Kiss The Night Air
“This is weird, right?” Twilight said, nudging Dash’s side.
“Sort of above my paygrade, ma’am. I’m just here to shoot stuff and now, apparently, file paperwork. There’s too much weird stuff going on for me to worry about it that much.”
“I could get you a secretary. Less time filing, more time contemplating weirdness.”
“Thanks for the offer, but, uh, I think I’ll manage.”
Twilight smiled. “Okay. But seriously, who owes favors to the princess? How does that even work?”
“Maybe you can ask them when we get there.”
“Maybe.”
The carriage rolled on through the street, with hardly a bounce. This was the city center—fresh tarmac pavement, tall buildings, bright lights everywhere. There was even a real park sitting at one end of the avenue, with real trees and flowers growing under an elaborate array of arc lights—sickly, but there, green leaves and all.
Ordinarily, they probably wouldn’t even have needed the carriage. It seemed clean, safe. The riots that had surged into the area hadn’t lasted long. Everything had been cleaned up, unless you counted the shadow of a dark stain on the sidewalk.
The carriage stopped in front of a tall building—looks like thirteen stories, Dash thought. New construction, then. Concrete, steel. “Looks like we’re here,” she said, unlocking the door and pushing it slowly open.
It was a short walk inside. The lobby seemed pointlessly extravagant to Dash, with enormous oak columns—of course they were real wood, what better way to blow a quarter-million bits apiece—that couldn’t possibly serve any structural purpose, with gold accents, and hanging from the ceiling, an elaborate chandelier with more lights than she could count. It had the feel of somepony trying desperately to impress.
Twilight scowled, and pulled out the paper that aide had given Dash. “Top floor,” she said.
“Classy,” Dash intoned.
“Whatever.”
They didn’t talk in the elevator. Dash guessed she should be happy about that. No good reason to look forward to small talk with Twilight, after all. So Dash stared out the door and watched the floors go by.
A faint ding, and the elevator doors rattled open. Dash got out first, peered past the corners. Nothing, just a carpeted hallway rolling out in both directions. She wondered, idly, if she would have been able to spot Fluttershy in time to do anything about it.
Like what? It’s not like she would have stopped Shy, right?
She waved Twilight out. The unicorn stalked out, looked warily around.
“We’re safe,” Dash said, a bit peevishly.
“There is such a thing as double-checking.”
Dash shrugged. “Where are we going?”
Twilight shrugged, and pulled the notes from her pack. “Top floor.”
“Which door?”
“It doesn’t say.”
Dash walked over to the nearest one, and rapped on it. “Night Guard. Open up.”
Hooves shuffled behind the door, fumbled with the knob, and then dropped back to the floor. The door swung open, revealing a unicorn. She was emaciated—not exactly unusual these days, but not what you’d expect to find on the top floor of an expensive apartment building either, and her eyes seemed glazed over.
“Um, hi,” the unicorn mumbled. “Do you... um... I didn’t...”
“We’re looking for C,” Twilight said.
The unicorn’s gaze locked on Twilight, and it lost its glassiness instantly. For a second it looked like her eyes glowed green—a trick of the light, obviously, Dash decided. “She’s not here,” the mare said, in a flat monotone that seemed to cling to every syllable as if it didn’t want to let it go.
The unicorn started to shut the door, stepping back into the room, but Dash reached out and stopped it. “Where is she?” Dash asked.
“She’s not here,” the unicorn said, her voice still in that strange monotone.
“Do you know where she is?” Dash asked, her voice more insistent.
“She’s not here.”
Twilight approached her, mouth set in a scowl. “Tell us where we can find C.”
“She’s not he—”
Twilight smacked her across the face, and the mare’s legs buckled.
Dash frowned. Twilight’s not strong enough to do that. Twilight pulled a gun from her pack—one of the blocky, nondescript objects designed for unicorns, with no external trigger—and leveled it at the mare’s face. “We don’t have time for this,” she said, voice a little uneven. “Where is she?”
“She’s not here,” the mare said, voice still flat, expression still blank. But her whole body was shaking.
