Kelpies bustled past on either side, giving Beta a wide berth as she stormed down the Long Corridor to the throne room. Tall windows let in water-mottled light, casting swirling shadows across the opposite wall – it was dark. She supposed that meant there was a storm up on the surface. It was dark enough that Rookwind's feathers hardly gleamed at all, though they still rattled as he strode behind her.
Idiot! she berated herself mentally again. Poorly handled, extremely poorly handled. You don't even have to be her to -
She paused at an intersection and took a calming breath. Thinking like that would get her nowhere. She had made a mistake, and mistakes could be corrected. It wasn't her first error and it wouldn't be her last. She'd just have to apologize to Alpha somehow. Granted, she would have had to confront Watchful's death sometime, but when presented abruptly like that...Beta could only hope any residue left from the horned-kelpie life had insulated her somewhat. Her apparent disappearance for almost three days now made that seem increasingly unlikely. She could only hope Alpha wasn't too scarred.
Three days gone. She tried desperately hard to not read too much into that. Caelum, if she'd...she wouldn't think about that. She simply refused to consider it.
“There are a number of new faces here today, my Queen,” Rookwind rumbled, eying the passing kelpies. “I am beginning to wonder who allowed them into private halls.”
There were a number of new faces today, Beta realized, grateful for the distraction. Mainly the faces of the elderly – not too old, but they had age to their features. Wrinkles at the corner of their eyes, laugh lines; when most palace servants were recruited young and retired early, older kelpies tended to stand out. The brightly colored vests they wore didn't help them blend in much, either. Curious. She extended a wing to block the path of one as he tried to hurry past her.
“You are new here,” she said. It wasn't technically a question, but he answered anyways to be safe.
“Aye, I am, my Queen.” He bowed. “Th' Queen Alpha has hired me. Copyist duties, was my job description. I'm literate, see – point of pride in my family for generations!”
“A copyist?” Beta frowned. “Alpha hired you?”
“Yes ma'am,” he confirmed. “Just this morning, actually. It's my first day on the job, and I'm supposed to copy a specific almanac in the Archive. This one” - he turned slightly so she could see a slip of parchment with a title scrawled on it, stuck securely to his flank - “you see? And her majesty's in a right furor, she is, and I'd prefer not to keep her waiting. So, uh, if you'll excuse me, your majesty...”
She let her wing drop, and he went on his way, rapidly. She suppressed a twinge of irritation that servants never rushed on her account. Sure, they got things done, but their speed left something to be desired.
“It would seem Queen Alpha was not informed of the palace's hiring policy,” Rookwind said, watching the new servant – the new scribe – depart. “Perhaps spending some time bringing her up to date on your laws would be worthwhile, my Queen – before she hires a buggane as her personal guard captain.”
“I'm sure she wouldn't go that far,” Beta replied, giving a forced chuckle. Her mind was still digesting this new information. Alpha was hiring? Hiring scribes? To copy almanacs? Why? What were her reasons?
Blast it, what had she been doing for three days?
“Come on,” she ordered, picking up her pace. “We'll have hell from the nobility during court today, I can tell. I'll hurry through it and we'll deal with Alpha.”
Deal with? she thought as the corridor flew past. What exactly do I mean by that?
It almost worried her that she didn't know. And that “almost” did worry her.
The remainder of the Long Corridor – the hallway running the perimeter of the palace, from its coral facade to the portions of it buried deeply in the submerged rock face it was carved from – was marked by steadily thickening crowds of liveried staff. She noted representatives from major noble houses, both supporters and detractors of her; they all came to petition in Court. Sometimes she thought she may have created too large of a nobility – and then she would recall that nobles bred like rabbits and determine that the majority of the issue wasn't her fault. They kept themselves in line, mostly – that was a small comfort.
The Corridor terminated in a vaulted, glorified waiting room, built in emulation of Caelum's own throne room, with the modification of the throne being absent and the great window replaced by a massive oaken door. She'd always liked oak. In the context of the door, the dark wood combined with the magically rust-free iron straps that held it together was suitably impressive for the entrance to a throne room, without stooping to opulence.
