"So this is everything you need?" Their adviser Confident Theory was a stern-looking mare, her mane graying at the tips. The rest of her was firm and angular, like an angry sliderule. "One fifty-liter pressure vessel, three hundred meters of uninsulated copper cable, two industrial gas burners, a rotary kiln, high-density filters, fifty kilograms of lye, nine-hundred liters of distilled water, and... let me make sure I'm reading this last one right... three hundred kilograms of unprocessed red-brown flooring stone?"
Apple Bloom nodded. “That’s everything on page one. There are actually three pages!"
"Oh, of course." The mare’s eyes narrowed. "That makes perfect sense. A pair of fillies who only learned about this event on the ride here already know exactly what they want to do. No experimenting, not a single thaumic ingredient."
They both nodded.
"No, wait, there is one on here. An aluminum crystal." She shook her head. "Do you have any idea how much one of those costs?"
"It won't be damaged." Chance sounded confident. Probably more confident than any filly should've. "It's just a catalyst to help crystallize our metal out of solution!"
"We ain't doin' our own castin'! One ah the older groups is takin' care’a that fer us."
"Right." Theory cleared her throat, passing the list back to them. "Are you absolutely certain you wouldn't rather make a volcano?"
They both nodded. "We're sure."
Theory stalked off, conversing in a harsh whisper with several of her fellow advisers. They glanced at the fillies several times. Their tone did not sound friendly. Of course, they weren’t the only ones. The room wasn’t large, and all the other competing groups were packed inside. Chance couldn’t judge pony ages perfectly yet, but everypony in here was bigger than they were. If she had to guess, she would’ve said they were college students.
"You think they're gonna let us compete?"
Chance looked at her friend's desperate face, then back at the advisors. "I think so. Luna said she'd make sure."
"How'd you talk to the princess? I've been with ya' since we decided to be in this contest!"
Chance blushed, though she didn't know if Apple Bloom would be able to see. If only her stupid ears didn't betray her. "I dreamed about it. She talks to me sometimes."
"Oh." She had expected Apple Bloom to be doubtful, or outright mocking. She only nodded. "Scootaloo mentioned somethin' like that. So you told her we wanted to compete?"
"Yeah. It wasn't my idea not to mention what we're really making, it was Luna's."
"Oh. Well, I guess that makes sense."
The adviser returned, her expression dark. "I'm not sure whose daughters you are to get permission like this, but..." She groaned. "Very well. We'll have all the supplies waiting in your assigned workroom. Be there by four in the afternoon. I'll be extremely interested to see what you do with all of this."
"But we're free until then?"
She nodded curtly. "As long as you stay together and don't leave the hotel, you're welcome to enjoy yourselves. Try to have some age appropriate fun, since you won't be having much this afternoon."
They did, wandering down onto the showroom floor. Chance had never actually attended a conference like this before, though she had seen video records of their like on Earth before. There were booths of various kinds along the walls. It was like the old worlds fairs, right down to the electrical displays and pseudo-Victorian decor.
Apple Bloom was entranced, and Chance couldn't help but share her excitement. Even if plenty of the displays they passed were antiquated technology from Chance's point of view. It was still fascinating to see what Equestrians were discovering. In particular, the ways they fused it with magic. Magic could make weak things strong, or make strong ones weak. In both cases, the limiting factor appeared to be that unicorns were needed to craft and fuel the tools.
One display in particular drew Chance's attention: a radio transmitter-receiver. The display wasn't large, and was confined to one of the back rows of booths. A pair of unicorns operated it, conversing with the few ponies who seemed interested. Apple Bloom passed it by, but Chance lingered, and her friend was back at her side a moment later.
"This looks boring," Apple Bloom protested in a whisper. "It's just two wirey poles and a light."
"It's going to change your whole world," she shot back. "Way more than any of the other things we've looked at. We should listen to them."
They waited at the back of the crowd like polite little ponies, until there was room for them at the front. The unicorns manning the booth were twins, powder blue with reddish manes. Chance couldn't see their cutie marks through the insulating jackets they were wearing.
