Apple Bloom paced nervously back and forth at the door to their private car, the clopping of her hooves loud enough to hear even over the rumbling of the train. There wasn't much room for her to pace; barely three steps and she had to turn around with a flash of her rose tail and growing agitation to her body.
"You haven't been away from home this long before, have you?"
Apple Bloom paused briefly in her pacing, her mane buzzing around her face like sparks. "It's not bein' away from home." Chance had never heard her friend so intense. "It's bein' away from the ponies at home." She dropped to her haunches, looking down. "A whole week. Maybe ah shouldn't 'ave gone after all."
Chance embraced her friend. "I had to leave home too, when I was little. At least we know they'll be safe until you get back."
Apple Bloom nodded. "Ah suppose so." Her expression remained dark.
Chance's mind raced, as she considered what she could do to help her friend feel better. She too felt nervous, away from Twilight, though that was more about the alien world and less about being away from loved ones. How would she fare in the wider world without her protector? Was the whole of Equestria as kind as Ponyville?
But her own concerns were secondary to the very real suffering and fear of a friend. "Oooh, I've got something that might make you feel better." She hurried over to her single small suitcase, having to clamber up onto the seat and tug it off the rack with her mouth. It clanged on the seat, but survived the fall relatively unscathed.
The filly had to rummage around with her mouth for several seconds, her pity for earth ponies and pegasi continuing to grow. Eventually she found what she was looking for, a thin slab of hard plastic about twenty centimeters square. This she set on the bench, tugging the zips closed on the bag so her meager belongings wouldn't go tumbling if they hit a turn or some rough tracks.
The screen was meant to be touched of course, but Chance found herself woefully lacking in the fingers required. She took a stylus in her mouth, watching the glow as the device booted up.
A few seconds later and she was navigating through the various menus, searching for the document Truth had prepared. She found it, a few paragraphs of block-formatted text that expanded to fill the screen. "Hey Apple Bloom, wanna see how Truth thinks you're going to get your cutie mark?"
It was like flipping a switch. Apple Bloom's face lit up, and she hurried over to the seat, crowding as close as she could to get a good look. "Why is yer tiny book glowin'?"
"It's not a book." Chance got out of the way, letting her friend poke and prod at the hard plastic. She wasn't worried; this particular model of tablet was specifically designed for harsh conditions. "It's called a tablet. It's a computer." She stopped, momentarily surprised she knew an Equestrian word for that. "Wait, what's a computer?"
"Somepony who does math for a living," Apple Bloom answered, prodding at the too-tiny buttons on the rim of the tablet. "Pretty much the most borin' job in the world. They write books’a figures an’ stuff. We've got one of the number books at home that Applejack uses to know what kinda wood to use and how much when she's buildin' a barn or whatever." Pause. "What do these symbols 'ave to do with mah cutie mark?"
Chance covered her face with a hoof. "Crap! I forgot to ask him to translate it. It's in English... my native language. I can summarize it for you, though."
Apple Bloom nodded eagerly, thrusting the tablet towards her. Chance looked down, reading quickly. It took a surprising amount of thought to keep both languages in her head simultaneously. Neither one was academic, both picked up exactly as natives spoke. As a result, she had no mental translation dictionary. She had to read a sentence, think about its meaning, and restate it in Equestrian as if for the first time. Doing it made her head hurt.
"Well, the gist of it is that you and the other crusaders haven't discovered your cutie marks yet because you haven't been focusing on the things you're actually good at."
Her friend's expression was blank for several seconds, as she processed that information. "But how are we supposed to know what we're good at if we don't try absolutely everything? I might have a natural talent for skydiving or something, and never find out! Then I'd never get my cutie mark!"
Chance shrugged. "The surveys you filled out were about finding the things you're likely to be good at. You tested high enough in relational and mathematical reasoning that you could've landed an academy admission." When Apple Bloom didn't respond, she went on. "He had to pare down the list of possible talents, since my world has lots of things that yours doesn't."
