Chapter 10: Can't Touch This
If you stand in the forest under Cloudsdale during the autumn equinox, you can see the butterfly migration from the south forests of White Tail Woods to the Galloping Gorge in the north. As one butter-coated pegasus may tell you, Equestrian butterflies are exceptionally strong. The little buggers are strong enough to blow you back. In fact, if you're annoying enough, they may decide to lift you up and dump you in a nearby lake.
As such, these majestic creatures seem to forget that they were once caterpillars.
And caterpillars are just lazy, greedy, do-nothings that eat all the good leaves.
I would take that statement seriously; it came from a moth.
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Searching for a few hours in the dirt and dust of the archeological dig had turned up nothing particularly interesting. The one thing they had to show for all their work was a broken coffee mug with 'I ❤ New York'—except the 'N' was scratched out and the heart had a crack in it. David passed the mug to one of the junior archeologists in the field who squirrelled it away in some way too complicated cataloging system. David chuckled to himself as he found that most of the things he would consider trash or rubbish were being carefully preserved as though they were some kind of priceless relics.
He headed back to Luna who was still comforting Professor Artefact concerning the matter of her soundly disproven theories.
“Things shall be well, Professor Artefact,” he heard Luna say. “I know what it is like to lose much.” The academic sniffled and wiped away a few tears.
“The important lesson is to move on,” Luna continued, rubbing a hoof on the archaeologist's withers. “Pursue your passion, no matter the obstacle.” She paused. “Sometimes the answer shall reveal itself in front of you.”
Professor Artefact perked up at that. “Yes,” she said, getting to her hooves. She swayed a little but otherwise looked determined and full of renewed vigour.
“Yes,” she repeated more strongly. She looked at David. “You there! You can help me with the history. An unprecedented opportunity to get the story straight from the, uhh Apian’s mouth, as it were!”
David glanced at Luna.
In a moment when two souls are perfectly in sync, telepathic messages can sometimes cross the physical distance between two beings and establish rapid-fire communications. The Gorlians found this out fairly early in their evolutionary tree and it lead to almost instantaneous transmission of information around the globe. Imagine getting the telephone, but in the Stone Age. Unsurprisingly, the Gorlians advanced fairly quickly after that. Humans had the same opportunity, but various attempts at telepathy were quickly laughed off.
The exchange lasted barely a second, but much was relayed in that moment.
You set this up, David sent.
Most certainly not! A Princess is not so devious.
Oh you know that I know that you know what you did.
David. Thou art confusing me.
…You owe me a beer.
Done… as soon as I find out what a ‘beer’ is.
At the conclusion of the exchange, Professor Artefact glanced at both pony and human. To her it seemed they just stared at each other momentarily and blinked.
“Beer?” David asked.
“Indeed,” the Princess of the Night replied.
“What?” Professor Artefact interjected, confused.
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Twilight and Celestia were moving through the passages underneath the ground level of Canterlot castle.
“I’ve never been here before, Princess.”
Celestia smiled at her student. “I doubt many ponies know of the catacombs. The secret passages leading to here are only accessible via loyal servants to the Crown. Fewer know of the egress from the catacombs and fewer still know or have the magical ability to deactivate the protection over the entranceway.” Her eyes glittered as she made solid eye contact with Twilight. “Trust me when I say that you, I, and less than a hooful of other ponies know about this chamber.”
Twilight’s ears perked as she considered the compliment that Celestia had paid her. She was trusted! She blushed as she calculated how to thank Celestia for the opportunity. As she opened her mouth to speak the narrow pathway widened and lights flared up ahead.
“What I’m about to show you, Twilight, must never leave this chamber.” Celestia chuckled slightly. “Physically,” she added, “or otherwise.”
A soft white glow emanated regularly from strip lighting recessed into the walls. Twilight couldn’t detect any magic from them, but she sensed energy flows that passed through them similar to the Cry-pod. She frowned. She hadn’t seen that curious little box for a while now, and she wondered what it was up to.
Her previous thought sunk in. Her eyes widened.
“Princess,” she began hesitantly. “This place wasn’t built by ponies, was it?”
Celestia nodded, proud that her student had come to that conclusion on her own.
“Congratulations, Twilight. Would you like to hazard a guess at who did?”
Twilight swallowed and looked away. “I guess, if I had to make an educated assumption, barring the possibility–“
“Twilight,” Celestia interrupted her student. She knew when Twilight was dodging the question.
Twilight sighed. “I would have to say the humans, Princess.”
“Correct. Although that is a fact that has only recently come to light.”
“Princess?”
“We haven’t been calling these creatures humans, which we now know what they call themselves, but Apians.”
“Apians,” Twilight mumbled. “Sounds right, somehow.”
“Indeed, I must profess to liking that label somewhat… In either case, we believed it to be built by some ancient race, perhaps one we had not encountered before. When we first discovered this, I instinctively knew that it was important and I had the catacombs and the palace built right on top of it.”
“So you knew about David and the box?”
“Somewhat. I didn’t know its purpose or indeed what it was. All I knew was that it matched the craftsponyship and the faint energy readings from down here.”
