Chapter 5: Coincidences
After Kayla’s father, who I found out was called King Leo the Third, made the announcement, we were dismissed to prepare for the feast. The feast, I was told, was to begin tomorrow.
Though I was itching to break out of this collar and run away fast as I could, I knew that doing so in a room full of tigers that outnumbered me in the hundreds, then trying to get out of village surrounded by really tall, almost impassable wooden walls, would be a foolhardy proposition. My best bet was to escape without causing undue attention and suspicion.
I’d play the docile human for a while, but when they let their guard down, I’d show them exactly what I was capable of.
Kayla lead me out of the hall through another series of twists and turns and eventually outside an ornately carved door. We stopped in front of it and Kayla turned to me, rubbing the side of her arm in… what? Embarrassment? I just folded my arms and tapped my foot.
“This is my bedchamber,” she explained. “Would you like to come inside?”
I couldn’t help being surly. “So now you are asking me what I want? How do I know it’s not a door to a cage?” I replied fairly acidly.
Kayla shied away from making eye contact. “It wasn’t that simple,” she muttered, placing a hand against the wall. “You don’t know what this means to me. You can’t know the pressures of being me, the Princess of the Tiger Nation.”
“I have a fair idea of what it is to be royalty,” I shot back. I clenched my fist. “There are people who need me,” I continued softly. “People who’s lives could be in danger for every second I waste trapped here with you!”
It took a while for my words to sink in, but when they did I couldn’t help but feel a small measure of satisfaction at her distraught expression.
“Royalty?” she mumbled. “None of the texts mentioned the Nanu’wan ever having a leader… but then the Nanu’wan never spoke either…”
I sighed, rubbing a hand across my face. I suddenly felt very tired and weary. “Look,” I said, straining to gather my last dregs of patience. “I’m not one of these Nanu’wans that you’ve been labelling me as such. I’m a human. Hu-man. I don’t know how I got here, but wherever this is, I need to get back. If you had any shred of decency left in you, you would let me go.”
For a moment, I really thought Kayla would take me up on that. She looked like she regretted putting that collar on me, ever since she had first placed it around my neck with her own two paws. She reached up, her paws only inches away from the collar. Finally, they slid away and I glared at her as they slowly retreated.
“I’m sorry,” she choked, her eyes brimming with tears. “But I will be exiled, if I do this.”
So it was her freedom or mine, I thought. Dang.
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Tempora came to slowly, in a field of white. Her hooves felt numb with cold and she vaguely registered small plumes of mist with each icy breath she took. Struggling to her hooves, Tempora heard the telltale squeak of snow as she peered into the distance to try and discern any recognisable features.
Around her were just flat plains of snow but spinning around over to the right she spotted a metallic glint. She stumbled forward a couple of hoof steps, then stopped when she remembered how she got here.
The mist, she thought. Harmony!
Frantically she scanned the surrounding snow, her horn lit up as she probed the environment intently. Tempora remembered she came through the egress with Harmony, but it seemed so fuzzy. Did she really maintain contact with him the whole way? Everything was so… out of focus.
Tempora found that she was stumbling a lot more often than usual. Initially, her hooves were the only thing that she felt was numb, but soon the sensation crept up to her fetlocks and it became difficult to move around. With a frantic flap of her wings, Tempora launched herself into the air, hovering above the snow.
After a couple of minutes of circling the area, Tempora felt the familiar pins and needles of recirculation flowing to her extremities. The numbness wore off fast, crystallising the conclusion that the snow wasn’t something normal. She sighed, wasn’t there anything normal in this jumble of a mind-maze. Suppressing the urge to scream in frustration, Tempora flapped towards the metallic haze in the distance.
Ten minutes later she alighted on a patch of bare earth ringing around the mysterious metallic structure. Up close, the structure was massive, with a thick metallic base and two strands of metal curling around each other is a double helix, reaching out for the sky. The surface wasn’t of one piece of metal. It looked like it was fashioned from several thousand smaller pieces of metal, somehow joined together through mysterious means, leaving a bump along the seams.
On hoof, Tempora circled the structure. It took roughly five minutes at a brisk trot to circumnavigate around it. Tempora was impressed, despite knowing that the structure must have been constructed within the mind. The attention to detail was intricate and the metal acted and felt like a real, physical thing.
