Metamorphosis

by Alondro

Brittle Bonds are Broken

Shortly before a full day had passed one Flutter by the name of Bluebell returned. She had been among those sent to implore the Unicorns to lend their magic, and perhaps to halt the day that the Sun might shine perpetually and possibly pierce the Windigoes' gales in time. Limping on frostbitten legs, her wings cracked and chipped, the forlorn and faded Flutter reported wearily to her sovereign’s willow-edged garden court. She stumbled through a narrow path which opened through the crowd of Flutter Ponies and made her way before the living pair of thrones with their high hanging, woven boughs bearing a different cascade of blossoms each month. In preparation for what was sure to be an unpleasant inquiry Bluebelle attempted to steady herself in the welcome radiance of the Sunstone which sat on a short pedestal of rosy marble carved in the shape of a wizened stump at the very center of the royal glade, globs of half-melted slush falling from her sides.

“What help have the Unicorns promised? Where are the rest of your band?” demanded Queen Damsel callously of her shivering ambassador, who was barely able to stand upright before her.

Gentle Princess Lacewing, leaving her usual place half-hidden behind the throne went to the side of the exhausted and swaying Flutter Pony, her quavering jade eyes watering with pity. "Mother, please," she pleaded softly. "She's hurt and tired. Can't she rest in the Stone's warmth for a moment and sip a little nectar first?"

"Time cannot be spared for niceties in a time of war, Daughter!" Damsel snorted, causing Lacewing to shrink back behind her mother’s throne, shading her spring green fur and forest hued mane in the shadows of the fell winter. "Now," she advanced upon the tottering mare. "Speak! How many unicorns will answer our call? What arcane secrets have they found to dispel this accursed winter and the demons causing it?"

Her pale blue coat shaking both with lingering cold and fear, Bluebell stuttered out between chattering teeth, "N-none, and nothing, my Queen."
Damsel's face fell into dismay, "None? NOTHING?! How can this be? Why will they not help us? Why haven’t they learned ANYTHING in all this time? What reason did they give?" Her lovely face began to crease and wrinkle and the first seeds of wrath in her heart took root.

"I was granted audience with Princess Platinum herself, my Queen," the little Flutter mare squeaked. "She very... abruptly... dismissed me with these words 'All our magic is needed for our own defense in these trying times. Besides, if your own powers have waned, you're as useless to us as you are to yourselves. Dividing my forces will only serve to kill my unicorns faster, and I'll not have my grand and majestic race destroyed out of some misplaced, pointless honor system.' She also said that stronger magic against the windigoes might exist in a faraway land, but only the unicorns could find and use it and they didn’t need us… getting in their way…”

Damsel seethed with every word.

"Ah... her assistant, Clover the Clever, was more... diplomatic..." Bluebell continued. "She wished us well but... but she confirmed her Princess' sentiments. Unicorn spells have done nothing against the windigoes save to hold them at bay for a time and there was no reason to believe sending any unicorns to our aid would lead to anything other than their deaths as well as ours. Perhaps... she was right... I am the... only one who made it back..." Her face fell, reflecting the horror of what she'd doubtlessly witnessed her group succumb. Shamefaced and sobbing softly, Bluebelle was led away at last.

"Mother," Lacewing quietly spoke. "Perhaps... they're right? The unicorns might not have made it here. They have magic, but they aren't very strong. They would have been too slow and quickly fallen to the cold.

"Do not be so foalish, Daughter!" Damsel cried. "They are selfish and stupid! To think I believed they could help when they were helpless without us against the Smooze even at their peak! Unicorn magic, pah! If they are capable of so little then clearly they have wasted their talents all these years on primping and posturing and polishing their crowns! They'll be the first to fall, I shouldn't wonder. They would have only gotten in the way. We are certainly better off without their whining if they cannot even manage a short trip in the snow!"

Lacewing cringed before her mother's outburst, and the Queen's creases softened slightly as she addressed her little daughter comfortingly, "My dear, when you are Queen you must decide who is and is not a useful ally. Some are merely parasites who take all the credit though doing little. Remember that there are those who will only feed upon your goodwill. If you are not careful, they'll leave you when they feel they no longer can use you. So it is with unicorns, it seems."

"Yes, Mother," Lacewing replied. "I understand."

