Chapter 25 — Tastes of Slumber
Nymph
I brought my hoof back, staring at the wall blankly.
“Huh,” I said simply, my voice sounding detached and hollow.
I reached out and ran my hoof over the barrier again.
“...Overwatch?”
I continued staring at the wall, tunneling in on that featureless piece of wall. My breathing quickened, mirroring the loud beating of my heart in my ears. I checked my magic briefly and found that the effects of the memory spell had worn off while I wasn’t paying attention.
I was…
I was stuck.
“Overwatch?” Celestia called, her voice faint.
I got lightheaded. My chest heaved, but no matter how deep my breaths, it felt like I wasn’t getting enough air. My hooves took a few stumbling steps back on their own accord until I fell back. I was trapped. Beads of sweat ran through my fur and my body trembled uncontrollably.
Trapped in the lion’s den.
I couldn’t see it, but I knew it was there. A rumbling growl rolled through the air. A wet breath washed over my back and shoulders. Its eyes bored down on me, single minded and bloodthirsty. I felt it behind me, but my body wouldn’t respond. I couldn’t turn around.
It pounced, and I choked. Teeth dug into my neck, biting. Squeezing. Tearing.
I couldn’t breathe.
I needed air.
“Overwatch!”
With a gasp, I brought my hooves over my head and curled into a ball, closing my eyes. Air. My lungs begged for air. I had to pull myself together. I forced myself into slow, deep breaths, my body involuntarily shuddering with each gasp.
I’m fine.
I am in control.
I can do this.
I will get through this.
Like I always do.
Like I’ve always done.
The manticore loosened its grip on my throat, and I settled into a calmer, unlabored breathing pattern. Despite my shaking, I loosened up my body, mentally forcing my muscles to relax. I’d lost track of time as I laid there motionless, dead to the world. The sudden fear and horror that had overwhelmed me earlier slowly faded away.
“Are you… alright, Overwatch?”
Breathe in. Breathe out. I sat up, opening my eyes. “I… I think so.” My heart was still pounding, but it began to slow down. Calm. Collected. I looked back at the disguised barrier. “So. We’re trapped in here.”
“So we are.”
“We should think of a way out.”
“I agree.”
I brought a hoof up and massaged my forehead just under my horn. I needed to take stock. What did I have available to me at this very moment?
A few things were immediately obvious. The holsters I was wearing carried an axe, two fumes, and Crystal. I still had a few spells at my disposal as well, though I doubted they would be much use here if the barrier back in the storage area was strong enough to block my stun spell.
“Crystal, is it possible to get Lily here? Maybe we can use her singing to do… something.”
“It would be a possibility were she available. She is otherwise occupied in the castle and I would rather Celestia not go and check in on her right this very moment. Either way, I am not too certain her singing would be very effective here. Most of the magic behind her singing is simply bringing out certain emotions in her listeners. Good for influencing others, but if you were looking for mind control, that is not something she can do. Even sleep only works if her targets are already drowsy.”
I paused, my mouth slightly open. That was a bit more information than I had been expecting.
“According to Lily, at least,” Crystal clarified. “I had her demonstrate for me a few times just to confirm.”
I frowned. “Maybe we can ask the Princess to intervene?” I replied, though even as I thought it, I knew it wasn’t a great idea.
“So she can… blast the manor into a crater? As much as I adore the idea of turning things I dislike into blazing conflagrations of divine displeasure, the power of the sun seems a bit much.”
A sigh escaped me. “Ugh, right. Too blatant.”
I flinched at the creak of floorboards elsewhere in the house. I instinctively checked my empathy sense for any danger, breathing a sigh of relief when it seemed that no one in the mansion was even remotely suspicious yet.
My gaze swept over my surroundings. The books and papers weren’t likely to be much use, but maybe I could do something with the crystals. The other queen was trying to place spell matrices on them, so maybe I could do something similar.
“You think I could put a spell on some of these things?”
“Possible, though it would be difficult to bind any spell to them that you cannot already cast.”
