Onto the Pony Planet
Chapter 2: Gambit
Admiral Biscuit
Celestia sat on a plush divan in her solarium, sipping a cup of tea. She’d spent most of the previous day catching up with events that had already passed out of her control, and was determined to rein it all in before the next crisis struck.
The situation in Ponyville is out of my hooves, she thought. Best to let Twilight and Lyra deal with it, and not butt in unless they ask for my help. It would seem less of a crisis if she didn’t have to personally intervene, and if Twilight handled the situation well—which she was sure the unicorn would—then it could only further Twilight’s stock. There would be thousands of tiny details that would crop up over the next few weeks.
That still left her with the thorny problem of Luna and Trixie. That, too, was not yet a crisis, and would be unlikely to be known outside the castle walls. The Royal Guard was hardly going to speak of how Trixie had escaped from right under their muzzles, after all, and with the showmare under Luna’s hoof, the situation—for now—required no intervention on her part. It might even serve me well to keep Luna guessing as to my intentions for a while longer. She’s probably been expecting me to rush right up there and take Trixie back. She’s probably already researching legal documents. So, the only thing left to do is start Lyra’s court-martial. “Raven?”
“Your majesty?”
“Take down a telegram. To Shining Armor: ‘Initiate court-martial against auxiliary guard Lyra Heartstrings for dereliction of duty in allowing two alien species to enter Equestria, and for causing bodily injury to said aliens. Shining Armor or a suitable officer is to prosecute. Due to injuries to Lyra Heartstrings, the trial will be held in Ponyville in one week’s time.’” As soon as Raven has stopped writing, she began again. “A letter, to Fancy Pants: ‘We formally request that you and an assistant of your choosing defend auxiliary guard Lyra Heartstrings of the charges of dereliction of duty and of causing bodily injury to another. Court martial is to be held in Ponyville in one week’s time; Princess Luna will preside.” Long ago, Celestia had had to write all these letters herself, complete with all the titles and boring legal language that they called for. While she still handled her own personal correspondence, it was very relaxing to have a secretary who would do all that for her.
“Shall I send a message to Luna, as well?”
“No.” Celestia shook her head. “I’ll tell her myself.”
Raven scribbled down a few notes. “Will that be all?”
Celestia sighed. “I’ll need to write a letter to Twilight, but I’ll do that myself. When you have finished with the telegram for Shining Armor and the letter for Fancy Pants, perhaps you could ask the head librarian to find the protocol for opening a new embassy? It has been centuries since we have done so.”
“Is this about the, um, creatures?”
“Indeed it is.” Celestia smiled. “We can’t have proper foreign relations with them without an embassy. I have already sent Twilight official papers. I had hoped that Lyra could explain them to Dale at their next meeting . . . little did I suspect that it would be on our own soil.”
Raven nodded. “If this Dale is to be their ambassador, who shall ours be? Were you planning on nominating Lyra?"
“If I nominate her first, Prince Blueblood will reject it. He’ll rile up the other nobles, and he’ll insist that he deserves the position.” Celestia sipped her tea. “He’s already upset that he didn’t get an ambassadorial position after the Crystal Empire reappeared; he was apparently unaware that we do not have ambassadors to our own territories. Given his impassioned speeches—before his error was pointed out, of course—if he is not offered the role he will drag the process on forever.”
“Is there nothing you can do?”
“Of course there is!” Celestia set down her teacup. “I intend to offer the position to him in a private meeting. First, though, I have to send a letter to Twilight Sparkle.”
A insistent push in Dale’s side drew his eyes away from the girl. He looked down to see Lyra nosing at his side. “Lyra no happy?”
She shook her head. “Dale no hand girl.” She jerked her head to indicate the problem. “Hand is . . . Dale hand cutie mark.” She illustrated the results of that experiment, making a quick jerk of her body as if she had just gotten an electrical shock. “Dale no hand girl.” She prodded him in the side again.
The nurse said something to her, and she answered back in her native language. Dale ignored them, keeping his hand tight on the girl’s. Lyra seemed to be suggesting that he should let go of her hand, but why? Admittedly, it wasn’t the kind of thing which would be allowed in a normal hospital, but this was far from a normal hospital. So far, he’d seen a distinct lack of any sort of surgical instrument. Aside from the weird heart monitors, the only other medical devices he’d noticed thus far were the thermometer in the female doctor’s coat and the stethoscope in the male’s—and why on earth did the ponies insist on listening to a heartbeat with their ears when they had stethoscopes? That practice had fallen out of favor on earth centuries ago.
The nurse seemed to accept his defiance gracefully; she spoke a few words to the male doctor and placed her hoof gently back on the girl’s chest. She made an odd gesture with her right foreleg—it reminded Dale of a ‘come on’ motion—and the doctors began to work.
The male doctor floated the bottle that the zebra had been holding, pulling the cork out without touching it. Dale felt his heartbeat increase as the cork continued floating in the air right next to the bottle, untouched by any hands. A light blue aura caused it—and the bottle—to glow slightly.
The doctor set the bottle on the ground gently and lifted a small wooden stick. It looked like a wooden coffee-stirrer: Dale hadn’t seen one of those in ages, but he supposed that somebody still made them. Unlike what he’d seen when Lyra’s aura lifted things, the stick only had a glowing aura around one end.
It was gently dipped into the bottle and removed. The un-auraed end was covered in a viscous liquid that looked very much like mayonnaise. With the zebra and the female doctor watching intently, the stick was brought close to the back of the girl’s hand and a small dollop of salve spread on one of the blisters.
