//------------------------------//
// The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis as it Relates to Equestrian Macroeconomics 
// Story: The Ninety-nine Nectars of Princess Luna; Or How Twilight Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Her Wings 
// by NoeCarrier 
//------------------------------//


Chapter Five


“The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis as it Relates to Equestrian Macroeconomics” 




Astrapios returned to the docks by way of the Dry Market, which sat furthest from the sea, and served as the main outlet for Port Dauphine's non-fishy produce and trade goods. After all, it was only alce, gryphons and pegasus who ate fish, or meat at all for that matter, and much in the way of spice and silk from the homeland was needed to keep the higher classes back in Canterlot happy. As soon as Astrapios entered the first of many long, stall lined streets, the stink of bacon overwhelmed him like a wet carpet.

It wasn't that hippogryphs couldn't eat meat. Far from it, in fact, for they like all gryphish creatures were capable omnivores. Already, a little spring inside Astrapios' hindbrain was beginning to uncoil, demanding he take to the wing and hunt down whatever was smelling like so much fried pig. I must be strong, he thought, in a way that if vocalised would have been a desperate whimper. What would mother think?

Hippogryphs had been selective vegetarians for almost four hundred years, since the last big internecine conflict with the alce, who were pure carnivores. It was a battle adaptation designed to counter dwindling food supplies, which later became tribute, and finally rigid morality, to the point where a hippogryph eating meat would be seen even by outsiders as an earth pony waking up one morning and deciding it wanted to fly all the way to the butchers. But the biological equipment, both in digestive plumbing and predatory faculty, remained very much intact. Astrapios had on several occasions almost thrown himself overboard at the sight of a mackerel or cod flitting beneath the waves.

Instead he drifted right past the alce owned café, which was full of the bulky shapes of its beaked clientèle breakfasting on whatever unfortunates graced their grill today, and into the streets beyond, which carried the fruits and nuts far favoured by the hoofed majority population. The pleasant floral tones of apples and oranges filled his keen olfactory, going some way to take his mind off the idea of pork. What about a nice BLT? There has to be a compromise somewhere. No! Just think about melons, and mangos. Lovely, juicy mangos, dripping with juice. Peaches! Definitely don't think about tearing out a jugular vein to still the thrashing of a hard-won prey animal, like a gazelle or something. Oh skies above! Watermelons!

Stressful days like this one had a habit of testing his ability to remain vegetarian. Not that he'd ever really fallen off the chariot, as it were, but gryphish creatures were, by and large, taut feathery balls of coiled muscle and instinct, acting and reacting on pure primeval instinct. It was as though for most of the time sentient, logical thought barely factored into it all. Alce, especially, were like this. Their lack of wings did them no disservice, quite the reverse in fact, for having to move and hunt along the ground had born a subspecies far closer to the mythical lion creatures they were all supposed to have been descended from. They tended to impose themselves like hillocks, whereas the hippogryphs were tall and slender, closer to an idealised equine form, and the gryphons were somewhere in between, a balance of the stately and powerful.

Sweating profusely, Astrapios sat down at one of the tables outside Le Petite Banana, a cosy little Prench owned fruit bar that usually catered to the city's bat pony population. Several of them were haunting the larger inside area, hiding from the sun and chattering away in their strange Equuish dialect, filled with clicks and ultrasonic whistles. Bat ponies, came in one of two types. The majority ate fruit, with a vocal minority being primarily sanguivores. This inevitably had lead to many unpleasant rumours about vampire ponies, who snuck about at night and drank blood from unsuspecting victims. Most simply kept a hutch of rabbits or mice at home, which, if rotated regularly and treated well, would provide a more than ample supply.

Astrapios had felt immediately sympathetic with them, as predators in the bodies of prey. Not that they really treated him any better than most ponies, who thought of him as a kind of comedy object, but they at least ignored him, and so Le Petite Banana was a favoured spot in a big, unkind city.

“Good morning, Mr Astrapios!” the waiter beamed, appearing from out of thin air in the style of good restaurant staff everywhere. “What can I get for you today?”

“A double bourbon, and an extra large Red Special, please.”

“Oh, that bad?”

