Chapter Thirteen - Hypothetical
The Math Song, The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets
Twilight Sparkle was ready for just about any reaction about her statement from Marshall. She'd been steeling herself for it. She knew he'd tried for several years to get off the island. She knew that, after failure time and again, he'd eventually given up, and had settled for simply not dying to spite whatever power had placed them here.
He might have denied the possibility, unable to hope and have it crushed again. He might have grown excited. He might have cried. He might have gotten angry, or descended into extreme skepticism.
Skepticism was her expectation, honestly.
She'd noticed that Marshall seemed to thrive on playing Discord's advocate, it was one of the things she found the most useful about him. He forced her to think of things she might not otherwise have considered. For all of his joking and irreverent attitude, Twilight was fully aware that Marshall was a very intelligent and perceptive man.
She braced herself for his reaction to her statement.
Marshall stared at her for several seconds, his expression mild, bordering on vacant. He sniffed, pursed his lips, and then closed his eyes, running a hand through his badly sleep matted hair.
She blinked. "Mar-"
He raised a finger, a stifling gesture she'd come to recognize. "I heard ya."
He let out a long suffering sigh, then abruptly stood up and shuffled out of the work room into their combination bedroom/kitchen/dining room.
She scowled and closed her eyes, her eyebrow twitching madly. Of course he'd do something completely unexpected. This was Marshall she was talking about. Even TRYING to predict his reaction made the prediction unreliable.
Just as she was about to act in response to his shameful display, she heard him clanking about near the "stove", and decided that he wasn't ignoring her. He just wasn't completely awake yet.
Being perfectly fair, she had levitated him out of bed. She decided to be magnanimous. She could be patient. If he was expecting a reaction from her, then he would be disappointed.
She wrinkled her brow in annoyance at a repetitive tapping sound. She realized it was her right rear hoof tapping involuntarily against the ground and forcefully set it down with a clop. She blew a fringe of mane from her face with a snort of annoyance.
The smell of coffee permeated the room. A little while after that, she heard the painful sound of wood being dragged laboriously through their living space.
She narrowed her eyes. So... not as sleepy as she'd thought. Marshall was making a point.
The bucker.
The door opened and Marshall came in, Starbucks coffee mug in one hand, the other dragging one of his homemade chairs behind him with a wince inducing screech of wood against stone. Once he was almost to her location, he deliberately picked it up and set it in front of her, his cold, imperturbable stare meeting hers the entire time.
Twilight gave him her best unimpressed expression.
He blinked very slowly, and gave her a half lidded gaze that was ALMOST lazy. He stepped in front of the chair, and absently pushed the chair backward a bit with his right heel, then settled down into it with a sigh, arranging himself fastidiously.
She rolled her eyes at him. As she opened her mouth to say something sarcastic, he raised ANOTHER finger.
Her eyes widened in outrage.
He raised the mug to his lips, incidentally hiding the smile on on them, and slowly took a drink. He kept the finger up until he'd completely finished the motion, cup up, long deliberate slurp, cup down, an exaggerated swallow that caused a bob of his Adam's apple, a slight sigh of contentment, eyes closed. Then he opened his eyes.
"Do go on, Miss Sparkle."
Twilight glared at him for several seconds, her mouth slightly open in a dumbfounded expression, unable to find her train of thought, her opening statement strangled to death by his egregious provocation.
The bastard just kept STARING. Then he smirked, his eyes displaying the full and deadly knowledge of the abuse he'd just put her through. He KNEW. The bastard KNEW, that if there was ever a moment that Twilight could hardly contain herself, it was in the near orgasmic throes of scientific discovery and sharing that knowledge. It was... it was... the damned facial expression version of a cock tease!
If a facial expression could have a physical impact, this one did. Twilight Sparkle imitated a particularly apoplectic landed mackerel.
Finally, she closed her eyes, sighed, and looked mournfully skyward. "I suppose I deserved that."
He nodded, taking another sip. He cocked his head, thoughtfully, raising an eyebrow.
"I assume your previous statement has something to do with your descent into madness, these past few days?"
"It hasn't been-" She started.
"Madness!" He barked.
"I wasn't-" She started to protest.
"Bullshit, you were pants on head retarded toward the end." He said flatly.
She scowled. "I don't wear pants."
He nodded sagely, taking another sip. "Kinda makes it worse, don't it?"
She didn't have a response to that.
Subject change, ho!
"What do you think?"
He blinked in mock confusion, the expression somewhat ruined by the hint of a smirk returning to his lips. "What do I think about what, pants?"
She stomped her hoof and scowled. "NO, you bucker! What do you think about what I said?"
"Twilight, you made a single declarative statement, backed by a buncha esoteric sword pony mathemagic on a whiteboard that, while impressive looking, doesn't tell ME jack shit, no matter how many exclamation points you put next to your results."
She frowned, and he sighed, taking another sip of coffee. "If you want to excite me, you're going to have to translate. I'm an engineer. I like math just fine, but I don't wanna make sweet theoretical love to it."
Twilight continued frowning for a moment, then turned back to the whiteboard and bit her lower lip in thought. She came to a conclusion quickly, and with a flurry of papers, she began transcribing what was on the board into her notebook. Marshall waited patiently, occasionally taking slow sips from his coffee mug.
He was about half finished with it when she turned back, her notes hovering magically just a bit to the left of her face.
"This is going to take some explanation, which means a lot of background information that is intended to frame my hypothesis. A final conclusion isn't going to be immediately forthcoming, so I ask that you be patient, okay?"
Marshall nodded. "I can do patient. With the caveat that if your explanation goes over my head, I will ask questions."
Twilight smiled. "I'd expect nothing less."
She took a deep breath, collected her thoughts, then proceeded.
"There are some things I mentioned previously about magic that I would like to reiterate. On a basic level, magic is the manipulation of thaumic energy fields for given effects. These manipulations most commonly take the form of spell matrices, which again, on a general level, represent frameworks by which thaumic energy is manipulated."
A light appeared in her eyes as though something had occurred to her. "Actually, now that I think of it, a spell matrix is a lot like a program. It carries a set of instructions which directs the thaumic energy into a given effect."
Marshall nodded at the analogy.
"Thaumic energy that is not actualized as a spell or effect is called mana. It is essentially, untyped thaumic energy. It exists in two basic forms. Auras, and patterns."
She cleared her throat. "The simple explanation is that auras are thaumic fields created by living things, and patterns are thaumic fields that are either ambient, like say, the thaumic field for a planet, or which exist in nonliving things, like rocks and what have you. This is an extreme simplification, mind you, as any nonliving material which undergoes considerable chemical change internally has a pattern so complex it might as well be considered an aura-"
Marshall raised an eyebrow and took a obnoxiously noisy sip of his coffee.
Twilight blinked, pursed her lips for a moment, then sighed. "Right. Moving on."
"Auras are always in flux, because there are constant changes occurring inside a living being. Patterns on the other hoof, generally speaking, are stable, at the very least, they change much more slowly than an aura does. When a spell is cast on a living being, it enforces a kind of pattern on to it, and forcing an aura to conform to a pattern is more difficult than trying to enforce a pattern onto another pattern."
Marshall nodded. "You mentioned somethin' like that once, up on the mountain. That I ain't got an aura, so spells are more efficient when cast on me, yeah?"
Twilight winced. It was a wince Marshall had become extremely familiar with. The wince of an expert confronted with an oversimplification so gross it might as well have been wrong, but that correcting would get into minutia that wasn't germane to the topic of discussion.
"Not exactly. You're obviously alive, Marshall. What your existence implies is actually kinda scary. Equestrian science has taken for granted that mana generation is inherent to life processes, and that all matter has some mana, as it is necessary for it to exist as matter. Magical energy reinforces an objects position in space/time. Experiments have been attempted to remove all mana from an object in the past. While an absolute zero mana state has never been recorded, objects which are ALMOST completely drained of mana become grey and then indistinct, in some cases, even vanishing entirely. Living things deprived of mana..."
She bit her lip. "Well... in the early stages of mana deprivation, they become weak and lethargic, apathetic, even despondent. If the deprivation continues... well, they die well before complete mana deprivation is ever achieved."
Twilight started to pace slightly, obviously distracted by the tangent. The notes followed obediently bobbing along like a loyal pet balloon.
"My current hypothesis is that your universe utilizes a different energy spectrum, for lack of a better term, one that simply isn't observable or quantifiable by current thaumic scale. I'm sure your scientists have studied the phenomenon a lot more thoroughly than I have, but this probably isn't the time to try to build a cohesive physics model." Twilight looked a trifle disappointed at this.
Marshall rolled his eyes and shook his head, his lips curved into an exasperated smile.
Twilight continued. "So to answer your question, the reason that spells are more efficient when used on you is because there is literally no aura that I have to overcome in order to enforce a foreign pattern, a spell matrix, on you. Spells are actually MORE efficient on you than if I cast them on an inanimate object, because your inherent pattern is... well, nonexistent, or at the very least, it can't be detected due to lack of observable thaumic potential. As soon as I superimpose a matrix on you, and "charge" it with typed thaumic energy, it snaps right to you."
Marshall nodded. "Okay, gotcha. So it's like I said. No aura. Easier for spells to be cast on me."
Twilight shook her head emphatically. "No no... that's exactly what I was trying to say earlier! You DO have an aura... or you probably do, but it's at an undetectable magical spectrum. At least, that's what I..." She trailed off.
"You're fucking with me, aren't you? You totally already get the distinction." She said flatly.
Marshall grinned evilly behind his coffee mug. "Even got you to swear. That's a two-fer."
Twilight snorted.
"In any case, back to the matter at hoof. The Sky Lights. The reason that I had difficulty understanding the phenomenon is that it breaks a long held convention as understood by current Equestrian science. Namely, that mana cannot be manipulated AS mana, it has to be actualized into a typed thaumic field, even if that field is only a temporary construct. What I mean specifically by this is that you can't just pull the mana out of a living thing or an object AS mana. You can remove it, but in order to do so, you have to change it into an actualized, or typed, thaumic field."
"Archmagi have theorized for years that it should be possible to move mana around directly, the math DOES bear it out. It's considered to be the philosopher's stone of magical study, and mages have tried to create untyped thaumic fields for centuries, because the closer to the theoretical untyped field you get, the less waste in the form of bled off energy is generated by that energy transfer, but the closest they've gotten is nowhere NEAR untyped. The problem is that the closer to an untyped field you get, the harder it is to get it to DO anything, other than conform to its preexisting pattern or aura."