There was the subtle click of the components within the gun moving to their proper spots. “Tell me where she is. Last chance.”
“Twilight, stop,” Dash said. She fiddled with a badge, and showed it to the mare. “We’re with the Night Guard. We need to talk to C.”
The mare nodded, mechanically, and paused for a few seconds. “Go to the end of the hall,” she said, finally, still odd, flat, unemphatic.
Dash turned to leave. “I think she means this way, ma’am. Come on.”
Twilight didn’t move from where she was, still kept the gun pointed at the mare. “Twilight?”
“Nopony answers my questions around here,” Twilight said softly. “Nopony in this crazy town has done anything but lie to me and try to get me to give up on my mission! I can’t even get five words out of this...” She breathed more heavily, and faster. “This little junkie bitch won’t even—”
“Twilight, calm down,” Dash said, trying to keep her voice level. “It’s gonna be fine. We’re going to head over and talk to C, remember?” Her voice cracked on the last word. Twilight didn’t seem to notice.
After a few seconds, her gun floated back into her pack, trembling a little bit. Twilight turned around slowly, and walked out into the hall.
“I think that went well,” she said to Dash, a crooked, unsteady smile on her face.
“I’m, uh, not sure we needed to bring out the gun.”
“It worked, didn’t it?” Twilight said brightly.
Dash hesitated. “If you say so, ma’am.”
This was a definite downgrade, Rarity decided. She had demanded, and after no small amount of dedicated, if artificial, drama, received, her own room for the duration. Perhaps it hadn’t quite been worth the effort. There were all sorts of dark, cramped rooms that didn’t require nearly as much petulance to get to herself.
Still, she could lay on the bed (if it deserved to be called that) and stare at the ceiling, which was hardly the worst thing to do after what felt like an eternity of being questioned about the sordid ins-and-outs of the Night Guard. Rarity suspected that blackmail would no longer be a practicable option in most of those cases, but, of course, she had kept those objections to herself.
After all, it was still possible that the sols could arrange for her to leave Ponyville for Manehatten. Less likely, of course. Perhaps she should have anticipated this quite a bit earlier. It would have made things easier.
It really was too bad about Spike. If he were less conspicuous, it might be worth taking him along. There were definite advantages to having the dragon around, after all. And for what it was worth, she did like him.
Do I like him enough?
The answer was obvious, surely. She just didn’t know what it was.
A knock came from the door. Rarity groaned. “Unless somepony has finally uncovered a proper pillow or somewhere to take a hot shower, I don’t—”
“I guess I can go back and look for the pillow if you want.”
Rarity gasped. “Prin—” She coughed. “Ahem. Cadence! I do apologize; please come in.”
The alicorn stooped under the doorframe, glancing around. “Hello.”
“I really cannot apologize enough,” Rarity insisted. “Is there—”
Cadence rolled her eyes and laughed. “You’re fine. I felt the same way when I first got here. Slightly more terrified than annoyed, but still, I get it.”
Rarity thought that over for a moment. “You weren’t put into a better room?”
“Sol, no. I’m still not.”
Rarity was aghast. “You sleep in...”
Cadence laughed good-naturedly. “Shiny insists on it. He’s with me, which is an improvement—” She paused. “Well, for me, anyways, you wouldn’t like it as much. But it’s cozy.”
“I suppose that does make sense,” Rarity said, in a tone that made it abundantly clear that as far as she was concerned, it didn’t. “I don’t suppose your, ah—husband, yes?—has sorted things out with my request yet, has he?”
“Yes, we’re married. No, he hasn’t sorted out your little trip to Manehatten.” Cadence didn’t bother to hide her contempt.
“I can hardly be blamed for wanting to get out of this city,” Rarity snapped, “and—”
She stopped talking.
“You know the dragon won’t be able to come with you,” Cadence said. “It makes sense, don’t get me wrong, but don’t expect me to think better of you for it.”
“I’m sure...” Rarity started, but ran out of material as soon as the words were out of her mouth.
