Chapter 11
*Although this story isn’t rated so, this chapter is a little dark*
“That conversation could’ve gone a lot better. With this many skeletons in her closet, it’s a wonder the princess is even ruling Equestria. I may be the tipping point that caused her depression to relapse. If that’s the case, it’s my responsibility to fix this. That might be more of a challenge than I initially thought.
“I think Celestia’s avoiding me now. She wasn’t at dinner last night, though I didn’t want to be there either so that may be invalid. You can’t help someone or somepony who doesn’t want help, it doesn’t matter whether or not they need it.”
The next morning, Fred sat on his bed to figure out how he could get the solar princess to talk about her problems. ‘Obviously, the option of a direct confrontation’s just going to get beaten up and thrown out the window. Subtlety’s going to have to be involved.’
‘First, however, I’m going to have to find her.’ Fred stood up. His bare feet – he doesn’t sleep with socks, and didn’t have time to put them on before he was taken anyway – barely sank into the shallow carpet of the blue guest room. He began his search for the Princess as he contemplated the best course of action.
Fred gripped the brass latch of the door and dragged it down, then pulled the door towards him. He looked out to see anypony nearby. Strangely, there wasn’t any activity in his area, and very little in the castle overall. He anticipated the palace to be a little bit livelier. ‘Just my expectations though. No idea how it would actually be before arriving here… I also didn’t predict I’d end up here either.’
‘How should I start the conversation?’ he began as he turned left down the corridor. He thought he’d check the throne room first, as he did previously. Along the trek through the halls, he encountered sparsely few ponies en route. ‘So today’s the 10th of July but I have no idea what the day itself actually is. Maybe it’s a weekend?’
Once again, the throne room doors were open and both it and the antechamber were empty except for Fred. ‘It would explain why it’s so quiet and empty.’ He left the antechamber the way he came and continued walking.
Fred occasionally got bored and distracted, so he leaned on a nearby wall to chill for a while. He decided to look through his Scavenger Watch to see if he could find something he’d forgotten as he occasionally does. Once on his home machine, he found 4GB of Power Rangers episodes that he copied from DVDs.
‘Assuming I can go home, I might dual-boot this with Windows 8 once that’s out. It should support the architecture, if I remember correctly.’ He searched both the apps and the file system itself, but found nothing that he had forgotten. The only interesting things were his MLP music - which he promptly encrypted, just in case - the vlogs, and the source code for the custom neuro-receptor drivers, which he’ll continue coding later.
Done procrastinating, Fred checked the time - 7:04 AM - and locked the watch before continuing to find the Princess.
He turned a corner and spotted what he believed was the faint glow of Princess Celestia at the other end of the hall, but as he traversed the distance, the light seemed to fade away. By the time he reached the end, it was gone completely. ‘Could’ve sworn it was her…’
‘I still don’t have a good, subtle way of starting the conversation,’ Fred thought as he continued wandering the castle hours later. He ate breakfast in his room, though didn’t see the Princess in the cafeteria when he passed.
He unmistakably caught her tail turning a corner in his eyes, but when he powerwalked to where he saw her, she was gone. He took a deep breath through his nose as he wondered where she kept going, and caught an overwhelming smell of ozone. Fred wrinkled his nose as he moved to the point the smell was strongest; he could spot a very faint hairline shimmer for a few seconds before it disappeared. ‘She teleported. Celestia really is trying to avoid me. Subtlety’s not even useful if I can’t start a conversation in the first place.’
In deep thought, Fred Walsh returned to the blue guest room. As he contemplated recent events, he continued coding the neuro-receptor drivers for the Scavenger Watch.
Princess Celestia wanted to help Fred get home, but didn’t want him prying into her personal life. She already can’t forgive herself for her actions against her sister, and doesn’t want it to get worse. In an attempt to both take her mind off things and escape Fred, she started court, even though it was a Sunday.
The entire day went past with not much happening, just ponies with various problems as usual. The princess set the sun at 9:16 and was going to close court after one last pony. Or, group of ponies, in this case.
Seven ponies, all obscured by identical, blood-red cloaks, entered the room. From her throne, she could make out three unicorns, two pegasi and two earth ponies. Celestia was intrigued by the well-organised group for a moment, until one of the unicorns held back while the remaining two charged spells in their horns. The pegasi and earth ponies split evenly and ran towards the guards, now on alert. The pony that held behind closer to the throne room’s doors shut them heavily. The guards unholstered their weapons but were quickly taken down by the unicorns’ spells, before getting bucked by the pegasi and earth ponies.
“What is the meaning of this‽” Princess Celestia screamed as she jumped out of her throne.
Loud bangs could be heard from the doors at the other side of the room as the guards on the other side attempted to break in, but the doors were held shut too well by one of the unicorns.
Fred Walsh figured that the best way to map out the input from the neuroheadset fragment was to put it into a two-dimensional graph. It wouldn’t be nearly as accurate as the full device, but it was nice to be doing something.
He examined the graph on his watch, seeing if he could influence it with his thoughts, when he saw a huge spike in the 20-40Hz range. ‘That can’t be me, what the hell‽’ he mentally exclaimed right before bells started ringing all throughout the castle. ‘This can’t be good.’