"Hello, young ponies," the mare said, her voice smooth and sharply accented. "You find our display interesting, yes?"
"Well obviously they do. That is typically the reason one approaches a booth."
Chance ignored what passed for their rapport. "Don't you worry about the interference an arc-transmitter like this is going to produce?" She gestured at the display.
On the surface, the display looked quite advanced. A pair of electrodes was connected to something not unlike a Van de Graaff generator. On the other side of the room was an antenna, connected to a single electric light. The electrodes seemed to be connected to a Morse-code interface, sending a spark whenever somepony depressed the key. The receiver switched on the light almost instantly on the other side of the booth.
Apple Bloom spoke quietly in her ear, though Chance doubted her friend was actually intimidated by the scientists. "Chance, nopony actually uses radio. They ain't gonna interfere with nothin'."
"The filly speaks of the future as though it has already come." The powder-blue mare levitated a clipboard in front of her along with a pencil.
"As though technology could advance in only one way. She takes our success as given." The ponies were clearly twins. Though she could hear and see their distinct gender differences, it was hard to be certain. More like two halves of the same pony than two distinct ponies.
Chance shook her head. "Magic promises some interesting new technologies too." She glanced briefly over her shoulder at the other displays. Plenty of them had been fusions of technology and magic, like the thaumic concrete that formed much of Canterlot foundations. "So how are you going to deal with the interference? Once your radio takes off?" She gestured at the apparatus. "Masterfully done. Have you thought about using amplitude modulation to reduce your bleed into other frequencies? Making receivers isn't that hard if you've got lead sulfide."
Of course, Chance wasn't entirely sure of what the elements were properly called here in Equestria. Sometimes there were no words for what she wanted to say, and she would find herself speaking in English instead. Or, as happened more frequently, she found herself speaking in words that had long-since fallen out of use, anachronisms that nevertheless contained her meaning. She blamed Luna whenever it happened, though never out loud.
The ponies didn't answer at first. They didn't look blown away or amused, the two expressions adults usually took when she spoke about engineering or mathematics. "I think I know you." The stallion flipped through a sheaf of papers in front of him, then nodded. "You're Second Chance, right? Little prodigy out of... Ponyville?"
Her tail pressed itself between her legs, and her ears flattened. "N-Not a prodigy." She tried to sound as confident as possible. "Just a good education." She flicked her tail at Apple Bloom. "She's actually way cleverer than I am."
She could feel Apple Bloom's embarrassment beside her. Good. Her friend deserved to share it, since she deserved the praise so much more than Chance herself did. "Now don't you go lyin' to nopony," was all her friend muttered, shuffling her hooves.
The stallion went on. "It says here you sketched out a new way to sort the elements based on atomic number instead of mass. The ponies at the evaluation committee thought it was a doctoral thesis. Apparently it was your essay on 'What Science Means to Me'."
Her blush deepened. She gathered from what he was saying that the ponies running the booths had detailed information about each of them. Probably for recruiting purposes. Still, she wondered why these had apparently taken such an interest while nopony else had seemed to know so much about them. The only other ponies who had recognized them so far knew them as "the fillies who got admitted to the material science contest."
"Probably they thought that because of the writing," she admitted. "My mo-" as if she didn't feel embarrassed enough. "My hoofwriting isn't very good, so my teacher lets my mentor write for me, so long as I can explain it all in my own words. It wasn't really my idea, just..." She gulped. "Something I read about once."
The mare looked to her brother. It was eerie how well they mimicked each other's movements. Even though she'd read about twins who could act strangely synchronized back on Earth, it was a strange thing to watch. "You're a dreamer," the mare said. "Adrift on the vastness of eternity, you can see the world like dust."
"Science is not a discipline of reason but also one of romance and passion." Did they have to continue each other's thoughts like that? That was getting creepier and creepier the more they did it.
"So ya' ain't gonna try an' get us teh come to yer' school 'er nothin'?" Apple Bloom looked unimpressed with the both of them. "Don't got no pamphlets 'er scholarships 'er whatever?"