Apple Bloom seemed to be having no trouble following her now. "So what talents were left? Does Truth know what mah mark will look like?"
Chance shook her head. "It doesn't know what the mark will look like, but Truth is pretty sure you're going to get it repairing or inventing something mechanical. Something with your hooves, something with tools. It's fairly confident about the numbers, though I didn't understand the model Truth used."
Apple Bloom was quiet for several seconds. "Ah've done stuff like that before, Chance. Made a float for a parade, once. I didn't get mah cutie mark from that!"
"Really?" Chance scrolled down the page, skimming down the rest of what Truth had said. She had to spit out the stylus to do any actual talking. "Why were you building a float?"
"To get back at a bully," Apple Bloom answered, averting her eyes. "She turned out not to be such a bad pony, when we gave 'er more of a chance."
"So you probably weren't trying to discover your talent then. You were trying to get back at somepony. Maybe if you got to build whatever you wanted, that would help you find your cutie mark." Chance turned back to her belongings, rummaging through it until she came up with a stack of papers. "Cheerilee said we were supposed to stay together, so why don't you pick our agenda? There are several contests, do any of them look interesting?"
Apple Bloom considered the papers, going through them again. From the speed she processed them, it seemed fairly clear she had read them already, because she knew exactly which one to turn to. "This one." She thrust out the flyer towards Chance. "I know most of the ponies on here are older 'an us, but none of the other ones look interesting. Most of the events for fillies and colts our age look downright borin'. Makin' baking soda volcanoes and usin' electricity to make yer mane stand on end. I just don't see how makin' the biggest paper mache volcano helps nopony."
Chance looked over the flyer. Her reading comprehension was getting better, but even so she had to sound out several of the words. At least she knew the language verbally well enough to recognize words by their sounds. "Material sciences? Why this one?"
Her companion shrugged. "Feels useful. You know, we can only make bars so big outa wood, right? I feel bad with as many trees as ya' gotta chop down to build 'em. But we can't go and make metal barns... I asked Applejack about it once. She said that they'd have to burn so many trees to make the steel that we wouldn't actually be doin' the trees a favor."
She took a deep breath. "But you're from somewhere else." She gestured at Chance's cutie mark. "You probably got all sortsa things to make stuff outa that don't mean we gotta chop down trees. Right?" She looked hopeful. "And I know all about Equestrian stuff! I figure you can give us some options, and I can figure out how to make it with what we got!"
Chance read over the sheet. The contest was intended for ponies older than the two of them. The depictions of machines and resources at their disposal were big and dangerous looking. "Do you think we'd even be allowed to participate?"
Apple Bloom chewed on that a moment. "I think... if we came with a plan, and showed them exactly what we wanted to do before we did it, we could. If we could prove we really wanted to be in the contest and not just to play with dangerous machines and waste bits."
That sounded reasonable enough to Chance. "Okay. Got some paper? Let's see what we can figure out."
* * *
Chance lay awake in a hotel, staring up at the dark sky. Seaddle was eerily familiar to many pre-war cities, right down to the multi-story hotels. She half expected the conference to be held in a Marriott or one of the other pre-war brands that had been so popular. It wasn't, though the building was a good dozen stories of steel and brick. It was early twentieth century design, right down to the massive steel beams on new structures going up and clouds of smoke rising from coal-fired power plants. She could see the ghost of her dead city in the layout of the streets. Though the taxis were all rickshaws and ponies pulled all the wagons, she could still almost see her family as she walked down the streets. It didn't help that she was young again, almost as young as she had been back then.
The transition between sleeping and waking was difficult to judge. One moment she was beside Apple Bloom in a gigantic bed, and the next she was outside on the streets, on two legs instead of four.
"Simulations of your new field patterns give us .08% Rift stability," said a street vendor wearing a labcoat.
