Celestia fidgeted as Cookie Dough examined Measure Legscye. This is going on for a bit longer than is socially comfortable, I think. And it's... weird. Why would it be necessary to comb out the unfortunate madpony's hair and check the comb for... what did she call them, superstrings? When the Weaver found one, she grinned and touched it to her tongue. Gross! "Yep, that's a keeper!" And then she seemed to toss the invisible mote into her own wild mane. What the hay? She looked over at Chancellor Bread Pudding, who smiled sympathetically, shrugging silently in keeping with the Weaver's demand for complete silence during this "potentially dangerous procedure." Apparently there was a risk of antimatter, whatever that was supposed to be, being emitted by the mane of the unbalanced novice Weaver, and that would be "very, very, very..." Cookie Dough had repeated the word at least seventeen times, "...bad."
Weavers... this is news to us unicorns. And to the pegasi too, unless they were withholding, and I don't think they were. She thought back to Strongwing's intimation that once in a while, the earth ponies appeared to be able to do things that simply weren't possible, to know things that were not knowable. He had an idea, but nothing specific. I wonder how long this has been a secret? Impressive, considering that it appears to be common knowledge among the Chancellery staff, at any rate, and that's a fair number of ponies. Hmm... maybe this won't be news to Princess Platinum. It's not like she's necessarily sharing all of her intelligence with Starswirl and me. In fact, I hope that she knows, and the Chancellor knows she knows, because otherwise we may not be allowed to leave. Yes, she could certainly do a lot of damage, but earth ponies and strong and hardy and given enough numbers, they could take her and Starswirl down. Perhaps their fearful behavior earlier was just to give her a false sense of confidence. But they certainly seem very nice.
Cookie Dough tossed the comb up into the air above Celestia's line of vision, and when she looked up it was just... gone. She looked over at Starswirl, who closed his eyes and shook his head in disbelief, muttering something about abuse of the Hoofenberg Uncertainty Principle. "Okie dokie! Or maybe that's Cookie Dough-key! Ha ha! All done! For now anyway, but I'll need to keep combing out her mane over the next few weeks to make sure we don't have an uncontrolled high energy event." She stopped for a moment, a look of pure mischief in her eyes, then spoke with relish. "I guess I have to groom her for her new position. Ha!" She exulted as the assembled ponies groaned.
Celestia recovered quickly. "I suppose that means we can't bring her with us back to Unicornia, at least until she doesn't pose an existential threat, right?" Cookie Dough nodded, smiling. "And it will be a while before she is able to communicate anything that we mere mortals can understand, correct?"
Cookie Dough started to nod again, then stopped and stared at Celestia, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Yeah... mortals."
Celestia blinked, nonplussed. "What? I was making a joke, sorry."
"Suuure you were." The eyeballs continued their scrutiny, bulging slightly from between slitted eyelids. Celestia looked around, mystified and somewhat worried. She was rescued by Chancellor Bread Pudding, who cleared her throat, distracting the Weaver.
"Cookie Dough, I'm sure she didn't mean anything by it. Of course, we have another problem. Equesse, you and Master Starswirl here are in possession of information about the existence and capabilities of earth pony Weavers. I won't mince words; ponies have been killed in the past in order to keep this information secret." Celestia swallowed as Starswirl's eyes widened. "But of course, it won't come to that in this case." She said something under her breath which may have been "If that were even possible," then continued out loud. "If all ponies, indeed all races on the planet, are under threat from these Wendigos, " Cookie Dough turned, smiling, and nodded at the Chancellor enthusiastically, "and our expert here confirms this, then we have no choice but to ally with you until the threat has been dealt with."
"Thank you Chancellor; we were hoping to secure such an alliance. In fact, Cookie Dough here managed to speed up our timetable as well as saving all of us." Celestia breathed a sigh of relief and smiled broadly. "I can't tell you how happy this makes me."
