Chapter Six
“It Doesn’t”
“Did anypony ever get around to naming any of these?” Twilight said, as she crept between the glassy black trunks of the midnight forest.
“Any of what?” Whom said, following along behind her in a far less stealthy fashion, smoking another of her cigarettes.
“These trees, the insects, anything,” Twilight muttered distractedly, a conjured specimen jar floating beside her head, ready to capture the first interesting thing to come by as a souvenir of her expedition. “They must have names, everything has a name.”
“Oh, well,” Whom said, peering about before tapping her hoof on the cloying anti-mud beneath them. “This is called mud, and over there, that's called a flying thing--”
“Where?” Twilight shouted, whizzing around just in time to see a four foot rod of shocking red dive down from the level of the canopy like a lightning bolt then, defying all equine expectations of physics, turn at a ninety degree angle and level off into a sedate glide.
Pausing only to enlarge her magical jar by an order of magnitude, Twilight captured it with the aim of an experienced butterfly hunter. As the jar floated back toward her a noise like hundreds of ball bearings falling down a distant marble staircase emanated from it. Whatever this strange find was, it wasn't happy with having been caught, to say the least. Now stilled, its long feathery wings, which ran along both sides of its considerable length, flapped aimlessly. Twilight saw that they had a delicate network of vein-like structures running through them, much like in the wings of bat ponies, but there the similarities ended. Where in those naturally occurring organs veins spread out willy-nilly, these appeared to have been set out with the ordered care of someone putting up a grand edifice. Yes, the purple alicorn thought, staring at it. Constructed. Somepony made these.
The insect, if it could be called that, was staring back at her. Sixteen silvery triangles presumably the eyes as they were slitted down the middle, peered out from behind the thaumic glass, suspended from a pair of flagellate organs. Below that an opening champed furiously, revealing rows of tiny needle teeth, so numerous and close together as to seem like the baleen of a whale.
“I think he likes you, Twilight,” Whom said, smiling.
“He? Why do you think that it's a boy?”
“Phallocentric cultural bias?” she offered, then blinked. “I mean, I don't, I'm just guessing.”
“Fair enough,” Twilight said, turning the jar over carefully with her magic, trying to get a better look at all the parts of her prize. “Well, a parasprite this ain't.”
“What's a parasprite?”
“Oh, they infested my home town once. They're grapefruit-shaped and multicoloured, and have a propensity for eating everything, then making more of themselves at an exponential rate without let or hindrance.”
“How bizarre.”
“Very much so.” Twilight nodded, sagely. “Speaking of which, do you think those squid will be finished fighting the deer yet? I still need an eyeball.”
“Probably,” Whom said. “I'm very much looking forward to Equestria, you know. I've read all the guidebooks.”
“Guidebooks?”
“Oh yes,” she said, proudly. “A Foal's Guide to Equestria, Ninety-nine Things to Do in Canterlot, Which Idyll? Magazine--”
“But how? This is the moon, it's not like you can get a postal service up here.”
“Not true! Every few months a grey pony-shaped thing drops into orbit above the Pictet crater and tosses out a whole stack of magazines and letters and stuff.”
“Addressed to you?” Twilight said, incredulous.
“Nope, all sorts of ponies. But finders keepers, right?”
“This day continues to get weirder and weirder,” Twilight said, massaging her temple with a hoof. “Come on, let's go get that giant lunar squid eye.”
“Make sure you ask nicely.”
The purple mare groaned at the sarcasm and set off back in the vague direction of Whom's castle and the woodland glade that contained the exit through the Gap.
“And to think,” she muttered, shaking her head. “All I wanted was a nice stiff drink.”
I wonder how the girls are getting on without me?
*
As it turned out, the caves beneath Canterlot had been sealed rather forcefully. Rainbow Dash could not find an entrance that wasn't simply ruined or magically imploded, for safety reasons. Polite notices explained as much, and deterred any would-be sightseers. By the time she had given up, the pegasus had made almost one complete lap of Mount Avalon. Therefore, when she limped into West Wingshade a few hours later, the city of Canterlot itself seeming too high up for her purposes, it was all she could do to drag herself to the nearest zebra bar and collapse into a comfortable booth.
