Silver Eyes and Rainy Skies

by Roadie

15. From the correspondence of C. Été, R.F.O.E., and Lady Twilight S. af Twilight, E.H.; delivered via flamefax spring 1377.

From the correspondence of C. Été, R.F.O.E., and Lady Twilight S. af Twilight, E.H.; delivered via flamefax spring 1377.

Mlle Chevalière Twilight Sparkle:

I bear to you news of the thankfulness of your Princess Celestia at the information you have been able to gather for her in regards to a recent letter of unknown origin, and her regret that there was not more of it available.

I am Mme Été, a Prench specialist in the field of operational intelligence. As a sign of the trust between our nations, the Equestrian Diarchy has asked me to aid with this situation. I assure you that I will use all due discretion while looking into the matter.

I understand that, with the Grand Galloping Gala happening shortly, you are almost certainly very busy with preparations for it. I will endeavor to, as the saying goes, keep out of your hair during this time.

I will be arriving on the evening train.

With all kindness,
Mme Chuchotement Été

Comments

[Hilltopper2]

And that Prench girl, whom we are to draw Rarity like... Her name translates to Whisper SOMETHING.

[Sarikano]

2710563 Summer Whisper

[Roadie]

2710542
Changelings will become more important leading into the Big Royal Wedding, which is going to be the second main action-driving plot after the current one with the Prench operative carries through.

2710563
"Whisper Summer" (or something like "summer whisper" or "summer hush", if you read it as a single phrase and forgive the lack of the l' on the Été).

I'll sneak you a bit of information from the next part: Été is an elegant and charismatic lady, but she's not actually a pony at all.

[Sarikano]

2710628 To be honest, the proper wording should have been Chuchotement d'Été which translate into Summer Whisper

On another topic, you mean that the weird dreams that the Doctor have is caused by a changeling? So either the colt is a changeling or...

[Roadie]

2712788
Oops, good catch. The name is intentionally a little "wrong" anyway, though.

2713639

oi43.tinypic.com/30c84gn.jpg

[Roadie]

2714207
Being nobiliary particles that don't exist in the real world, they mean only what you believe them to mean.

(Roughly: ap, "of the land of"; af, "of the noble line of descent of".)

[Roadie]

2731688
Huh, good point. I'll de-reundancize it some.

[Roadie]

2758203
Good wow? Bad wow?

[Ellington]

2762037 Just 'wow' as in 'a brony going up to a lyra who isn't human obsessed and asking about hands.

That's interesting like going up to non-doctor Time Turner and calling him The Doctor.

[Minalkra]

... why haven't I seen this before? I gotta give this a read!

EDIT: *ahem*

Why haven't I ever seen this before?! This is great - and this Sasquatch fellow is much more intelligent than Bruce ever has been.

[RoMS]

Very good story so far,

the lack of particle " d' " or " de l' " is quite disturbing for me who is French but if it is intentional I won't bother you with it.

However I would like to give you an hint about a French word: "chuchoteur", literally the name of peoples who whisper (who "chuchotent"), when "chuchotement" is just the name of the action of whispering. And for the fun fact which could be of a very interest for you is that a "chuchoteur" is also the name of the men who train horses in a "ethnical", "ethical" and very "symbiotic" way.

If you knew it when you chose the name of this Prench girl, I would say well done sir

[Roadie]

2787802
The lack of the "proper" particles (and the invented, fictional ones you've surely noticed) is intentional. There's a certain amount of assumed translation here—none of the characters are really using English or French, exactly, but they're convenient to make allusions and implications with.

As for the name...
[ominous laughter]

[Methbawks]

This story is amazing, it needs more atention than it currently has

And on a side-note chapters too short

[Roadie]

2804842
Whoops, thanks. Fixed those typos.

2802785
"Why is a pegasus doing a job that requires being on the ground in an office all the time?" In this version of Equestria, divides along racial lines are relatively light, but certain stereotypes do persist.

[Cyana Flame]

I have read up to this point.. I need moar!

[cvvvrt]

I believe we're being misled, and our colt isn't a magically ponified HiE at all, but a changeling.

We're never shown the colt's perspective, so we can't know if and how much he fakes. However, I believe the colt is a gestalt entity created from an original, mindless changeling and a brony's mind, and his behavior is mostly genuine. He just makes enough lies and omissions to cover up that he's a changeling and not a pony. As he is unfamiliar with both his body and the reality of this Equestria, he assumed the guise of a young colt in order to more easily obtain emotion and integrate himself.

The magic flux from the EoH experiments in chapter 5 transported the brony to the Everfree Forest, where he somehow met both a changeling and a cliché manticore. He got himself killed, while the changeling ended up copying (or moving?) the brony's mind.

Chapter 5 also mentions the EoH might be connected to the Rainbow of Light, a Gen1 reference. Gen1 had humans in human form in "Equestria" (well, Dream Valley).

There's a lot of (circumstantial) evidence that supports this hypothesis:

Chapter 1:

he has a "human name" that "wouldn't feel right to use", but no "pony name"

It doesn't feel right because it isn't his anymore. That name died with his original body.

he insists that he fully remembers being human

Note that it's "he remembers being" and not "he was."

he has claimed to be an adult

An adult changeling.

Chapter 4:

He's shown no real magical talent, but I began to suspect then, and still do, that he may have been a young prodigy before acquiring his delusion

Such as a very much magic-capable adult changeling.