“That bad.” Astrapios confirmed, gravely.

The waiter returned with his order a few minutes later. Cherries, blackcurrants, hawthorn berries and pomegranate seeds flanked four great hunks of watermelon, complete with a vanguard of less red fruits added as an after thought.

“A bit for your thoughts?” the dusty coloured pony said, sitting down with him.

“Just the usual stress,” Astrapios replied, wiping sweat off his feathers and out of his eyes with a serviette whilst silently cursing whatever God had seen fit to give an avian species the ability to sweat. “You know how easily stuff can set me off, Hybri. The print run was supposed to be finished this morning, but they screwed it up, so I had to pay to get it done again.”

“You had to pay?” Hybri Dyes asked, cocking his head and sitting back into the little recliner he was perched on.

“It's a long story, some outfit called the Outrages Against Public Decency Committee is giving the new printers a hard time.”

“Oh, Celestia damn it,” he winced, ears flattening against his skull. “I thought they might. They've been giving everypony a hard time. You hadn't heard of them?”

“I just got back from the homeland, I've been out of the loop for two weeks. Why?”

“They're a moral hygiene group. They want to clean up publishing and the written word in general.”

“So what? Just another herd of neurotic mares who think government should be looking after their foals for them,” Astrapios shrugged, tucking into his breakfast, sharp beak making short work of his innocent fruity victims. “I get thirty letters a week from ponies like that. They find a copy of my magazine under the bed of their precious, precocious little colt and suddenly I'm Discord incarnate.”

Hybri shook his head and leaned closer.

“These guys are hardcore, Mr Astrapios. They managed to get royal assent.”

“So what, Celestia gave them the old alabaster nod?”

“Bigger. More official. Her royal highness signed a letter of assent granting them powers of inquiry. They've got three months to gather evidence on what harmful, obscene or otherwise disagreeable material might be doing to the moral character of the nation. Can you believe that?”

“That's ludicrous,” Astrapios scoffed, pausing between assaults on the stronghold that was the second slice of watermelon. “Equestria has a proud two hundred and fifty year tradition of press and literary freedoms.”

“That's not even the worst part,” Hybri said. “Rumour has it that-”

Hybri Dyes never got to finish his sentence, because it was at that moment a very large earth pony stallion, who had managed to sneak up on them undetected, tapped Astrapios on the shoulder. Ponies never did this. It was probably something to do with the beak, as if any sudden movements might provoke a vicious attack.

“Astrapios T. Hunderer?” he asked, completely mangling the gryphish name with his gravelly south Canterlot accent.

The hippogryph nodded.

“You've been served,” he said, handing over a packet of neatly folded parchment. “Have a nice day.”





*




Princess Celestia was waiting for the two miscreant extra-dimensional travelers suspended in her telekinesis to stop screaming and flailing around. To be fair, this was because she'd chosen a spot for their meeting approximately fifty kilometers above Canterlot, and most beings of terrestrial bent found this rather uncomfortable. She'd cast a smallish microgravity sphere around them too, which besides protecting from the intense high altitude winds and low temperatures also caused the uninitiated to spiral about like drunken bumblebees.

Luna would probably find this quite amusing the Ordered God thought, her fine magnolia limbs and wings folded against her body. But these sorts have to learn. I can't just have any old riff raff turning up. What would the others think?

Celestia sipped her tea in the usual stoic fashion. Unreadability was a key asset for any statesmare, divine or otherwise, but the Princess had it down to an art. Glaciers had been known to show more intensity; giant molecular gas clouds spanning millions of light years of space had displayed greater passion. Whole generations of the fringe, those lunatic scientists who had seen patterns in her expressions and intentions that had never existed, had been lost trying to get a sense of her holy mind.

To naught, though, as Celestia's plans were the type that were measured in geological eras, in the great procession of stars around a galactic barycenter, in the stratified layers of rocks that made up the world. Except at Bridge, though. I'm terrible at that. Card games in general, actually, other than Poker, though I never seem to be able to find anypony to play with. Funny, that.