I lifted up one of the crystals, turning it around. “Maybe I could simulate a magical accident and blow a hole in the wall. I can hide pretty easily as long as I can make it out.”
“No guarantee you can escape. For all we know, the barrier could extend around the entire room.”
My brow came together and I snorted. Of course it came down to the barrier. I needed to get through it, but just what could and what couldn’t make it out of my magical cage?
I levitated up a book and a crystal from the nearby table and brought them over to the wall. Bringing them both to shoulder level, I pressed them lightly into the barrier. Neither one made it through.
I rolled my eyes. I’d brought my equipment through, so maybe it’s only permissible to such things when there’s a member of their hive nearby. In any case, magic and physical objects were out, but what about air? It would be a bit strange to have an enclosed room with no air flow, so maybe it’s permeable to things like clouds, such as the ones in my fumes. I pressed the side of my face to the wall, but I couldn’t feel any air passing through. Perhaps it was just too light for me to notice.
I sighed. With no other options presenting themselves, I puckered up and pressed my lips to the wall, trying to make as airtight of a seal as possible before breathing a stream of air outwards.
It worked. Despite appearances, I could actually breathe completely normally through the wall. Now to test if water could make it through. I gathered up a little of my saliva in my mouth and spit a small amount of it at the wall. It disappeared into the barrier, leaving nary a mark on the supposed wall.
Well, that was a thing. If I broke the seal on my fumes, I could probably get a bunch of black cloud through the barrier, but did I want to alert the guards outside to my presence?
I blinked. Maybe…
“What are you thinking?”
“Crystal, how long was I out for when I used the memory spell?”
“Not long, maybe ten seconds.”
Biting my upper lip, I scanned the room again. There were two entrances. I couldn’t risk being caught in those ten seconds from hostiles entering from either direction. Popping a fume would obscure vision entirely, but there was the possibility they could stumble on me if they just run in.
The shelves extending along the entire side of the room were narrow, but they looked like they were enough to support me. There weren’t many other options. I’d hide up there when I set my plan in motion.
I approached the table, looking down at the crystals. “How do I enchant these?”
“Hmm… Link to me just as before, but this time, hold the spell on your horn. I can do the rest.”
Right. I reached out with my magic, bridging a link with Crystal before bringing my stun spell to my horn. All at once, it seemed like there was another hoof working its magic on mine, like a needle and thread, tugging and anchoring the spell I held to the rock before me, lattice to lattice.
“It is done. Drop it.”
I did so, and the spell that had been on my horn seemed to snap onto the crystal as if pulled taut by a rubber band.
“I put a little more power into it. It should be strong enough to knock anyone out.”
Bringing it closer, I examined it closer. At first glance, it looked nearly the same as before, but a closer look revealed that it seemed to be glowing faintly red. Crystal’s influence, no doubt. “How do I use it?”
“Just shock it with your own stun spell. That should destabilize it enough to release its spell.”
I nodded. “Let’s make another two, just in case.”
“Of course. One thing though. Take those notes if you can. If we do not find a use for them, then at least the other queen will be set back.”
We quickly ran through two more crystals. I left one each beside both the upstairs and downstairs entrances before swapping out one of my fumes for the last stun crystal. I swept up a bundle of papers from the table and stuffed them into the same pocket I had Crystal hiding in without a second glance before spreading a lot of empty sheets over the table.
I climbed up onto the shelf, situating myself to the far side of the room away from the upstairs entrance, allowing me to see the shock crystals I had placed at both barriers. The shelf bent a little under my weight, but it seemed to hold well enough. I just had to hope that it was out of the way enough to avoid being seen by anyone coming in.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
I slapped the end of the fume and tossed it out into the room, taking note of where it landed. Just like before, a dark liquid sprayed out the bottom of it before the entire room was immediately filled with pure black cloud cover. I noted with glee that visibility had been reduced to barely a meter or so away, granting me a wonderful advantage over the others. They would still be visible to my empathy sense, but I would not be visible to theirs.