“He’ll be fine as long as the rest of us are. Heck, he’s having fun right now, or was when I saw him in the mess—I think some ponies convinced him to settle some bets about whether he could really—well, anyways, he’ll be okay for a while.”
“And so?”
“You might regret it,” Cadence said.
Rarity sighed. “I’d rather regret it in Talacon than have my capacity to regret suddenly and unpleasantly curtailed, which does seem to be the way affairs are headed here.”
“You do like him. I don’t mean romantically, although don’t tell me there’s nothing there—”
“He’s ten years old,” Rarity said. “Reciprocating his affections would be in decidedly bad taste.”
Cadence sighed. “Well, then, definitely leave the only creature you’ve ever enjoyed just being around because you can’t—”
“You don’t know anything about me,” Rarity snapped. “Nor, would it seem, was my earlier opinion of you correct. How anypony could aspire to grace without even having tact is beyond me.”
“I know enough,” Cadence said, her voice steely. “I have an eye for this kind of thing, and I wanted to help you.”
Rarity sighed. “I didn’t mean to offend.”
“Whatever.” The alicorn walked out the door. Rarity slumped back onto the bed, and stared at the ceiling.
“So you’re looking for Mr C.?”
A pegasus mare stood behind the doorframe: tan, with an athletic frame, although her deep magenta eyes seemed tired.
Dash glanced back at Twilight, and mouthed, “Mister?” Twilight shrugged.
“Uh, sure,” Dash said. “Is he in?”
“One second.” The mare walked back into the apartment.
“This does seem kinda weird,” Dash said.
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6410067
Alright, I got another chapter done (and before my self-imposed deadline, too!).
The next chapter, "A Night of Dark Intent", will drop sometime in October.
Ooh this is nice, great job!
Mister C, eh?
Hmmm..
I really hope Twilight doesn't get killed off. so far her emotional struggle has made her my favorite character.
Good to see this is still kicking.
6480910
And accelerating. I hope to have it done by the end of the year.
6480920 Really!?! Oh, boy howdy! You've got me real excited now!
Welp, it lives.
THis was a weird chapter to come back to after so long. A little confusing to figure out what all exactly is going on.
6483764
Sorry. If you like, I could do a write-up of the plot so far in a hidden comment.
6484203 If you could, please share it for others such as myself. I remember loving this fic, but I can't recall anything about it. A very short summary would be enough to unclog my memory.
6484203 Sure! That could be good. I mean I remember the general plot up to where Celestia tried to bring out the Sun. It's the little details, like how Rarity got to be in such dire straights.
6485275
Okay, so, I'm having difficulty condensing this down. Could you let me know what you need to know? I don't want to tell you to reread the whole thing, but...
Just finished a binge-read of this. Why is there not more already? Sigh.
Great story so far, Commie.
This is a good story. I'll have to follow it.
6497211
6497707
Thank you.
6480920 Woot!
6480423 Definitely not Chrysallis or her alt-universe counterpart or anything. ;D
6503287 Hence the italics.
I'll be honest, this fic has good ideas, and I'll definitely see it through to the end.
But I also know this could be done a million times better.
6524485
That's a weird mistake.
6524346
It was less ad hoc when I drafted it originally, but the introduction to it was dumb and I ended up cutting it without any proper replacement. Mea culpa, I guess.
6524507
A million times better, huh? Okay.
6524676
Oh, you mean someone could write a better story with the same basic premise. Yeah, I guess so. But this is what I wrote.
6524696 True, and it's pretty good.
6524676 Ya know, I don't usually judge people at a glance, but you're really making yourself come off here as a rude, condenscending, pretentious fuckwad.
6525057 Nice to meet you too.
For the record, though, I see what you mean, it was not my intention to come off as such, I just don't know when to shut up.
6524696 I'd like to apologize if I came off as condescending or rude. That was not my intention.
6525119
Well, non-mission accomplished. I'm glad you're going to stick around through the end of this but I could do without the vague jibes at the story. If you think I made such-and-such mistake and feel compelled to comment on it, drop the bullshit and say so. I appreciate criticism, but "This story could be better" is a truism, not a meaningful critique.