The room was packed with nobles and filled with an angry buzz of conversation. A bubble cleared around her immediately – she was the Queen after all, or a Queen at least, and even among the nobility that commanded a certain degree of respect. Or, most times it did.
“Queen Beta, the usurper - “
“She's barred us from - “
“Commoners allowed to - “
“I had to obey one of those accursed - “
“She's refused to hear our - “
The cacophony of complaints ceased the instant she raised a hoof for silence. She shared a worried glance with Rookwind before demanding of the assembled nobility, “What is your complaint?”
“She's barred us from entering the throne room or presenting our petitions before her!” a noblemare wailed.
“We've been forbidden from – in her words – 'interfering' with the new servants!” a stallion complained. “I asked one to fetch me a glass of wine while I waited and he laughed – actually laughed – in my face, and told me to get it myself!”
“Worse, we've been forced to obey them!” another whined. “We have to get out of their way if they tell us to, fetch them paper if they require it of us - “
“Who has done this?” Beta interrupted, though she had a feeling she already knew.
“Alpha Centauri!” several nobles answered at once.
“You must do something, Queen Beta!” one shouted. “She's upset the natural order!”
“She'll send us tumbling into anarchy, my Queen!”
“Please, make her see reason!”
“You must stop her before the nation collapses around us!”
“Well, well,” Rookwind chuckled. He sounded pleased. “It seems your sister has managed to put the fear of the suns back into these.”
“This is no laughing matter, Rookwind,” she responded irritably. “I thought I made clear to Alpha that her inexperience made her a poor choice for co-rule at the moment, and this only proves my point. Hiring new servants, I can accept – but we rely upon the nobility for support, and if she'd alienated these houses...” She shook her head disbelievingly. Two days alone, and Alpha did this?
“I would suggest dealing with the heart of the matter directly,” Rookwind said. “And I believe I still owe Queen Alpha a security briefing.”
The crowd parted before her again, retreating in silence as she trotted up to the door to the throne room. Before she could even reach for the iron door handle, the thick slab of oak swung open abruptly and rammed into her face.
“Ah! Oh, er – Queen Beta!” stammered the scribe who had opened it. She realized she was on the ground, staring up at the ceiling. The wrinkled servant looked properly terrified of what he'd done. “My apologies! I thought the guards had warned nobles to stay away from – er, not that I'm calling - “
She dispersed her physical form into a cloud of stardust, to gasps of shock from the assembled nobility, flowed around the servant, and recoalesced on the opposite side of the doorway. With a flicker of magic, she slammed the door shut. The sound echoed impressively through the cavernous throne room.
Okay, she thought, walking calmly down the center of the room towards the dais the triple thrones rested on. Alpha was there, surrounded by a cloud of parchment and scrolls, her eyes flicking impatiently from one text to the other as they swung around to replace each other in her field of vision. Apologize for prior behavior, assure her that she won't be irrelevant, set a timeline to restore royal powers to her. Desired time of a hundred years, suggest two hundred at the beginning to make the actual desire seem like a grudging compromise. I can handle this.
“You may approach,” Alpha said. Her voice was soft, but it carried. Beta had the absurd feeling that she was a filly being summoned for discipline – but she was a Queen, a star! Alpha was still struggling to recall her time as both.
“You upset the nobility, Alpha,” she said, once she was close enough that she didn't have to shout. The lighting coming from the three windows at the end of the chamber was dim, but enough to read by apparently, or Alpha would have summoned a mage-light. Surely, she hadn't adapted to perfect night vision so quickly. “And what is this about hiring new servants?”
“They're scribes,” Alpha replied, glancing up from what seemed to be a report on the taxation of Lady Gilded Lily's demesne. “You mentioned that books are rare and most of Domhan is completely illiterate. I intend to rectify that state of things as quickly as possible – starting with establishing local libraries in as many cities as I can reach! I've hired as many kelpies as can read or write in An Cathair, and I've set them all to copying every last text in the Archive by hoof, since thaumaturgy itself seems to have stagnated here, and hasn't produced anything approaching a duplication spell.”
“But they can't read,” Beta pointed out. “How is that going to change things besides draining the treasury?”