Chance thought that was a fairly good point. As strangely familiar as these two were, she was running out of free time. If they didn't take advantage now, they might not get to see all the displays and finish their work with aluminum purification. "Thanks for your time," she said, bowing to them both "We've got lots of other things to look at."
They nodded, turning their attention to another crowd of ponies gathering nearby. Chance was sure she could feel their eyes on her until she left the hall.
* * *
For the second time in as many weeks, Twilight found herself striding nervously through Canterlot Castle, intent on an audience with her mentor. There had been no relief from the stress, from the fear and the uncertainty. Clover's vision seemed to indicate that pony civilization was doomed no matter what happened. The clop of her hooves with each step sounded like the ticking of some colossal clock, counting down their days. Everything she had ever done to preserve Equestria had been for nothing. According to Clover, there was nothing anypony could do. The only choice they had was a choice of dooms.
The court was not busy today, but that didn't mean it was empty. Princess Celestia was the nation's ultimate authority; all cases that could not be resolved to satisfaction by the lesser courts eventually found their way to her. Twilight knew she would be busy, and she didn't mind. She got in line behind a tan stallion and started drifting off, her mind returning to the prophecy and its dark vision.
Unfortunately, she was not going to be given a reprieve today. "Twilight?" The stallion turned to face her, abject confusion on his face. "There's no reason you ought to be in this line."
She recognized the smell before the face; dough and sugar and coffee. She glanced at his flank, and was not surprised by the cutie mark she saw there. "Donut Joe? It's good to see you!" She shared a polite hug with the stallion – he was in that awkward place between friend and acquaintance, but she didn't know what else to do.
Twilight liked Joe; she'd been visiting his little shop since she was small. It had been a place to study, a place where another glass of coffee or fresh treats were always within reach when she had an important paper to write. When she'd taken her friends there after their disastrous experience at the Gala, she had been sharing a part of herself. Of course, since relocating to Ponyville, her visits had come only sporadically. Still, Joe was one of the few ponies besides her close friends who had known her well enough as an ordinary unicorn not to be intimidated by her now that she was an Alicorn.
"I'm already inconveniencing ponies by coming in without an appointment. It seems fair I should at least go to the back of the line and wait with everypony else."
Joe didn't argue, at least not right away. "Donut?" She hadn't the foggiest idea how he could've got it so quickly into his hooves, or where that serving glove had come from. With her stress running as high as it was, she didn't really care. Of course, once she was munching on it, Donut Joe could speak and she was too busy chewing to argue with him. "That might be fair, but it isn't best. Royal ponies like you, you got privileges because you got responsibilities. Big ones; probably bigger than any the problems the rest of us here have." He lowered his voice, conspiratorially. "Though not all the ponies in front of us would admit it."
She swallowed, then nodded. It was true her work did concern the future of all Equestria. Celestia would meet with anypony, whether you had a good reason or not. A good reason just got you a sooner visit... but if you were willing to wait a few years, you could even come in and get her autograph, if that was what you really wanted. Joe was probably right that none of the other ponies here had anything so pressing as what she did. "I haven't figured out what I want to say, yet," she admitted in a whisper. "I could use some time in line to think."
"NEXT!" The line advanced, as a beleaguered looking pegasus messenger shambled into the open doors to the throne room. Ponies always exited through doors elsewhere, so she didn't get to see anypony on their way out.
Joe shrugged in return. "Well that makes sense. You just wait until you know, then you go right on past us to the front." He looked thoughtful. "Whenever I have trouble, I talk to somepony about it. My daughter usually sets me straight." He smiled. "You ever do anything like that?"
She nodded. "Sometimes. I thought about talking to my friends about it, but..." She shook her head. "Royal business. I'm not allowed."
"Ahh." He didn't press her. "Well, whatever it is, must be pretty big to get you upset. After all the amazing things you've done with those friends'a yours."
She nodded again. "Yeah." Then more quietly, "Joe, your daughter – Honeysweet, right? Is caring for her hard?"