"As soon as mana, or untyped thaumic energy, starts moving, it's not mana anymore. At that point, it gains a type, meaning that it has polarity and vastly different field dynamics; a lot of properties which I'm not going to get into now, because they aren't germane to the explanation. That's where this breaks down, because what we have here DOESN'T HAVE THOSE PROPERTIES. You can measure the type of a thaumic field by measuring its aetheric bleed, which is how much energy is wasted bleeding uselessly into the environment as light or sound or heat or what have you. The glow around a unicorns horn when they cast a spell is a good example of this."
"The higher or lower its type, the more energy it bleeds, and this aetheric bleed is a constant. That constant means you can measure a thaumic field's bleed rate to determine what type it is. After considerable study of the phenomenon we have here, what I can determine is this; there is no energy LOST in the form of bleed. It is, as far as I can determine, untyped, or near enough to it that my diagnostic spells and matrices aren't sensitive enough to measure its aetheric bleed."
She grinned, and the love of her craft shone in that expression, making her appear particularly cute.
Marshall nodded seriously to hide a grin.
"That's why it took me so long to correlate our results. At first I thought that it was an error with our equipment, but experimentation revealed that it is functioning correctly, indeed, more efficiently than even the thaumic field fluctuation detector they have with the thaumic field collider in Canterlot University. Once I got past my assumption that our measurements were in error, it was actually quite simple."
Marshall snorted. "Right. Simple. This wouldn't happen to be around the time I came in with lunch and you were sittin' there with your face against the whiteboard rubbing it back and forth, chanting, "WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG. It's WRONG! IT'S WROOOONG!" Over and over again, would it?"
Twilight blinked. "I... don't recall-"
"Twilight, you don't remember I found that puddle on the workroom floor, and I made you go outside because just pissin' on the floor is unsan-"
"No... No... I think I would have remembered THAT." Twilight said firmly, her eyes slightly quirked in embarassment. "I mean, I remember tripping over a cup of water or something." She frowned uncertainly. "Vaguely."
Marshall shook his head. "I figured out after the fact that you'd just accidentally kicked over a mug, but at the time... I was really worried about you. I mean, that is some WOW addict troglodyte pooping in a sock level kinda shit. I mean, what few containers we have we need for potable water, and really shouldn't be repurposed-"
She groaned in exasperation and embarrassment. "I... alright! I admit that sometimes I get a liiiittle too focused on a problem."
Marshall gave her a disbelieving look. "Twilight, on the second day, when I brought you food, you GROWLED at me."
She blinked.
Marshall smirked. "You don't remember THAT either. If you really want the evidence, look in a mirror, Sparklebutt. You've still got dry erase marker streaks in your face hair. Looks kinda like frustrated scientist pony warpaint."
She opened her mouth, closed it, then sighed. "Alright. Okay, I get it. I was frustrated..."
"Yeah, I'll bet. Imagine a monkey actually TRYING to fuck a coconut."
The marker bouncing off of his forehead was a complete shock to both of them, and in retrospect, completely unavoidable.
Really.
What was unexpected was the way it landed in his coffee mug with an unsubtle "plup!"
Marshall and Twilight stared at it for several seconds, and then both got the giggles. Eventually he fished it out, flicked coffee off of it, and returned it to her solemnly. In a way, this benediction told her that he'd forgiven her for her trespasses, a forgiveness she hadn't realized she'd actually been dreading trying to obtain. He seemed to realize what she was groping for before she reached for it, and made the whole thing easy for her.
Well, after taking his pound of flesh in the form of teasing and petty annoyance. This was MARSHALL she was talking about, after all.
"All jokin' aside," Marshall said, rubbing away the tears at the corners of his eyes, "I don't want this to lead to a crazy sidetrack, but I'm curious about somethin'."
Twilight frowned. "Go on..."
"Is the difference between a mana field and a typed thaumic field just... well... motion?"
Twilight opened her mouth, closed it, considered, then shook her head slowly. "Sort of, but no... not exactly. Again, that's an oversimplification. Mana can be looked at, essentially, as potential thaumic energy, but, an actualized thaumic field, at least as far as Equestrian science is concerned, IS a typed field, and as a result, there is some degree of energy lost through... translation, I suppose."
She began to pace back and forth. "That's why a spell matrix that isn't being directly powered by a mage with their own thaumic field has a duration. The spell matrix is being powered by a thaumic field which the mage imparted upon casting, and some of that energy is going towards the given effect, however, the science of magic has come a long way since the early days of the unicorn Archmagi."
Twilight glanced at him to make sure he wasn't lost, and Marshall nodded thoughtfully.
Twilight continued. "To put it in other words, the efficiency of our programming languages, and the skill with which they are used in their various applications, has increased exponentially. At this point, what causes the most degradation in spell matrix thaumic fields is simple aetheric bleed. The thaumic field powering the spell is typed, and some of it is bled into the environment. Eventually, the thaumic field is no longer strong enough to maintain the spell matrix and the spell collapses. Hence, spell duration. The only way to increase the duration of a spell, conventionally, is to increase the amount of the thaumic energy which powers it, and THAT, more than anything else, is what sets an Archmagus apart from a regular unicorn."
Twilight met Marshall's gaze steadily. "A unicorn who has trained extensively in manipulating thaumic energy generally has a larger mana reserve than one who simply uses magic in their day to day life, and as a result, they simply have more power they can draw on to actualize more powerful, and longer duration effects. The reason that the discovery of a method of creating an untyped actualized thaumic field, in other words direct mana manipulation, is the philosopher's stone of Equestrian magical study, is that if it were possible to create a spell matrix powered by an untyped thaumic field, a mana field, there would be no energy lost over time due to aetheric bleed. The duration of the spells created would increase by orders of magnitude, AND... it would be possible to attach a spell matrix to an object or pony who ISN'T a unicorn permanently, by simply using their aura which regenerates through normal life processes, to power the effect."
Marshall whistled. "Talk about your post scarcity economy."
Twilight blinked, considered this for a moment, then nodded slowly. "Yes... yes, very astute. The ability to create objects out of thin air and simply power them with the planet's mana field indefinitely..." She shuddered, her expression dreamy.
"THAT'S magic."
Marshall nodded. "Anyway, sorry for interrupting yer flow. Where were we again?"
After a quick summary of the initial discussion, she leapt back into her explanation.
"The way the typed/untyped convention was broken was actually rather elegant. It has ramifications that are quite fascinating from a theoretical standpoint, but I digress. The expanding thaumic field starts as a bump, for lack of a better word, that causes a ripple in the ambient mana field. It isn't moving the mana, it's displacing its expected position. By somehow adding mana to the ambient field of the island itself, it generates an expanding waveform which RESEMBLES a thaumic field for all practical purposes, but isn't, because as I said previously, it isn't typed. In effect, this ripple is a wave of potential energy, a kind of..." She paused, considering the terminology that would be appropriate.
She failed.
She backed up a bit to approach the problem from a different angle. "This wave propagates at the speed of magic, and isn't blocked by any objects precisely because it lacks any thaumic typing. It's not a spell, it's simply pure thaumic potential rippling outward. A thaumic field that both IS and ISN'T a thaumic field." A light went on behind her eyes, and she gasped in sudden comprehension.
"To borrow a term from human science, it is a QUANTUM thaumic field!"
She basked in classification afterglow for a moment, then frowned and continued her spiel. "But WHY? What purpose does it serve? Additionally, why the nausea? Just being in an expanding field wouldn't do it. Why the disorientation? Why does that disorientation get WORSE the closer to the center of the island you get, and the higher up?"
Marshall nodded. "Yeah, I remember you sayin' you thought it was worse up on the mountain. So...?"
She turned to the white board and raised the grease pencil. "The answer was simple; because that thaumic field is doing something it SHOULDN'T EVER do. There are no recorded instances of expanding thaumic fields causing disorientation that I've ever read about, so what is occurring here has to be something more than just a thaumic field expanding."
Marshall frowned. "But didn't you say this was a field expanding in a manner that it's not supposed to? Couldn't that cause it?"
She smiled. "No. What's happening here isn't something that normally happens, yes, but it actually simulates something that happens all the time, every day. An untyped potential thaumic field, ambient mana in other words, doesn't expand into a pony, true, but ponies walk INTO mana fields every day. So whether the pony hits the field, or the field hits the pony, the effect is essentially the same, right? No disorientation, so that can't be the answer."
Marshall nodded. "Right."
"The answer is this."
She smiled triumphantly and drew a perfect curve on the whiteboard, like half of a perfect circle with the bottom half not drawn yet. She put an "X" at the top of the curve.
"This is the barrier in cross section as it appears in the air. The "X" represents the point at which the Sky Lights appear, which is a good reference point for where the thaumic field fluctuation propagates from. By visual observation, we know that the barrier appears perfectly spherical, and logic would dictate that it continues this pattern underground."
Marshall nodded.
Twilight drew in the ground, including the mountain at the center, under the dome. Marshall noted that the point of Sky Light emission was almost directly under the mountain. He frowned.
"What I have determined is as follows. The perfect sphere pattern is NOT continued underground. The math doesn't bear it out. Our readings don't bear it out. What it actually looks like..."
She carefully drew in the bottom of the barrier. Marshall's eyes widened, then narrowed. "Well son of a bitch. It's a god damned parabolic dish."
Twilight blinked. "A..."
She cocked her head and looked at it, then nodded, bemused. "Yes... that's... exactly right."
She raised an eyebrow at Marshall in askance.
Marshall nodded. "We can talk about it later, go on, Twi, but I think I know where you're goin' with this."
She grinned, and continued drawing. "Okay. So the quantum thaumic field starts expanding up here. It expands at the speed of magic. It heads downward, and by the time it reaches the ground floor, it contains the entire landmass INSIDE the barrier."
Marshall nodded.
"It goes underground, and it hits the barrier. Logic dictates that it would continue outward. Magical THEORY says that what it's doing is already unachievable by any known means in Equestrian science, but what it actually does is, according to our understanding of physics, impossible. It BOUNCES."
Marshall nodded. "The shape of the parabolic curve causes the entire field to be reflected backwards and focused on the emission point."
Twilight crowed excitedly. "EXACTLY! Essentially the field heads out, hits the barrier, bounces back and because of the angle at which the wavefront impacts the base of the barrier, ALL of it is reflected so that it hits the initial entry point as a focal point! The point that we can visually see, because later, it becomes the entry point of the Sky Lights! This whole process, the initial emission, the passage through space and intervening matter, the reflection, and the return to the entry point takes place in an infinitesimally small increment of time. Microseconds, maybe. The disorientation isn't from being hit by an expanding thaumic field..."