West Wingshade was an unusual sort of town. It had once been a pegasus cloudholme, of the Raconteur type, which meant that it had been designed for grace and mobility above anything else. These sorts of towns would then tour the other cloudholmes, as well as normal cities, acting as an envoy of pegasus culture, amongst other things. Unfortunately, West Wingshade's captain, a mare of considerable infamy, had been a terrible drunkard. Inevitably, the town had crashed into hillock, which up until that point had been politely minding its own business. Never a race to see a cloud without a silver lining, the pegasi who survived promptly founded a new town, utilising the grounded parts of the cloudholme's original material. Out of this disaster this had been born a uniquely Equestrian settlement, one where all races intermeshed with each other in their own special ways.
None had embraced this quite as much as the zebras. Even ignoring their usual penchant for travel, West Wingshade was home to a great many of them. The largest expatriate community in Equestria lived there, in amongst the confused tumult of paved streets and upward juts of ephemeral cloud material. It was said that the underground warrens reminded them of home. That was why Rainbow Dash had come to this place. Zebra bars were underground, as a rule, and the Twenty-Two Skidoo was no exception. The mute lighting and cool, earthy themes salved her confused and aching brain, just as the artificial flow of ventilated air soothed her stinging flight muscles.
Stupid idea, flying all that way. It'll hurt like a holiday to Tartarus tomorrow. Come on, filly. Pull yourself together. It's not all that bad. You were just shocked, that's all. That Princess is all hooves and no social skills. She doesn't know what it's like for us, having to hear that kind of thing--
Rainbow Dash winced as she remembered the conversation in Rarity's boutique. Her train of thought derailed at the intensity of it. Time stopped passing in the usual way. Colours and shapes lost their rounded edges and became more angular. Some indeterminate period later, she found herself again, zoned out, staring at her half-finished drink as though it contained the solution to her problems. Thoughts returned in a piecemeal fashion. The slightly congealed contents of the Old Fashioned glass refused to return the intensity of her gaze. Vodka and carrot juice. I haven't had that since I was a schoolfilly. Easy to drink, see, tastes like something you'd get at Sugarcube Corner, still gets you drunk…
*
Pinkie Pie trotted merrily down the lane, which was just large enough to carry two ponies side by side as it snaked through the landscape outside Ponyville. To an external observer, nothing was amiss. Her muzzle formed a pretty smile, and her eyes were closed as if this mundane task were the epitome of blissful pursuits. Her candyfloss tail and mane bobbed gayly in the night air, which brought with it all the scents of the evening. Internally, however, a vicious debate had broken out.
“You know, I think it might finally all make sense,” Ego said, pontificating. “You know, in light of this new information.”
“What are you talking about?” Id asked, lustfully, though for no particular reason.
“Reality! She means reality!” Super-ego chided, from her lofty position.
“Oh,” Id said, seeming deflated. “I thought you were talking about me.”
“Why would she be talking about you?” Super-ego shouted. “That doesn't even make any sense! Haven't you been paying attention?”
“I really think we should at least try to process this,” Ego implored, standing between the other two facets of Pinkie Pie's mind, as much as was possible for an abstract representation
Process all you like.” Id shrugged. “It makes no difference to me.”
*
Princess Luna hadn't expected Spike to take news of his beloved's unfortunate psychological malady so well. Everything she had read in the letters that crossed her sister's desk suggested the reptilian neophyte to be head-over-heels in love with her. Instead, he'd just stared blankly for a few moments, then apparently moved on. He hadn't said much since then. Sat on her back as they carried on a graceful arc toward Canterlot, he merely gazed into the middle distance. Probably nothing to worry about. I was just misreading those missives. Maybe Twilight simply has an overactive imagination.
Alicorns, like the pegasi they were based on, had an intuitive understanding of flight. They were currently nine kilometres above sea level, travelling at a little under Mach one, following the standard beacons used to navigate between the bigger cities. At this sort of speed they would reach the capital very quickly. The bright lights of Canterlot crowned the cowed shape of Mount Avalon. Too bright. Are those fires? Skies above!