Bread Pudding nodded, smiling in return. "Necessity makes the best allies. However, as you have our deepest, darkest secret in hoof, I really need something in return. Several somethings." Pretty Smart leaned over and whispered in the Chancellor's ear. "Yes, yes, I'll ask about that too. Now, Equesse, there are some questions I have for you about the Battle of Riverside, where you made your debut, as it were. We have a fair amount of information from a variety of sources, and let me assure you, my earth pony informers are universal in their high opinion of you. You are known to be kind, honest and brave, and you are also well regarded by Platinum and the rest of her inner circle. You have something which we earth ponies see as being lacking in unicorns in general and by the unicorn nobility in particular. Humility. See? You are blushing furiously already." Celestia could feel her cheeks burning even as Starswirl smiled warmly at hearing that he was not alone in his estimation of her.
"I'm not really... I'm not a hero, if that is what they are saying. The battle was awful. I never want to see another one. I never want to hurt another pony as long as I live." Starswirl leaned over and stroked her mane as tears ran down her cheeks, and she turned and smiled at him. The blackened face of the mare hung for stealing foal formula swirled in her thoughts, as always when she recalled Riverside. For some reason, that one was the worst.
Bread Pudding smiled sadly and nodded. "The truly great do not see themselves as such, Celestia. And I realize it will be painful for you to recount the battle, but my intelligence is unclear as to how exactly you managed to win. All I heard was that a mage of great power defeated a much larger force of unicorn mercenaries, killing and wounding most of them and scattering the rest in an instant with a single spell. Some sort of mighty explosion. We know well that unicorns can beam magical power at targets, and skilled mages have more subtle spells, but we've never heard of a spell generating an explosion at a distance. What did you do?"
Her voice was hollow as she replied, "I did what I had to. It wasn't planned. The guards had brought barrels of caltrops which are used for crowd control and area denial, " she hoped she recalled the military terminology correctly, "and when we were pinned down and were being surrounded, I cast enchantments on two of the caltrops in the center of the barrel, polarized so that one carried a positive charge and the other a negative. I left the enchantments unenclosed, levitated the barrel over the enemy command post, and then pushed the two caltrops into direct contact." Cookie Dough winced. "The magical arcing vaporized the two caltrops, turning them into iron gas and most of the rest in the barrel into molten metal. The expansion of the gas in the enclosed space of the barrel created an explosion that sprayed the molten metal at high velocity in a radius of about 60 feet and threw caltrops on the outside of the barrel a quarter mile. They don't know exactly how many ponies I killed because there were so many body parts everywhere."
There was silence around the table until a slightly green Chancellor Bread Pudding swallowed loudly and said, "Thank you for that information."
Cookie Dough stared at her, amazed. "How much did the barrel weigh?"
"About three hundred pounds." The Weaver whistled.
"Yes, she's basically as powerful as the Grand Archmage when it comes to raw magical force." Starswirl patted her hoof and continued, "She sort of flattened an Academy Mage who tried to shut her up when she was in the sixth grade."
That seemed to revive her somewhat. "He got me angry, Swirly. Yelling at you like that... he was acting like a brute." She smiled and patted his hoof back, the horrors of the battle retreating to the back of her mind.
Pretty Smart piped up, "Why was he yelling at Starswirl?"
Celestia turned to face her. "He had just crafted a safe teleport spell and Obsidian Spark was trying to impress upon him how unsafe that was."
The gorgeous earth mare was confused. "Wait, what? How old was Starswirl when he figured out the teleport spell?"
The Equesse stroked her lover's beard. "Twelve, like me. He had just demonstrated it that morning when Obsidian showed up to collect him and take him to the Academy. He's the brains, I'm the brawn." She chuckled.
"You're just as smart as I am, honey. You just aren't as mathemagically inclined. You however, could overpower me, and I would be helpless. Utterly helpless." He grinned as a small growl escaped from his fillyfriend.
Pretty Smart was blushing when the Chancellor harrumphed. "Please, you're going to scandalize my assistant. We'll give you a room once you've answered a few more questions." Pretty Smart blushed even brighter at that, and Celestia had to admit to herself that if there was anypony she'd ever consider sharing Starswirl with, it would be this one. Life in Platinum's court had, after all, opened her eyes to certain things, particularly through conversations with the princess' gossip-laden mares-in-waiting. Perhaps fortunately, for all of Pretty Smart's intelligence, she was hopeless when it came to reading body language. Starswirl, however, raised an eyebrow, earning a scowl from his lover.
