The World Within the Web

by Lord Max


Chapter II: Two Bells

Chapter II: Two Bells

* * * * * *

The Brony Collective is unique among the Great Fandoms in a number of ways, but none more so than in structure. Fandoms are, by nature, fairly haphazard things—even the strongest of communities are plagued with disruption and disagreement, with the sole unifying factor being the subject of the fandom itself and little in the way of true authority or leadership.

        “But the Collective somehow manages to subvert this paradigm with a surprisingly centralized organization: not only do its members recognize certain people as essential pillars of their community and follow them accordingly, but they show an absolutely unparalleled solidarity towards one another. Bronies do not consider one another as isolated fans, but small parts of a cohesive, fluent whole that strives towards the greatest goal of all.”


— “The Histories and Natures of the Greater and Lesser Fandoms”, by Sir Camen Mather

* * * * * *

Proximo Hart was dreaming of the duel that had killed him when he awoke to the sound of bells ringing.

It wasn’t for anything terribly important, that much was clear to him as he pushed his blanket off and rolled out of his small bed. He could tell that there were only two bells tolling, one a light and rapid ting from above him and the other a deep gong from the Honest Wing, one after the other in turn, just as two of the bells tolled every morning an hour or so after dawn, then at midday, then again at dusk. Three bells were an occasion, usually a party or a speech later in the day. Four bells were something of importance, sometimes the beginning of a holiday, or some prominent visitor arriving at the Citadel. Five bells were news from the World Beyond the Web, a new episode to enjoy, or a great gathering come together. And six bells were the rarest, the beginning or end of a Season of the Six, or someone having died.

Proximo had only heard all six ring a few times in his life since he had come to the Citadel from his home on Indelio in the Devien Isles, but to hear the enormous towers that crowned the Citadel of the Six tolling in unison was something he could never forget. Two bells were ordinary, however, and as he rose from bed and began picking out his clothes for the day, his mind barely even paid attention to the ringing while he thought of which pair of pants went with which coat. Eventually, he settled on a white shirt made of fine cotton, with a deep purple vest covering it, and a belt with the small image of a diamond on the buckle.

His quarters were on the small side, but Proximo had no problem with that. It was a neat, compressed room, with wood floors and indigo walls adorned with paintings, some of them gifts and some he had made himself. While Proximo folded the clothes he had chosen, he passed by the bed pushed against the left corner, as the morning light was spilling in from the window behind him, making the pattern of three diamonds on his floor. Sitting upon his work-desk were the drafts and uncompleted drawings he had started the day before. Proximo made a mental note to get back to work on those later, before walking into the bathroom on the side.

It took him a half hour to shower, dress, and make himself presentable, after which he opened the door and started on his way to the lady.

The Generous Wing of the Citadel was only just starting to come alive, with white and purple clad followers emerging from their rooms, talking and yawning on the way to breakfast. “Proximo!” one called out to him as he passed. “You’re up later than usual, I see. Better hope Lady Violet isn’t angry, or she might finally fire you. Gross incompetence, and all that.”

Proximo smiled as he stopped and turned to his fellow. “Gross incompetence? Hardly. Though I will admit, it took me longer than I would have liked to get my hair looking proper this morning.” Proximo had the good fortune of having thick, well-trimmed black hair that suited him handsomely (or so he had been told), but it could be frightfully uncooperative when it refused to take the right shape. He had spent more time than he had liked trying to twist and brand it back to a presentable style. “And, of course, I’ve been putting off the transfer recommendations she asked for. I’ve been having trouble thinking of who deserves the cold, dark, wet places no one wants, but I daresay you’ve given me a bit of inspiration for well-suited candidates, Mattos.”