His only reply was to break out into laughter so raucous that several ponies turned around to scowl at them. None of the guards, though. They had already seen her. Several of the ponies who glanced in their direction stared in shock when they saw her, and a few even bowed. She waved dismissively, not taking her attention from Donut Joe.
"If you find a parent anywhere in Equestria that doesn't think it's hard, you let me know. Ain't nothing harder."
She wilted. "Don't you worry about her? Worry that she's going to get into trouble when you aren't around, and you won't be able to help her? Worry that, in the end, all the parenting books you read aren't going to mean anything, and she's going to be out in the world by herself? Worried that you're not big enough to fix the trouble she'll get herself into?"
"NEXT!" The line moved again.
He stopped laughing. "Now how do you know about that?" He narrowed his eyes. "I would've heard-"
"Adopted," she supplied, and not untruthfully. As much as she felt guilty leaving out important parts of the truth, it wasn't as though she could reveal one of Equestria's most dangerous secrets to her favorite donut baker. "Just a few months ago. She's a distant relation. Her parents died in an accident, and I took her in. I've been... extremely discreet about it."
"Well." His affable smile returned. "Bring her around for donuts sometime." He shook his head sadly. "Sounds like you've got your hooves full. Little Honeysweet's enough trouble, and Celestia protect her from something like that. Wish I had some good advice."
"Me too."
"Well, that's just it. Fillies and colts – every single one is different. They aren't like donuts, where all the chocolates taste alike, just like all the glazed. But if I ever learned anything, it was that I shouldn't treat her like a foal. They're ponies too, Twilight. Just smaller. Ain't you a princess or somethin’? Just do your friendship stuff, and I figure it'll all work out."
"NEXT!" Twilight hadn't even realized the line had moved so quickly. There was nopony between Joe and the open doorway.
"Well, you're up." She waved, feeling a little guilty she hadn't asked about what he had come to do. It wasn't as though he had looked upset the way the ponies before them in line had. "I'm sure Celestia will take care of everything for you too."
He shrugged. "I ain't never needed much taking care of. Catering deal. Good luck, Princess." He bowed with an almost mocking air, then departed.
Apparently negotiating a catering deal didn't take very long, because Twilight was only on her own a few minutes before the guard looked at her, nodding.
"What, no shout?"
He shook his head, eyes on the floor. "No Ma'am."
She chuckled and trotted past him into the throne room. She took no solace in the stained glass, even the ones that depicted familiar scenes of her own life and adventures. Luna's throne was empty as she approached; she wished it hadn't been. While not as knowledgeable as Celestia, Luna was also far less inclined to let a misunderstanding fester so she could "learn something on her own." Even since her coronation Celestia hadn't ever really stopped teaching her.
"Princess Twilight." Celestia rose for her, inclining her head. Twilight wished she wouldn't. She would've bowed in return if she had thought her old teacher would let her get away with it.
"Princess Celestia." She took a deep breath, then looked to the guards standing at regular intervals along the walls.
The Solar Princess understood, and gestured to them. They saluted, and vanished out side doors without a word. They banged the massive wooden doors shut behind them, leaving the two of them alone in the throne room.
"This must be serious if you didn't send a letter." She sounded sad. It made Twilight feel a little guilty to hear that. "Like last time? Or is this about the memory spell? I know we didn't get as much time to talk about it as you seemed to want."
She shook her head, looking up at the throne. It was true she had been uncomfortable to see such powerful magic used on such a young pony. But it was Discord she was angry with, not Celestia. Reformed her flank...
"I saw the vision," she said, removing the scroll from her saddlebags and levitating it towards Celestia.
The alabaster Alicorn caught it in her magic. She unrolled it, glanced only once, then nodded. She was abruptly standing at the base of the throne, only a few meters away. There was no flash when Celestia teleported, not even a breeze. "Luna and I suspected you would eventually. I had hoped the time wouldn't have come so soon... but I suppose it couldn't be prevented. We will need your intellect." She sighed. The scroll had vanished completely. Twilight didn't want to know where it had gone; she'd be happy if she never saw it again.
