Chapter XII
Sweetie Belle hummed to herself as she sat in the blue-green grass that covered the floor of the Dome of the Wayward Sun.
She, too, had changed in the past thirty years. However, while the others had grown larger and bulkier, she had done the opposite. She was certainly taller, taller than anypony she knew from back home, yet she was also slender, adopting a form closer to that one model pony Rarity knew. Fleur de lis, if she recalled correctly.
Unlike the model, however, Sweetie had grown a series of ridges down the length of her back. Those ridges, made of off-white wraithbone, had been more than a little painful when they first grew from her spine, but it was one of the many sacrifices she had to make in order to be what she now was.
She hummed again, and a lone, spindly arm grew from one of her ridges, and with it, she carefully moved a tiny ball within a little square box with a clear lid. The lid had only a single hole, about half the size of a penny, and just small enough for the wraithbone growth to fit through.
Humming softly, she moved the wraithbone, using it to push the ball through various rings, letting them light up as the ball passed.
The final ring lit up, and a mechanical voice rang out. “0 minutes, and 57 seconds. New record. Congratulations, Sweetie Belle!”
She smiled to herself, content, before setting the toy aside, and turning to the wraithbone railing that enclosed the small grass garden, and smiled as she watched a tiny little arthropod run along the wraithbone before sinking into it and disappearing completely.
It reappeared on her wraithbone arm, running down its length before coming nose to nose with her.
She smiled, and nuzzled it, before speaking in a musical voice. “Hello, little Warp Spider. How are you?”
It gave a tiny screech, and reached out with two of it six legs, and grasped at her nose.
She laughed. “What, did you really think I forgot who you are?”
The small thing chirped happily, and leaped onto her head, and hid into her long mane.
“Hey!” She laughed. “Get out of there!” Her horn lit up, and small, gentle bursts of green magic fished through her mane, before pulling the tiny thing out of her mane.
It chirped again, as it hovered in the air, its long, six legs hanging down from its thorax.
Sweetie Belle gave it a long hard look, all the while trying to hold back a smile. “What have I told you about staying out of my mane, Button?”
Button the Warp Spider chirped, as though Sweetie could pick one from another without issue.
She gave it a very incredulous look, a hint of a smile still poking through before she set him down on her hoof.
She had given him the name Button almost 28 years ago when she first met the little warp spider. The name was that of a little colt that was in their class back in Ponyville. She had found both the name and, she would admit, colt to be incredibly cute, and so when she met the equally cute creature, it seemed like the perfect match.
She looked up at the starlit sky beyond the dome and sighed. “Well, it's about time to see the Farseer, do you want to come Button?”
Button chirped.
Sweetie smiled, and stood, bringing the small game with her as she made her way to the Hall of Atherakhia. As she walked the wraithbone arm sunk back into the ridges on her back, leaving only her thin, almost serpentine figure filling the road.
She had learned much in her thirty years' time. The first of which was the nature of the Warp. In a word, the Warp was hell. When a soul died, it disappears into the warp, forever held there until it was either eaten or destroyed by a larger monstrosity. At one time billions of years before, this was not so, and the Realm of Souls was a paradise of the immaterial to reside in peace. Now it was the realm of Chaos, and subject to the whims and wiles of four chaos gods.
This above all else is what made the Eldar fear death so much. To die without a soulstone, the soul-capturing gems that all Eldar wore, was to place themselves directly into the hand of She Who Thirsts.
There was an exception though.
Souls from this reality were unique, and had their own signature, as opposed to the ones from her reality. Anything that was not of this reality seemed...off in the Warp. She herself had been seen by the farseers through their visions as some kind of void.
And none of that was mentioning her more practical lessons about the Warp.
Button chirped as he sat on her head, before purring as she walked. “What’s that Button?”
He chirped again.
“Is that so?”
He gave another chirp, and Sweetie laughed.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m glad we’re friends too.”
---=][=---
Farseer Elahina smiled as Sweetie Belle approached her. The little unicorn waited as the other Eldar spoke with her, waiting until she had a moment to breathe.
“Greetings, Farseer,” she said, walking towards her.
“Greetings, Sweetie Belle, I’m glad you could come.”
Sweetie smiled. “To be fair, Farseer, it’s not like I have much to do.”
