XI. Welcome to the Jungle
“Decorum holds that I ought to thank you for saving my life after I was trapped on that cloud,” said Rarity. She rested on the edge of the bed in the Alicorn’s ruined cabin, nibbling at a biscuit from the airship’s store of food and fanning herself with one of Blueblood’s folded maps. After recovering from her fainting spell, the first things Rarity had felt were hunger pangs and the discomfort of the jungle’s sweltering wet heat. Meanwhile, Blueblood tramped about the cabin, surveying the extensive crash damage.
“Are you thanking me, then?” Blueblood asked, pausing his inspection and turning toward Rarity.
“Hmm, I’m not sure that decorum actually applies when one is lost in the jungle with little chance of survival. Moreover, you haven’t been particularly forthcoming with gratitude for me.”
“For you?”
“For me! Was it not I who enabled our escape by freeing your ship?”
“Why, you’re right,” Blueblood began. “Thanks are in order. Thank you for ruining literally everything important to me.”
“What are you talking about?” Rarity asked, incredulous.
“I could have left you there, you know. I was perilously close to not turning back. I hadn’t slept in over thirty hours, and given how much wakewort I chewed to stay awake, it didn’t surprise me in the least that I was seeing things. How could you have possibly been stuck on a cloud in a thunderstorm, after all? I was nearly convinced that you were a hallucination, but I turned the ship around to be absolutely certain.” Blueblood spoke quickly, anger and frustration evident in his voice.
“I’m glad you did,” Rarity said quietly, apprehensive of Blueblood’s apparent mood swing.
“I did, and what is the reward for my heroism? To be drenched by the storm of insanity that is hovering over you? To have the Alicorn, my magnum opus, the ship I built from the keel up with my own hooves, wrecked? To have the race I spent years of my life organizing and planning lost? To perish here, with you, a thousand leagues from home?” Blueblood’s voice rose in pitch with each question, and he sank to a kneeling position in front of Rarity.
“Really? Really?” Rarity rose to her hooves, the better to glare angrily down at the kneeling noble. Blueblood may have been upset, but she would not tolerate his attempt to lay blame for this fiasco on her. “It is I who has been caught up in your problems, not the other way around! Did you not observe that flying fortress? Did you not see that griffon, Graywings, murdered? Can you be so dense that you do not now recognize that Chancellor Ninetalons was killed in your very castle? This is far bigger than I, and the perpetrators have clearly been planning their game for a very long time. Whatever is happening, it involves you, and your race. Those griffons were after you, and right now you should be thanking me for saving your life!”
“You lie!” Blueblood yelled, standing again and looming over Rarity. He held one hoof to his head as if in pain, pressing on his temple near the ugly wound he had received in the crash. When he spoke, he assumed a haughty air. “I am the Duke of Canterlot, beloved by ponies and friend to all. I have no enemies. Nopony would seek to do me harm.”
“Somepony in this room is considering doing you harm right now,” Rarity said through gritted teeth.
“I see what’s happening here,” Blueblood said. “This is a simple succession crisis. When the griffons pick a new chancellor, some blood is almost sure to be spilled. Those marauders killed Graywings to remove him as a possible successor to Ninetalons, and I was an unlucky witness. That’s why they attacked. I could just as easily have been safely on my way, if I hadn’t seen anything. Since I wouldn’t have seen anything if I hadn’t gone back for you, I again reach the inescapable conclusion that all of this is your fault.”
“You don’t honestly believe this is just about who is going to replace Chancellor Ninetalons, do you? Do you think that the griffons would take the time to set up an ambush during the Alicorn’s Cup, the most high-profile sporting event in the world, in order to take out one lone griffon that could have been ambushed a thousand times more easily back among his own people? I may be a dressmaker, but I’m not that naive.”
“Dressmaker?” Blueblood laughed. “You are an Element bearer. If anyone is being conspired against, it is you. Any enemy of Equestria would want to destroy the Elements of Harmony. I saved you, and you got me shipwrecked. Those are the inescapable facts.”
“I now see that the passage of time has not improved your attitude or manners in any way. I may have toyed with the idea, once or twice, that beneath your shell of superciliousness, there was more than foalish vanity and shallow self-righteousness. I was utterly mistaken.” If Blueblood continued to test her, Rarity was prepared to drop all pretense of social grace. She was preparing a few more choice words when she noticed that the stallion was sweating profusely.
Blueblood had said he stayed awake by chewing wakewort, and Rarity suddenly realized that she was observing the symptoms of acute withdrawal from the stimulant. Wakewort could keep a pony alert and focused as long as he kept chewing it. It was when one stopped that the user had to confront the root’s unfortunate side effects - headaches, emotional swings, a rapid heartbeat, cold sweats, and the overwhelming need for sleep. Rarity knew the misery of wakewort withdrawal from experience, and that was one reason she preferred the gentler effects of coffee. At this point in the withdrawal process, Blueblood probably was only half aware of what he was saying, and she was unlikely to get anywhere by pressing him further. Not that she was going to let that stop her from making a point.
