//------------------------------// // Opportunities // Story: Cold Light // by Scramblers and Shadows //------------------------------// Things are going wrong. You've lost something – money, perhaps. Or a lover. Or a species. You're miserable. And who could blame you? But you make do as best you can. Then, when you're wandering around, you come across something. Something that says, “Oh, my friend, I see you have problems. But don't worry, for I can fix everything!” You've come across one of those insidious little fuckers known as opportunities. You believe it, of course. Yes! Everything that seemed lost a moment ago is within your reach once more! Your heart soars. You mind is aflutter with images of the perfect future within your grasp. And then … Well … It never quite turns out that way, does it? The result you wanted doesn't come to pass in the way you imagined, and you're still imperfect, still an aching bundle of desire, left feeling foolish for having trusted that opportunity. Those at-one-with-the-universe types might say that this is just a reminder of the illusory nature of having control over your life, and can do no more than be at peace. I'm not enlightened enough to say such things – even after all this time, the gulf between hopes and reality hurts as much as ever. Perhaps I should apologise for all the pontificating, but screw it. I'm not going to. The world is about to end, and I'll be indulgent if I damned well feel like it. Okay, okay. I'm done. Have the story. Chapter 4 Opportunities The ship was almost ready to leave – fully stocked with fuel, water and supplies, engines replaced, crew prepared. Finally, Sweetie Belle accompanied Gritstone to buy an ansible. It cost almost as much as everything else combined – taking up the remains of the ship's finances, plus the two hundred bits Lucille had given them for the non-glowing statue, plus a contribution from Sweetie Belle herself and a dozen other crewmembers who thought the sacrifice worth it. “Damn the expense,” growled the Captain. “I'm not getting caught out again.” Physically, an ansible was a pair of metal trays, just about large enough to hold a sheaf of paper or, for the nostalgic, a few scrolls. The cost lay in the enchantment, which could only be done by high-level unicorns: Flick a lever on the side of one tray, and its contents would be bathed in emerald flame, vanish – and appear in the other tray. Sweetie Belle had never told anypony she'd seen this magic used long before ansibles were invented. Ansible transmissions were always one-to-one, but the administrators of Ilmarinen offered a service: You could leave one terminal in the city's communications office, with an identification number. Send a properly addressed message to them, and they would pass it along through any other ansible in their care. Thus Ilmarinen became a hub – and many airship captains had a special interest in keeping it safe. The facade of communications office stood out from most buildings in Ilmarinen – an abstract rendering of a phoenix carrying a scroll above a forest, rendered in solar-sintered stained glass that made everything on the other side seem to ripple as you walked by, with wrought iron curlicues to highlight the clouds and treetops. It was here, as they were leaving, that Sweetie Belle and Captain Gritstone ran into Lucille. “Huh,” she said. “Leaving already? One might think you like running off to far reaches of the world. Is even frontier civilisation getting a bit too much to bear?” This earned a laugh from Gritstone, which sounded to Sweetie Belle a little forced. “Yes,” he said. “No point is cooling my cannons when there's profit to be made, is there?” Lucille gestured at the ansible in his saddlebag. “Still, at least you're being more careful now. I'm glad. If you went and got yourself killed off in some desert … who could ask me for favours then?” She clicked her beak. “Even then I bet you'd need me to recover your body from some sort of desert monster and bring it back.” Gritstone laughed again, more sincerely this time. “Yes, and I'm sure you'd do it just to brag to all my kin.” “Why else?” Lucille turned to Sweetie Belle. “And I see you're going out again.” “Yeah,” said Sweetie Belle. “It's her idea we're chasing up,” said Gritstone. Lucille leaned in. “Well! I'm sorry about the statue. But if Grit is following your lead, it means he thinks you're a damn good salvor. And I trust his judgement … well, except when it involves flying past his fuel capacity into uncharted deserts.” She clapped Sweetie Belle on the back with a wing. “Be a good girl and don't die before I've had a chance to employ you. Ha!” “I'll … I'll try.” Gritstone