The other Generous Friend laughed, and waved goodbye as Proximo walked on. A few other people gave good mornings as he passed by, and a few formal ones gave bows, but for the most part the walk to the Warden was uncrowded. The Citadel was still waking up, and there were few people to bump into. It had been only a few years since he had joined the Brony Collective, and chosen to align himself with the followers of the Generous Friend, who represented creativity, charity, beauty, and the pursuit of love, but he had quickly grown acquainted with his fellow Bronies before becoming Assistant Warden.

There were many to meet as well, as the Generous Friends were the most eclectic of the branches in terms of their skills and duties: they worked with the Laughing Friends in the creative arts, cooperated with the Honest Friends in maintaining the fandom’s finances, and helped the Kind Friends in diplomatic concerns and charity ventures. Still, Proximo prided himself on knowing most men and women he came across in the Citadel, closely or otherwise.

Proximo arrived at the dining room and turned inside, into the high-vaulted room. Hanging upon the walls were unfurled banners, dark violet with a trio of blue diamonds emblazed upon each of them. Under these sigils, past the wooden tables and benches, Proximo proceeded to the front of the room, where he could see the window to the kitchen. At the counter, he knocked on the table and saw a man wearing an orange robe and yellow hood come out.

“Morning, Proximo,” he said. “Here for the lady’s breakfast, I imagine? I would guess she’s hungry, considering how she forgot to eat again last night.”

Proximo sighed and then smiled. “Well, I suppose assistants are there, if nothing else, to keep our superiors from starving to death. Chefs as well, I should think. Speaking of which, could I have some toast with that? Burn it, if you don’t mind.”

“One piece of burned toast, coming up.” He put a tray on the table, with a hard-boiled egg, bacon strips, a pot of tea, and a muffin. “Here’s Lady Violet’s meal, and tell her that we can just start sending food up to her again, if she would only let us. She’d probably eat more if we did.”

“Small chance of that,” Proximo replied. “She would probably just forget about it outside her door and let it spoil again. I’ll ask her, though.”

After waiting for his breakfast, he ate the toast and carried the tray out of the hall and down the corridor further, just as a crowd of people walked past him. The Generous Friends were perhaps not as disciplined as the Honest ones, but most had begun to wake up by now. There were several more hellos and bows, and quite a few people asking him to give a good morning to the Warden on their behalf. Some asked him if he could stop and chat, but Proximo had to politely decline and walk on. The lady was expecting her food.

He walked up a narrow flight of stairs lit by colored lanterns, stopping before her room. The entrance had an ornate door, beautifully carved and perfectly painted with the purest shade of white Proximo had ever known. In the center of it was a circle containing a pattern of three blue gems with violet streaks running down the sides and a six-pointed star at every corner. Proximo raised his hand to knock on the door, but stopped himself before he started.

Quickly, he looked over into a mirror on the wall next to the door and checked his appearance. His clothes were slightly wrinkled, but there was nothing to be done about that now, and his black hair was still carefully and neatly set. It was looking as good as it was likely to get, but he shifted the tray over to one hand and nervously ran the other through his hair anyways. Better, he thought.

Proximo raised his hand and knocked at the door once, then again when no one answered it. He waited for a moment, and then knocked again.

“My lady?” he called into the room. Tentatively, he put a hand on the door and lightly pushed, stepping his way inside as carefully as he could and trying his best to not let the tray go off-balance.

The room was dark, aside from the light cast in from the opened door. Pens and paints and crumbled papers were strewn across the room, with burnt-out candles on the tables spilling long trails of wax down to the floor. Proximo stepped gingerly around the mess, taking care not to tip the tray, and worked his way over to the closest room to the right. The door was partly open, showing a bed inside with two night-side tables flanking it. It was, however, missing a person inside it. Proximo let out a groan.

Desk or floor? he wondered.

It was the former, as it turned out. Walking over to the workroom, he found the noble Lady Violet Brushshape, the Warden of Generosity and prominent leader of the Brony Collective, slumped over a sheet of paper on her desk, drooling on her drawing and snoring slightly. Proximo set down the tray of food, and then prodded her on the side of the head in the most deliberately annoying way he could manage.