“You are a fool if you can’t see that this conspiracy goes all the way back to Canterlot, to your castle, and to your family,” she said in the most deadly serious monotone she could manage.
“How dare you?” Blueblood shouted, gesticulating wildly with a forehoof. “Are you implying that I am somehow involved? That I crashed my own airship? Why, so that I could have a hot date with you in the jungle? Are you that conceited? I don’t even know …” Blueblood’s voice trailed off, and he was left looking confused, as if he had forgotten the conversation entirely. The rapid onset of short-term memory loss was another common side effect of withdrawal.
Rarity observed that Blueblood was breathing rapidly, and still rubbing his temple. It wouldn't be long now. She gave him a gentle push, and Blueblood slowly began moving in the direction of the bed, where he turned and sat down. Based on her experience with wakewort, he had seconds of consciousness remaining. The likelihood that Blueblood was soon to be unable to respond made this an excellent time to deliver bad news.
“No, it isn’t you who is involved,” Rarity said, shaking her head. “It’s your brother.”
Blueblood laughed, then grimaced and threw both forehooves to his head. “That is the most … preposterous … thing …” He toppled over onto his side, fast asleep before his head hit the mattress.
“Sweet dreams,” Rarity muttered, rolling her eyes. If she were fortunate, Blueblood would be willing and able to see reason after he awoke. The narcoleptic effect and other symptoms of wakewort withdrawal would have dissipated, as well as the normal functional difficulties that accompanied sleep deprivation. It was still going to be difficult to explain to him that she knew his brother was trying to have both of them killed, but she saw no reasoning around the conclusion.
Rarity had been piecing together the facts she had gathered for some time now. Procyon was the pony who had ensconced Windlass in Fancypants’ inner circle after gaining the latter's trust by working to orchestrate the sale of North Star. Why would he go to such great lengths to convince Fancypants that Windlass was a highly-placed engineer in Blueblood’s firm, and that he should hire her at once, if he didn’t stand to gain from her new position? He was part of the conspiracy. Of course there probably were others involved. Rarity knew of no particular connection between Procyon and Tempest, for example, though somepony was paying the pegasus for his misdeeds.
There were other questions to which Rarity had no answer as well. How would Procyon and Windlass have known ahead of time that Rarity would be participating in the race? What was their connection to the griffons who had attacked the Alicorn? Perhaps most importantly, why did anypony want Rarity dead? The only way she would ever find out was by making it back to Equestria alive. Survival had to be her priority. She would have plenty of time for sleuthing and deductive reasoning back home.
She had to get home. Was it really possible that she would be bushwhacking her way though the jungle tomorrow? She had heard stories about some of the magical monsters that lived in the tropics. There were the boto that lured explorers into rivers, disguised as beautiful mares, only to reveal their true flesh-eating forms underwater. Vampire bats swooped out of the night to drain their victims' blood. There were surely others that Rarity couldn’t remember, all equally horrific. Moreover, there were likely to be non-magical predators of all shapes and sizes lurking in the shadows, waiting for easy prey to stumble past. It was a joke to think that she and Blueblood could escape this place.
For now at least, with Blueblood asleep for an indefinite period of time, and a finite number of hours left before nightfall, it was a certainty that nopony would be leaving the Alicorn tonight. Perhaps, Rarity thought, she and Blueblood might never have to leave the relative security of the downed airship. Here they had provisions to last a few days, and that was enough time for the Princesses and her friends to mount a rescue. Rarity finally felt a glimmer of hope. Why, they might not even have to wait that long! The regatta would surely be suspended when it became known to the course officials that one pony was presumed lost to the storm and two entire airships had gone missing. The remaining teams would then doubtless be pressed into search duty. All Rarity and Blueblood needed to do was wait until a friendly craft appeared overhead.
Still, no rescue would be forthcoming before tomorrow. The only ones likely to be searching for the Alicorn tonight were the same griffons who had caused the ship to crash in the first place, and with a raptor’s sharp eyes augmented by the feline ability to see in the dark, the griffons could hunt all night long. If the griffons did find them … Rarity shuddered. There were very real reasons why the ponies’ neighbors to the north were the subject of so many frightening foals’ tales. There had to be something she could do to make the Alicorn more difficult to find.
She climbed the folding staircase to the airship’s deck and looked around. Far above, the treetop canopy filtered the waning light of day into scattered beams that dappled the understory below. The dominant colors of the jungle were the bright green of leaves and vines, and the browns of trunks, branches, stems, and the soil below. A rainbow of other colors accented the picture. From her vantage point Rarity could see rows of bright orange bell-shaped flowers hanging from vines draped between the trees like holiday garlands. Enormous bromeliads jutted forth wherever they could find purchase, their thick spiky leaves tinged dark purple at their tips. Cascades of tiny flowers spilled over low-hanging branches and fallen logs like still waterfalls of fuchsia and white.