Almost immediately, the girl twitched, jerking her clawed hand away from the doctors. Dale felt a sudden unpleasant jolt run up his arm—like he’d just grabbed onto an electric fence. He involuntarily opened his hand, and the pain stopped instantly.
“Dale no hand girl. Dale hand cutie mark there Dale no home.”
He grit his teeth trying to parse what Lyra had said. Not for the first time, he wished that he’d been more adept at languages—if he had been, than they could have made more progress in the two days of meetings than they had.
The first part was fairly obvious: she didn’t want him to hold the girl’s hand. When he’d touched her cutie mark on the beach he’d gotten a warm sort of tingle—it hadn’t been unpleasant, but it had been surprising. Since they’d foolishly not gone over the word danger, she was probably trying as well as she could to warn him that it was dangerous to touch during a procedure. The look from the nurse told him all he needed to know—even with their alien facial structure, the ‘I told you so’ came through loud and clear.
He wiped his hand on his bedsheet toga unconsciously, as if that would rub off the shock he’d felt touching the girl. The two doctors and the zebra were looking at the girl’s hand intently, as if they expected it to suddenly turn back to normal. They leaned close, studying it with the same intensity of a golfer willing the ball into the hole. Finally—whether satisfied or dissatisfied by the result—the female doctor turned the girl’s hand over, and Dale saw for the first time the true extent of the damage.
Dale was no stranger to blood and injuries. A machine shop is not a forgiving environment. That he still had ten complete fingers was as much luck as skill; a lathe was unable to discriminate between metal and flesh, and metal slivers were an expected hazard of the job. Rolls of electrical tape were kept in the first-aid kit along with a wide assortment of bandages. Serious injuries were rare nowadays, but he’d seen a few severe injuries throughout the years.
He had never seen anything like this. It was the most horrific thing he’d ever seen—even medical dramas didn’t go this far. He knew why her hand was clawed; it was trying to grip something it would never be able to again. For a moment he was certain he was going to faint; the whole room greyed out and he heard a roaring noise in his ears. He clenched his teeth tightly together, willing his breakfast to stay down.
He felt something press up against his side and looked down to see Lyra’s head pushed up against him, her eyes squeezed tightly closed. It was probably his imagination, but she looked paler than normal. Apparently she was as affected by the sight as he was.
You have to watch, he told himself. You told yourself that earlier, when you were looking at something you didn’t mind seeing. If you look away now you’re the worst kind of hypocrite. Reluctantly, he forced his look back up, unconsciously running his fingers through Lyra’s mane.
Dale looked back at the doctors, deliberately trying to keep the girl’s hand out of focus. They seemed unperturbed by the fact that the girl was stretched out across the floor; given their height, perhaps it was more convenient for them. The nurse had had to reach awkwardly a couple of times when she was examining him. He’d seen Lyra go to her hind hooves on the beach, but that had lead to her falling on him—on the same shoulder which was currently bandaged, as a matter of fact.
There was an occasional discussion between the three doctors—Dale was now including the zebra in the ‘doctor’ category—after each application of salve. While he wished them the best of luck, the only way they were going to be able to fix what was left of the girl’s hand was with some kind of magical regeneration cream. A topical lotion wasn’t going to do the trick.
Suddenly, the nurse barked out a sharp command, and the male doctor stopped working. Every eye in the room turned towards the heart monitor, where a baffling series of spiked lines had appeared across the top of the trace. There was a hasty conference between the three, and the female doctor rushed out of the room.
In her absence, the doctor flew the clipboard from the foot of the girl’s bed over. He left it floating in the air in front of the zebra and began to point to it, occasionally glancing over to look at the heart monitor again.
The zebra made an odd, shrug-like motion and leaned forward, her nose almost touching the girl’s hand. She stayed there for a moment, her position similar to a dog sniffing a stranger. She wrinkled her nose, pulling her lips back from her teeth, and held that position for a few seconds. She stepped back, apparently satisfied with her observation. She spoke to the doctor again, and then touched her hoof to the girl’s forearm gently. She half-closed her eyes and began softly chanting.
Since nothing else was going on for the moment, Dale glanced down to see what Lyra was doing. He’d felt her shift around a few times.
The first thing he noticed was that his hand was in her mane. Surprised, he pulled it away. It seemed rude—like he thought she was a pet. Although, he had to admit there was some resemblance. She’d folded her legs under herself, much like a cat. He’d never really seen horses lying on their bellies up close, so he wasn’t sure if this was a normal position or not. She did look comfortable, though.
“Dale yes hand Lyra mane,” she said softly, turning her head to look him in the eyes. “Dale yes-no hand not Lyra mane.” Dale chuckled softly and put his hand back on her head, scratching between her ears. They’d figured out ‘yes-no’ as a way of expressing uncertainty; it was a phrase they’d been using a lot on the beach. She obviously meant it was okay to run his hands through her mane, but not any other pony’s. At least, not without asking first.
They both looked towards the door as the female doctor returned carrying a tray balanced on her back. Dale sucked in his breath as she grabbed it with her teeth and set it down: there was no doubt in his mind what this kit was intended to be used for.
Dale was no authority on medical implements. He knew scalpels and forceps, but that was pretty much it. The purpose of the long spiked tools was beyond him—although it was a reasonable bet that they were some kind of probe. The cutting pliers were a familiar tool, although he used them for tubes and wires. None of those drew his attention like the saw.
