Stargazer squinted and shook his head a little, looking at Celestia. He turned his gaze to me, to her, to me again.
“Um... Shady?” He used the nick from the times when we had first met online, quite some time before I began looking for a flat — which he had just had available at the time.
“Hey, Stargazer.” I shrugged helplessly. “It's... unexplainable.” I paused for a moment. “I'll cover the damages, though.”
He was silent for a while.
“So you're moving out?” He looked over all the boxes scattered over the room.
“Not breaking the lease, though, if that's okay with you.”
“Umm...” He looked at the room, which was currently in bad need of renovation. Hardwood floor and plaster walls damaged by hooves, the smell of mare urine coming from the kitchen sink, one of the glass shades on the chandelier missing... I could see the landlord and the friend were fighting a battle in his head.
Then his gaze stopped on Celestia's head – on the device attached to her halter — and I saw his eyes going wide open and his breath catching in his chest. It took him three seconds to break the spell. “Uh, yes. Sure. No problem.”
He sat on the bed next to me. We were silent for a while.
“I don't mean to pry...” he spoke quietly, “...but would you mind trying to explain the unexplainable?”
I looked to Celestia. She gave me a tiny nod.
“Can I count on secrecy in exchange?”
“Sure.” After a second of pause, he realized that wasn't entirely enough. “I'll think something up to keep the parents and the aunt satisfied. You can count on me. Just... try not to force me in a situation where I'd have to lie to my girlfriend, okay?”
I pulled the laptop out from one of the boxes and put it on top of a stack of boxes in front of us, opening the lid, turning it so that both he and Celestia could see the screen. After a while of dehibernating, the desktop came up, and the dasher interface was in the corner. The letters floated, the cursor finding the words.
“Hello. My name is Celestia.”
“Hello?” He answered to the screen.
Celestia snorted. He turned his head to her. “Oh, right, hello. Celestia.” She nickered quietly in response, then she proceeded to write.
“I'm stranded in this strange world, in a body lacking more than two thirds of my abilities. I want to return home.”
“I... don't know what I can do to help, but I'll help however I can.”
“Why?”
“Why?” he repeated.
“Why helping me?”
He turned his head to her. His expression was at first indignant, then shifted to cheerful, and finally he threw his arms up in the air. “Because that's awesome!”
* * *
“Give me five of these small round things with a gap in the side,” said Stargazer.
I dug in the box. “These?”
“Uhhh... nope, I don't think so. They seem thicker in the picture.”
“Oh, I've got thicker ones, too. Five? I see only four...”
“Oh, right, I've got one right here.”
The charm of Ikea furniture.
Celestia was lying on a mattress, reading a book – a university script on inorganic chemistry; she had mail-ordered a few hundred various university scripts. Meanwhile Stargazer and I tried to make the room habitable.
The new house was still out of use: the roof was leaking, the wooden window frames were rotten, and the paint was coming off the walls. But for now, I'd live in the barn – which was currently a very welcoming place. The renovation firm had done an excellent job. The long, communal farm style building was split into two parts: one side made into a stable for four horses, clean, spacious and with all basic necessities of a stable, including a "shower room" for horses. The other half was adapted into a living space, with a big living room, a bathroom, a kitchen, two bedrooms, a loft and an enclosed porch area wide enough so that Celestia would have time to hide in the “stable” while I'd “receive the guests”. Normally, the “stable part” was just to provide plausible deniability, and a WC for Celestia, while in reality, the 'guest bedroom' with a king-size bed was all hers.
Step by step, we finished assembling the computer desk and set up the PC and the router, which was connected to local fiber from a small ISP and three wireless broadband backups. We assembled some more of the furniture, then finally, Stargazer decided it was getting late and he'd need to return home. I got one of the bodyguards stationed in the decrepit house to hitch us a ride, him – home, me – shopping. Food for me, a few beers, oatmeal, a bag of apples, a couple pieces of cake – Celestia's body seemed to tolerate it well, so I was letting her get more, though still not enough to let her gorge on it. On the way back, I chatted with the bodyguard some. I could say he was quite satisfied with the job, but the salary was sub-par. I promised to look into the issue.