The fine motor skills of colts who have relied on too heavily on magic can suffer

Would also apply to changelings, I guess.

as a "human", he has no magic could well be enough to prevent his use of it

Are his human memories interfering with his magic skills?
Maybe the changeling

The flat grey of them is distinctive, and the grey-green of his coat is a color rare

Colors a changeling might find familiar.

"It's the brain in a jar thing, I guess,"

He's a human "brain" in a changeling "jar."

"And I don't want to mess up things and get banished to the moon," he said, and the way his shoulders shifted left me not quite sure if it was meant to be a joke.

A changeling might well be considered an enemy of Equestria.

That got him to laugh.

I have a feeling that laugh was ironic.

He was playing dumb, by the glimmer of knowledge in those grey eyes, but I played along, and told him of
changelings

Well, duh.

and the Changeling Question, which has barely anything to do with actual changelings. The philosophers of old had
only used them to springboard into the question: if a being could play a false role absolutely perfectly, could that
role be considered a new identity in and of itself?

Foreshadowing. With a sledgehammer.

Chapter 5:

If there is any guiding intelligence inside them, would it even care about us individual ponies?

Was the brony a sacrifice for the greater good?

Chapter 6:

he gravitated straight towards the tuna... though he did keep giving it this strange look, as though he thought it was
going to leap up and attack him.

I feel this is relevant. Might not be the case, though.

he sat the apple in front of him and, without another bit of prelude, promptly flared his horn and used his magic
to tug the apple into a slow orbit around his head

He picked up magic oddly quickly for someone who allegedly was a magicless human, and in chapter 1 it's noted that ponies his age commonly show a lack of magical control. However, if he's really an adult changeling...

it seems like he picks and chooses what he lets show through

More foreshadowing.

Chapter 7:

According to Zuri, the animal was like a large monkey, or a hairless Diamond Dog.

Possible memory source?

Chapter 8:

He tried his magic, too, but the bright green of it

Green magic.

Chapter 13:

conscious races

If changelings have no consciousness themselves, I guess they can obtain it somehow.

the temporary magical links created by it can induce strange dreams

Explains Charm's dreams in chapters 6 and 13.

[shira]

Usually when people do derivative works they are nothing more than incredibly masturbatory self-inserts, or incredibly off the wall works that take none of the good elements from the original.

This story I think has taken the original idea and really done some interesting things with it. I am thoroughly impressed (and love the philosophy bits that you have added here and there).

[blank check]

Your writing style is very beautiful, and well-suited for epistolary fiction. I look forward to the rest of the story, as well as any other writings you may have.

2810728

Jesus, I think you nailed it.

[cvvvrt]

2810728

The only thing I'm confident about is that the colt's a changeling. Everything else is up in the air.

Without his perspective, it's unlikely we'll ever find out for sure whether he's a conscious human mind running an unconscious changeling "computer", or a conscious changeling pretending to be a human. With the earlier focus on the puzzles, this could be (one of) the central conflicts in this story.

Thinking some more, and remembering that Ditzy called the colt a "potentate," I wonder if obtaining a consciousness is how changeling royalty are made.

[Roadie]

2841351
It makes me happy to see someone picking up on all my hints.

2827403
I did specifically warn about the epistolary format in the story description fine print. Just sayin'.

[Roadie]

2872587
He's not a misanthrope, but there are some things in his past that he's not proud of and not comfortable talking about.

Also, note the year given for part 14.

[Parametric Ponymorphism]

It's a great story. I hope you'll continue this.

2841555
Does that mean that all things cvvvrt referenced were hints or just that all your hints were amongst things referenced by cvvvrt?

Also, in chapter 2:

Within only minutes of getting off the train I was being greeted by a fast-talking pink pony I presume is the "Pinkie Pie" that Dr. Watts that told me about before boarding the express train from Canterlot to Stalliongrad.

Dr. Watts, the marine-mammal biologist, by any chance?

[Roadie]

2985168
Re: technological progress, keep in mind that everything Dr. Charm learns about humans is being filtered through the colt's biases and mindset and hers, too.

Re: Dr. Watts, nah, he's a psychiatrist. There's a Dr. Wensz in Canterlot who's an expert on sea life, though.

As for the hints... oi43.tinypic.com/30c84gn.jpg

[Parametric Ponymorphism]

2986204

Re: Dr. Watts, nah, he's a psychiatrist. There's a Dr. Wensz in Canterlot who's an expert on sea life, though.

I was quite sure it was a reference to Peter Watts, the marine biologist turned science-fiction writer who penned a rather well-received novel few years back, exploring the concepts of consciousness and identity (and creepy aliens).
So, um, it wasn't?

[Roadie]

2986443
Not in this case!

There's also a Dr. Hoovs (the "v" is silent) in Ponyville you may have heard of before, a Dr. Whares who recently opened a medical practice in Appleloosa, and a Dr. Wise who runs a museum in Manehattan.

[Parametric Ponymorphism]

2986461

Puns, my only weakness.

[lostmagic564]

an enjoyable read but the only thing i really liked reading were the private journals of Dr. H. D. Charm; the rest i feel can be skipped. the chapters feel like·getting smaller as you read.
and going to like and favorite this mainly because of the story telling and because its funny.

i think cvvvrt's on to something.

i found this fic on spacebattles.

[Boss_Hoss1]

3237542
Of course, after I did that, my prereaders went "Cool! you've read "Anthropology" too!" I just had to check that out after that.
At least "Lyra" minds think alike...

[BronyZandermon]

3237645
Anthropology huh....?

[INSTANTLY ADDS STORY TO READ LIST!]