Chapter Six
Moonlight
“Mom is sad again.”
Despite his indifference towards children, or perhaps because of it, the regularity with which Dinky had accepted and knew that her mother had broken down was clear as the empty winter skies. Quirk knew somewhere that he ought to care more than the superficial consideration he had given that bit of information, yet he was disinterested. Impartial. There were a thousand ways to start the question, a question he would ask anyways, but only one way to end it.
“Is she like this often?”
Dinky nodded, the pain in the answer alive in her eyes.
“She’s not good. Sometimes she’s like that for days and days and she doesn’t talk to anypony, but not for a while. I think she might’ve already been thinking about something bad, ‘cause she didn’t want to play or talk much. I got bored. And you guys never wanted to talk to me either! So why are you talking to me?”
To the point, are we?
Sitting down, still sifting through the madness that had occurred, Quirk decided to match her directness. “Ditzy is very upset.”
Dinky’s eyes narrowed, a remarkably venomous expression for the child she was.
“I know.”
Those words were beyond a statement; they were aggression, a demand for more. Quirk looked back, neither particularly astonished nor bored, only flat and thinking, delaying his own ominous contemplations. Yet there was more, a hearkening back to his younger days, and the abrupt end of an age.
I know the question she’s still asking, because she knows I didn’t give her a real answer, or what she thinks is a real answer. She has some sense that I… of course she does, she said “I’m not nothing!” when I tried to brush her off. What is she, seven, eight? She’s not oblivious. Why should I make some ridiculous lie when she’ll only uncover it later? Why should I lie about anything that she would remain oblivious about, even? What point is there in any of it, when innocence is a flowery substitute for ignorance? A veil, that’s all, that society made up. A shield from the world that finds you anyway.
“Ditzy is very upset and Eris told me to take you a long way away from the camp so she could try to calm her down.”
“Did you hear that noise earlier?” Dinky pressed on, her hunger only whetted and still the farthest from satisfied by Quirk’s more comprehensive answer.
“Yes, I saw it happen.”
“Where did it come from?”
“Your mother.”
Dinky looked distinctly sickened, but she didn’t let up, and Quirk gave her every answer.
“How?”
“Discord said something to her. He probably did something to her.”
“But Discord was nice to me! And he got locked in a statute again, Twilight said so! Where is he?!”
“Wherever he is, he’s not here now.”
“What was he doing?”
Oh, if only I knew. Quirk drew in a long breath, wondering how to go about what he had half-heard. “They were talking about the reasons we’re on this… expedition. It had something to do with Tick and Luna. I would need to explain a lot to give you the details, but they’re unnecessary.”
Unnecessary for you. It’s a dodge, but it really would take me ages… and Ditzy—who knows what she would do?
“I heard about Tick at home when you were in the kitchen,” Dinky put in, almost apologizing, “I heard Eris say he was gone, but why is he gone? Why are we following him?”
~~~~~~~~~
“Where is Dinky? Is she safe? Where is he?”
“Quirk is keeping an eye on her.”
“Please, let me see her, get her away from—”
“I want to help you. Yes, Quirk is a scumbag, but you need to tell me what happened first. It’s over now.”
Ditzy was still breathing heavy, golden eyes bloodshot, a complete wreck. She squirmed around in the small tent, Eris like an iron curtain before the exit. The question about Dinky had been the first coherent words Ditzy had uttered; Eris had carried the shell-shocked mare back almost entirely to the tent before Ditzy had regained her faculties. Though not without compassion, Eris knew her overwhelming prerogative in that moment was information.
First thing about trauma is to get them away; now I have to figure out what it was. Quirk said something about Discord. I’m not sure if he’s a hundred percent, but I need to get this out of Ditzy first. Discord, of all the things!
“Where is he?!” Ditzy demanded again, looking for all her strain like a wounded animal trapped in a corner, ready to strike against the unassailable fortress between her and the outside. Her stance was bent, hunkered down, still hinting of the rage that had provoked the unholy noise that had caught Eris’s initial attention. A mess of golden hair hung over her face, looking feral, but Eris would not yield, her stare immortal against the decanter of rage Ditzy had poured out. I need to know before I do anything. I’ve only heard a scream like that in one place.
“Who is he?”
“Discord,” Ditzy spat out. Genuine bewilderment took its place in Eris’s mind, and before Ditzy launched into her tirade, she had time to think one thought: this is so far beyond my pay grade.
“He came back,” Ditzy whispered, and then Eris saw the fear in that scarred face. “He got out of his prison. We have to tell Luna, and the book—he wants the book, that’s the only reason he would have told me, even if he’s lying. Tick—”
She wouldn’t finish her sentence. Eris moved faster than her eyes could see.