Curious, Tempora examined the metal more closely, her horn lighting up as she tried probing the helices. It seemed strangely dull, as if the magic she threw at it was weakly absorbed before gently being buffeted back. It was like the whole structure was conductive to magic, but something at the other end was absorbing some of it and releasing it back. Tempora shot a few pulses into the structure, trying to pinpoint the source of the absorbing ‘core’.
It took a while, but she found that the core was somewhere up the tower-like structure. Stepping inside the hollow rings of the metallic base, Tempora flapped hard… and found that she couldn’t get any lift. The sensation was startling to say the least, like tripping over and falling flat on her face. Perturbed, Tempora cast a worried gaze around. She spotted a impression on the structure’s wall. Sighing, she trotted towards it. Her suspicion was confirmed when she found that it was a staircase. Rolling her eyes she took a step and started climbing, all the while grumbling.
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Kayla lead me to a room opposite to hers. I suppose I should be grateful that I had a room at all and not a cage. She apologised again, but I just nodded absently. With a sigh, she left me with a single candle lit. Listening to the door close with a click, I strode over to my bed and gave it an experimental press.
With a snap, I summoned a mage light. Satisfied that I could still perform magic, I snapped my fingers again, dismissing the light and tried probing the collar instead. It stayed remarkably inert. With a frown, I sent another magical pulse into the collar. There was a shadow of a whisper, as if the core was shielded from magical interference. Gently scanning the surface, I decided to try and find some sort of latch or hook to unhinge the collar from my neck.
The metal resisted my efforts again, but as I experimented with shorter, sharper pulses of thaumic energy, the mechanics of the collar was revealed to me in flashes, a little like echolocation. The process was a little disorienting and I had to snap several times to restart the pulses. Eventually, I got a handle on the innards of the collar.
The insides seemed to have a lot of internal parts, the collar bearing a lot more complexity than I originally gave it credit for. It was strange since I knew the collar was magical to some degree as it had transmuted to that ‘quicksilver’ state earlier when Kayla fixed it on my neck. Shaking my head I eventually dismissed the notion, it could just be a one time activation thing and the collar would form mechanical components afterwards.
Frowning in concentration, I found a thin wire that looped around, just beneath the surface of the collar. I discovered the wire was attached to some sort of micro-lever mechanism. The wire was in some sort of tension, so I snapped the wire with a burst of magic. I celebrated with a small fist pump into the air as the collar clicked silently, falling into my lap. I felt a feral grin spread on my face as I triumphantly tossed the collar on my bed.
Part one was done, all I needed to do was sneak out whilst everyone was asleep. I settled into my bed, deciding to take a little nap.
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A small ping woke me up, my self-made spell alarm shocking me out of sleep. I blinked in the sudden dark of the room. The candle must have blown out in the night. Summoning another mage-light, I swung myself out of the bed. I walked a couple steps to the door, then paused, looking back at the collar. It was a repugnant thing, but it could come in useful later if I needed to walk around without being instantly attacked. Reluctantly, I replaced the collar around my neck, keeping it loosely together with a small telekinetic charge.
I crept towards the door, placing an ear to the surface and casting a small spell to enhance my hearing. I heard the slight creak of wood as the timber expanded in the cool night air, I heard the soft flicker and crackle of the flame as they burned within their brackets. I couldn’t hear anything else for a while, so I cautiously turned the door knob.
It was locked, duh!
I almost smacked my forehead for not thinking of that. Ah well, I quickly probed the door lock, quickly finding the tumblers. It seemed simple enough, so I gave the tumblers a jiggle and with a soft click, the door became unlocked. Opening the door, I found Kayla there, sleeping soundly in front of the door.
My heart leapt into my throat. I froze, staring at her intently to see if I had woken her. She was still, save for the regular rise and fall of her chest. I let loose a silent breath I was holding. Good, it didn’t look like I woke her.
Edging the door open slowly, I carefully stepped over the tigress. I froze when she muttered something and turned in her sleep, but when she didn’t do more than that I relaxed and pulled my other leg over her. I crept away silently.
The castle was a confusing maze but I snuck along the edges, figuring that if I headed in the general direction I thought the front entrance would be, I would likely be able to sneak outside. Every once in a while, there was the sound of soft padded paw steps. It was lucky I had the listening spell activated because I would not have been able to hear the approaching paw steps. It looked like none of these tigers wore shoes or coverings on their feet, so their paws naturally muffled any sound they would usually make.
