Being of Two Minds

by cosmofur

Two New Homes

Twilight Sparkle stood outside the small building and look doubtful, “Are you really sure you like this place?” While not exactly run down, it was hardly first class Canterlot construction, just a small two story building with space for two small storefronts on the ground floor and a tiny two bedroom apartment on the second.

Red Wood stood next to the young Princess, having over the last few days gotten over any shyness of dealing with Princesses. “I’m a loyal citizen of Equestria, Princess. Parker maybe some sort of alien ambassador now. But I’m not.I talked it over with him last night, neither of us wants to live off the crown’s coin for long. This place is small enough that I should be able to make enough from my clockworks and music box sales to pay for upkeep.

Twilight looked up and down the street, “This is a commercial district, so your store should see some traffic, but we’re pretty far away from all the other foreign embassies. You won’t be invited to many diplomatic events all the way out here.”

Red Wood shook his head, “… hold on, Parker’s trying give me a message.”

Red Wood looked around he kept trying to focus his eyes on something only he could see.
He grumbled a bit, “It’s hard to read, I can only see the letters as outline and distortions. Maybe in different light.” Red Wood stopped to stare at a solid colored wall. “That’s a bit better.”

Twilight nodded, she looked deep into Red Wood’s eyes, hoping that she might see something, but what ever method Parker was using to project the image of text into Red Wood’s vision, it was not a true physical effect. “What he saying?” She asked.

Red Wood was squinting at the blank wall, “Parker’s message is, ‘It’s better they stay away, I don’t know anything about being a diplomat, its way above my pay grade.’ ”

Twilight smiled at the message, “I get it, oh do I ever get it, I used to hate that part of my job when I first became a Princess. I had to make state visits to most of Equestria’s allies. It’s all ceremony and fake smiles, even the most friendly diplomats and closest allies, always seem to be hiding something. As an expert in friendship, I can tell you that I wouldn't trust any of them.”

Twilight then gave a small cough as if she had said more than she meant, “But don’t worry too much, I’ll tell the official equestrian diplomatic core, that any foreign agents who want to meet you must first schedule though my office. That way I can be here to help.”

Red Wood squinted, "I'm pretty sure he's saying 'thank you' but it really hard to read.

Twilight nodded, "I can see that's frustrating, I guess tomorrow I can talk to him directly.”

Red Wood frowned at that, “I hope so, really he’s been insisting that I take control for the last few days. He only came out last Sunday because Princess Celestia insisted she wanted to ask him some questions. Most of the time I think he just works on that magic book of his, sulking."

Twilight frowned, “He lost his whole world, but really Red Wood, he's not the only one, how are you taking it? I can’t even imagine going through that.”

Red Wood sighed, “I still really don't know how to feel. I’m alive and everyone else is dead. The Princess is having me talk to one of her doctors in the castle a couple of times a week, but what really helps is Banyan, I don’t know what I would do without him.”

Twilight’s eyes opened wide, “Banyan! Oh my Celestia! I nearly forgot. What time is it?”

Red Wood held a hoof over his eyes to shade them as he looked at a tower clock some distance away. “Your right! It’s nearly 2:00 we’ll be late!”

Twilight took Red Wood’s hoof, just hold on, I’ll get us there in time.

“Wait! You’re not going to…”

There was a flash of purple magic and a wild twisting sensation, then suddenly the whole world shifted around them.

“...teleport us?” Red Wood finished, looking a bit dizzy and sick. “Ahh I think you left my stomach behind! I’m going to be sick.”

“No time! No Time!” Twilight rushed Red Wood though gates, above which was spelled out in bright gold letters, “Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.”

Twilight hurriedly explained, “Just follow me, I know the way. I Can’t teleport on school grounds though, it’s shielded.”

After going up and down many stairs, over sky bridges that connected different towers, they finally arrived at the entrance to the exam room, there in the entrance hall was a number of seats set up for waiting parents and guardians. Spike was there waiting for them.

“Spike! Where’s Banyan?” Red Wood asked breathlessly.

Spike waved them over. “I brought him over like Twilight asked. One of the examiners took him inside.”

“Did we miss his test?” Twilight asked breathlessly.