~~~~~~~~~
Ditzy yelped, twisting to fight as Eris tripped her, masterfully landing the struggling mare on her back. Caught under the pin, she had no time to react before Eris spoke.
“Think about breathing.”
“Get off me!”
“I’ll get off when you think about breathing.”
Ditzy felt the weight of Eris on her, moved as if to kick her and then hesitated, her mind a crashing jumble of urges all going at once. The hard swift breathing that was the only sound now then cut through to her; the world was done trembling; there was solid cold earth below and Eris held her down from above. Minutes slipped through the cracks in the tent and Ditzy forgot about her tormentor, felt the solid presence. Her mind had been going a mile a minute, but now it was exhausted. Her body had been dripping with the nectar of rage and terror, yet she was expended, the shock dissipated. The pain twisted deep into her was a memory buried again. There was only the world directly around her.
Breathing? I’m breathing so fast. What does she want about my breathing?
Yet nothing was said.
Finally the hammer of time slowed Ditzy’s breath, and in another minute’s passing Eris stepped off her.
“Are you all here?”
“Yes,” Ditzy answered instinctually, but she instantly regretted it, for she was not sure at all if she was all there, or all right. But that’s not the question…
“I need you to tell me what happened,” Eris said. It was not a demand, not even impatient. The words thudded in the air once and they were gone. Eris’s gaze was even, calm, and level even as Ditzy was unbalanced; she had just sat to regain her senses and was not at all sure she should trust that guise of levelheadedness. Had not Eris retained her superior attitude even in the depths of the ruins?
Eris stood before the door.
“What do you need to know?”
“I need you to tell me everything that happened and what needs to be done to prevent this from happening to you again.”
Ditzy laughed. She laughed, because she could see how Eris phrased it, coiled the words so innocently into a picture of care, a care that—if she had any at all—looked more generous than reality. She laughed, because after the agony she endured, she now had something that Eris wanted. It was power, and normally it wouldn’t have mattered, but she’d been a pawn without it long enough.
~~~~~~~~~
The profound silence matched with the cold and fading light. I said she’s not oblivious. It’s a shame I am.
“You know what,” Quirk started, getting up from his stationary position. Dinky had started pacing around to warm herself as the afternoon hours ticked away “I really don’t know. I know he ran away, but that’s all I actually know. We should go ask Eris and Ditzy whenever they get done.”
A foal-sized package of insurance helps.
“Can we start a fire too?”
“That is the best idea I’ve heard all day. I don’t think we’re getting anywhere today and it’s too d- it’s too cold. It’ll only get colder from now on.”
Dinky looked at him askance for a second, and then they meandered back towards the camp. The three tents were situated under cover of some pine trees for the purpose of shelter, and the forest around them was patchy. To the southeast there was a hillock where Quirk and Dinky had waited; to the west of the camp was the clearing where Discord had appeared and vanished like a rip in space. It’s possible that he somehow talked to Fluttershy about—wait.
Quirk halted. Dinky was just barely in sight to the north, trying to move a lopped-off branch that was probably too big for her. There was a scroll. There was a scroll that Discord kept trying to get Ditzy to take, but she never did, and I never saw Eris pick it up and she didn’t mention it. It could still be there.
His eyes shot to the foreboding tent containing the two mares, the clearing in the distance, and soon settled on the clearing. I’m not going near either of them right after this crazy shit.
Poking his head quietly around the snow-dipped trunks, Quirk took his time wandering all the way around the clearing. The pillar lay lopsided and the scroll was only a few yards from it, both frosted lightly. Picking up a rock, Quirk tossed it with his better wing and watched with disappointment as it bounced off the pillar without issue.
“If he wanted to hurt me, he would’ve done it already,” Quirk mused to himself, “or he would guess that I would think that and make me feel like more of an idiot later. Or it was a trap for Ditzy. I could do the egalitarian thing and see what it is, since she’s got her hooves full.”
My first half-decent act to repay my years of earnest stupidity and selfishness! Though it will be a long road, I will faithfully recompense…
Quirk gave the column a blunt kick before he seized the scroll, held it up before him half unrolled, and waited a moment for inevitable agony.
Nothing happened.
Eh, close enough.
Holding the not-as-mysterious-as-anticipated scroll up into the dimming light, Quirk made out a short note and list scrawled out in flowing text upon it. Surely these words will leap off the page and claw my eyes out or somesuch.
It read:
Ditzy: I entrust this to you in the hope that it will serve as a peace offering. Should you continue on your journey, I think you’ll find good use of this. I would include this in my cookbook, but my editor advised me against it.