She shivered. "It was awful, Princess. Have you really known about this ever since Clover?"
Celestia didn't answer at first. She had a very thoughtful expression. "Dark magic doesn't get its name from some inherent evil. Why do we forbid some practices and call them dark?"
Twilight knew the answer, though she did not know of many ponies who did. This knowledge wasn't exactly forbidden, but it was the sort of thing you would only find in a restricted section. "Because the power for it doesn't come from the caster or any other source in our world. It's named after the Outer Dark its powers come from."
"Very good." Her teacher walked away, over to one of the many stained glass windows. This one depicted the ancient defeat of king Sombra. "Of course there were types of dark magic that were evil by nature, like the summoning that he did." She flicked one ear towards the window. "All temporal magic is dark, Twilight. To see the future in our four dimensions, one must travel through the fifth. That is why I have restricted this practice."
"Clover the Clever practiced dark magic?"
Celestia shook her head. "Not exactly, Twilight. Clover's magic relied on educated prediction, not sight. It is not the future as it will be, only as it could be."
"She said something like that in the vision, but I wasn't sure. I couldn't find anything about any of the spells she used in the library, not even the restricted section. Is that why Discord isn't in the vision? Her spell didn't predict he'd be reformed and so it thought he would still be trapped in stone?"
Celestia strode past her again, towards the windows depicting Discord's reign and eventual defeat. "An excellent guess Twilight, but no. Discord isn't in the vision for the same reason it contained nothing explicit about Second Chance. Neither of them is from Equus, or anywhere else within this universe. Prediction spells alone can't possibly capture their actions when their magic is so different from ours."
Twilight sat on her haunches, considering. She remained quiet for almost a minute as she turned over the implications. Eventually she looked up again. "But the vision had aliens, Princess. It had the Jebr Stone golem. I haven't spoken directly to it, but from what I've observed it's easily as intelligent and capable as any pony. Not to mention the alien from Leo's society, the tall one Princess Luna is negotiating with. If the prediction spell can't predict aliens, how can it predict Equestria's victory once we make an allegiance with the Tower?"
"Discord and your apprentice have something that Leo's people and golems never can. Like all living things, they both use magic. But since they're not from Equestria, their magic can't be predicted." She looked Twilight directly in the eye, her expression like the steaming heat of summer. The shimmering of her mane dwarfed the spectacular multicolored glow of the windows to gray by comparison. Nothing in here, not even Twilight herself, seemed as powerfully real as Princess Celestia. "This is why your mission is so important to all of Equestria, Twilight. Luna and I have always known that danger was coming. I have recreated Clover's spells, and seen the vision you did in far greater detail." There was a haunted cast to her multicolored eyes then. Flickering orange seemed to echo the splash of distant dragonfire, while the crimson spoke of blood. Pony blood.
Twilight could count on her hooves how many times she had heard Celestia in pain. The Princess usually contained her emotions, such that Twilight couldn't even guess at them. She heard real pain now, and could've sworn she saw her trembling. "I have led Equestria for centuries, knowing without a doubt that it was doomed. Our ancient enemies would return in time, and our only salvation would see the death of magic itself. Worse still because the single alien we eventually met, Leo, was both kind and faithful. We couldn't even hate our destroyers."
Celestia's horn flashed, and a thick book appeared from the air in front of her. The title was in Old Equestrian, dating to about the time of the Lunar Rebellion.
Twilight took the book, leaning closer to read it. "The Journal of Avalon the Diamond Dog, with Historical Commentary by Truth Seeker and Medical Commentary by Set Straight." She levitated it out of the way, so she could look back to Celestia. "A diamond dog gave you hope for Equestria?"
Her teacher's weaknesses seemed gone, replaced with a feeble smile. "Avalon was as much a diamond dog as Leo was a unicorn, Twilight. I never had the pleasure of meeting him. Luna did, but you would be wise not to ask her about the encounter. By then, the Rebellion had already begun, and..." She shook her head. "Avalon's contributions to Equestrian science and medicine were remarkable in their day, but they aren't what make him interesting."
