Conversation 24: Mary
I closed my eyes and looked out into the window, hoping to clear my mind.
To be honest, this rarely works.
The real reason I didn’t have this eye removed was that I determined that there’s no guarantee it would help. When I close both eyes, with no visual input from the real eye, the hallucination remains, and all the world I see is whatever twisted mockery the golden parasite wants to show me today. Like all hallucinations, it isn’t really supposed to make sense, it’s like a window into a subconscious mind that I’m pretty sure belongs to someone else, and I’m not sure this someone else is actually inside that golden eye in any sense.
Eyepatches do nothing. It takes at least five centimeters worth of pillow to make it shut up, and I can’t really walk around with a pillow strapped to my face, I tried. Since I can’t be certain that the effect is actually centered on the eye, rather than the skull itself, I had to forget the idea and try to live with it.
Today, it’s doing its best imitation of Van Gogh’s nocturnes, but in a myriad shades of indigo and gold, instead of the original Prussian blue, as if I somehow got under Twilight’s skin to watch the city through the hairs of her eyebrows.
It’s actually kind of pretty, in the same way a thunderstorm is pretty from a distance to a child who has never been in the middle of one.
The move I gave Twilight short-circuits her into a confrontation with Chrysalis on optimal terms, but this way, Cadance does not get her epiphany. That moment is lost, this world runs on drama even more than my revolution did. But it’s a problem I can deal with later, assuming nothing gets even more screwed than it already is. I have no idea what Cadance is like in the stories where the changeling invasion doesn’t happen but Cadance exists, but since Twilight clearly suspected there’s something wrong with her, that Cadance would have to be the proverbial two-faced royal bitch. At least, as long as Twilight doesn’t interact with that hypothetical Cadance too much tomorrow, it should be relatively smooth from then on. If this is a wild goose chase, Twilight is going to keep searching until morning, and arguing with Cadance will be the last thing on her mind.
If this iteration of Twilight is not an idiot, and so far, she seemed quite capable, then, upon finding the real Cadance, she will proceed to call in the cavalry, confront Chrysalis and force a surrender. Chrysalis has about a 50% chance of being able to engage whatever plan B she has before she is captured or dies.
Judging by what I think of her planning style, it involves something crippling, cruel, and relies on whatever troops she could sneak in before the shield came up. Something to make everypony regret they ever confronted her. It’s a safe bet, that like her little victory speech, it’s still about giving the main assault force time to take down the shield, but in the bloodiest and dirtiest manner possible.
Which neither Twilight nor the princesses will be able to prevent, and which I’m not able to prevent either. Ironically, I simply don’t have the time, even getting in to warn them would take too long. I could have asked Rika to bring my time machine, but I didn’t. Even Rika doesn’t know where it originally came from, so there’s no way I could ever replace it.
Poor Fluttershy. She was probably just standing there, trying to gather the courage to knock on my door and invite me to do something. Just being a good neighbor. Why did I even start talking about changelings?
I looked around, my eyes still closed. The barista was hiding behind his counter, peeking out at me. At least the eye said so. I’m not sure, but I think it might be Joe. Was it Pony Joe or Donut Joe? Can’t remember, but I suspect he’s keeping tabs on me. The eye just thinks he’s a small horse. The literal kind. The only things ponies have in common with horses is quadrupedal locomotion and hooves. Their coats change color, the shape of their heads is much closer to a human than a horse, and the range of motion on those limbs is pretty ridiculous, implying a completely different joint structure. They’re more different from a horse than I am from a chimpanzee. I wonder what the world looks like from their perspective. Rika is too abstract to be incarnated in any meaningful way, and yet, her constructed “body” is still very much humanoid, because she doesn’t like to be reminded…
…Wait a moment.
There was only one conversation about changelings that Fluttershy could possibly overhear. Rika’s plastic imitation is nearly blind. Instead of relying on its senses, she reads narrative streams, whenever she can. I know this story has no third person narrator, because Rika said that herself. And I know she can’t read my stream, because the hallucination produces a second narrative that she can’t separate.
There is no way in hell Rika wasn’t aware that Fluttershy was standing at the door when she asked me about the changeling invasion.
My “friend,” the eldritch abomination. The second time we met, I shot her. I emptied the entire clip. We’re still pretending this has never happened.
I opened my eyes and looked around. And then I pulled out the laspistol. Most Imperium weapons are too heavy for me, and even this one, while really small for a lasgun, was made for a much larger hand. “To Commissar Chekov from the grateful guardsmen of 373 Vostroyan Heavy Armored. The Emperor Protects.” Has to be one of Cain’s students, most commissars die from “accidental” friendly fire. The only thing Rika told me was “She wasn’t using it anymore,” but it hardly looks used at all.