"Not nearly enough." Stefan's voice came from a young man buying a soft drink from a vending machine. His face was strangely juxtaposed upon the tiny body, though in her sleep she did not notice the absurdity as she argued.
"It's more than enough." She tapped a screen that wasn't there with one finger. "Based on the area of the Rift, that would give us a corridor a quarter of an inch wide! Ten times anything we ever managed before!"
"Why can't you shoot straight?" Alexi tossed the plastic rifle to the ground in frustration. A pedestrian walking the other way kicked it into traffic, which in this city were ponies pulling carts. Even so, the simulated rifle was easily crushed, whining pitifully as it died. Alexi didn't seem to notice. "The Tower might be here one day. Everybody's got to know how to defend themselves."
"I'm not going into the navy, big sis. I'm never gonna shoot anybody."
"It's us or them, Kimmy."
She stopped on the edge of one of the few houses with a backyard. There was an opening in the ground, and in the bottom she lowered the shoebox, the one that contained her pet ferret. The family had her almost as long as they'd had her. Needless to say, ferrets didn't live as long as people. She cried, the bitterest tears of her young life. Her father's arms wrapped around her, holding her as she sobbed. It took her a long time to be able to speak. "Do you think... Do you think Hypatia had a soul?" she asked, her eyes fixed on the shoebox.
"What do you think?" he had asked, holding her steady.
Her five-year-old mind had to consider this question very seriously. "Yes. I want to see her alive again, so she has to have one. Otherwise I couldn't." Her mind continued to spin. "But if ferrets have souls, does that mean all the animals do, not just people?"
The tall man shrugged. Chance remembered it powerfully, because of the way the rough hairs of his dark goatee had rubbed against her arm. "Maybe. Lots of people believe animals have spirits."
She was barely listening. "But if animals have souls, shouldn't that mean the machine people still do? They're smarter than animals, since they used to be people." She nodded vigorously. "I guess everything probably does." For the moment, that realization was enough to distract her from the pain. She lifted the little shovel and started scooping dirt inside.
"Some of them believe that. Not many in the Tower still have religions, Kimmy."
"What do you believe, Daddy?"
He hugged her. "I knew there was a God when I saw your older sister for the first time. Your mother and I think the Tower people are making a mistake."
"That doesn't make any sense." She wrinkled her nose, looking up at him. "Alexi isn't God!"
He chuckled, releasing her. "No, she's not." He took another of the small shovels, helping her fill the opening. "You won't understand until you have children of your own, Kimmy."
"That won't ever happen." She said it in exactly the same matter-of-fact tone she might've used to talk about the weather.
"Really?" He laughed again, mussing her hair. "Why's that?"
She shrugged. "I hear you talking to mommy. You kept saying 'Cold War,' and I didn't know what that was, so I asked Drew, and..." She took a deep breath. "Do you think people are gonna kill each other? Like they used to do, when Grandma and Grandpa were little?" Her eyes were on the gradually shrinking hole again. She hadn't said so at the time, but the very idea of a person dying and not an animal was almost incomprehensible to her. It couldn't happen! She didn't actually wait for a reply. "I don't get it. Why would the Steel Tower want to hurt us?" She rested her hand on the edge of the hole. "Don't they know how sad they'll make everybody if they did that?"
"Lots of people much smarter than us are trying to stop the war, Kimmy. They've done a really good job with it so far. Even if something does happen, it probably won't ever get this far. China and Australia are both still part of the Federation, and we have the rest of the United States on the east. Even if there is some fighting, it shouldn't get this far." He patted the last shovel-full of dirt into the hole. "I think that ought to do it. Why don't we go in and see if your mother has finished with those cookies yet."
She followed him, though she only got so far as the door. Then she noticed the Alicorn watching by the wall. Had she been here this whole time? Suddenly she was herself again, no longer blindly repeating the memory. She was lucid. Her father kept talking as though she still held his hand, sliding the screen door closed behind him.