2 cups Flour
1 & ½ teaspoons Vanilla Extract
2 teaspoons Mother’s Bloody Tears
…
Quirk read until he had gone halfway down the list of exotic and disturbing materials and then decided he was better off leaving the list unfinished.
Now I can conclude that Discord does not need to result to supernatural means to confuse me. It’s probably better that Ditzy hasn’t seen this yet.
There was a lack of moderation in Quirk’s steps toward the tents; in the wet crunches of snow he thought he heard a rhythm; he found himself humming something half-remembered as he went. Though cracking cold and vapid silence waited for him, Quirk shrugged it off. The scenes of the day, though utterly bizarre, were apart from him. With no desire to question it, he satisfied himself with meandering until he stood before the tent. Soon enough he and Dinky would confront Eris and Ditzy. And in a few moments more, Quirk announced his presence with a rather blunt “Eris!”
Eris poked her head out of the tent and locked her withering gaze onto him and it took all of Quirk’s restraint to not roll his eyes.
Oh, don’t look at me with your serious face like that. You’ve been in there for hours; you were going to be interrupted eventually.
“You forgot something.” Quirk proffered the rerolled scroll to Eris. Behind her, an iron-grey apparition stood—not sitting—at the back of the small space. Quirk only saw it for a moment yet it felt like an arena, a tension of power grinding. And Ditzy, that weathered rock from the side of a mountain, stood with pride.
Eris, by the look of her fading grimace, was tired of locking horns with that pained nobility. All but Quirk stood, befuddled for a second, then Eris stuttered forward, trying all at once to shield the sight from Ditzy, close the cloth door, and seize the infernal scroll.
“Give it to me!” Ditzy shouted, charging forward the barest instant later. Haggard thought she was, the voracity of the leap and the fury of the ensuing struggle convinced Quirk instantly that the molten core of her being was yet aflame. Having no time to think, he tossed the scroll straight up and ducked.
In that moment Quirk realized an inescapable truth. The two would wrestle on forever, and the scroll would hit the ground sooner or later. The mural of matched mares colliding with the scroll hanging above entranced him: in the eternity of that long moment he knew he could, ought, to get involved, if only to expedite the process. His thoughts thrust even deeper in that spike of realization, knowing what he would entertain were he to remain noncommittal to everything. But the world was happening now, and Quirk didn’t have time to think.
~~~~~~~
The jolt, the roll and tussle of unarmed melee broke through whatever haze lingered in Ditzy’s mind. Eris was on top of her, then she had thrown her off, and somehow through the madness she caught a glimpse of Quirk flying and catching the scroll. Heedless, Ditzy traded blows—though Eris sought not to injure—and in a few more moments found herself knocked on her side, the air exploding out of her lungs. Light-headed, she recovered in a few moments, Eris’s perpetual frown bringing her back. Her reflexive instinct had been to fight; she had sought the scroll and was now not sure entirely why she did.
“I think we really ought to take a break from trying to kill each other and ask ourselves what we’re trying to accomplish,” Ditzy heard, and she tilted her head up to see Quirk hovering a few feet above and away, holding the scroll. “Can I talk for a moment before we resume this duel?”
Eris turned about to him and opened her mouth—she held ready—she closed it slowly and grimaced.
“What do you want?” Eris flatly queried, none too happy with his initiative. Ditzy struggled up, knowing it felt worse than it was even as remorse loomed ahead. I tried to fight. The first thing I did was to fight…
Quirk held the scroll close, mockingly thoughtful, and slipped it behind his back teasingly. “While locked deep in the midst of highbrow intellectual discourse, Dinky and I realized that we actually know nothing about why we’re running after Tick. Zero. Naught a sound. No real reasons, anyways. If one or both of you could be fortunate and kind enough to share some new reasons with us, then perhaps we could find in our travel-weary bodies some new sense of cooperation. What do you two think, hmm?”
~~~~~~~
“I want to know… it’s scary that you won’t tell us. Even if it’s bad, I want to know. I don’t want to hide. It’s more scary not knowing why, because if it was good you wouldn’t hide it from me.”
Dinky, having nothing else to say, looked down, her young face twisted by a dual self-shame and worry.
Eris had pointed her out, having heard everything Ditzy had said in the tent, and, sickened by the thought of lying to her daughter, Ditzy couldn’t find the breath to deny it. Nor could she contain her own guilt: irrefutably it was at least some of her fault that Tick had escaped with the book. Quirk, knowing where Ditzy’s love lay (and did not lay), let Dinky do the talking.