*




Astrapios found the Port Dauphine Magistrates Court very easily, by dint of it being the only building in the city that was older than two hundred years. Port Dauphine quite regularly suffered from tsunamis caused by the shifting of offshore tectonic plates, at least in geological terms, and was generally rebuilt from the ground up every fifty years or so. Then there were the far less common but more destructive lahar events, those huge and fast moving rivers of silt and mud occasioned by rapid volcanic melting of glaciers in the nearby Rourke mountains. Not many ponies died as a result of these things, as vulcanological scrying was a skill as old as the Equestrian nation, but they still caused their fair share of upheaval and rebuilding.

The Magistrates Court was put together of sterner stuff than the average Port Dauphine town house or shop front, though. All civil buildings in Equestria were the products of the Bellum Maxima school of architecture, a mindset that was born in an era of history beset by wars with gryphons and terrible beasts of arcana. Thus, it was characterized by walls that could survive nearby use of the Strong Force bomb, and internal layouts that favored defenders and hindered attackers.

Even now, the smutty hippogryph found himself sitting in the wide, open lobby, that was surrounded on all sides by tall, tiered balconies crenelated with crossbow and mage slits, their bottoms lined with murder holes and other historical menaces. Despite their age, all these things were kept ready and waiting for use, a point firmly made to visiting gryphon dignitaries even in the modern age. No diplomatic tour of Canterlot or Port Dauphine would dare be thought complete without a visit to the scenic Arsenal Rex, or a midnight viewing of the Biblio Thauma Terriblis and its many sister tomes, all brimming with dark magic and other spells the mere reading of would be enough to blunt the claws of even the most tooled up gryphon.

All in all, Astrapios felt rather threatened.

“'Scuse me mister, are you a hippogryph?”

Turning, he saw that a burnt umber pegasus colt had alighted beside him on the stone benches, and was now staring at him, eyes level with his.

“Yes, I am, how very observant of you.” Astrapios remarked, dryly.

“I'm a pegasus!” he said, grinning. “My name's Blue Hue, but everypony just calls me Blu. What's your name?”

“Astrapios,” the hippogryph said, remembering his airs and graces and extending a talon, which was warmly shaken without hesitation. “Charmed.”

“Ahs-trappy-ous,” Blu repeated, chewing up the the word. “Ass-trappy-oss?”

“I don't think that was a question.”

“My brother says all gryphons have sex with their cats,” Blu said, sitting down on his haunches. “Is that true?”

“That's a new one on me,” Astrapios said, genuinely surprised at the apparently bottomless creativity of the racist underclasses. “But no, I don't think we do.”

“But how would you know?” Blu asked, looking the hippogryph up and down. “You're a horsey kind of eagle, not a catty kind of eagle.”

“A lot of my friends are gryphons, and I think I'd know if they were doing that sort of thing to their pets,” Astrapios responded, as diplomatically as he could. “Anyway, I wouldn't listen to ponies who say those sorts of things.”

“Are you a filly or a colt?” the little pegasus replied, cocking his head. “I can't tell.”

“That's alright,” Astrapios sighed. “I'm a colt, I guess you'd say.”

“I thought so!” Blu giggled. “You've got bigger beaks, right?”

Before Astrapios could answer, a stocky looking mare appeared out of the background, a vision of motherly fury, and clipped the pegasus around the ear with her wing.

“Blue Hue!” she squealed. “You get over to the other side of the lobby this instant!”

Blu skittered off almost immediately, half galloping, half flying in the manner of those juveniles that were not yet fully fledged.

“And you!” the mare shouted, focusing her ire on Astrapios. “Don't ever talk to my son again!”

With that proclamation issued, she trotted off in a huff, head held high in righteous indignation. As she turned away, pin badges attached to her saddlebags revealed the logo of the Outrages committee, a double striped prohibited symbol over a stylized exclamation and question mark, as well as an orbiting collection of other affiliated groups and organizations. My Colt Is An Honor Student At Dauphine Technical and 51% Celestia, 49% Luna, Don't Push Me!!! were prominent examples.

Astrapios removed the tiny spectacles on the end of his beak and massaged the bridge where it met with the skull bone, contemplating the violent murder of a herd animal followed by an impromptu street barbeque for what was far from the first time that day.