"I'm glad to see your memories of home weren't consumed, my little pony."
Chance slid the shovel into its place on her gardening apron. "I'm not a pony right now. I'm..." She looked at her small hands, then grinned, thrusting out five fingers. "I'm this many!" Then she shrugged, grinning mischievously. "Was there any danger I could've lost any of my memories?" She walked past the Alicorn to the little stone fountain in the center of her backyard. She had to stand on tiptoe to climb onto the edge, thrusting tiny hands into the water so they would be washed clean. It was icy cold, like the air, but she didn't really mind.
"Yes." Luna's voice was heavy with regret. "Outsiders do not understand goodness, and they revile love. Memories like this are often the first to fade." She glanced briefly inside. "Were all human families this close? It seems your parents loved you very much."
She shook her head. "Not every family. Earth had orphans and abuse and stuff." She sat down, her back to the fountain and face looking in through the window. "Not mine, though." She sighed. "I miss them." One tiny fist clenched on some of the fabric from her little dress. It was green, the exact same shade as her coat. "I never would've given these memories away."
Luna sat down on her haunches beside the fountain. It was night time now, though the chill didn't seem to bother Chance the way it should've. "Even if it meant you wouldn't have to know the pain of their loss?"
Chance didn't hesitate as she shook her head. "What good are the sweet memories without the bitter ones?" She gestured at the house. "The little girl who lived here never knew how much her family loved her; I do." She looked up. "Did all that time on the moon make you miss your sister?"
The Alicorn blinked, and Chance was sure she saw a tear running down her face. "More than any mortal can know. Even the longest-lived ponies are like butterflies to us, Chance. They arise spectacular and beautiful and clever, but die by winter. Celestia and I have been together for millennia. There aren't even words for our relationship; nopony else has ever lived long enough to experience anything like it." Her eyes were on the ground. "Well, maybe that isn't quite true, but Discord and the others never cared for friendship and family like Celestia and I. The suffering I caused..." She shivered. "...but losing her was worse. The one constant in my whole life, taken away – I pray you never experience the like."
Chance was silent for a long time. Of course, Luna was right. She couldn't understand what that would've been like. Losing her family had been the worst pain of her life, worse than all the other distant deaths the Great War caused, but she had been so young then. Could she begin to imagine what Luna had gone through, alone for a thousand years? "Discord called me immortal, but I don't feel that way. My magic's nothing special, nothing like Twilight's was at my age. I'm not an Alicorn. What did he mean?"
Luna seemed less reluctant to speak about this than she had been about herself. "Why are you asking me? It's nothing we ever did."
Vast machines appeared in front of them, huge generators and tanks of nanosolution. A young woman strapped naked to a steel table, her blood dribbling out through a grate in the floor. Fifty feet or so above her was the Rift, flickering and sparking against the magnetic bottle. The radiation would've been lethal, even at this distance. It had been back then. "I didn't expect to be intact for very long once I separated. Just long enough to stabilize the Rift from this side. Then I would go back to my body... or die, I guess."
"It still amazes me your people grew so advanced without magic." Luna rose, touching the side of the machines with a hoof. It would've probably melted if they had really been standing in the lab. "If this spell was your first, it was a mighty one. You aren't the first to escape death by fleeing the frailty of the body. It nearly worked for King Sombra, though he was not the first to conceive it."
Chance moved between the machines, stopping beside the heavy table. She reached out, taking the young woman's hand in her own. Ice cold. "You're saying this was a spell? What my people did was... magic?"
Luna nodded. "The moon and the faintest stars are both light. Perhaps humans were simply better at magic than you give yourselves credit for. Maybe you did it a great deal, and just called it something else."
"No, I don't think so. The Schrödinger effect wasn't discovered until we had the high-order energy of an antimatter reactor."