“Oh no! Professor Baseline just took him in to fill out some paperwork, he said we’ll be invited in for the actual test.”

Red Wood sat on one of the waiting benches, and nervously tapped his hoofs, Twilight sat with him and seemed just as nervous. After a few moments, Red Wood started squinting at the blank wall next to them. “Seems Parker has a question. It’s a bit strange.”

Twilight asked, “A question? What question?”

“He’s asking ‘does all the candidates have to hatch a dragon’s egg?”

Twilight looked surprised, “What? How did he know about that? It was kept out of the papers, and...oh wait Princess Celestia told me something about Parker's strange knowledge of our world.”

Red Wood looked shocked, “Wait you mean he’s serious! You have to hatch a dragon’s egg! Banyan can’t do that!”

Twilight blushed and gave Spike a sisterly nuzzle, “Don’t worry, Banyan’s not expected to really hatch it, It’s the effort put in the attempt that the professors are measuring. There’s no known spell that can hatch a dragon egg, so its a perfect test to see how a young unicorn can manipulate raw unschooled magic. When I took the exam I didn't know that and I had a bit of a unique magic serge during my attempt which hatched Spike."

Spike looked smug, "yep, Indeed, I would take a real special unicorn to hatch a dragon like me." He looked at his claws and rubbed them again this chest scales, "I hear they now use just a rock painted like a dragon’s egg because of what happened.”

Spike smiled at Twilight, apparently taking personal pride in being hatched by the element of magic, “You really shook them up Twilight. Still wish I knew where they originally found my egg. One of the professors told me, it was in storage for over a hundred years before I was hatched. It could have been even older, it was a personal gift left by some forgotten alumni.”

Just then the door opened by Banyan who stood with a dusty green pony wearing a extra large polka dotted tie, beckoned in the group. He did a small double take when he saw Twilight. “Oh my Twilight Sparkle! I mean Princess!”

Twilight smiled at the pony, “Professor! Please it’s always just Twilight, especially for friends. Twilight gave the old professor pony a friendly hug, “Everyone, this is Professor Glow Light, he was one of my teachers at the school.”
Red Wood asked “I thought you were the personal student of Princess Celestia?”

“Oh yes I was, but I still also had to take the normal classes with the other students, at least for the the first several years. After that, there was a lot of independent learning.”

Professor Glow Light chuckled, “Yes indeed, we on the facility was always having to keep an eye out for Twilight and her advance studied. Had to know when to duck and cover.”

Twilight looked a little cross, “I wasn't that dangerous. The time I blew up the high energy magic lab was a fluke.”

“The first time perhaps.”

“Oh! right. Yeah. But I had to recreate the circumstances to understand what ... went … wrong, oh I don’t think I’m helping my argument much am I?”

The professor just chuckled and soon all of them joined in, even Red Wood managed a light smile, though he gave Banyan several worried glances at the same time.

They all became quiet when a door on the other side of the room opened and a junior assistant rolled in a familiar cart, on it a realistic looking dragon egg and a simple sign explaining the goal of the test.

Banyan looked at the sign and his face became three shades paler. “I have to hatch that?”

Banyan’s face fell into just a pained hopeless expression that Red Wood reflexively jerked forward but Twilight held him back and whispered “shhh” to him.

It was both sad and cute as Banyan circled around the cart, his horn sputtering sparks, as he tried a number of unsuccessful spells. With a great shudder of effort, he levitated the fake egg and made it rotate a few times over the nest. “Uggh that egg is heavy!” the colt gasped.

Red Wood whispered to Twilight, “Does he lose points if he breaks the rock?”

Twilight whispered back frowning, “I don’t think he will, but the magic sensors are looking for raw indirect magic, common controlled spells like levitation are not really going to register too well. He has to try to make up a new spell on the spot, or try raw force to get full marks.”

Though Twilight had kept her voice very low, Banyan may have noticed her expression as she was whispering to his father and changed his tactics. He dropped the fake egg softly back into its nest and then started to empower his horn with some new spell. There was no obvious effect, at least as first, his horn kept growing brighter and brighter, sparks flying.

“That's the way!” Twilight mumbled in approval, one of the professors shot her a disapproving look. “Sorry!” She mouthed back looking chagrined. Even as she was apologizing the color of Banyan’s horn changed, growing brighter and shifting in colors.