Marshall grinned in sudden complete understanding. "It's from being hit almost simultaneously by what is, in effect, two thaumic fields, or near enough simultaneously that yer magic sensa-ma-thingie can't tell the difference.."
Twilight pranced over to Marshall and nuzzled his lap, overcome by the excitement of discovery and his sharing of that discovery, his almost immediate understanding of what she'd had to work so HARD to get through her head.
Marshall raised his cup out of her way and made an undignified noise. "Hey Sparks, watch the package."
Twilight tilted her head from his lap to look up at him, grinning like a foal and completely oblivious to any embarrassment he might be feeling. Marshall sighed and dropped his free hand, scratching at the base of her good ear.
"Alright, I'm proud of you, egghead. Good job."
She smirked and pulled back. "Of course, it is a LIIIITLE more complicated than that, but that's the basic premise. The disorientation is actually a result of being hit by a stream of the expanding mana field at a point so concentrated, and so divergent from the initial contact point. Unicorns are sensitive to field changes, they have to be, in order to do what we do, and while this isn't a thaumic field, remember, it's a mana wave, the effect is similar enough that it makes little difference. The best way to describe it would be what would happen if for a split second your vision went upside down, mirror imaged, and jolted suddenly in an unexpected direction."
Marshall winced. "So... what's the purpose of this? Is it a byproduct of the Sky Lights?"
Twilight shook her head. "I don't think so. That's actually something I thought about for a long time. It's a little too neat... too manufactured to be accidental. I'm not absolutely sure, but I have a strong suspicion as to its purpose."
"I'm listening, Sparklebutt."
She nodded. "Remember what I said about this mana field propagating like a wave? Well I think the reason they didn't just type it into a thaumic field is pretty simple; typed thaumic fields are affected by objects. Depending on the type, some fields will pass through certain objects unhindered, and be absorbed completely by the pattern of others. I think an untyped wave was chosen because it would propagate through all objects without being absorbed. The thing is, the speed of magic is a constant, in arcane mathematics it is represented by the symbol Mu. The thing about that constant, is that Mu is the speed of a ten positive thaumic field moving through a vacuum. This particular type was used because its properties are extremely well known, seeing as it's responsible for the properties of light and heat as they pertain to Princess Celestia's magic. When working with Mu, there are variables added which represent how far from ten positive the type field is, and what density of an object it's passing through. This is necessary because-"
Marshall interjected. "Because magic propagates through different types of matter at different rates." At Twilight's slightly poleaxed expression he shrugged.
"In my world, light has a similar property. They call the measurement of that speed the index of refraction."
She nodded. "Exactly. So back to our mana wave. The wave heads out. It touches every physical object, bounces off the parabolic bottom of the barrier, and is focused into a tighter beam of thaumic potential that then hits the top of the barrier, where the Sky Lights come from, and it disappears. That's another reason I think it's intentional. If it were just a side effect of the Sky Lights, it would just bounce around on the inside of the barrier until it finally speculated so randomly that it lost all of its cohesion. It doesn't do that, so it must have a purpose."
Marshall expression of thoughtfulness suddenly exploded into a grin of understanding as the implications of this clicked. "Son of a bitch! It's like echolocation, or.... like RADAR."
Twilight grinned back. "EXACTLY! I remembered our conversation about aircraft systems and the like, and something must have stuck, because that's immediately what my mind focused on, only it's a little more impressive than that. As you described it to me, radar simply gives distance and the approximate size of an object. I think what this "system" is doing is it's taking a three dimensional snapshot of the island and everything on it using the time delay between energy that passes through more matter as opposed to energy that passes through less matter to create its image. I think it DOES that, because it needs to know what is due to be replaced to keep the various biomes viable."
Marshall nodded. "Ok. I'll admit, it's a neat hypothesis. Question."
She frowned. "Okay?"
He raised a finger. "What does this have to do with us getting off the island?"
She grinned. "To borrow an idea from thermodynamics, the problem I had with this island at the beginning is that for all intents and purposes, it's a closed system."
Marshall shook his head. "It's not a closed system at all, Twilight. We get sunlight, that's near constant energy in."
She nodded, her expression thoughtful. "Okay, okay, good point. It's not a CLOSED system per say, but it is an unsustainable one. The energy in is much less than the energy out. That means we have a system with ever increasing entropy."
Marshall frowned, thinking about this, then grudgingly nodded. "Okay, I concede that point."
"In order for the system to be maintained, the scales have to balance. Something has to put food, energy, into the environment, or animals like the Rootscrapers would have starved to death ages ago. There simply isn't enough living space for their specialized diet. Part of the puzzle was revealed when we realized that at least one of the functions of the Sky Lights was to replace some of that material."
He nodded thoughtfully, his eyes narrowing.
She smirked. "What I didn't realize at the time, what I hadn't considered, was that at least part of the time, even if it's only a very narrow window, energy other than light comes in... and OUT of the bubble."
Marshall frowned. "If that's the case..."
Twilight's grin was feral. "That's why I got so excited when I heard that one part of that Pink Floyd song."
"We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl year after year...." She quoted hurriedly.
He nodded.
"It got me to thinking... if you have fish in an aquarium, a sealed aquarium, they can't get out, but if you leave it alone, if you keep it completely sealed, eventually they'll die, because their environment is unsustainable. That means you have to open the aquarium. When you open the aquarium, what happens if the fish jump?"
Marshall took a deep breath, considered, then frowned. "Uh... they get out of the bowl, flop around on the carpet until they get noticed and tossed back in, or until they asphyxiate and die, start to stink, and THEN get noticed and flushed down the toilet."
Twilight blinked.
He snapped his fingers. "Or the owner has a cat, then they don't get noticed until the owner wonders what happened to his fish, and why his cat looks so smug."
She frowned. "I think you're carrying the analogy a little far..."
Marshall shook his head. "I don't think so. It's a valid point, Twi. What if this IS a fish bowl? What if we jump at the right moment, I'm still not entirely clear on HOW, by the way, and find out that outside the barrier is just as hostile to us as a living room carpet would be to a fish?"
She frowned, considering this.
"It doesn't LOOK hostile..." She said, a little dubiously.
"Twilight, how many times has this island looked harmless only to be anything but?"
She considered for a long time.
Finally she turned, and wiped her visual aid off of the white board. "Before we can even be in a position to determine that, we have to come up with a way to breach the barrier. I'm not ignoring your concerns, I'm simply pointing out that once we have a tried and true method for breaching the barrier, THEN we should worry about what the outside of the barrier is like."
Marshall frowned, but nodded his agreement slowly. "Okay. I concede the point."
Twilight smiled. "Okay, first things first, getting through the barrier. We're not talking about a teleport. In order to teleport, I have to be able to sense the area I'm about to teleport into, and I can't do that, not through the barrier. I believe that the window of opportunity, when the barrier is magic permeable, is approximately twenty minutes long, the amount of time between the initial pulse and the Sky Lights arrival, and occurs in a thirty foot area at the highest point of the barrier. I say thirty feet because that is ten feet lower than the lowest variable calculation I was able to make for the diameter of the return ping of the Sky Lights."
Marshall nodded. "Seems reasonable."
She nodded, turning back to her notes. "Anyway, we couldn't just hit the barrier at the right spot and expect to pass through. I don't believe the barrier is matter permeable in that window. There's no reason that it SHOULD be. The only way to pull this off, would be to transmute the object passing through into thaumic energy, and ride the wave through."
Marshall frowned. "Is that even possible?"
She nodded. "Theoretically. Teleportation spells are basically thaumic energy conversion and back again. Most unicorns that bother to learn to teleport can teleport short distances, say line of sight, without too may problems, though it is taxing. Long distance teleports are devilishly tricky. The further the distance, the more the unicorn in question has to rely on complex mathematics for distance and timing. It's hard enough that most unicorns don't bother. One of the easiest mistakes to make is to goof the distance and time variables up. Usually this just results in a really bad case of bed mane and an exhausted unicorn who didn't get anywhere near where they wanted to be. A serious error can cause the teleporting unicorn to take an energy form and stay that way for up to a couple seconds. That's really dangerous, by the way. Practicioners call it a stutterport, and fortunately it's a very very RARE condition. Anything more than a second or two and the flub causes a sudden introduction of the unicorn's complex aura into the spell matrix, and the resulting chaos causes the whole thing to collapse. The unicorn in question usually just becomes a big aetheric bleed, at that point."
Marshall winced. "I take it that's sword pony magical scientist speak for, the unicorn 'splodes."
Twilight nodded, seriously. "Catastrophically so."
Marshall blinked. "I wasn't aware that there was a non-catastrophic way to explode."
Twilight smirked. "You've never met Pinkie Pie."
Marshall shrugged, his expression bland, and Twilight continued. As she talked, she began pacing again.
"In any case, with a fatal stutterport, most of the energy gets aetherically grounded, that's built into the basic long distance teleportation spell matrix as a safety measure, but even the relatively minor percentage of energy converted into light and heat still leaves a considerable mark on the landscape. The amount of energy that is released when matter is converted is phenome-"
Marshall nodded. "E equals M C squared. We've got a pretty good handle on that one, Sparklebutt."
Twilight's mouth gaped open, and she stopped her pacing, then she turned her head slightly, obviously intrigued. "E equals M C squared... E has to be energy, M is... matter? No... a unit of measurement... not magic, hmm.... mass then? What does C stand for?"
Marshall shook his head ruefully, aware that he'd likely just gotten the ravenous beast that was Twilight's intellectual curiousity's attention. "The speed of light in a vacuum. You're getting off track. So you're saying the only way to pass through the barrier would be in that twenty minute window, and in order to do it, you'd have to purposefully induce a state of catastrophic energy cascade that could result in a miniature nuclear explosion."
Twilight blinked, shook her head, then grunted, jerked forcefully back into the discussion at hand.
"Well, if you can do it accidentally, that means it's possible to do it on purpose. Obviously I'd have to perfect a way to induce the state in a controlled fashion, and prevent the matrix collapse. I think it's doable, I'd just have to experiment a bit."
Marshall snorted. "Twilight, you wanna run experiments to perfect a collapse that involves direct matter to energy conversion explosions?"
She winced. "Well... not if I do it right."
He gave her a flat look. "On the first try, huh?"
She sighed. "Okay okay. Experiments... a good distance away from camp."
Marshall just sighed. "Ahhhh fuck it. What else?"
Her eyes slid to the board. "Our theoretical barrier breachers would need to retain their velocity, since it's more of a partial matter to energy transformation than a teleport. Teleports require a destination, and I can't sense anything past the barrier. Even though I can see right through it, it even blocks line of sight somehow. I've... thought about trying to teleport past it, but for reasons that should be pretty obvious, I didn't want to risk it without being absolutely sure of my destination. I'm not even sure it would work, honestly... and teleporting is not something you want to leave to chance."
