//------------------------------// // The Same Night // Story: Rockets & Rainbooms // by PhycoKrusk //------------------------------// After the mess with the rocket, after supper, and after the sun had set, Skitch laid down on a low hill, looking up at the stars and the infinite possibilities they carried with them. There was intelligent life across the gulfs separating dimensions; why not across the gulfs separating the stars as well? Was someone looking out towards her and thinking the same thing: 'Why not?' The sound of footsteps and glass tapping against glass shook her out of her reverie, and she looked behind her to see Jacoby standing a short distance away, still bandaged and splinted the way he had been since the afternoon. One talon was raised off the ground, gripping a glass bottle filled with clear liquid, and two small glasses barely large enough to hold more than a sizable gulp of anything. “Mind if I join you?” he asked. “You show up with what I can only assume is authentic Griffish spirits and you ask if I mind?” Skitch replied with a half-laugh. “If it’s any good, you can use me as a pillow, if you really want. How’re your ribs?” “Oh, not much different," Jacoby replied as he ambled over. “They hurt earlier, they hurt now, and they’ll probably hurt even worse in the morning.” “The hazards of hard work, I guess.” Skitch shifted her position slightly to more fully face Jacoby as he settled on the ground beside her, first releasing the bottle, then depositing the glasses on the ground. With practiced ease, he grabbed the bottle and unstoppered it, filled both glasses with clear liquor, and then stoppered it again. Skitch took one glass in hoof while Jacoby took the other in claw. With a clink of glass against glass, they raised a silent toast and drank. “Apples,” Skitch half-exclaimed once she finished. “It tastes like apples. If it wasn’t Griffish, I’d swear it came right from Sweet Apple Acres. Where did you get this stuff?” “Count Vergoldetflügal, actually,” Jacoby replied, “Although I understand he gets it from a pony, one county over. Maybe an Apple did distill it, who can say? Another?" "Yes, please. What is this, anyway? It's delicious." "Schaps, naturally." Jacoby unstoppered the bottle again. "Traditional distilled spirit for griffons. What about for you?" "Oh, it depends." Skitch watched as her glass was filled again. "Around here, applejack is pretty popular. The liquor, I mean. Freeze distilled apple cider. But you go another place, and who can say?" Jacoby gave a short 'hmph' of amusement as he filled his own glass. "That's not really what I meant," he said, stoppering the bottle again. Skitch quirked her brow at that. "I'm not really sure else you could have been asking about, then? I've lived here in Ponyville for, well, as long as I care to remember." Jacoby looked at the unicorn evenly. "There wasn't much happening of note last week," he said. "So a fair number of Griffish newspapers, in particular a poorly formatted pulp publication called the Shrieker, has had good success reprinting stories from the Canterlot Herald about a very peculiar individual living in a place called Ponyville." Skitch stared at Jacoby as he busied himself with sipping the schnaps in his glass. She looked away after a few moments, off towards the horizon. “So. You know,” she said with an air of finality. “I know,” the griffon replied. He set his glass, empty of liquid, on the ground. “Are you afraid?” “Very.” “Never be afraid.” It took a moment before that particular sentence registered in Skitch’s mind. She looked back to Jacoby to find him looking at her. “Be cautious,” he said, “Be wary. Be guarded. But unless you’re alone, absolutely alone, never be afraid.” For a few moments, Skitch focused on Jacoby, but then shifted her gaze to the ground in front of her. "It's easy to be afraid," she said. "It's so easy that I think I'm always afraid, a little bit. I mean, I laugh and smile and I mean it, but I don't have any reason that I shouldn't be afraid. Wouldn't you be?" She directed the question very specifically, looking Jacoby straight in the eye when she did. "I mean, fuck, look at what they've done already! They took my house, and there was nothing I could do to stop them. Then, they took my peace, and they didn’t even have to try very hard. Just a few words, and poof! Gone." Skitch-Sketch suddenly deflated, looking down to the ground again. "It just, it gets you thinking, Jake. Like, what else can they take away from me? Are they going after my friends next?” The break in Skitch’s words lasted only long enough for her to completely drain her glass. “When are they going to stop? Are they ever going to stop? Are they just going to keep going until I’ve got nothing left?" "For what it's worth, they'll eventually stop," Jacoby replied. Glass clinked against glass as he refilled Skitch's drink. "There comes a point where it's not worth their time anymore. When they can't get anymore power from torturing you, and then they just, give up.” Skitch snorted. “And what, you have personal experience?” she asked. “Well, yes.” The unicorn looked at Jacoby, disbelievingly. But he just calmly