snorted. “Anyway,” he said, leading Sweetie Belle forward, “we have to get going.” “Grit?” said Lucille. “Hrm?” “I'll be working close to Ilmarinen for the next few months. And since I figure you might need saving, what's your terminal number?” Gritstone told her. “Good, good,” said Lucille. She clicked her beak. “Well, go on then! Off you go!” Sweetie Belle stood on the deck of Hinny's Revenge, staring out across the gallimaufry of ships clustered around the docking towers. She recognised some: Far below, squat, sitting on the ground was Millie's ship, Dignity, where she had learned where to find Scootaloo; on a far docking tower she could make out the envelope of the Dulcet, clearly defined in gold and blue in defiance to the wind, which out here dirtied and scoured everything. The sun crawled under the horizon, and the whisperings of daemons, muffled by the endless rumble of docking machinery, seemed on the verge of comprehensibility. They were ready to leave tomorrow. To head out somewhere new. Somewhere new. How sick of that she was! Sweetie Belle had seen so many somewhere news over the past months that the thought of them all made her nauseous, threatened to overwhelm her. Amaranth! The whole damned place, just endless deserts and endless mysteries and that supposed seductive quality ponies kept mentioning, felt like an affront to her. She snorted and tossed her head, then settled and reminded herself how close she was. “Not gonna get kicked, am I?” said a voice behind her. Petallion. She sidled up beside Sweetie Belle. “Pissed your fancy find wasn't all you'd hoped?” “No,” replied Sweetie Belle. “Not that. Just … just all of … ” She gestured out across the desert. Petallion looked. “What?” “Never mind.” “Suit yourself.” Sweetie Belle sighed. “So,” began Petallion, “rumour has it you're leading this expedition.” “Sort of. I gave the Captain an idea where to look, that's all. I'm still just a stokehold worker.” “Ah. Shame, that.” Petallion gestured at a black scorch mark marring Sweetie Belle's foreleg. Below it, from an earlier ember, lay a small hairless scar, an ugly pink ridge. “Oh,” said Sweetie Belle softly, staring at the marks. “I hadn't noticed.” Something tugged at her throat and asked her to cry; she ignored it. “Maybe you're meant for greater things than shovelling coal, eh?” Petallion grinned. Sweetie Belle looked back out past Ilmarinen to the desert expanse beyond and thought about all the places in Equestria she'd performed. “Maybe, yeah …” Petallion laughed, a little harshly. “Well, modest filly, ain't we?” Sweetie Belle found she had nothing to say to that. “You did save our hides out there, so who am I to judge?” said Petallion after a moment. “Anyway, some of us have stuff to do. I hope your new info is better. Maybe we'll even get rich this time.” She walked off. Sweetie Belle was woken the following morning by ringing and bustle. Outside, the sun was yet to rise, the sky was streaked with red. The air was chill enough to turn her breath into little puffs of condensation, angry-looking clouds bathed in oversaturated false orange light from the Scar. She wasn't outside for long; she went straight to the stokehold. It was cold and dark there too, but she found the tight space – filled with ten other ponies besides herself and Muttershanks – more than welcome after so long contemplating Amaranthian deserts. Soon after the work began, her horn, gone soft after a week without work, complained mercilessly. Still, it was easier than when had first began; her early hours of labouring, back when she first came for Amaranth, had been a hellish trance, sustained only by thoughts of finding Scootaloo. The stokehold warmed, brightened as the flames grew. The heat was a pressure against her face and chest. Smoke that didn't escape scratched her nose and stung her eyes. The fuel crackled, the expanding metal twanged, and through the floor, as sensation rather than sound, the engine thrummed. All these sensations had an edge of comforting familiarity by now. The ache at the base of her horn retreated to a small part of her awareness, and she lost herself in work. It was thus that Sweetie Belle left Ilmarinen, without watching it recede, without pontificating on the size of the world. Somepony had put on endless stream of jazz and Delta blues on the jukebox of The Hippogriff's Head, Fillydelphia. Sweetie Belle sipped her cider, letting it linger on her tongue just long enough to sting, and refocused her attention on the earth pony opposite her. He wasn't large, obviously not a pony who'd spent much time working in a field, you could see that under the skin he was all sinew and well-defined