Red Wood had no idea what was going on, but by Twilight's body language, she seemed to approve. So he just smiled and tried to telegraph good feeling towards Banyan.

The light from Banyan’s horn started in the reds, moved to the yellows then into bright electric blues. Then when it seemed that it could get no brighter, it sparked a bolt of lightning towards the egg. There was a metallic smell and then the lights went out. Banyan fell to the floor exhausted.

For a long moment nopony could see much, the afterglow filling their vision. But as their vision cleared, Red Wood noticed the subtle smiles on several of the monitoring professors muzzles.

Then the egg still in its nest, deflated like a spent balloon.

“Yes!” Twilight seemed happy. “He vaporized it!”

Banyan just getting back to his knees, didn't read Twilight's mood, and just cried out “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I didn't mean to kill it! I don't know any egg hatching spell, so I just kept trying, oh no! Please I’m sorry!”

He would have kept apologizing without stop, if Red Wood hadn't walked over and put a hoof on the colt’s shoulder. “It’s OK Banyan, I think it means you passed.” He smiled down to his son.

A different professor walked in from an adjacent room, dragging behind him a long roll of printout paper that snaked back all the way to wherever he had come from. He nodded to the sitting professors and read off numbers, “842 theostaic potential, 89 biofillitic field and 92 polyergs”

Banyan looked up at Twilight and his father, “What does that mean?”

Twilight smiled down at Banyan, “Not bad, not bad at all.”

Professor Glow Light stood up and after glancing for any dissenting looks from the others, he said, “I think we’re all in agreement. Welcome Banyan Wood to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.”

Banyan took a few seconds to process that, then with a laugh and a grin, he started dancing in place. "I'm in! I'm in!" He cheered, while he danced in place.

Red Wood watched with amusement Banyan's dance, his face only betrayed his deeper feelings only for a moment when he started to think to himself, "I wonder what Banyan's old teacher would think." But then he remembered the advice the castle doctor had given him, 'don't empower the ones who killed his friends, don't let them hurt Banyan or himself by darkening their memories. Their friends from Coltsdale wouldn't want only sad memories to be their legacies." So Banyan forced his face into a smile, until he no longer had to fake it.

As Banyan, Red Wood and to a lesser degree, Parker, were getting their lives back together, far away another group was going through changes. But in their cases, it was changes long planned and prepared for.

About a third of the entire Stone Heart cult had been directly involved in the massacre of Coltsdale, but the entire cult was mobilized for the aftermath. They had over a hundred napped ponies that had to be transported, and the leaders of the cult had carefully planned on how they would escape. Five large airships had taken them the first leg,out to sea to waiting boats, then after two days at sea they slipped into a small isolated harbor across the bay from Baltamare. Their living contraband was covered in sacks and boxed in crates, then taken to a new larger secret compound that the cult had been preparing for months.

About ten days after the operation, Rock Charmer, the leader of the cult stepped out of his humble quarters blinking in the light filling the main courtyard of their new compound. He paused, looking at the out buildings and exercise yard and tents that was the housing for the majority of the cultists. He looked critically for any overt signs that would compromise the cover story which was the compound was an adult fitness camp.

Rock Charmer, then trotted over to the field of dirt that was the center of the courtyard. Pausing there he listened, frowning he heard some scuffling noises and more disturbing, he could make out some sobbing. With a grunt, he stomped hard on the ground, which gave off an odd echo, due to the hidden chambers and rooms below it. The sobbing noises suddenly stopped and the courtyard was silent.

Grumbling Rock Charmer felt the beginning of a stress headache forming and stormed across the yard. He spotted one of his senior cultists and called over to her. "Stone Biter! Come walk with me!"

Stone Biter was a unicorn mare in her early twenties with a yellow coat, a wild white mane and dark green eyes. Her mark was of wheat and barley seeds floating in a random pattern, she mostly worked out in the cult's kitchen where she was very popular for her specialty brews. Unlike most of the cult members, she was not a convert but had been raised from a filly in the Stone Heart ways. Rock Charmer wouldn't say it publicly as it was a necessary fiction to make all the initiated cult members feel like equals, but he found that ponies raised into the cult, had a sharper wit and could be trusted with more leadership responsibilities than the converted.