refilled his glass, and when she didn’t voice any objections, he continued. "The 'military elite' keep antagonizing your Princess. Both of them now, I guess. Who can understand why?” The griffon tossed back his schanps. “And they want me to help. I’m not a noble in any sense, and while I was in the war, I’m not a soldier, either. But because of that, when mixing in recent events, it means I’m popular with the common griffon, which would make them happy if I’d just play by their rules. “They’ll lean on me, interfere with my ability to acquire equipment, try to make my life miserable, and they’ll most probably succeed. But eventually, they’ll need to rile up the populace again, and they won’t be able to count on me changing my mind if only they apply enough pressure. They’ll give up and stop bothering me, because they need those resources tied up somewhere else. You can fight with nobles and win easily, if you know what to do. But fighting the nobility is a war of attrition, even if you do everything right. All you can do is dig in and wait it out." "Yeah," Skitch replied. She hesitated for several moments before finding her voice. "Let's, can we talk about something else? I don't want to talk about nobles or politics." "Alright." Jacoby took a moment to think while he refilled his glass. "Tell me about human rockets." The unicorn looked at him for a moment, and then grinned conspiratorially before picking her own glass up and holding it out to him. "What do you want to know?" The bottle that once proudly held high-proof apple schanps sat empty on the ground, two equally empty glasses half-discarded next to it, all of them practically forgotten by Skitch and Jacoby. Unicorn and griffon alike lay on their backs facing the stars, trying in vain to contain their drunken laughter. “And then,” Skitch giggled out, “Peter says, ’That oughta do it!’" Her own burst of laughter was nearly drowned out by Jacoby’s. “’Thanks very much, Ray!’” It was nearly a full minute before they had collected themselves enough to continue any sort of conversation. “I don’t think we have any films like that,” Jacoby said. “Not that I’ve seen at least.” He paused a moment as a thought occurred to him. “What about stage theatre?" “Huge,” Skitch replied, “Broadway, Chicago, the West End. Some stage productions have budgets bigger than most small businesses. And my god, the musicals, Jake. I never really bothered with them when I had the chance, and now that I can’t… I don’t know.” “Didn’t know the opportunities you had until they weren’t there anymore?” “Something like that." Silence settled over the two for a time, and they both stared up at the stars overhead. The silence was broken when a question popped into Skitch's mind: "Why me, Jake?” “What do you mean?” the griffon asked, keeping his attention fixed on the stars above. “I mean… listen, let’s be honest. You’re a genius. A bonafide, actual genius. I’ll bet you could use science and runes and maybe just brainpower and solve any kind of problem you wanted to. Disease, hunger, hell, you could probably fix that long night they have up in Elkenhiem. You’d get a hell of a lot more recognition for it, too. So, why me? Why are you even remotely interested in one, mostly insignificant unicorn in Equestria?" “Does any creature really need a reason for helping another?” Jacoby suggested. “Yes,” Skitch replied definitively. She rolled back onto her hooves, ready to spring up from the ground at a moment’s notice. “Yes, they do. Especially in this particular case, they absolutely need a reason. So what’s yours?” Jacoby angled his head around to look at Skitch, brow quirked. Something seemed not right. “You… I, genuinely just want to help you, Skitch-Sketch." “That’s not a reason!” Skitch stood up fully and stomped her hoof on the ground. Bewildered, Jacoby rolled back to his feet and pushed himself up to sitting. “There’s no need to be angry,” he said. If he’d meant to calm Skitch down, it did not work in the slightest. “There’s every reason to be angry!” she replied sharply. “So what’s the game, then, huh? You show up, a stranger I’ve never met before, and like magic, here you are with alcohol and a shoulder to lean on. Another bottle and I probably would’ve started telling you anything that came to my mind, and then you get to go flying back home to your overlords and be a hero? That would be the game, wouldn’t it?” “Have you lost your mind?” Jacoby asked, although the tone of his voice came as much more of a demand than anything. He too rose up to stand, the tension in his wings holding them just off of his body. “Since I’ve been here, I’ve done nothing but be civil to you. I’ve been a friend to you! Is it really that shocking that I’d want to help you with something?" “It is when that something is the whole world thinking that I want to enslave them! Ponyville knows the real story, but everywhere else? Just what the papers tell them, so why else would you be so interested in ‘helping’ me? After all, I’m just one, mostly insignificant unicorn except for the part where I want to conquer the world!" “In what way is that relevant to anything? Newspapers lie constantly. Lies are the