Is that barista still looking at me? Good.
I placed the short, stubby barrel against my temple, turned the safety off and put my finger on the trigger.
In the very next moment, the weapon was wrenched out of my hand with force I couldn’t hope to counteract. “What the hell are you doing?!” she yelled at me.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” I replied, not bothering to contain my irritation.
About the only thing the eye always agrees with me on is what Rika looks like. My guess is that this is because she’s quite horrifying enough for it already.
“Okay, why are you doing it?!” she shouted.
“Because I’m very cross with you, and it gets your attention every bloody time!” I shouted right back. I don’t really understand why she cares, but if keeping me alive is more important to her than treating me seriously, that’s the way it’s going to be.
Rika slapped the laspistol onto the table and sat down in front of me, folding her arms on her chest. “So what did I do this time?”
“I’m pretty sure you know,” I stated. “When this mess is over, every time you want to talk, I will start the conversation with listing the ponies who died. Not because their deaths served some higher purpose, not because that made a better story, but because you were bored. Because you couldn’t keep your own promises. ‘This one is all yours,’ right. You thought I don’t want to change anything, so the moment you saw a chance to force my hand, you went for it. You probably thought it was subtle. Well, it wasn’t!”
“But I know you’re going to fix everything, and it will be beautiful,” Rika replied with a disarming smile.
That smile failed to disarm me. “So you’re up to manufacturing problems for me to solve now?!” I shouted at her. “That’s not even an experiment, you just wanted to read a story about me, didn’t you? Well, tough luck, I’m not heroine material! I’m mucking around with a world I don’t understand, and I’m pretty sure I’ve done enough to screw it up already! You would see it, if you were only a little more patient, but no, you had to have your adventure right now, consequences be damned.”
“Didn’t you just fix it?” Rika inquired with a grin. “They found Cadance, all that’s left is for them to win.”
“Plan B,” I said, poking her with a finger in accusation. Sometimes I wonder, how she maintains body temperature. Then I remember it doesn’t matter. “I don’t know what Chrysalis has for plan B. You don’t know what Chrysalis has for plan B. You could find out, but you didn’t, because it would be a spoiler!”
She just kept sitting there, with the same impenetrable grin. “You’re giving too much credit to what is, on average, a two-bit melodrama generator.”
“Pony names are easy to remember,” I threatened. “I’m sure I could memorize a thousand.”
“Okay, fine, so what do you want me to do now?” she spat out. I wonder if she knows how her hair lights up when she gets excited. She probably does. She probably even has a switch to toggle the glow somewhere, wherever she really is. Although I’m sure it’s not actually a place.
“You made this mess, I fixed what I could,” I smiled sweetly with the fakest smile I could produce. “Walk away, dress up as Mare-Do-Well, blow the city off the mountain, kill Queen Chrysalis with your bare hands, whatever, I don’t really care. This is not my story. It has never been my story. If you want to steal the show, be my guest. You wanted to test my limits, well, you found them.”
It’s a good thing I’m sitting. If I were standing, she’d see my knees shake.
Rika just sat there for a long time in tense silence, the glow of her hair slowly growing brighter, and while my working eye hurt from this staring contest, the golden one was simply blinded. It felt like at least a minute. Finally, she sighed, and vanished in a white flash without saying a single word.
I rubbed my eyes, happy that at least for a brief moment, I can’t see a bloody thing.
“Any idea what was that about?” the barista addressed somepony I couldn’t see.
“Beats me, all I know about human culture comes from comics,” Spike’s voice replied. “Their comics are good, but you’d have to take my word for it. And what are you doing here, Joe?”
So that really was him, huh.
“Substituting for a friend,” Joe replied. “He had to urgently visit his ailing grandmother.”
“But your donut shop is open!” Spike exclaimed. “I saw you there just this morning.”
“A friend is substituting for me,” was the perfectly nonchalant reply.
“…Never mind,” Spike sighed.
I looked in their direction, vision still blurry. “Hey Mary,” Spike called out. “Was that a fight with your friend or what? Where is Twilight? Where’s everypony else? I got a really swell bachelor party coming up tomorrow.”
“Twilight is somewhere in the crystal caves beneath the city, I presume,” I replied, picking the pistol off the table and clicking the safety back on.
“Uh… why?” Spike wondered. “Did something happen?”
“Not yet,” I said, standing up, and smiled at the barista. “Sorry you had to see that, Joe.”
“No harm done,” Joe replied. “Not the first lover’s quarrel I see, but your mention of dead ponies has me worried.”
“We should still have about half an hour,” I sighed, ignoring his quip.