He rarely assigned his tools any kind of personality, since most of them could be used for many things, good or ill. A pair of diagonal-cutting pliers might be used in one movie to cut a phone cord before a murder, and in the next save the heroine when the hero used them to cut the wires to the bomb at the last second. But the saw . . . it occupied the whole center of the tray, its teeth bared. It wanted to taste flesh and blood and sinew.
The male doctor lifted up the girl’s hand, while the zebra slid a thick piece of wood underneath. Dale’s doubts of their medical expertise suddenly returned full-force. He fortunately had never seen the instruments used for amputations, so he couldn’t say if the tools they had were primitive or modern. He did know that wood was notoriously hard to sterilize. If they were using a wooden block, either they had phenomenal aftercare, or were entirely unaware of the perils of infection. He was leaning towards the latter, since their medical kit seemed more like the contents of a carpenter’s toolbox than a surgeon’s instruments.
Without any fanfare, the female doctor wrapped a tourniquet around the girl’s forearm, about midway up. Unlike the tourniquets in the Boy Scout manual, this one had a thumbscrew to tighten it—although he supposed they’d call it something else, since the doctor was turning it with her mouth. She left it slightly loose and grabbed a bottle between her hooves, using her teeth to pull the cork out. Instead of dipping in a coffee-stirrer, though, she dumped some of the liquid on a bundle of rags the zebra was holding. She re-corked the bottle, set it aside, and took the rags from the zebra, using them to spread the fluid It turned the girl’s skin a bright orangey-red. Is that Mercurochrome? His mother had used the stuff liberally— it hurt more than the wound. He hadn’t seen it in stores for a while; it had probably been replaced by some kind of no-more-tears type of antiseptic.
Dale took several deep breaths, girding himself for what was to come next. He was already trying to think how he’d explain it to the girl. The reason for the amputation was clear enough, he supposed. It was the method that they were planning to use that left him concerned.
I’m going to have to see about getting my bed moved into here, he thought. She clearly doesn’t know what’s going on, and she’ll no doubt feel better if she has another human for company. He looked back over at the primitive operating theatre. God, I hope they don’t keep her hand and put it in a formaldehyde jar.
He looked back, watching the male doctor casually threading curved needles. Had it been in any other situation, he could have watched for hours—the level of dexterity the doctor had with his aura was amazing. He would take a needle, lift it in front of his face, yank a few inches of thread off a spool, snip it with a small pair of scissors, and then float the completed assembly onto the tray. Had he been doing that one at a time, it would have been impressive; to save time he was combining steps, so at any one time he had several needles and lengths of thread floating in front of him, along with the spool and scissors. “The force is strong in that one,” he muttered to himself, earning a cocked ear from Lyra.
Dale looked down at her thoughtfully. While he’d never seen her move more than a few marbles at a time, she certainly seemed to be capable of brute-force moves with her aura: while he had a very limited sample-set to draw from, she’d moved the mattress with no trouble at all, and been able to pin the girl against the wall with it. The doctor, presumably, wasn’t capable of such brute-force moves, but made up for it in finesse. How they did it was another question. Presumably, a certain type of intelligence was required, since they were moving objects in three dimensions. As far as he had been able to observe, the commands were all mental. The male doctor was occasionally talking to his two companions while he worked, seemingly unconcerned with the possibility of being distracted.
While it was hard to believe, it seemed likely that the horns were somehow attached to nerves, much like very high-end prosthetics. But if that were true, their medical technology must strongly surpass Earth’s . . . yet their surgical instruments seemed to be Civil War era. The disparity was inexplicable.
It was strange that they didn’t all have horns. Maybe there was a competency test before they were awarded, or it could be a badge of rank. It was worth remembering that the ones that made a blue light were good at fine control, while the gold-lit ones seemed to be better used for larger, heavier moves. True, he’d seen Lyra move some smaller items, but never with the precision that the doctor was displaying.
The female doctor lifted a hemostat in her lips, looking thoughtfully at the girl. He managed to suppress his vision of saliva and bacteria crawling all over the instrument with the thought of the grease and dirt that he’d gotten in innumerable wounds that had healed without too much scarring. There was the one time he’d been looking over at the exploded view of a feed mechanism, not really paying attention to what he was doing, and forgot that the nut was reverse-thread. He’d leaned with all his weight on the ratchet, stripping the teeth and slamming his hand painfully into the cutting bit. He’d torn off a huge chunk of flesh right at the base of his thumb . . . all because he was distracted by the instructions.
The instructions.
A sudden sinking feeling turned his heart to ice. Of all the things they had, the Gray’s Anatomy he’d given Lyra wasn’t one of them. He couldn’t imagine why they didn’t have it with them—but if they didn’t, he could at least save them from one potentially fatal mistake.
He moved forward, towards the girl. The nurse looked up in surprise when he touched his hand to her still-bloody muzzle. She moved her head back, looking at him warily.
He cleared his throat. The doctors looked up at him. He pointed to her muzzle again. He made a drip noise by popping his lower lip against his teeth, while emphasizing the downward flow with his finger.
Intrigued, the female doctor moved closer. Dale repeated the motion several times. He moved around the girl, carefully taking her wrist in his hand. Most of the nail polish is burned off. He tore his eyes away, focusing tightly on her wrist, but he couldn’t help but see where the skin reddened and then darkened as he traced along the veins and arteries. Focusing on the difficulty of what he meant to do with his right arm out of commission helped a little—but it meant all the movements were close to his chest, so he had to bring that . . . thing . . . close to himself.