We parted ways by the old house, where the security men established their temporary “base of operations” (I promised to make sure to make it more livable), and I stopped to take “my new estate” in.
The asphalt road to the village ran through a forested valley between two ranges of hills. A small side road led through a bridge over a brook to a clearing surrounded by beech and oak forests from all sides on the gently sloping foot of the steep hill. The house and the barn, along with the scarce ruins of a wooden hay barn that had burned to the ground half a century ago, occupied one corner of it, the clearing extending down towards the brook. A narrow forest road led to more fields above the line of the forest, crags of white limestone sticking out from between the trees and above the crest of the hills.
I looked at the sky. Away from the city lights, I smiled at the sight of hundreds of stars and the full moon. Still, the shopping bags in my hands began feeling heavy, so I headed... 'home', I thought fondly. My thoughts went to the future. When Celestia went back home – her real home – I'd buy a couple horses, give them comfort and safety here, and take up drawing in earnest. Still on a leave of absence from work. Should I resign?
“Celestia, I've brought cake!” I shouted from the door, half-expecting her to drop whatever she was doing and come running. Only silence answered. The door was unlocked, even though I had locked it on my way out. The living room was empty. I checked Celestia's bedroom, the stable part. I called her name again, and there was no reply.
I dropped the bags and ran to the decrepit house, up the stairs, through the veranda, into the room where the security team set camp around a gas lamp. I was panicked more than a little. “Where is she?” I gasped out to the circle sitting around the lamp.
“On the hill, up there,” came from a dark doorway leading to another room. I followed the voice. One of the security guys with binoculars by his eyes stood in the darkness, by the open window, looking towards the hill. “Running like the wind through the fields.”
I gasped with relief. “Thanks. Good work.”
With my heart calming down, I headed towards the steep forest road up the hills. Soon I was gasping hard, climbing the slope through the gloomy tunnel of trees, but it didn't take long to reach the upper edge of the forest, and as the road leveled a little, I got my breath back.
At last, I crested the pass between two hills, and the view opened onto lights of the village in the next valley. I stopped and scanned the fields for any sight of Celestia. And she was there, on a hill to my left, sitting the way dogs do, gazing at the sky.
I walked through the grass towards her, and she only momentarily turned her head to me, returning her gaze to the stars.
I sat by her in the wind-swept, yellowed grass, white rocks dotting the landscape. I followed her gaze. The moon.
I recalled her story, her talk of her home, the magical land. Her being the princess of the day, raising the sun in the morning and putting it down to sleep in the evening. And her sister...
“Thinking about Luna?” I asked.
She gave an almost imperceptible nod.
“We'll get you back home. I don't know yet, how, but we will.”
She nodded gently, then she turned her head away from me.
“If you'd prefer to be left alone, I can go.”
She turned her head back to me, then after a moment of stillness, she hung it low. Her long mane flowed over her eyes.
I shifted closer to her and leaned into her side, putting my hand over her back. She leaned back into me. She gazed at the moon for a while, then she turned back to me. I could see she wanted to say something, but the way her throat was built wouldn't allow the right sounds to come out, so instead she just nuzzled my face. I stroked her cheeks and felt that they were moist.
“Hey, don't worry. Things are looking up at last. We've got resources, we're safe for the moment, you've got a decent temporary home, some allies, and then there's even some cake waiting for you.”
She gave me a reproachful look, but then she whickered silently and stood up. She gestured with her head to her back.
“You want to give me a ride?”
She whickered and crouched to let me climb her back more easily. Then, as I settled and held her mane, she walked down the hill, mindful not to let me fall.
* * *
"So you are willing to take the job?"
Four nodding heads answered my question.
"My mom is a difficult person. That's why I'm hiring the four of you. That's why I'm paying double the average salary for what is essentially a quarter-time job. That's why I'm allowing flexible hours and paying for top notch private health insurance. In exchange, I expect you will suffer her moods without protests. If she wants to build embankments around the garden, you go seek a contractor. If she wants to go on a train trip to Vladivostok, you look up the train schedule. If she fires any of you, you go to Dawid, pick up your severance and find a replacement. Is that clear?"
