17 - Precise Moves
An earth pony stepped to the center of the room and nodded to each of the nobles watching him, as well as the queen in the balcony overhead. He began to juggle balls, which was quite a talent with him bouncing balls over his hooves and only grasping with his mouth, but he kept them going nicely.
The Queen raised a faint gesture and one of the attendants cleared her throat. "Very nice, but the Queen asks what it has to do with unification?"
The balls dropped, all but one that he caught in his mouth and turned to face up towards the balcony. "Each one has a family crest on it. We used to all have a feud before she came along and brought us together."
The thought was nice, but a group of prairie pony families was not... quite unity, nor was the juggling outstanding. The Queen smiled but shook her head.
"Thank you," spoke the attendant while gesturing for the guards to help remove the balls and the performer. "It's not quite what She is looking for."
A pony beside Roll looked her up and down. She smiled thinly. "We are both curious members of this nation."
Roll looked back at the gem pony she was sharing the line with. Just a little rounded and plump, but she glittered in the light and seemed hard despite the softness that the fat implied. "We are," She agreed with a raised brow. She had only rarely seen a gem pony. "What is your performance?"
"About that." She turned to face Roll more directly. "Our chances may be better if we work together. I don't suppose your performance could work with singing?"
Roll frowned, not because dancing couldn't work with singing, but because it could. "I do not know what you would sing."
"We have time before we're called, we can go over the basics." She brightly smiled, even her teeth shining. "What do you do?"
"I dance..."
"Perfect!" She sat and clopped her forehooves. "I will sing for you and you will dance for the Queen, and we'll both win. Having such interesting ponies performing for her will surely fulfill her requirement."
A unicorn mare tossed her mane as she strolled towards the court. "After I perform, the queen will have no need for either of you! None can resist my acts of prestidigitation!"
The singer glanced off after the magician. "Let her try. Come, do you know any songs already? I'll sing one."
Roll decided to accept the fortune being presented to her. She would either succeed at the will of the gods, or lose all the same, but she would try her hardest. "Let us practice."
Their move towards cooperation hardly went unnoticed as other performers gathered into groups of two or three, trying to make their talents work in a quick harmony, but Roll detected an advantage. "You sing clearly?"
The singer looked confused. "I certainly hope so." She drew a slow breath before she let out a long low note that shook through Roll's body, just the way she hoped it would. "Will that do?"
"Excellent. You sing your song and I will match its tempo." Roll nodded as she began calibrating herself for the moves ahead with a slow pivoting of her joints. "Do you know a song of unity? That appears to be the grading point."
"I do, several, along with some of hope and preservation. All fine songs for our Queen." She nodded quickly and began to sing softly for Roll to move to. Perhaps they had a chance.
The first church the others found was by merit of size. It was a unified church of gods, or so the sign out front declared. Entering they found small shrines along the marbled hallway dedicated to each pony god in passing. Some, Sunset knew partially. Others baffled them both, and to see the tall chimeric form labeled clearly as 'The Unspoken One' raised the brow of Twilight as Sunset was genuinely baffled. "When did he become an outright god?"
True looked around as they went, carried along. He saw no shrine to Lashtada and poked Twilight to inform her, but his waves did not properly impart his message. He pointed to a small shrine to the Sun Queen, then himself.
A priest approached the group. She was adorned in flowing robes and wore the softly jangling holy symbols of all the pony gods, minus three, only one of which they noticed was missing. "You look troubled. Welcome and be at ease. How can I help you today?"
Sunset brightened on seeing her. "Ah yes! Hello there. We were hoping we could get someone to send us home."
She raised a brow. "Are you certain you don't require more arcane assistance than divine?"
Twilight shook a hoof. "Our home isn't, um, here. Think another world."
The priestess looked confused a moment before it came to her. "Ah, you are from another plane? Most visitors from such places look... quite a bit different from us, and here you are." She sat down before them. "If you come in peace, then I welcome you all to Everglow."
Sunset nodded at the priest. "Nice to be here, but we want to go home, please?"
She tilted her head. "Well, where are you from? Are you from an elemental plane? You don't appear like it, though I do feel some contamination..."
Twilight tapped behind her head. "It's more of a high school, filled with humans. We were, um, human, you know, before we ended up here."
The priestess lowered her eyes to the small form of True. "And you are from elsewhere too?"
He squeaked and shook his head before pointing at one of the shrines then at himself before shrugging.
"Are you asking which divine presence to approach?" The priestess smiled gently. "That depends what you want to ask. You are a pony, so they will all address you, but the advice of the scholarly Luminace is very different from the raging Blaze. This assumes that they answer, which they may not, but they will hear you," she assured. "This is a holy place for them all."
Twilight caught the meaning. "I think he's asking where the Lashtada shrine is."
"Who?"
True gave a soft squeak of dismay.
Twilight rolled a hoof. "Pink, short, female, um, seems to rule over fertility."
"And love."
"Oh, and love," added Twilight in response to her internal prodding.
"I've never heard of such a god before..."
Sunset sighed as she advanced. "We're getting distracted. Me and Twilight here want to go home. Can you help us, please?"
The priestess nodded. "Certainly. I could find someone capable of casting the spell. Do you have the tuning fork?"
Sunset blinked softly. "What?"
"The tuning fork." She tilted her head. "You need the right frequency to reach the right plane. We could banish you from Everglow and trust your own harmonics to carry you properly, but that is hardly assured. A tuning fork is the most reliable way to be certain."
Sunset paled a little around her ears. "And if we don't have a tuning fork?"
