Appearances
At last, I get some lines!
I was starting to worry the eschaton would be immanentised before we reached this part. The repository is lagging. It's been almost eight minutes since I began, but it seems Her Godliness is also taking her time.
It'll be a few chapters before our proper villain appears. Wouldn't it be ironic if she swept us aside before I get to telling that bit?
Anyway, I may as well crack ahead.
Chapter 6
Appearances
Sweetie Belle, Tom, and the aelewyrm eggs had been left in what she supposed was some sort of cargo hold: unpainted walls poorly lit by a stuttering lamp in the corner, filled with cool, humid air and some faint, unplaceable reek that was, at least, more pleasant than the air outside. It would have almost been relaxing, were they not in mortal danger.
And were it not for the fact that her hallucination had returned half an hour ago.
It – she – sat in front of Sweetie Belle, looking at her with big, lugubrious eyes. She looked more real now, her scale and mane as dark as the rest of her room. Sometimes she would try to speak, but no sound would came out of her mouth, and she would frown, silently curse, and flicker out of existence, only to reappear a few minutes later. Each time Sweetie Belle's horn twinged.
After her third return, Sweetie Belle stood and walked towards her. “What do you want?” she asked softly. “Why are you in my head?”
The hallucination looked up at her when she spoke, then stood too. She reached out a cloven hoof as if to stroke Sweetie Belle's face and said something that from her expression looked very much like I'm sorry.
“What?” said Tom.
Sweetie Belle glanced at him, and when she looked back the hallucination was gone. She closed her eyes and sighed. “Nothing.”
“Must be the most valuable nothing in Amaranth,” said Tom.
Sweetie Belle ambled over and sat beside him. “I suppose there's no point in keeping it secret now.”
“Are you sure? If it gets out, someone might hear about it and try and capture you.”
She glared at him.
Tom shrugged. “What's your story?”
She told him. About finding the statue, about how it had zapped her, about whatever secret organisation was offering huge amounts of money for lit statues, and how this one had gone dark, about the hallucination that had been haunting her since Ilmarinen.
“And,” she concluded, “sometimes I feel like I can almost understand what the daemons are saying.”
“You're … not a lucky mare, are you?”
She laughed despite everything and shook her head.
“So you think they … whoever they are … are chasing you because of what the statue did?”
“Makes sense, right? Maybe they want this creature I keep seeing.”
“How did they find out about you?”
“I don't know. They might've figured out we had a statue in Ilmarinen. Or the griffon we sold it to might've told them. But I don't know why they'd know to go after me.”
When she looked ahead, the hallucination had returned. Her horn twinged again. The hallucination walked across the hold, over towards the Aelewyrm eggs, gesturing at her to follow. She stood and trotted after it.
“What's happening?”
“She's back,” said Sweetie Belle. When she got within a few metres of the eggs, the hallucination vanished again. “Oh, Celestia. This getting …”
What was that?
She walked closer to the eggs, listening intently.
A barely audible scraping, followed by a louder crunch.
The eggs were hatching.
Millie was starting to worry she was out of her depth.
She'd trailed the two ships to the research outpost – inexplicably destroyed. Soon after they had taken off again. East, this time. Again she had trailed them until, maybe four or five miles along, they had separated. One continued east; the other had accelerated and turned back in the direction of Ilmarinen.
That, by itself, was easy to read: Hinny's Revenge had seen them and scarpered, but griffons had seen something else they wanted to investigate. But with that reading came only further mysteries. What had led their quarry east, and what were they now investigating?
But it was time for decisions, not mysteries. She decided to trail the pursuing ship, supposing that Hinny's Revenge was in immediate danger. And besides, a single armed pirate ship might actually be a challenge she could handle.
But there things got more confusing. A couple of hours into the chase, the pursuing ship had given up. It just decelerated, drew to a halt and waited. Soon after its partner appeared on the horizon. Millie moved Dignity out from its path and waited.
Over the past half hour, each of the five eggs had begun to crunch and shudder. Cracks lined their shells, and the motion beneath was clearly visible.
Tom seemed to have forgotten their predicament, and was circling the eggs, staring intensely at them. “What do you think they'll look like?” he said. “Smaller versions of the adult, or some larval stage?” And later, “I wonder what they need to eat.”
Sweetie Belle had to admit that despite everything, the eggs were fascinating. And even if the aelewyrm hatchlings did kill them, it might not be much worse than the fate awaiting her.
With a great cracking sound, the closest eggs split along its circumference and opened slightly. Syrupy liquid smelling of diesel dribbled out from the underside. Motion within – and pincer-like mandibles, glistening wet and the colour of ivory, maybe two feet long, emerged. They clicked together, once, twice, then retreated.
Tom took a step back.
Sweetie Belle took a step forward. She steadied herself and did her best to channel Fluttershy: “Hello there, little one …”
“Sweetie Belle?”
She turned to Tom. “Worth a try, right?”
