weeks ago, and in that moment she was giving me the hairy cat-eyeball.
Luna giggled. “Oh my, I forgot, the two of you were never introduced!” She brought up a hoof and pointed it at me. “Tranquility, this is Prominence, Herald of the Sun. Prominence, this is Tranquility, Herald of the Moon.”
The bat-winged pony named Tranquility blinked, then narrowed her eyes at me.
“Oh!” I said. “Hello, Tranquility, nice to m—”
“Corn-fed here is Princess Celestia’s herald? Him?”
I squirmed in my seat, feeling a bit self-conscious. “Uh, yeah. Why, is that a problem?”
She half snorted, half laughed. “You’re too thickly-built to be a proper herald,” she said. “I bet you couldn’t even out-fly a bee!”
“Now now, Tranquility, be nice,” said Luna, placating her with her other hoof. “Prominence’s mother is an earth-pony. That’s why he’s a bit bigger than most pegasi.”
Tranquility took on an oily smile. “Oh ho, so dear ol’ dad’s a bit of a ground-pounder, is he?” She sniffed.
I bristled at that. As I had learned while carousing with Pickup Spare and the rest of his pegasus buddies—along with many, many other things—”ground-pounder” was a slightly pejorative term for a pegasus who had a thing for earth-ponies.
I tried to keep civil. “I would think that hardly matters,” I said.
“Of course it matters, Corn-fed,” said Tranquility, leaning on the table. “Sure, havin’ a bit of the earth-pony muscle might seem like a fine and dandy proposition, but an herald needs speed above all else—speed that only a pure-bred pegasus can muster.”
“I am sure my sister chose Prominence for a reason,” said Luna, “and we are none of us in a position to question that. Besides, I have nothing but faith in him, and you should too, Tranquility.”
“I’ll have faith in him when he beats me in a race, princess,” said Tranquility, never taking her eyes off me. “Of course, we both have an inkling as to how likely that is, don’t we, Corn-fed?”
The servants brought out the silver platters and placed one before each of us, lifting the cover to reveal the night’s dish. I didn’t look down at it for several seconds, instead evenly holding Tranquility’s gaze until she decided to look away.
“Well now!” she said, looking down at her platter. “Beefbark with string beans, cranberries, and roasted potatoes. Looks like there’s no corn on the menu tonight, chap!”
I didn’t respond. Instead, I focused on eating.
* * *
“Please forgive Tranquility,” said Luna once we were alone in the hallway after the meal. “I know she seems rather prickly, but—”
I held up a hoof. “It’s all right, Luna,” I said. “It’s natural to be suspicious of the new guy. It was the same way back on… well. Let’s just say that that’s the way it’s always been.”
She nodded. “I know what you mean!” she said. “I’m glad she didn’t upset you.”
“Nah, my skin’s thicker than that,” I said. “It’ll take more than my ground-pounder dad to embarrass me!”
The Princess of the Moon giggled. “Do you know what the term is for a pegasus who fancies unicorns?” she asked.
I consulted my mental repository of all the salty talk that Pickup Spare and his bowling buddies got up to. “Can’t say that I do,” I said at last.
“Horn-horny,” she said. “A bit rough, but cute in its own way. Anyhow, I’m sure you and Tranquility will become fast friends, once the initial wariness has worn off.”
I rubbed my chin. “Hmm, you think she’ll be able to stand how slowly I fly?”
“I hope so, for both your sakes!” said Luna. “Tia and I often have need of both heralds for a mission.”
“And at all hours of the day and night,” said Celestia from behind me. I turned to watch her approach, then bowed when she stopped. She smiled at me before craning her neck over to nuzzle Luna. “Know that you are my little sister’s to command as well, Prominence.”
“Understood, princess,” I said.
“For now, however, I know that your rest was somewhat interrupted,” said Celestia. “Please, go and take some recreation or sleep. Luna and I have matters to discuss on our own.”
As if on cue, I yawned deeply and nodded my assent. I bowed to them both (which flustered Princess Luna a great deal) and took my leave back to my room.
I didn’t realize how tired I was until the door was shut behind me. As I turned around to face the mirror and shrug off my armor, I saw two ponies waiting for me by the bed. They were sturdily-built earth-ponies, and both of them were bright green.
“Sore wings?” asked Effleurage.
“Sore legs?” asked Petrissage. “Her Royal Highness said you’d be stiff as a board after breaking up that storm all by your lonesome!”
I groaned.
* * *
The next morning, I stood before Princess Celestia in my armor once again. She sat upon her throne, looking down on me from atop the dais over the fountain which fed the rest of the palace.
I prostrated myself, and she bid me rise. She held my gaze lovingly for a moment before speaking.
“Prominence,” she said, “do you understand the rewards from yesterday’s quest?”
I scratched the back of my head with the heel of my hoof. “Er… that soil?”
She chuckled. “Hulehearth soil is infused with intensely concentrated earth-magic, it’s true,” she said. “Anything you plant in that soil will grow rapidly and healthily, just as though an earth-pony were tending it personally. But there was another reward I believe you earned, wasn’t there?”
I closed my eyes and lowered my head a little. “Yes,” I said. “You told me to bring them hope, and as your herald I thought that meant simply telling them you were coming.”
“That is what you thought initially,” said Celestia.
“Yes,” I replied, “but as the rain continued I realized what you would have done once you were there: you would have parted the clouds to let the sun shine through. The sun was already there; all it needed was somepony to get the obstacles out of its way.”
She nodded, looking pleased with me. “Indeed, my dear Prominence,” she said. “As the sun and the keeper of Equestria, I am already everywhere. What matters, however, is not the power I wield, but the satisfaction ponies can have from helping one another directly. You did indeed bring them hope. You also brought them the sun. You would never have hesitated like that as a human. You knew then that you had the power to save ponies, to bring me to them. I simply wanted to help you remember that it needn’t be any different here in Equestria.”
SECRET BADGE GRANTED:
“As You Were”
Find the Equestrian analogue to your Earth values.
+1,000 bits
“I know how that quest made you feel inside,” said Celestia, growing quieter. “It is how I estimated you felt when I fed your complex as a human. Now, however, you are in a healthier mindset, with proper emotional support in place, and I can maximize all of the satisfactory elements of your life.
“With that said, my precious Prominence, I have another quest for you. Do you need to hear the details first?”
I smiled and said no.