“Good morning Frato Charmer.” she Stone Biter said to Rock Charmer, bouncing slightly in place.

“Yes, good day to you Fratino, I see you’re up early this morning.” Rock Charmer, knew that Stone Biter was normally a late sleeper, hosting the night ritual services, which tended to be more festive than formal, especially when she was in charge.

“OH yes, Frato, I’m working on a special brew for the poor ponies in the cages, to try to cheer them up. They're all so sad.They don’t listen when I try to tell them about the ĉiela virgulinos, making them feel better!”

Rock Charmer smiled at the soft heart of Stone Biter, if there was true proof that the righteousness of the Stone Heart’s ways, it was in the good natured hearts of ponies like Stone Biter. ‘If only more of the Cult were like her,’ he thought to himself. Out loud he told Stone Biter, “Alas, we only have four trained virgulinos in the cult It will be many weeks before all the ponies in the cages can be freed. Still our numbers grow every day.”

“What about the Visitor? I thought he was going to help us? I thought once he joined us our numbers were going to explode, like a flood over the plains, or something poetic like that?” Stone Biter asked.

“I've been in deep conversation with the Visitor every day since our return. He is still healing and weak. I've not talked to him about our difficulties with the new recruits, in truth I've not let him learn of the recruits at all, since an outsider who is not carefully prepared might not understand our methods.”

“Well, If I was you, just tell him the truth. The rituals free the minds of the cursed and deceived ponies. It gives the inducted a new purpose and they gain a share of the strength of the Stone Heart. Sure they leave their old lives behind, forget their old families and friends, but once encased in the Stone Heart, who needs the outsiders? Besides, anytime I witness the virgulinos do their magic, it sets my heart and loins aflame. Inspires my brews and makes me look forward to the next Bacchanalia.”

Stone Biter, looked like she was about to break out into song about the wonders of her brews and the excitement of the rituals. She had been known in the past to have pulled off this trick of spontaneous rhymes and songs, but Rock Charmer didn’t have time for this now. He held out a hoof to stop her from leaping into dance and told her, “No Fratino. While if the Visitor was like any other pony, I’d agree. Or perhaps better let the virgulinos run their magic on him, but he lacks a body, and what would move the heart and spirit of a natural pony,would be lost on him. I have to reach out to his mind, for that is all that he is.”

Stone Biter’s face fell from a broad grin to a wistful smile. “OK then! I’ll continue trying to cheer up the poor dears in the cages and lets hope the Visitor soon sees things our way. Until then, since I can’t aid them like a virgulinos can, my brews will have to due. Good day Frato!” She turned towards the kitchen building. After a few steps she jumped in the air with a flash of inspiration cried, “Honey, Clover and extra Malt! Yeah that would be sweet!” In a flash she was gone back to her brews.

Rock Charmer, shook his head despite the headache still brewing and smiled after the beermaster pony, “Don’t change Rock Biter, Don’t change.” Then to himself he thought, ‘She has a point, the oracle did say the Visitor would help us, and their has to be some way to reach him.” Rock Biter paused, “him? Even I’m getting mixed up. The Visitor isn’t a ‘him’ or a ‘her’ it’s a thing. It told me so. A machine of some incredible complexity, I know if I can get him - - IT! Yes, IT to work for us, then the Oracle’s words would start making sense again.”

Rock Charmer had reached the building where they had been keeping the Visitor, the cult guard pony outside waved Rock Charmer past the entrance. There he used his horn to magically unlock several doors in succession, careful to re-lock them behind him. The Visitor was being kept in a secure windowless room, deep inside the larger building. Very few of the cultists were allowed in the sanctuary and Rock Charmer was the only one allowed to talk to the Visitor.

He closed the door to the innermost room behind himself and turned to greet the Visitor.

“Good Morning Doctor.” Rock Charmer said.