Shod In Silver quickly made ready to accelerate to her theoretical maximum atmospheric velocity, stopping only to shield her mortal cargo. As tough as dragons were, they certainly couldn't withstand the heating effects and g-forces such a passage would create. With her magic, Luna reached out into space-time and cut away a part of it, sequestering it from the rest of existence. Thus constrained, she modified it, altering its ruleset so that matter within it behaved differently. Any physical thing entering the newly forged region of space-time would slow down dramatically, shedding its energy as gamma rays, which were funneled into a small shunt which she created, then linked via wormhole to Equestria's L1 point. This diminishing effect would continue, until whatever matter or energy happened upon the boundary had been entirely diverted. Then, she cloaked the dragon in it, and connected every point within the modified space-time to itself.
Spike gasped, then ceased existing within the universe, at least by any meaningful definition. The little pocket of space-time that he was encased in proceeded along its previous course, a bubble in the bloodstream of reality. Perfect. And sister said I had to stop meddling with the fabric of the universe. Pish!
Closing the rest of the distance to Canterlot took approximately four seconds at Mach 24. Though she did not hear or see it, the sky across Equestria briefly lit up as the equine comet raced across it. The shedding of heat into the atmosphere, as well as the sudden displacement of air, dissipated every cloud within thirty kilometers. Had any of Canterlot's weather team been at their posts, they would have been greatly dismayed as the week's meteorological outlook was thrown into chaos. Luna released the limiters on her perceptual filters in time to see the city fill up her view. Reaching behind her with her magic, she once more spoke to reality with wordless thaumic whispers. The concussion wave generated by her extreme speed entry into downtown Canterlot, aching to fulfill the obligation it had to physics, died out as quickly as it had been generated.
If there had been anypony in the little alleyway where she finally returned to a normal velocity, it would have seemed like Luna had simply stepped out of thin air. Regardless, she maintained a pose of quiet dignity, just in case, and alighted onto the cobbles. Around her, the sounds of violence and anarchy echoed. The bitter tang of burning wood mixed with that of equine fear, but curiously also lust and merriment, filled her nostrils.
If she needed any further confirmation that somepony was brewing her Nectars, this was it. At no other point in history had she ever smelled that unique combination of terror and excitement. Nickering in a disapproving way, the Goddess gripped the parcel of space-time containing Spike and, fussing over it like a newly-minted dam with her foal, anchored it to her corporeal being. It would float there, somewhat like a balloon, though one that reflected no light whatsoever, and appeared to be made from utmost darkness.
Heading toward the loudest sounds of rioting, her quest for the Elements forgotten for the moment, Luna stopped only to readjust her regalia, which had come loose during all the commotion.
*
First Lieutenant Zo Nar crept into the looted storefront, stepping through the gaping holes in the glass that the rioters had left. Once, this place had been a high-class mare's boutique, decked out in black marble and accented with olivine and ruby. Now, everything had been smashed and the wood panels that held the minerals to walls hung off uselessly or were missing entirely. No concern had been given to the value of anything stolen; the tills were still full of bits, and the most expensive items of lingerie or headwear had been left behind, trampled and forgotten. Instead, it seemed like novelty items had been taken. Not a single ponyquin could be found anywhere. If anything, it was as though the mob had been composed entirely of foals, finding humour in panties and thongs, instead of the fully grown mares and stallions they were supposed to be.
Nar winced as she stretched herself over the wreckage, feeling a fresh trickle of blood run out from under her armour and down her legs. The day hadn't been kind to her, and the night, usually a sanctuary for creatures such as herself, was proving even worse. She'd lost most of her armament hours before, either expended or stolen by the baying mob. Reinforcements were non-existent. The city was huge, and her colleagues were stretched incredibly thinly. Every member of the Day Guard had fallen to the inexplicable drunkenness. That was the only way to describe the state of most of the population. Drunk and incapable, and getting worse.
In the back of the boutique was a spacious workshop, circular and formed around an island. It had been trashed, like the rest of the property, but somewhat less thoroughly. The trappings of such a business lay all around. Dresses to be hemmed, hats to be patched and repaired, even those dainty slippers much beloved of the Canterlot elite. Nar found what she was looking for toward the back. Bolts of muslin, cotton and silk lay piled up, waiting to be used. Whimpering, she sat down on a pouffe and began to take off her armour.
Every muscle in her body ached from the exertion. The Night Guard were far from unfit. As a proper military unit, even one with mostly ceremonial functions, they maintained a high level of readiness. This, though, was too much, and for too long. She could feel herself reaching the limit of her endurance, and knew there was likely more to come. There was a clunk as the bracers fell from her limbs, exposing bruises. The cuirass and wither-pauldrons were battered, the matte black finish ground away to reveal the steel beneath. Her greaves and rear-bracers were the last off, and they joined the other pieces of armour in a little row beside the pouffe.