The verdant scene was not unspoiled; evidence of the Alicorn’s crash landing was everywhere in the form of splintered trees, broken branches, and deep furrows cut into the earth. Rarity could trace the airship’s trail of destruction back at least a hundred lengths to the edge of the small lake on which they had first touched down. Furthermore, the expected cacophony of birds and animals was eerily absent, as if the forest was still absorbing the shock of its injury and had not determined how to react to the invaders.
Despite the devastation on the ground, little evidence of the Alicorn’s passage could be seen in the treetops above. The tropical trees towered to dizzying heights on slender branchless trunks, only to spread out at the very top into a tangled mat of leaves and thin branches that formed the jungle canopy. The canopy was so thick that the loss of even several trees did little more than create a modest thinning effect over the crash site, allowing a bit more light to filter through. It would be hard for even the sharpest eyes to spot the Alicorn through the trees. If the ship were glimpsed, however, its bright colors and reflective golden accents would likely call down unwanted attention. Rarity was struck with an idea that might prevent that from happening.
She couldn’t repair the damage from the crash, not without an entire team of unicorns to mend the trees and earth ponies to stamp out the ruts in the forest floor. Instead, Rarity had a solution in mind that she could manage by herself, and which took advantage of her natural talent for decorating. If the Alicorn’s gleaming paint, gold accents, and brilliant blue balloon were covered in the same dirt, branches, and leaves that littered Rarity’s surroundings, then the crash site would appear from the air to be just another indistinguishable patch of jungle.
Rarity set to work, accomplishing a slow circumnavigation of the Alicorn’s deck as she maneuvered sticks, leaves, and branches into place, building a superstructure of debris around the downed airship. The framework grew, branch by branch, until it extended up over the sides of the ship and met overhead, creating a rather impressive, if ad hoc, bower that covered the entire deck. The deflated balloon, largely tangled and twisted in the nearby trees, was concealed through judicious rearrangement of the local creeping vines. Eventually, after several hours of hard work, the wreck was obscured to Rarity’s satisfaction. Its unnatural colors were overwhelmed by forest hues, and its sharp lines were broken up by the organic patterns of foliage and fronds.
“Ta da!” Rarity exclaimed. The effort might not live up to her exacting standards under ordinary circumstances, but it would suffice for her present purposes. It had not been a walk in the park, either. Magic sapped a unicorn’s physical energy as well as mental, and she was exhausted and sticky with sweat after her labor. The light filtering through the trees was now dim and diffuse, and Rarity recognized that night was fast approaching. She had barely finished her work before it became too dark to continue, but she had done it. She was proud of her success in the very face of adversity.
Clambering back down the stairs into the Alicorn’s cabin, Rarity found Blueblood right where she left him, splayed limply on his bed. A small wet spot on the fitted bedsheet revealed that the self-proclaimed prince tended to drool in his sleep, but at least he didn’t snore. That was fortunate for him, if he was planning to spend the night anywhere inside the airship’s cabin.
Given the dearth of conscious company, Rarity was unable to indulge her desire for conversation, so she turned to other pressing needs. First, she tried the tap and was delighted to see clear water pour forth. She filled a tin cup and drank the tepid liquid down. Repeating the process two more times sufficiently slaked her thirst. Then, Rarity secured an apple and another hard biscuit from Blueblood’s shipboard lardor. Finally, she righted a small workbench that had been upended in the crash, and sat down opposite the bed to eat.
Staring at the sleeping stallion, Rarity allowed herself a moment to indulge her curiosity about Blueblood. After Windlass’ actions, Rarity had to believe that he truly had devised North Star’s novel designs, as he had claimed. This same boorish stallion who could not even successfully feign charm was at the same time a brilliant inventor and engineer. The two Bluebloods were very difficult to reconcile. What drove him to be so preoccupied with engines, airships, and racing at any rate? By all accounts he enjoyed the advantages of his noble station, and of bachelorhood in Canterlot. He could have simply frittered away his days, reveling in wealth, privilege, and libertine debauchery. He could have easily been nothing more than the obnoxious stallion who had ruined her first, and perhaps only, Grand Galloping Gala.
There was no denying that Blueblood was narcissistic, oversensitive, immature, spoiled, and had not one proper idea about how to treat a lady, but in a strange way, he and Rarity shared a kinship. They were both creators. Rarity, for her part, could not imagine life without fashion. Dreaming up designs and bringing them to life with scissors, needle, and thread was as vital and necessary to her as air. Perhaps Blueblood felt similarly about his own passion. They would never be friends, but if she and Blueblood could at least reach a mutual understanding, they might be able to tolerate each other. That would be enough.