She inclined her head towards the shrines. "You can pray, or study, or do both in the case of one goddess. As I said, we could banish you, but there is a chance you will be swept away on another harmony. It would be quite a shame to send you both to Hell or some other inhospitable place." She dipped her head low. "I'm sorry I can't be of more help than that. Is there anything else I could be of service with?"
Sunset put a hoof to her face. "N-no, I think you've told us all we need to know for the moment." As the priestess wandered off, Sunset turned to her friends. "Well, things just got more complicated."
Twilight smiled as a thought came to her. "If we do right by Lashtada, she'll owe us a favor."
"Will you help?" whispered the goddess in her ear.
"So! We can ask her to send us home." Twilight nodded firmly with growing conviction. "We just have to rescue the short-legs."
True clearly thought highly of the idea with an energetic clip-clop applause of the motion.
Sunset looked back and forth between her companions. "So, about that... What exactly did she say before?"
A pony emerged, escorted by guards. "Madame Trish'do will have the last laugh!" insisted the gaunt pegasus as he was escorted away.
The attendant in charge of the performers nodded. "Next." And so went in a sleek leather wing pony with head held high.
Roll looked to her dancing partner. "Do you feel prepared?"
"No," confessed the singer with a smile. "I'll do it anyway. If we wait until we're ready, we'll never do it."
"That is a good logic." Roll nodded. "Even should we lose, it was a pleasure meeting you." She offered a hoof. "I am Rolling Precision."
The singer met it, crystal clashing against metal lightly. "Morning Bell. Likewise. I hope we can be friends, win or lose, but let's try to win, alright?"
"Affirmative." Roll rotated her head in place, spinning slowly in a way that an organic pony would find impossible. "I am as ready as I will be. Sing as well as you have been and I trust our chances to be good."
Others were not quite so harmonious as their time approached. Some groups fell apart with angry shouting and accusations. "I can't work beside such imbeciles!" hotly proclaimed a mare, walking away from two stallions.
"Next."
There were only a few ponies ahead of Roll and Morning. It would finally be their chance to shine, possibly literally in the case of their crystal half. Roll gave a precise nod. "I think our chances are good." She felt less certain when it was their turn.
"Next."
Roll advanced with Morning towards the attendant and she smiled at them. "The Queen has asked that I filter some of her applicants. Can you describe the show you plan to perform?"
Morning nodded at the attendant. "I will sing traditional songs of unity and hope while Roll dances."
Roll nodded in agreement. "I hope the Queen will be pleased by my performance."
The attendant looked doubtful at Roll. "Can you dance? I mean, no offense... but... you are a machine."
Roll drew a breath despite not requiring it. "I have danced for much of my life. My skills are quite adequate."
The attendant looked at the couple and the performers behind them. "Well, the Queen will be the judge if that. If you move well, the show sounds like what she's looking for." She waved them past. "Good luck and may the gods smile on your efforts."
There was only one goddess Roll hoped to please that night.
They emerged from the shadowed entryway into the main court where noble ponies gathered and the Queen looked down on them. She looked subtly intrigued by Roll's appearance. Good. They had her attention, they needed only to keep it.
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Ah yes, there's the rub. Banishment is an option, but that risk of literally going to Hell—or somewhere even worse!—makes it understandably unpalatable. Thus, it's time to be big darn heroes, whether Sunset likes it or not. Or hire big darn heroes, though then the question becomes "With what money?"
Also, Lashtada should probably try to get an altar for herself out in the all gods' temple. For a goddess of fertility, she sure isn't interested in propagating word of her existence. Roll could help with that.
Speaking of whom, Roll made another friend! Here's hoping their performance meets the Queen's standards.
Clearly, only the most exquisite typos make it before the Queen:
This sentence feels unfinished. At the very least, I have no idea what you're trying to say.
I'm sorry, my imagination has a hard time connecting what's above with what's below...
Intresting, the Queen wants acts demonstrating Unity, and Roll and Bell would certainly fit that pint, being almost as disparate as possible yet combining and assisting yet only just meeting? Maybe they would succeed with a third though. Bell sings, Roll Dances, and Wood, winds?
Though, can you get Pan Pipes and are they safe around Lashtada?
If Discord is there as The Unnamed One, and there are three symbols missing including Lashtada, who are the other two? Or is that for a Plane Walking story?
7342733 there is soft whisper, there is also gentle Ripple
Every universe needs to have its own Trixie.
Did you mean to say "The thought was nice, but a group of prairie pony families was not... quite unity, nor was the juggling outstanding."? As written, it doesn't explain what the group of ponies is not, nor is there anything to "and the juggling" with.
She was just a little rounded and plump, but she
That was a nice touch, Mr. Silver. Even if they lose, they are helping the others get into the spirit of the contest.
the others
then
Oh boy, here it comes...
7342738 What about Apep? If they are forgotten gods, who is noticing that they are missing?
7342400
Banishment would have an additional complication. Sunset isn't from the EqG world, so even if it worked as desired and sent them back to their home planes, Sunset would end up somewhere in Equestria.
7343823
And they used the portal to get to Everglow in the first place, further complicating matters. Excellent point.
7343839
...And I just thought of another one. Assuming this story is canon with the other Ponyfinder stories, they're in the distant past of Everglow compared to when Princess Twilight and Spike initially made contact. This means there's a possibility that even if they find a way to either Canterlot High or Equestria, they could be similarly displaced in time there as well...
7343639 Typos fixed! I didn't count Apep, as he is not a pony god. He's more of a demon lord.