//------------------------------// // Nine // Story: Under The Northern Lights // by CoastalSarv //------------------------------// ”Are you sure you can do this?” Vigg wondered. ”I'm cool,” said Spike, his voice somewhat muffled. ”Because it's somewhat dangerous and I don't think you have done it before,” said Vigg. ”Hey, I'm not a baby! At least let me try!” said Spike angrily. Vigg sighed. ”OK, it's your funeral!” he said and winced. He shook his head at Spike's attempt, then he couldn't restrain himself any longer. He grabbed Spike's tail with his teeth and pulled him out of the snowdrift he had been stuck in. ”Hey, I was getting there!” said Spike. Vigg smiled sheepishly. ”I thought you were gonna suffocate, buck! Digging yourself out can be hazardous after a crash like yours!” He dusted off Spike, without reason, since he wasn't that snowy. Dragons are fairly warm, and the snow hadn't really stuck to his warm jacket. In fact, Spike had become warmer down there, and said so. ”Yeah, snow isolates. Snow can be your best friend in winter,” the reindeer prince explained. ”I got the sleigh!” shouted another young sarv, one of Vigg's friends, from the foot of the skiing hill. ”Icicles on my antlers, that dragon is one crazy driver!” Vigg chuckled. ”You certainly have made an impression on my buddies!” he said as he and Spike waited for the other reindeer to drag the sled up to them. ”I did? Yes I did!” said Spike, happy that he hadn't made a complete fool of himself. It was rather refreshing to not only be with other guys, but other guys older and thus slightly cooler than him. It was even better because they seemed genuinely pleased to meet him. He was a little intimidated by the talk being mostly about winter sports and hiking, but it was eased by the fact that they liked explaining the value of broader skis or the right way to build a campfire. And he found himself explaining as much about dragons or about Equestria. Not all of them were as clear about the difference between Foalywood and reality as Vigg (”No, not all unicorns are noble mage-knights. That's just in techno-thrillers”) but they were reasonable about it. Vigg's questions were a bit more personal – some were about Luna or Celestia or the Elements of Harmony, most about Twilight and living with her. His friends listened a bit uninterested to Spike's answers about that as well, but everyone became strangely impressed and gushing and jealous about living inside a living tree. It didn't sound very reindeer to Spike, but perhaps that was why. After the other sarv had given Spike the reins to the sled, he pointed to the distant clock tower of Sarvvik City Hall. ”Me and the other guys are going home now. Not that it hasn't been fun, but some of us have work to do tomorrow,” he said. Vigg groaned. ”You know how much I wish I had work to do tomorrow! But I don't even get to take a weekend job!” he said. The other reindeer chuckled. ”See you later! Pleased to meet you, Spike! Brohoof?” he said and lifted one of his front hooves. ”Brohoof,” said Spike and met it with his paw. He had noticed that the young bucks – with the notable exception of Vigg – tended to mix a little Equestrian with their Poatsi. It seemed 'brohoof' was a loanword, used even when they didn't speak their accented school Equestrian with Spike. It was kinda eerie. As they waved farewell to the rest of the little herd, Vigg pointed to to the another hill, a little higher, lying next to the actual ski slope but on the way home. ”What do you say we get up to the top there – there's a fireplace up there – makes a coffee-fire, eat the rest of the sandwiches, and then we go home as well?” he said enthusiastically. ”Sounds neat. But we still have cocoa in the thermos, why the coffee-fire?” said Spike. ”Because it's not a real break without a coffee-fire, even if you don't make coffee!” he laughed. ”Can we sled down afterward?” asked Spike. ”I am counting on it!” said Vigg. ”That hill isn't used for skiing and so on, so it isn't packed or plowed or used in any way. It's much more fun to go down fresh snow like that, and I haven't done it this year yet! Come on now!” They slowly and methodically went up the hill – Vigg with his odd single ski on his back, Spike pulling the sled he had borrowed – and when there they used some gathered dry twigs and some firewood from a big heap of it to make a small campfire. Vigg