muscle. His name was Adrenaline Rush, he was prone to long periods of intense eye contact, and his tone of voice made him sound passionate about everything. Right now he was being passionate about a tour group he'd led in the rainforests of Southern Aquileona: “Most ponies have never even seen a zipline before! So there I was trying to convince this Manehatten copywriter that it was possible to get into the harness at all! I mean, everypony in the tour group has to pass a fitness and capability test before they can come, but you wouldn't think it the way some of them are! “So anyway, I finally do convince him. My assistant goes first, but it's only when our Manehattenite goes off – yelling with glee, too! – that the rest of the group start to realise they can do this. I see them all off, one by one, and the looks on their faces! You just wouldn't believe …” That last part was spoken in a way that might make you think he was talking about orphan foals instead of rich city ponies. Rush took a moment to catch his breath, then had a long draught from his beer. Sweetie Belle had met him after a gig earlier that evening. Not a fan – he'd been there for the headline act, but had been, in his words, “utterly blown away” by her set. They'd got talking in the performance hall's VIP bar, and he'd offered to show he around the city. Nopony had accompanied Sweetie Belle to Fillydelphia, so she'd been happy to oblige. “Have you travelled much?” asked Rush. “Yes … sort of. I've performed at a few places, even Susa, but always in cities.” She gave him an apologetic smile. “You should try it! The thing is, so many ponies are used to living with managed, reliable nature that they have no idea what the real thing is like. Even our travel writers think farms are basically wilderness.” Sweetie Belle looked Rush in the eye, attention caught. “I think you're right,” she said. “And all the truly adventurous have run off to Amaranth to look at deserts or something. Ridiculous.” “Yeah.” She snorted, sharing with him a moment of amusement and derision. “Listen,” she said, “do you have places for more tour operators? Are you hiring?” Rush blinked a couple of times. “Sure. Like I said, not many ponies know much about adventuring … and fewer want to make a job of it. Are you … ?” “Not me, no,” said Sweetie Belle. “But I have a friend who I think would love to hear about this.” Lying in her stiff and chill bunk, Sweetie Belle dreamt: Following Scootaloo out of the clubhouse into Canterlot Castle's main hall, across the hall and into they foyer with daffodils. A walk became a trot became a canter became a gallop, stumbling and hindered by misplaced furniture and inexplicable clumsiness. She wasn't sure whether she was chasing or being chased; Scootaloo was no longer visible. The foyer led to the cabin beside Rannoch lake led to Ilmarinen led to the clubhouse led to the hotel room … Something caught her eye as she galloped, through windows or over hedges, always to the side, trailing her. Recognition sparked. “Luna?” she cried out. “Princess Luna? I need your help, I …” She realised she was dreaming, which meant she was in Amaranth, which meant she was beyond Luna's reach. Looking again, she saw a flash of red mane and blue hide. Back in the clubhouse, she abandoned her imaginary pursuit and turned towards the window to see not-Luna. It was the statue, but it wasn't. It was alive – flesh, not crystal. Its muzzle was shorter, its antlers small and less ornate. She caught its eyes for just a moment, and thought them intensely sad. And then it was gone, and she woke, gasping. Everything was dark. Surrounding her she could hear the snuffles of sleeping ponies and the distant rumble of the engines. Yes, that was okay … she was in her bunk, aboard Hinny's Revenge. Sweetie Belle rolled over and rearranged the sheet. Remembered fragments of her dream drifted, disconnected and insubstantial, but the creature and its sad eyes remained embedded in her awareness. After shifting and rolling a little more, she realised that despite her exhaustion, she wasn't going to get to to sleep again. She lit her horn as dimly as she was able to, just enough to sketch the bunks, their inhabitants and the floor in pale green lines, then slipped out as quietly as she could and headed onto the deck. The ship looked like a stained sepia photograph. She looked out over the desert. It was passing faster now, and the wind tossed her mane and sent ripples down her hair, but she was getting used to the sight, and bored of it quickly. Walking aft, to the irregularly-placed shadow of the gondola, where to Scarlight wasn't so strong, she saw something move behind one of the woven