Twilight's scarred ear twitched momentarily, like a facial tic that had gotten out of her control. Marshall's eyes flicked to the movement, and his mouth tightened slightly, but he said nothing.
"Additionally, since I can't pull off an untyped energy transfer, it would have to overcome a certain amount of natural resistance, the velocity achieved would have to be... considerable. My current calculations suggest that the magic number, the minimum speed necessary to breach that resistance, is approximately eighty three miles per hour, with an error margin of about plus or minus five miles per hour."
Marshall smirked. "For the sake of safety, let's call it eighty eight miles per hour, yeah?"
Twilight nodded seriously. "That's probably the safest..." She trailed off, frowning.
"Why are you giggling like that?"
"It's human thing, Twilight. Eighty eight miles an hour is when the serious shit happens."
She eyed him oddly for a bit, then sighed and turned back to the board.
Marshall interrupted. "Can you fly up there with your cutesy-fly wing spell?"
She shook her head, turning back around to look at him. "It's just not capable of those kind of speeds in a direct vertical climb, which this would almost have to be. It's also a liiiitle too close to direct sunlight. The spell is of a very particular typing that's extremely vulnerable to disruption by direct sunlight. A small mountain, under good cloud cover isn't too risky, but higher than that..."
He nodded. "Hot air balloon wouldn't cut it either. Even if we had the materials to make a balloon big enough, it might not fit, and probably wouldn't be fast enough."
Twilight snorted. "Not even close. The fastest vertical climb I've ever gotten out of a hot air balloon is about..." She thought for a moment, doing the conversion in her head.
"Twelve miles per hour, and rate of climb in lighter than air transport decreases with altitude."
Marshall sighed. "So, getting this straight... your hypothesis states that the barrier is breachable under very specific conditions. Conditions which involve getting ourselves to eighty eight miles per hour in a direct vertical climb almost thirty thousand feet in the air, by way of a method we don't currently possess. Namely, transforming ourselves into an energy state that's probably the none-too-distant cousin of a nuclear explosion that hopefully stays in the theoretical but not yet proven infant stage."
Twilight twitched. He continued ticking off points with merciless accuracy.
"Then we slam, at eighty eight miles an hour mind, into a hitherto impenetrable barrier in the hopes that this time we pass through it, into an unknown environment that may or may not be survivable, and which we have no way of verifying the status of at this time."
Twilight's ears drooped and she hunched at his level, matter-of-fact run down of her hypothesis and plan.
"Well... when you put THAT way..." She said weakly.
He shook his head. "There are easier ways to commit suicide, Sparklebutt."
She grimaced. "It's a work in progress..." She countered defensively.
He watched her steadily, his expression neutral.
She turned and looked at the whiteboard, her ears still in their flat position, then stared. After a moment, her ears slowly perked up again.
"It... FEELS right, Marsh." She said, her voice quiet.
"Ever since I was a foal... math... magic... sometimes I would know things without really knowing them, you know?"
Marshall raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, letting her spool out her musings. He was aware that interruption at this point could disturb her delicate train of thought.
"Like I could... feel when an equation or a matrix was right."
Marshall nodded.
"I know a couple of things for sure. Whatever you were back home, you are the most competent engineer that I've ever met. You don't just come up with engineering solutions, Marshall. You come up with solutions that utilize the limited materials that you have available. I KNOW how hard that is."
He smirked, touched by her praise.
"I'm not just a mage, Marsh. I am the bearer of the Element of Magic. My talent IS magic. I know that between the two of us, we can make it there. We CAN get up there. Whether we can get through, I don't know, but it FEELS right."
Marshall leaned forward a bit and put a hand on her back, causing her to twitch slightly. She had been staring at the whiteboard. Her ears swiveled backwards toward him, her notched ear flicking slightly in a nervous jerk.
"What's the next step after you make a prediction based on a hypothesis, Twi?" He asked gently.
She stilled, then relaxed a bit. "You test it. Try to see if the reality matches up with your prediction." She mused.
Marshall nodded. "Right. So now we experiment. We come up with a way to test your barrier permeability hypothesis without putting ourselves at risk. Experiments don't do us any good if we ain't around to record the results."
She sighed. "I'm not sure how, Marsh. I mean, I don't-"
He patted her back and she stopped.
"As it happens, I think I do." He announced. There was a very slight undertone to his voice. A sort of unholy GLEE.
An undertone that actually made her shudder a bit.
She wasn't sure if she was scared, or excited.
Six frustrating weeks of preliminary planning later, they had the breakthrough they were looking for. The key that would make experimentation possible.
Despite this, Twilight was disappoint.
"I can't believe I MISSED that." Twilight groaned. Her head rested miserably against the "desk", as though the weight of self-recrimination in her already ponderous noggin was too much to bear.
Marshall shrugged, his feet up on the table, idly walking a green marker back and forth across his knuckles. His complete aplomb in the face of Twilight's dismay would be punished, oh yes.
"Twilight, it's the difference between someone trained to analyze data and recognize repeating patterns, and somepony who's just very good at math. At all the maths. It doesn't match the twenty four hour cycle that both of our worlds keep, and we weren't recording our times and dates by hour elapsed, or as any sort of visual representation. Now that we have a chart, the pattern's pretty clear. There are several outliers, but those might just be parts of other schedules, or even "unscheduled maintenance" as it were."
Marshall glanced at a massive grid representing hours on the whiteboard with "sky light events" marked out on it in green. Now that they were looking at a visual reference, it was easy to see a pattern emerge. The green marker dropped from his knuckle and he caught it absently. He turned his attention back to the still face-planted unicorn.
Twilight grumbled slightly. "I get it. Still, I-"
"Twilight, before now, you didn't have a big enough sample size to determine patterns. You don't have to commit sudoku just because you aren't good at something math."
Twilight jerked and turned to glare indignantly at him for a moment, then scowled. "Sudoku? Sudoku? Did you mean seppuku? You are such a-"
"You're teasing me." She said flatly.
Marshall snorted and rolled his eyes. "Ya think?"
She rolled her eyes, but she also stopped fretting about it, which was probably Marshall's goal in the first place.
Probably.
Her attention properly regained, he tapped the board. "According to this, there is a Sky Light event every three hundred seventy nine hours. That's about one every fifteen and three quarter days. Again, those aren't the only Sky Light events, but if you look at it, it's pretty clear. Our first recorded part of the pattern was about a month and a half ago, at 5:55 PM. Our next recorded event happened about fifteen days later at 12:55 PM. Finally, our latest one happened fifteen days after THAT at 7:55 AM. It's a pattern so broad that the hours it seems to happen on appear random. Unless you were keeping accurate time records, and looking for patterns, you'd never see one. Hell, I've been here for five years and never noticed any patterns until now."
Twilight nodded. "This is good news. If there's a set schedule, we can plan. We don't have to scramble around when I get dizzy all of the sudden."
Marshall nodded sagely. "As steps go, this is pretty important. I think our first set of experiments are a go."
Twilight frowned. "Speaking of, I still don't..."
Marshall winked, smirked at her, then turned to the white board and began sketching something out, humming something classical to himself as he did so. Twilight blinked, watched for a moment, her eyes flicking over his drawing, and the mathematical calculations he was doing. Then her eyes widened and a small smile slowly blossomed on her face.
Marshall turned to her and held out the marker for her.
"That's the gist of it, Twilight. My part is pretty simple. I've laid it out, as you can see. The end goal is-"
She flicked an ear at him, distracted with calculations. "I know what the end goal is. What you want is theoretically possible, light is far easier to convert into thaumic energy than physical matter, the problem is range. Light scatters over distance pretty heavily, we'd need-"
Marshall rolled his eyes skyward and assumed an innocent expression. "Something producing a collimated light beam, maybe all the same wavelength? Something that's already a part of a rangefinding system?"
Twilight stared at him for a moment, nonplussed, then groaned and smacked her forehead with a hoof. She winced.
"Right. The smartscope. I forgot. Yes, that would be pretty much perfect. The range calculation circuitry will be off, because the speed of magic is a different mathematical constant than the speed of light, but I can do the conversion pretty easily based off of what you've told me about it."
Marshall nodded sagely. "This is just a preliminary experiment, you understand. If we're successful, it should generate some pretty convincing evidence that your parabolic dish AND magic escape hypothesis are correct."
Twilight sighed. "I know it'll bear out, Marshall. Math... doesn't lie."
Marshall raised an eyebrow. "That's a very dangerous attitude from a scientist, Sparklebutt. The universe has a nasty habit of punishing that kind of hubris. Remember what I said about the universe, Twilight-"
"It must be a cartoon, or you'd have had way more ass by now?"
Marshall never skipped a beat. "Naw, the other thing. Dickass."
Twilight grinned. "Trust but verify. I remember. If it's all the same Marsh, I REALLY hope I'm right about this, because if I'm not..."
Marshall sighed and nodded, tossing his boonie hat onto the table and scratching his head with both hands. "Then it's back to the drawing board."
Marshall made minute fine adjustments to the frankenstein conglomeration of smartscope and gemstone as Twilight concentrated, her tongue sticking out slightly in a half grimace of effort.
"Two point five. Two point four. One point five. Too far, too far, back... back... stop."
Marshall took his hands away from the scope and picked up a small container of nail polish taken from one of the deceased Starbuck's patrons purses, dabbing a slight amount on the set screw to stake it in place. He blew on it gently and waved his hand in front of it, careful not to touch the tripod or the contraption mounted on it.
He raised an eyebrow at Twilight, who frowned back, and then shrugged as the light from her horn died. "It's not perfect, but it's... REALLY close."
Marshall nodded. "I haven't got the tools for perfect, Sparklebutt. The point is, is it accurate enough for our purposes?"
She sighed. "There will be a great deal of loss in the system, but we only need a very small amount of return thaumic energy to hit the conversion matrix. Then it becomes a matter of how sensitive your detector is, and how well boresighted it is."
Marshall sighed. "Only one way to find out. We should wait for the stake to set, though."
Twilight nodded. "I REALLY hope we don't have to go through that again. Holding an active charge of that magnitude while altering a crystalline spell matrix is HARD, Marshall."
Marshall looked at her with concern. "You look really tired, Twi. Are you okay?"
Twilight blinked for a moment, then sighed. "Is it that noticeable? High level magic is exhausting, Marshall, and precision thaumic tuning of that nature? I feel... brain sore, I guess. I'm surprised you could tell, though."
