//------------------------------// // Chapter 7: The Waggle Dance // Story: At the Inn of the Prancing Pony // by McPoodle //------------------------------// At the Inn of the Prancing Pony Chapter 7: The Waggle Dance “Peeping through the knothole Of Grandpa’s wooden leg, Who’ll wind the clock when I am gone? Go get the axe There’s a flea in Lizzie’s ear, For a colt’s best friend is his mother!” Muddy Pie was belting out the oddest little song like he was doing a command performance for the Princess. Coincidentally, he was shouting right into the ear of the Princess, although he didn’t know it. “Muddy, please I...Why would you need an axe to deal with a flea? If you must sing, I ask that your songs make sense.” The unicorn sighed, walking slowly down the road with a look of long suffering nobility to her. “Sense? Scents? Cents?” Muddy asked himself in quick succession. “It’s rather a non-sensible mission altogether, if you ask me! You can’t topple a problem face on, after all. Leastwise most of the problems I face. A horn and a song is enough for me.” Celestia gave the earth pony a very discerning look for that remark, and then took a peek at the map he was carrying. “I don’t think we’ll get to the manor before nightfall. Shall we be staying at an inn?” she asked. “I’d certainly say so, I have no intention of sleeping on some blanket in the dirt,” Midnight said, her laugh almost derisive. “I’m sure they have something a step above that in Brightbrick.” Celestia saw an opportunity to finally figure out how others saw Muddy Pie. “Of course,” Hope said very simply. “Rooms for the unicorns, and the blanket for the earth ponies. How many rooms will I be getting for you?” Midnight almost tripped at the unexpected tone in Hope’s voice, and looked back at her with a frown. Her pace slowed further. “No...You may have a room as well,” she said, trying her best to match Hope’s neutral inflection. “So three rooms. The coin is in the pack cart.” So, pretty strong proof then that Midnight thought that Muddy Pie was a unicorn. Celestia didn’t detect any obvious unicorn magic on the earth pony. She could see more if she manifested her horn of course, but that would have serious consequences. Was it earth pony magic, perhaps? And was Celestia immune because she was an alicorn, or merely because she was an earth pony? In the meantime, though, Hope needed to properly react to her employer’s generosity. “Oh,” she said softly, “thank you, Ma’am. I’ll pull the cart extra fast after a good night sleep, just you see.” Compared to Redfern, Brightbrick was the very model of a planned community. Streets ran at right angles, and two of the intersections even had traffic cops. There was a post office and a library in separate buildings from the city hall. And helpful signs were located all over the place, pointing out where the major eateries and inns were located. It’s like the place is built for tourists, thought Celestia. Too bad that it’s so far away from the Trunk Road as to make the presence of casual visitors a near impossibility. “All this for a town of a hundred and fifty unicorns located far from any of the main roads,” Muddy remarked smugly, as if reading Celestia’s mind. “Goes to show which breed knows what they’re doing, eh?” “Inn. Rooms. Going now,” Celestia muttered before leaving the other two as fast as she decently could. # # # Dinner at the Vanishing Point Inn was served buffet style, which was a slight surprise to Celestia given how few ponies she had seen up and about before now. “Are you here long?” she asked the green earth pony in front of her in line. “Just finished delivering the hay shipment for Bee Villa,” the pony answered. “Oh? Do they get hay often?” “About once every six months. I’ve never seen the mistress, but there sure are a lot of servants running around. A few...too many servants, if you get my meaning.” “I guess,” said Hope, not really following. # # # Hope walked over to the table where Midnight and Muddy were already eating. Midnight had only half of her attention on her food, as she was working through some equations on a parchment that must have been written on and expunged dozens of times in the recent past. Hope took a few bites of her salad, to keep from looking too eager, before finally speaking. “What are you working on?” she asked. “Resonant harmonies between the magical fields of a pony and their wellspring. Really it’s a pain because most of the research is done by theologians and...” Midnight slowed down and looked up to Hope, before looking back to her page. “Unicorn stuff. I don’t suppose you know as much about magical wellsprings as you do about alchemy?” Celestia put on her “Celestia Smile”, the one that could be interpreted by the viewer as meaning anything whatsoever. “Well, I can’t be expected to have any direct experience under the circumstances,” she said. “However, I do experience a definite pull from here when I assist with the fall planting. Making it any bigger, well...I’ve heard that some of the earth ponies that work with animals as opposed to plants are able to do that. There’s a song or two...ooh, it’s