I reached out to Crystal again, drawing on her power to fire off a boosted stun spell in the direction of the table and the papers on it.
Despite the darkness of the room, the lightning was almost completely visible as it arced out with a sharp thunderclap, nearly surprising me off of my perch. The guards outside were already alerted, tasting of the sour shock of horrible surprise. The one outside rushed indoors, and I watched as he got closer and closer to the barrier. I linked to Crystal again, this time preparing my memory spell on my horn as I waited for him to finally cross.
He sped across the line, and I let loose. The emerald link snapped into the inky darkness, pulling taut before I blacked out.
With bated breath, I kept watch over my empathy sense as I waited for the rest of my senses to restart. The guards outside the manor had been put on alert, but they held their ground, staying at their posts. The other guard upstairs turned to a shaky wariness, no doubt shaken that his companion had seemingly disappeared from all of his senses. The butler was already downstairs at this point and was rushing around a few unseen walls towards the lower entrance.
My world rushed in, including several voices over the secondary hivemind.
“Psyllid, you in there? What happened?”
“I’m approaching the bottom entrance.”
“Careful, you don’t know what’s in there. I can’t detect anything.”
“If there’s something on fire, we have to put it out. Come on, let’s go.”
They broke in from both sides. The butler quickly ascended the stairs under me until they had both discovered the prone body of their companion.
“I think he’s alright. Come on, let’s get him out of here.”
“But what’s causing all the smoke? Where is this all coming from?”
I tried to remember where the stun crystal near the top entrance was, but there were too many bodies in the way. There was no guarantee that I could land a stun spell on it from my vantage point.
With a quick motion, I withdrew the stun crystal in my holster and tossed it out in an arc above the cluster of enemies in front of me. Once it hit the top of its arch, I zapped it with a normal stun spell.
It released its spell in a shocking explosion, silhouetting the hostiles’ forms through the dark cloud. There was a second electric blast, a lucky hit triggering the other stun crystal. The hivemind was instantly filled with shouts of pain and confusion, and the guards outside finally started moving inwards, flying to the upstairs balcony.
I dropped from the shelf in the pandemonium, scooping up the stun crystal I had left downstairs and shoving it into the empty holster pocket as I charged to the downstairs exit.
It was shockingly bright on the other end, and I had to blink a few times as my vision adjusted. I’d emerged into the kitchen from the wall, right next to one of the closets. All of the interior lights had been turned on, but at the moment, there was no one nearby to see me. Everyone here was either knocked out or rushing the upstairs balcony.
The stairs leading to the second floor were visible from where I had come out, so I made a break for it. Opening the door to the basement with my magic, I flew into the opening, bouncing off the wall as I corrected my course and landing onto the ground with a skid of my hooves.
No one up above was going after me, and I’d almost breathed out a sigh of relief when I noticed someone else coming up from the sewers, much too quickly for me to hide. I let my aura out just as another pony barreled through the wall.
My eyes widened slightly. It was the stallion I had originally cast my memory spell on to get into the manor. He must’ve woken up sometime in the interim.
“Oh good, you’re here,” I said, acting quickly and patting him on the back. “Head up and help them. I’m going to get the Queen.”
He seemed shocked to see me, but he snapped up a salute and galloped off up the stairs.
I made my way through the barrier back into the sewers and suppressed my aura once again. It was only now that I finally breathed out a relieved sigh. I’d almost forgotten that the memory spell would automatically disguise me, and I was extremely thankful I hadn’t taken the time to change back to my preferred form before.
It’d be easy enough to return to the castle once I got into the labyrinthian underbelly of Canterlot. Though I had to return to Celestia, I found that I wasn’t dreading our reunion nearly as much as before.
A thought came back to me just as I was making my way back through the trapped room. Crystal had said Lily was off doing something in the castle that she didn’t want Celestia checking in on, but what could the mer possibly be doing?
Lilywater
I was humming.