He made a shhing sound, tracing each with a finger and then spreading his hand wide. The veins on the back of her hand were hard to see, but he could feel their slight bulge under his finger and could guess where they went.
He repeated the same gesture on the inside of her hand, desperately hoping that he was wrong about what he was seeing. It doesn’t matter what you’re seeing . . . they’re going to cut it off, and you’ll never have to see it again. Of course he would. This was the kind of thing nightmares were made of.
To further illustrate his point, he set her hand back down and then pointed to his own. He made a sawing motion at his wrist, repeated the flicking motion then fell over backwards, banging his head uncomfortably on the unyielding floor of the hospital and eliciting a spike of pain from his shoulder.
He sat back up, repeated the sawing gesture, but this time pinched his fingers together, over where he’d indicated the veins and arteries. This time he remained upright, and even managed to force a smile.
The female doctor nodded, apparently understanding his charade. She said something, then realizing he couldn’t understand, tapped her hoof on the floor four times. She accompanied each tap with a clicking tooth-clamp. He hoped there weren’t more major veins that he didn’t know about.
Satisfied that they’d at least be prepared to avoid her bleeding out, he moved back close to Lyra, twisting his fingers in her mane again. She resumed her earlier position; whether it was for her comfort or his was beyond his ken.
A sharp word from the nurse drew his attention back to the heart monitor. She was pointing excitedly with a hoof, indicating that the rough line had smoothed out again. She pulled her hoof off the girl’s bare chest and stuck her ear back down again, moving her head so that she could see the heart monitor. The news seemed to be good, because she broke out in a huge smile.
The other three began chattering excitedly. The male doctor dropped the needles and thread on the tray and pushed it off to the side, then went back to patiently applying the salve. Dale noticed that he was taking smaller amounts on the coffee-stirrer this time, and waiting several minutes between applications. Hope began to rise.
Dale watched them more carefully. He’d gotten accustomed to the girl’s ruined hand—at least, accustomed enough that he could see it in the corner of his eye without feeling faint. Lyra was still not watching; she’d rested her head on his left thigh and had fixed her eyes on the heart monitor. She was listening; her ears were frequently moving around, especially when the doctor spoke.
The nurse kept her ear glued to the girl’s chest and her eyes focused on the heart monitor. Dale soon identified the pattern: the doctor would apply some salve. The nurse would say something. The doctor would wait. A few minutes later, the nurse would say something again, and the doctor would apply another small bit of cream. He could occasionally pick up a ‘yes’ or a ‘no,’ but for the most part the conversation was incomprehensible.
After this procedure had been going on for a while, another pony walked into the room. This one was a pinkish color, with a candy-cane striped mane and tail. The marking on her hip was a white cross and hearts, which meant she was probably a nurse. Dale had noticed that many of the ones he’d seen so far had highlights of some sort in their manes and tails, and he wondered why that might be. Those had all been been presumably or provably female, so it might have been a bit of vanity on their part. He vaguely remembered a Larry Niven story where it was in fashion to go around nude with a skin dye-job; perhaps this was what passed for fashion among the ponies. It made sense that the doctors would want to wear coats, since they might get blood in their fur; the only other ponies he’d seen dressed were the guards. Painted-on armor was probably not very effective.
The pink nurse was pushing a small cleaning cart, like the kind maids had at hotels. He watched as she pulled a normal-looking broom out of a bracket on the cart, set the handle in her teeth, and made short work of sweeping the wreckage of the girl’s breakfast into a small pile. When she’d finished, she set a dustpan on the floor, choked up on the handle of the broom, and swept the rubbish into the pan. She tugged that across the floor with her teeth, carefully lifting it up and into the trash can, not losing an iota. He’d had beginners in the machine shop that weren’t that efficient at sweeping, and they had hands. They could have learned a lot from watching this pony.
The demolished bedside table gave her more trouble. She set it back upright easily enough, but as soon as she took her hoof off it, it listed sharply towards the missing leg. She repeated that motion a couple of times, muttering what were probably swear words at it. Finally, she lowered her head and pushed it against the wall with her forehead, jamming it in position so that it couldn’t fall.
She rocked it a couple more times, standing up on her hind hooves to get a better angle of attack. It wobbled but stayed nearly level. The nurse tilted her head underneath it, went out into the hallway, and brought the wrecked heart monitor back in, leaving a trail of plaster dust in her wake.
She pulled the table back out from the wall, set the heart monitor against the baseboard, and shoved the table back into position. It didn’t move at all. She stood back up on her hind legs, pushed against the edge of it, and it still didn’t move. She took a step back and rubbed her forehooves together. To Dale, it looked just like a man dusting his hands off after fixing something.
The mattress came next. He couldn’t see how she lifted it since she had her back to him, but she got one end over her head and crawled forward under it, balancing it easily on her head and rump. When she got over to the bed, she kind of shrugged it upward and sideways, neatly seating it nearly into position. A forehead bump squared it up.
She made the bed as efficiently as any hotel maid, tucking the sheet under at the corners to hold it in place. Obviously, the ponies had discovered that fitted sheets were the work of the devil, since this one had no elastic. The nurse had to stand on her hind legs to drop a pillow into the pillowcase, and she fluffed it by shaking it vigorously in her teeth, before tossing it onto the bed.
She spoke briefly to the other nurse, took one final look around the room to make sure everything was in place, and left.