Twilight was confused. “So why did you keep the box in the Royal Canterlot Archives? I’ve been using it as a lounge under that bay window!”
Princess Celestia gave an assured shrug. “Nopony except you and I visit the non-fiction section of the Royal Canterlot Archives. Who’s to say it couldn’t serve dual purpose?”
Twilight opened her mouth. She shut it. Embarrassing as it was, she had never seen anypony except the Princess in that part of the library.
“But… What if somepony got hurt? The box could have been dangerous.”
Celestia smiled at her student. That was the Twilight she knew; always thinking about other ponies. “Bear in mind,” she said. “This box was inert for the last, ooooh, ten thousand years or so? At that point it basically became a decoration. It never did anything except sit there, unlike this.”
The pair had reached the end of the hallway. Twilight found herself staring into a curious looking wall. It seemed like it was made entirely of metal, but its silvery sheen was occluded with a fine layer of dust, save for a small section of a shiny, flat-glass panel sticking out the side. Twilight caught some words written on the wall. She peered closer at the wall, it looked more like a door, with the seam that ran through the middle of it. A door, she wondered where it could lead...
Celestia took in Twilight’s reaction and laid a hoof on Twilight’s back to prevent her from diving in to give the door a more thorough inspection.
“Hold on, you must listen.”
“Listen? Listen to what?”
Celestia watched Twilight as she strained to hear sounds in the tunnels around them. Her ears twitching in anticipation. When Twilight heard it, she almost jumped in fright.
“Alert. This bay has been reserved for human survivors of event N1. There are currently [DATA CORRUPTED] ships left for retrieval to the new colony located on Tau Ceti. Who was the idiot who sent the Brits to Alpha Centauri anyway? Also, why did they just go? God, I’m surrounded by idiots–”
The voice cut off after that.
Twilight blinked. “That was… interesting.”
Celestia nodded. “It took us many years to understand what they were talking about. It seems that the Api–humans were planning to leave this planet and journey to the stars.”
Twilight giggled. “Surely that’s impossible.” Celestia’s expression spoke volumes in the encroaching silence. “No,” Twilight continued. “Really?” A nod. “But how?”
There was a pause. “I don’t know,” Celestia admitted. “But the idea intrigues me.”
–––––
“So let me get this straight. You travel around in these ‘cars’, which require roads, and for long-distance travel you fly in ‘planes’. Both of which travel faster than a pony can gallop—without magic?”
“Yep.”
“That’s not just absurd, that’s fantastical!”
David shrugged helplessly and shot Luna a look. The mare shrugged back at David.
“I think, perhaps, what David the human is trying to say is that they developed a whole new system without the use of magic.”
“Impossible,” Artefact shot back. “The complex structures and metallurgy, how do you think that could be achieved without magic?”
David blinked as if the answer was obvious.
“Electricity,” he stated. “We run things mainly on electricity.”
“How do you automate anything without using animation spells?”
David thought about that, tapping a finger to his chin. Luna observed the action and, not for the first time, thought it looked very similar to pony body language.
“I think we use something called a microchip.” He scratched his skull, wracking his brains. “I don’t really know how they work, other than it uses electricity and it somehow switches on and off really fast, and that’s just how it works.”
Artefact was skeptical. “I can’t believe such a thing as electricity could do anything you have described. Everypony knows that only magic works.”
David was starting to get frustrated. “How can you say it’s magic? Magic can’t solve everything!” He frowned. “Hold on,” he said turning to Luna. “How did we get here?”
“Magic,” the Lunar Princess replied. “I would have thought it obvious after teleporting here.”
David’s eyes widened. “Teleportation?! Crikey. You lot are more advanced than I thought. Got me going with all the castles and the princesses and all that.”
Luna didn’t look particularly offended but she cocked her head curiously. “What makes you think we were not so advanced?” Professor Artefact leaned forward, interested in the answer.
David gestured weakly. “Oh, you know, castles and all that was centuries behind in our development. We have skyscrapers and apartments and high-density housing—urban sprawl and all that.”
Luna frowned. “Do you not have castles where you come from?”
David cocked his head, considering the point. “Huh, I guess you’re right. We did, at least back in my day. Are you saying you have apartments and high-rises and the like?”
Professor Artefact nodded. “Of course,” she said. “That’s all of Manehatten.”
“Mane-hatten? Okay then. Well this world just got a lot weirder. I would probably cope better with dragons, princesses and old castles like they should be.”
Princess Luna dipped her head. “I must admit a fondness for castles and traditionalism. I hold no court with these new ‘apartments’ and ‘high-rise’ buildings.”
“I prefer a comfortable suburban home myself,” David commented. He turned to Professor Artefact. “Is that everything?” he asked impatiently. The mare nodded.
As he turned around the Professor called back to him.
“You better come back though and repay me for destroying my life’s work!”
David frowned at that. “What? That wasn’t even my fault!”
“Yes it was!”
“What the– oh fine, I’ll come back sometime.” He re-addressed the Princess of the Night. “Okay,” he giggled disturbingly. Luna detected a hint of something off-putting in the human’s eye and she stepped back. “Let’s get drunk.”