It was one of the lullabies I’d heard when I was real young. The caretakers back at the temple would always sing me to sleep every night, sometimes encouraging me to hum along with them as I drifted off to bed, and the melody stuck with me long into my training as a songstress. It’s never really had a purpose outside just being that kinda song mums sing to their youngins, but now that I got me a few more years under my belt, it had a much more practical application, though one that still needed a few special checkboxes to be ticked.
Thankfully, wandering the lonely castle in the middle of the night really had a habit of reminding everyone that they should be in bed instead. Plus, the prevailing silence meant there was nothing to interfere with my influence.
I took a glance over at Cadence and caught her just as she was trying to stifle yet another yawn. I’d gotten her to show me around the castle for a while now, and by keeping her up and about, she was just about ready to drop down and take a nap. She’d been a tough oyster to crack—had to change up my approach a bit—but I was getting pretty close now. Didn’t start with singing, but some light humming for long enough had about the same effect.
We rounded the corner as we headed for her room. She swayed visibly, bumping into me.
“O-oh my, we’ve been up for a while. We should—” Cadence was interrupted with another wide yawn. “We should really… get to bed.”
“Indeed, my child. Indeed, my love,” I said, maintaining a light rhythm in my words and leaving the melody to my muses. “Lay your head upon my breast. I shall be here, go and rest.”
She swayed over, and I took her into my embrace. “T-that sounds…” Cadence mumbled, burrowing into me. “That sounds gooood…”
I lowered her gently to the ground outside her door, stroking a hoof through her mane for a couple minutes more until I was sure she’d fallen asleep. It was good timing too. Wouldn’t be any good to get her napping if I was stuck in her room afterwards, but thankfully, I’d got her dozing just before it came to that.
I eased her off of me and to the floor, watching as she curled up into a ball and snored. With a final good night kiss, I stood back up and took a look around the empty halls. Crystal said that the Lightbringer was gonna be busy tonight, and now that I had shaken off my escort, I could finally get to doing what Crystal asked me to do.
I giggled. It brought back good memories of my time at the temple. I had to get really good with my voice to get the wardens sleeping so I could wander off, though regrettably, once the elders finally caught onto me, they put even scarier tone-deaf escorts on me and then refused to let me sleep in.
I stuck a tongue out. Spoilsports.
T’weren’t completely my fault anyways. All of the instructors said that a true songweaver had an inner muse, something inside to put voice to the song of life we hear everyday. They told me that if I listened to my inner muse, I could become great, so I did.
All three of them.
I saw them swim off to the side, sashaying backwards through the hallway as they beckoned for me to follow. Really, I wish I could be as pretty of a merpony as they were with their shining white scales and full shimmering fins that never stayed the same color. Everywhere I went, they’d have my back. Every time I sung, they were ready to back me up or harmonize with my lead. Back home, the instructors had me believing for the longest time that they were just something that everymer had. I knew better now after growing up a bit, and I felt a little lucky my silly younger self was too caught up in her own world to tell anyone about her inner muses.
They were my best kept secret.
They were good mer though. I wish I could tell others about them. They’d given me guidance and advice often, and with their help, my songstress training was embarrassingly simple. I fancied that they were the reason I progressed so much faster than the others in the first place. Really, they made things so simple, I was getting through classes in my sleep.
Which, unfortunately, meant that the elders noticed I was much better than I let on to be sometimes. Wasn’t my problem. Really, if anymer else bothered to relax a little instead of sticking so rigidly to the temple’s dumb strictures, they might actually be good songstresses. Unbending reeds make pretty awful music, just saying.
Or maybe I just stole all of their muses and that’s why I had three.
I giggled to myself again as I made my way down the grand empty hallway to the Royal Library. I marveled at how clean everything was. Slime was just something that’s supposed to exist on everything, and it was such a doozy to go up on land and realize that there were surfaces that weren’t just covered in slime. It was a doozy to realize that even I wasn’t supposed to be covered in slime, though I was getting some real mixed messages. Some of the other heathens liked running slime through their manes and fur but only for a couple minutes and then they’d wash them out.