The hatchling moved again, this time poking its entire head out. Its dark grey skin looked like a cross between dragon scales, tar, and ancient, cracked rubber. Brilliant electric blue compound eyes with hints of gold and copper were arranged in four pairs circling the head.
Sweetie Belle took another tentative step towards it and slowly reached out a hoof.
It looked at her – or seemed to look at her – and clicked its mandibles.
“Hey. Welcome to, um, Amaranth.”
The hatchling responded with a noise halfway between a low pitched chirrup and an untuned cello. It reached forward, pushed its mandibles against Sweetie Belle's hoof and chirruped again.
She grinned at Tom. “See?”
As the other four eggs began to hatch, Sweetie Belle and Tom introduced themselves to each in turn, speaking in gentle tones and getting surreal but evidently friendly noises in return. Soon, the hatchlings escaped fully from their eggs, revealing slender bodies, tapering to spiked tails over ten or twelve feet. From each, three pairs of wings unfurled, covered in the same tarlike skin as the rest of the creature.
They moved gracefully, sidewinding, then flicking out a wing or two to gain traction and change direction. Intermittently they would buzz their wings, lift a short way off the ground, then go back to slinking across the floor to nuzzle Sweetie Belle or Tom, or investigate the walls. Momentarily the eldest took to the air, hovered, then flew across the hold – and went back to struggling.
Sweetie Belle was just getting past a wave of bewilderment and euphoria and starting to worry about what to do next when one of the hatchlings started investigating the hold's metal door. After nosing around a little, it opened its mandibles wide and bit down on either side of the door. A loud clang echoed through the hold. The aelewyrm's chirrup. A squeal as the door buckled slightly. Another chirrup as the aelewyrm retreated, and another clang when it threw its thagomizer against the door.
Cursing from the other side.
The door opened. Sweetie Belle was about to rush forward, but Tom held her back. “What in …” came the guard's voice from the corridor outside. The hatchling chirruped and moved forward.
The sharp retort of gunfire, painfully loud.
The hatchling fell back, but only momentarily. Then, with a sound that was less of a chirrup than a roar, it surged through the door. The guard screamed. The other hatchlings perked up and moved towards the door. More gunfire. Yelling. Aelewyrm sounds that were impossible to put a name to.
The noise began to die away. Sweetie Belle realised Tom's paw was still against her shoulder. She moved it aside, turned to him, and said, “I think we'd better go.”
Halfway towards the door she turned to see him standing in the same place. “Are you sure?”
She nodded. “What's the alternative?”
Tom shrugged and moved to follow her.
The corridor outside was empty, the walls pitted with fresh scars and the floor strewn with spent casings. With what she hoped was an air of confidence, she turned right and started cantering. A little way down there a mound of something lying against the wall, all stained feathers and fur. It took a fraction of a second for her to realise what it was. She averted her eyes and kept cantering. After she'd passed she heard something. Tom appeared jogging beside her, a gun in his hand. He glanced down at it as if surprised by it's presence. “I have no idea how to fire this. Oh, crumbs.”
Looking down yet another corridor with no indication of where in the ship they were, Sweetie Belle was beginning to think her plan to trail the hatchlings wasn't going well. The sounds of the pirates fighting – or failing to fight – were getting fainter, and she suspected the hatchlings had split up some time ago. On the upside, she thought to herself, this route meant they hadn't run into any pirates.
Around the next corner they ran into a pirate.
He was alone, and he was looking down the corridor away from them, gun drawn. For a brief moment, Sweetie Belle thought they could escape unseen, but her hooves had given her away. The guard began to turn towards them. Acting solely on instinct, She grabbed his gun in her aura before he could turn it on them. It went off as soon as she touched it – standard anti-magic defence – but the round just hit the wall. She wrenched it from his grasp and sent it clattering away behind her. The griffon advanced on them, wings flared, then drew to a halt as Tom raised his gun.
The seconds stretched out as they stared at one another.
“What now?” said Tom. “I'm not really skilled at hostage-taking.”
Sweetie Belle shuddered, then retrieved the gun she'd taken from the guard and pointed at it. She nodded down one of the corridors. “That way,” she told him. “If you come back, we'll shoot you,”
It looked for a moment like the griffon was going to attack them anyway, but he relented, and with a snarl, headed off the way Sweetie Belle had pointed.
They hurried onwards, hoping to get some distance before he found another gun or an ally.
“I have to admit,” said Tom, “you're far better in a crisis than I thought you'd be when I first saw you.”
“Thanks,” murmured Sweetie Belle as they rounded another corner. And, because she couldn't think of anything better to add, “You too.”
Tom began to say something, but stopped at the sound of pattering claws and paws behind them. They broke into a gallop and a run, but were halted almost immediately by two pirates appearing at the head of the corridor in front of them – the scarred griffon she presumed was the captain and his assistant, Gregor. A glance behind confirmed the pirate they'd disarmed had caught up to them, sporting a new weapon.
Sweetie Belle and Tom were trapped in the middle, an equal distance from both parties. Along one side there were a series of doors, presumably leading to crew quarters. One, behind them, was slightly ajar.