• • •
Occasionally, other ponies would show up at the door. Two of them left quickly, while the third went away and then came back.
She was the purple one that Dale had observed carrying the small creature on her back. He presumed it had followed her into the hospital, since on her first visit she’d taken one look into the room and spoken to someone in the hallway before she’d entered.
On her first visit, she’d stared at Dale and the girl with wide-eyed wonder, like a kid opening a Christmas present. It had been kind of disturbing, in fact. Almost predatorial. He’d looked down at Lyra nervously, but she hadn’t seemed bothered; instead she’d begun by saying the word he’d learned was their ‘hello.’
The horned pony had reacted by taking a step backwards and looking at Lyra in confusion. She’d said something short that sounded like a question; Lyra had responded and pointed to her own throat. Dale had smiled, suddenly remembering that she’d done something that lowered her voice. He’d gotten so used to it that her lower voice seemed normal to him, but of course it wouldn’t to any of the other ponies who knew her.
Lyra had spoken to her briefly, and she’d gotten a look of frustration on her face, but turned and left the room, probably with her companion. Dale had heard a strange pop noise from the hallway, but nothing seemed to come of it.
Five salve-and-wait cycles later, she was back. This time she just waltzed right into the room, making sure to give the doctors plenty of space. She apparently knew them all, because she spoke to all three in turn—wisely refraining from speaking to the male doctor until he was between treatments. When they did speak, it was apparently an intellectual conversation, if the furrowed brows were anything to judge by.
Satisfied with the results of her conversation, she moved around the girl’s supine form until she was standing next to Lyra. The two of them conversed for several minutes, with her occasionally pointing a hoof at him. Dale smiled and tried to look pleasant. From the moment she’d walked into the room, he’d noticed that the doctors became a little more tense; even Lyra seemed slightly stiffer than usual. He hoped that the purple one wasn’t upset that he had his hand in Lyra’s mane again.
She didn’t seem to be. She floated a scroll from her saddlebags, reading it aloud. Unsurprisingly, he understood none of it.
When the pony had stopped speaking, Lyra nudged him. “Dale is yes.”
“Yes?” Both ponies nodded.
The purple one floated a quill and an inkpot towards Dale, setting the inkpot on the floor while leaving the quill floating at mid-chest height. He looked at it curiously. She seemed to be expecting that he’d take it, but there was no way he was going to grab a floating object. Fortunately, Lyra interceded on his behalf, and the quill was set on the ground, followed by the scroll.
Lyra pointed to a blank line. “Dale,” she said simply.
Dale picked up the quill and dipped it in the ink. He’d seen it done in numerous movies. There had still been a few fountain pens around when he was a kid, so he wasn’t totally inexperienced, but the motions were rusty with disuse, and he was using his off-hand.
The scroll no doubt contained some legal gibberish. The question was, what? What did they want him to sign? According to the American legal system, he wasn’t competent to sign this contract, since it was written in a language he could neither speak nor read. Was their legal system the same, or was he signing himself into slavery or something like that?
“Dale make write Dale,” Lyra suggested, pointing to the line again. “Write is good.”
He shook his head. There was no way he was going to sign something without reading it. Certainly not before he had some better understanding of their society. If they didn’t like it, it was too bad.
“No. Dale not make Dale. Dale not—” had they gone over ‘read’? “—not, um, take write.” He tapped the scroll and his head.
The purple one seemed prepared for this difficulty. She used her aura to tug the paper away, neatly rolling it up and putting it in her bag. A second scroll was pulled out and set before him. This one was different; instead of being covered in printing, it looked like a page from a comic. Did they have comic books? Or more properly, comic scrolls?
The first panel had a crude drawing of a man. Interestingly—and somewhat embarrassingly—he was unclothed. He was standing in front of a crowd of people; they were also nude. There were men and women who had been drawn just like the drawings in the visual dictionary, although the artist had made no attempt to keep their coloration realistic—skin and hair was drawn in the most fantastic colors. More strangely, there were some mono-colored furry humanoids interspersed with the people. He suddenly realized that they’d included Elmos, possibly assuming that Elmo was a subtype of humans.
The man—who he suspected was supposed to be himself—was addressing the crowd. There was a speech bubble above his head, although it was empty. In the next panel, the crowd responded with a blue triangle; the third panel showed him saying ‘triangle’ with all the other people.
A thick border separated this small cartoon from the next. The composition of the panels was the same, except this time there was a large white pony addressing the crowd. She had a horn and wings, and was unmistakably the same in appearance as the one he’d seen on the beach, and in the books Lyra had shown him. Instead of a triangle, her crowd was speaking in green square.
The third set of panels showed the two of them meeting together in front of a Russian-looking fantasy castle. He spoke his triangle, she her square, and in the final panel they both spoke a light-blue seven-pointed star to each other.
The final trio of images showed him giving the message to the people, her giving the message to the ponies, and finally a mixed group of colorful ponies and colorful people.
Assuming that there were no deeper meanings to the text, it was pretty obvious what it was meant to represent. They wanted him to speak for humanity. They meant for him to be an ambassador. Most encouragingly, the last panels showed him going back home, and showed a peaceful co-existence between the ponies and people.
Lyra took his hesitation for uncertainty, and touched her hoof to the speaking man. “Dale.” She gestured to the crowd. “Dales . . . mans, womans.”
Dale nodded absently, looking over at the girl. Had they prepared another similar scroll for her, and for anyone else they might have in the hospital? Was the purple pony going around, giving these to everyone they’d taken? Maybe her little rider was handing them out, too.