“Good morning, my lady,” he said cheerfully as she began to stir. “I see you decided to take leave of your bed again. I believe that’s the third time this week?”

Lady Violet rubbed her eyes, still groggy. Her hair was dyed, as was the fashion in the Devien Isles where both she and Proximo came from, and colored a deep purple that brought out the dark color in her eyes quite well on normal occasions. Now it looked like a complete mess, long strands tangled and thrown out of place by an uncomfortable night’s sleep.

She blinked before giving a tired smile. “I had some ideas last night, before I went to sleep. I told myself that I would write them down, but then I started sketching them, and before long I had broken out the good paints. I don’t suppose you could have let me sleep a bit more, could you? I was having the most wonderful dream. I was in a rainbow field, with handsome suitors on every side.”

“I don’t suppose I was there, was I?” Proximo asked slyly, as he pushed the tray of food towards the Warden.

She gave a coy smile in return. “No, quite a bit more handsome, Mister Hart. A valiant effort, though. I’m sure there were a few nightmares concerning you that I can talk about, if you like.” She noticed the food on the tray. “I do believe that there was a muffin in my dream, though, and I swear it looked just like this one.”

“I heard from a reliable source that you managed to forget to eat again last night. I’m sure that they could start sending food up again, if you would allow it. Perhaps then malnutrition would finally be off the list of things I have to worry about you being afflicted by.”

The lady had already wolfed down the muffin, and turned her attention over to the egg. “Sorry, Proximo, but I’ll just forget about the food lying outside my door and someone else will have to clean it up. My probable starvation will just have to haunt you for now.”

“You don’t make this position easy for me, my lady.” Proximo went about lighting the lanterns around the Warden’s apartment while she continued to devour her breakfast, using a small lighter in his pocket to light the lamps’ wicks. “I don’t suppose you remember what you were working on, do you?”

She spoke with her mouth still full of food. “I only put about half of it down before I went to sleep, and now I can’t make heads or tails of what it’s meant to be. Does this look like a building to you, or some kind of portrait?”

Proximo glanced at the paper. “I assumed it was a fish. Or maybe half of a dress?”

“And now the world shall never know,” Violet said with a sigh. “Maybe Jestin can give me some ideas about it later.”

“If anyone is equipped to handle the hypothetical fish-dress, I would wager it’s him.” Lord Jestin Jen was the Warden of Laughter, and one of the most creative men Proximo had ever met, though in a very different way from Lady Violet Brushshape. Proximo had only been a member of the Collective for around two years, and while he didn’t know any of the five other Wardens like he knew Violet, he did count Jestin as a good friend. But then again, so did everyone the Laughing Lord met.

Proximo grabbed the sketch to examine it more closely, trying to uncover exactly what the mystery-thing was. I’ll bet Jestin will think it’s a fish, Proximo thought. Perhaps he’ll write a song about it. A fish wearing a dress seemed like something the Warden of Laughter might like.

The assistant didn’t know the other Wardens half as well as him—the Warden of Loyalty was too brash, the Wardens of Magic and Kindness were always courteous but too distant to be close to, and while he was sure never to say it out loud, Proximo suspected the Warden of Honesty was as insane as he was terse and rude.

Proximo’s attention turned to the spill of papers, wax, and ink on the floor of the main room. “You’ve made a terrible mess of this place, you know. I feel as though my considerable talents at keeping things tidy are being wasted.”

“You know I don’t mean to make you feel unappreciated, Proximo,” she said sweetly with a hint of sarcasm. “It just comes naturally. I can clean that up myself—you shouldn’t have to worry about it.”

“I’m here to serve you, my lady. It’s my duty to see that your living quarters are clean and unsullied, not yours,” he reassured her as he started to pick up the pages on the floor. “You should see to cleaning yourself up, though. Your hair will scare the children.”

“I wasn’t aware we had any children, Mister Hart.”