"Mhmm." Luna shrugged. "Life here relies on magic for almost everything. It is remarkable your world would be so similar to ours and so fundamentally different at the same time. Without magic, it would be so brief." She glanced across the garden to the grave. "And so cruel."
"Princess – do you think that ferrets have souls? Do humans?"
She had expected a long pause, perhaps something deep or insightful. Instead, Luna looked back to her. "Did your pet create beautiful things? Did she make you happy?"
"Yes."
"And do they love each other, as ponies do?"
"I guess so. I never asked her."
"Then what is a soul, Chance, if not the capacity to love? If ferrets and humans can do it also, then why shouldn't they have souls?"
Chance reached into her apron, tossing the trowel through the air. As it was a dream, her aim was perfect, and it sunk straight down into the freshly turned dirt of the new grave. "I guess... I guess that makes sense. What about the Steel Tower? Most of them are just data now, on underground servers. A few have bodies, but it's all wires and metal. Can they have them too?"
"Yes." The answer came without hesitation, her voice bitter and distant. It was a voice of pain, though not quite so much as when she spoke of the rebellion. "Any life that can love others more than itself is life worth protecting. Or have you changed your mind since this day?"
Luna gestured at the window. At that exact moment, her family was gathered around a table. All except her, eating and talking and laughing. She was glad Luna hadn't said anything about the meat.
"I don't know." Chance's words were quiet. "I wish they didn't. It would be easier to hate them if they weren't people."
"That's what your people teach, isn't it? They aren't people."
She nodded. "They do now. They explain the whole war like an optimization problem, as though the people of the Tower were some big computer program and what they did was inevitable. The others in intelligentsia, they act all noble about how much they don't hate the Tower. Hating makes them equals, see. You don't hate the sun when a solar flare knocks out a satellite. It's a natural disaster, not an act of war. Very intellectual."
"You don't sound like you believe that."
She shook her head. "A few of my friends... before the war, I mean... they emigrated. Plenty of people went over to the Tower, or came over from their territories to the Federation. It doesn't..." She swallowed. "I want to think they wouldn't have wanted to go to war with us, and somehow they're still alive in those computers."
"Stranger things have happened." She patted Chance on the head with a hoof. "Perhaps a lighter subject. We heard you were attending the innovators conference. This is good, since we are coming to judge the victors." She grinned. "Remarkable, what ponies have accomplished since I was last in Equestria. Will your entry be victorious?"
Chance beamed, letting the memory around her fade. After seeing so many painful reminders, it was nice to think about something else. "Apple Bloom will deserve most of the credit if we do. I came up with the overview, but she galloped away with it. Sketched out the schematics during the ride. Those older fillies and colts better be ready to lose."
Luna chuckled. "We would not dare promise to bias our judgment for thee, but... we are curious. What is thy task?"
"We're going to enter the materials competition," Chance said, forming an object in her hand. It was the trowel, though the paint was gone. Below was a silvery metal, one of the most common on Equestria and Earth both. "Aluminum." She whacked it hard against the fountain. "Well, technically it's duralumin. Got some copper too, but ponies understand how to get that already."
The Alicorn's laugh was quite energetic now. "Aluminum is not new to Equestria, Second Chance. It is, however, unimaginably valuable. We have always known of its strength, but what does strength matter in something more costly than gold?" She embraced Chance with a wing. "Thou needest not fret, young filly. We are certain thou wilt discover something else."
Chance didn't feel upset, though. She had already had this conversation with Apple Bloom. "Oh, we didn't think we were inventing it." She nodded knowingly. "Just the refining process. You already have the technology for it, but nopony thought to use it. Twenty years from now, it's gonna be cheaper than wood."
Luna spluttered, swaying dangerously on her hooves. "Y-You're going to what?"
She nodded eagerly. "Aluminum. It's the most common metal on the planet, you know. One of the easiest to mine and refine, if you know how. The only reason it's so rare is because it's reactive in its natural state, so it binds with lots of other things in the planet's crust."
