No matter how many times he did it, it was always the gloves that put it over the edge, Ledger felt. He should have felt the same way about the coat and the pants, even more so given how much more of a symbol of oppression they were, but it was something about the gloves. Something about the feeling of them on his hands and what they seemed to represent. They were tied into the restraints of his chariot, telling him when his servants had gone free, and they had the ability to call upon the Queen herself. But neither of those were the reason. Ledger knew they weren’t the reason. He just couldn’t quite put his finger on what was.
He pulled them on over his hand, fitting perfectly over his fingers in such an immaculate way that he wondered how much time had truly been put into them. He knew trained tailors before he came here who couldn’t accomplish this. But ponies, who had never seen a human hand before, had done so. Obviously under the command of Nightmare Moon, but it was still amazing.
Half parts awe and disgust were tucked away as Ledger tried to move his mind away from the gloves. But he lacked anything else engaging to think about. He was going on the train towards the dragons today, but there was no thinking to be done about that. He had packed and repacked everything over and over again to be sure he had everything he needed, but only that. Nothing redundant or niche.
Everything else was up to the conductor, he just had to find a way to pass the endless train ride without going insane from lack of input. He glanced over at a small box that sat next to his mirror, he’d been debating on bringing it for a while, but suddenly reached over and grabbed it off the wooden counter on a whim. He sat down at the knee high table and opened the pack, taking the set of playing cards from within and splitting them in half, one in each hand, so he could shuffle them together.
They would be close to pointless on his trip, since none of the ponies seemed to know how to play even the simplest game, and declined when he offered to teach them. There were a few single player games, but those always got tiresome quick. Yet... these cards were also one of the few artifacts that he’d somehow managed to bring into this world with him, and they had sentimental value because of that. Something about the jacks, the queens, the suicide king of hearts… something about the simple images resonated with him.
He shuffled a second time, nothing fancy, just your classic poker shuffle. He’d never learned any cool tricks with them, didn’t see the point in it, even now. It felt nice to just have them there. Without looking he dealt onto the table. A face down and a face up card across from him, and then two face ups directly in front of himself. He glanced at the cards and frowned.
An ace sat comfortably on the other side of the table next to it’s face down friend and a three and five sat on his own side. “That is horrible luck…” He said idly as he stacked the cards, not bothering to look at what the face down was. He’d never gambled, but blackjack was the simplest game he knew of and was more or less one player if you took out the money.
The dealer had strict rules they had to play by, with little to no room to do otherwise. So as to give some consistency to the hectic changing field. “I have no idea what the face down card is, or what the next card on the deck is, but I know what the dealer will have to do if he gets anything below a seventeen.” Which, of course, made it easy to play without the dealer at all.
Ledger dealt again. The ‘dealer’ had a ten now, that was more reasonable. And he had an ace and an eight. Ledger tapped his jaw in idle thought while he looked at the cards. “Think I’ll…. stay…” He flipped over the face down and smiled. “An eight, yay, I win.” His voice was more sarcasm than excitement, and he slid the cards back together, shuffling once more, and opted to put them back into their package rather than deal again.
He glanced at the empty place near the mirror for a moment before he tucked the cards into his coat pocket. He moved to the door and pushed it open with a twist of the knob. He closed the door behind him as he passed over the threshold and began to make a slow trip towards the train, having nothing better to do. His luggage was already aboard, there was no reason for him not to be on the train as well.
The castle was mostly quiet as it was an early morning train departure. Only a few servants would be up at these hours, and they wouldn’t be in this part of the castle. He had the whole hall to himself to slowly swagger through, a privilege that wasn’t normally possible given how packed the castle always seemed to be. He followed the twists and turns thoughtlessly, already knowing the path. He had memorized these halls under the Queen’s instruction, that was something he could do at least. It wasn’t like he knew the castle like the back of his hand. There were still several off paths that lead to other things where he never needed to go to. Even if he did need to find out how to get somewhere, he knew the way to the library, where the map was.
So, due to his knowledge, he got to the train still several hours before it would depart. He grabbed the handle and pulled the door open, letting it slide freely to the side for a moment before he let his arm go tense and stop its movement. He stepped inside and much to his surprise he found another pony already inside. She looked back at him, her face empty of emotion, like she was too busy to care about his arrival. She turned her attention back to the violin that lay on her lap and continued to tune it.