“You're almost as much a pain as she was,” growled the captain. “Sweetie Belle, we might need to keep you alive, but that's not true for your friend there.”
“The ansible said they needed her horn and head. Nothing about whether her legs needed to be intact,” said Gregor.
The captain seemed to grin. “Well, there you go. And after what you've unleashed on my ship, let's say I'm actually rather in the mood to shoot out some kneecaps. So the two of you might want to drop your weapons.”
Sweetie Belle and Tom did so, and on the captain's further instruction, kicked them away.
As their guns skittered across the floor, Sweetie Belle realised she knew a spell.
No, that wasn't quite right. A spell had come into her awareness, all at once. A spell that she knew precisely how to use, even though she'd never seen it before. Even though, she suspected, no unicorn had ever seen it before. And with came a plan of how to escape.
She weighed up the options briefly. Either trust something that had appeared in her head from nowehere … or trust the pirate in front of her.
Well, it seemed like whatever was in her head was valuable.
The captain was speaking again. Something about the aelewyrms.
Sweetie Belle threw up a shield around her and Tom. “Follow me!” she cried, grabbed his paw in her mouth, and pulled him backwards.
A gunshot. A bullet hit her shield, and she felt a spark of pain jab into the base of her horn.
They reached the door. Tom's ears lay flat against his head, but he wasn't resisting. A second bullet his her shield. By luck alone, it held. A third.
The shield fragmented, sending a final wave on pain down her horn.
Sweetie Belle stumbled, her vision dimmed, but they were through. Tom slammed the door closed without being asked and threw his weight against it.
“Wonderful. Now they'll kill me,” he said.
The dizziness from having her shield rupture passed. Sweetie Belle glanced around; the room looked like some sort of crew quarters. “No, they won't,” she said.
A thump against the door.
Sweetie Belle used her spell.
The region of space near the far wall seemed to thicken and then congeal, taking on the quality of rotting milk or old, greasy food. It hung in the air for a moment, rippling, then swam through the wall, leaving a patch with the same glutinous appearance.
“What …” began Tom.
She could feel a deep ache oozing up through her muscles. “Follow me,” she said, and leapt at the wall. It clung to her skin as she passed, cold and slimy, but only for a brief moment – and she was through to the other side. She turned back to see Tom appear. The wall quivered sickeningly with his passage, then reverted to its original texture. A loud bang and muffled voiced came from the other side.
“We have to ...” she said, gesturing at the next wall, similarly affected.
When Tom looked at her, his eyes widened. “Are you okay?” he said.
She shook her head. Something dribbled down the underside of her muzzle and dripped on the floor. Blood. The world spun; her knees buckled, but in a moment, she found herself caught by Tom and hefted through the opening in the wall.
“ … through there” she heard. The corridor was lined with portholes – they were at the edge of the gondola.
“No, let's not …” she murmured.
Movement. Colours fading in and out. Noises. A breeze on her face.
“Aquileonan design,” said Tom. “I forgot. Crumbs.”
Sweetie Belle forced herself back towards consciousness. They stood at a portal, staring out over the bitumen desert hundreds of feet below. There was another airship some distance away. Closer, some griffons had taken to the air. They were firing at something. One of the aelewyrm hatchlings? It hurtled into one of them, leaving a tumbling body. “Good girl,” she said softly. “Or boy.”
Something else caught her attention. A craft hugging the ground on some bulbous cushion. “Millie?”
“What?” said Tom.
Sweetie Belle gestured. “Have to … send her a message.”
“Oh, right. And how do we do that?”
Sweetie Belle sighed and closed her eyes. There was one way, but she wasn't sure she was capable of it. Summoning all her concentration, the remainder of her magic, she threw a giant, glowing green sigil into the air: Scootaloo's cutie mark.
And then she passed out.
A broad balcony with a low barrier of copper filigree composed almost the entire western side of Sweetie Belle's hotel room. There, eight stories up, she could pick out the grandiose landmarks of Susa against the roiling dusk: The fractal spires and domes of the parliament building surround the vast Plaza Of Aquileona; the twelve bismuth-feathered Wings, each bigger than the buildings around them; the Bridge of the Bereft. Beside these monuments the griffons crowding the skyways were scarcely distinguishable from gnats. The air brought in a subtle stink of diesel exhaust. It was stronger each time she came here, and had long since overpowered Susa's original unplaceable odour.
Eyes closed, she took a step back into her room, so the smell of her perfume and swish of her dress swept away the city. She was still riding a wave of post-show euphoria and confidence, and even the grimy, creeping industrialisation of the city felt like something she could sweep aside if she cared to. This was the sort of moment she wished could last forever. There was only one thing missing.
Before her there came a gust of wind and the sound of hooves against tiles. She opened her eyes to see Scootaloo, wings spread and grin broad.
“You were rocking tonight!” Scootaloo frowned briefly. “Well, not literally, but y'know. As much as a piano solo can rock.”
Sweetie Belle took her hoof and led her inside. “I thought it wasn't your kind of your music?”