“Is that so?” Elahina asked. “I thought the Healers never want you to leave?”
“They don’t,” Sweetie said. “But ever since the bonesingers have given up on me, they’ve made an excellent excuse to get away.”
Elahina shook her head. “I don’t know why they expected you to become a master of the craft so quickly. The fact that you can work wraithbone at all is a miracle of Isha, no matter how crude it is.”
Sweetie Belle took the back-handed compliment. It was the Eldar way.
“Nonetheless, I am glad you are here, Sweetie Belle,” the Farseer said, as she beckoned the unicorn further into the hall. “I have to ask you a few questions.”
“It’s not often you ask me question that need to be answered in a specific place,” Sweetie noted.
“You are paying attention,” Elahina noted, going deeper into the hall. “It’s a simple test of your abilities. Nothing more.”
Sweetie Belle didn’t believe that for a second.
The two of them came up to a familiar room. It was familiar mostly for two reasons, the first being that this was where her abilities and magic on wraithbone were first tested, and secondly because she had spent no small amount of time fixing it. The was one new addition, however, an Eldar lay on a table, his arm broken and ruined.
“He was in an accident earlier today," Elahina explained as Sweetie Belle walked up to the table.
Sweetie shook her head. “At least he survived,” she said before she began to hum. Two long wraithbone arms, grew from the ridges in her back, and slowly descended onto injured Eldar. Her wraithbone limbs carefully picked at the ruined flesh, injecting it with healing, soothing psychic energy as they moved down along his arm.
He moaned, and Sweetie Belle sent him a wordless, psychic message. A feeling of reassurance, confidence, and tenderness. The mark of a healer.
She worked quickly, stitching the flesh back together with pure energy.
The power of emotions was not to be underestimated, Sweetie learned. The warp, the Dark gods, daemons, and every power of every psychic creature was built from the ground up by emotions. Luckily, positive emotions, those of love, kindness, and others that Sweetie had in abundance, were the emotions tied to healing.
This, ironically, made her a better healer than the Eldar that had spent centuries doing the same thing.
It would be a lie to say that she didn’t have some jealous peers.
Elahina watched as Sweetie Belle began fixing the wound, reversing the damage at an incredible rate. In almost less than a five minutes almost all of the major damage had been undone.
It was incredibly impressive, even she would admit.
Sweetie smiled, and then the limbs retreated back into her back. “Alright!” she mentally said to the Eldar. “You’re done!”
The Eldar woke, suddenly conscious as the psychic anesthetic passed.
He shook his head, and looked around, before looking down at his hand. He blinked, before saying the Eldar words for thank you.
Sweetie recognized the sounds coming from his mouth, and smiled, before showing him the way out.
He said thank you again, before leaving.
“Excellent work, Sweetie Belle! Now, as a test of your combat abilities.”
Sweetie Belle smiled, as four new limbs grew from her back, each one thinning to the width of a nanometer. “Always a pleasure.”
A bag of sand, previously unseen, and hiding in the shadows of the ceiling released, swinging down along a rope. It flew down towards her, and as soon as Sweetie laid eyes on it, she gave a soft frown. She raised a single blade, and let it catch the rope.
The blade perfectly cut the rope, and the bag went sailing into the air. The wraithbone blade then shot up, stabbing the bag before the blade seemed to explode in dozens of spikes that pierced the bag so heavily it stuck in the air.
Sweetie Belle let it drop as she scanned the room for any more signs of an attack.
A long moment passed.
“I-is that it?” Sweetie asked, keeping her wraithbone blades out and ready.
“It is,” Elahina said with a smile. “We’ll move on to the next test.”
“That’s it?” Sweetie asked again. “Really? You know I can do more.”
The Farseer gave her a smug look through the clear wraithbone window. “I do, in fact, know that you can do more.”
Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow and Button chirped, sensing her confusion.
“Behind you,” Elahina continued, “in the corner, you should find a damaged shuriken rifle. If you could repair that, please.”
Sweetie Belle turned, eyebrow still raised, before all but two of the wraithbone limbs retreated back into her body. She picked it up, set it on the table, gave one last, questioning look at the Eldar behind the glass, and then got to work.
