Charting a Course
"Huh? Whazzawhuh?" I jerked my head upright.
"Relax," said Red, calmly. "Everything's fine. You're back in Fancy Pants' carriage, and we're getting close to Ponyville."
"Um," I said, as cogently as I could. "The last thing I remember was... losing the bout?"
"By hitting yourself with a cupcake laced with sedative. I've got to tell you, you are not easy to move around when you're unconscious."
Marble interrupted, "After you fell, the Baroness expressed her desire to speak to you, upon your awakening. I believe it would be worth your while to accept her invitation."
"Please," Baroness Kohl said, holding up a hoof. "Do not say a word. The more you talk to me, the more likely I am to end up like her," shifting her hoof to indicate Marble Pillar. "No offense intended, my dear."
Marble countered with, "Your words are taken in precisely the spirit they were given."
Kohl turned her attention back to me, and while I grated my teeth a little at her attitude, I held my silence, for the moment. "Even if you have convinced me to... mitigate my actions against you, pending a better evaluation of your claims, I am merely the... first choice of weapons to be used against you. There are those ponies who will care to hear nothing about anything I may have to say - but will only see that I was sent against you, paid attention to your words, and failed to destroy you. They will take that into account - and whoever or whatever is sent against you next, will be something that either will not or can not be persuaded by any means they are aware of. If you manage to pull some trick to persuade them anyway - then something else will be sent, and then something else."
I held up a hoof for attention. She sighed, but said, "Yes?"
"I don't suppose you'd be willing to share who, exactly, it is who is doing all this 'sending'?"
"... How interesting. No, I do not believe I am willing to do so, at this point. What I will give you is some advice: if you wish to survive, and for your marefriend to survive, then you need to be able to absolutely destroy anything anypony can send against you. I am... currently uncertain whether or not you can accomplish that; or, if you can, if you can do so at a price you are willing to pay. If you are unable to do so... then you need to run. Both of you. Run so fast and so far that nopony in Equestria can catch up with you."
There was no singing, this time, as Cheerilee and I came together. She simply opened her door, and we hugged, and went inside.
I pushed Lady, Cheerilee's super-sized ladybug pet, off the couch, so the two of us could stretch out on it together, and I could stroke her fur.
"I've got some bad news," I told her. "I've got a choice to make - one that affects both our futures. And I've paid attention to enough stories to know that simply making it for you would be... bad, even if I thought I was doing the right thing." I took a breath. "The Dairy is... not under my control anymore - and it may be entirely subverted. A member of the nobility was coming here to get you fired - or worse - and tried to drive me mad. I... dealt with her, at least for the moment - but more like her are going to come. I don't know what all of our options are - but I can describe some of the more obvious choices.
"I know you want to stay here and teach, and I'm pretty sure you'd like the two of us to stay together." I got a smile for that. "I'd like that, too. I could try planting all four hooves here, lowering my horns, and do my best to defend against anypony and everypony who would try to do us harm or break us up. But... at the levels we're dealing with now... I don't know if I could even protect you against the next move, or how many more after that.
"The next option is the one most of those silly romance novels would say I should pick without telling you. We could... break up. If we did it right, you'd probably be safe. You could stay and teach, and I'd go off trying to save the world, including you.
"Another option is... for you to give up teaching, while this lasts, and come with me. You'd probably be fairly safe while we're on the move."
She rolled over to face me, still smiling. "You left one choice out."
"I did."
She gently kissed the tip of my muzzle. "We're not breaking up." She kissed my left cheek. "I'm not giving up teaching." She kissed my right cheek. "And you're going to go save the world."
I squeezed her tightly. "I want all that to happen. I just... don't know if we can. Not all together, anyway."
"And how will we ever know, if we don't at least try for the, what's that phrase you like, 'best of all possible worlds'?"
I grumbled something about that not being how probability worked, and got tickled for my effort.
After I finally caught my breath, "Well," I said, "if we're going to shoot for the moon - we're going to need to work hard to get off the ground. But - I'm pretty sure that the hostile nobles aren't going to find out I'm still sane - well, as sane as I've ever been," I said just to get a snort out of her, "until tomorrow. So... we have tonight to ourselves." I paused, pursed my lips, and looked into her eyes. "Or - we don't have to."
She tilted her head. "You mean...?"
I nodded. "If it'll make you happy - then let's invite Lily over to be our Very Special Guest Star for tonight. And let tomorrow take care of tomorrow."