They sat side by side on one of the beds. “Yeah, well, not usually,” said Scootaloo. “But it's you.” Her wing pressed against Sweetie Belle's side through her gown. “One of my best friends in the whole world. Who – and don't get me wrong, 'cause I'd like your music anyway – who has done me one of the biggest favours ever.”
After stifling a grin, Sweetie Belle put on a modest look. “Just because I introduced you to Adrenaline Rush?”
“Yeah! Totally! This adventure vacation thing, it's something I can do. Something I can do properly, you know?” Scootaloo shook her head and adopted a softer tone. “I can't explain it. Just, really, means a lot to me.”
Seized by a sudden impulse, Sweetie Belle leaned over and nuzzled her. “I'm glad,” she said. “You deserve it.” Through her gown she felt Scootaloo's wing shift.
Scootaloo studied her face. “Ha! Like your music,” she said.
“What?”
“When you're all prettied up like that, with the dress and the eyeliner and stuff. It's not something I'd normally like, but on you you it looks …”
The bedsheets rubbed against Sweetie Belle's pastern. She waited, all innocence, for Scootaloo to finish.
“ … really hot, actually.” Scootaloo scritched at her mane with a hooftip. “I mean, don't be offended or anything, but –”
Sweetie Belle leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. For a lone moment, redolent with unspeakable meaning and everything Sweetie Belle knew she deserved, they looked at one another, then fell into a kiss proper.
“I'm not offended,” whispered Sweetie Belle. The scent of Scootaloo mingled with her own perfume; her tongue buzzed with the echo of touch and taste. She grinned, and as they kissed again, pushed Scootaloo back against the bed.
Outside, the sky tumbled towards night and the silhouettes of ancient monuments dissolved into the background.
Hours later, Sweetie Belle woke entangled in bedsheets. Silence, at once relaxing and oppressive, weighed down on her. A shape in the darkness resolved itself as Scootaloo, sitting on the edge of the bed. Her half-open wings quivered.
Sweetie Belle watched her, trying to image what she was thinking. She pulled the bedsheets away, just loud enough to alert Scootaloo to her wakefulness, then shifted over and began to preen the closest wing.
Scootaloo retracted her wing at the first touch, as if burned. She turned to Sweetie Belle, the faint, distant lights of the city glimmering in her eyes. “Sorry. They're sensitive.”
“It's okay,” said Sweetie Belle. “How're you feeling?”
“Alright.” Her gaze went to the window again while Sweetie Belle waited for a response. “Do you still like me, even though I'm a screwup?”
“One,” said Sweetie Belle, “You're not a screwup. Two, of course I like you. Three –” Her back leg thumped gently against Scootaloo's rear through the covers. “You told me to kick you if you started moping again.”
Gradients of shadow picked out a small upwards curve on Scootaloo's lips. She reached over and stroked Sweetie Belle's shoulder. “You're right. Let's go back to bed.”
Exhaustion.
A deep, throbbing ache, physical or emotional, she couldn't tell.
Then sensation: A dull background roar she felt in her bones as much as she could hear.
Motion that made her want to throw up … except she had already thrown up.
Sour taste in her mouth. Yeah, she'd thrown up.
She'd thrown up on the pirates' ship, just as they were leaving. A sort of goodbye. At the time it had struck her as hilarious, but she had been too tired to laugh.
Memories came back in pieces:
On a balloon, being winched down.
Lying, eyes closed by the portal, listening to the aelewyrm hatchlings call and the guns return.
Millie's hovercraft coming up towards them.
Lying in bed beside Scootaloo.
No, that was something else.
The roar of the hovercraft's engines was distracting her. She grimaced and opened her eyes.
Her hallucination was back. A melodious voice that jarred with a frustrated intonation: “There. Can you hear me now?”
Sweetie Belle blinked and nodded. “Yeah,” she croaked.
“And the welkin rings! At long last!”
“Sweetie Belle?”
The hallucination fell away, saying as it did so, “Oh, fuck.”
Tom stood over her. “How are you feeling?”
Everything ached. “All right,” she said, looking around. The room was small, but she recognised the style: the oil-stained carpet and the bits of machinery on the floor. Yes, this was Dignity. Sweetie Belle was lying on some sort of sideboard covered with greasy rags and sheets which made it slightly more comfortable than bare metal. She looked at Tom again. “How long … ?”
“Six weeks.”
“What?”
Tom cocked his head. “Not long. It's been maybe … twenty minutes since Millie picked us up?”
“Where is she?”
“Piloting. The pirates are following us. This thing has better acceleration, but … “ He shrugged.
“The hatchlings?”
“Dunno. They followed us for a couple of minutes, then turned away. I counted all five, though.”
Sweetie Belle smiled. “Good.” She stretched and rolled off the sideboard. Her muscles still ached, but she was able to stand, if a little shakily. “I need to talk to Millie,” she said when she was certain she wouldn't topple over.