She stopped, seeming to be waiting for something from Twilight. When she didn't reply, Celestia went on, her enthusiasm undampened. "For the first time, we had something Clover's visions could not predict. His own words confirm he was a child of a culture distinct from the Steel Tower we see in Clover's visions. His accomplishments proved they had power similar to the Tower. Yet he wasn't a strange golem, but life as we know it, with strange magical abilities unknown to Equestria."
Now Twilight was putting it together. "That's why you want to know about the civilization Second Chance comes from. You want me to learn if we can trust them, because... because they might be an alternative to the one from Clover's vision. A way to save Equestria without sacrificing its soul." She fumbled in her saddlebags with her magic, removing a slim rectangle of plastic. The object was perhaps three hooves long and two wide, as thin as paper except at a small rectangle at the top made of inflexible, thicker plastic. "Before she went away for the week, Chance gave me this."
Twilight pressed on a little circle set into the thicker portion, and it immediately began to shine with color and light. "She told me it could be used to read any book her people ever wrote. The machine, Truth, can translate any I ask for into Equestrian. I'm sure everything we need to know is in here."
She offered the tablet to Celestia, but the princess would not take it, pushing it back towards her along with the new book. "You are the pony who will be spending the most time with her, Twilight. If Luna or I made a decision based on ancient books, we might be making a disastrous mistake. Ponies change. If Discord can change, than these aliens might too. Your mission remains: you must be the one to discover how they are, not just how they were." She gestured at the book and the tablet, resting together. "Study well, then spend time with the filly. See how she acts. If the stories ponies told of Avalon are true, then he was selfless as few ponies I have known. But what if he was some strange exception, and the rest of his kind were more like Discord?"
Twilight shivered visibly. "It might... be even worse to ally with them than the mechanical aliens from Clover's vision."
"Yes, unfortunately. We might do more harm than good to Equestria's future if we don't know for certain the character of these outsiders. Your apprentice spoke of the danger her people are in. We need to know as soon as possible if it is safe to make contact with them. The sooner we do, the sooner we can help, and the sooner they can help us in return." She rested a wing briefly on Twilight's shoulder. "Equestria needs strong friends, Princess Twilight. Finding them may be the most important responsibility I have ever given you."
* * *
Bree's thermometers told her the interior of the forge was nearly forty degrees celsius. Given she had designed these drones for temperatures nearly a thousand times as high, it did not bother her. Not that it would have even if the conditions were unsafe. Thus was the peril of living digitally inside a drone; you might never know your home was failing.
The forge's fire gave strange flickers to her projected form, giving orange to the green sparks in her eyes. Her escorts were gone now, far too precious in their labor to waste on protection she did not need. No guards traveled with her now, though she did have an escort. It did not bother her that the old dog moved so slowly; everything he said taught her more about the world she meant to conquer.
There was nothing old or weak to the tall canine standing in the forge. He wore a thick apron and thicker gloves, though he lacked the collar that seemed the only constant among the diamond dogs. Though given they were usually made of metal, Bree supposed that was for the best.
"Hello, blacksmith." Bree inclined her head briefly in respect. "I saw you two nights ago, but I didn't get to speak with you."
He grunted, and did not look up from his work. The canine shoveled a huge scoop of dark stones into the flames, which roared in response. With the heavy door slammed closed, his two apprentice puppies began to jump up and down on the bellows. The furnace belched out a torrent of blue flames with each rush of air.
"I'm sorry to have caused you to change what you usually do. I know how frustrating it must be to break from your routine."
He grunted again, not looking up. She wasn't sure if she ought to be offended or impressed. She chose to be impressed.
"Master Blacksmith." She walked smoothly up to the forge, inspecting it without any sign of balking at the heat. This managed to illicit a reaction, considering the distance all the other dogs kept from it. Even the apprentices shied away from that heat. While the towering figure did not speak, he did look up at her. So she had his attention; that was a start.
"This is a coke forge, is it not? That vessel..." She scanned it briefly with a mass spectrometer. Charles might've been able to glance at bubbling metal and be able to identify it, but Bree could not. What was the point of learning how physical things were made when datamancy was so much more efficient? "You're making iron.”