“…What exactly happens in half an hour?” Joe asked, raising his eyebrows, ears perking up in attention.
“I have no idea,” I told him. “At least, not a clear one. But my recommendation is to keep your head down, keep your friends close, and–”
I broke off in mid-sentence as I heard the sound of breaking glass from outside. I never thought breaking glass could ever be so incredibly loud.
Outside, the shield was crumbling, revealing the beautiful blue of the starry sky. Even the sky here is different. The constellations are the same, but you could never see this kind of color anywhere on Earth.
And then, came the screams and the sound of galloping hooves.
“…Make that five to ten minutes,” I said, clicking the safety on the pistol off again. “If this place has a storage room, hide in it, barricade the door. Don’t open until morning. Not for anypony, not even your mother!”
“Now would be the perfect time to tell us what exactly is going on,” Joe declared, not moving from his spot behind the bar. He’s surprisingly calm about it… The sounds coming from outside were growing closer, leaving less and less room for alternative explanations. Not that I actually had any.
“Changeling invasion,” I replied, walking up to the window and looking outside. Barely visible against the sky, thousands of black silhouettes were descending on the city. “I didn’t think she could take the shield down so quickly, but looks like she did, say hello to the hypothetical Plan B. Spike?”
“What, you’re going to tell me to hide, too?” Spike huffed.
“Technically, Twilight asked me to tell you to send a letter to the Princess,” I replied. “But it’s something you should not do right now, for two reasons. One, it’s a safe bet that Princess Celestia already knows where Twilight went, and two, she’s got to be very busy at this very moment. Instead, I’m going to ask for your help.”
“What do you need?” he grinned, showing off teeth. Dragons have some really respectable teeth.
“I need a strong, brave dragon to guide me to wherever Shining Armor should be right now,” I said, taking aim at the window. “That’s where we will find Twilight and everypony else.”
Once again I regretted that I’m right-handed. It’s very difficult to aim while holding the gun in your right hand, when you have to look through the sights with your left eye. The golden eye is never really consistent about object positions.
A changeling’s disgusting insectoid head popped up in the window, blue faceted eyes and sharp, white fangs in a pool of twisted chitin. As the glass burst, I pulled the trigger.
If I have a literal Chekov’s lasgun, the earlier I use it, the better.
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Cool. Good luck with your chapter crafting hiatus!
7340711
I still have to at least conclude this arc, which has either three or four chapters left in it. :)
There's something very gripping about the Changeling Invasion in fanfics. It probably has to so with being the threat that is not a single individual bent on destroying Equestria; instead, it is a nation/race that has entirely different needs and an alien culture to go along with it.
I love seeing different takes on it. Considering you've said it has three-four chapters to go, I guess we won't get as involved a conflict as This Platinum Crown's, which is a shame.
7340752
The arc does. What makes you think the changelings will not return for another one, though? ;)
7340772 oh ho ho! the future plot thickens!
Lol that last line about the Chekov's gun.
Hurrah!
7340816
They're hardly the focus of this story -- it has a bloody lot going on as it is, and they still have barely touched the whole journal/sandwich conundrum -- but I can definitely say the wedding isn't the last time the changelings show up. After what Chrysalis really did for her plan B, I doubt I'd get away with her not returning. :)
Nice how each time we see Rika the context of her relationship with Mary changes slightly.
You have taken to heart the guideline "if nothing changed at the end of the scene, remove it."
And then, changelings, yay.
I'm quite curious what you did with them.
Would that make this Chekov's (Las)Gun?
Edit:
The answer, apparently, is "Yes. Very yes."
7342484
It was first mentioned all the way back in Conversation 5, what else could it be?
Hm... the shield went down very quickly, did it? Don't like the sound of that...
Oh no, clearly "Con Mane" is a changling. Interesting that Mary refuses to be Rika's OC.
7344687
Rather, Mary refuses to write a self-insert HiE for Rika to read... :)
"lover's quarrel"
just replace "lover" with "trans-dimensional travelers who constantly rip apart space time and have a dubious relationship w/ each other"
7684315
That would be a tad beyond Joe, though. :)
...The whole laspistol thing was done in order to make a Chekov's gun pun.
I'm not sure whether I should be amused or enraged.
Hell, why not both?
7731069
If I were out to just make a pun, I could get a lot more literal.
For example, I could use the gun from the Anton Chekhov museum in Yalta, the man himself owned one and used it...
s11.postimg.org/sb0n9vvwz/chekhov.jpg
Now all Mary needs is (Pavel) Chekov's phaser.
If we are going down the bad pun list, then Spike needs a scroll with a check-off box for this gun :-)
I appreciate this immensely.