only things you can count of them to consistently print. What about our correspondence? Should I not shape my opinion of you based on that? Or were you lying when you wrote those letters?” Skitch hesitated. She had written him letters, hadn’t she? And he’d written back, and seemed on the level. “You wrote those before you knew who I am,” she said. “People, creatures change when they learn things about someone they didn’t know before!” “Sometimes, they do. And sometimes, those things they didn’t know don’t matter.” “Which is it for you?" For several seconds, both of them stood silent. Jacoby broke the standoff first, sucking in a deep breath to steady his nerves before he even dared speaking. “It changed what I feel I have to do. I want to help you, Skitch-Sketch. I need, to help you.” Skitch narrowed her eyes at Jacoby. “You still haven’t answered my question,” she said, “And that’s what I need. An answer." With sharp, measured steps, she walked closer to the griffon, not stopping until her snout was almost pressed against his beak and she fixed him with the hardest stare she could. “Why do you want to help me?” For several seconds, Jacoby met her gaze silently. “Jake, please,” she pleaded. Her voice and expression softened, and some of the tension left her body. “If you want me to trust you, you have to trust me. That’s what friends do. They trust each other." For another moment, Jacoby was silent, and then he turned his head away with a heavy sigh. “I know what it’s like,” he finally replied. “What it’s like when you’re the outcast. The one who doesn’t fit in.” The griffon looked back to the unicorn. “My expertise goes beyond rockets, I’m sure you’ve noticed. I like to make things, things nocreature’s ever tried making before, but I like to make things better, too. Look there.” He pointed with a talon, and Skitch followed its direction to die Trauer Stern. “You see that? That’s better. A better envelope. A better propeller drive. A better electrical system, all kinds of things that are better, and can make other things better. And what do the powers that be want me to make?” He dropped his talon back to the ground, and waited for Skitch to turn her attention back to him before continuing. “A better gun. A better bomb. A better way to kill other creatures. Everything they want is nothing I want. You and I, we aren’t like them, and that’s why they target us. But they can’t target me all the time while they seem to have all the time in the world for you, and even though I know I can’t just make that better, I have to try because….” Jacoby trailed off, the words he wanted suddenly sounding wrong. Because why, exactly? “I don’t know.” His head drooped and he dropped back onto his haunches. “Maybe, looking at you is a little like looking in a mirror, and I want to help you because then you won’t make all the mistakes I did.” His thoughts halted for just a moment when he felt something warm press against him. An instant later, he realized that Skitch had stepped the rest of the way forward and wrapped him a tight hug. “You’re a nosy, meddling, know-it-all griffon, Jacoby Flynn,” she said, squeezing him just a bit tighter. “But you’re not a bad one.” More than just a show of affection, a hug was a show of trust. For a pony, it meant exposing their belly and putting themselves in a position where they couldn’t easily defend themselves. For a griffon, it meant putting themselves in a position where they couldn’t prevent themselves from being injured. But a pony exposed themselves to serious injury by hugging a griffon, while posing very little threat themselves. In hugging Jacoby, Skitch assumed all the risks of the interaction, hypothetical though they were, and left the griffon needing a few moments to comprehend the significance of it all. But finally, he curled his talons into fists and wrapped his arms around her to return the gesture. After several seconds, he moved his talons to her shoulders and gently broke the embrace. Both of them were smiling warmly. “Good talk,” Jacoby said. “Word,” Skitch replied, “But the answer’s still ‘no.’” “Kuhscheiße!” The momentary tensing in Jacoby’s wings and brief hesitation in his speech suggested he said something he didn’t intend to. Quickly, he removed his talons from Skitch’s shoulders and took a hasty step backwards. “How can it be ‘no?’ You just said you would!" “I said you weren’t a bad griffon. I never said I’d accept your help.” “But. You. I,” Jacoby stammered. What just happened, exactly? “Goodness, no. I’m still a little bit mad at you, if we’re being totally honest,” Skitch said, raising one hoof and examining it critically. "No no, if you want me to accept your help, you’re going to need to convince me with more booze and a three egg omelette with cheese." Jacoby was struck silent for a moment. “You want more alcohol, and an omelette?” he asked. “With cheese,” said Skitch, as if that somehow explained everything. “Omelette du fromage. You get me that at this hour, and then I think I’ll accept your help.” An omelette in the middle of the night was neither the strangest nor the most challenging task that Jacoby Flynn had been faced with, but at