//------------------------------// // Night 44, first fragment: For space to warp // Story: A mare and her dog // by cammera //------------------------------// "Really? Architecture?" asked Applejack. "Yes, she's been interested in it since I commissioned the mill. She already knew most of the math involved, it's not so different" added Twilight. "Weird, I can-" someone knocked the door (It seemed to Applejack that even the sound was fru fru, somehow), and Twilight gave a questioning look to Spike, who read in the other side of the room. He shrugged. "What?" she asked when the knock was repeated. "Quibra," came the muffled answer, in a thickly accented Equiish "You said I was to come at eight" "Already?" Twilight gave an annoyed look to the clock "Enter" she said, unlocking the door with telekinesis. A diamond dog, somewhat slim for his kind, entered. "Quibra," he presented himself in a thick accent that she couldn't quite identify, making a small curtsy "I pressume you are jack of- Applejack?" he asked, closing the door behind him. She nodded, giving the presumed mercenary a good look. Despite the lack of obvious musculature, there was a certain bearing to him that made it easy to picture him with a suite of armor weighting twice as much as he did. Twilight got up and excused herself before teleporting away. Quibra gave a look to the space she had occupied, irritation clear in his face. "She does it too much" Spike gave him a look of sympathy. Even Luna, who rarely traveled long distances by hoof or wing, had often grown irritated to it. "You are the guy Twilight contracted, right?" asked Applejack. "The princess required my skills, yes" "And those skills are...?" "Someone who could punch a hole through concrete and knows how to read" explained Spike "And wasn't her bodyguard" "Huh," it did sound like Twilight's requisites "But wasn't this spying? All sneaky-beaky like?" "The princess beli-" Twilight teleported in again, two folders in her telekinesis "Ah, she can explain it better than I" "This is all I've managed to get from the temple," she gave a folder to each "The outer areas are well known, but the maps are lacking in the inner ones" They opened their folders and scanned the maps superficially, Twilight giving them a look of expectation. After a moment, Applejack saw what Twilight seemed to be expecting. "This doesn't match" she pointed at two points in different plants "A room this big can't have over six tons of statues above it. And the stairs of here-" she pointed at another point "Can't reach here" she pointed another "without people walking in ceilings" "Yep," Spike pipped in "Twilight couldn't believe it either. She even entered the mind of the informant to confirm that it was truth" "It is, as far as he knows. And he has spent several decades working there, so..." Twilight made a face of discomfort "I have to believe they have non-standard spatial properties within the inner areas, sadly" Quibra and Applejack grimaced. Applejack knew those from Twilight's laboratory, where Apple Bloom had once been lost for a week. "Now you may see why I am paying you both" she said in a tone that beckoned no protest from Applejack "so much for this job. If the dreamer or his priests can warp space in so large an area, things may get very rough" she paused for a moment to give them both a look "Remember: No killing, no crippling. The priests aren't evil and the last thing we want to give the king is a martyr. Read the folders completely and be ready to be on your way in an hour, I want you back before the morning, and you'll have to travel fifty houses on foot" -ยบ- Fighting agoraphobia at every step, Applejack walked down the stars that descended from the window sill in which the hotel was placed to the garden in which there was a small neighborhood. "How does people live here?" she asked to no one in particular, eliciting a curious look from Quibra "Doesn't people feel dwarfed?" "They like it, I think" he shrugged "Every time I've come here everyone here is bold and dashing at day, but when the sun falls they all get penitent-like" Watching it from above and under the gray moonlight, it was easy to see it as a city of old guilts lying dusty in their corners, awaiting to be poked like an infected teeth by an uncaring tongue...