And now, from the brink, from the summit of conflict, having fought the red raging tides and spilled her heart bare to one she distrusted, Ditzy faced the broad expanse again, the great range of tempestuous questions roaring across the plains. And the sight of her daughter set hurt and against her cleaved her ragged heart, and the voice that brought her down to earth was the voice of defeat wailing. The burning strike of light that had empowered her had dipped below the horizon and the blessed water of night took hold of her. There was no pain; there was black moonlight coming down and separating her; the world was surreal like through a fogged window. Ditzy watched the night sweep them up until they were all alone. She was all alone. It only lasted a few moments, but that was long enough.
Why is she here?
Ditzy told them, but she was only telling herself.
~~~~~~~~
Eris knew this was the time, the time to take the issue and crush it—seize, obliterate, eliminate it—for the weak artificial bonds that had brought the group together were blazingly clear in all eyes. She needed naught but orders, complemented by a quiet, vengeful promise. Bide her time though she could, Eris knew the others could not, and therefore heeded close to the descendant mare’s words.
Shifting, broken with tension that seemed not to go even close to Ditzy, she had to wait to hear the start. Not even in the tent had she heard what had occurred with the last convergence of Discord and Ditzy: she had only rambled on about her mother, her last two encounters with Discord, something to do with Celestia and a waterfall, and a nightmare that “wasn’t real.”
“This is why we’re really going now,” Ditzy started ad hoc, her slow, low voice puncturing the night veil. “Because Discord isn’t lying and even if he is then I can figure it out. I lost the book, the book that was in the ruins. Aphelion told me to be careful and I was stupid and I lost it anyways. He told me not to tell any of you because Tick might find out—” Ditzy let out a ragged, angry breath but hardly seemed to notice. “—but he found it out anyways and took it and left. I was supposed to tell Luna about it. But then everything got worse, and…”
Ditzy trailed off.
Aphelion! Dammit, why didn’t he tell me?! What did he think I was going to do?
“Then Discord came back.”
Ditzy’s breaths were short and hard, staring slightly upward.
“Luna told me a bunch of old stories the last time I was in the palace about ponies that did heroic things and died afterward. They had a hall carved out of the mountain for them. I don’t want to die. I wonder if any of them asked why. They didn’t really seem to question anything.”
Eris sat up straighter (if that was possible), memory electrifying her every pore. She was in the hall of honor? That place is closed off! It’s sacred!
“It’s not just some stupid book or I would leave. I thought it was about Tick. It was never about Tick, it was always about the books. Tick found those freaking books in the palace—”
Ditzy seemed to have almost said a different word, yet she must have regained some sort of cognizance, for her eyes betrayed her and flicked down to her daughter momentarily.
“—and they didn’t have things Luna liked in them so she got rid of them. And then she told us we’d been touched by the Nightmare, THE Nightmare. Because Tick had looked at her mind and then we’d looked at Tick’s mind. I went along with all of it, because I was afraid of losing what I had. Then Discord explained everything and it fit too well. Tick’s talent is some uncommon lost art. Celestia and Luna had it, they lost it, I don’t know how. In the ruins. It turned into the book, so the book wasn’t actually a book or maybe it was. They used to be able to talk through minds like Tick does but they did it constantly. They forgot how to do it… they lost it; they left all the pain and the connection behind.”
Staggering in her explanation, Ditzy faltered in her breathing as well, and for a moment Eris was ready to rush forward to catch her. Yet no such fall came.
She’s piecing this together from what Discord told her? How much did Discord tell her and how much is she coming up with on her own?
“It’s why Luna wouldn’t go into the ruins, because she didn’t want to risk coming into contact with all their old feelings and connections. And Discord said everything had been forgotten about psionics for over a thousand years. And Eris, you told me that there are guards going to the Empire, that don’t have anything to do with us. Luna didn’t go into the ruins because she wasn’t ready. She didn’t know enough. She sent the guards so she could gather information quietly in the only place that would have it. And she doesn’t want Tick to have the book because he might be able to tap into their past conflict. And she needs it, because she wants to destroy the feelings that lurked in her for so long. So she can get her connection back. That’s everything. I’m so tired… I’m tired but I’m not…”
Ditzy let out a few more uncertain breaths and fainted.
Bound in the night, the other three gradually slipped away minutes later as they realized that whatever limit was left had been pushed and the commodity of rest was slipping away. Dinky protested—she feared dreadfully for her mother—but Ditzy was safely asleep, breathing regular, yet out completely.
Eris lay watch over the tent, knowing inside somewhere that even if Ditzy was wrong, she was too close to being right.