diamond bracing cables. “Hello?” she called out. Nothing. She trotted over, curiosity growing. And there it was. The creature. Definitely a creature, not a statue. A hide of shimmering cobalt blue scales; a mane and tailtip of voluminous orange-red hair; cloven hooves; delicate antlers. In defiance of the orangeish washout of Scarlight, its colours were bright and clear. It was looking at her, its expression … not just sad, but curious, unsure. It spoke singsong, like wind chimes, as it walked towards her: “You know him? You love … no, no. That's not …” And then it vanished. Sweetie Belle stood silently for a moment, then, without knowing why, walked over the space it had occupied and put her hoof out. She half expected to wake up again, but … no … the world was too consistent, her thoughts too lucid for this to be a dream. She spun round once just to make sure, and nothing changed. She thought about the statue and fretted about the lack of options. In time, the night lulled her, and with an internal shrug she returned to her bunk. Millie peered through a telescope at the two airships in the distance. They were barely visible now. Their cigar-shaped hulls had silvered half an hour ago, giving them the colours of the desert and sky, and they weren't producing any smoke – probably diesel engines. Like that, it would be easy to trail Hinny's Revenge. And Millie had no doubt at all that's what they were doing. She'd been an idiot. Of course the naïve young mare would attract the attention of the griffons trailing Scootaloo. And of course they'd follow her after the fuss she'd made. If Millie hadn't said anything, just kept her head down, the mare would be searching vain. She'd still get followed, possibly tortured or killed – but Millie could live with that. It happened. Now, by telling the mare where to look, not only had she involved herself, but she'd also given Scootaloo up. She snorted. It was hard to imagine unlikelier friends then Scootaloo and the young mare, Sweetie Belle. Whatever. It didn't matter. Millie had involved herself, and now her conscience wouldn't stop bothering her until she did something. She waited until the two ships were no longer visible – she knew where they were going, and it was better to keep out of sight. Then she turned on the engines and headed after them. As Hinny's Revenge flew onwards, patches of slick black started to mar the solid stone beneath them like gangrene. One or two at first, then more as they neared their destination, until the the ground became mottled. Some solid, some liquid, roiling and churning on the head of the day. They exuded an acrid, greasy reek that glued itself the inside of your nose and mouth and remained as an aftertaste even when you went inside. “Fuckin bitumen or something,” opined Whicker, holding a rag to his mouth and peering over the railing. A few hours after the rock had given way entirely to the fuckin' bitumen and the only variation was in viscosity, they came upon the dig site. It was dusk. Sweetie Belle had finished her shift and, knowing the moment was near, was standing on the deck looking ahead and listening to the daemons. She wasn't sure at first – the oily fumes made the view by the horizon deceptive – but as they grew closer, the scene became clearer, and other crewmembers began to notice it too: a divot in the ground. Details became evident as they drew closer and long shadows separated themselves from ragged edges, cliffs and escarpments. Mounds of shredded bitumen sat by the divot's side – though nowhere near enough to fill it. All the edges smudged into slick curves. It was, thought Sweetie Belle, like the Scar rendered in black muck. Some shacks and a mooring mast, an outpost, nearby gave a sense of scale. The divot was huge. Deep enough to trap an ursa major. Deep enough to comfortably fit Hinny's Revenge with room to spare. Other ponies were gathering. “There's no way I'm gonna believe they dug out all that,” said Petallion, standing beside Sweetie Belle. “No way in this world or the old one.” The crew lit the limelight, opened the shutters and blinked a greeting at the outpost. No response. They tried again. And again. They drew closer, signalled a fourth time. Still nothing. The Captain moved across the deck, talked to an officer – Sweetie Belle couldn't hear what they were saying – and then to another. Two pegasi scouts came up from below deck, consulted briefly with the officers, then took off, heading for the outpost. After a command through the loudspeakers, the ship slowed to give the scouts time to report back, just in case there was anything that might threaten it. Thus they advanced upon the silent outpost.