“The pegasi will surely come,” Damsel murmured, half to herself. “They are warriors, quick to battle and eager to face fearsome foes. They are also skilled in aerial tactics; surely their skills and ours will complement and strengthen each other. Commander Hurricane has boasted, frequently boasted, if I recall correctly, of her military prowice and eagerness for a good battle like those of old. They will come and our Utter Flutter combined with their weather magic should drive the windigoes away.”

But this hopes was dashed within hours when another Flutter fell through the Sunstone’s shield, so frozen and weak she had to be laid before the Queen by those who’d found her gasping by the edge of the waning dome of warmth, distraughtly reported that the second of their former allies denied them aid.

“M-my Q-queen,” the distraught emissary, Dandelion, stammered. “I am sorry. The others didn’t make it. Too harsh, too cold… Windigoes were waiting for us to come back… I only made it because I… I fled…”

“Enough prattling!” Damsel snarled. “Give me some GOOD news! When will the pegasi arrive? What is Commander Hurricane’s plan to unite our powers against the windigoes? What did she say?”

Dandelion’s eyes widened and then frantically flickered side to side in an attempt to find words to soften the impact of what she had to report, “Commander Hurricane of the Pegasi declared to me that it would be foal-hardy of them to… to… waste…”

“Waste?” Damsel whispered in sinister sibilance, as tinged with frost as the air beyond the Sunstone’s reach, stomping forward with greater menace than one would expect from a fairy pony with butterfly’s wings. “What exactly did the feathered fool not wish to waste?”

“Hurricane… thought it a waste…” Dandelion shrank before her looming leader’s anger, which pulled at its fraying tether, the little mare’s pallid yellow coat fading further. “To help l-little… bugs… like us…”

Damsel’s mouth twitched and her left eye endured a spastic flutter. “Continue!” she croaked harshly.

Dandelion steadied herself with a deep breath, quieting the pattering of her care-worn and fear-filled heart to present a proper report to her Queen. “Commander Hurricane does not feel we are worth helping. She claims the pegasi have created better tactics with which to counterattack the windigoes, but that they need every available shred of wing-power to pull it off. We arrived so worn and exhausted, I fear we did not present a good face… Commander Hurricane declared that if we represented the swiftest and strongest the Flutter Ponies had to offer, then we’d be next to useless with their new techniques once she perfected the plans.”

Damsel merely glared at Dandelion, her snout wrinkled and her emerald eyes appeared to glow with rage as the façade of royal composure fell shard by jagged shard and gradually exposed a haggard interior.

Attempting to pacify her Queen, Dandelion spluttered hurriedly, “P-Private pansy, Hurricane’s personal subordinate, spoke to us before we left. She said Hurricane was only trying to boost morale and that the truth was they didn’t have any secret new techniques she was aware of. Nothing they could do allowed them to even get close to the windigoes safely. The few Pegasi that ever did touch them froze at once and plunged to the ground where they shattered like glass. She said it was so terrible that Hurricane gave up the attack and, for the first time she could remember, cried for retreat. The only plan Pansy knew of was that Hurricane wanted her to accompany her on an expedition to locate and (possibly) conquer a better land. So really… they couldn’t help us… Pansy sounded very sorry about it.”

Lacewing cautiously approached her seething mother, “It really doesn’t sound like the Pegasi could have done much, Mother. I suppose they could have tried… with the Utter Flutter and perhaps one of their storm techniques… maybe it could have pushed the Windigoes away… but if not, we’d be-“

“ARROGANT FEATHER BRAINS!!!” Damsel exploded, knocking Dandelion backwards to crumple into a whimpering thawed custard-colored heap while Lacewing leapt into the air with a fearful whinny. “How DARE that bloviating buffoon call US weak? WE… We who with OUR POWER blasted apart the shades of Arabus and returned to them their shadows when THEIR weakness got them stolen from them! She’s AFRAID!” She stalked furiously back and forth before her throne while her attendants whispered between themselves words of worry, both in dismay that a second ally had abandoned them to their fate and in concern for their Queen’s increasing anger. “The great and glorious Pegasi, sniveling cowards not worthy to be our equals! Do they think we have not fought and lost many of our kindred in the face of terrible monsters and demons, against foes I’d wager would send the lot of those blowhards crying back to their sires with their wings clenched to their shivering sides and their tails tucked between their soggy thighs! To Tartarus with them! Remember this, Lacewing! The bravado of ponies is all show! Meaningless! They’ll cast you aside and run to save their own hides! Waste no love on them, for you shall receive none when you need it!”

