//------------------------------// // Impossible - Part I: A Bit Of Hope // Story: Dawn Of The Silver Sun // by Nameless Narrator //------------------------------// A month later, winter was already in full blast. The white spires of Canterlot turned even whiter with snow settling on the flatter ones, and the castle grew livelier and livelier. End of the year balls, guard parties every few days, and other events organized by those who didn't want to spend their time outside in the snow lit the castle from the inside. Straw had just come back from his afternoon patrol and found out, much to his delight and surprise, that Leo and Fortune were out for a night in the city. It was their fourth, and it seemed that Fortune's former problems with Leo were disappearing at a rapid pace. With no plans for the evening, Straw decided on visiting Contradiction in case the 'not toilet diary anymore' divulged any new information. They had gotten one during the past month, but it didn't say anything beyond the return and growth of the Vigil. The princesses had issued an official statement in the newspapers that the Vigil was an organization to be avoided, and that any information about it should be brought to the authorities. It didn't help in any way, but it was the only thing they had going for them. Straw had never expected to be a part of a funeral, much more of three so close to one another. Much like Heavy Hoof's, Cromach's and Choking Darkness' funerals were filled with recruits and other guards, the princesses, Shadowstep's changeling squad, and several dreamlings accompanied by queen Guiding Light. With sargeant Cross now the head of the Silver Sun, Straw was now officially off the possible hit list and could breathe a little easier. Not counting Nightmare still being inside him and laughing ominously from time to time. So now, stuck in Canterlot, Straw had only three friends he could really rely on, and no tangible goal to strive for. Still, it was incredibly important to remain vigilant and on the lookout for any signs of danger. That's why he was now in front of Contradiction's room, ready to knock. A pained groan from the inside stopped him. "Connie?" he asked carefully. Strangely enough, the door didn't answer. Perhaps its name wasn't Connie. The low-pitched noises coming from the inside didn't stop, though. A more high-pitched squeak made Straw believe it was time for action rather than guessing. The images of Contradiction being choked by Observer tentacles coming through the window crossed his mind. He slammed the door open. "Ummmmm..." his mind momentarily took an unpaid vacation. Connie was sitting on something resembling a thick stick, with another one in her mouth. In front of her, there was a see-through form of Walter seemingly originating from a feather floating inside it. Connie's eyes went wide, the strangely shaped stick dropped out of her mouth, and her body became uncharacteristically blurry for some reason. "Brbrbrbrbrbrbrbl!" came from Straw's flopping mouth. The room's large window opened a fraction of a second before his body could break it, but he still left the castle at the speed of a small comet. The hippogriff had no clue what had just happened, but was able to at least comprehend that: a) he saw something he really shouldn't have b) Connie was absolutely okay and c) if his trajectory was left uncontrolled he would make a pretty cool red wallpaper over a small part of the mountain. The impact of air as his wings spread open hurt but, once again, it was still better than turning into ketchup. As he slowed down, he noticed lean, grey shapes crawling on the castle roof. The Observers were back, although in much smaller numbers. It didn't fill Straw with optimism. Perhaps I should go visit princess Twilight instead. Nooooo, go back to the unicorn perv. More fun that way. Finally controlling his flight again, Straw successfully repressed everything that had happened in the past two minutes and landed on a balcony leading into a hallway in the guest wing of the castle. All the aerial entrances to the infirmary wings were closed, what with one of the princesses now being a patient there. He met the blue thing again. He was now positive it was quadrupedal, perhaps winged, but it was still too fast and too unfocused to allow observation in any more detail. Well, one more reason to see if it was possible to visit the princess of Magic. Twilight Sparkle had woken up some two weeks ago, but the guards hadn't let Straw in yet. This time it was finally different. "Ten minutes," said the Royal Guard at the door. Straw just nodded and entered Twilight's room. Aside from several baskets of get-well cards and gifts, the room was just like any other in the infirmary. The bandaged purple mummy with her eyes glued to an ancient-looking tome on a lectern next to the bed was the main difference though. "Your Highness?" Straw coughed politely. "Hmmm?" she looked up, "Ah! I was told you saved me, mister Basket. Thank you." "Oh," Straw stomped the floor nervously, "I... I actually wanted to apologize for what Blaze did to you." "It wasn't your fault in the slightest. Blaze was right... in some things. I wanted to rush it because I wasn't sure I could handle running Equestria for even several days. I shouldn't be called a princess, honestly. All I do is fight evil from time to time, that's all. But hey, that's why I'm learning stuff first." "How