She had to admit that it was bizarre how life kept conspiring to throw the two of them together. Pinkie Pie might ascribe some design to the operation of fate, though Rarity knew better. It was simply a series of unfortunate coincidences that kept placing her in close proximity to the stallion. But what if it kept happening, after she returned home? What if some infelicitous star was guiding them, crossing their paths over and over again, and forcing them to experience pivotal moments in their lives together in the interest of cosmic dark comedy? Rarity could feel a tightness in her chest as her heart nearly seized up at the thought. She could at least try harder to get along, Rarity decided. It would require treating Blueblood with velveteen stockings, as the saying went, but she would give it her best effort.
She would start by offering to refer to him by his true name. Informality was a step on the road to friendliness. “Polaris,” Rarity uttered quietly, just to feel the sound of the word on her tongue. She was well aware that he had demanded that she never use that name, but that was before they were shipwrecked together. It was a fine name, anyway. Being named for the star that had guided explorers and adventurers for centuries was fitting for a pony with a compass rose cutie mark, who claimed that his special talent was navigation. Perhaps he would live up to his namesake and successfully lead them back to civilization. For some reason, though, Rarity preferred Blueblood. It just seemed more fitting.
“Don’t call me that,” Blueblood grumbled, his voice muffled by the mattress into which he was speaking.
“You’re awake,” Rarity observed. There was no clock, but she guessed that he had slept for four hours. “Feeling better?”
“I am as well as I could hope to be, under the circumstances,” Blueblood replied. He rolled off the bed and onto his hooves. “I don’t even remember falling asleep.”
Rarity levitated a brown paper bag for Blueblood to see. She had found it while rummaging for food. “You passed out because you stopped chewing this.”
“Ah, right. Yes, I admit I may have chewed an unhealthy amount of wakewort over the past few days. Before you judge, I had a dinner to host and an airship to prepare, repair, and race. I’ll hold onto that bag, if you don’t mind.”
“No. No more chewing.”
“Hoof it over. We may both need to stay awake while we find our way out of here.”
Rarity decided to abandon her efforts to be nicer before they had even commenced. There was only one surefire way to stave off what was sure to be a protracted argument about the merits of wakewort, and it was obvious that there would be no winner of such a row. She dropped the paper bag and stomped on it with a forehoof. She then twisted her hoof, grinding the roots so that their juice spilled onto the floor in a dark brown pool.
“Are you mad?” Blueblood shouted. “I need that!”
“No you don’t. We need to keep our wits about us. You were more of a wreck than this ship earlier. You were paranoid and hysterical, and I’m afraid of that happening again, whenever you run out of roots to chew. If it happens at the wrong time, you could get us both killed. I refuse to take that chance. No more wakewort.”
“But -”
“It’s already too late,” Rarity said, kicking the flat, soggy bag aside.
“You’re a monster.” Blueblood glared at Rarity for what felt like minutes, before finally heaving an exasperated sigh. “But thank you. I couldn’t have gotten rid of it on my own. Wakewort is a pox on ponies who feel compelled to forgo sleep in favor of work. I often wish every last root could be shipped back to the fetid swamp in Zanzebra where it was pulled out of the muck, but then I chew it for days straight, again and again, whenever a deadline looms.” He sighed again.
“I understand,” Rarity replied gently. “I too have abused it to meet a deadline. Only after my friends and family pointed out how awful I acted when the wakwort wore off did I understand that I needed to stop.”
An awkward silence occupied the space between the two unicorns, until Blueblood finally spoke again. “You did save us both earlier. Thank you for that as well.”
“It was the heat of the moment,” Rarity replied, pleased at the first positive sign that she and Blueblood might not spend the rest of their time together at each other’s throats. This was a breakthrough. There was hope yet for a working relationship. “Anypony would have tried to save herself, as I did.”
“Be that as it may,” Blueblood began, waving a hoof dismissively, “you succeeded, and you saved us. I apologize for my behavior.”
“I accept,” Rarity replied, pleased.
Blueblood’s eyes narrowed. “I will not, however, listen to any more nonsense about my brother, or my family,” he said sternly. “If anypony is to blame for this, it’s Fancypants. He has been out to destroy me since the day we met.”
What? Rarity squeezed her eyes closed, took a deep breath, and struggled very hard to resist the magnetic attraction that had suddenly arisen between her hoof and forehead. She was back to square one, and after such promising signs. “I’m very sorry, I cannot imagine how awful I would feel if my own family turned against me,” she said truthfully. “I also cannot ignore the fact that your brother Procyon is trying to kill me, if not both of us. Please, just hear me out.”
“Rant away,” Blueblood scoffed. He rolled his eyes, flopped onto his back, and stared up at the cabin ceiling. Rarity took that as her cue to continue.
“Listen to me. Fancypants was not one the ponies who threw me overboard. In fact, the two who did waited until he was out of sight so that they could make it look like an accident and corroborate each other’s stories. Fancypants is no murderer. Procyon, however, may be.”