Lacewing almost fled once more to the safety behind the throne before a faint flicker alighted in her own eyes. She set herself down and, for the first time in her life, spoke firmly to her mother. “Perhaps so, Mother. Then should we not behave better than they and not give ourselves over to pointless tirades?”

Damsel breathed heavily and caught sight of her subjects staring at her uncomfortably, some with dismay, and not a few with hints of disgust which she couldn’t discern were due to the betrayal of yet another old alliance or at her uncouth outburst. Such a sight she must have been. Totally unbecoming of her proud and noble upbringing, it was. A sense of shame spread unpleasantly through her.

“Yes, of course, Daughter,” she admitted. “I shouldn’t let my emotions run so wild. I am… very disappointed, that it all. The Earth ponies have yet to answer. They’re a stalwart and steady sort, not given to the vanity and arrogance of the Unicorns or the rash and inconstant emotions of Pegasi. They could still help us. They have strange magic over the land and growing things. Their touch can bring lushness to the poorest soils, and some can even grow gems as though they too were living things.” She considered the Sunstone’s dimmed gleam. “It is my hope that they might be able to grow a new Sunstone, or something like it, if there is still time enough left.”

Yet before she could pull together some semblance of composure after this second messenger had delivered her dire report, Snapdragon, the lone survivor of the third party staggered into the court glade and was gingerly assisted to Damsel. Upon seeing what was clearly the last of those sent to beg the Earth ponies to lend their innate magic to tend the flowers and attempt to grow a new Sunstone, the Queen ground her teeth in rage, dropping at last the final trappings of regality, seeing once again a lone survivor and no hope of aid in his despairing face. Her lovely face now twisted with hideous hate and she glared at the half-frozen Flutter who dropped to his knees fearfully before her, shivering either from rage or the terrible expression upon his Queen’s face which bore not a little familiarity that borne upon the windigoes spectral features. "Forgive me, Glorious Damsel," he moaned, trying to shake the ice from his frost-bleached red coat.

“You’re the last because the rest were too weak and died, and you sped away like a sparrow from an eagle, am I correct?” Damsel growled sullenly, earning a number of gasps from the gathering and a bowed head of misery from Snapdragon.

Lacewing shot her mother a displeased look which Damsel returned, only to relent and address the messenger in a more formal tone. “Very well, what did the Earth Ponies’ leaders decide?”

Snapdragon opened his mouth to speak and then closed it, clearly flustered. “Chancellor Puddinghead,” he said after a moment of collecting his thoughts. “Is a very… unique pony. I don’t think she would be of much help with anything, besides perhaps giving one a headache.”
Damsel and Lacewing shared a confused glimpse toward each other. “How so? Please explain what happened,” Lacewing asked kindly.
“It was difficult to comprehend everything Puddinghead said, especially the random things she would blurt out from time to time. Personally, my Queen, I do not believe she is… quite all there,” he said sheepishly while Damsel’s left forehoof made itself familiar with her temples. “Perhaps it would be best if I recollected what portions of the discussion I can remember?” Snapdragon asked, to which Damsel merely waved her other hoof for him to continue.

……………………………………….

“And so, yeah, the windigoes really seem ta like soul food, but I think it’s wayyyy too spicy, personally!” declared Chancellor Puddinghead, scribbling X’s and O’s inside little grids of four crossed lines which she scratched repeatedly into the surface of the meeting table of the gathering hall. “Darn!” she exclaimed, exasperatedly swiping a line through three O’s in a row. “7-0! How’d she get so good at this? ARRRGG! I give up. We’ll see how she does at poker next!”

She finally looked toward Snapdragon, who sat across from her blinking in utter confusion while Puddinghead’s advisor Smart Cookie apologetically mouthed ‘Sorry about this’ from the Chancellor’s side. “So, as my grandsire would say, ‘When the ground gets frozen, the frozen get grounded!’, which means we can’t stick around when there’s ice all over the place or we won’t get any desserts for a month, and could you imagine trying to go a month without sweets? I KNOW, right? I mean, rocks are sometimes tasty, but a pony cannot live on basalt alone! Sure they have loads of minerals, but without some veggies and hay and stuff, you get all petrified after a while, and then you’re really between a rock and a hard place!” She stretched her head toward Snapdragon and whispered, “And I don’t even wanna talk about the outhouse issues after a month of an all-rock diet!” to which the bewildered stallion could only blink numbly in reply.