Tom led her out into the hovercraft's main chamber – the room Millie had taken her to back at Ilmarinen – and across it into the cockpit. Millie sat in the centre of the room, strapped into a chair with her forehooves on a crowded control panel in front of her. Occasionally she glanced through a viewport hanging from the ceiling like that of a periscope – a rear-view, perhaps? – or a telescope mounted on the control panel. Five broad windows gave a full 180 degree view clear blue skies bisected by the Scar. Beneath a bloated and greyish skirt, oily desert hurtled past.
“You,” announced Millie without looking back, “are a complete and utter pain in t' arse. But I'm glad you're awake, lass.”
“Uh, thanks.”
“Tom here brought you up to speed?”
“The pirates are chasing us, and we have better acceleration?”
“Aye. I put a fair bit o' distance between us when we got goin', but I think –” She looked through the periscope again. “ – they're catchin' up. Not quickly, though.”
“Millie,” said Sweetie Belle. “We have to find Scootaloo.”
“Well –” began Tom.
“Right,” said Millie. “And almost bein' kidnapped by pirates hasn't deterred you at all?”
“No.”
“It didn't him, either.” Millie gestured to Tom. “So that's where we're headin'.”
Sweetie Belle turned to Tom. “You?”
Tom shrugged.
“So here's t' plan. We find Scootaloo. We go back to Ilmarinen. We have a pint. Then I leave you lot to go back home or whatever you plan to do without havin' to get any more involved in this weird magic thing you've gone and got yourself wrapped up in. Sound good?”
Sweetie Belle looked at Tom, then back to Millie. “Sure,” she said.
“Brilliant.”
“I'm gonna … go and wait.”
She retreated back to the main body of the hovercraft, wondered about the room aimlessly, and stomped a rear hoof. It was ridiculous, she knew. They'd rescued her! And she was finally getting to the end. But still the thought was there. This was her mission. She was Scootaloo's real friend, not Tom or Millie or anyone else.
A faint unpleasant and sour taste still adhered to her tongue. After a quick search for a cup and a source of water turned up nothing on both counts, she briefly considered going to the cockpit to ask, then decided not to. She searched again, found a bin, and spat into it several times, which solved the worst of the problem.
Back in the room she'd woken up with, which she took to be her room, she sat on the sideboard and let a morass of negative thoughts storm through her head.
Something occurred to her.
“Are you going to speak to me now? You're listening right?”
She perked up her ears. Waited.
The roaring engine, the whistling wind, the whispering daemons. Then –
“Hello.”
The hallucination appeared before her.
Sweetie Belle looked her up and down, and began to speak “What –”
“What under the Scar is wrong with your brain?” said the hallucination. “It's all tangled up in here. No sense at all. Do you know how long it took me to find the right routes into your visuals? Even now, I can only make it work if you're not distracted. I honestly …” She sighed and held up a hoof. “Right, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Your heritage isn't your fault, I know. I'm just feeling a little frustrated right now.”
Sweetie Belle stared at her. “What,” she began again, “is going on?”
“Quite a lot, don't you think?”
“Who are you? What are you?”
“Oh, yes. I forgot to introduce myself, didn't I? My name is Saffron. And I am, I suppose, the last qilin.”
“A what?”
“Well, you won't have heard of us. By the looks of things, I'd guess we went extinct long before your kind evolved. Being from another world probably didn't help, either.” Saffron made a point of looking out the window as the desert beyond, then turned back to Sweetie Belle and gave a grin without a hint of joy. “We were the previous tenants. Sorry about the mess.”
Sweetie Belle stared at her, trying to stifle a growing sense of vertigo. “And you … were in the statue?”
Saffron nodded. “Yes. And it's not a statue. It's … well, your language is too primitive to have a word for it. The best translation I can find is repository. It's …” She sat back and ran a hoof through her fiery mane. “A million years or more,” she muttered with a frown, “and the first lot to come along are barbarians.” She turned back to Sweetie Belle. “It's a complex tool. It does a lot of things. It can hold things. Spells. Information. Minds. But it also does a lot of other stuff. Performing magic, creating spells, communicating … that sort of thing. Is any of this getting through?”
“Sure,” said Sweetie Belle. “You were in the repository. Okay.”
“Well, not just me,” said Saffron.
“What else?”
“The only way I could get out before it broke was to perform a full memory dump. So you've also got … I'd say maybe ten million pages' worth of information, plus a couple hundred thousand complete spells, locked up in that little horse brain of yours.”
Sweetie Belle rubbed her horn. It still twinged. “And one of those spells … That's what happened back on the airship?”
Saffron nodded. “A bit too powerful for you, but beggars can't be choosers, eh?”
Questions were swirling through Sweetie Belle's head, so much so that she was struggling to get them into line.
“That reminds me,” said Saffron. “The things you call daemons, they're not as harmless as you think. When you used –”
“Sweetie Belle!” called Tom from the next room.
Saffon managed to put her hoof against her forehead and sigh before she vanished.
“Great.” Sweetie Belle followed her lead. She slid off the sideboard and opened the door to see Tom. “What?”