Four nods.
Dawid gave them the contracts to sign. Yep, we’d got on first-name terms with the lawyer and the security boss. A little too many cases to "mister" each other all the time.
I signed the four contracts in the employer's space.
Ugh. At last. Convincing her to agree to that... never again.
* * *
I looked at the pile of shoppings stacked on the side of the room. Besides the common groceries, there was yesterday's shopping list made by Celestia.
Three blenders.
A kitchen scale and a jewelry scale.
40 carats worth of chrysoberyls, small gems, no inclusions.
A kilogram bag of of potassium chloride (diet salt).
2x5 sheet of polyethylene foil, sturdy.
A single bathroom tile (terracotta), 30x30cm, with a custom print, a fancy mandala pattern.
100 medium-sized zip-loc bags.
Peppermint, fresh, potted plant.
Spirits (ethanol), 95% pure, 0.5 liter.
Four large syringes.
School chalk, a box.
Gearbox oil (synthetic), 0.5 liter.
A box of toothpicks.
Sticker labels, a sheet.
Waterproof marker.
Seven small ceramic bowls, white.
Grilling charcoal, a bag.
“Can you explain whatever you intend to do with that?”
“Try if magic works.”
“Want to share details?”
“Theory of self-focusing mandalas? Three years of study once you know basic magic theory, which is another year. That thing here” — she nodded towards the pattern on the tile, a circle filled with intricate design of branching and twining lines — “is one of the easiest. It compresses charcoal into diamond.”
“Nice. Just tell me what to do.”
“Bring kitchen salt and vinegar from the kitchen. Then label the blenders #1, #2 and #3. Put chrysoberyls into blender #1”
I stood up from the armchair and yelped. DOMS, Muscle fever. My whole body was aching after yesterday's exercise. Gritting my teeth, I limped towards the kitchen. If I was to lose that belly, I would. I could afford a good diet, I had enough time, I had the motivation — running with Celestia each morning around the meadows — so, all in all, no pain, no gain.
* * *
“That line won't do. It's far too uneven. Scratch it, wash with ethanol and do again.”
“I'll never get it right. Look, it's four hours and I’ve barely got maybe a tenth of the mandala. And when do we begin to add other components? The ones that can't mix?”
“I have seen video of monks pouring far more intricate mandalas with colorful sand. You work with stiff paste, much easier to shape.”
“Well, I'm no monk and I'm all thumbs. Look, what if there were grooves in that tile? The mandala embossed, and not just drawn? Does it need to be terracotta?”
“No, just something fireproof. Wouldn't you still mix them up?”
“We could get stencils of sheet plastic on top, only allowing given components into the right grooves.”
“How would you make grooves like that?”
“A CNC milling machine. We could get it done in a sheet of brass, seven millimeters thick. The stencils can be made at any advertizing agency with a cutting plotter.”
Celestia pulled youtube onto the screen and found a video of a CNC mill in action for a while.
“Oh yes. That would do nicely. I could really use such a machine back home. Will you take care of that?”
“Right on it.” I loaded the webpage of a local major print house that did embossing and fancy prints. It was one of Tresher's many businesses, interconnected in a bizzarre web of cross-dependencies with the sole purpose of dodging taxes; I used to work at that print house, in the same room as a guy working for a paint-making company and a designer from an architecture design office, all Tresher's businesses. I seriously wondered how the riding school fit into his swindle landscape. Probably a claim of providing equine-assisted therapy services to handicapped employees to receive government funding for their workplaces. Not that they'd ever see the money or enjoy any actual benefits.
I composed the email and attached the files, then a basic description of what was to be done, and sent it out. Then I called their number.
“Hello. I just sent an order for an engraving. Could you make it express? Best if it's today afternoon. I know the queue, I'm paying double and tell the CNC engineer he'll get a personal bonus for me for overtime if he lets me skip the queue... okay, look, you'll get a nice bonus too if you do this for me, alright? Just send me a rough quote so that I know how much to take. Paid in cash when I pick it up. Advance payment? Okay, that would be twenty-five hundred?” I opened the banking page and began typing the target account. "Express transfer sent. When can I show up for it? Three PM? Okay, two-fifty."