The next morning, the whole crew were crowded into Cheerilee's living room. Me, Cheerilee, Red, Marble, Amethyst, the pups, Brick, Blanche, and Star. Lily was still there, too, drawing the occasional curious glance.
"My goals have been set. Some decisions have to be made about how to accomplish them. Goal one - Cheerilee is staying here, and I want her kept safe. Lily might or might not be staying here with her - but, Lily, you're a florist, and won't be able to help much if somepony tries to set the house on fire. So, if for no other reason than to keep my own mind at ease, I want somebody to stay here who I can trust to protect her. Amethyst - your diamond dog pack is still living nearby, and even if there are troubles between them and Ponyville, I don't want to cut you off from them - and John, Paul, George, and Ringo should learn about the people they are biologically related to. So - are you willing to stay?"
She looked at me, at Cheerilee, then back at me again. "You. Go?"
I nodded.
"I. Come."
I sighed. "One of these days I'm going to have to get you to tell me more about what's going on inside that head of yours." She just smiled. I continued, "Right. In that case -"
"Ooh! Ooh! Pick me, pick me!" Blanche called out, waving a hoof.
I winced. "What are the odds that, after you stay here a day or two, you'll decide you can't live without seeing me and come chasing after me again?"
"Um... middling?"
"Brick, Red - I trust you two the most, so-"
Cheerilee interrupted, "Aren't you forgetting something?"
"If you said that, then probably."
"Whatever it is you're doing - the more trustworthy ponies you have with you, the more likely you'll succeed, right?"
"I'm not liking where you're going with this."
"This is still my house - who ever said that I want anypony here just to protect me?"
"House them next door?"
"No."
"Rent an apartment?"
"No."
"A cloud-"
"No, dear. You're missing the point."
"I'm not missing it, I'm deliberately trying to dodge it. After having seen what a single Baroness was able to do to me - it's not just your job that's in danger, you are, and after having seen what that Baroness could do, you have absolutely no way to protect yourself."
"Do you still have that boomstick?"
"... you're kidding."
"Not at all. If it will help you keep your mind focused on keeping the world safe - then I can put up with having that... weapon. And before you interrupt - yes, that includes learning how to use it, and being willing to use it. After all, what kind of example will I be setting for my students if I let Equestria be destroyed because you're distracted by worrying about me?"
"... Red, would you mind-"
"Yeah, yeah, box twelve, back in a jiffy."
"Right. Well - with that settled... there's still deciding where to go next. Heading back to Canterlot seems insane - and while that's not necessarily a bad thing, I can't think of a good reason to. Since I can't depend on the Dairy as reliably as I once did - I need to collect some sort of power-base to replace it. And, if possible, something I can use to defend against the Baroness's mysterious sponsors - and, preferably, something that's also useful in finding out what the exact details are of the threat to Equestria, and defending against it. So - powerful ponies, and other species, who we can ally with; lost knowledge we can dig up; powerful artifacts; places where feats can be accomplished that can't be elsewhere; anything along those lines."
Lily commented, "It sounds like you want to play Daring Do."
"I suppose it does - but I'm not a storybook character."
"Maybe you should be. From what I've heard - you might be able to make some decent money from the royalties, like Daring Do herself does."
"Um... well, I'm not sure how interesting such books would be if I withheld all the information I still want to keep secret. So - I hope you don't mind, but I think I'll file that plan away for sometime in the future, when I don't have to do so much hiding. I do appreciate the suggestion, though."
Star Chaser now spoke up, turning back to face us after having been staring out the window. "Would you be interested in the Horologium?"
"Pardon?"
"The Star Clock. I thought the Star Beasts were just stories - but you're casually carrying around the claw from one, in your train car. So if they're real - maybe the Star Objects are, too."
"I vaguely recall the term, but please, refresh my memory, and everyone else's, too."
"Well, there's supposed to be Horologium, the Star Clock; Scutum, the Star Shield; Argo, the Star Ship; Telescopium, the Star Telescope... Sagitta, the Star Arrow... and I forget the rest, but there's at least half a dozen more, maybe a dozen. The Ursa Major is supposed to be magically a million times as powerful as a bear, or something like that - and every Star Object is supposed to be that much better than a regular object. Microscopium, that's another one - it's supposed to let you see anything, no matter how small."
"Well." I considered. "If we can get our hooves on any of those - and they live up to their reputation - they could certainly help the cause a good deal. Okay, let's assume we wanted to find one of these. Happen to know where any are?"