Marshall gave an expressive shrug, his expression full of sympathy. "It's mostly in the voice, Twi. I mean, you are a little hoarse."
Twilight nodded tiredly, then blinked and narrowed her eyes at him.
Marshall raised an eyebrow and held an innocent, slightly befuddled expression for a few seconds, then the cracks began to show. Finally the dam burst, his face creased into a shit eating grin, and he began to giggle.
Twilight jabbed him in the knee with her horn.
After a two minute impromptu bit of ass-grabbery that bore a remarkable resemblance to the bastard child of a fencing match and double-dutch jump rope skipping, they got back to the matter at hand.
Marshall set down his tools and took up his preliminary position.
"The principle is simple, Twi."
Marshall scanned the ground around the test area, kicking large rocks out of the way and generally attempting to make the area as level as possible. Eventually satisfied, he walked over to the bundle of equipment and picked up what appeared to be a bundle of aluminum rods. Fiddling with this, he spread them into what was obviously a tripod, spreading the legs out evenly and ensuring its proper balance.
"The rangefinder has a laser built into it. As we discussed earlier, lasers are light, and light speed is a constant, modified by the medium through which it travels, in this case atmosphere. So when a given laser pulse is fired, a timer starts. The pulse heads out, hits an object and speculates, or scatters. Some of that laser light bounces back and is picked up by the detector, which due to a bandpass filter can only "see" the wavelength of infrared light the laser is comprised of. It stops the timer."
Marshall went back to the bundle and carefully unwrapped the second object, which looked like the bastard child of a rangefinder, a telescope, and a science fiction prop someone had cheaply greebled with a bedazzler to make it look more interesting. He began inspecting it carefully without touching it. This of course brought his attention to the back end of the light conversion matrix. He shuddered.
"Twilight, I've said it before, and I'll say it again-"
She rolled her eyes. "And again and again and again. Yes Marshall, it absorbs all light that hits it. I can't differentiate between wavelengths in any other than the grossest of ways. Equestrian scientific advancement hasn't quite gotten to that level of accuracy where light is concerned."
"Twilight, it is a void from which no light escapes." He shuddered again. "I mean, I know it's three dimensional, because I watched you make the damn thing. I know it's got facets, hell it's a crystal, but after you enchanted it it absorbs all light, so it looks goddamn two dimensional, and that's fucking creepy. It's like an eye staring into my soul."
Twilight's eyes widened in mock horror. Her absolutely flat tone belied the illusion of existential terror. "Monkey frighten by thing he not understand. How unicorn do?"
Marshall scowled and raised his fist in mock defiance. "Curse this inky void abomination brought forth from the terrifying abyss of your brain loins, mare!"
Twilight made a gagging sound. "Eww... brain loins? Seriously, Marshall?"
He shrugged carelessly, but was still careful with the device in his hands. "I thought about going with mind-gina, but it just didn't have the same ring to it."
Twilight resisted the urge to smack him, but only just.
He grinned "Anyway, a calculator inside the system takes the amount of time on the timer, multiplies it by the speed of light in atmosphere, then divides it by two, because that timer is actually measuring the time it takes for a laser pulse to hit the target, and then come BACK. The end result of this calculation is a measurement of the distance to the target within a very very fine margin of error."
He turned towards Twilight and nodded. "Alright Twi. Take her up, gently."
Twilight frowned. "You don't have to tell me twice. I do NOT want to have to calibrate that thing again."
Her horn glowed and a similar field encompassed the modified smartscope device. Marshall backed away and moved to the tripod, allen wrench in hand. He knelt to eye level with the gimbal at the top of the tripod and motioned with his hands.
"Slow, Twilight. Slow. Alright, bring her down, slowly. Slight left, your left sorry, stop. Alright continue bringing her down. Even her out Twi, there's a little negative pitch angle, that's it, stop. Ok bring her down... slowly...."
Twilight's brow furrowed in concentration and she licked sweat from her upper lip absently as she maneuvered the device carefully at Marshall's instruction. His litany of instructions continued until the device settled at the top of the tripod, then he nodded.
"Alright, hold it steady 'til I get this tight. Good work, Sparklebutt."
He went to work quickly, and Twilight let out a sigh and relaxed, holding the device rock steady until Marshall stepped back and gave her a signal. She dropped her telekinesis.
Marshall sighed, and wiped his brow. "I think we've taken all reasonable precautions against jarring that fucking conversion matrix, but we'll take a couple test measurements just to be sure."
Twilight nodded, took a deep shaky breath, then let it out slowly. "Right."
Marshall caught something in her tone and eyed her curiously. "You're allowed to be wrong, Twilight. Hell, I've been wrong most of my life."
Twilight started at his immediate grasp of her disquiet and shook her head. "I know a scientist isn't supposed to be biased, Marshall... but I can't help it. If I'm wrong, it's back to the drawing board. Literally. We could be waiting years for more evidence. I..."
She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Marshall. That was really insensitive. You HAVE been here for years."
She was momentarily startled when he bent down in front of her and met her gaze, pale blue meeting amethyst.
"You don't have to apologize to me, Twilight. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me on this island." He gestured behind him expansively.
"You think I would have gotten this far without you?" He gave her a lopsided smirk.
"You've given me the opportunity to fail in new, exciting ways. Ways that no other human being has had an opportunity to fail."
His expression became serious again and he hugged her. "Thank you, Sparklebutt. I mean that."
She relaxed into his hug, some of her tension leaking out of her with a tired exhalation. She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against his shoulder, his hair tickling the tip of her notched ear and making it involuntarily flick.
"If you're wrong, we'll pick ourselves up and try again. That's how this process works. Even if we're wrong, we'll learn something about this island we didn't know before, even if all we learn is that our current mode of thinking is dead wrong."
He released her and stood up, and she rose as well, taking a position by his side, and retrieving a notepad and pen she'd tied a thong to, so it could dangle from her neck when she didn't need it.
Marshall called it a nerd-dallion. Twilight retaliated by drawing a picture on the cover of Marshall with a butt for a head. Unfortunately her artistic talents weren't the best and Marshall thought it was some kind of weird alien thingie. Rather than face teasing, she'd simply agreed.
She suspected he knew better and was fucking with her.
Stupid Marshall.
"Alright, Sparklebutt. Our objectives with this experiment are threefold. We have assumed that the barrier passes light, because if it didn't, we'd be in the dark right now. We should therefore get no reading when we fire a laser at the barrier, indicating no return signal or distance beyond measurement. We have already conducted this experiment, and the results were consistent with our prediction."
Twilight nodded, taking notes.
"We also predict, due to your initial work, that magic is reflected by the barrier due to the nature of its assumed function. Therefore, firing our test fixture at the barrier will result in a reading, indicating that the resultant laser converted into a coherent magic pulse has speculated from the barrier and some of that energy has returned to the conversion matrix, been converted back to infrared light and said light has reached the detector."
He looked at her. "Objective one: Ascertain if our test fixture is functioning properly, and if the barrier functions as we predict."
Twilight wrote this down dutifully, and muttered. "It BETTER be functioning properly."
Marshall grinned and continued. "We have also deduced what we think is a pattern in the Skylights, sufficient that we can predict, within a reasonable margin of error, days we can expect a Skylight. We predict that we can expect a Skylight in..."
He consulted the smartphone. "Eight minutes."
"Objective two: Verify our pattern for Skylight prediction is correct."
Twilight wrote this down as well, scowling slightly.
Marshall smirked at this and continued. "If our Skylight timetable is correct, it should result in a twenty minute window during which a portion of the upper area of the barrier will be magic permeable. Therefore, a magic pulse aimed at that location will give a reading before the Skylight opening begins, and no indication afterwards for a period of approximately twenty minutes, after which the Skylight phenomenon will occur, and the barrier will once again become reflective to magic in that area."
"Objective three: Determine existence of a hypothetical magic permeable portion of the barrier during aforementioned twenty minute window."
Twilight finished jotting this down, then let the notebook dangle from the thong around her neck, tucking the pen into the pages. She looked to Marshall tensely.
"You ready?" She asked, after a moment.
He nodded and took a position behind the magical conversion rangefinder, carefully adjusting the dials to swing the scope upward. Twilight frowned.
"It's reading infinite distance." She mused.
Marshall nodded briskly, working the little crank wheels with careful diligence. "I wouldn't expect it to pick up a signal from the angle it's at, Twi. Where it's at right now, there's probably more than eighty to a hundred miles between us and the barrier. This jury-rigged piece of shit probably doesn't have that kind of range, even with the magical conversion, plus we're swinging it to hell and back."
She frowned and watched, then a small grin lit her face. "We've got a return signal!"
He nodded. "Finally got it near vertical. I think we're hitting somewhere on the top of the barrier. What were our target coordinates again? Fifteen fifty by thirty six?"
Twilight consulted the notebook. "As near to dead center as I can gather from this position would be fifteen fifty by sixty three. You had it backwards."
He snorted. "Right. Number dyslexic, my bad."
He carefully adjusted the rotating wheels to read the appropriate number, then stepped back and checked the rangefinder display.
He blinked. "There is no way the barrier is that tall."
She shook her head. "The conversion's all wrong. Magic has a different constant speed variable, remember? Of course the rangefinder's off. The only thing we're trying to verify here is that we have a return signal from the top of the barrier, which we do."
He nodded, chewing on his lip. "Riiiight. So right now, the barrier is sealed. According to our calculations, that should change in..." He glanced down at the smartphone again.
"Three minutes and thirty six seconds." Marshall glanced at Twilight and smiled.
"Pretty exciting, huh?"
She scowled, prancing slowly in place. "Try nerve-wracking. I hate this."
Marshall snorted. "You think this is bad? Back home a bunch of scientists once tested a device that they theorized had a minute chance of igniting our atmosphere like a frat boy's fart. Bet there wasn't an unstained pair of undies in the bunch."
Twilight stopped prancing and stared at him, horrified. "Why would you... what possible use could such a device be!?"
Marshall sighed and glanced at the smartphone. "Not exactly a proud moment in human history, Twi. Let's just say, we like big bombs and we cannot lie."
Twilight shook her head. "Something tells me I don't want to know anymore." She frowned. "Did you... did you use it?"
Marshall gave her a serious look dead in the eyes that brought her to complete stillness. Something about that stare reminded her that this was a predatory species, and very much alien.
"Knowing what you know about humanity, Twi... what do YOU think?"
She gulped. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed in a heap.
Marshall started, then rushed to her side. "What the fuck, Twi! It was like seventy years ago! For fuck sake, I-"
She groaned. "Marshall, the display. Look at the display."