"Yes, yes, I'm sure Starswirl here was just trying to lighten the mood. So, what other questions have you?" Celestia focused on the serious business at hand, ignoring Starswirl's hoof under the table.
"Two more. First, we've heard some rumors about a giant lens that would be used to concentrate heat during the day, allowing crops to grow as they once did. Naturally, we are interested in this, but we've also heard that this will have a significant impact on freeholder contracts with cloudherders and rainfarmers. Could you expound on that?"
Starswirl raised his eyebrows at Celestia questioningly, and she nodded. The table lit up as Starswirl cast a series of illusions, recreating the presentation that they showed to the pegasi. Starswirl spoke and the earth ponies received the alarming information with a quiet stoicism, quite the opposite of the hysteria that greeted them in Stratopolis. The exception was Legscye Measure, who gazed at the illusion, smiling, muttering something about pixels, whatever they were.
Starswirl wound up the presentation with an animation showing the impact of the the coming winters first without and then with the lens. The glaciers built up on the table by year two without the lens, and cold seemed to permeate the room as the ponies around the table contemplated the end. Then with the lens, the first two years seemed almost normal, though the glaciers built up around the lands inhabited by ponies. By the third year, the ice crept in, and Bread Pudding couldn't help but notice that the ice built up faster the further away from Unicornia you were. By the fourth year, the freeholds were buried under twenty feet of snow. By the fifth year, it was a hundred feet and the lens, now thicker and concentrating heat in a smaller area, was barely able to keep half of Unicornia itself unfrozen. By the sixth year, it was over.
"So... five years, and only three years for the freeholds?" she asked glumly. Pretty Smart was stricken, and even Cookie Dough seemed subdued.
Starswirl nodded soberly. "That's the best we can do; solar output is dropping too fast. According to our model of star lifespans, the sun is close to the start of a red giant phase. It's almost out of fuel."
"So the Wendigos aren't causing this? It's just natural?" Pretty Smart was utterly dismayed. "So even if we work together to drive off the Wendigos, what's the point? What can we accomplish except to draw out the end?"
Celestia cleared her throat. "We don't know, but we'll have more time to think of something. And we'll all work together. The unicorn that came up with the idea for the lens was in prison. Princess Platinum has ordered the Academy to entertain any suggestion from anypony."
"Except maybe from a darkfoal," muttered Starswirl.
"A darkfoal? What's that?" Bread Pudding titled her head as Pretty Smart covered her mouth in horror. "Smarty?"
"A legend. A myth. A scary story from thousands of years ago. But if they actually did exist, they'd be the natural allies of the Wendigos."
Celestia stared at the archivist. "Why?" Her voice was small and frightened.
"In the Hyperboran Codex, darkfoals are known for opening portals. Mostly to Tartarus, but elsewhere as well, and they do so in order to make contracts with demonic forces. They seek power, long life, forbidden knowledge... a darkfoal is a pony willing to make great sacrifices for personal gain, and frequently that involves sacrificing the lives of others. The tales speak of unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies, but also other species of ponies; mythological ones like sea ponies and breezies and even stranger things called crystallines and changelings, so you can see how the Codex is considered by scholars to be a mythological bestiary and not a history." She lowered her hoof slowly to the tabletop. "It seems like an odd sort of joke to make, Master Starswirl."
Celestia smiled grimly. "He wasn't joking. A darkfoal tried to murder me in the Academy a few years ago. The archmage stopped him and he jumped into a Tartarus Gate."
Cookie Dough nodded thoughtfully. "Makes sense. I'm not the only pony who can read the warp and woof of the universe, you know. There are a great many threads that cross with yours, Celestia. Cut that thread, and a large chunk of the fabric could unravel. That would create opportunities for certain... entities. They could move through the hole left in the fabric. That would be bad." For once, she seemed totally serious.
Celestia noticed that Starswirl was staring at Pretty Smart with his mouth hanging open in amazement. "Swirly?" He didn't respond, so she tapped him on his forehead. "Anypony home?"
He blinked, then said in a shaking voice, "You've seen the Hyperborean Codex? You've read the Hyperborean Codex!?"
Pretty Smart swallowed, still trying to take everything in, and responded, "Well, yes, it's in the archive. Do you want to look at it?"