Nar was no medic, but she had been trained in basic battlefield first aid. At some point in the day, somepony had gotten a blade into the joint between the pauldrons and the cuirass. The strike hadn't been forceful, just lucky. She'd been losing blood for hours, from what she now saw was a deep, four inch gash in the muscle. Lucky for the both of us. Could have lost function there. Don't know where I'd be right now if I hadn't been able to run. Probably drinking a pint at the Trough, with all my mates...
Cursing the lack of proper medical supplies, Nar lay down on her side and reached around with her head as best she could. The wound was freely bleeding, but she cleaned it with her tongue. Nar screwed up her muzzle in disgust as the taste overwhelmed her delicate senses. Other members of the Night Guard might have found this task to be less unpleasant. Perhaps they would even have been invigorated. Nar was not one of those ponies. Thoughts of food reminded her of how long it'd been since she'd eaten. What I'd do for a nice mango right about now. Perhaps a melon.
As soon as the wound was clean, or at least less dirty, Nar grabbed a roll of cotton from pile of fabric bolts and wrapped it as tightly as she dared over the wound, underneath her foreleg. Three layers and she stopped. Then, the mare cut the cloth and fastened it by tucking it into itself. Experimentally, she got up and stepped off the pouffe. She barely suppressed an agonised squeal, which would certainly attract attention, but once the pain subsided she was able to move almost normally. The bleeding had been stemmed for now.
*
Princess Luna moved quietly through the city, stepping between the last shadows of Her night. She could feel the disc of the sun behind the limb of the world, aching to birth a new day, but the midwife was nowhere to be found. Celestia, usually a restrained but definite imprint on the magical fields that ran through reality, was absent. Her lofty perch in the Tower of the Day, visible from everywhere in the city even for those without magic, billowed smoke.
As she came out onto the Throughfare of the Virgins, a wide avenue that ran through the Artisanal Quarter, a pandemonium presaged by the roar of chaos and violence greeted her.
Luna had seen many riots in the long years of her rule. They usually had a particular feeling to them. Those incidents of public disorder that were stirred up by religious or nationalist demagogues always felt hateful and rabid, to the point of incoherence. They were always pure violence, unthinking destruction. This was different. It looked as though a scene from a pub half an hour before closing time on a royal Dies Natalis had been transplanted fully into the street and allowed to fester out of control.
Shop fronts were smashed in, looted of what appeared to be their most lewd items. Ponies ran this way and that, singing and whooping at the tops of their lungs. Those that were not running instead staggered, as if blind drunk, grinning wildly at some internal joke. Unlike a Dies Natalis, though, there were few actually passed out. Those that were sprawled on the cobblestones had been the victims of violence, accidental or otherwise. Most of them were guardsponies, something she only realised because she recognised some of them by name. They had been stripped of their armour and left where they'd fallen. The Nectars. Undoubtedly.
Luna willed her form to become three dimensional and stepped out of the shadows. There was a gentle puff of air and a crack like a firework going off as her volume reasserted itself. Immediately, the closest drunkards to her stopped and gazed.
“Look!”, said one, a palomino unicorn who was wearing a pair of frilly mare's unmentionables around his horn. “It's one of those whores that dress up like the Princesses when you rut 'em!”
The Princess couldn't help but crack a bemused smile, as she leant into his body with her magic and carefully altered the function of some his muscular neurones. The unicorn froze on the spot, paralyzed, a rictus grin across his muzzle. He still drew breath, though, and Luna could see the rapid flutter of the skin and fur on his chest. I really should get round to teaching this trick to the Day Guard.
“Hush,” she cooed, sidling up to him, peering into his fitful, darting eyes. “'Tis but a soothing hex. Fret not, and be calm. No pale and lusty imitation am I, but truthfully, your Princess. No harm shall come to you.” She placed a silver shod hoof on his forehead, then ran it up between his ears, through his yellow mane, and down his withers as she wandered further into the crowd.
Now, how does sister do it?