Rarity waited for Blueblood to interrupt her, but he simply continued to stare at the ceiling in silence. There was barely enough light entering the cabin through the open hatch and the large hole in the side of the hull to see, so Rarity took a moment to relight the gas lantern that had fallen on the floor. Some of the mirrored glass surrounding the flame had shattered, but the lantern still cast a warm glow in the confined space. She carefully hung it from its hook on the ceiling before continuing.
“One of the ponies who tried to kill me is a unicorn mare named Windlass. She claims to be a trained aeronautical engineer, and she and Fancypants independently exaplained to me that Fancypants hired her based on a recommendation from your brother. Procyon told Fancypants that she was a top engineer at North Star.”
Blueblood turned his head toward Rarity without moving from his prone position. “You know that cannot be true, because I already informed you that I designed each and every airship produced by North Star alone and without assistance. Ergo, you figured out that this Windlass and Procyon misled your hero, Fancypants, in order to get Windlass a job. That’s the evidence upon which you would condemn my brother?”
“That’s part of it,” Rarity said.
“I’m guessing this Windlass is young and easy on the eyes. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“She is,” Rarity replied uncertainly.
“Indeed. No stallion would ever lie to curry favor with a pretty girl. Excellent reasoning, counselor. Your logic is infallible. You’ve proven beyond a reasonable doubt that my brother, who I have known since he was a newborn foal, is a monster,” Blueblood said.
“There is more.”
“Do tell.”
“Fancypants told me in confidence that Procyon worked with him for months to orchestrate his buyout of North Star. He was stealing your notes and schematics and turning them over to Fancypants to sweeten the deal,” Rarity said.
“That’s impossible,” Blueblood replied crossly. He rolled over and assumed a kneeling position from which he could look Rarity straight in the eyes. His posture was stiff and awkward, and Rarity could see that Blueblood was agitated. “First of all, Procyon would never go behind my back. Second, I kept no blueprints that he could have stolen. It seems as though your Mr. Fancypants was the one telling lies.”
“You must have had designs on paper,” Rarity prodded. “Otherwise, how would your shipwrights and fabricators even know what to build?”
“Yes, of course,” Blueblood said, sounding exasperated. “I drew up specifications and instructions for each step of the build process, but these were always destroyed after a particular phase of construction was finished, and I never created a complete set of plans. I refuse to design the same way twice, so I don’t want to use my own earlier work as a shortcut.”
“And you personally oversaw the destruction of each of these ‘specifications?’”
“I personally threw them in my wastepaper bin, if that’s what your asking. Do you honestly believe that my brother, who cares only for ledgers and bank accounts, was dredging through my refuse looking for engineering diagrams?”
“Yes,” said Rarity. She was absolutely certain of it.
“Then both because you are crazy and because I know my own family far better than you do, we have nothing further to discuss on this matter,” Blueblood huffed.
Rarity was flabbergasted. The evidence of Procyon’s culpability was overwhelming, but Blueblood refused to listen. Certainly, Rarity could understand familial loyalty. She could never believe ill of her own young sister, but that was because Sweetie Belle adored her, sometimes with embarrassing ardor, and furthermore lacked a single malicious bone in her body. Procyon had betrayed Blueblood, and was likely involved in trying to have him killed. Perhaps this revelation merely needed time to sink in. She decided to change the subject for the time being.
“While you were asleep I concealed the airship with leaves and branches. I don’t think the griffons will be able to find us from the air now.”
“Clever,” Blueblood acknowledged. He visibly relaxed now that the topic had shifted away from his family. “I’m sure they will be out hunting all night. However well disguised we are here, though, we can’t stay with the Alicorn forever. We have only a few days of provisions for two ponies. We shall have to leave on the morrow and make for the border with all haste.”
“About that,” Rarity began. “It must already be apparent to the other racers, as well as the officials and media at the next waypoint, that something has gone terrible awry and two airships are missing. Even if I am presumed lost with no hope of recovery, Equestria will mount a search and rescue operation for the Alicorn and Stiletto. By this time tomorrow, the Wonderbolts and the other airships could be rescuing us. I propose we wait here, where we are not completely out of our element.”
“That would be a fine idea, but for the fact that it is a terrible one,” Blueblood said firmly. “First, there is a reason this part of the world is referred to as the Impenetrable Lands. This jungle may be larger than all of Equestria, and nopony has even a vague idea as to where we crashed. Based on a best guess the search area would be, at a minimum, no less than twenty thousand square leagues. It could take weeks, or they might never find us, or the griffons might find us first. Meanwhile, as far as I know neither of us has the kind of botanical knowledge that could tell us what plants are safe to eat. We are very likely to either starve or poison ourselves.”
“We cannot be that difficult to find. If we so much as hear a friendly airship I can send up sparks from my horn. Even at a long distance, we shall be seen and rescued,” Rarity countered.