*




“Order! Order! We will have some order!” Black Ode shouted, stamping his fore hoof on the gavel-plate of the lectern at the head of the Earth Pony Poets and Bards Guild meeting hall.

The stallion couldn't quite remember how he'd gotten there, but it seemed like the right thing to be doing. The chain of events as laid out in his head was crystal clear up to the moment Princess Celestia had landed outside the mysterious pub, whereupon it became as muddy and convoluted as Mareabian politics. There seemed to be numerous differing sets of memories stacked up on top of each other, all fighting to share the same space in his neural filing system like Princelings during a succession crisis.

One set held that the Ordered God had started grinning and given a short speech in a language he didn't recognize, but never wanted to hear again, before scooping up the two strange ponies he'd been having a nice drink of this new bitter with and going vertical like a pegasus who had accidentally landed on a cactus.

Another stated that the Queen of Plots had opened her mouth as if to speak, but instead of words, out had come raw feelings, engraved directly into his soul by some means of communication so far removed from the verbal as to exist in another field of science entirely. Great vistas of impossibly lush grassy fields that he wanted to describe as Elysian came next, the sensorium of the street and the background noise of Canterlot segueing directly into whirling abyssals of sights and scents and sounds. They were perfect archetypes, more like the idea of the thing than a recollection of the thing themselves. Untainted, from before the making of the world, when the concepts that would give birth to the cosmos were boiled down into whatever divine dies and presses were used to craft it.

Sweet Celestia, how bizarre. Who even thinks like that? Me, apparently.

But now Black Ode was here, and the day seemed to be getting back on track. The meeting hall came into focus rather sharply as the rabble died down. Ode glanced nervously out of one of the tall glass windows lining one side of the room. Pillars of thick, black smoke rose from glowing amber fire bases in almost every district of the city.

“Does anypony happen to remember how they got here?” a voice from the other end of the big table the other members were sat at said, thick with the drunken slurring of a party pony about to finish their night in Luna's alcoholic embrace. “Because I swear I was somewhere else a moment ago.”

“You probably just had too much to drink again, Vade, you old sot!” another snapped, adjusting the lime green and purple top hat he was apparently wearing unironically.

“I bloody didn't Cory! I was in West bleedin' Wingshade too! How did I get here?”

“Gentlecolts, please!” Ode shouted, stamping his hoof again. “There is clearly some magical crisis going on. I myself was sitting in a bar in a part of Canterlot entirely removed from this one not moments ago.”

“Has anypony noticed these agendas?” Vade Retro interjected, pointing at some neatly arranged squares of paper that had been laid out in front of every member of the Guild.

“Oi, agendas?” Ode said, peering down to see his own copies. “I never signed off on any agendas!”

“Apparently you did, and the Princesses too!”

“Oh Tartarus take me...” Ode started, but trailed off as he began to read, seeing the loops and curls of his own fancy signature sat side by side with the embossed gold and silver Regis Rota, to which had been carefully added in an elegant calligraphy the five pointed star of Princess Twilight Sparkle.

“I bloody hate magic!” Vade complained, making to sit up, but falling over in a tangle of unshorn fetlocks and ending up under the table. “Bugger it!”

“They can't be serious, though,” Cory said, glancing up at Ode and back to the offending agenda with a look of absolute terror on his muzzle. “Tell us you're not bally serious!”

“I don't think we have a choice, Cory,” Ode said, reading and rereading the agenda, which felt more like an edict than anything else. “The question is, can you do it?”

“I, I don't...” Cory Phaeus shook his head exasperatedly. “The Canterlot Philharmonic Orchestra stands ready to serve as always, but this is impossible! Rachmaneinoff's 32nd Symphony was never meant to be performed! By the unkempt beard of Luna's left nipple, do you even know what you're asking us to do?”

“We've all read about it,” Vade mumbled, sitting back up and groggily rubbing his temples. “It's the one with all the cannons shaped like-”

“Yes! That one!” Cory exclaimed, eyes lit with the fear of a stallion who has met his Gods and wishes no more to do with them. “It was written as a joke!”

“The Crown is basically demanding it,” Ode sighed, unable to take his eyes off the text that was commanding his organization of poets and thespians to commit a sort of public suicide. “The only question is, where do we even find seven hundred and fifty nursing mares fit to perform in the chorus?”