It took the Alicorn a few moments to recover. "You won't be winning any friends in the nobility if you succeed. Aluminum is a store of wealth in Equestria. Far rarer than precious stones, rarer than Gold. The castle has one of the few complete aluminum dining sets in all of Equestria. If memory serves, it is worth more than whole towns."
She shrugged. "Are you telling us not to do it?" She looked downcast. And it was true, she hadn't considered what it would do to the market. Apple Bloom had mentioned it was rare and expensive, and she had guessed that knowing earth's history. But she hadn't thought about how the ponies who actually owned it might feel. Could they destabilize the economy this way?
"No, but we are glad you revealed your plans to us. It would be– wise, not to reveal your intentions. Merely announce you intend to discover a powerful new metal. You did mention it was an alloy, so that wouldn't technically be untrue. If you succeed, the benefits to Equestria would greatly outweigh the momentary instability you would inflict to the commodities exchange."
"You think... that will be enough? To get them to let us participate, I mean. We had the chemical equations all mapped out and everything. Or, we would've if ponies had a periodic table." She sighed. "We don't want to be judged unfairly... I know Apple Bloom. If we win, she'll want to win cuz' we earned it. But do you think you could write to them and make them let us in?"
The Alicorn removed her wing from Chance's back, rising to her hooves. "We suppose that would not be too great an impropriety. The Apple filly is from a noble line, and you... thou deservest a chance at the familiar after the awful things thou hast been forced to suffer through." She nodded. "We shall arrange it. Equestria have mercy if any of the noble houses ever discover the crown could've prevented this."
* * *
Brigid traveled through the burrows at the head of a growing procession. The first of the guards to meet her had been violent and defensive, as proper guards ought to be. She had expected the other natives in this group to echo this attitude, or to hide from her in fear as she passed through their burrows.
They did not. News traveled fast, and by the time she passed out of the outer burrows and into the populated center, every individual in the settlement had come out to see. Dozens of furry forms emerged from burrows on both sides. Not just the bulky males that had confronted her at the gates, but smaller females and puppies as well. With electronic precision she counted exactly 113 unique individuals, crowding as close as they could be without actually touching her.
Many sniffed at her or drew almost close enough to touch, though her escort shoved these back. She was grateful for that, though she wondered what her scent would tell them. Would they take her for a spirit? By all accounts, she was a superior form of life. More so than with organic humans? She wasn't sure about that yet.
In addition to curiosity, she was sure their gestures were respectful. Were the natives bowing to her, or was that just how they naturally moved?
"You came back," a small voice whispered from near her feet. One of the smallest, youngest-looking puppies she had seen yet. "We knew you would come back." The puppy's mother emerged seconds later, taking the small one away with an apologetic glance.
"What did she mean?" she asked of the guard named Spot, curious. "Has this tribe already met beings like me before?" If the Federation had beaten them here, if her information was that far wrong, her mission was doomed and she would never see the skies of Imperium again.
"Long ago." Spot didn't answer, but another voice did. She turned her attention to the side, meeting the eyes of a canine whose coat had gone gray with age. His eyes were cloudy with cataracts, and he only walked with the help of another. Few of this species seemed to wear much, but this individual was the exception. Strangely colored cloth covered him, tinkling with bits of bone and little gemstones. Brigid instinctively slowed, making it easier for him to keep up with her. "They said a great one had come walking on two paws, and I did not believe them." He lowered his head in an unmistakable bow. Had she been an adult, he would've been a little above her waist. As it was, it was only his stoop that made him shorter. "Forgive my lack of faith, but I did not scent you."
Now that was interesting. "I will forgive you if you tell me what you meant," she answered, forcing herself to smile despite her fear. It couldn't be that long ago, could it? The Avalon colony's first experiments had only been fifty years ago! Perhaps their lifespans were short enough that fifty years made a difference. Yet, none of the experimental logs contained anything about another world made of matter. The Federation had been the ones to achieve that, hadn't they? "My kind are called humans, you have seen us before? Scented us before?"