Luna tried to recall the effects Celestia had on local magical fields, whenever she was in the company of those afeared, or those who should be afeared of her, but weren't currently. It was a particular repatterning, forcefully injected into passing streamers of thaumic energy, but still so slight, appearing to be nothing more than the hiss of magical white noise. She played with a few potential shapes, attempting to fit them reality, but came up empty-hooved.
Perhaps I am approaching this the wrong way. Time to round up the Nottlynga.
*
Fluttershy was watching the Rocs, as she normally did when she felt particularly unsettled by something, when it began to get light. The giant birds, easily ten metres long and with a matching wingspan, paid her no particular attention as they rose from their boat-like nests and made ready for their days. Rocs were extremely intelligent creatures, at least as smart as a Phoenix or Hjalseagle, and chattered away in their barely audible click language. They were one of the few types of animals Fluttershy could not inherently understand. Whatever magical grace had given her the ability to speak to fauna clearly did not consider Rocs to be mere animals. That aspect was what made the Roc nesting sites, perched in the middle of a range of low lying, wind-carved rocks jutting out of the salt flat, so peaceful.
A sharp, grinding crack filled the cool, dry air, and Fluttershy moved her gaze to one of the larger nests. It was home to Hyperion, as she had named him, his mate Iapetus, and their offspring. The big male, a truly fearsome creature, all terribly curved claws and striking red feathers, had just retrieved the stored carcass of a buffalo and begun preparing it for his family. Its bones snapped and rendered, clothing carefully removed, the silver-hued female and her far smaller, slate grey nestlings tucked in. The same scene was being repeated across the nest site, with a veritable cornucopia of different species, some sapient and some not, present and accounted for.
There were no ponies, though. The Rocs, as if compelled by some taboo, did not eat pony. Undoubtedly they could, for they ate related species, and Fluttershy knew the biology was almost identical. It was certainly not an issue of sapience, as the buffalo and zebra down below her might well have attested. Whatever the reason, they did not, and the issue was one rarely talked about in books on the subject. Hushed whispers held, as they always do, that Celestia had a bargain with them, that blood sacrifices had been made along the way, a literal pound of flesh, and continued to this day. Those same whispers also hold that Princess Luna has a thing for Twilight. How ridiculous is that?
The Rocs, therefore, barely considered Fluttershy at all. Sometimes they would shoot her sidelong glances, as much as a head the size of a fully grown stallion can be said to glance. The younger Rocs would occasionally come to play, dancing around her, chirping and chittering, but that was it. They left her alone, and she left them alone.
That was the thing with her animal friends. Over the years, she had lavished on them too much care and attention, and they had become completely dependent upon her. She taught their chicks to fly, their cubs to nurse, caught for them their food, and solved their squabbles and disputes. They would never leave her alone, and even if they did, the work she did for them was something they could not do without. As such, Fluttershy rarely had a moment to herself. This must be how proper animals lived, back before there were any ponies. Wild and free.
*
The little plaza was situated in the Luthiers Quarter, one of dozens of such places there. It seemed as though at every possible confluence of a few awkward streets, an artist had seen an excuse to put in a fountain, complete with statue. This one was a particularly fancy example, from a period in time a few hundred years past, when it had been the style to put very large mares with ample, healthy rolls of fat, into everything. The Reclining Mare was cut out of granite, her head thrown back in laughter at some timeless joke and, true to her name, she was lying on her back. From her mouth gushed the waters of the fountain she crowned, and little rivers of serpentine, olivine, beryllium and nickel accented her features around the muzzle.
Rioters were diving in and out of the fountain, laughing, singing and falling over themselves on the slippery edges. Ponies staggered about, bleeding from head wounds, any consideration for themselves thrown to the wayside. Already, the water was beginning to turn a rusty brown, adding to its collection of bizarre detritus. Ping pong balls and rubber ducks bobbed around in the froth. On the bottom sat gramophones and their records, hundreds of gold bits, cutlery stolen from restaurants, and the inevitable pairs of mare's underwear and other scandalous nicknacks.
Zo Nar waited until the exact moment of dawn, then entered the plaza from one of its side streets, mustering up every drop of forceful authority she could manage. Her wounds still ached, and the fuzz of sleep deprivation and fatigue clawed at her mind. Even the quick nibble on the coca plant she'd found in somepony's garden had done little for either her hunger or her tiredness. She had managed to scavenge a Day Guard issue baton, though, and the weight of it curled up in the tip of her right wing gave her no small measure of confidence.