"The Grand Archmage would give her left forehoof for a copy." His eyes bugged out of his head and his skin darkened, his bells jingling with pent up energy. "The last copy we had at the Academy was lost in a fire six hundred years ago. So yes, I'd like to see it now, please." His intensity was... disturbing. I wish he'd get that worked up about me, thought Celestia. That must be a sexy codex. She giggled quietly as Starswirl practically vibrated.
The Chancellor held up a hoof. "Let's get back to this question of darkfoals, attempted murder, Tartarus Gates and the Wendigos, please. And then, back to the rain issue. Could the darkfoal and the Wendigos be connected?" Starswirl shook his head to clear it and seemed to get control of himself. Barely.
Celestia nodded, steepling her hooves in front of her muzzle. "Certainly. The timing could be coincidental, but a darkfoal, who can flee this world for Tartarus, and who knows where else, could escape a dying star. Perhaps he made a deal with the Wendigos to bring them here in return for his own survival."
Starswirl looked sour, having been denied his book. "Heh. Maybe we should make a deal with some interstellar horrors of our own to save the sun," he said sarcastically. The, two remarkable things happened; Cookie Dough started twitching uncontrollably, but not all of her, just her mane. And Measure Legscye looked straight at him, perfectly lucid, and smiled.
She opened her mouth to speak. "Something like that." Then Cookie Dough launched herself at the seamstress and tackled her, knocking her off her chair.
"No, no, no! Bad apprentice! You have to be mysterious and inscrutable! It's the rules!" The Weaver looked particularly deranged, her eyes bulging and her mane dancing to the beat of some unheard music.
Measure smiled up beatifically at her, despite the rough handling. "Sorry, I'm new."
"Right. What can the observer know about a particle?" The senior madpony continued to hold her apprentice lunatic down on the floor.
"Position or momentum, but never both. The degree of precision with which one property is measured is inversely correlated to the degree of precision with which the other property may be measured." Measure smiled as Cookie nodded. The rest of the ponies at the table waited patiently for this Weaver moment to pass.
"And what happens if they know precisely both properties simultaneously?"
"They can't know both." Measure looked confused. "It's impossible."
"They can if you tell them." Cookie Dough smiled patiently while Measure absorbed this.
"But how can we know both if it isn't possible?" Measure's eyes crossed with concentration.
"Because, silly, we're impossible too! Wait a second..." Cookie reached her hoof into Measure's mane and pulled out what appeared to be a rubber chicken. "Oh, very nice! This will definitely be useful someday! I'll put it someplace safe. You're emitting all sorts of cool stuff, aren't you?" She seemed to stuff the chicken back into the apprentice's mane.
"That tickles!" Measure laughed loudly and somewhat maniacally.
"Alright apprentice, you have to start taking your impossibility seriously, understand? You are not to speak to anypony except for me, got it? Not until you can explain to me, in the context of harmonic analysis, why one cannot at the same time localize the value of a function and its Foalier transform. Got it?"
Starswirl's brow wrinkled. "Foalier transform? Are you two actually talking about applied quantum archanics?"
Measure turned her head and opened her mouth to answer, but Cookie Dough shouted, "Zip it!" before she could speak. Her hoof moved quickly across Measure's mouth, there was a very odd sound, and something metal, sort of like a strip of very fine chainmail with a metal tab hanging off one end, could be seen closing her lips together. Measure made some outraged, muffled sounds, but then she nodded and fell silent. "That's better. Now let's get back up, this is undignified." Cookie Dough helped her back into her chair and sat down. "Alright, shall we continue our little discussion?" Mesasure sat next to her, her face a mask of resignation, the odd contraption dangling the glinting metal tab from the corner of her sealed mouth.
Celestia's mouth hung agape. "How?"
Chancellor Bread Pudding just waved it away. "Don't even ask. We gave up trying to figure it out centuries ago. Now, about the rain contracts..."
"Madam Chancellor," interrupted Pretty Smart, "given the gravity of the situation, I think it's safe to say that all contracts and other commercial agreements will have to be suspended until the emergency is concluded. Or we're all dead, whichever happens first. We need a command economy."