Lyra poked him in the thigh with her hoof, drawing his attention back. She pointed back at the comic. On the left side, under the drawing of him speaking a cyan star, were two blank lines. The other side—under the regal pony—had an elegant flowing signature, while the second line was made up of the letters Lyra had been teaching him.
“Dale write Dale,” Lyra said.
Dale sighed. Do I have a choice? He gripped the quill tightly in his left hand and carefully wrote his name. Both of them smiled when he finished.
“Dale make Dale name home,” Lyra instructed, pointing to the second line on the paper. He thought about that for a moment and decided that they wanted his address. He carefully wrote it out, scrunching the letters together to fit them all on the line. When he had finished, the lavender one rolled up the paper and stuck it back into her saddlebag.
Twilight stashed the signed scroll back into her bag. She hadn't expected it—Dale, she corrected herself—to be able to read the first, although it would have been a lot easier if he had signed it. At least he'd figured out the drawings. A thick stack of papers had come from the palace on yesterday morning's train, largely consisting of suggested topics for Lyra and Dale to cover at their next beach meeting. These scrolls had been among them.
Both scrolls granted him certain ambassadorial powers. There was a long history of treating with foreign nations who did not speak Equestrian. While those days were now past—or had been thought to be—Celestia remembered them well, and picture-scrolls had often been used in lieu of legal documents, at least until the language barrier was crossed. For that matter, pictograms were still widely in use throughout the more rural enclaves of Equestria; universal education was a very recent innovation. Most of the books in the Ponyville library carried nearly as many illustrations as words.
She turned her attention back to Dale. It was her first close-up look at him. The drawings in the visual dictionary hadn't done him justice, she thought. After the incident with Zecora, she'd researched various sapient species of Equestria, and spent a weekend in Canterlot during a summit actually watching the real thing. All of them were unique, but none of them seemed quite as . . . artful as him. It was almost as if he had been designed, somehow, by a skilled craftspony.
If somepony had asked her why she’d thought this, she wouldn’t have been able to answer. There was no anatomical feature she could point to that some species in Equestria did not possess, nor were his proportions particularly pleasant to her eye. At the same time, he gave off an impression of readiness and adaptability, almost as if the world he came from had thrown everything it had at him, and he’d shrugged it off. It was just an impression, no more scientific than Pinkie-Sense, but it stuck in her mind.
Twilight turned back towards the girl. She seemed underfed; her belly lay almost perfectly flat, except for the two mounds on either side of Redheart’s head. Maybe they store extra fat there, like camels. If they’re scavengers, that might make sense . . . Lyra said he saved the carrot. They could have problems with food scarcity. The island had dense foliage, but perhaps it was largely indigestible to them.
Twilight let her gaze travel to where the doctors were working. She bit her lip as she caught sight of the injured hand again. There had been no real improvement since she left. It was unfortunate . . . but the doctor had said that both of them had really low magical energy, which could have been the cause. Zecora’s salve was thinned out, too, and they were only applying a little bit at a time.
The zebra’s remedies were usually effective very quickly. The cure for poison joke had worked in only a few minutes of bathing, and Apple Bloom’s tooth had mended instantly—but of course that was an easier cure, since the tooth was not living flesh.
Dr. Stable had asked Twilight to bring her crystal array. She hadn’t, of course; there were more pressing matters at hoof. But, she could try casting Luna’s spell. She’d tried it a couple of times, but never really gotten satisfactory results. Here, though—if the doctor was right, she should see a difference between them and everypony else.
She closed her eyes and concentrated. Twilight had always been a quick study, able to replicate spells both by scroll and observation; while she prefered the book method, Rarity had been unable to write down how her gem-finding spell worked, casting it dozens of times instead. The two of them had spent an entire day working on it; Spike hid gems around the boutique and Twilight tried to find them. To his embarrassment, by the end of the day she’d even managed to find a sapphire in his belly that he’d eaten the night before while she’d been studying. She scolded him and he apologized, but she’d filed it away for later—it might be useful, one day, to have another spell that could help her find Spike.
When she opened her eyes, she knew immediately that the spell had worked. She took an involuntary step back in shock. The girl’s aura was very faint; only the dullest silver glow outlined her body. There were some concentrated areas, as well as a delicate tracery of silver lines throughout her body, almost like the roots of a tree. On the other hoof, her injured hand glowed a bright orange from Zecora’s salve, and the orange overwhelmed the silver all the way up her arm, fading out of prominence near her shoulder.
Twilight turned towards Dale. He, too, was nothing but ghostly silver lines, a mere shadow next to Lyra’s brilliant golden radiance. There were fish she’d heard of that had transparent flesh; only their bones and organs were visible. She’d never seen one, but imagined that this was what they must look like. Living ghosts. It was creepy as Tartarus, and she shuddered as she ended the spell. How could they live like that? No wonder the medicine was barely working. A pony with such low magical energy would be dead. Apparently, these creatures could survive that. Maybe magic was very limited where they came from, too. She broke her concentration and let the spell fail, turning her focus back to what her eyes could normally see.
Dale was watching her warily, while still keeping his hand on Lyra's head. It generally was a dominant gesture, and it was odd that Lyra was submitting to it. Twilight pulled out a blank parchment and a quill. “What happened on the beach? Princess Celestia is going to want to know.”