Marshall blinked. "What?"
She forced herself to a semi-seated position and growled at him. "It's the fucking manapulse fucktard! Look at the thing! The goddamn thing!"
He blinked, then understanding flooded into his expression and he sheepishly jumped back to the device, looking at the display.
She shakily came to her hooves. "What's it say?!"
Marshall let out a slow breath. "It says infinite. We've lost signal to the top of the barrier."
She was right next to him in an instant. "Pan it over, Marsh! Make sure it's not an error!"
He adjusted the horizontal axis knob carefully, working it millimeter by torturous millimeter.
She waited, tense, almost unwilling to hope...
A slow grin crept onto his face. "Signal. Verified. Number's just about the same."
She let out her breath and sagged to the ground like a deflating balloon. "Work it back to center just to be sure."
He nodded and worked the knobs to bring the alignment back to center. "And... we lost it. I think this is pretty good evidence that your hypothesis is correct, Sparklebutt."
For a long moment she just lay there, recovering. Marshall slowly sat down next to her and began to stroke her back slowly. He could feel the shakes of released tension and spent adrenaline.
She frowned. "Did you start the timer?"
He nodded. "Yup. At the twenty minute mark it'll chime and we'll check to see if the hole has closed."
She frowned, trying to think of anything they were forgetting. Marshall's petting intensified.
"Who's a good filly?" He cooed.
She snorted. "I am." She said dryly.
"That's right, you are!" He grinned.
Slowly her OCD quieted under his teasing and gentle ministrations. She let the matter rest, but she was going to GET that cookie he promised, even if he WAS just teasing.
Good fillies got treats, motherbucker.
He smirked. "I have a question."
She sniffled, tears of relief threatening to fall from her eyes. "What?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Fucktard?"
She blushed and let out an involuntary gasp of shocked laughter. The tears started their way down her cheeks. "You caught that, huh?"
He smirked. "Caught it? Hell, that's worth points. I'll make a sailor out of you yet, Sparkle."
His smirk faded and he looked at her seriously. "So... are you okay? I kinda figured you'd be performing your usual murdering of the art of dance over this."
She smiled weakly at this and sighed. "I don't know, Marsh. I thought I'd be really excited about verifying this but... I guess the magnitude of what we still have to accomplish just kind of... struck me."
He nodded. "One step at a time, Twilight. We've gotta learn to crawl before we can waddle the fuck outta this bitch like a toddler who's figured out how the nursery doorknob works for the first time."
She chuckled, then sniffed. "So..."
He nodded. "You were right. The barrier isn't impenetrable all the time. There IS a way through it. Next step is obvious, Twi. You said the only way through is to be mana when we hit it traveling fast enough. You need to figure out how to make that happen, then we need to test it. Hopefully without endangering ourselves, first."
She bit her lip, considering. "That's a pretty tall order, Marsh. How?"
Marshall nodded. "As usual, I have no idea about the magic side, Twilight. That's your baileywick. As for getting something up there at the right speed, I might have a few ideas."
Her ears perked cutely in response. "Yeah?"
He grinned. "Tell me, Sparkle. You think you could get your hooves on a decent supply of hydrogen peroxide?"
She grimaced. "Your chemistry terms and my chemistry terms aren't exactly the same, Marshall. It would help if you had a little I could identify so I know exactly what you mean."
Marshall nodded. "As it happens, I do. Among other interesting qualities, hydrogen peroxide is also a disinfectant. There's some in our first aid supplies... sadly, not enough to do us any good for what I have in mind. Medical grade peroxide is like, three percent actual chemical and ninety seven percent DI water. Way too diluted to work for what we need."
She frowned. "Okay. Assuming I can identify it, how concentrated do we need it to be?"
Marshall sighed. "I think... around at least eighty five percent. Honestly, the purer the better."
She winced. "Well... I'm going to need lab space. Ventilated. The work room would do. And I'm going to need all the glassware we picked up from Star Bucks. The less I have to transfigure, the better. That is assuming I CAN identify it and that I know some way to produce it."
Marshall grinned. "I have every confidence in you. We'll figure it out. All we have is time, Twilight. Well... time and a really big fucking truck."
Twilight snorted, her notched ear twitching slightly. She gave him a suspicious look. "Assuming that we CAN make this stuff... what are you going to use it for?"
Marshall chuckled maniacally. "The inevitable, really. We just found out our alien overlords occasionally leave their backdoor wide open. It'd serve them right if we jammed it full of something phallic and on fire."
Twilight stared at him, then her ears swiveled down and back. "You were right."
She sighed in mock misery and rolled her eyes skyward.
"With you involved, surprise butt sex was always an inevitability."
"You're damn skippy, Sparklebutt."
Set up chapter is set up. It should come as no surprise to any of you that, personal difficulties nonwithstanding, this was a hard chapter for me to write. I kept feeling as though I had to include some kind of action, I was desperate to do so, but I found that every time I tried, it stood out like a Monty Python sketch in the middle of a funeral, and not in a good way. I beat my head against it over and over again, ever more distracted by real life, and months turned into years and well... you get the picture. The truth is, having a story as successful as this is scary. A part of me keeps thinking, this is it. This is the chapter where they finally figure out I'm a hack. I can't possibly keep it up.
But I think that's doing you all a disservice, and me, I suppose. See most of the people who have stuck with me this far know what Quantum Castaways is. They know I'm not just going to author fiat explain shit away. If Twilight says she has a plan, she has an actual plan, based on observations and data she has made and gathered, and goddamn it she and Marshall are going to talk it out because that's what they DO. It's what they always do. They figure it out together. And more importantly, gentlereaders... both you and I ENJOY them figuring things out.
Still, I am aware that this chapter won't be to everyone's taste, especially after the very long hiatus. I can only respond with the reassurance that this was necessary, and that there is far more adventure in the story to come.
So in other words, trust me, I guess. If you're still here after all this time, you've already extended me the benefit of the doubt a thousand times over. Trust me a little further. I have more snake oil to sell.
In any case, what follows is an Omake of my own creation. Nugar is recovering from surgery at the moment, and it is WAY too short notice to ask any of my other regulars to provide you with extra entertainment, so as the nature of the delay and its sudden end is my fault, I'll take responsibility. This Omake really got away from me, I'll admit. The interactions are a little raw, a little less polished than I like to go with, but... heartfelt, especially toward the end. Well, you'll see.
Of Castaways and the Crown - Sunbutt edition Part 1
Jangle. Jangle. Jangle.
Marshall quietly groaned to himself and started at the sound. He frowned, shifting his M4 Carbine on his shoulder, picked up his makeshift spear, and contemplated the ringing of the bell.
It was his snare again. He supposed he should be happy, he'd only just set the damn thing on the game trail, but there was something odd about it. A small animal that had been successfully killed by the snare caused the bell to ring at regular intervals like that, as it dipped up and down, but this was...
Just a little too strident, really. It sounded like there was something BIG in that thing.
He sighed. "I'm comin', I'm comin'. You better not be another goddamn Squid Panther eating a piggie out of my trap or I swear-"
He stopped as the trap came into view. His mouth dropped open. He couldn't help it. There was just no rational explanation for what was in front of him. The spear dropped unnoticed from his hand.
Standing in front of him with a regal, unquestioningly intelligent bearing, its light amethyst eyes glimmering with quiet dignity and power, was a fucking white... unicorn... thing. It stood about a head or so over his own five feet, ten inches, perhaps just shy of six feet four inches tall. A long brilliant white horn adorned its forehead, wickedly sharp, from what Marshall could see. Its coat was purest white, broken only by a pair of brilliantly white wings, currently folded and at rest. A golden tiara adorned its head, and filigree golden horseshoes adorned its hooves.
The most startling things about it were its mane and tail. These were like fine smoke in a shifting pastel rainbow of flowing colors, like an aurora borealis, ethereal and haunting in its beauty. It was like something you might see under the effects of LSD, catching your attention and holding it, awestruck, while everyone else wondered why the fuck you were staring at the streamers attached to a swamp fan.
It... she, nothing that supremely girly could call itself a male, was watching him quietly, a half eaten star fruit hanging in complete disregard for the laws of physics near her head. The snare's bell whipped up straight, jangled a bit, then stopped, as whatever power the creature had over gravity ceased yanking on it. She cocked her head, curiously, examining him, just as he was examining her.
This quiet standoff continued for several seconds before the horse... unicorn... pegasus.... whatever, raised an eyebrow in a curiously human expression. The expression said... "Well? Your move, primate."
Marshall blinked, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, let it out, then opened his eyes slowly.
The horse thing wasn't just still there, it had apparently approached him while he was trying to get his wits about him. The equinoid's eyes caught his like a snakes would a mouse, freezing him.
She was, perhaps, three feet away.
She leaned a little closer, stretching out that long, graceful, seemingly delicate neck.
"Boo." She said in a gentle, regal voice nonetheless tinged heavily with good humor and mischievousness. Then she crossed her eyes, stuck her tongue out at him, and blew him a raspberry.
Marshall blinked again. His mouth closed with a snap, and he cocked his head.
"Are you fuckin' with me, horseface?" He breathed.
She giggled, like a tinkling of bells. "Yup."
Thus did Lieutenant Commander Marshall James Bailey make the acquaintance of Princess Celestia, diarch of the land of Equestria, and custodian of the rising and setting sun.
Marshall sat with stone face, observing his companion of three months. He raised an eyebrow.
Princess Celestia, her mane drifting diffidently in a wind that could not be perceived in the small cave dwelling, picked up five small berries with her magic and tossed them into the center of the table.
"I see your two, and raise you three."
Marshall raised an eyebrow. "Bullshit. You are bluffing your puffy white ass off. Bunch a' nothing on the flop, seven of clubs on the turn, jack of hearts on the river...."
He mused, eyeing her carefully.
Princess Celestia closed her eyes and grinned at him in that maddening display of utter unruffled dignity she had. She hummed quietly to herself.
Marshall scowled and tossed a few berries in to match her bet. "I ain't got shit, but I gotta see this."
Princess Celestia turned her cards to reveal the jack of diamonds and the jack of clubs. Marshall stared at this, and at his own hand of near garbage (he had a seven of spades and an ace of hearts), then sighed as the diarch picked up her winnings and deposited them on her side of the table. She grinned at him.
"It would appear that this puffy white ass is going to get puffier, with all these sweets I'm winning."
Marshall frowned darkly, his expression sour.
"Don't be that way, Marshall! Sweets are bad for you. I'm looking after your health."
Marshall's frown turned into a scowl. "You better not be pulling any kinda Jedi mind tricks, horseface."