“Actually, Rachmaneinoff originally scored seventy thousand,” Vade grinned, chuckling to himself. “And not to forget the six barreled custard launcher.”

“The stallion was a genius, even when it came to overt visual metaphors for one's...one's...” Ode made a face as though he was passing wind. “Crown jewels.”

“Do you think we'll be able to get the seamstresses to sew enough in the way of snake costumes for the brass section to wear?” Vade continued. “If I recall correctly, there are seven pink, seven red, two magenta and a dark purple one?”

“Tartarus, swallow me up!” Cory whinnied, laying his head on the polished oak table.

“Come on, Cory,” Vade smirked. “At least we'll be famous.”


*




“What in the wide, wide world of Equestria do you need forty carronade for?” Iron Filings asked, paused in the doorway of his little complex of forges and smithies. “Is there a war going on I should know about?”

“Oh, well, you see, we're putting on a performance of Rachmaneinoff's 32nd Symphony, and well, it's rather a special order...”

“You came to the right place, Mr, er, Black Ode, was it?”

“Yes, that's right.”

“Well, as I said, right place, and the right pony, too,” he nodded, proudly, taking a moment to clean the soot from his brow. “Now, what's special about these guns, then? Do you need the fancy turns inside the barrel?”

“Erm, no, you see, well, the fact is...” Ode found himself blushing for some reason, struggling to find the right way to express himself. “The carronade need to be shaped like a certain appendage...”

“An appendage?” Filings raised an eyebrow and examined Ode curiously. “What sort of appendage?”

“Well, it's one only a stallion has...”

“Ah, I get your meaning,” the blacksmith smiled, tapping at his nose with a hoof and winking knowingly. “The muzzle.”

“No, not at all,” Ode sighed, fearing that at any moment he might have to resort to crude gesturing. “I mean a more fundamental difference, that key aspect of the-”

“Well, gender is a very fluid concept, with many potential perspectives from which to-”

“No, no,” he whinnied, giving in and resorting to hoof gestures with ever increasing desperation, after a moment saying; “Do you get it?”

“Well I think so, but how would you even make a cannon shaped like a gentlecolt’s unshorn fetlocks?”

“Oh, Luna take me,” Ode cried, trying to match his gestures to his lamentations. “Meat and two veg! One’s crown jewels! The unmentionables! The bed snake!”

“I’m really not following you.”

“Oh come on! One’s Captain of the Royal Guard? One’s morning glory?

“What does a plant have to do with it?”

“Arrgh!”


*






King Hywell Edda adjusted the Autumn Crown that perched atop his feathered head nervously, the weight of the relic still unfamiliar after three long months of rule. It reacted to the touch of his talons by buzzing softly, as if an electric eel had been disturbed, then it continued its normal disquiet purring. Edda had worn many icons of royalty in his short life; the bracers of a Duke, the circlet and raiment of a Vizier, and seen countless more, but never had they felt as motile, as boisterous, as simply alive as the Autumn Crown. The cruel peaks of its twin points sang with all the implied force of a supernova, and where the thing met its mortal carrier, a simple silver coil kept it firmly in place.

In truth, it is more beset of life than I am, now that I am King, the young alce pondered beleagueredly, carrying on in a powerful canter through the depths of the Aoki forest, thankful that nobody had seen his moment of weakness in making contact with the crown. All around him the shouts and echos of his guards and cocks-in-waiting mixed with the trill of the playful ochre res-res birds, which swept gaily about in pursuit of each other along characteristic zigzag flight paths. The smell of the earth and the rotting leaf litter was overpowering; in the heat of the sun of the lowland hills things decayed rapidly, quickly serving to feed the next generation of trees or insects. A King as fast as a beggar, a God as fast as an ant, as mother used to say.