"For you." He gestured with a grunt at a series of stone molds waiting outside the crucible. Several were already filled with gradually cooling bars. "New treaty."
She nodded. "You are doing good work, Master Blacksmith." Not many of these dogs were taller than she was, but this one had to be nearly two full meters when he stood on his hind legs. Up close, she could see bits of charred fur around the edges of his gloves and apron, and old scars on his face where fur no longer grew. "Where I come from, it is the craftsmen and investors who are in charge, not just those who can fight the best or the longest. Hard work and skill grant the right to rule."
The blacksmith laughed, a deep sound almost like a bark. He looked down on her, shaking his head. "And what do you craft, little traveler? What useful skill could a tiny spirit ever learn?"
Bree was not insulted, though perhaps a lesser girl might've been. Her friendship with Charles had prepared her for this. "Master Simon." She looked back at her guide, smiling. "If you could present the master blacksmith with my gift."
The old dog removed the pouch from his belt, lifting up the object inside. Despite its large size, he used only one hand to offer it up. The hammer itself was modeled on her many stored images of forge hammers. Instead of being made of iron, however, she had worked this hammer from the silvery titanium skeletons of her dead drones. Hardened with a coating of nanosealant, it was without a doubt the best hammer this blacksmith would've ever seen.
The blacksmith took her gift, lifting it in one gloved paw and waving it around. "Hah! You made me puppy's toy!" He turned down the heat on the forge, moving over to the anvil. His own hammer was about the same size, though he needed both hands to lift it, hefting it by the wooden haft and grinning broken teeth down at her. "This is a hammer!"
She echoed his grin, hiding her disquiet at those teeth. She would have to increase the priority of dentistry on her list of technologies to implement. "You think so? Put my hammer on your anvil, and see if you can damage it. Strike my hammer with yours as hard as you can. Then use mine on yours."
Simon retreated from the anvil, perhaps fearing being showered with bits of exploding metal. Grinning eagerly, the towering blacksmith brought down his hammer like great Lugh himself. The hammer struck with a mighty clang, sending sparks ringing up all around it.
His eyes went wide as he turned his hammer over, revealing a huge dent where it had struck the one Bree had brought. "Mythril?" he asked, awed.
Bree searched her database for the term, only shaking her head when she was sure of what it meant. "Titanium. I'm afraid I won't be able to get more of it for some time. This hammer will outlive you, and your children, and their children."
"A mighty gift." The mocking was all gone, and for once he looked down on her with respect.
"I wish your name in exchange, Master Blacksmith. I have given you mine."
"Failinis." He nodded at her, lifting the hammer reverently in both paws. "Too light for armor. Maybe swords, collars, knives." He hung it carefully from his tool rack, in the place of honor previously occupied by his old hammer. "Maybe alphas not airsick after all."
"Well, Master Failinis, I will not interfere with good work any further. I just wanted you to know that you and yours are an important part of the new pack we are building together. You have been neglected and taken for granted, but no longer."
She left him then, waiting in the hallway as Simon shut the door. "The stories of you are true, Builder."
She shrugged, or at least her projection did. "Because I made a hammer?"
"No. Because you are making a pack. First the farmers, then the guards, and now the blacksmith. Perhaps you won't be a hero in battle like great Leo, but you're just as good at putting dogs together. Better than most alphas."
Brigid stopped dead in her tracks. She didn't gasp or stop breathing, though she probably would've if she still needed to. "Leo. That wouldn't happen to be Leonidas Eranus, would it?"
Simon rested one of his paws against the side of the cavern, considering her sudden change in attitude. Even knowing his heart rate, and being able to read the ways his pupils grew and shrank did not yet help her read the native emotions. "There was a hero... Leo the Bold... but I do not know much of him. It is a pony legend. Our alphas do not care for their bards to know the legends of other races anymore."
Her next destination forgotten, Brigid moved right up to Simon's face, as close as she could stand without risking he would touch the projection. "What do you know of it? Even the smallest detail might be significant."