Celestia just snorted at me as I began looking for a place to get the stencils cut in PVC. She trotted to the wall safe, unlocking it through the computer first, and before I finished the order (plus the “express” call) I had a bundle of high-denomination notes on the table.
Then I saw her open up Google, and she began shopping for a CNC milling machine.
“Look up some 3D printers while you're at it.” I sent her a smile. “There are powder printers, I believe we could get one to print such mandalas directly.”
Imagine a horse in state of glee. Now make it double.
* * *
I looked at the pattern filled with colorful pastes. It was inert. It looked very pretty, the little food coloring making different powders stand out more, but it did nothing.
“Maybe it worked but we don't know it?”
“You'd know if it worked. Maybe magic does not work in this world.”
“Or maybe I missed a spot. Or maybe you made a mistake in the mandala pattern.”
She began examining the slab of brass, comparing it to her notes on the screen. She pointed out a spot on the screen where two lines of different colors came very close together. I peered at the respective spot through a magnifying glass.
“Yep,” I said. “I see green specks on the white side. They aren't supposed to mix.”
I scraped the offending place with a toothpick and wiped it clean with an ethanol-soaked cloth. I reapplied the right paste on the tip of a toothpick.
A line of sparks ran around the edge, and I jumped back.
“Still not right.” Celestia was checking the pattern again. She pointed a spot with a pencil in her mouth.
I noticed a small discontinuity in the line of paste where she pointed.
“We should have used powder, but you wouldn't find enough chrysoberyls to redo the ingredients around here.”
I squeezed the bits of thick paste together.
The whole pattern lit up. Eeerie, aurora-like smudges of light shone upwards with various colors. The middle of the pattern glowed so brightly I had to look away – and then the light died, and as I turned back to the slab, the grooves were empty, and a flawless diamond, half a centimeter big and perfectly cut, sat in the very middle of the pattern, casting colorful reflections onto the brass below.
“Magic!” I exclaimed, throwing my arms up in the air.
I turned, and I could see Celestia crying. I hugged her.
* * *
Celestia stomped lightly, calling my attention. I switched the stove off, leaving the pot with vegetable stew, and headed to the room. She nodded to the screen.
“Quonset Huts.” The sceen displayed a half-cylindrical structure of corrugated sheet metal with a semi-circular front. The company boasted low prices and rapid deployment.
“Do we need one?”
The dasher interface whirred to life. “Two. One here, one remote.”
“Barn for hay?”
“Officially. If fact, lab.”
“What do you plan to develop?”
“Beacon. Call home for aid.”
“The building shouldn't be a problem, though getting the permission to build may take a while.”
“Take your time. The other part certainly will.”
“What's the other part?”
She switched the tabs. Jewelers, rubies. Ruby mines. Ruby wholesale, natural rubies, synthetic rubies, corundum.
“Need 30kg or more of natural ones.”
“Big ones?”
“Dust.”
“We still don't have enough money?”
She snorted and opened a calculator. It would be about $300,000 if she used small cut gems. The dust would be significantly cheaper, but, as she explained, obtaining that amount of pure dust of natural rubies would be difficult.
“So the problem is?”
“Nobody has that many in one place. I must order from multiple sources. Logistics, customs, security, etc. Handling it takes time.”
“So... I'll handle the barn. How remote should the other one be? Peru? Australia?”
“Remote from settlements. Nobody in 10km radius and accessible to us.”
“Where would we find a totally-uninhabited 20km-diameter circle of land in Europe?” I scratched my head. “Belarus? Maybe somewhere in Slovakia. No, that's unlikely. Norway or Finland, but they’re far away. The Chernobyl exclusion zone isn’t really accessible... Other than the sea, I don't think...”
“Sea is good. Scratch barn, get ship.”
“Any requirements?”
“Barn-sized hold, junk. Destroyed in the process. Small crew, small vessel to evacuate.”
“A tugboat with a barge?”
“Sounds good.”
She looked to me, ears perked joyfully, then her expression soured.