been a long time since I’ve heard one of those.” In fact, Celestia wondered if the song she was thinking of was even intelligible in modern Equine anymore. “Songs...” Midnight looked to Muddy, as though checking to see if he was disapproving of her conversation. “That could do it. I keep running into gods and goddesses as sources of our wellspring, but songs sung together might do it. Those gods, one of them in particular... F... Fillytus or something? Seems to be thought of as the source of cutie marks.” Wow, thought Celestia. That one went way back. “Phyletus. Although I can understand the reason for the corruption of the name, since only fillies were allowed to sing it.” Phyletus had been the only god or goddess that Celestia was certain actually existed other than Discord...at least before this whole mess had begun. Celestia paused a bit to think. “Actually, since the purpose of those songs was energy transfer, and pegasi are supposed to do that for weather manipulation, it might be useful to ask one of them how they perform the same feat.” “I may if I can pin one down long enough. But now all the clerics have told me that Foaltus provides that service, so the extensive research into Phyletus is all for nothing.” Midnight sighed and laid her head on the table, toying with her food. Celestia barely had time to brace herself before once again feeling the questing eye of the goddess upon them. That’s got to be really annoying for Her, she thought idly to herself. There Foaltus is, busy doing Her hooves or something, when bam somebody says Her name out loud, and She’s got to check it out again. She laughed a bit at that. “It’s not that funny,” Midnight said, showing no signs that she felt herself being examined by the goddess she had just named. “I’ve lost a lot of progress in this mess. Even the cutie mark theory doesn’t make sense without Phyletus, and there’s a good chance that the clerics are lying to me about the modern gods having made it all.” “Foaltus Flakes are the best, look delicious on your vest,” sang Muddy. “Serve them to unwanted guests, stuff the mattress with the rest!” And with that, the goddess was gone. Hope raised one incredulous eyebrow. Gods are allergic to doggerel, she thought. That’s good to know. One relatively restful sleep later, the three travelers took the road up to Bee Villa. Surprisingly, it was a less well-maintained road than the one leading up to the Canterhorn shrine. From the depth of the ruts in the road, it appeared that it was used far more for hauling supplies up than for actual hoof traffic. The villa itself was a small ranch house that smelled of whitewash. Interestingly to Celestia, its architectural style was far more akin to cloudwork than to the stucco it was actually constructed out of. Midnight Sparkle strode up to the main door, and used her magic to strike the over-sized door knocker. It took nearly fifteen minutes of increasingly inventive attacks upon the door before anypony bothered to answer it. These attacks had drawn the attention of a small pink pegasus, who watched them from her perch atop an equally small cloud. “Yes?” asked the thoroughly bored red pegasus majordomo who had finally opened the door. “I, Midnight the Arcane, have come a great distance to speak with Rigged Bee. I object to the delay in answering my call, but it is acceptable if I will be allowed entrance.” “Milady does not see visitors on days ending with a ‘Y’,” the red pegasus answered drolly. “Nah, just kidding,” he said a moment later, dropping his upper-class accent. “Come on in. I’ll make up some tea and cookies.” “Ooh, do you have any of those shortbread ones with the icing?” asked Muddy, who followed the servant right back into the kitchen. “I just love those!” Midnight and Hope silently made their way into the cavernous front room of the house, and found places to sit. The disguised alicorn’s eyes were drawn to a series of portraits that lined the upper third of the room. The presence of the various Bees was of course to be expected, but the others appeared to be whichever famous individuals showed up to have their portrait painted with Rigged Bee, in this way acting as documentation of her gradual aging over the decades. A pair of names for these guests seemed to jog something in Celestia’s memory: Nestoria the Valiant, and Felnor the Brave. The former was a delicate unicorn from fifty years ago, and the latter a barbarian earth pony from a decade ago. However, despite living a generation apart and having completely different physiognomies, there was something indefinably linked between those two...and the official portrait of Rigged Bee herself. Something that was absent from every other portrait of the retired heroine. “Are you going to eat that? No? Oh, too late—more for me!” Celestia looked down from the portraits, to see that a tea service for four had been set, and Midnight and Muddy had already begun eating. “Oh, uh, sorry,” she said, and picked up one of the picked over cookies remaining to dunk in her cup of lukewarm tea. “Is the Bee available?” Midnight asked, sipping her own tea while