Bread Pudding have her archivist a sidelong glance. "The freeholders would string me up like a piñata and beat me like it was their cuteceañera." Celestia and Starswirl looked at each other, mystified by the reference.
"You could activate the Emergency Powers clause. Then they'd have to do as their told. At least for six months until the mandatory vote, and then they'd be committed anyway."
"And after six months, when I'm no longer the Chancellor? When Dirtflanks takes over and calls for an indictment against me for malgovernance and other high crimes? All the farmers who lost on their existing contracts will line up to take a bite out of me."
"When and if Minister Worthyshanks were to challenge and win the office, you would still have friends in the Holdstead. Do you really think they could convict with two thirds? And does it really matter, since the alternative is arguing about it until it's too late?"
Bread Pudding sighed. "You're right, as usual. You prepare the edict and I'll prepare for the fallout. Now, Celestia, what about if it takes more than two years to figure out how to fix the sun? I saw what happens in year three; we'll be refugees by then. Where will we live? What will we do for food when the freeholds are under ice?"
Celestia smiled. "In year three, you can start moving to my estate. Fifteen hundred acres are being farmed right now, but I have four thousand acres of fallow pasture and eight thousand or so of woodland and swamp."
"And you expect us to become your vassals? We're the free ponies; we're not very good at bowing and scraping." Cookie Dough nodded and Measure Legscye tilted her head, nodding as well, as the metal dangling thing closing her mouth jingled quietly.
"You can have the land outright. I'll keep title to the land currently being farmed, but I'll sign the rest over to your freeholders. You just have to be willing to feed unicorns and pegasi with the produce."
The Chancellor was taken aback. "Now, that is generous."
Celestia shrugged. "It's not like I'm doing anything with it anyway."
"We'll need to start clearing the forest and draining the swamp right away if we want to plant in year three." Pretty Smart chewed becomingly upon her lower lip. "But even if we can get everything plowed and planted in time, that's only about ten percent of the arable land in the freeholds. It's a good start, but we'll need a lot more. Are the rest of the unicorn nobility going to be so generous?"
"Princess Platinum said she'll give up half her demesne, fifty thousand acres. That's sixty two thousand acres; more than half way."
"Very good. But what about the other fifty eight thousand?" The Chancellor glanced at Starswirl who was still staring at the Weavers.
"Oh, well, that's sort of why we need Measure. She can help us find who the traitors are. Then Platinum can cut off their heads and give you their land." Starswirl didn't stop to think about his words; he was obviously still caught up in the implications of applied quantum archanics. Celestia, however, stared in horror.
"I wasn't told about that, darling. It seems a bit... ruthless?" Starswirl recovered himself and blushed.
"Oh, well... sorry, but you did know what was going to happen to the traitors if they didn't turn themselves in. Princess Platinum announced it at your award ceremony. She just mentioned to me that if the earth ponies needed it as an inducement for their cooperation, I could offer it."
"And you decided not to tell me?" She looked hurt, rather than upset.
"The princess suggested that I not talk about it in front of you. Besides, we were supposed to have identified the plotters before we started negotiating with the earth ponies. It wasn't like we planned to use the land as a lever to get them to help us get the information out of Measure." He smiled weakly. "Sorry, I'm sort of improvising here."
"So, we help you find the traitors behind the Riverside assault and we can have their estate or estates, eh?" The Chancellor eyed the apprentice Weaver. "What information do you need out of her?"
Celestia, still looking hard at Starswirl, reached into her torc and pulled out the purse from the hidden pocket. "We need to know who she sold that to."
Cookie Dough shook her head. "Nothing doing. She's not saying anything to anypony except me until I say otherwise."
Pretty Smart banged her hoof on the table in frustration. "So YOU ask her!"
The Weaver crossed her eyes. "Duh! Hold on, we need some privacy." She pulled out a palette and paintbrush from her quantum mane, quickly painted a door in the wall next to her, opened it and dragged Measure in behind her. The door slammed with a squishy sound as the paint continued to drip to the floor.
Starswirl and Celestia looked at the wall, slowly turned to look at each other, their mouths hanging open, turned to Bread Pudding and found they couldn't say anything. The Chancellor leaned back in her chair, put her forehooves behind her head, kicked her rearhooves up on the table and said, "Welcome to my world!"