Tom paused, apparently taken off guard by her change in mood, then said, “It looks like we're going to get visitors.”
Sweetie Belle followed him up to the cockpit. Millie was once again peering through various instruments. “We've got two things comin' towards us,” she said. “Up in front, summat appeared on the horizon. It –”
“A gunship?” said Sweetie Belle.
Millie shook her head, and glanced through a telescope as if to confirm her answer. “Too small. I can only see t' bugger because it's leavin' some sorta trail.” She gestured Sweetie Belle over to the eyepiece.
Sweetie Belle looked. Yes, there was something definitely there. A faint glittering streak against the sky, just off centre from the crosshairs. As she watched, it moved perceptibly. “And it's comin' pretty sharpish,” said Millie. “I can't tell whether it's headin' towards us or not, but knowin' our luck … it oughta be here soon.”
Maybe it was Scootaloo. Somehow. Sweetie Belle looked again, then turned to Millie. “What's the other thing?”
“Our friends, t' pirates.”
“I thought we had plenty of time before they caught up.”
“Me too. But –” Millie tapped the periscope. “– they've just launched somethin'. Well, in a way. Looks like a couple of their guys with rockets strapped to their backs.”
Sweetie Belle stared at her.
Millie shrugged and gestured towards the periscope eyepiece. “It'll be a close call who gets here first, but my money's on t' pirates.”
Sweetie Belle looked through the periscope, which showed receding desert. Two sleek airships floated in the distance. Closer, three dark plumes of smoke, coming from small, indistinct shapes. Knowing what Millie had said, though, the shapes did look like griffons with wings outstretched and something on their backs.
“What are we gonna do?”
“If we change direction, t' ships will just catch up to us quicker. Best thing we can do is try and shoot 'em down when they get close enough.”
“We have guns?”
“Harpoons,” said Millie. “They'll do in a pinch.”
“How close will they have to be?” said Tom.
“Close.”
“Uh,” said Sweetie Belle. “Will that … kill them?”
“Prob'ly.” Millie rubbed an ear. “They are meant to punch holes in metal.”
“Can we not? Just knock them out or something?”
“For some reason, it never occurred to me to install knock attackin' griffons out the sky without harmin' them weapons.”
Sweetie Belle looked at her.
Millie sighed. “Alright, you win. I can dial down the air pressure, and I think I have somethin' blunt we can fire instead. Won't guarantee owt, but it'll do.”
Sweetie Belle smiled at her. “Thank you,”
“Don't mention it. Really. Don't,” Millie said. “I'll have to make change to t' harpoon guns. One of you needs to stay up here and keep an eyes on things; the other can come with me.”
Looking at the control panel, Tom said, “I don't think either of us knows how to pilot a hovercraft.”
“Y'don't need to. Just leave it alone and we'll keep going forward.” Millie pointed to the viewports she'd been using. “Check these, and keep 'em centred on our guests so we don't lose track of 'em. Anythin' else, just shout.”
“Right, okay.”
Millie turned to Sweetie Belle. “C'mon. Let's fix those harpoons.”
“You see it over and over again,” said Blueberry Pancake. “Among the ponies, amongst the griffons, amongst the diamond dogs. Even the qilins. The refrain is alike: Life is suffering – Ow!” She pulled her head forward and glared at the chevaloid which had been washing her mane; it stood dumbly by. “A little softer, if you don't mind.” She gave it it a jolt with her aura, then settled back into the bubble bath and looked at Cannons and Sorghum. A second chevaloid offered a glass of rosé wine, from which she took a sip while the first resumed rubbing suds into her mane. “Life is suffering,” she continued, playing with the bubbles on the water's surface. “A universally – trans-universally – acknowledged truth. So doesn't it follow that someone who could change all that, abolish all pain and ennui and mortality, would be a creature of the very highest order? A creature truly deserving of glory? And, furthermore –”
From the bathroom's door came a loud but short knock. “Should I?” said Sorghum, but before Blueberry could reply, the door was forced open and a tall crystal unicorn cantered through, his robes billowing in his wake.
Blueberry smiled up at him. Silently, she gestured with her hoof at her bodyguards to send them to the corridor outside. They traipsed out and closed the door behind them.
“Brother Flay,” she said. “How're you doing?”
Mouth working, his eyes flicked silently to the chevaloid, still working at Blueberry's mane, and back again. “A bubble bath?” he said.
Blueberry swished some of the bubbles around. “It does look like that, doesn't it?”
“An indulgence back in the Empire. In this realm, where water is scare, your sacrilege is magnified a hundredfold.”
“My hair was feeling grimy,” said Blueberry. “You know, if you troubled yourself to bathe more often, all the mares would be after you.” She winked and gave his robes a little tug.
With a blue flash of aura, Flay tore the wine glass from the chevaloid's grasp and threw it against the wall, scatterings its contents across the floor. “Sister Blueberry Pancake,” he said. “Only because of your ability to safely open the repositories have we tolerated your idiosyncrasies. But even there, there is a limit, and were our liege to hear of your recent action …” He shook his head with that special mix of pity and contempt the pious reserve for the wicked.