“I hereby inform you that you are in breach of the Pax Rex, and therefore will be subject to strict penalties should you continue!” Nar bellowed, as loudly as she could.
Not a single pony in the crowd paid her the slightest bit of attention. If anything, they became more rowdy. Nar saw one stallion, a bright orange earth pony, jump on an unsuspecting mare reared up on the edge of the fountain, sending her flying to the ground. The sound of her ribs snapping and her muffled squeals of pain, did nothing to prevent the stallion pinning her down and tugging a small pink tutu on over her head to cover her eyes. The mare, blinded, struggled free of her attackers despite the injuries, and promptly began to flee, staggering across the plaza as fast as her shaky legs could carry her. The stallion responsible began laughing, falling over himself as the comedy became too much for him.
Right, that's quite enough of that, I think...
Nar flicked the baton and it sprung into action, the rounded tip of the business end telescoping out. Muscle and mind, harried as they were, began to synchronize. Conscious thought vanished, too ungainly for the twitch-reaction space of the battlefield, replaced by a cool and unthinking mindset that simply did, and questioned it no further. Nar adored these moments: everything became clear, the gray complexities of the world polarized into black and white.
The laughing stallion was first. She came upon him at a terrific pace and swung the baton so that it carried all the force of her run. As it connected with his muzzle she slide sideways, iron shod hooves throwing up hot sparks. There was a ferocious crack, and the stallion's lower mandible was pulverized. The baton came up again, and she delivered a strike to his flank, cracking the sacral vertebrae. The stallion gasped and choked, his ruined mouth unable to form the shapes required to express the intense pain he was feeling. His back legs spasmed, causing the fractured segments of the sacral vertebrae to grind together, and this only added to the debilitating agony.
Nar felt the fur on the back of her neck stand up. The sweet tang of ozone filled the air, replacing all the unpleasant smells of sex, exertion and burning buildings. The gentle dawn light, subtle and understated, suddenly erupted into a glaring, pitiless supernova. Blinded, Nar's other senses came into play. The muddy shapes of moving objects whizzed into the focus of her mind's eye. The normal sounds of the world vanished as she concentrated on the particular frequency that allowed for her sonar. Ponies, tumbling like the seeds of a dandelion in the face of an oncoming hurricane, scattered across the plaza. She clicked her tongue and the fog cleared, the burst of ultrasound returning with a more precise set of shapes.
One in particular, drew her immediate attention. It stood twice the height of a normal pony, and was stood in the ornate archway of Stallion's Farriers. Wings outstretched, and horn fuzzed in the soundscape as magical fields distorted the waveform, it could only be an alicorn.
The other ponies had stopped moving. They all lay in heaps where the divine had placed them. Nar realized she had screwed her eyes shut, some instinctive protection against the intensity of the light show. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she experimentally blinked. The brightness was subsiding now, and her sonar faded away into the background, subservient in the presence of a superior sense.
“Skies above, take me for a concubine!” Princess Luna shouted, trotting into the plaza. “Were you just going to beat them all to death?”
“M-Mother!” Nar gasped and half-collapsed into a reverential kowtow, bloodied baton falling to the floor. “I am at your command!”
“We asked you a question,” Luna said, quieter, though still stern. “Has it been the policy of the Nottlynga, to, in this present crisis, violently assault rioting civilians with impunity?”
“Mother, I have not seen or heard from another Nottlynga since this last evening--”
“So you took it upon yourself to practice this carnage?” Luna said, pausing in front of a wounded mare and bending down her head to sniff at her. “This unrestrained barbarity.”
“Y-Yes, Mother...”
Luna carefully nudged the injured mare into a safer head down position, one in which she wouldn’t choke on her own vomit if she threw up. Then she continued to where Nar was lying, at the edge of the fountain. It was making a strange gurgling noise. All of the water circulating in it had disappeared, along with its unusual additions of ducks and cutlery. Luna shook her head and placed a hoof on Nar's withers.
“You will not do so again,” Luna said, wiping mud from Nar’s pauldrons. “These ones sleep for now. Come, up with you. There is yet hope that my Nottlynga have not fallen to the sword, or put it down in preference for a tankard. ”