Her long, wraithbone fingers slipped into the barrel, sliding through into the thin, almost inaccessible parts of the rifle. They clicked and worked meticulously, and Sweetie Belle quickly found the problem. A few of the inner mechanisms were off-kilter, and there was a large mass blocking the long, flat barrel.
She had it back in working order with twenty minutes.
“There we go,” Sweetie said, raising the rifle, and firing a single shuriken at the far wall. It stuck with a satisfying “thunk” and Sweetie then set the ancient weapon aside. “What next?” she asked.
“Nothing, Sweetie Belle,” Elahina said. “I am sufficiently impressed. What about you, Oraban?”
Sweetie’s eyes went wide at the name. “Oraban? Here?”
The ranger seemed to materialize out of the shadows behind the Farseer.
“It is him!”
“She seems more useful,” Oraban said, “that’s for certain.”
“That spineless, uncivilized, motherbucking coward!”
“Can she psychically speak?” he asked, as though he were asking about the features of a dishwasher.
“You can ask her,” Elahina said.
“Can you speak, Sweetie Belle?” Oraban asked, unaware of her psychic defenses that hid her absolute fury from him.
She took a short breath, exhaled, and replied in an almost pleasant voice. “I can, in fact, speak psychically to you. I can speak to anything I want.”
“Excellent,” Oraban said. “Now you can ask all your questions without giving away our position.”
“You didn’t even say goodbye you heartless, dim-witted, beast of an Eldar!”
“Are you satisfied?” Elahina asked.
“I am,” Oraban nodded.
“I am not some sort of carriage up for sale! I am a living being that I thought you might have cared about!”
The Ranger nodded, and unslung his rifle from his shoulder. “Come along, Sweetie Belle, our mission awaits.”
“Your mission you pig-faced, snot weasel,” she thought to herself.
Oraban began walking away.
And Sweetie just stayed there.
She stayed exactly where she was, watching as the man that abandoned her thirty years ago walked back into her life and just expected her to follow.
A part of her said that it was standard Eldar behavior. She was a dog in their eyes, she was supposed to return to her “master” with all the loyalty she could muster and not even second guess him. She was supposed to be happy to see him. Everything they knew of her said that she should follow him. It’s what he expected of her.
It’s what they all expected of her.
The other part of her told her that he could have at least said goodbye.
Oraban disappeared from view, leaving only her, the Farseer, and Button in the room.
The Farseer began to frown as she watched Sweetie Belle stand there.
Button gave an inquisitive chirp.
“Is...something wrong, Sweetie Belle?”
Sweetie didn’t answer. She simply stared at the empty doorway, glaring at it as though it were the Ranger himself, and she could bore a hole through him with her gaze.
“Sweetie Belle?” Elahina asked again.
“Yes, Farseer,” she said, before finally moving forward. “Something is definitely wrong.”
---=][=---
It had been thirty years, but Arconar was exactly as she remembered it. Hot, sticky, and damper than soaked cloth.
She stepped out of the Webway gate, and instantly felt her mane fizz with the humidity that covered every inch of the jungle planet. Oraban stood nearby, his rifle up and ready.
“Remember, Sweetie Belle, move quietly, the jungle is as angry as ever,” he mentally told her.
Sweetie answered with a soft hum, and four wraithbone limbs sprouting from her back. They lifted her, bodily into the air, and she moved over to the large trees of the jungle planet like a massive, four-legged spider.
“I will be silent,” she told him, and Button chirped as though to hammer the point home.
Oraban turned to see the tiny warp spider standing on Sweetie Belle’s head.
“Where did you get that?” he asked.
“That’s Button. He likes me. He wanted to come along.”
The ranger eyed the small creature for a long second, before his eyes were then drawn to her flanks. “Is that a bonesinger’s flute?”
Sweetie Belle looked back at her cutie mark, which was, indeed, the long, thin flute that was the tool of the wraithbone crafters of the Eldar world. The long, off-white flute was surrounded by a green swirl, decorated with stars.
“Oh, so you noticed, did you?” She thought bitterly to herself, before mentally speaking. “It is. I’ve told you of cutie marks before, haven’t I?”
Oraban waited a moment before shaking his head. “No, I don’t believe so.”
“My species,” Sweetie said aloud, “receive a mark on our bodies when we discover our destiny. This is my mark.”