“When we left his camp, there was a boat on the beach,” Lyra began. “Two stallions and a mare.” She pointed to the girl on the floor. Twilight wrote furiously as Lyra softly recounted the tale. Dale watched in fascination as the quill danced across the paper, briefly turning away every time the nurse spoke.
He feels protective instincts towards the mare, Twilight thought. Even though she attacked Lyra, and he attacked her. I wonder why? “You said she cast a spell? What spell was it?”
“I don't know. Certainly not one we were ever allowed to use duelling. It paralyzed me and drained almost all my magical energy.” She pressed a little tighter against Dale's side.
“Hmf. There's a lot of forbidden spells in the archives. Not where anypony can get to them, of course,” she hastily added. “I suppose it might be a variant of one of those. The ancient unicorns came up with some pretty . . . interesting spells.” Twilight tapped her chin with her hoof. “They've got almost no natural magic weave.” She looked longingly at the girl. “It's touch and go whether Zecora's salve is going to be able to save her hand. There’s virtually no framework to build on. If it works at all, it’s going to take a long time.”
Lyra looked up, spotting the tourniquet and instruments for the first time. “It's that serious? I thought that unless rot had actually set into the flesh, it could be cured.”
“Well, usually. There are spells that can destroy flesh so it cannot be mended, although of course it's a hanging offense to cast one with malice. A few plant and animal toxins damage the flesh so badly it cannot easily be saved. The doctor said it looked like a thaumic burn, though. If he's right, then Zecora's salve will work. It preserves the remaining tissue from rot, and encourages it to regrow. That takes a lot of energy, though.” She paused for thought. “When you first met with Dale, you said he ate carrion?”
“He had a lot of different things. Yesterday, we shared lunch.”
Twilight's eyes widened in alarm. “Didn't I warn you not to do that?”
“Then why did you include a cupcake for him in my lunch? I thought Pinkie Pie had done it, but the note was neatly written in Unicorn.”
“I didn't—” She clamped her mouth shut, took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, extending her leg out in front of her body. “It was a mis-communication. Water under the bridge. Unless the food contains a slow-acting poison, you and he both seem fine. That's good to know.” She narrowed her eyes. “You're fine, right?”
“I guess?” Lyra shrugged. “The carrion sandwich made me a little gassy, but it wasn't too bad. It wasn't as sticky as the bean and fruit sandwich. Maybe it was all the oil. Everything seemed oily, and the lettuce was wilted.”
“You . . . ate. . . .”
“What else could I do?” She sighed. “I gave him the cupcake, and he divided his food in half and offered it to me, so I did the same with my lunch. I figured it would be the most direct way to see what he liked; I didn't think he'd eat it if he didn't like it. And I didn't want to insult him by not eating his food.”
“What if he was thinking the same thing?” Twilight snickered. “Maybe he saw you eating all of his food and thought it would be rude if he didn't eat all of yours.”
“Pinkie would have loved his O-ree-o cookies. Each one of them had its name written on it in strong letters. Maybe I can have the Cakes make some: there were two thin chocolate-flavored crackers with a creamy filling. Each cracker was nearly as detailed as a bit coin. They came in a little blue tube made out of a glassy paper.” She licked her lips.
“We should figure out what they like to eat.” She grabbed another piece of parchment and began writing again. “Besides fish, I don't know what kinds of carrion we could get around here. I suppose I could see if any of Fluttershy's raptors might be willing to share . . . or even Owlowlicious.” She grimaced. “I wonder how Fluttershy puts up with it? It just seems . . . unnatural to want to eat another creature.
“I didn't have time to go through all the lesson plans, but I'll work on that this afternoon. We might want to have Cheerilee help him with language. Nurse Sweetheart said that Rarity has his clothes and the mare's clothes to fix. I've got to get this scroll in the mail. Unfortunately, it can’t go via DragonFire. There are going to be a bunch of professors coming from Canterlot on the morning train. They’ll be there to help you with whatever you need. They’re supposed to have the anatomy book with them; I’ll make sure it gets here as quickly as possible. The guard's cordoned off this whole wing. Oh, and Bon Bon's mad that you aren't coming for lunch after all. She almost tore a strip off my hide when I told her.”
Lyra's ears flattened. “I can't leave him, not right now. The mare's unpredictable. She tried to club him with a table-leg. If I hadn't cast a shield spell and pinned her with the mattress, I don't know what she would have done next. I assume you saw where she threw the heart monitor and table lamp?”
Twilight nodded. The heart monitor had knocked a crater in the wall nearly big enough for her to fit her head in. If it had hit somepony, it could have caused some serious harm. These creatures should not be underestimated.
Prince Blueblood rubbed his hooves together. Princess Celestia was to speak at the Council of Nobles in the afternoon, which meant that something interesting was about to happen—interesting enough that he had considered actually attending, even though it would cut into his polo game. And then Raven had hoof-delivered a note to his office, requesting his presence at an informal lunch.
He’d even shown up fashionably early.
She came into the room late, but that didn’t really bother him too much. He was used to keeping his underlings waiting; he could extend the same courtesy to Her Highness, Protector of Equestria and Bringer of the Sun.
She nodded and he raised his head. He’d practiced the bow for an hour this morning, making sure that he showed just the right amount of deference—too much and she’d think him weak; too little and she’d be insulted.
“Let me cut through the chaff,” she said as the servingpony lifted the lid off the appetizer dish. Blueblood’s stomach rolled; it was a pile of apple fritters. Celestia grabbed one in her aura and began nibbling it daintily. “This afternoon, I intend to address the Council to ask for a vote on a new ambassadorship. Recently, we have made contact with a previously-unknown species in a previously-unknown country.”