“I'll have the scribes hold classes to teach them – free of charge for anyone who wants to attend.” Alpha smiled. “If all goes well, we should see a literacy rate of fifty percent within thirty years. Then, maybe, things can start advancing again.”
Too fast! “However successful you think it will be – no, that's not important!” Beta snapped. “What is important is that you don't have the authority yet to implement anything like this - “
She fell silent as the sound of the door slamming shut rang through the throne room like a gong, followed by the clicking of claws on stone and the faint rattling roar of a thunderbird's feathers. Rookwind spoke a second later. “This youngster was quite insistent on seeing you personally, Alpha Centauri. Started waving around a flyer of some sort and saying she could read it.” He chuckled. “She had most of the nobility cowed and cringing backwards just by her approach.”
“Excellent!” Alpha's smile widened into a grin. “Step out of the way, Beta, we can talk in a moment.”
“I, as Queen, will deal with this!” she answered, rounding on the kelpie – barely older than a filly – that Rookwind had escorted in. She had a pale green coat, a short mane, and a band of smooth brown stones encircling her neck, and a determined look on her face that hardly faltered when confronted with a being twice her height with a flaming mane. “What is your name?”
“Red Wave, your majesty,” she answered evenly. “I'm here about - “
“You're not wanted. I am trying to - “ She broke off when Alpha's magic surrounded her and jerked her out of the way.
“Honestly, Beta, if you intend to interfere with my business, leave the throne room.” Her sister sighed, annoyed, but it didn't make it to her voice when she spoke to Red Wave. The cloud of documents parted to give her a clear view before she asked, “You read my notice?”
“Yes, Queen Alpha,” she replied. Her voice was warm. “My grandsire taught me how to read, and the writing came naturally after that. I've been doing it since I was a little filly. I even...” She smiled sheepishly. “I, uh, may have written a few things myself. Nothing important, just a few scraps, but...”
“Perfect!” Alpha said. “Would you prefer scribe work, proofing or organization? Maybe compilation? The Archive is a mess right now, and I need every helping hoof I can get, especially in putting some of the older texts back together.” She snorted. “Who am I kidding? They're all older texts. Nothing of worth has been published here for almost a century.”
“Scribe work is copying books?”
“Yep. Copying, re-copying, and binding.”
“My writing isn't that good,” she admitted. “Grandsire says he can hardly read it. How much will proofing pay? I mean, helping to teach more kelpies how to read is nice and all, but my mother was injured on the job a few weeks back, and paying for her food and my own has been taxing...”
“Move her into the servants' quarters with you,” Alpha suggested. “Free meals twice a day.”
“You can't move her into the servants' quarters!” Beta exclaimed. Just giving away room and board to any kelpie off the street would bankrupt the crown, if the libraries didn't!
“Don't be ridiculous, Beta. There's plenty of space, and besides – they're for servants and immediate family. Her mother is immediate enough to qualify.”
“But the cost - “
“Do you know how often ponies keep books past their due date?” Alpha chuckled. “Once literacy starts climbing, library fines should easily cover meals for a few extra boarders here.”
“You can't fund a palace with library fines!”
“Then perhaps we should find an alternate source of income besides the salt tax and crystal mines?” She turned to Red Wave. “Go find Strident Shoals. Older mare, can't miss her. She'll be wearing a red vest with a gold fringe. I think I saw her last somewhere near the storage rooms where we're keeping book copies. She's in charge of proofing. She'll give you your vest and your assignments.”
“Thank you, Queen Alpha.” Red Wave curtsied quickly and galloped off.
When the door had slammed shut for a third time, Rookwind gave her a curious look. “What is the significance of the vests?”
“An organizational technique I learned back in Equestria. It helps ponies – er, kelpies – know who's doing what job. Boosts efficiency and makes them less likely to slack off,” she answered, and turned towards Beta again. “So.”
“And what, precisely, do you suggest as a new source of income?” she asked. Her voice was barely louder and more cordial than a hiss. Caelum above, she'd come here to dress her down, not be lectured on how best to run her own government and be shunted aside like a common functionary! “Do you suggest we conjure crystals out of thin air?”