Oraban raised an eyebrow. “Interesting. Now remember to stay silent.”
“I am being silent,” Sweetie said with a smile, as her horn glowed softly. “I’ve worked a bit on my psychic abilities, and I’ve found way to silence my voice. It’s slightly more efficient for me than telepathy.”
Oraban blinked, before nodding. “Very well. If you are sure it's silenced.”
Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes, as her spider legs grabbed onto the nearest tree and began climbing. “Are you coming, Oraban?” she asked.
He followed. “You seem eager.”
“I seem annoyed,” she corrected in her head. “Just enjoying the chance to stretch my legs.”
Oraban smirked. “What? Did Alaitoc seem too restrictive for you?”
No. No it didn’t. The healers loved her. They saw that her abilities surpassed theirs and saw the worth in them. Yes, she was a glorified healing machine, but it was better than being treated like a pet. The bonesingers also had been impressed with her. Yes, they thought her ability for art was the worse thing they had ever seen, but they were still impressed by her abilities.
The only reason she was here right now was because she “belonged” to Oraban, like a little lost puppy.
She wanted to say that. She wanted to say a lot.
But she said nothing.
Instead, she moved up, into the trees and the endless jungle forest that she had not seen in years.
She moved up into the deep darkness of the canopy before finally breaking it, and looking at the clear blue sky and its blue-white clouds.
She smiled. That was the one thing she missed. The sky.
She took a deep breath of the oxygen-and-ozone rich air, and gave a sigh.
The last time she was here, she had been the prey of almost every creature she knew existed here.
This time, she would not be so helpless.
---=][=---
“If you cannot speak well of your Master, be silent!”—Imperial Thought of the Day.
Sorry that took so long guys, Thanksgiving week was a little on the hectic side.
“Heretics!?”
Hectic, Pinkie! Hectic! Put the bolter down!
“Excellent idea! Behold the holy chainsword!”
Pinkie, stop! This isn’t the time for this! Ugh...I should’ve never let you play Space Marine. Dumb Steam sale…
“Hey, you were the one that bought the Dawn of War 2 Grand Master edition.”
It was twenty dollars! How could I not?!
“Anyway! Sorry that Miner didn’t give you a long one again, he’s trying but Eldar were never really his strong suite.”
Thanks, Pinkie.
“So we’ll see you next time!”
Bye!
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Oh pinkIe your antics never cease to be funny
I like where this is going. Looking forward to more.
Keep up the good work. Deus tecum.
Oh Eldar and their stuck up ways. It's actually quite hilarious when you think of it how pompous they are, even though that same pompous attitude led them to their fate. Either way, I really feel for Sweetie here and I'm glad it isn't as grimdark as the others. That's a thing the Warhammar 40k universe has too much, to the point it's grimderp. It's why I just stick to Ciaphas Cain books for that, even though I like the lore {barring edgy dark eldar} Hope she works this out soon enough.
You know, from all three Crusaders, I think that Scootaloo at the moment has the best life here. As for reasons:
1) Applebloom - she's a Space Marine, but to her teammates she will always be a xeno, an enemy with special circumstances to still be alive and perfomr her duty for the Emperor, but in their eyes she will remain a xeno.
2) Sweetie Belle showed remarkable talents in Eldars' teachings, both in healing and in manipulating the wraithbone, but to them she will never be anything more than Oraban's pet.
3) Orcs kill a lot of things, even their own. Scootaloo survived the harsh life in their company, achieved a quite high position amongst them, and is treated as one of them.
As you can see, only Scootaloo is the only one that can feel at home with her new "family". The other two, even after 30 years have passed, are still in the same place of their societies that they were after their first arrival.
6690807 Not to mention the fact that the Waaagh! physically changed her into a pony orc, basically because they all pretty much believe she is an orc
6700737
Sweetie Belle and Applebloom have also been changed by their new "families", but you have to admit, that my point stands here: despite any changes or achievements they have, only Scootaloo is considered equal to her "race". The other two struggle with prejudice from their "peers" even after all those years, and I don't think it will change any time soon.
6701247 True, although I'm fairly certain that the only reason Scoots isn't like that is because she'll kick the orc who said that's ass
Geeze, Sweetie, would you like a side of bitterness with your bitterness?
I'm curious how much things changed in Equestria.