that particular moment, he was having difficulty thinking of exactly what he’d dealt with that had been either stranger or more challenging. Never mind how he would accomplish it; he hadn’t any idea how he might. At least, not until he chanced to glance up towards die Trauer Stern, and raised his talons to his beak in thought. More thought than he would have given had he been sober. He formed a plan. The door to the cabin Hänsel was occupying eased open and then quietly shut after two figures slipped into the darkness inside. A moment later, the overhead light turned with a gentle hum. The Count, a sleeping mask covering his eyes, paid absolutely no mind to Jacoby or Skitch as they snuck over to his steamer trunk. Although it wasn’t locked, the gently glowing runes wrapped around the steel band of its lid promised a possibly nasty surprise for anycreature that tried to open it without permission. The duo pondered it for a moment, and then Jacoby pointed a talon towards the ceiling and hurried over to the writing desk along the wall, grabbed a sheet of stationary and the pen and uncapped the ink well (secured to the desk by a pair of bolts). Quickly, he wrote down several runewords, capped the ink well and returned the pen to where he found it, and then laid his talons on the paper and focused until the runes shined with magic of their own. Returning to the trunk, he pressed the paper against the lid and lifted it up and opened. His runes did their job and prevented anything unpleasant from happening. Stuffing one of his talons inside, he rifled through Hänsel’s things and after a few seconds, brought out a carefully stoppered bottle of amber liquid: The Count’s ‘traveling cognac.’ Skitch grabbed the bottle with her telekinesis while Jacoby carefully closed the lid of the trunk, and then removed the paper from it, laying it face-down on the desk when once more, no ill fortune befell them. They slipped out the door, turning the lights off as they did, back into the corridor below deck, dimly lit by overhead lamps, and advanced further down. The door to the galley opened and Jacoby turned the overhead lamp on, shutting the door once Skitch had followed him in. He pointed her towards one of the cabinets, and then went to the small range in the center of the room, turning on one of the electric coils and then retrieving a large skillet from the hooks on one of the walls. Back in the corridor, the door to the cabin shared by Alexios and Jacoby (due to Hänsel temporarily displacing the former) opened and the minotaur stuck his head out, certain he’d heard something. Stepping out fully, he walked to the ladder leading to the pilot’s cabin and climbed up to investigate. Back in the galley, Jacoby dumped a bowl of three beaten eggs into hot oil resting in the skillet he’d selected earlier, stirring the mixture with a fork to speed up its cooking. When it began to thicken enough, he pushed the egg to one end and with careful, practiced tosses of the skillet, folded the omelette over itself and then turned off the stove coil. The omelette was deposited onto the plate held in Skitch’s telekinetic grasp, and the skillet was given a quick wipe with a damp sponge before it was hung back up with the other pans. Back in the corridor, Alexios finished descending the ladder. The pilot’s cabin and deck were empty, but he was sure he’d heard something, and opened the door behind him to check the engine room. Back in the galley, Jacoby held a grating stick over the omelette and quickly shredded a small block of hard cheese over it. When the fork he’d used earlier to stir the omelette came floating towards it, he snatched it out of the air and waved Skitch away, and then gave the block of cheese two more shreds for good measure, and then blew some of the excess cheese from the grater. Back in the corridor, Alexios crept down towards the galley door, finally realizing where he’d heard noise coming from. Grasping the knob of the door, he turned in and barged in to find the galley was empty of any creatures and also in good order, although one of them (or perhaps one of the Ponyvilleans) had left the light on. Still certain he’d heard something, the minotaur shrugged inwardly, turned the light off and closed the door. Once it had closed, Skitch let herself down from hanging from Jacoby’s neck, bottle of cognac in her teeth, and Jacoby let himself down from hanging from the apron hook on the back of the door, omelette in talon. The galley door opened and Jake and Skitch stuck their heads out into the corridor to ensure it was empty, and then slipped out and carefully shut the door behind them, the plated omelette and cognac bottle floating in the unicorn’s aura. They snuck down to the ladder that would lead them back out and stopped just long enough for Skitch to climb onto Jacoby’s back and hooking her forelimbs over his shoulders before he started climbing. After a few seconds, both of them vanished through the hatch leading to the pilot’s cabin and into the night, not to be seen again by anyone until after sunrise. Below deck, Alexios stuck his head out of his door one final time, still certain he’d heard something.