And then there was the other sorta-slime that only ponies who haven’t taken baths get that no one likes. Weird what these heathens think.
My muses swam in front of me, bringing their hooves to their mouths with a shushing motion. Right, right. Can’t forget what I needed to do.
I took a deep breath, feeling the air running past my lips. I ran my tongue around my mouth, feeling out my sharp teeth. I still had four hooves for a while even this far away from Crystal, but some of my other features were already reverting back. Didn’t really matter though. No one should be awake to see me anyways.
“Oooh, her child. Oooh, her love.”
My muses began their harmony, providing the rhythm and tune as if it were a loom upon which I could weave my spellsong. We all sank into the familiar song and dance, and I mimicked their swaying motions as we approached the library.
“Close your eyes and slumber deep. In her hooves, know naught but sleep.”
I swept in boldly through the front doors. There was a desk there beside the entrance, but the pony there already had her eyes closed, lurching back and forth as she drew closer to sleep. Poor gal, she was. I’d barely started and she was already bowing out.
I took a quick look at the library map at her station. Looks like the Starswirl wing was somewhere near the back. Crystal warned me there might be a few guards on it, so I continued with my lullaby.
“Though life’s struggles make you weary, be not drab and be not dreary.”
The path weren’t all too difficult. I’d almost finished strutting down the aisle, my muses returning to the chorus with renewed fervor as they swam ahead around the corner.
“Give in fully to her embrace. Worldly burdens, she shall erase.”
I turned the corner, and the Starswirl wing came into view. Just as Crystal said, there were guards, but like the attendant at the front, they were also nodding off, quickly giving in to their drowsiness. They were young. Course, I sympathized with the young lads. Somepony in the guard probably set them here as an easy, out-of-the-way assignment. I’d fallen asleep during my duties pretty bloody often, bored out of my mind.
“Come, her child. Come, her love.”
They yawned in unison before both taking a seat, settling into comfortable positions even as I approached them in full view. My muses circled behind them, singing sweet tones into their ears and holding them close.
“Resist not her soft lullaby. Her allure, a friend, an ally.”
I walked past them, like ghosts passing each other in the night. My muses peeled away from them after me, carried away by the current. I neared the back area here and looked over the shelves, scanning for one title in particular.
“Open your heart, let us rebuild. Let your weary vessel be filled.”
I found it quickly. Thankfully, Crystal had been spot on with her directions. I opened the front cover, easy as could be. “An In-Depth Study of Phylacteries and Binding Rituals,” it was.
“Mother favors all believers. We, at night, shall be her dreamers.”
With our chorus flowing behind us, we absconded from the Royal Library with our tome in stow. Even though I had just gone through a lullaby, my heart was a-thumping faster than ever. My muses swirled around me in a dance, chittering in their delightful tones. Could I even fall asleep knowing what was to come?
Crystal had promised me something irresistible. She promised me a Heart Gem.
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She is turning into a siren isn't she?
Well THAT'S ominous!
"songstress"
words got a little bit more of a sinister tone after this chapter ey?
9463146
Didn't catch the references until now, eh?
9463420
As if it didn't already sound sinister from the moment it was first explained. Songstress = Siren was pretty obvious.
9463652
oh yeah don't get me wrong, I know sirens are already sinister but i was referring more to how the previous chapters didn't really put her in a dangerous light. it was more, "yeah she weaves magic songs that can affect a crowd but come on! it's just lilywater!" but in this latest chapter we get to see how dangerous lily herself is. she just put a whole castle wing, guards included, to sleep and waltzed into a restricted area and by her own admission is more powerful than she lets on.
9463694, 9463652
I've had to put together a little bit of headcanon for what exactly the merponies and Lily were because merponies as a people doesn't exactly exist in the MLP universe (EqG Sirens exist, but there's nothing pointing to a larger civilization of them). I've gone ahead with the basis that the merponies were basically an idealized theocratic society where the "temple" commands almost all influence in their culture, speaking with the blessings of their Allmother. The Songstresses are considered voices of the Mother and are trained for that role to properly speak for their deity. The Sirens are essentially supercharged Songstresses.