are your wings... and legs, your Highness?" "Just Twilight, please. As for these," two shapes on her back wobbled slightly, "I won't be flying any time soon, but at least I have them back. I still need crutches to move around, but it's getting better every day. On the bright side, I have a ton of time to study some of the more obscure texts which I couldn't before," she nodded towards the lectern at her head-height. "What are you reading?" "Something which might help me in case... in case something like this happens again." "Sorry." "Once again, I'm not blaming you. In fact, I'm thanking you... again." "Ummm... you're welcome?" "Good. This is the transcript of Starswirl the Bearded's notes concerning the crafting of two weapons capable of removing any magic and even resisting the effect of the Elements of Harmony. Ever since I've heard about them I've been wondering about the reason why the resistance to the Elements was the key point. Oh well, I hope that there's something in here which might help both me and princess Luna resist the absorption of magic." "Blaze said he couldn't resist princess Luna's magic, so he just somehow... siphoned her divine power away." "A much worse result, but the point still stands." "I doubt I can be of much help there, pri- Twilight. I'm just happy you're getting better. Wait... resisting the Elements of Harmony. Did Starswirl the legendary suspect something?" "What do you mean?" "Long story short, Blaze and princess Luna share the suspicion that Harmony might not be the saving force of all that is good as it is believed. I can't tell you more, princess Luna's orders." Twilight scratched her chin, hissing with every movement of her legs. "Hmmm... that might explain some things about this book. The magic resistance is not its focus, almost as if it was just a building block towards the bigger thing which is countering the power of the Elements. How did Blaze and Luna come to such a conclusion?" "I'll tell you everything I told her if she says I can. Not until then, sorry, your- Twilight... ness." "Hmph!" Twilight huffed, "Fine, I guess. No interesting magical mysteries for me until I'm better then..." "Sorry. Speaking of mysteries, there is some blue blur moving around the castle which nopony aside from me can see, but whenever I ask Nightmare about it it just starts laughing." "Possibly a ghost of some comedian," Twilight muttered, still pouting. "I said I was sorry. Princess Luna doesn't want to go into any detail out of fear of being manipulated by... well, everyone. There might be at least two gods involved so I really don't want to go against her judgement." "I know, I know," Twilight shrugged, "I'm just so frustrated! Everypony keeps things away from me out of fear I couldn't handle them, and when I finally try to prove them wrong I mess up THIS bad," her expression thawed when she saw Straw's depressed face, "Okay okay, about your blue thing... what behavioral patterns does it manifest?" "Ummm..." "What does it do?" "Moves around really fast, mostly. It might, if I squint long enough, look like some sort of a pony... maybe?" "Hmmm, that doesn't really tell me anything. Tell you what, go into my laboratory in the castle dungeons," her horn flashed, "this should allow you a temporary access. Find a device which looks like a necklace with a really big disc which opens and with purple glowing ridges on the circumference. Find the anomaly and open the disc. If it's magic or something similar the device should capture it and allow me to have a closer look." "Okay, princess. I'll be back as soon as I can." "I'll tell the guards to let you come inside." Straw nodded and left. He'd never before been inside princess Twilight's laboratory, but as a guard recruit he knew the layout of the castle fairly well by now. The prisoner dungeons were a bunch of cells, one of which had been Straw's temporary residence, and utility rooms located on the sides of a long hallway which ended in a large steel door with glowing panel next to it. As Straw came close enough, it slid open by itself and allowed him into the confusing room behind it. The only things aside from standard furniture Straw could even barely identify were a large and sturdy workbench and a blackboard filled with scribbles of a madpony, or a genius. Unidentifiable devices and documents lay on all flat surfaces, showing that despite seeming organized, princess Twilight forgot everything about order when she set her mind to something interesting. It seemed the more interesting subjects of the princess' research were marked by pedestals by the room's walls. Some were lying on them, some just levitated suspended in the air above, and some blinked in and out of existence in irregular intervals. One caught Straw's attention, and he realized it's the only oddity he could recognize - a shard of black ice held by a magical field, emitting freezing steam into the air around. "Huh... has the princess studied Blaze before?" he mumbled to himself and looked at a mess of notes next to the pedestal. He quickly put it down. There were at most two sentences he could make sense of in the first paragraph, and those proved that while the princess might have studied the twin subjects - Blazing Light / Mistake she had less than little success getting any real information. In short, most of the notes were frustrated remarks about divine power being 'an illogical piece of garbage which