She chuckled. "Though I cannot speak for its integrity, your mind has remained unmolested by my person, Commander, I assure you. Your defeat at this poker was merely the result of several thousand years of experience reading ponies. With very little difficulty, I might add. It would appear there is considerable crossover between our species' facial expressions."
Marshall considered this for a moment, then smirked. "So do senior discounts ramp up every millennium, or do they just kinda level off after awhile, grandma?"
Princess Celestia picked up the deck of cards telekinetically and began shuffling it, her expression unruffled. "Marshall, I'm a Princess. Paying for things is usually optional."
She leaned over the table a bit and half-lidded her gaze, lowering her eyelashes at him demurely. She was a bit out of practice with the physical nuances of flirting, but the old reflexes kicked in properly. "Besides, if I'm so decrepit, why do you keep staring at my flank?"
Marshall blinked at this, then actually reddened. Embarrassment yes, but also a small amount of confused interest. Apparently some things were universal.
She let this one go without reminding him he was getting further behind. No need to grind her hoof in, as it were.
The mid-day heat was a blistering weight on her face and neck. Sweat formed in beads on her brow, dampening the hairs there. They weren't quite saturated enough to begin dripping moisture into her face, but it wouldn't be long.
She closed her eyes in concentration, reaching. Nothing. Emptiness. She opened her eyes, squinting up at her tormentor. It was there. She could SEE it, plain as... well, plain as day.
Why couldn't she reach it?
Something metallic and cool touched her overheated neck, causing her to start at the unexpected contact. Her involuntary jerk caused the contents of the object to slosh.
"There're easier ways to go blind, Princess. I take my afternoon shit around the same time every day."
She snorted and finally tore her gaze away from the treacherous orb of this alien sun, to gaze at her fellow companion in isolation. "With what you eat on a daily basis? I'd rather not lose my sense of smell in the bargain."
She grasped the battered canteen with her magic and removed the cap, taking a long swig. It was cool, which meant he hadn't pulled it from his own water reserves, as the stored liquid tended to be lukewarm by late morning. He'd walked all the way down to the river and filled it, then brought it back up.
It was a small gesture but she was touched nonetheless.
She passed the canteen back to him and he tilted his head back and drank. She watched as his Adam's apple twitched, still fascinated at how alien his biology was. He wiped the excess liquid from his lips with his sleeve, screwed the cap back on tightly and set the canteen down between them on the worn planks of his "observation post".
Celestia leaned back and grinned, remembering their Poker game the night before. "So... eight to one, Marshall. You're going to have to step up your game if you're going to beat me."
He sighed and reached his arms over his head, grasping one wrist with the other and stretching. The crunch pop noises fascinated Celestia, as they had every time.
"I'm startin' to regret telling you about that game, Sunny D."
She cocked her head quizzically, her expression sharpening into curious interest. "Sunny D? That's a new one. I don't have any immediate objections, but I'd like to know what that is."
Marshall blinked, like he'd called her that absently and hadn't given it a moments thought. "Uh, it's a drink back on Earth. Kinda tastes like what would happen if an orange were used to beat a tangerine to death and then the murderer hid the evidence in a glass of sugar and water."
Celestia blinked at the description. "Sounds pleasant. What does the "D" stand for?"
Marshall gave her a somewhat reticent look, then crossed his arms and smirked. "Dick."
Celestia, in response, raised one regal eyebrow. She cocked her head slightly and lowered her facial angle so she was making direct eye contact. It was a very expressive bit of body language that Marshall translated to, roughly, "You regularly drank something called Sunny Dick?"
Marshall cut his eyes to the side and actually reddened a bit, caught out. After a moment, he sighed. "Yeah... really didn't think that one through. Delight. It's called Sunny Delight."
Celestia's expression grew ever so slightly playful, with just a hint of pleasure. She got the impression he hadn't even thought about the connotations of his absent nickname, and that just made it all the more delicious.
"That's very flattering, Marshall. I like it. It... has been a long time since anypony felt comfortable enough with me to give me a nickname. Ages, I think. My sister occasionally calls me Tia, in private." She frowned.
"Though... less often, since her return."
Marshall cocked his head. "You miss her, don't you?"
Celestia sighed. "Indeed. I am... very worried about her. About all my little ponies, really. I can't imagine how hard it must be-"
Marshall snorted. "You know exactly how hard it must be, Sunny D. Didn't you tell me you handled everything by yourself when you sister went a bit... you know?"
Celestia frowned. "Well... not everything. Nopony could handle EVERYTHING involved in the governance of an entire race. I had subordinates."
Marshall nodded. "Right, I getcha. Luna then, she's still weak from sittin' in the moon all those years? She can move the moon, but the sun..." he trailed off in a questioning tone.
Celestia shook her head. "In some ways my sister is stronger than me, now. Magically speaking, she has more than enough power to handle both functions."
Marshall shrugged. "If you say so. I find the whole thing ridiculous, but I'm from a universe where that kinda shit just CAN'T happen. In any case, worst case scenario, if some threat pops up, you not being there will mean a serious dip in Equestria's, defenses?"
Celestia looked down. "Actually, the last several threats which "popped up" as it were, were dealt with by my student and her friends. I had very little to do with any of..."
She looked up, her expression rueful. "I see what you're doing there, human. I appreciate the gesture, but logic alone isn't going to alleviate my concerns."
Marshall gave a kind of surrender gesture with his hands. "I'm not doin' nothin', Princess. I'm just pointing out that the hallmark of a good leader is how the command functions in that leaders absence. You don't micromanage, right?"
She frowned. "I believe that ponies should have the ability to chart their own destiny, Marshall. I try to stay as hooves off as possible, though an occasional nudge or reminder is sometimes necessary."
Marshall smiled. "If I can make an observation?"
Celestia copied a gesture she'd seen him give occasionally, gesturing with a hoof for him to proceed.
"You don't run your government like a Princess, you run it like a momma."
She blinked.
"It's in the little expressions, Sunny D. My little ponies, and such. You view them like your children, and it's not hard to see why, or to imagine that they might view you as a kinda mother figure."
She frowned. "I fail to see-"
Marshall met her gaze easily, his expression gentle. "Everyone should have one person in their life that loves them unconditionally, and accepts them for who they are. Someone to turn to when life is too fucking unfair. The great tragedy of mothers, Tia... is that one day they're gone. That is a cold hard lesson that everyone learns someday. The thing that mothers have to learn, is how to let go. You gotta let your loved ones learn to stand on their own two feet, or four hooves as it were. If you try to shield them from too much pain when you're here, you'll force them to endure worse pain when you're not, at a time when they're already hurting because you're gone."
His expression turned distant, introspective, as though something about his words had occurred to him only as he spoke them.
Nevertheless, the words shocked her. She didn't like to consider the ramifications of what he'd said.
Not one bit. She narrowed her eyes at him, the very act of her increased focus on him snapping him out of his introspection. He stared back at her warily, but said nothing as she raised her neck upward, stretching to her full height. From this vantage she was able to, just barely, stare down at him, her expression cold and mildly furious.
"I have lived for more than two thousand years, human. Weathered disasters natural and otherwise. Faced armies down and routed them without a single drop of blood being shed. If my ponies need a constant, a foundation ever present, then I WILL provide it."
He raised an eyebrow, but he didn't back down. In fact, he advanced a step and met her gaze. Deep amethyst met cold faded grey blue and held.
"How'd that work out for your sister, horseface? Were you always there for her?"
She reared back as though physically struck and, rather than obliterate him with the sudden surge of rage and pain that struck her, struck the deck of the observation point her her hoof. One of the planks snapped with bright crack of abused wood and she had to struggle to keep her balance. She stared down at her hoof as though she'd never seen it before, appalled.
Marshall continued, his voice merciless but strangely soft. "You might be immortal, princess, but you aren't infallible. Your advantage is you have experience on everybody else. Mounds more than anyone else can boast, but tell me this; have you ever been alone?"
Her gaze jerked back to his face. For once he was unreadable. "I-..."
"Really alone? Have you ever been so alone that you talk to yourself so you can hear another voice?"
She stared at him.
"Have you ever been so alone that you answer back? Whole conversations playing out and it was all you? Have you ever reached the point where even THAT doesn't work, and you just quit with it all together? Ever wondered if you could even deal with other people again, if you ever found them?"
She shook her head. After a moment, softly, she said. "No. No I haven't."
He nodded. "This is as close as you've ever come to it, Princess. If there's a merciful god, and I very much doubt there is at this point, it's the closest you OR I will ever come to it again. You have to accept, Celestia, that there are some things you can't control. This sun, how your subjects will do in your absence, and how well your sister will pick up the slack. There is no point in standing here out in the blistering heat staring at the sun and courting heat stroke."
She found her ears turning down slightly, appalled that this being a tiny fraction of her own age was scolding her, and worse, making sense. Anger drained out of her, leaving a kind of bitter frustration at the impossibility of her situation, stuck on an alien island with her sole company an irascible alien primate. He snorted at her expression.
"You don't have a monopoly on wisdom, Sunny D." He snorted. "Well okay, you DO, but you've only got like three houses on it. Four tops. You definitely don't have a hotel yet."
She shook her head, completely lost. He continued, his tone exasperated. "Immortal. Lord save me from strong women who think they can just bull-neck their way through all of life's problems, health or otherwise. Made the mistake of believing that would work once, and it didn't go too well."
There was a surprising amount of bitterness in that statement. Despite the rawness of their interaction today, she found herself curious in spite of herself.
Celestia blinked away tears. "When did you learn that lesson, Marshall?"
He blinked, hesitated at first, obviously reluctant to answer, then let out a sigh. "When I was fourteen, my mother was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer. It's a disease where cells grow out of control in certain areas, causing tumor growths that interfere with organ function and eventually lead to death."
Celestia's ears drooped. "We have something similar... but the condition is easily remedied through magic."
Marshall smiled grimly. "Well... we don't have that option. Stage three is serious, but it's managable. The treatment is... well it's pretty fucking horrific. She spent most of the next year sick as a dog, lost her hair... lost weight. They ended up amputating her breast, what's referred to as a mastectomy, but for all that did, it was basically locking the barn door after the horse got out and the barn burned down. It was... well it was horrifying. My mother was the strongest person I'd ever met, Celestia. She was invincible. Her will was absolutely iron. Watching her breakdown..."
He shuddered.
Celestia closed her eyes and let out a sad breath.
"She held on for about two years. Doctors called it an "extremely aggressive case", which is pretty much doctor speak for, well, I've got nothin'. The pain got really bad. At the end she couldn't eat, could barely speak... used to think I could literally see her wither away. In some ways that might have been preferable."