“Don't be silly, Beta. I'm well aware of how severely that would affect inflation – I took an entire course on economic theory back in Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns,” Alpha answered. “And then I read everything I could find in my personal collection on the subject. Midas the Morose was quite explicit in how bad magically-obtained gold is for the economy and family relationships, and I can only assume crystals are the same. Instead, I propose we change this.”
The tax report detached itself from the brooding flock of pages that hovered behind Alpha and zipped over to Beta. As near as she could tell from looking at the final page, where the survey traditionally concluded with the amount of taxes due based on the wealth of the property holder's lands, Gilded Lily owed nothing to the crown. The surveyor had made that, in Alpha's own words, quite explicit – he had circled in red the line proclaiming “Landed Nobility – Taxation Exempt”. And then underlined it for emphasis. Several times. Angrily, if the denting left by the pencil tip in the vellum was any sort of indication.
“What are you talking about?” Beta asked, puzzled. She glanced over the rest of the summary; everything seemed to be in order. Gilded Lily was a personal friend of hers; she knew she wouldn't try to disguise any source of income she had. Why should she? Cheaper to report honestly and not pay taxes. Had she been a merchant, things might have been different – tax collectors had numerous reports of doctored ledgers and misreported income coming from that class – but the nobility were honest to a fault.
“She isn't paying any taxes,” Alpha answered simply, like it should be self-evident.
“She doesn't have to.”
“Exactly!” She pulled another few survey reports down from the cloud. “Diamond Eyes, Golden Horseshoe, Glittering Darkness, Stalwart Tower – none of these kelpies are paying any taxes! It's bad enough that the wolves can't be taxed, and the thunderbirds evidently pay their taxes through military service and weather control – which needs to be regulated, apparently the eyries don't submit copies of their rain schedules to us, even just for record-keeping purposes – but the landed nobility have to pay taxes. I would suggest making everyone pay taxes, but in this system it seems that the nobles and merchants are the only ones who have anywhere near enough to make taxation worthwhile.” She shook her head sadly. “Honestly, it's no wonder the Domhanane are so illiterate! With the kind of income we have now, a school system, no matter how rudimentary, would send us so deep into the red we might as well just sell the queendom to Equestria.”
“We can't tax the nobility!”
“Why?”
“Because – well, we'd lose their support!” she tried to rationalize. “If we started taxing them like commoners, they'd revolt, and we'd be run off the planet!” I can't just demand money from my supporters! They'd revolt, almost certainly! Stalwart Tower, Glittering Darkness, Diamond Eyes – does she even know who she's suggesting I take money from? She suppressed a shudder at the idea of fighting the combined personal guards of the three largest land owners besides the crown in Domhan. Alpha didn't even notice.
“We control the suns, Beta.” She snorted. “If we really had to we could incinerate anything a rebellion could throw at us.”
“You see? This is why I don't think you're ready to be a Queen again yet!” Finally, an opening! If she could just retake control of the conversation, she could steer things back towards the outcome she'd wanted in the first place, and defuse this horrible plan before it had a chance to blow up in her face. War against Stalwart Tower...Caelum above, she'd have to somehow rope the bugganes into her service again just to have a snowball's chance on Proxima Centauri of keeping power! “Alpha, you've been gone for two thousand years, and still can't remember most of that time, much less what came before. I've been ruling over a stable, happy queendom for that same amount of time. I have experience that you lack. Once you remember your time as a star again - “
“I remember visiting that cave where Proxi first told us we would have the allegiance of the dragons,” Alpha interrupted softly. Beta froze. No – no, she couldn't. “I remember her complaining about how unoriginal we were in making Domhan. I...I remember sitting on a hill on...Beltane, I think...and watching Proxima Centauri rising when it shouldn't.”
Oh, please, Caelum, don't let her remember that day. Let her remember anything else – let her remember my Fall – before she remembers that day.
She tried to speak again. She found that, inexplicably, she couldn't. She swallowed nervously, waiting for the axe to drop. Leaving her on that hilltop had been a mistake. An extremely, horribly, incredibly bad mistake. She could only hope the price for that error would be cheap.