With a whoosh of wings and the snap of branches breaking, a steel-armored gryphon descended through the low canopy and landed neatly beside the King. Edda was not alarmed by this, as even through the whiff of the forest he could tell the scent of his life-long servant and mentor, Idwal Foel. Unlike gryphons, who were possessed of the most keen eyesight to go along with their wings, alce were terrestrial ground hunters, who much in the fashion of certain snakes, found prey by smell and heat alone. Edda could tell the temperature of a cup of coffee from half a kilometer away; but Foel could tell you that the slight trace of white dust on its lip was not sugar, but actually cyanide placed by the claws of an assassin. Together they made an unstoppable team, even if Edda couldn't actually fly like all other gryphons could.

“My King,” he said, taking off his ornate blue and yellow flight helmet and bowing his head slightly. “We've spotted deer in the next valley.”

“Oh, good, I was beginning to think they might not show us some sport.” Edda sighed, internally damning the poor creatures for failing to have the good sense to hide when scouts come flying over. “What have I told you about this 'King' business?”

“Come now, yer Majesty,” the old gryphon smiled, fixing the ruffle of feathers beneath his chin with a neatly manicured talon. “Don't play the 'newly-minted-monarch-just-trying-to-prove-he's-still-normal' card with me. I was there when your predecessor was born, and your father. They all tried that too.”

“I could just command you to call me Edda.” he pouted, pausing to rest against the thickly mossed roots of a tall and sinuous tree, which was half buried into a short but steep incline in the forest floor.

“That you could, yer Majesty,” Foel nodded, sagely, making the most of the break to carry on preening himself, the tone of his voice saying quite clearly that he wouldn't follow such a command if it were given. “That indeed you could.”

“Oh, seventy-seven hells, Foel, why are we hunting these poor deer?” Edda groused, after making sure the rest of the staff were well out of earshot. “They have to deal with enough out here without us ritually murdering them on a daily basis.”

“'Tis hardly murder,” he said, shrugging and folding his wings back neatly against the armor plates. “They're a bunch of savages; they barely think. Why, they've only had fire for the the last thirty years.”

“Yes, well, I think this will probably be the last of our hunts,” he said, sitting up and carefully wiping the leaf mold from his feathers. “I am the living avatar of three races, after all.”

“You'll have a hard time with that, yer Majesty,” Foel observed. “You know how much the Aerie-classes love to hunt.”

“They'll listen to me or face the consequences!” he snapped.

Immediately Edda's vision whited out, as if his stream of consciousness had simply given up. Briefly, the acrid stench of woodsmoke and burning hair filled his nostrils, before a deep and booming force stole away the air, and with it the last sound. The alce felt himself jolt upright, then stagger and fall onto a strange and glassy ground that offered one moment a gluey purchase, and the next became quite solid.

Perception returned after a timeless moment, in which all Edda dared do was lay facing upwards, attempting to control his breathing. Hefting his bulk over, a scene of grim devastation greeted him. As though parked before a blast furnace, the once verdant forest was a cruel specter of its former self, all blasted, blackened stumps, out to about fifty meters, whereupon it stopped abruptly and the greenery simply burned. Thick plumes of smoke and steam crept across the ground and into the air.

Heart hammering, Edda searched around for his friend, and at least found him, entirely unharmed, but a good ten meters away, coiled into a protective ball. The tell-tale flashes of gryphon Sharpe magic glimmered around him, which was obviously what had protected him from the impromptu blast of divine heat. Others were not so lucky. Flaming balls of ruined feathers and hooves marked the last chapters in a dozen lives, dotted across the floor.

“Methinks his Majesty doesn't know his own strength.” Foel remarked, grinning, his voice dulled significantly by the bubble of defensive arcana.


*




“The Slath,” Emboss read, holding a copy of A Foal's Guide to Gryphons aloft in his magic. “Mostly subterranean entity of great size, visible from the surface as dark red outcroppings along the Gryphon coasts, who's drinking mouths in that part of the world account for the remarkably strong west to east currents in the Dauphine sea, and whose excretion vents make for such rich and abundant aquatic life on the coast of our own nation.”

“Fascinating, dear.” Truth muttered, trying not to peer out of the window of the pegasus stagecoach they were traveling in.

“It really is, isn't it?” he said, missing the tone in her voice. “It goes on to say that the Slath is actually one single organism, and that objects thrown into these ocean floor drinking mouths often come popping out of hydrothermal vents thousands of kilometers away.”