“Really?” He eyed his fritter with suspicion. How was one supposed to eat these? Celestia was known for ignoring proper manners at all but the most formal of affairs, yet he dared not risk doing the same. It was kind of a dessert, so he should use his dessert fork—yet it was being served as an appetizer. The next course would probably be a salad . . . his thought trailed off as the magnitude of what she’d said sunk in. Think—what have you heard of explorations lately? Where might there have been a new country that wasn’t known? Funding for explorations had dropped off lately, since everything worth discovering had been discovered.
“Yes; it was quite the surprise. I met one of them a little over a month ago, and we agreed to begin formal relationships between our respective countries.” I hope Twilight got him to sign one of the scrolls. “Naturally, I need to formally open an embassy.”
Blueblood eyed her warily, his mind whirling. He’d heard of no new embassies being built—certainly not in Canterlot.
“More importantly—and the reason I am here today—is that I wish to propose you as an ambassador. The Prench embassy will have a vacancy in a year, but I know you don’t want your talents to go to waste, so I thought this might be the perfect opportunity for you.”
“Me?” If he’d actually been eating his fritter, he probably would have sprayed crumbs across the table. His chest swelled with pride. “Well, of course I would—”
“I’m sorry to say that it will be difficult going at first.” She set her half-eaten fritter back on the plate, and leaned across the table. “Both of the ambassadors were injured in an . . . unfortunate magical accident, so they’re confined to the hospital for the present. We expect that they will make a full recovery, of course. No expense is being spared in their treatment. Early meetings will need to be at the hospital, in the recovery rooms.
“This has caused some other issues, as you can imagine.” She rested her chin on her hooves, a very intimate gesture considering her rank. “The budget is rather limited, and I fear most of it will be spent on medical care. Naturally, I’d want to make sure that the pony I nominated would be able to work with a tight budget for the first year or so.”
“Naturally.” Blueblood swallowed audibly. “A tight budget.”
“The embassy . . . it’s quite charming. I have arranged to rent a half-timbered house. There is a nice room on the ground floor which is quite suitable for formal meetings, and a room on the second floor where you could work and sleep. Even as we speak, workers are constructing an outside staircase so that the room will be private. After all, I wouldn't want the ambassador to be disturbed by ponies walking through his chambers. I’ve been assured that it will most likely have a roof by wintertime, but one can’t rush these things. If they finish under-budget, I might have them install an indoor bathroom.”
“That sounds . . . lovely.”
“It looks much like the country club where you play polo. Smaller, of course. Much smaller.” She offered him a half-smile.
“There’s plenty of room for books, too, which is a good thing. It turns out that they don’t speak Equestrian, so of course the ambassador will have to learn their language. That should be no difficulty for a pony who’s co-chair of the Equestrian Education committee, though, so I have no worries there.”
Blueblood looked down at the table. The hateful fritters had been replaced with an unappealing apple salad. “No reason to be concerned at all,” he muttered.
“It’s really located quite well,” she added. “The embassy. There’s a fashion shop just down the street from it, and the proprietrix is quite the up-and-coming designer. I believe you’ve met her before—Rarity?”
Blueblood looked at her in stunned silence. A slice of apple fell off his fork.
“Yes, at the Grand Galloping Gala. You know, I hear she’s single. I’m sure the two of you would get along fabulously.” She began eating her salad, paying no mind to Blueblood’s shocked expression.
“I . . . I don’t know what to say.”
“I’d meant to nominate Lyra Heartstrings,” Celestia added. “She’s familiar with his language, and she doesn’t take offense to his eating habits. Of course, that’s to be expected; she trained under a Neighponese maestro. Still, I’ve found a lot of ponies seem offended by the thought of carrion-eaters, even in this modern age.
“You’ll love the town, too. Ponyville. Have you been there? It’s quite charming. An earth pony enclave. It’s full of rough-and-tumble ponies. I suppose that’s to be expected, since they’re right on the edge of the Everfree Forest. Why, I can’t imagine that you’ll want to leave when your six-year ambassadorship is up.”
“Six . . . six years?” He dropped his fork.
“Well, of course. It’s the traditional length of an embassy posting.” Celestia looked at him slyly. “The time will just fly by. There’s so many things to do there—the Running of the Leaves is coming up, you know. I bet they’d want to compete—as guests of honor, of course—and it would be so wonderful to see them running alongside all the earth ponies. I have no doubt that you’ll want to be right there with them—they encourage unicorns to participate.”
Celestia looked over at the sunlight slanting through the window. “Oh, would you look at that? it’s already been a half-hour. I need to get ready for afternoon court.”
“Wait.” Blueblood held up a hoof. “What did you say the name of the mare who was working with them was?”
“Lyra Heartstrings? Equestria’s youngest grandmaster?” Celestia stepped off her bench. “You’ll like her. She’s been spending a lot of time with them. She’s in the hospital, too, but I’ve been told she’s expected to make a full recovery from the injuries she received when they attacked her. I haven’t got a full report yet, but I’m sure that it was just a simple misunderstanding that landed her in the hospital. The creatures hardly seem aggressive at all most of the time. . . given their size, they could have easily killed and eaten her if they’d wanted to.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Blueblood stammered.
"Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get plenty of congratulations after the council meeting.” She turned and walked out of the room, ignoring his belated bow.