“I...I remember...Proxima...” Alpha shivered, and Beta could guess at what she remembered. She pressed on, regardless. “But anyways, Rookwind, did you ever prepare that security briefing I requested? I apologize for my sudden disappearance, but I think it will be for the better, eventually.”
“My Queen?” Even Thunderclaw Rookwind, that kind-hearted, sensitive and empathetic individual, could tell Alpha wasn't saying something, and whatever she wasn't saying was eating at her. She gave him a hard look and he cleared his throat. “Of course, Queen Alpha. After re-examining the current state of the Guard and - “
“She will not be Queen again for some time yet, Captain Rookwind,” Beta interjected. “I order you to - “
“I countermand that, Captain,” Alpha cut her off, “and, having done a little research myself, I would like to know more about contingency plans we have for emergency situations.”
“Of course, Queen Alpha.” The thunderbird shot an apologetic look towards Beta. She fumed, but silently. She was not going to let this degenerate into foalish bickering. Not in front of Rookwind, at least.
“Start with this one, please.” An ancient sheaf of parchment emerged from the heart of the cloud of documents behind Alpha, the other papers parting before it like the waters of an ocean before a prophet. It glowed with magenta light for a moment and a pair of copies split from it, one floating towards Rookwind and one towards Beta. She knew what it was from the moment that parchment came out. Any anger she might have felt had drained away and left her feeling hollow. Of all the things for Alpha to find decaying in a scroll rack somewhere, she had to find that. Everything was collapsing around her, and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. And that, for several reasons, and one in particular that she preferred to avoid thinking about, terrified her.
“A while ago, sister, you mentioned 'safeties' that you had in place,” Alpha said softly. “I was curious. I found this after poking around in the Archive for a few hours yesterday. Rookwind?”
The thunderbird cleared his throat again and nodded. “Where shall I start?”
“The summary, please. The particulars are obsolete, I'm sure – or I would be if I'd thought anything had changed since then.” The way Alpha said 'anything' made Beta's stomach sour.
“Very well.” He straightened himself and read in his gravelly voice, “After the events of Samhain, Year One-Hundred and Seventy-Two After Victory, it was found to be expedient to outline a chain of command for the Queendom should the Queen ever become incapable of performing her duties. Enumerated within is the precedence of the various offices of the Triarchy and - “
“Skip ahead to the portion detailing the conditions under which a Queen may be considered 'incapable of performing her duties' please.”
“Of course, my Queen.” The pages on his copy turned themselves until they reach a point about halfway through. “Under the following conditions, the Queen shall be considered incapable of fulfilling her duties as Triarch. One – in the event of corruption by spirits or magics unknown. Two – in the event of a disappearance lasting no less than three days' length, which shall be treated as indication of corruption occuring - “
“Stop.” Alpha turned to Beta. Beta felt on the verge of simply abandoning her corporeal form and retreating back to her star for a few days. “I looked into the events occurring on Samhain of One-Seven-Two AV. Eyewitness accounts are in complete agreement. On that day, after three days gone missing, you were found half-insane outside of the city of Scathbuaic. Your coat was pitch black, your eyes looked like, and I quote, “a dragon's pitiless globes,” and you had cowed a buggane council into submission. When the wolf pack that escorted you back found you, you were unconscious in the middle of a badly scorched region of pine forest, where the dirt had been vaporized down to the bedrock in some places. You were surrounded by six almost unrecognizably damaged bugganes, and fourteen charred wolf skeletons from the first wolfpack to find you.”
“I fixed that,” she whispered. It sounded pathetic even to herself.
“The next time you wish to talk about my qualification to rule, sister...don't.” The copies vanished. “If someone who is still trying to fight her Nightmare – don't try to deny it! - can rule alone, I think someone inexperienced at ruling anything bigger than a library can reign as co-Queen.”
Beta nodded, but behind her defeated facade her mind was churning furiously, despite how ill she was feeling. I can turn this to my advantage, she thought. I can find some way to curb her, stop her – even just slowing her down would be good! Libraries in every city? Reading lessons for the peasantry? Taxing the landed nobility? How in the vast blackness of space can I turn this into anything but a PR nightmare?