“Thank you for granting me that segue into my next reason why your idea is awful. Somewhere not far from here, most likely taking on fuel as we speak, is an enormous, heavily armed pony-of-war, crewed by marauding griffons whose firesticks are now dry, primed, and ready to fire. If they truly want us dead, they are not going to simply allow us to waltz out of here, even with the Wonderbolts escorting us. No airship can outrun a formation of griffons any more than it could a determined pegasus, at least over a short distance.”
Blueblood was right, Rarity realized. Her heart sunk. Waiting to be rescued would not only add to their own risk, but it stood to put others’ lives in jeopardy as well.
“We are walking, then,” she said quietly.
“Walking,” Blueblood affirmed. “You aren’t going to faint again, are you?”
“I have a hardier constitution than you think,” Rarity replied, her chin raised pridefully. “I’m simply concerned about the difficulty inherent in navigating our way though this forest.”
“Don’t concern yourself with that,” Blueblood said, tapping the compass rose on his right flank.
“I’m reserving my confidence until I see your pathfinding skills in action.”
Blueblood did not reply, and both ponies sat quietly for the next few minutes. Rarity tried to think of something to to add to the discussion, but none of her arguments had gone the way she intended so far. It was Blueblood who broke the silence first.
“I would like to know where the griffons got that airship. I know no factory in Equestria produced it. I monitor every other design firm and shipyard in the country, and there hasn’t been a project of anything close to the scale that it would require to construct such a monstrosity. An airship that size, outfitted with weapons and a full crew, would require incredibly powerful engines to have any hope of flying fast enough to be a credible warship, which would in turn require an enormous amount of fuel for the boilers. I cannot conceive of how a ship of those dimensions could manage to be lighter than air, and yet I saw it with my own eyes.”
“Perhaps your designs are simply not the latest word in engineering,” Rarity offered with an uncaring shrug.
“No, they most certainly are the latest word,” Blueblood quickly replied. “The Alicorn, for example, has no boiler. Instead, it is the only airship in the world outfitted with a supercritical steam generator, resulting in dramatically reduced fuel consumption. The surfeit of amenities you see here is only possible because the Alicorn’s steam engine consumes half the fuel of a traditional model. Because the steam generator operates at extremely high pressure, there is of course an increased risk of catastrophic failure resulting in an explosion, but I could not think of a better way to field test than to equip it for the Alicorn’s Cup.”
“What if the griffons had your … hypocritical generator, did you say?” Rarity asked. “Could the corresponding weight savings not explain how their airship stays aloft?”
“Nopony has a steam generator but I,” Blueblood said. “I invented it.”
“Assume they do have it,” Rarity pressed.
“Fine. Yes, that would be one explanation,” Blueblood admitted.
“It is the obvious and only explanation!” Rarity exclaimed, throwing her forelegs in the air in frustration. “They have your designs because somepony has stolen them from you, as I’ve been trying to tell you. You simply cannot let the obvious truth penetrate your thick skull!”
“Even if that were the case, then the thief is not my brother,” Blueblood maintained. “Fancypants and that Windlass could be in cahoots with the griffons, and they could have spies in my castle.”
“If you say so,” Rarity said, exasperated. In the end, it didn’t matter whether she convinced Blueblood of her theories or not. She had the ear of Twilight Sparkle and Princess Celestia, and together with the rest of her friends she would shine the light of day on the villains. All she had to do was get home. It was more important that she be able to coexist with Blueblood than win this argument. She had just one more question that she wanted to ask. “Since we’re on the topic, there was something else strange about that airship. Did you ever, by any chance, invent a component requiring gems? Specifically, a single very large, flawless gem?”
“Never,” Blueblood replied. “Only magical technologies make use of gems, and I do not, as a rule, use magic in my designs. I cannot even guess how one might use gems in aeronautics. Out of sheer curiosity, why do you ask?”
“When the griffons first attacked, and secured the Alicorn with that hook, my gem-finding spell cast,” Rarity replied. “That spell is one of my special talents, and it sometimes activates of its own accord in the presence of superlative stones. Given that we were in the midst of a terrible storm, and the distance between the Alicorn and the other ship, whatever gem I sensed must have been an incredible specimen. Either that, or there was a dragon’s ransom worth of ordinary gemstones on board. I think the latter unlikely, simply because the spell felt singularly focused to me.”
“You don’t say?” Blueblood ears pricked up and his eyes narrowed. “Does your spell happen to distinguish between gems which have been magically empowered, and gems which are inert?”
“Not that I am aware of,” Rarity began, “but I have very little experience with magical focusing stones and the like. I use gems for bedazzling, not sorcery.”
“Let me ask a different question, then. Did anything about the storm seem unnatural to you?”
“Let’s see,” Rarity began. “How about everything? It wasn’t created by pegasi, for starters. I’ll never understand how weather outside Equestria can simply spring into existence of its own accord.”