I've always liked the line that "a novel is a prose narrative of some length that has something wrong with it". This, on the other hand, is a somewhat shorter story about small cartoon horses being mean to each other that has several things wrong with it. If you'd like to name 'em, be my guest.
6529079 A ratio of one vague jibe to five instances of pointing out small mistakes. Yeah, shouldn't be too hard.
6479534
TIL I'm a filthy liar. My apologies.
6770703
Ordinarily I do that on purpose, but in this case it's because I derped and published the chapter before it was ready. Sorry.
The title of this story and its chapters and description have my attention, but, if it's alright, might I ask whether it deals with Christian faith at all, either directly or maybe thematically? I do enjoy seeing others' takes on Christianity in Equestria.
6770855
Happy to answer.
Short answer: No, I stole the title from Star Trek, not St. Paul.
Longer answer: There are some ways in which the story draws on Christianity, but not to anywhere near the extent you're thinking of.
I quote from the Bible at a few points: "through a glass darkly" is borrowed from First Corinthians, as you pointed out; "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof", from which I pulled the third and fourth chapter titles, comes from the Gospel of Matthew; and I have Discord quote Satan (Job 1:7) in "Those Who Dream By Night". But that says more about the resonance of those phrases—to my mind, at least—than my intent.
My sols (long awaiting the return of the sun) are a sort of messianic/milleniarian cult, and I suppose persecuted sols like Twilight's parents bear a certain resemblance to many of the 20th century's martyrs holding fast to their faith even in the gulag. But you'd be going pretty far wrong if you assumed that the Sun is an allegory for the Son. I've never liked the "Princesses as gods" trope, and it'd fit especially badly in this context. For that matter, Shining is a fervent believer in the solar creed (whatever it is) and he's a relentless fool and a merciless fanatic.
Look, the bottom line is that this is, at its best, a colorful melodrama where ponies plot and scheme and fight and do terrible things to each other. (Keeping it roughly PG-13, though; this ain't Game of Thrones.) I hope that my faith—I'm Christian—informs my work, but I'm not inclined to work with explicitly spiritual themes and I certainly shy away from preaching. This story touches on the nature of good and evil; it can't do otherwise, and despite the enthusiasm for Evil Twilight among some of my readers [1], my intended message is not "Evil is Cool (and anyway, it was forced to be Evil because Good is Even Worse)". You could do a heck of a lot better than this story if you're looking for something edifying; for that matter, any edifying interpretations of it would be to your credit and not to mine. But you could probably do worse.
[1] For what it's worth, I love Evil Twilight too, but she's unmistakably damaged and, well, evil.
6772075 Great explanation! That answers my questions certainly. Thank you. It seems like a fun and interesting melodrama!
I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this previously but, as far as Twilight's title goes, I believe the term would be 'Adjunct'.
(Sorry if I am repeating this, I didn't read all of the comments)
~Criketsnipa
Twilight is an awful person, but I can't help but root for her. I think it has to do with how much she struggles.
6774485
Strictly speaking, Twilight already has two titles, those being "personal student" and "representative imperial plenipotenciary". Because those are unwieldy (and because the Night Guard, as opposed to the actual military, doesn't tend to stand on ceremony) they're not used - even abbreviating it to "Plenipotenciary Twilight Sparkle" would be a mouthful.
As far as the word "adjunct" goes, it's a fine description of Twilight's role, but doesn't have the same sort of rich Byzantine pulse as "representative imperial plenipotenciary".
It's sad, more so than anything how tragic a character twilight is here. Most of the mane cast is, sans one. They have such flaws that eclipse them, and in such upheaval, it will doom them all in the end more than likely. Either through religious blindness, zeal, or hate.
I think, by the end of it all, only one of them will be standing in the ashes of it all, her clarity having salvaged some small manner of what was her hard fought victory.
Twilight had no chance here, which is perhaps the saddest thing, everyone was so focused to stopping her, they forgot the golden rule, never back someone into a corner. Twilights there, and she has nothing worth trying to save anymore in this place.
6801547
What an odd mistake. I'll fix that, thank you.
So, things are heating up...