“Hey, what's wrong?”
“I miss my wings. Good for hugging.”
“You have wings?! You haven't told me! I thought everyone in Equestria is a pony!”
She activated the browser and opened DeviantArt. She entered “winged unicorn” into the search box. The images appeared, and she scrolled a bit, picking out one. Two mares, the bigger one white, with wings, golden torc and tiara, golden boots, an image of the Sun adorning her flank, where my Celestia had the yellow stain that wouldn't come off. Her mane flowed in the wind with pastel colors. The other one was shorter, dark blue, a silver crescent on a blob of black covering her flank. Her wings and horn were smaller too, and her blue mane sparkled with stars. A small black tiara and a matching torc with a crescent moon completed the image.
“I commissioned it,” she wrote. “I pondered a print, but I found out by human standards this is considered cheesy.”
“You're beautiful. And your sister is cute.”
She snorted loudly, a reaction which I learned to recognize as laughter.
“She'd hate you forever for that comment.”
“Must be frustrating to be the younger sister forever.”
There was sadness in Celestia's eyes again when she turned to me. “You've got no idea,” appeared on the screen. “And now she is alone to rule. Her ancient wish granted. I doubt she is happy about that.”
Celestia activated the browser with DeviantArt again. “Twilight Sparkle” appeared in the search box.
“Now that name is cheesy,” I said.
The image loaded. I gazed at the purple mare with a neatly trimmed mane.
“My faithful student. She is a genius.”
“And charming too.”
“That she is. If anypony can help me, it's her.”
“Celestia, these walls look awfully bare, and no matter what other people might think, I like these images very much. So...”
The cursor moved to the “Order Prints” button.
* * *
I observed the next shift of security arriving, talking with those going home, exchanging greetings and jokes. Soon, the previous shift left. I recalled my talk with the guy who took me shopping on the first night.
“Tia, would you consider a raise for our guards?”
She tipped her head.
“They receive little above the minimal salary and they are risking their lives for us.”
She turned to the computer and picked through bookkeeping documents. Oh, yes, the owner would pocket all the significant profit while the crew never saw a bonus.
Several adjustments, a long overdue raise for all employees, and then redirecting the (variable) owner's profit in its entirety to the staff, as bonuses, proportional to the surplus of given month.
I heard a car engine, and I walked to the door to peek outside. The barn provided nice privacy, but most of the tiny windows under the rafters were just about impossible to reach. I made a mental note to get some cameras installed.
I recognized the 4x4 with a logo of a horse on the hood. The National Equestrian Association.
“Hey, Celestia. Change into your best fancy halter. You're about to get a legal citizenship!”
She trotted up to me with a blue halter in her teeth. I unbuckled and removed the yellow with the controller she wore and put the blue one on her.
“Try to behave the horse way,” I said, straightening out her halter. She snorted and blew me a raspberry.
We headed outside through the stable door, and I greeted the elder clerk, who walked towards us using a wooden walking stick.
“Hello to you, sir. So this is the lady we are to register today?”
“Yes. I'd like to have all the paperwork for her in order.”
“Yes, you told me over the phone. That's odd though, she's a fine specimen. Definitely not a slaughter stock.”
“If she was stolen, I would not try to register her, would I? It would make locating her easy, just by checking the biometrics in the database...”
“And if she was, and you don't know, you might get charged with fencing stolen goods.”
“And she would return to her rightful home. In this situation, I'd maybe get a fine and probation if I'm very unlucky. I can accept that.”
“It still boggles my mind why would anyone send such a fine horse to slaughter.”
“I have my suspicion. A big wallet and a bigger ego. I believe the previous owner wanted her dead for sure, so he got rid of the paperwork. She'd go to the seedy kind of slaughter that can circumvent that, and nobody would want her on the legal market without paperwork. She was very lucky I was in the right place at the right time.”
“Tresher.” The clerk said the name like an obscenity. “Too bad the president of the association is on his leash. I'll try to keep this paperwork hush-hush. Let's get to work.”