“That’s not what I meant. Didn’t you find it strange that there was nothing but calm, clear skies in every direction around that storm? There was no wind, and no change in barometric pressure, before the storm appeared. I’ve flown airships far afield enough and long enough to know that isn’t how weather works, even outside of Equestria.”
“Hmm,” Rarity mused. “Windlass claimed that she somehow made the storm, but I don’t know what she meant by that. She obviously had some control over winds and lightning, but the storm was already vast and powerful when we were still far away from it. I think she must be delusional.” Rarity was surprised to see that Blueblood was beginning to look thoroughly alarmed.
“I have one last line of questions,” Blueblood said, his tone low and serious. “I want you to think about this very carefully, and not answer one way or the other unless you are absolutely certain of your response. When I showed you to the crypt at my castle, did your spell alert you to the presence of any gems? If not, would it have done so if there had been a particularly splendid gemstone concealed out of sight?”
“No, and yes, respectively” Rarity answered without hesitation. “There was nothing there.”
Blueblood promptly slid off the bed, turned around, and flopped face first onto the mattress. He levitated the one available pillow and used his forelegs to grab and pull it over his head. He didn’t move for some time, and Rarity began to be afraid that he had suffocated himself. She was making a move to check on his welfare when Blueblood turned back to her, eyes wide and bloodshot.
“My own brother!”
“What do you mean?” Rarity asked, startled.
“You were right. You are right about everything. Procyon betrayed me,” Blueblood said, his voice halting and quiet. He looked utterly devastated.
“Well, yes, he did. But how did you come to that realization now?”
Blueblood sighed deeply. “It’s a convoluted story, but the short of it is that I am quite familiar with the particular gem you detected. It should be at home, in my castle, where it has been since long before I was born.”
“I’d like to hear the story,” Rarity prompted.
“It starts a long, long time ago,” Blueblood began. “You see, Princess Platinum was not originally entombed within the crypt that you visited. Her original sepulchre was far simpler, and located in a grove on the castle grounds. Blueblood the Fifteenth was a sentimental sort of pony, and had the present crypt constructed as a mausoleum for his famous ancestor and the Bluebloods who had gone before him. Princess Platinum was reinterred there along with a reliquary containing objects important to her, and to our family’s history. One of these was a diamond of unsurpassed beauty and historical significance. I imagine even you have heard of it. In Old Equestrian its name was Adamas Firmamentum.”
Rarity’s mouth fell open in shock. “You cannot possibly be referring to the Heavenstone?”
“The same.” Blueblood nodded.
“I only know what I learned in grade school,” Rarity said, stunned. “The Heavenstone was a gem that the unicorns of old poured their magic into, so that their ruler could channel the energy of all of them to bring about night and day. It’s supposed to be the largest and most beautiful diamond that ever existed. It cannot be real, can it?”
“It is. The stone has been entombed with Princess Platinum for twelve hundred years now, hidden away after the Princesses freed the unicorns of their responsibility. Even Princess Celestia herself knows not that it has been secretly kept in my family’s possession since her ascent to the throne. It was in our possession, at least. If your talent is to be trusted then it is gone.”
“I could detect a gem such as that from a thousand lengths, I should think!” Rarity exclaimed. “Oh!” She threw a hoof to her mouth to cover the shock of her sudden realization. “And I did, there on the griffons’ airship!”
“Nopony outside my family knows of the Heavenstone’s final disposition. If it is gone, then one of them is responsible, and I doubt the guilty party is one of my sisters, or my mother. As cruel as she can be, it would be impossible for her to dishonor our family’s legacy in this way. As you may have gathered at the dinner, she abhors commoners, non-unicorns, and non-ponies, in order of increasing disgust. If she knew the stone was in the talons of griffons it would kill her instantly.”
“I don’t understand, though, what would the griffons want with a stone that can be empowered by unicorns to raise and lower the sun and moon?” Rarity asked.
“Adamas Firmamentum is not so limited,” Blueblood replied. “According to my family’s lore, it can store magic to be used for any type of spell, and it retains a link to the unicorn who wields it even across vast distances, allowing that pony to cast powerful spells from afar through the stone itself. In ancient times, twin festivals were held on the longest day and longest night of the year, where unicorns would gather to lend their magic to empower the stone. Because everypony participated, these brief empowering ceremonies were sufficient to allow the ruler and the court’s best conjurers to control night and day through the stone. Given enough time, though, even one unicorn could charge the stone enough to cast some unusually potent spells, especially spells in line with that pony’s talent.”
“You’re suggesting that Windlass did create the storm, by activating the Heavenstone,” Rarity said, eyes wide.
“Yes, and the only pony who could have helped her obtain it is Procyon. Now that I think about it, he had been yammering on about some new girl he was seeing, but I never guessed that their dates involved plotting treason and fratricide.”