does what it wants without any set of clear rules'. Grinning at the language, Straw returned to looking for the magic capturing device. What he saw shocked him. It hung on a chain around a grey neck of strange proportions. It was clearly the top of a statue of somepony who was not a pony. From what Straw could tell it was the muzzle-less head of a satyr. Where did the princess get it from? Could it explain something about Fortune's parents? Carefully taking the device and hanging it around his neck, he made a mental note to ask princess Twilight about it later. With somewhat clearer purpose, he closed the laboratory door behind him. Walking aimlessly around the castle didn't prove too rewarding, but it was the best idea Straw had. The anomaly's movement had seemed completely random during their every encounter, so there was nothing Straw could go on. His legs had a mind of their own, and led him to the upper floors where helping hooves and stonemasons were finishing the reconstruction of the disintegrated hallway. Much to the annoyance of the lunar princess sipping a cup of coffee nearby. "Good evening, princess," Straw bowed. "I give you the permission to unleash the Nightmare at these workers!" Luna grumbled angrily. "I apologize on behalf of the rebuilding crew... again, your Highness, but must we do this every evening? If we can do double shifts then in at most another week this place will look as good as new," the foreman rolled his eyes. Sneakily though, because rolling one's eyes on the princess could quickly result in one's head rolling soon enough. Fortunately for the workers, something else was more important to the barely awake princess of the night. "Straw Basket, what did you get yourself into this time? The device you're carrying should be locked in Twilight's laboratory and definitely not around your neck." "Princess Twilight lent me this thing to look for some strange blue blur moving around the castle. This should be able to capture it or something. Too bad I have no idea where to start looking." "She didn't explain how it worked?" "No, just to open it when I get near the thing." "Twilight, Twilight... always expecting ponies to know everything she does," Luna came over to Straw and pointed at the ridges on the circumference of the disc, "The ridges will glow purple to show you a direction of a disturbance it can detect." "The entire thing is glowing purple," Straw pointed out a major flaw in the device's design. "Yeeees," Luna had to admit hesitantly, "The prototype of this device comes from a world without magic. Twilight's copy has had its sensitivity toned down, but here in Equestria it's not too accurate. Still, it should glow much more strongly when it detects something unusual." "A magic-less world?" Straw's mind worked overtime, "Could it be filled with creatures without muzzles and with only a bit of fur?" Luna narrowed her eyes. "Where would you get a notion like that?" "The device was hanging on the neck of a statue which looked like that. The only pony similar to it is Fortune. I couldn't help thinking it could have something to do with her. Does it come from a world of satyrs or something?" "Shhh," Luna lowered her voice, "I'm telling you this only because I know your curiosity might lead to something much worse if not satisfied. Yes, it might be possible that one of Fortune's parents came from said world, but there is no guarantee that is the case. Nor do we have any knowledge about anypony travelling into our world through a well-guarded gate. The beings on the other side are not satyrs though, and our time observing the other world has been fairly short, so I can only guess that somepony similar to them got into this world before we knew about it and had a filly with a pony, who inherited some pony characteristics and some... non-pony ones." "I just thought that finding something out about her family might cheer her up." "Listen to me! I have a dossier concerning all members of your group with some details possibly not even you know. Do you think Fortune knowing her parents... or at least about her parents would change anything? She has lived on her own all her life, are you really expecting a happy, tearjerking moment now that she is an adult? Nothing can give her back the lost foalhood, but she considers all of you the only family she can rely on now. Damn, she even risked everything to save YOU." "Well, I mean..." Straw shuffled uncertainly, "I would like to meet my parents one day." "Why?" Luna interrupted him sharply. This was something Straw had to reconsider. He had his life. Luna was right in nothing really changing with the knowledge. The best he could hope for was meeting his parents, if they even were together and Straw wasn't just a product of one night's passion, and seeing them from time to time for a lunch or something. What he really wanted was closure. Then it hit him. Fortune was over it. This was only Straw trying to do things his way, hoping against hope that something good would come of it. He didn't even know what the good thing could be... he had nothing. Luna was still waiting for his answer, though. "I don't know, princess. I just refuse to believe that there are only bad endings to that situation. They might have simply been a pony and a griffon who didn't have much money and thought the orphanage could raise me well enough, and, honestly, I don't think I turned out that bad," he