To be honest, it's extremely easy to make it sound sinister with that context, and that's what I was hoping for. It's very close to straight up mind control, and that should be scary.
I do have a few reasons as to why Lily can do what she just did in this chapter and not just do the same thing to everything else, but that'll come in the next chapter, as well as any other tricks she might have up her imaginary sleeve.
Excellent chapter!
Something tells me the pony in the sewers is going to be a loose thread, since they will be able to determine that it was a shape shifter specifically, and not a regular pony. Dexter and Sinister are going to be mad at the increased aggressiveness towards being rooted out by the other hive because of this.
I feel like enchanting through Crystal is a bit cheaty because she has a large pool of magic. I buy the whole stone being rare and capable of housing Crystal, but it just seems a bit cheaty to be an accessible, large pool of magic and a companion.
Lilywater Basically
stayhipp.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/skyrim2.jpg
9464113
Crystal is kinda cheating, but I don't think her influence is overpowering just yet. So far, it's been a jump in available energy and a slight boost to the power and flexibility of the spells rather than just bulldozing through everything, but there's still a bit to go until the end of the story, and things are going to change a little.
Just a little.
9464770
Well, I'm not particularly offput, just kinda noticin' some cheaty stuff to keep everything bustling along
Okay, that just took a spooky turn. Lily OP, pls nerf!
The whole story, she's seemed kinda airheaded, but here, she's shown as being both fairly smart and absurdly powerful. Awesome, but I really hope she's on the side of Good-ish.
I'm also just a tad nervous as to why she has three muses and now wants a Gem. That sounds like bad news, if it has anything to do with the Sirens from EqG (since those were originally from the fuzzy side of the portal, so it might be the same ones...?).
9468744
You'd be surprised how much wisdom there is in simplicity. In a sense, her simplicity actually makes her much more logical than you'd think since she's unfettered by unnecessary details. Heck, she's given plenty of advice herself to Nymph throughout this story. With her, it's like one of those kids who say something that doesn't make any sense at all, but once you put more thought into it and dive to the actual reasoning, you kinda realize just how much sense they make, and you think about a lot of things in a whole new light. I think she's a decently complex character, but it's just a lot harder to see sometimes.
As for the muses, they're really just a saying that's been taken a touch too literally. They're all in Lily's head, but she is well aware of this. Whether she's good or evil is up for debate, but I'd prefer to think of her as someone who's heard nothing but great stories about the Sirens who wielded these Heart Gems and now she wants to try one out herself.
Oh shoot, im caught up.
I found this through tiny twilight and just had to read it... now i have to wait.
Though in the story of ponyviles Tiny librarian cadance knows of changlings, was kind ko supprised to see that she didnt realize what she was. Idk, maybe there is a reason.
Anyway, i cant wait for an upday but ill be here anyway.
9473694
Thinking about it in-universe, this story technically happened about fifteen years apart from Librarian, which is plenty of time in between for something to change. In addition, surviving off of love in here was at best only joked about. The replacing ponies part was a bit sketchier, but I think it's kinda sorta plausible it was just vague enough not to remind her of anything.
The real reason is that I completely forgot that those chapters were a thing in Ponyville's Tiny Librarian. I'm writing independently from Commander, so this story is only tangentially canon barring any word from him. I do try to maintain canonicality to at least make it plausible, though I'm about to get into some really story-changing stuff soon.
9474666
Yeah, it all makes sense to me.
The only thing i would say anything about at this point that i thought that Overwatch was Twi's guard for 15 years leading up to Nightmare moons return. In this story i thought it said that the year was 985 which is 15 years till nightmare moons return.
Im taking in my head that she was twilights guard for about 13-14 years before she returned.
But to be honest that is all just nitpicking and i really dont have any issue with it.
I read this because i enjoy everything here. The complexity of who all she is working with and still managing to do so without interfering with the others.
Well, she's cray cray.