ignoring the cookies. “Available. Not up to talking, give me a few moments.” The light blue unicorn in question walked right past the group, through the room, and out the door on the other side, closing it behind her. Midnight just sat there, mouth open. “Uh... I...” It took another minute or so for Rigged Bee to return, at which point she sat down on a chair far from the gathered travelers, as though afraid to catch a cold from them. “So?” Midnight worked her jaw, trying to gather her scattered thoughts. “I... My name...” “This one’s broken.” The declaration from Rigged was almost disappointed, as she turned to Muddy. “So?” Celestia could see that the ex-adventurer wore nothing. No adornments, no medals, no cloak, no weapons. It was almost eerie how ordinary the legendary Bee appeared. As if she wasn’t the one they had traveled to see. “What’s the loudest monster you ever had to face?” Muddy asked, his mouth only partly empty of cookie crumbs. “Good question. According to the codex some pegasus brought me...” She reached over to a shelf with her magic and dragged a book off it. “Probably the Terrorshriek gorge-beast. Can’t say I remember it myself...could explain my bad hearing though. Your turn, youngun.” She turned to look at Hope. “I was wondering,” Hope began, and then she was struck dumb. The pony before her was the same unicorn healer she had seen in her true form on the Canterhorn seventy-five years ago: same coat, same mane, same cutie mark, all somewhat faded as would be expected due to the rigors of age, plus several healed-over scars as might be expected from an adventurous life. But there was one change that was inexplicable: the adventurer she remembered so vividly had dull brown eyes, while the pony before her had bright orange eyes. Perfectly normal pony-orange eyes. Despite this shock, she was Celestia, and she had far too much invested in this meeting to screw it up with a social faux pas. She quickly closed her gaping jaw, and continued where she left off. “I was wondering what you can tell me about the Inn of the Prancing Pony.” Rigged sighed and looked away. “Eager to find your own glory? I can’t say I recommend it. Oh sure, I got all this...” She waved a hoof to the house around them. “Very nice. Plush chairs, good food...an excuse to use money from the unicorn royal treasury to give the good life to my mostly pegasus family. But you lose more than you get when you go to the Inn of the Prancing Pony, youngun. You always lose more...” Her gaze became distant if only for a second before she closed the codex and slid it back into its spot in the shelf. “The Inn is just a gathering place. A place where all can come and go. Earth pony, Pegasus, Unicorn, Zebra, Griffin...God.” Celestia’s spine turned to ice. “You guard yourself in that place,” the old unicorn whispered. “It’s an...adventure.” “You…” Hope began to say, but then stopped. This could be a very painful line of inquiry. No, make that definitely painful. “Your family send you off?” Muddy asked lightly, thereby stumbling into the very spellfield that Celestia was trying to figure out how to safely navigate. “If only I were that lucky,” she huffed. “I was sent off by ill fortune and desperation, more like. There were only five of us after those dragons were finished with my village.” Celestia winced in sympathy, not only for the victims, but for the insane aggressors as well. Rigged leaned forward. “Going to the Inn’s gotta be like a funeral march for most of us, you know? Knowing that you’re leaving everything behind...” “How do you win at the Inn?” Muddy asked, cackling. Rigged raised an eyebrow and sat back, looking at the unicorn imitation in confusion. “It’s a vicious place,” she said finally. “Just like every other place that adventurers frequent—it likes its meals tender, it rejoices in the most beaten and bloodied fodder. Over-dramatic, sobbing stories of broken homes and orphans. I’ve seen more adventurers who lost families than clouds in the sky. So. Make sure you’re a bleeding wreck and that place’ll gobble you up. So, what about you three? Off to throw yourself down its gullet as well?” Midnight rushed to answer. “A research expedition. I have many questions, about adventurers, about the powers they use...” She was stopped by a raised hoof, and the unicorn settled uneasily. “Can’t say that I’ll be any help on that. Can’t remember my adventuring days, don’t think I want to.” Hope slumped. This was her best hope of finding some kind of weakness, some way to exploit… But that was the mistake, wasn’t it? The same mistake made again and again by Equestria’s enemies, of seeing things as a straight contest of strength, as a game with a winner and a loser. Perhaps there was another way to approach this... “What was she like?” Hope asked simply. She looked up at the portraits, the portraits with the identical brown eyes, just to be sure. Rigged Bee, Nestoria the Valliant, Felnor the Brave. That was the list that Swipe had given to her, as if saying one name automatically summoned the other two by association. As if they were in a sense one and the same pony. As