The chevaloid began to rinse Blueberry's mane. “Our liege,” she said slowly, looking into his eyes. “Would you like to tell him yourself? About your problems with me?” Flay's eyes opened fractionally wider. “When he arrives this afternoon?” she finished.
For a moment Flay looked like he was going to say something, then thought better of it. Blueberry beckoned to him. He glared at her, but acquiesced.
“Come along to his chamber with me,” she whispered. “I'm sure he wouldn't mind. You are such a sincere and devout stallion, after all.” As she finished, she took a clump of bubbles from the water and smeared them across his chin like a beard.
Flay pulled away, brushing away the bubbles. Once again he made to say something, while Blueberry gave him an innocent smile, and once again he didn't.
As Flay turned and stormed out, Blueberry called out after him: “Send my bodyguards back in, would you?” She glanced at the second chevaloid, still offering a drink from a nonexistent glass. “Prat.”
Scarcely had Cannons and Sorghum returned to her side when there came another knock at the door. Blueberry sighed. She'd just been about to resume her lecture. But when Sorghum looked at her, she nodded.
A flustered-looking messenger scampered through. His eyes went wide at seeing the bath, but he didn't comment on it. “Miss Pancake, ma'am. Our employees, the griffon pirates, they sent this …” He held up a scrawled note.
As Blueberry read it, a cold oily feeling dribbled through her. The white unicorn has escaped. And from the bewildered descriptions, it sounded like she'd learned a few tricks from the repository she'd raided.
“Should we … threaten them with death or something?” said the messenger.
That would be Flay's influence, Blueberry thought to herself. She shook her head and steadied her voice. “It's only because they're not afraid of us that they'd send this message. It would be a a bit silly to change that, wouldn't it? No, give them this.” She tore away an unmarked strip from the bottom of the paper and pulled up a spell. A glimmering ball of blood-red fluid manifested in front of the strip and danced across its surface, leaving an cursive trail. Blueberry read the order out loud: “Send every scrap of information you have on the captive. Further, send updates on the situation every fifteen minutes from receipt of this message. As payment, you will be assured 10% of the contract price even if you do not recapture her. There.” She gave the note to the messenger. “Now hurry.”
“Millie!” called Tom. “Sweetie Belle! You might wanna get up here.”
Millie hurried up to the cockpit with Sweetie Belle behind her. “How we doin'?”
“They're close –” began Tom.
Millie shooed him off to the side and looked through the periscope. “Bugger,” she muttered. “You two might wanna grab hold of summat. I don't want you to distract me by flyin' about t' room when we turn.” She sat before the control panel, flipped some switches, and put her hoof through a loop on the central control column.
Sweetie Belle looked at Tom; he responded with raised eyebrows and a shrug, then wrapped a paw around a bar on the wall behind them. She hooked a pastern round the same bar and braced herself against the wall.
Millie checked the periscope again, shifting some dials as she did so. “Hold tight. Three. Two. One. And –”
She pulled the control column to the side. The roar of the engines changed tenor. The hovercraft lurched, rotated. Mottled black scenery swung sideways past the windows, started retreating. In the sky Sweetie Belle could see three shapes: Griffons with rockets, much too close.
Millie reached up immediately and flicked a switch. A thump, and two projectiles hurtled into the air towards the two flanking griffons. One hit true, passing just in front of its target's face and colliding with the nose of the rocket strapped to his back. He shot upwards and out of view. The other griffon swung to the side before the projectile could hit, but in doing so aimed his rocket with him and flew out of view.
“Ha! And that, lads and lassies,” said Millie, “is why handlin' beats thrust.”
The hovercraft continued to rotate, albeit more slowly. It moved sideways. Then almost directly forwards. As the final griffon passed beyond view of the front window, Sweetie Belle saw he was level with the cockpit and not more than a few tens of metres away.
Millie pushed the control column forwards, and Sweetie Belle felt the hovercraft lurch beneath her. Heavy deceleration nearly sent her through the front window. Somewhere towards the rear of the craft came a loud thump. Millie's ears perked up, and she dragged the control column back, and they accelerated again.
“I think that's a full house,” said Millie. She looked through the periscope. “Number one …”
“Couldn't they just fly after us again?” asked Tom.
“Don't think so. They waited a fair while to launch those rockets, which to me says limited range. Once they're off course … number two! … once they're off course, that's it. And they'll exhaust themselves in no time if they try and keep up with us with just their wings.” She frowned, aiming and re-aiming the periscope.
“Fair enough.”
“Where are you hiding, you little sod?” Millie said, searching.
“Problem?”
“One of them's gone walkabout.” Millie swung the craft about so they were moving backwards again. Desert receded behind them. “There's one, and there's two,” she said, pointing at her targets, one of whom was still high in the air despite discarding his rocket, and both of whom were getting rapidly left behind.
Sweetie Belle stared out the window, looking for a third shape. A chill feeling crept its way up her spine. She turned towards the stairwell, wondering if a head might appear from below.