He looked down at the table. "Long story short, I think she hung on as long as she did because we needed her. My dad fell to pieces without her. When she died, Celestia, our family just fell apart. Dad disconnected emotionally. I mean, he went through the motions. He worked, he brought home the bacon, but he spent most of his time in his chair watching fucking TV and drinking beers 'til he fell asleep. Nothing we did really mattered anymore. Mom was one of those people who took care of everything. I think he just got so lost he gave up even trying to find a way back."
Celestia shook her head. "And you?"
He grinned mirthlessly. "I tried being the good son at first. When that didn't work, I tried being the bad son. Was always better at that. It took me an unfortunate amount of time and trouble with the law to figure out that he just didn't care one way or the other, any more. My mom might have died, but really... my sister and I lost both of our parents that day. So I said fuck it, took the first option I could find that could get me as far away as possible. Never looked back."
He sighed. "The point is, Sunny D... that if you are a responsible leader, and I believe you are... that they'll have the tools necessary to keep things moving along. Hell, sheer inertia will help at first, then it'll get easier. Maybe not as smooth, maybe there will be a few bumps, but they'll soldier on. They'll miss you..."
She took in a deep breath, then let it out in a gust. "But they'll get by."
Marshall grinned at her. "The question is, will you? Have you ever been in a position where you weren't an essential cog in the great machine?"
Her immediate response would have been to change the subject, but they were past petty distraction tactics. It would have been cheap to respond in such a fashion, and so she examined his question carefully. "I... no. No I don't think I have. You don't need me, do you?"
Her question came out in a bit more vulnerable a tone of voice than she was comfortable with, but he didn't tease her.
Instead he shook his finger at her. "I like having you around, Celestia. This is a far more tolerable place with you in it, if you'll forgive me for saying so, but I got by for five years without you. I don't NEED you..."
She smiled half-heartedly. "Am I wanted?"
Marshall gave her an, "are you shitting me?" look. "Of course you are. Is that so rare for you?"
She blinked, then blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "Yes, actually. I'm not used to being... wanted. Necessary, certainly. Needed, sometimes. Wanted... not so much."
He blinked. Then with typical Marshall irreverence, merely shrugged. "Well. Get used to it. You brighten up the place, Sunny D. Besides, you match my couch."
Celestia gave him a deeply offended look. "You don't HAVE a couch."
He looked pointedly at her rump. "You ARE a couch."
Celestia reared up in mock outrage. "Well I never! I am not a couch, Marshall. I am at the very LEAST a bean bag chair."
Marshall looked intrigued. "You guys HAVE those?"
She shrugged. "Had. It was... a phase. An awkward phase. We don't talk about it."
"Amen, sister."
And they both laughed. The tension disappearing like clouds after a storm.
Try as she might, she wasn't sure who had come out on top of their little verbal encounter.
She decided it was a tie. That seemed equitable.
End Part 1
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Dun dun DUN!
img.pandawhale.com/31543-Robin-Williams-what-year-is-it-TaCE.jpeg
Oh my god it update. It updated oh my god I'm so happy. Gahhhh. Thank you thank you thank you
Now I'm going to read it like my life depends on it. Petty things like life can wait
Words cannot express the sheer excitement....
Words...
I shed a tear...
In joy...
Thank you thank you thank you! I almost cried when I saw this update!!!
Now I gotta get comfortable, tell my roommate to turn her goddamn New Girl episode down, and enjoy this beautiful update you've given us!
Ah, finally the dusty Traveller has come home.
SO Happy ,Head is going to explode from smiling
Holy shit! It's alive!
So, that's what Metroids eat.
I'm glad I've stumbled on your blogpost from a few days ago, otherwise right now, after seeing this update, I would be lying sprawled on the floor with a concussion after falling from my chair
Welp, time to read, omnomnomnomnom
.... Welp, now I have to read it all over again to refresh myself on what's going on. <sarc>Thank you oh so much</sarc> <non_sarc> on providing an absolutely wonderful story that I can't wait to read again</non_sarc>.
I'm posting this BEFORE I read the new chapter and all i can say is; Thanks for keeping with it and not leaving us hanging, glad that you found the time and the drive to keep going.
It's alive... it's alive! it's alive! It's aliiiiive!
*explodes, then explodes again.
And thus I shall read more than 100,000 words again! I will sure comment the new chapter once I'm done.
It's alive?
It's alive!
Holy....
You know I always had memories and twinges when thinking about past fics and this "unfinished" one coming to mind,
THE DEAD SHALL RISE!
(I think I shall have to read it all over again, yay!)
ZOMG!!! Are Christmas here already?
Quite unlucky that I get notified of one of my favorite fics updating as I'm at work, of course I'll be re reading the whole story later just you know for giggles but I'm still sad that I'll have to wait till I go home, glad to see you might be back on your feet if you can find time to write right now, hope your life's going swell and I can't wait to dive into this new chapter
Gonna read this soon.
It occurs to me that the last time I commented on this fic, there was a different presidential election going on...
7696198
It lives!
I was really impressed at all the magibabble-- that was some serious effort.
It's always really cool how you have the characterization for twilight down, but still managed to develop her charachter; most fanfic authors keep the canon characters pretty static.
Just don't keep us waiting for so long, next time :)
Haven't read it yet, but just seeing the little "unread" marker next to a chapter of Quantum Castaways is already a treat.
Strange, almost scared to go in, so excited.
Well! I certainly never expected to see this update notification. Completely welcome, though. An extreme pleasure to have this fic back.
I liked this chapter. I liked the math and thought that you put into Twilight. It SHOWS that Twilight is super smart and we don't have to be told she is. It shows it in a way that the original TV show never did. Huzzah!
The highlight for me is the small areas of interaction between Marshall and Twilight. If I were to make any kind of constructive criticism, besides a few of the minor typos scattered through the chapter, is that Marshall seems kind of stalled out in terms of his character development. We see Twilight become more confident in a hostile environment, and this chapter is kinda the payoff of that growth. However, Marshall had some intense feelings out in the desert with loneliness and thoughts of mortality, and while he snarks a little in the beginning when he was concerned about Twilight's mental health, I felt this aspect of Marshall's character could have been explored a little more. It could have given the chapter more of its own mini arc. Then again, you could be planning on doing this emotional arc later, and I could be making a comment that is kinda unnecessary.
Just a random thought though. I really did enjoy your update!
This was a wonderful chapter, it really was. What blows me away is how smart you can FEEL twilight is. How well they get along, how smart Marshall is. People try again and again to make Twilight a powerful mage but very few times do we get to see our favorite purple pony actually show that her power comes from her mind and intellect and not just writer given Mary Sue powers. In this you have succeeded in a truly wonderful way.
Now, now I feel the need to go back and reread this entire story again. Honestly, I have forgotten how many times I have reread this story. I smile every time I do. Don't worry, you are far from a hack. You are an inspiration to at least one person.
So thank you again for continuing this story and for bringing such wonderful characters to life in such an enjoyable, and real, way.
Oh, I'm glad this isn't dead yet. I should reread it before I start this chapter. Glad to see you're back with us.
Wow, nice chapter, please keep it going.
Yay! I kept hoping that this would continue, and I was right! I actually really enjoyed this chapter. I'm a fan of stories that at least try to explain things. Techno Babble FTW!
MY MAN LIKE HOLY SHIT
IT LIVES! WOOOOO
I am so so glade to see an update, this is the fic that got me to stick with fimfiction : )
Yeeeessssssssssssssss
Why? Why? Whhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyy must I be done reading the update, and thus convicted to waiting again... [deep breath] oh well... Such is life :)
Awesome point about rhe backdoor at the end.
The chapter didn't need the action stuff you were so hung up about. The banter and world building did enough as-is for me.
Am I hallucinating?
HAHAHAHA It Lives!!!
Holy shit it's been 3 years!
Wooo!
I definitely didn't expect this to update. It was quite a pleasant surprise. Since everyone else has already said most of what I've wanted to say, all that's left is: Don't feel bad about not including action. I (and many others I'm sure) find chapters like this to be my favorite. Reading through Twilight and Marshall's discussion was an absolute joy. More magic theory please. More science and engineering and technobabble!
Let the record show that we believed you when you made your promise to come back to this story.
Welcome back!
.................................................................................. *COMMENCE FREAK OUT*......................................jap;udf poaiwjefdpo;lasj dfioawjer opihjwoifhaoidfjoaijwfopijwheportuh poauihrgoaijdfo[iajwepiorujaosdjfopiasjoierjoaijfoiajsdf
*cough* Loved it! thank you so much for the update! Can't wait for the next one
Hot damn...it's finally back. I knew you'd be back eventually.
If I may say so, Dusty, you made one hell of a grand return for this story after it not having updated for several years. In both content AND the omake at the end. I think everything fit in for the usual style and feel of the story, theoretical "Monty Python sketch in the middle of a funeral" or otherwise. I love seeing logic applied to show canon. It's great that they're finally finding a way out. I like how the scope came into play with the experiment.
The bit with the omake reminded me of something my friend told me once about someone he knew whose mother had cancer. Much similarly to the omake, the mother was in such egregious pain by the time she finally expired. The family seeing her wither away like that, pained and working hard to tend to her, making ends meet to pay for her medication, being emotionally distraught throughout the entire ordeal...like Marshall's family, they were completely torn apart in the end. So yeah, that omake was pretty deep.
(The conversation topic behind that story was assisted suicide, morality behind having the choice thereof, and how it might have saved the family (they knew in advance that there was no saving her at that point, and could have spared her agonizing pain and spared themselves drama and worse heartache in the end, but that's something else entirely...)
holy shit...your alive...im glad i still had this story on tracking. Next time though please set it to hiatus when things like this happen, then we can expect to wait a long time. Other then that great chapter I love it when people explain magic and this hit the motherload of knowledge
I demand more Sunbutt!
YOU UPDATED! IT'S ALIVE! THERE'S A SUNBUTT MINI VERSION!!!
I'M SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW!!!
I have no idea what's going on anymore, but I don't care! I remember this being great even if I don't remember much at all. Guess I'll have to re-read quite a bit.
I think the explanation was great. For the average guy I feel like you nailed it, so don't stress it. Being a Celestia fan I really liked the bonus too. Glad to see this alive!
Welcome Back!
I was surprised to learn that I had first first post on this story.
Haven't read yet, family stuff, but I am looking forward to it.
Well. Time for a re-read. I'll see all you guys at the first chapter.
IT LIVES!!!
Yet it appears to do so only to kill me. Has anyone seen my sides? I think I lost them around here somewhere.