He raised his walking stick and pulled on its lower part, as if it concealed a rapier. But instead of a rapier, there was a metal bar with a scale, and another that swung sideways on a spring-loaded hinge. He set the device next to Celestia and retracted the metal part into the wooden “scabbard” until the horizontal bar rested on her withers. He raised the whole thing without letting the metal slide against the wood.
“One hundred and fifty-three centimeters.”
He folded the device back into the neat walking stick and wrote the figure on a clipboard.
“What is her name?”
I looked at her. She gave me a tiny nod. “Celestia,” I said.
“Parentage?” he asked while scribbling the previous answer.
“Unknown.”
“Now that's a huge pity. It's clear to me she's a fine Arabian mare, but I must write in 'N.N./N.N' like for a common village crossbreed.”
“I don't need her to be expensive. I need her to be safe. Vaccinations, authority to take her back in case of theft, being in the clear in case of some control.”
“You might want to look into getting some fences if you don't want the struggle with seeking her and proving she's yours.”
“That's not really my worry. She won't run off.”
“How do you know? Bolting from a stray dog, scared off by thunder...”
Celestia stepped to me and put her chin on my shoulder. I held her, brushing her nose with my hand.
“I just know.”
He smiled at the display of tenderness. “But still, horses are easily spooked.” He reached into his pocket.
Suddenly, he drew out a plastic bag, waving it in front of Celestia's face.
Unimpressed, she grabbed the bag with her teeth and she pulled it out of his grip. Then she snapped her teeth right in front of his face. The effect was immediate. He fell on his back, and she ran in an elegant piaff around him.
I helped him up, giving him my hand, then I handed him his notepad, ballpoint and staff.
“Ow. Serves me right,” he said, trying to stand up from the grass, rubbing his aching back. “So, never mind actual need, but if you get a visit from some organization, they will make the lack of fence an issue. Just a friendly word of advice.”
“Thanks. I guess pulling the metallized tape between the trees would suffice? Pretending it's electrified?”
“Absolutely. Now, back to work. I suppose you don't know her birth date?"
I shrugged.
"And age? Even an estimate?”
"Not a clue."
“I can tell her age roughly from her teeth.” He stepped up to Celestia. She made a step back.
“Celestia, please, let mister here see your teeth.”
She stepped up to him and let him part her lips and peer at her teeth.
“That's odd.” He frowned. “She is definitely an adult, but she has the teeth of a foal. I mean, they are fully developed, but there's always a discoloration, a kind of a hole that grows through the whole life of a horse. Her teeth look like she was born a month ago. There's no more than a tiny dot on each tooth.”
Celestia looked at me, with concern.
“What? You want me to brush your teeth?”
She nodded.
I sighed.
“You two are one of the weirdest pairs I've ever met.” The clerk smirked. “She looks five, and that's what I'm going to write. Let's get to whirlology.”
He stood in front of Celestia and began noting down in a chart any whirls, tufts or bald spots where her hair would converge or diverge. She turned sideways to him as he finished with her forehead, exposing her neck, as per the chart in his clipboard.
“I don't know what you are,” he muttered, “but if you want to pass for a horse, you need to work on your acting skills.”
* * *
A loud whinny woke me up, along with a hoof knocking on the wall rapidly. I jerked myself out of the bed and rushed out, meeting Celestia just stepping off her bedroom. She neighed, pointing with her head towards the direction of the bridge. I ran up to to the stairs to the loft and peered out through the window.
A couple SWAT vans rolled onto the clearing. One of the security went outside to meet them as the SWAT poured out, armed and dangerous. At the sight of three assault rifles aimed at him, the security guy just raised his hands. A few seconds later, he was on the ground, the SWAT officer pinning him down and putting handcuffs on his wrists.
“The police have arrived in force!” I whispered. “What do we do? Should we run? Hide?”
Celestia shook her head and just gestured towards my bedroom.
“Surrender, just like that?”
She nodded.
I walked up to her and hugged her neck. She embraced me between her hoof and her chin. She neighed, then she turned away, trotting towards the stable part.
I went to my room and proceeded to take my clothes on. My phone, my wallet, shoes. By the time the door burst in, I was already lying on the floor, face down, with my hands behind my neck. I think I threw them off a little with that.