chuckled. "Or they might have been drunk, on drugs, or your mother could have been raped. Have you considered that?" "YES!" Straw barked and then lowered his head, "Sorry, princess." "Straw, I don't know you well, but one thing I can say for certain. You are a sweet, young stallion. A bit too naive, but smart in your own right. Consider your friend Contradiction's family. A quite high-class nobility used to being the top dogs of high society. I know who they are, but unless she herself decides to tell the rest of you I'm not going to stick my muzzle into it. They have everything - money, power, influence to raise their daughter properly, but instead they decide to simply not bother with her health problems further, disown her, strip her of their family name, and throw her out on the streets. The only two reasons they are not in jail are them being important Equestrian figures, and Contradiction's wish to forget her past. She chose her name in the darkest depths of depression where she was a frail street whorse coming from a noble family, and she wears it proudly. What I want to say here is that the only one who should matter is you. If you ever spare the time and effort to find your folks then it should be your choice, not some desperate need to understand where you're coming from. You are here and this is now. Only your choice matters, and everypony else has already made theirs." "But what if it was the wrong one? I mean, Fortune hated Leo and now they seem to be having fun together. All I had to do was butt in rather directly." "Hmm, is that the case? If that is the reason then all I can say is that you knew both involved parties and made a better judgement. In the issue of families we are talking about, you don't. You can't simply hope things will work out, and in this case you have neither enough information nor the consent of your friends. Stay out of this, at least until they show some interest themselves." Straw had to admit defeat, but there was something like going down fighting. "I would still like to at least know who MY parents are." "If we get through what seems to be coming successfully then I might spare some time to be of assistance. After all, you could end up under my sister's command and we can't afford to have a servant with a completely unknown past, especially a Nightmare's host," Luna smiled softly, "I appreciate your trying to help wherever you can, I really do. You just need to show some restraint and patience." "Yes, princess." "Hmm, it seems my coffee has gone cold in the meantime. At least I have something better to wake me up than ENDLESS HAMMERING OF STEEL ON STONE!" "WE SAID WE WERE SORRY!" Straw couldn't help grinning. "I think I should continue my search. Sorry for bothering you... and thank you for sharing your experience." "Heh, you have no idea what family issues mean to the immortals, Straw. If you need anything concerning the 'blue blur' then feel free to ask. I am interested in unusual magic as much as Twilight is. After all, I still AM the Equestrian top mage." "Good night, princess." "Good hunting, Straw Basket." Looking again at his magic compass, or whatever the device was, he spotted one side glowing a slightly brighter purple than the others. The more he followed its lead, the stronger the glow got, and eventually he spotted his prey. The blur zig-zagged from side to side of one of the castle's many corridors, and when Straw aimed straight towards it he got close enough to point the device at it. Nothing happened. The huge button in the middle of the disc may as well have coughed, slapped Straw, and yelled at him: "Forgetting something, buddy?" He pushed it, making the device open like a sea shell. The anomaly flickered, slowed down, and seemed to be sucked into the device. It resisted, tried to get away, and fought for control, but its loss was inevitable. As it formed a small ball inside the device, Straw thought he could hear a very distorted voice from infinitely far away call: "No! Wait! I need to find h-!" And it was gone. Now, I wonder what the purple smartass will do with it. You know what it is, don't you? Oh yessss. It's something evil, isn't it? My my, where would be the fun in telling you? Straw grumbled to himself all the way back to Twilight's infirmary room. A week later, a note left inside his room led him back to princess Twilight's laboratory. The capturing device hung once again on the statue's neck, the princess of Magic was rushing from one table to another, and there was a blue circular wisp shining brightly inside a magical field surrounding the main workbench. "Is that it?" Straw asked. "Him," Twilight corrected him unconsciously, "Does a fly trapped in an amber mean something to you?" "Oh yeah, I found several of the things when I was a colt." "This is similar. It doesn't present any properties common to natural magic, but it reacts slightly to necromancy so I guess it might be a soul, not that I know too much about that thing. The blue glow is divine power interwoven with the 'entity'. Since divine power is eternal and indestructible by force, it seems to be keeping the 'entity' around. Now, do you know about anything or anypony possessing divine power which manifests itself as a blue glow or sparks of lightning?" The phoenix and the thunderbird, dancing around each other. It seems the habit of not staying dead- "Ambassador Cromach..." Straw breathed out. DON'T INTERRUPT ME!