With every approaching sound I heard, I dove into the a crevice or corner and held my breath. Despite misgivings that tigers could see better than humans in the dark, it seemed like they had to pay attention to their surroundings, just like I would. The yellow tunic servants rushed by and even then there were only a few.
Trouble struck when I approached the main entrance to the castle. Peering around the corner of the spiral staircase, I was alerted, just barely, by the sound of leather creaking. With a muffled gasp I drew back into the stairwell, my heart pounding in my chest. If they discovered me I would have to teleport out without fixing a firm target. If the teleportation matrix became unstable, I might end up somewhere, anywhere there was space for me. It could get unpleasant.
Holding my breath I heard the strain of leather and soft paw steps.
“Huh,” I heard the guard say. “Thought I heard something over here.”
The paw steps faded away and I let go of the breath. I cursed silently to myself. Great, more guards. How was I supposed to get past them? I cautiously peeked around the corner.
Shoot, I thought. There’s two of them.
Drumming my fingers on my knee as I crouched against the wall, I debated whether or not it would be wise to teleport outside. The flash would definitely attract their attention, but by then I could be out. The disorienting teleport would leave me vulnerable, and I don’t think I could make it as far as the gates just by teleportation alone. There was a good chance I’d also get filled with arrows. I rubbed my face with a hand. I paused, bringing my hand into view.
Wait, I thought, toying with the ring I had all but forgotten on my finger. There is another way.
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The three guards were conversing as I approached them. I hung back a little, interested in what they had to say.
“I knew Kayla was adept but I really didn’t think she would be able to catch a Nanu’wan,” one of them spoke casually. The tone suggested the speaker was male.
“That’s Princess Kayla, to you, guard. We’re all in His Majesty’s service. But yeah, I didn’t even know they existed, all the legends say they were hunted to extinction,” the other replied, stretching. This one sounded feminine. What? Genders were pretty hard to distinguish cross species. If it weren’t for me living with the ponies for a while or registering their voices, I wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart. Even now I could be making some terrible assumptions. Oh well.
The other grunted in acknowledgement. “Yeah, okay,” he said, I saw him stretch and yawn. His gaze flickered in my direction. He stiffened and the other two guards whipped around their spears at the ready, one unsheathed a sword with a small hiss.
“You there!” the one who had spotted me called out. “Show yourself! What are you doing sneaking around?”
I bowed my head in supplication and approached the guards. I didn’t want them to see my face, because the design was based loosely off the guard I had spotted, King Leo himself and mainly the cubs around Kayla. I couldn’t take the risk that my face would pass basic scrutiny, so I held it down and mainly hung my head in ‘embarrassment’.
“Sorry!” I exclaimed, stepping into the flickering light of the torches and doing my best to cover up my modesty. To them I was just a young tiger cub and they relaxed slightly at the sight of me. “I’ve had a little accident with my clothes, they’re ruined and I have to get home to fix them.”
The feline on the left raised an eyebrow, or whatever it was above the eye for tigers.
“Don’t you have spares in the servant’s quarters?” she queried suspiciously. I swallowed thickly.
“Actually, funny story,” I started, keeping my head bowed in shame, but the leader, which I assumed he was because of his sword and being at the head of the group, waved a dismissive paw.
“The feast is tomorrow.” He glared at me, relaxing his stance. “Do what you have to, to remain presentable for the feast,” the tiger growled, sheathing his sword and leaning against the wall. “Nikta, show this buffoon of a cub the way out.” I bowed again for good measure as the one on the right saluted and beckoned me to follow. I kept my head low as Nikta opened the left hand side of the massive double doors.
From my position behind her, I saw Nikta wore small sheath tied to the belt of her tunic, which held a small knife. I considered maybe slipping it out, but I would probably get myself caught. The intensity of the situation must have made me think of crazy hypotheticals because I considered giving a jaunty salute and teleporting out of there as soon as I was outside, but that would be stupid.
Instead as I got outside I was met with a chilling wind and biting cold, so much so my breath came out in misty plumes. Nikta gave me a humourless smile.
“That’ll teach you to misplace your uniform,” she commented wryly, before turning back. She gave me a quizzical look. “Come to think of it you seem familiar…” she started, but I was already gone, hastily retreating away along the cobblestone. Feeling the icy sensation work up my paws, I shiver a little but was able to relax when I heard the guard slam the double doors to the castle.
“Phew,” I muttered to myself. “Now to find out where the heck I am.”