Shattering glass. A gunshot so loud she instinctively cowered.
To the side – one of the cockpit's windows lay in pieces on the floor, and outside, standing level with them on the hovercraft's hull, stood one of their pursuers. Gregor. He lowered his gun and pointed it at Millie. “You might want to stop this thing. Slowly, if you don't mind.”
Ears pinned, Millie nudged the control column and slowed the craft.
Sweetie Belle's mind raced. She realised she could pull Gregor's gun from him and throw up a shield to stop the bullet. Not something she would have dared try before. But the idea fell as quickly as it came. Even as she thought about it her horn twinged. Her magic was still exhausted.
The craft finally came to a halt, though the engines still roared and the skirt remained inflated. Gregor gestured with his gun for Millie to step back from the controls, and when she had done so stepped through the window frame, keeping his gun on her while he did so.
“Let me explain your position,” he said, gesturing out the front window without looking through it. “My friends will be arriving soon. And our ships after that. We only want Sweetie Belle. You two are expendable. That means we have no problems letting you, and your weird ship, go as soon as we have what we want … and that I have no problems shooting you if anything goes wrong. Understand? Understand?”
“Oh, bloody hell. Aye, we understand,” said Millie.
“Why do you want me?” Sweetie Belle paused, almost surprised at her question and her bravery, then continued: “Why am I so important?”
Gregor stared at her.
“Your Captain … he said something about employers, right? Who are they?”
For a moment, it seemed Gregor was considering this.
Sweetie Belle pushed onwards: “I … I'm done for anyway, right? What would you lose by telling me.”
“You're a tricky one,” said Gregor. “I don't know what your game is, but I'm not playing. Ask again and one of your friends loses a limb.”
“Sweetie Belle,” murmured Millie.
Sweetie Belle looked at her, nodded, and stepped back.
Gregor gave them an unpleasant smile. “Though, once we're back on board, there are a few questions the captain would like to ask you, I think. Those pets of yours … Well.” He glanced out the window – and his grin fell away.
Sweetie Belle looked. The sky was clear. No griffons approached.
Outside, just over the sound of the engines, there was a thump of something landing. Then motion? Sweetie Belle couldn't tell. Gregor's smile returned. He kept his eyes – and his gun – on his prisoners.
Something small flew through the broken window, ricocheted off Gregor's wrist. The gun fired, but his aim was off, and the bullet went through one of the front windows. Gregor turned to see his attacker, bringing his gun round. Too slowly. A shape, a metallic blue, flew through the window and crashed into him. The gun went out the front window, bounced off the craft's skirt, and fell out of view. A sound like rushing water mixed with metal sliding against metal, and the attacker spun. A click. They separated – Gregor left with something like a silvered quill embedded in his plumage. He started forward, but his legs crumpled under him, and he fell to the floor, unconscious.
And standing above him, bedecked with huge, silvery-iridescent wings, was Scootaloo.
-
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6036205
Haha, good. Always glad when I can use ponyfic to enrich vocabularies.
A lot of surprises this chapter, all in all. I hadn't expected to find out that Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were an item prior to her leaving for Amaranth, largely because I was anticipating the "will-they-or-won't-they" to be the more dominant plotline. Well, perhaps it still will to an extent, but it certainly wasn't something I had predicted.
I'm glad that we're getting more light shed on the world's past via the qilin, mainly because there is such a fascinating amount of detail and imagination that I've been enjoying for some time now. Obviously something cataclysmic happened to Amaranth's prior civilization to leave it in such a state, but I'm still trying to puzzle out what it was. My current guess is that that the object of the cult that Pancake and Flay seem to be a part of (I'm assuming it's a cult) has something to do with it - a good old fashioned eldritch horror, perhaps? One other thing: have you considered adding a glossary to this? I managed to remember most of the key terms, but it would be a fine aid to help recall some of the less-used vocabulary seeing that you've put so much work into the fictional world.
And lastly, I was definitely not expecting to see Scootaloo reappear so soon! I'm sure glad to see her though - can't wait to read what the reunion between her and Sweetie will be like next chapter.
Also, the aelewyrm hatchlings are very, very cute, in a very deadly sort of way. Here's hoping they turn up again as well.
p.gr-assets.com/540x540/fit/hostedimages/1380393650/757910.gif
OH MY GOD WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN NOW?!?
Dat cliffhanger.
Hot damn.
6054923
I'm so glad to hear that; part of the intention here is to steer clear or subvert the usual adventure and romance checkpoints while still keeping things interesting. Hopefully there are going to be many more surprises to come.
And its always fun to read speculation, even if I can't confirm or deny anything. (Except -- we're definitely going to see more of the hatchlings.)
As for a glossary ... that's a pretty good idea. I'll see what I can do.
6057526
And many more to come!
Ending on a bloody high note I see.
6341665
Oh, aye. It's a fun trick to pull, considering they're still in the middle of a crisis.
6365115
Ah Bloody hell man, right a the good part!