The old one shook his head, with great sadness. "No, not me. Not my father, or his many-times father before."
"But before that?"
He shrugged. The gesture was so human, she almost gasped. Probably would have staggered in her step, were she an organic and subject to the frailties of life. "The stories say." They stopped at the entrance to a large burrow, larger than any of the others. The ceiling here was easily ten feet high, and wide enough for most automobiles to pass through. The walls were lit here with lanterns that sent strange flickers through her projected body.
The one called Spot spoke up. "We are here. The Alpha will speak with you."
She waved dismissively, focusing her attention on the elder. "Tell me."
"It is a very old story. Many of the young do not believe it."
"I will."
"We have always walked beside the great ones, ever since the first pack. Together we came from the sky. The great ones were mighty in craft, but weak in body. In those days there were many dangers; changelings stalked, and dragons could destroy entire cities in their fury. Worst of all, the old enemies were already here, and dwelt in the deepest earth. They taught us how to find gemstones and where to dig for metal, and with it we built vast cities. The packs grew mighty, the greatest force in all the world."
He sighed. "Then you left. You gave us a charge, to watch over the boundary between above and below, and to wait for your return. Then you were gone, and have not been seen again." He looked up, though she was still certain he could not actually see. "Of all the packs to return to, why ours?"
Brigid didn't have an answer to that. With a gesture she hoped was respectful, she passed into the large burrow.
The one who waited rose to his hindpaws as she entered, clutching with a paw at the edge of his red vest. "Y-You're real!" he exclaimed, his voice high and grating. She lowered her sensitivity to shriller noise, and he was easier to listen to.
She had to stifle her curiosity about their past, focusing instead on the situation at hand. The procession followed her inside, filling the edges of the chamber. It was quite large, lit with firelight amplified by hundreds of gemstones. They had been set into the walls and floor, though the craftsmanship was crude. She bowed as smoothly and elegantly as she ever had to the king. The curious girl was gone, replaced by a great lady of the Aos Si. "I am called Brigid Aherne, Second Height of the Technocratic Order and Ambassador of the Steel Tower." She smiled, like a ray of sunlight in the darkness of the burrow. "You may call me Brigid."
The one with the red vest was too stunned to reply. Brigid took in his collar; though the metal was very roughly made, it was studded with gemstones. At his side was one slightly smaller, the only other one she had seen so far with gems so large. She rested one paw on his shoulder, and spoke when he couldn't find the words. "We're the alphas." She gestured at herself and her companion, though she didn't bow. "I'm Maggie, and my mate is Rover. Why are you here?"
They seemed to expect everyone to come inside, because neither raised objections as the crowd filled the benches along the side of the room. Two more of the burly guards brought in a rough wooden table, dragging it into the center of the room. "You wish for everyone to hear?"
Maggie nodded. "Anything that matters to us matters to them."
Rover finally found his voice. "This pack has had enough trouble. Ponies are bad enough; have you come to bring trouble like them?"
"No." She didn't wait for a chair to be brought for her, since it very well might block the hologram depending on the angle. She created one from light, crafted from gold and glass, and she sat down. "I have come to make an alliance."
"I can see through you," Maggie noted. She sat on a rough bench as it was brought for her. "Why?"
"Because I am a different kind of life." She directed her attention at a flat slab of stone on the far side of the room. It looked as though it were in the middle of carving, perhaps destined to become another crude bench. She gestured, and the drones directed a high-intensity laser in a sweeping line. The stone split down the center, its upper half grinding before crashing to the ground.
The assembly hall erupted into chaos. Dogs barked in terror, while others screamed. The alphas did not flinch or flee like some of the others, instead shouting for order. Brigid took the silence when it came. "We have much to discuss. I believe that together, we can accomplish much."