explained that he had helped to chop the firewood here; it was for everydeer, but somedeer had to chop it. As they chewed on their soggy sandwiches in silence Spike felt that Vigg actually relished being with a friend and not saying anything. He himself had no such proclivities however, and after a while he had to bring up a subject that had been burning him in a different way than the fire he always kept in his belly. ”Vigg, why is it that reindeer think Twilight's an evil sorceress?” he said. Vigg remained silent for a while. ”I think it's something one of my teacher called 'values dissonance',” he said finally. ”What does that mean? I live in a library and I don't know!” said Spike grouchily. ”It means – I think it means – that when cultures have different values, and they meet, they get dissonant – they conflict. See, we reindeer don't really like magic,” he explained. ”Why not? It's pretty useful,” said Spike. ”And I mean, your grandpa's supposed to be this big traditionalist reindeer, and he has a court sorcerer.” ”Well, we think it's useful too... just that it's iffy. And the more powerful it is, the iffier,” Vigg said. ”But why is that?” said Spike. ”I can understand if it's bad to, say, magic a rock to the head of someone. But what if you magic someone up from a deep deep hole?” ”Well,” said Vigg, ”to reindeer – not to all of us, all the time, mind you – it's like this: you make magic by... convincing the world to do something.” Spike frowned. ”That doesn't seem like the magic Twilight does” he said. ”That's all like baking a cake. Well, except Twilight tends to mess up the recipe because she gets stressed the cake's for Celestia's birthday, so she makes a bomb instead...” Vigg chuckled. ”Think of it as a metaphor, OK?" he said. "Anyway, magic is like convincing the world to do something for you, except the world isn't supposed to change much. It is like it is for a reason. Every time you change one thing, you change something else. So magic is like changing everything because you want to, without caring what happens to anyone else, which is selfish. And being selfish is bad and being bad is evil, OK?" ”So throwing a rock on someone with magic is bad not because you're beaning someone with a rock, but because rocks shouldn't fly?” Spike said. Vigg nodded. ”Yeah, sort of. But ponies... many ponies are unicorns, and they use magic like I use my hooves. I mean it would be really weird if you said it was evil to use your hooves. So ponies can't really think magic is evil in itself, but reindeer can,” he said and ate the last of his sandwich. “Then, there 's this thing about Equestria,” he continued. “Reindeer are sort of... of two minds about it.” “Why's that?” said Spike. “It's a big country, but it's not like it goes around and invades other countries and so on?” “Well, there're reindeer like my grandpa who thinks Equestria does that in another way, merely because others want to be Equestrian so much. I don't really agree, and there aren't that many I think. It's something else. Equestria seems... too good!” Vigg said. “Why, you reindeer are never satisfied!” Spike said. Vigg chuckled again and shook his head. “Spike... no one else in the world has it as good as the ponies of Equestria. Maybe the zebras or ki-rin are close, maybe some of the camel sultanates, but the ponies have us all beat. Relative to the size, there's no other place which has so little crime, so little poverty, so much... love and tolerance. And the inhabitants are all pastel-colored and friendly and obsessed with cuteness, and they have made the whole country into a park where even the animals don't hurt each other. They haven't been to war for centuries, and they're ruled by a benevolent immortal god-queen who even seems to call herself 'princess' because everydeer who has read a fairy tale knows that princesses are good and queens are wicked,” Vigg said with a certain emotion. “It all seems too good to be true. Remember what I said about how magic works – we reindeer tend to think like that about everything. Where's the catch, many of us say.” “Is pessimism like a national sport here in Tarandroland?” said Spike. Vigg laughed. “Try living in a country where four fifths of the year are blizzards and the remaining fifth mosquito, where everydeer uses vodka as interior heating, where – in the worst parts – there can be weeks without sunrise, and you would get