“Does it have anything for vertigo?” she asked, closing her eyes and laying down on the narrow wooden bench, gathering the collection of shawls and jumpers around her to defend against the cold.

“Unfortunately no, but if you fancy trying out some Gryphish Rarebit, this guide suggests some excellent restaurants that-”

“Darling, Gryphish Rarebit has actual rabbits in it.”

“Sweet Celestia, really? In with all the cheese and bread?”

“Yes, really!”

“How awful,” Emboss said, looking rather deflated. “I suppose we could ask them to make it without?”

“Then how would it be different from Equestrian Rarebit?”

“Local spices?” Emboss suggested.

Truth sighed and got up, joining her husband on the opposite bench and snuggling gently up to him in a search for greater warmth, her chin ending up against the nape of his neck. She floated the shawls and quilts over, wrapping them both up in the morass of wool and cotton.

“Local spices, indeed,” she laughed, closing her eyes and sighing contentedly. “You know, I don't think we've been away together since the foals were born.”

“This hardly counts as a holiday, does it?”

“Well, I guess not, but still,” Truth said, continuing to nest on him, nickering occasionally as she made herself more comfortable. “I think it would be nice to take a break after all this is over, just the two of us. It shouldn't take an existential crisis to prise us from the day-to-day.”

“Existential crisis,” he muttered, turning the page. “Yes, I guess that's what this is, isn't it?”

“Yes, dear. Exactly.”

Emboss turned the next page of the guide book and carried on reading, and the pegasus stagecoach lurched onwards, just above the dawn-soaked clouds, ambling on its slow but steady way toward Port Dauphine.


*




It was not unusual to see the youngest colts and fillies of Ponyville decked out in garlands of flowers, especially at weddings or during royal visits. Their dams and sires would preen and fuss over them, playing a quiet game with the other parents as to who could look the nicest, or afford fine orchids, or whatever the stakes happened to be at the time.

What was unusual, however, was for those garlands to include poppies. Papaver Somniferum did not grow around the town, nor was it usually found for sale. Roseluck had only seen pictures of them in books, but the two twin colts who had just wandered into The Florist's Cafe were wearing whole garlands of the things, deep red petals framing pale blue faces perfectly. No, that's the wrong word, the earth pony mare thought. Those are wreathes, for a funeral.

Suddenly, Roseluck began to feel very tired. She found that she could barely stand up straight behind the counter. The shop began to swim in and out of focus. It was as though the very act of looking at the colts was an impossible challenge, too monumental to properly conceive of, which would certainly spell an eternity of doom and frustration if even attempted. Like Sisyphos and his boulder. Wait, who?

After a time, Roseluck noticed that the two colts were standing before her, awaiting service. Her mind wandered aimlessly around the idea, unable to find purchase on the logical steps she performed every day to provide delicious flower snacks to Ponyville. Simultaneously, a wave of beautiful tingles rushed up her flanks and forelegs, a bourbon-warmth penetrating muscles and bone. The mare began to laugh, simply for the sake of it.

“Oh, well, really, Hypnos, must you?” one of the colts said, rolling his eyes. “Look what you've gone and done.”

“I can't help it,” the other said, shrugging and smiling wryly. “My natural charms get to all the mares, in the end.”

“I must apologise for my brother,” the first twin said. “He can be such an ass.”

“That's okay!” Roseluck half-shouted, her own voice sounding distant and disconnected. “What can I get for you boys?”

“Do you have any Buddleja?” Hypnos said, looking over the displays of various flowers. “It's our favourite.”

“Of course, Buddleja,” she nodded, following their gaze downwards, her body finally responding to the will of its master and selecting some choice magnolia fronds. “Such nice colts, these are on the house...”

As soon as she hoofed the flowers over to Hypnos and his brother, Roseluck collapsed onto the polished stone floor of the café, a look of serene contentment on her face, quite unconscious.

“At least we got our lunch this time,” Hypnos' brother said, exasperatedly. “Come on, let's not dally. We still need to find our seats.”

When Roseluck finally awoke, some hours later, she had no memory of the two foals wearing wreaths of poppies, except for an odd sense of impending doom she eventually put down to eating too much at lunch.


*