He pulled the door shut again and sat down across from her with folded his arms, he rested one foot on his knee and he sat there, letting his head fall until it rested against his chest. He listened to the soft plucks of the instrument and although he could tell when she moved on to a new string to tune it, he had no way of knowing how close she was to the note she was trying to get. He’d never developed an ear for the notes, despite all the time he’d spent listening to music before he came here.
“Are you going to say ‘hi’?” Octavia asked him, but he couldn’t tell if she was looking at him or not, his eyelids had already slid shut in a mix of boredom and fatigue, he hadn’t gotten as much sleep the night prior as he would have liked.
“Ladies first.” Came the muffled reply on a slight delay.
She scoffed lightly at that in good humor before continuing her work. “So you’re going to see the dragons as well then? No doubt as part of your job.”
“No, I’m totally going there on vacation. I can’t wait to get punched in the face because I passed by a bar at any point in the day.” Ledger’s voice was lax, not as much sarcasm as simply boredom.
“Perhaps if their king cared for his subjects, their lives wouldn’t be in such a state. Where they spend every free moment drinking away all the problems that plague them day after day every week.” Ledger could tell that it was an issue that Octavia had a strong stand in, given how quickly she had brought it up.
“Or perhaps they like to drink.”
He opened one of his eyes and glanced at her, she was frowning at him. “You mean to say that you think the king is justified in what he’s doing?”
“I never said that, I’m just playing devil’s advocate.”
“Deevile’s advocate?”
“Devil’s advocate, it means I’m voicing the other side of the debate even if I agree with yours. There’s no guarantee that removing the king would be beneficial. Especially with his sons still in the equation. Taking out the king would cause a power vacuum, his sons would all try and take the throne the second he was out of the way and we’d have a war on our hands before the day was out.”
“Yes, but the king allows the slavery of his OWN people! To other dragons no less. Not to mention the crippling tax rate and the police who can do whatever they like with utter impunity and the horrible treatment of the lower classes. I understand your argument but surely we could do something to help?”
“You think that maybe the queen could take over in his place?” The way he phrased it sounded like he was baiting her into agreeing with it. And she did, but it made her worry what his rebuttal was.
“Well it’s certainly a better option than the status quo.”
“No it isn’t. Queen takes over, dragons rebel. Maybe not immediately but fairly soon afterwards. The only reason the dragon king rules is because he’s proven his power to them and is close enough to strike fear into the populace with his simple presence. As soon as the queen takes over the dragons will want to revolt. ‘Who’s this numpty pony commanding us all from so far away? I say we strike a revolution.’ And they either all agree with that or it’s split. If the split is even enough there’s a civil war over it and if it’s one sided enough in favor of the revolution we get a war against us.”
“I see you’ve put some thought into this,” Octavia said, frowning again.
“Used to, back when I thought I could change things.” Ledger rocked back and forth a bit, trying to get more comfortable on his seat. “I was so certain I could make things better when I first arrived. And I suppose a few ponies are better off since I’ve shown up, but all in all everything is exactly the same. You’d think a little kindness would go a long way. But it only makes you untrustworthy, people wonder what you’ve got planned.”
Octavia looked on silently, letting the man continue. He choked out a laugh before he started up again. “I remember this one time I gave a foal a donut. He was staring at it through the bakery window and you could tell he wanted it so bad, had his eyes locked on it. So I go in and pick up a few things, and I buy the donut. He looks all disappointed because he thinks it's gone forever now. So then I come out and give it to him and he looks up at me, totally confused. As soon as I turn my back, not even kidding, the dad of the kid throws it in the trash. Scared it might be poisoned. This kid looks at his dad like he’s insane, but then the dad just runs away with the kid in tow.”
“Just because you had one bad experience-”
“Oh don’t even.” Ledger cut her off, a sharp anger suddenly appearing in his tone, where before it had been completely apathetic.
“What?”
“Don’t even say it. ‘You should give it another try! I’m sure things’ll go better!’ I have, okay, it never works out.” He shook himself once more, still trying to find some elusive spot of comfort somewhere in the cushions of the train seat.
Octavia glanced at Ledger, but opted not to talk. She turned her attention back to the violin and began to double check and make sure it was tuned.
“Sorry.”
She glanced at Ledger again, but that seemed like all he was going to say. She let a half smile onto her face and went back to finishing the preparations for her violin.