pessimistic too!” he said, and then he continued. “So, Princess Skinf... Princess Celestia has an agent who is perhaps the world's greatest sorceress. She must be evil, right? So, obviously Celestia has this cabal of magic ponies who keeps Equestria perfect by making all the problems go away.” “That's... really silly!” protested Spike. “Besides, only two of the Elements of Harmony even have real magic!” “Reindeer don't know that, because our magic works differently. And because so many reindeer have all knowledge of Equestria from Foalywood, they haven't learned any better. There're even reindeer who think that alicorns are just a different kind of pony, or like the crossbreed between a pegasus and a unicorn...” Vigg said. ”But there are reindeer magicians?” Spike said. ”Yeah, but they avoid using magic unless it's really necessary, and their favorite magics are passive,” Vigg explained. ”What do you mean passive?” said Spike and ate the crumbs of his sandwich ”Well, seeing and knowing things others don't know, mostly. That's a very reindeer thing to do. All reindeer can do that, a little,” he said and looked a little awkward. ”See, I'm not sure of this 'magic is bad' thing, and I still have a hard time talking about magic.” ”You don't have to if you don't want to,” said Spike. ”I think you have explained why reindeer think Twilight is an evil sorceress: it's because she's an awesome sorceress. And you cannot be awesome without being evil if you're a sorceress.” Vigg laughed again. ”That's the thing, yeah!” he said, and then fell silent. ”She really is awesome, though. Can I ask you something about Twilight, Spike?” Vigg said after a while. ”You don't think she's an evil sorceress, do you?” Spike said. Vigg shook his head with emphasis. ”I'm positive. I would have seen it otherwise!” he said. Spike nodded. ”OK, shoot away! We have talked about her earlier today, what did we miss?” he said. ”Well... how do you fit together, you and Twilight? I mean, what are you to her? You're obviously not her pet, because you're a person, and not her familiar, because you're willing,” Vigg said. ”I'm her assistant!” Spike said. ”Already told you, remember?” ”Well, yes and no. Because you're a minor, Spike. You're even younger than me. And ponies usually don't hire kids as assistants – and I remember you complaining about not getting paid earlier,” Vigg said. ”Well, Twilight... we grew up together, alright? So we're family. And kids... kids help with the family business, right? And... the grazer herds you told me about, all the kids help right?” Spike said, feeling a little uncomfortable about the subject. Vigg was silent a bit, contemplating it. ”I realize you don't mean biologically related, but what kind of family do you mean. Like, are you her little brother?” Vigg asked. Spike sighed. ”Yeah, it's a lot like that... honestly, most kids I know my age are fillies, but they relate to their big sisters a lot like I do to Twilight...” he said. ”Oh, good! Sorry I am going on like this, it's a reindeer thing to want to know how things... how deer... how people relate to each other. It's like... sniffing their fur and checking the marks in their ears,” he said and rubbed his own ear to show the herd-marks cut into it. Spike frowned again. ”Except... it's not all that easy. Because, see... I never had a mom or dad,” Spike said. Vigg looked sympathetic. ”I mean, it was no trouble, really... See, Twilight's mom and dad were there, but mostly... it was Twilight,” he continued. ”She hatched my egg. With her magic, I mean, she didn't have to sit on it or anything. And she took care of me all the time despite her just being a little filly back then. So... when I was really small I called Twilight mommy. I mean when I was so small I still sucked my tail,” he said embarrassed Vigg, out of courtesy, didn't laugh or smile. ”So,” said the reindeer prince, ”Twilight is your mother?” Spike slowly nodded. “Let's settle for my mother. Twilight is my mom,” he said. They sat silent for a while in the way reindeer actually seemed to like, if they knew the other being well enough, and Spike saw the sun setting (but missed Luna raising the moon from Sarvvik, as it happens) and the stars starting to come out. Then Vigg said the words that were like a red-hot namesake to himself into Spikes brain: ”Spike, your mom is really hot!” Thanks to krdragon for help with proofreading!