Star Chaser shook her head. "They're all long lost to legend, as far as I know. And I would," She gestured at her cutie mark, a typical Canterlotian unicorn's starburst.
"Alrighty. Since I don't have free access to the Royal Canterlot Archives anymore, and asking the Princesses would be problematic... there is one powerful being I can think of to ask about, though without an airship, she's kind of hard to get to..."
Brick said, "On our return trip - did you not meet with an archaeologist in Stalliongrad?"
"I thought you were locked up in the Alicorn during that?"
"I read the ship's logs, and talked to Micro Scope, afterwards."
I nodded. "Well - yes, we did. Micro Scope's uncle, Copper Scope. He didn't seem to like me much, so I left after just a short bit and let Micro deal with him."
"Whether he likes you or not - is Stalliongrad not on the way to that 'powerful being', and much easier to get to?"
"I suppose. Anypony have a better suggestion about somepony we can ask about that sort of thing?"
Nopony did.
"Alrighty, then - Stalliongrad ho! it is."
"Star, can I talk to you for a minute?"
"Of course."
"Here," I thrust an envelope at her. "This is a letter of recommendation to the Princesses to ameliorate your sentence. Given the current situation, I can't promise that they'll do anything of the sort - but you've been more helpful than I expected you to be, and it's only fair I hold up my end of the deal now."
She looked at the paper, then at me. "Are you trying to get rid of me before you leave Ponyville?"
"Since you ask - yes."
"You really are heading off to try to save the world?"
"Something of the sort."
"And you say in here - something about me being a reasonably good pony, despite what I did?"
"Something about that."
"I'll be the first to admit that I made a mistake - about as big a mistake as one pony can make. I don't like to think of myself as a bad pony, but... well. I'm trying to do better - to be better. How good a pony would I really be, if I didn't at least try helping you more?"
"We're probably going to have to travel through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered; to fight our way to castles beyond cities of goblins - where anything is possible and nothing is what it seems."
"Eh - everypony needs a hobby."
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This reminds me, I need to come up with some kind of badass item for the Star Dragon. I'm thinking some kind of cape...
1065609
a map?
1065801
It helped, that's for certain. It at least helped me get the idea, "Smart people are being awesome".
Uh, wait, wasn't Lily already in Fudge the Minotaur's story? Or here first, then there? Either way, there's some inconsistency. And with Twigleaf's story, be careful before replacing Lily with Roseluck (or Rosemary, perhaps. Dunno what's going on there for certain). It was probably going to happen anyway, that there'd be a bit of inconsistency, and it would be difficult and stupid to fault you, but you should probably know anyway.
1065960
Yes, one edition of Lily is in Fudge's story; but don't forget, Lily already showed up in an earlier chapter in this story. Fudge's author and I have been in contact with each other and talked about this exact issue, and I'm reasonably sure that we've got everything worked out satisfactorily for both stories.
1065994 Judging by your first few words in that comment, I'm going to guess there's two ponies named Lily. I'm also very probably wrong, but I'll get to caring about that later. And yep, I remembered about the earlier chapter. Still thought I should bring it up.
You know, it occurs to me that I haven't watched you yet.
1066014 Changeling! Everything goes better with changelings after all.
And judging by the interlude, Missy gets the star clock?
1066065 Everything's better with a lot of other things. Changelings are now on the same level as ponies (related to most things non-pony), sugar, and music.
Also, you're brilliant! I had not made the connection between the interlude and the star clock. Thanks!
Astral tazer
=)
1065960
It's okay you guys. Missy's story is taking place early enough on the time line that Lily can still go off to Canterlot to sell Roseluck's Super Awesome Super Seeds™.
1065609
Message from Fudge: Cape? Did you say cape?! *beams*
>Telescopium, the Star Telescope
Geeze, what pony was in charge of naming these things, huh?
1066820
I think it was author, but maybe not.
Sweet. Glory. Hallelujah. Finally caught up with this monster, and now eagerly await more.
1066786 In the immortal words of Applejack
gameinformer.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer-Components-PostAttachments/00-01-18-68-05/50425-_2D00_-Hubble-applejack-macro-tree.png_2D00_500x400.png
Passable transition chapters. moderately interesting on their own and making me itch for more.
Interesting. Cheerilee with a shotgun. This'll be fun.
Omg a Labyrinth reference!