Rarity absorbed this new information and tried to digest it. “One of the ponies who attacked me is a retired pegasus guardspony named Tempest. He said that somepony was paying him to help start a war. You don’t think there could actually be a war between ponies and griffons, do you? The Princesses would never let it come to that.”
“I can’t imagine war,” Blueblood replied. “The griffons are a race divided, and the various eyries hardly ever reach consensus. Whoever the griffons are who are hunting us, they are clearly not being directed by the high council, since it appears that two of the councilmembers are now dead by the conspirators hooves, or rather claws. No, it would take complete unification of purpose for the griffons to go to war, and that will never happen, even if they all believe that Equestria is responsible for the recent deaths. Furthermore, the idea of Equestria mustering an army is even more laughable.”
“What if,” Rarity began, trying to think as deviously as possible, “what if everypony believes that griffons killed you and broke up the regatta in order to avenge Ninetalons? What if the griffons who attacked us begin striking at the undefended southern reaches of Equestria? There’s no Royal Guard presence to protect those ponies this far from the core cities.”
“I suppose there could be some trouble,” Blueblood conceded.
“But the Princesses would prevent an all out war, wouldn’t they?” Rarity asked, pleading with her eyes. “Please say yes.”
Blueblood looked thoughtful, apparently considering the question at length. “Princess Celestia would never directly fight. She fears the fate that befell her sister too much to inflict harm on mortal creatures in that way. As for Luna, I do not know. I am sure they would do all they could to reach a diplomatic resolution, but there are millions of ponies in Equestria, and only two royal sisters. The power of the throne is premised on affection, not on direct mechanisms for enforcing the Princesses’ will. If ponies demanded a fight, then the Princesses might not be able to prevent the violence from occurring. Whether the end result would be a true war, or merely disorganized bloody mayhem, I cannot guess. Either way, it would be terrible for both sides.”
“Then it is up to us to prevent such horrors from happening,” Rarity said with conviction.
“Inspiring!” Blueblood declared, chuckling quietly. “With the fate of the world in our hooves, good will surely triumph.”
“Well,” Rarity began, adopting a mock-offended tone, “I, for one, have already saved the world twice. As they say, the third time is the charm.”
“Perfect, I’ll let you take the lead in the morning, and maybe you can show me a national heroine in action. You may have to get your hooves dirty.”
“Oho, I should think you were enjoying the view rather than my heroics if I let you lag behind,” Rarity replied with a sly smile. "I think you'll get your chance to show off your so-called special talent for pathfinding."
“Well, wouldn’t I share the same … oh my Celestia, save us!”
Rarity turned to see what had caused Blueblood’s frightened reaction, and shrieked in terror. An intruder had chosen that moment to invade the sanctum of the Alicorn’s cabin, entering through the hole in the side of the airship. Rarity kicked the bench out from under her and leaped onto the bed, cowering behind Blueblood and protecting her hair with her forelegs. For his part, Blueblood shrank back against the far wall, making his large form as compact as possible.
Rarity half-opened one eye so that she could observe the creature terrorizing them, and shivered in fear as the small brown bat flapped erratically around the space, apparently trying to find some purchase it could cling to.
“Ew! Ew! Ew!” Blueblood exclaimed. “Get that filthy thing out of here!”
“You get it!” Rarity screamed. “It’s coming for my hair, I just know it! Do something before it gets tangled in my hair!”
“Use a spell before it drinks my royal blood!” Blueblood shouted.
“I’m not touching it, even with magic!” Rarity hissed.
“Gah! Here it comes!”
Blueblood dove onto the floor as the bat flapped toward him, and Rarity could swear she felt it brush through her hair as it flew past. Her subsequent shriek pierced the humid night air, and a chorus of birds and animals lent their startled noise to the ensuing clamor. The bat, for its part, followed the sound of the scream out the hole through which it had entered. The two unicorns stared at each other.
“My brave prince,” Rarity said dryly.
“I present Miss Rarity, savior of the nation,” Blueblood rejoined.
“We’re doomed, aren’t we?”
“It is not looking good.”
Rarity sighed. “Well, since this is probably my last opportunity to ever sleep in a bed, I claim it for tonight.”
“That’s forward of you, since it’s my bed, and I’ll be in it,” Blueblood said from his position on the floor. He was still looking around the room, apparently not yet convinced of the bat’s departure. “Since it does seem likely that we won’t make it out of here, I suppose I can make it worth your while.”
“That's disgusting. You’re a pig, so you get to sleep on the floor,” Rarity proclaimed. She suddenly felt the prickly sensation of magic taking hold of her as Blueblood dragged her out of the bed. She fell to the floor unceremoniously as he jumped onto the mattress.
“It’s not that bad down there. I think most of the broken glass is on the other side of the room. Just try to keep still and not roll about, and you should be fine,” Blueblood said, peering over the edge of the bed.
Rarity glared menacingly up at him. “Oh, it is on.”