“I’ll requisition some for the occasion. Perhaps Lady Madelin would like to serve in their place?”

Violet laughed. “Small chance of that. Though Little Miss Loyalty would certainly laugh if she could see me now. I’ll make myself look fit for human society, now that I’m finished with this feast you’ve given me.”

“Wonderful. I’ll step out, and then we can get down to business once you’re finished. I have the art from yesterday compiled, just as you asked. I’m sure the EQD will be interested in seeing this later today, though I should warn you that it’s lower than anything we had last week.”

Proximo heard the bathroom door shut behind him. “Urgh, I hate being between Seasons,” Violet’s voice said from inside. “Mars and the Magic Wing have been searching the stars for months, and yet there is still no sign of the Six, and the diviners haven't had a new vision either. This Drought will be the end of me." Proximo heard a distinctive sigh. "Still, I’m sure it’s fine. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

He nodded his head to no one in particular, then went to the door to step outside. As he opened it, however, he found it swinging just as he went for the handle. On the other side of the door was a brown-haired man, wearing a purple robe and an emerald hood. Green circles were also at his elbows, and in his hand he carried a small paper.

“Good morning sir,” he said with a bow. “I’m sorry to trouble Lady Violet so early, but the Lord of Magic has asked that the Wardens meet immediately.”

“Lord Mars, you say?” The Lord Feylen Mars was the Warden of Magic, and the most respected of the six leaders of the Collective. He was the closest thing to a single leader the fandom had, and his word went without question. “This is irregular, sir. May I ask what the problem is?”

“Trouble, Mister Hart. Trouble in the Dreamweave.”

* * * * * *

         

“By examination of the Works of our fandom, certain patterns and patterns of themes emerge — in the sense that they become readily apparent. By this analysis, we might gauge these morals and teachings, and focus all of them towards the Great Path that our Six Friends have lit for our sake.

Two things are necessary for the creation of a fandom: a subject and an audience. The Collective has both of these things, and as such we pay great patronage to the Works we serve. But our belief must go deeper than just that itself, as mere labor alone is so easily corrupted when applied without proper direction. Consider an idea written by one of our fellows: that all people in a world of terrible uncertainty must find a virtue, which they cling to with all their soul and strength so that they might never lose who they are. In our case, that virtue must be, in a sense, a devotion to a concept — perhaps, even, a higher mystery — that our Works and our friends teach.

“Our virtue must be universal, to match our aim and scope, and it must parallel without compromise the Elemental Values that we bow to. It must be pure, good, without inherent flaw or overwhelming weakness. It must include all and seek to exclude none, and most of all it must compel us to stand beside one another and fight for our common well-being, for the world is a difficult place where people and values and hope are too easily crushed.

        “With this in mind, it seems apparent to me that our virtue must be our Friendship itself. Other traits of goodness and righteousness can stand alone, true, but it is only when brought together that great things are done. The Six are not alone: they are not judged alone, they are not followed alone. They are not individual parts, but a whole — Six and One. Consider the words of the great Singer of Our Fandom, who always understood far more than any other could:

‘A little magic, a different kind of spark —

our glassy essence just floating in the dark.

It’s how you taught us to conjure up

a little Kindness to take inside our hearts.

Our will to power — together not apart.

Trace of the Other, a truly modern art.’

“Together, not apart. Let this be the anthem of our fandom! Alone we are weak, fragile, misled, miserable. No person was meant to live alone. Together we are stronger, better, than we could ever be apart, and only togetherness found in the virtue of Friendship can guide us towards greatness and the Great Path in the Web. For it is not in numbers, nor arms, nor armies that our Brony Collective finds strength, but in our creativity, our devotion, our will to see one another as brothers and sisters on the great voyage of life — in all of this, unity is imperative. Together, not apart.

— “Lecture on Virtue,by Lord Feylen Mars, the Warden of Magic. The quoted lyric comes from Sorceress Girl by SoGreatAndPowerful.

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