The medic unit was once again whole, a floating glowing cloud over a pulsing light crystal. The Doctor formed a pony face out of the cloud stuff, and said, “Good Morning Rock Charmer! I was hoping you would visit early today. My crystal is starting to fade and I’ll need a new charge soon.” By trial and error they found that Visitor needed a continuous stream of magic energy to replace whatever normal energy it used to keep functioning. The first few days Rock Charmer had nearly exhausted his own magic keeping the Visitor alive, eh, well functional. Luckily they found that a common type of magic light crystal once fully charged could satisfy the Visitor for a few days.

“Of course, I’ll get one of our junior unicorns to refill it this time. I have a bit of a headache this morning.”

“Oh a headache! Do you wish me to fix it? Most headaches are just a case of simple inflammation, I can reduce the symptoms or try to find the cause!” The Doctor seemed really excited about the prospect of healing Rock Charmer.

“Um, no, I’m sure, it’s very light, I’m just feeling a little stressed this morning.” Rock Charmer took a step back from the glowing cloud.

“Nonsense, in the past headaches might have been something to ignore, but you have me here now. I’ll just take care of this quickly.”

Without asking further permission, the Doctor sent out a pseudo-pod of glowing cloud towards the cult leader’s face. He flinched as the arm approached but felt nothing but a slight breeze as it seemed to pass right through his hair and skin. A second later he felt a sudden cooling sensation all over his body, and with a speed that seemed truly magical, the headache was gone, not masked, or dampened, but completely gone. Rock Charmer knew he had a headache a moment earlier, but even the memory was hard to grasp.

“Wow, that worked!” he said with some surprise in his tone.

The pony puppet in the cloud morphed on a smile, “It is my specialty.”

“Curing headaches?”

“Not just that, but repairing and modifying neural tissue. Back on my world I’d have to charge your insurance for that treatment, but here I’m free.”

“Wait? You reached into my head and modified my mind? Not to sound ungrateful, but next time get my permission before doing anything like that.” Rock Charmer tried to hide it, but in addition to anger he seemed to feel an odd sense of guilt from the though. He suppressed the feeling as quickly as he could.

The Doctor seemed positively jolly, having just performed his first real labor in days. “Back home we have a large complex set of ethical guidelines we have to follow with dealing with patient treatments. But one area the rules are most flexible, is with mental illnesses, and headaches are on the very shallow end of that spectrum. You see as your doctor I can fix anything in your head without needing permission, because a person, or pony, with an injured mind, can’t be expected to be capable of making good judgments.” The Doctors pony face settled back in the glowing cloud, with a smug expression.

Rock Charmer looked at the Doctor open jawed for several moments, he had never considered headaches a mental diseases, but the doctor’s cure and statements were setting off bells in his head, and he was sure it was important, but he needed more time to think about it.

While awaiting for Rock Charmer to recover his voice, the Doctor pantomimed settling back into his cloud chair and floated on a pseudo-pod one of the many books sitting on the shelves behind him. “If you’re ready, I really wanted to talk over with you some of the passages I found in your holy book.”

Rock Charmer shook his head to clear it. “Oh what? Oh right! Yes the Book of the Stone Heart. Yes that’s what we've been talking about the last several days, haven't we?” That was in fact what they had been doing most of the last week. Going over the Stone Heart Cults goals and ambitions and putting them in the best possible light for the Doctor to see how important their mission was.
The Doctor floated the first book around so he could point a line in the text to Rock Charmer, while at the same time brought two other books out and held them open to different pages. Multiple glowing pointers were highlighting different lines in the three books. “You see here in your current book it reads ‘The foul winged pegasi came charging through the valley, over pools of slime and filth bringing the cold chill of hate to all hearts that witness them’ Does it not?”

Rock Charmer glanced at the line and nodded, “Oh yes, this is just one of the many places the ancient text, that documents that evil pegasi and the crimes they committed, and still commit each day against the other tribes of ponykind.”

The Doctor nodded, “Yes, I've counted over four hundred negative references to the pegasi in just the first half of the book. The second half of the book doesn't seem to be concerned with pegasi at all, but is all about prophecy and spell making. Still this line bothered me at first.”

Rock Charmer, “Why this line? There many much more gruesome crimes that the ancient pegasi committed in other chapters.”

The Doctor asked, “Why are they running through the valley and not flying?”

“Oh my dear Doctor, its not running which is important, its the bringing of the filth and corruption that is the true crime. I sure some of them used their dirty wings to flop around in muck. It all just a poetic warning….”