for the pronoun: yes, it did look like there was a female behind those eyes, although Celestia could very well be wrong, and gods might not in fact have a gender, but hey, 50/50 chances and all that. Rigged followed the earth pony’s gaze up and quickly looked away, and back to Hope. “She was me. She...Every once in a while they would call her Ellen. Ellen...” Her gaze went distant, something shaken in her expression of weary resignation. “She was kind. Smarter than me. If any of them can be trusted, it’s her. They call it the adventurer’s spirit, you know. The thing that takes us up and wields us like a weapon. But she just...helped me survive.” “Ellen? That’s an odd name,” Midnight scoffed. Rigged only ignored her. Rigged! Rigged! Ellen! Let’s get out of here, Rigged! Yes. Yes, Ellen was her name, Celestia remembered now, how the unicorn had tried offering herself up in a twisted attempt to help Celestia. Now she had a name, something to attach everything that belonged to the adventurer instead of to the pony. “It wouldn’t be that bad of a griffon name,” Hope mused aloud. “Silly names for silly creatures, griffons,” said Muddy in a sing-song voice. “No, generalized names for an individualized race,” said Celestia, drawing on her extensive experience with Equestria’s neighbors to the northeast. “At their worst, their lack of a cutie mark drives them into a perpetual cutie frenzy, trying anything and everything to attain some purpose in life.” “Don’t change the subject,” Midnight said crossly. “We are talking about the adventuring spirit of a pony...” Rigged shook her head, laughing a bit. “They’re all named like griffins, no matter the race. Ellen, Gary, Susan, Luke...and Luke...along with every other one I’ve heard of. ‘Course most adventuring types get killed before they retire. Or their minds are fried too deep to remember the names. One of my servants has a theory. Brilliant little pegasus. Says that I got saved by trying to resurrect a dead goddess.” Her gaze lingered on Hope for just a moment as she paused. Then she looked back to the floor. “Got the attention and salvation of...my own goddess. Not that she’s spent much attention on me since.” “You mean Foal—” Midnight was cut off by a lightning fast glare from Rigged. “This isn’t a place of worship. No reason to say their names, filly.” “No reason to be so hostile...forget it. I just wanted to ask you...” Rigged stood, and turned away. “I’m done with questions. There’s nothing more that I can or will speak on. I do hope your travels are uneventful.” With that, the legendary adventurer left the room. Midnight standing in front of her chair spluttering, and Muddy standing safely out of Midnight’s sight and rolling his eyes, like this sort of thing happened to her all the time. “Looks like it’s back to the inn,” said Muddy. “I’ll collect the cart.” He dashed out of the room very quickly. “What’s his hurry?” asked Hope. “CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT IGNORANT, IMBECILIC, HORRID MARE?!” Midnight screamed, clearly hoping to project through the whole house. “I come here, in pursuit of science! Science! And all I receive are platitudes and third bit poetry about an inn eating meat?!” The unicorn seethed, stomping loudly towards the door. “It’s criminal! Criminal!” Hope followed more slowly, leaving some space just in case the unicorn felt the need to blast something. She did. Namely a fairly ordinary vase that was “OBSTRUCTIVE IN THE PURSUIT OF SCIENCE!” As they approached the great door, Hope noticed a distinct lack of servants. On the one hoof, given Midnight’s current mood, this was more than prudent. On the other, she didn’t think that most servants were given the latitude of prudence when it came to the courtesy of letting your guests out. With a frown, she stepped in front of Midnight to open the door herself. It was for this reason that she was unable to see the reason why the unicorn had suddenly froze in place. Then she stepped around the door to see the couple dozen royal guards all pointing their horns at the duo. Celestia couldn’t be sure, but it was a fairly good bet that the smirking earth pony standing behind the army was none other than Muddy Pie. Midnight’s expression went from rage to cool fury in a breath, and she began to step forward. “Hardly appropriate use of force for breaking a vase. Hardly the proper way to treat an old family friend, either,” she said conversationally. Though Celestia could see her hooves trembling ever so slightly. Stepping through the crowd with unshakeable confidence was a tall white unicorn with a blonde billowing mane—probably the result of a “Wind Machine” spell. Blueblood, thought Celestia sourly. Certain things never changed, regardless of the generation. “Dragonhandling of a national hero,” he said airily, “which is pretty high up there on the justification-of-torture scale. Good day, Niece, random earth pony. Take them away.” “I didn’t so much as touch her,” Midnight protested, “I didn’t even cast a spell on her. Because I respect her. Now your face on the other hoof...” That’s when things got a little crazy.