Simon glanced around the burrow, as if making sure they were alone. He reached out, almost as though to take her shoulder, but of course he couldn't. So far as she knew, there were no solid holograms outside of Federation laboratories. She had a plan to deal with her insubstantiality, but that was still weeks off. "I could. Perhaps it would be better to tell you what I know somewhere we won't be overheard. The alphas do not appreciate when I tell stories that aren't about dogs."
So she went about her plans for that day, a scuttering drone on the roof of an earthen burrow. She was friendly and polite with all, learning the name of every dog she passed and committing it to memory. The alphas seemed content to leave her to her work, trusting in her promises. This was for the best; if they had watched her, they might've seen the way she eroded at their power as she won the loyalty of the most important dogs in the pack one by one.
As part of her treaty, the dogs had wanted to give her one of the finest burrows, furnished with expensive wooden furniture from the surface and exotic-looking carpets. She had refused, insisting on a large, empty burrow at the entrance to an exhausted mine. The dogs could not know that she had already built an exterior entrance hidden away, and her drones could come and go without their knowledge. Except while charging in the sun, they were all hard at work in a stable cavern about two miles from the entrance, one only accessible via a rope ladder she had "accidentally" severed.
Beyond the rough wooden door was an entrance chamber she had furnished with the gifts they had insisted on giving her, chairs for reclining and a few carpets over the dirt floor. She gestured to the chair for her guest, since of course she had neither the need nor the ability to use it herself.
"You promised me a story, Simon."
He nodded. "Unfortunately, my father only ever remembered a few verses. You would need a pony library for the rest."
She nodded dismissively. "Yes, of course." She might do just that if what he told her included any evidence to suggest this Leo really was the missing Leonidas Eranus, the first of the tower to be sent into Equestria. Discovering what had happened to him would win her great glory indeed, even if the rest of her mission did not go well. "Do you think there's any chance he's still alive?"
Simon shook his head slowly. "I wish I could say so, Ambassador. But even though I do not know all the words, I know the poem is called the 'Last Charge of Leo.' Not only that, but it's very old. More than a thousand years, at least. I do not think Leo was an Alicorn, to live so long."
"He could have. Still, you had better tell me. Before we're interrupted."
Simon rose up onto his paws, leaning on his walking stick. "Forgive me, Ambassador. The poetry loses some of its structure when translated, and I'm fairly sure most pony songs were meant to be performed with an orchestra." She waved off the remark. "I believe the first part I remember begins on the fifth or sixth stanza." Finally the canine took a deep breath and began to recite. Simon's voice was raspy and feeble when he spoke. Not so when he sang.
"Pious Leo anticipated that inevitable conflict. He assembled the greatest of Equestria's warriors. A hundred from Cloudsdale, with helmets shining. A hundred from Canterlot, born mightiest wizards. Last, strongest of Celestia's foals, indomable earthborn. For twenty long summers they prepared, studying his otherworldly ways. Together in battle intractable, and knowing not terror and weakness."
He swayed, taking a deep breath. Bree didn't know the tune to which he sang, but she had to admire his ability to remain true to pitch with feeble aging lungs. "The only other stanza I remember is from the second book."
"Courageous Leo shirked not at the retreat of Canterlot’s own. 'Forward!' he bellowed. 'To the bridge!' His fearless ones galloped on behind, undaunted by unnumbered of draconic legions. Equestria's arm retreated, a stranger's phalanx came buttressing the Equestrian retreat. 'Our gods will not desert us!' champion's trumpet said. Onward came marshaled of draconic horrors. Yet unbroken he prepared his bow of fire and lightning. 'Celestia will protect us!'"
He swayed a little, then sat down. "I'm sorry Ambassador, but I don't remember the rest."
Bree's mind reeled with the implications of everything she had heard. She hungered for more, but she fought back her frustration, drowning her thirst for knowledge in the crystal rivers of home. She took a deep, simulated breath, then nodded. "Thank you, Simon. I believe finding the rest of that story has become very important to me. Tell me about the nearest libraries."