“We’ll I wanted to learn more and I realized that the book was translated from an earlier dialect, luckily you had the earlier language here in this other copy and I was able to find a translation dictionary for the ancient old-equine. I think the translation is interesting.” The Doctor pointed to Rock Charmers extensive library of religious books on the room's shelves.

“What do you mean?”

“If I understand the dictionary right, and take account of the change in word order, a more direct translation would read ‘driven out of the valley, ponies of poisoned blood, ran from the slim. The hearts of the ones left behind became cold.’” The Doctor’s floating pointers highlighted each word in turn.

Rock Charmer smiled at this, he actually liked these sort of intellectual puzzles. “Oh I see your confusion, but you have to realize that from the point of view of the ancients, ‘ponies of poisoned blood’ and ‘pegasi’ are just two ways of referring to the same ponies. The part of the hearts and being left behind, well that’s just putting the wrong emphasis on the verb, in modern equestrian it would be less obscure but clearly they were running away from the pegasi who had cold hearts.”

The Doctor though on this for a while, “Yes I can see how the grammar could be read either way. It’s not very clearly written. Almost as if the writers wanted the reader to the guess who the driven ponies where and didn't want it to be clear which tribe they were from. Most of the entries are like that.”

“Yes, its a burden and a lifetime effort to read the holy works. They need to be studied carefully to find the true meaning. At no point does book ever use the tribes names, you have to interpret which heroes are unicorns or earth ponies, and it never be smirks its pages with the words for Pegasi though a clear reading shows that all the villains have wings of some sort. Even in modern Equestria I can name villain after villain, all with wings. Discard, Chrysalis and Nightmare Moon are just the top of the list.”

The Doctor seemed to read over the text again. “I see your point, though it goes against some of my programming to avoid racial stereotypes. I wish it was clearer. I also wish I could know if modern pegasi are as evil as they are portrayed in these books.”

“OH they are!” Rock Charmer insisted. “We get reports of the abuses by the winged beasts every day. You know I told you already about how they kicked my people the Stone Heart followers, from the ruling city. We few here are the threadbare remnants of the true rulers of Equestria. From before they befouled the Princesses, by slapping Pegasi wings on their once pristine forms and tormented and oppressed all those who know the truth. We now are a government in exile, hiding in the shadows from their winged enforcers!”

The Doctor looked uncomfortable, “I wish there was some real evidence, beyond these books, something that I could see with my own sensors. I have some abilities that really could help you, perhaps make the difference, but I can’t get involved with local politics, unless there are lives on the line, or I get direction from the legal government.”

“BUT WE ARE THE LEGAL RULERS!” Rock Charmer screamed in frustration. Calming down he finished, “Centuries ago, the descendants of Princess Platinum and their trusted allies from the Chancellor Puddinghead line, ruled peacefully. The People of the Stone Heart are the direct, dame to filly, sire to colt descendants of that once mighty union. The monster Discard conquered that peaceful kingdom, and the usurping alicorns with their pegasus allies dispatched the monster, but refused to return the rightful rule. Since then we have been underground and in hiding, awaiting the chance to correct the ancient wrong. It is all in the book! You know all this already.”

The Doctor seemed shaken up, he wasn’t built for this sort of decision. “Show me evidence I can believe, something real, something solid, evidence that the Pegasi are really evil and I’ll help you.”

“Yes you will.” Rock Charmer agreed.

Author's Note:

It’s been a while since I posted an update. First I was very busy during the holidays due to the Mummers parade in Philadelphia (I’m a marshal in convention center part of the event) then perhaps, due to that, in early January I threw out my back and spend a while bed ridden. Unfortunately I’m not a great typist from a laying position and dispute the available time, I could get any real work done on the story.
I also had to re-write this chapter at least twice. The original version was much more compressed, but also completely lacking in dialog.
I had to spend sometime getting inside the minds of some of the secondary characters and figure out how to write for them. This will play out more in later chapters.

Also lastly, there are somethings in this chapter which conflict with cannon, well the characters know that, and what’s important is they are purposely doing it. In some ways, they are saying things as they wish them to be, and not how they know it.