Snapdragon attempted to inquire about the possibility of growing a Sunstone using Earth Pony abilities, which did at least glean a passing jot of attention from the erratic leader. “Sunstone… Sunstone…” she mumbled, whipping out a pack of playing cards from nowhere and shuffling them idly. “I kinda remember hearing about that from Starswirl the Bearded when he came visiting here and I was a filly. Never seen it, don’t know a thing about it other than it’s glowy and warm. HEY!!” she shouted, standing up and flipping the entire deck into Snapdragon’s face. “Do you think you could lend it to us for a teensy bit so we can thaw out tootsies out and grow some food?” Snapdragon, as calmly as anypony could in Puddinghead’s presense, explained for the third or fourth time that the Sunstone was waning, which was why he was there asking for aid. Puddinghead, swept the cards into her hoof and frowned, “Sooooo, prolly not gonna happen.” She sat back down and began a complex and baffling card structure, drawing cards one by one and occasionally scowling at one or another.

“Got any 3’s?” she asked herself, apparently in the middle of a card game which, if it had rules were total and completely incomprehensible to anypony save the Chancellor, and then proceeded to pick from the deck and add it to the growing geometric card structure, which somehow retained the shape of a half-completed sphere. “A ROYAL FLUSH?!” she shouted, causing everypony to jump. “That’s the last straw, I tells ya!” Throwing the cards into the air and emitting a neigh of frustration, the Chancellor declared, “Meeting’s over! And so’s this place! We’re done here. Smart Cookie, it’s time to find some place warm with plenty of food!” She tapped a hoof expectantly then asked, “Anypony have directions to Horsewaii? What about YOU?” she exclaimed, pointing to Snapdragon who could only stutter that he’d never heard of such a place. “Hmph, well you’re no good, then. Go away now! The Earth ponies will go it alone!”

She stormed out of the hall, declaring her intent to the townsfolk, while the able and longsuffering Smart Cookie profusely apologized to Snapdragon, “The Chancellor’s, uhm… iconoclastic personality aside… I really wish we could help you, but I just don’t think it’s possible for us to even begin to grow a new Sunstone without understanding how the original works or even came to exist. If you’d let our rock farmers study it years ago, maybe we’d have a method by now, but… I don’t know how to say this without sounding bitter… you all were always so over-protective of it and wouldn’t let a soul get near it that wasn’t a fellow Flutter Pony. And besides that, we Earth ponies don’t have any magic that would help grow anything in frozen ground, plus how could we even fight against something like a windigo, which doesn’t even have a solid body to buck.” She sighed, “You’d best head back home and think about moving out yourselves. There’s no point in staying still and freezing to death.”

Chancellor Puddinghead suddenly appeared beside them which caused Smart Cookie to rear up and Snapdragon to leap into Smart Cookies’ forehooves in shock. “Yeah! What are you even still doing here?” asked the Chancellor dismissively, waving at the stallion. “Shoo! Shoo! Fly away home, little ladybug! Or… I guess ‘gentlemanbug’ in your case.”

Snapdragon had left soon afterward, dispirited and confused, with the two who’d made the trip with him, both of whom were lost to the windigoes; which seemed to know where they’d gone and attacked halfway on the return journey.

……………………………….

Stunned and bewildered by the utter audacity and absurdity of the Earth Pony leadership, Damsel spluttered in disbelief, "Insanity... sheer, utter INSANITY! And I expected assistance from such... such MADPONIES?! Would we even be able to drink nectar from the flowers they grew? And the Sunstone... with those buffoons, I expect they would give us an ICE-stone instead! And you!” She struck Snapdragon across the snout with all the force her dainty hoof could generate causing him to fall upon his haunches and clutch his sore nose, stifling a slight bleed the blow released. “You allowed that crazed imbecile to show you off just like that! Cowed like a disobedient dog, you slunk back here to simper at the table of your masters for some of my last scraps!”

“Mother!” Lacewing admonished harshly in a stern tone that surprised even herself. “Enough! Our subjects did all they could to bring us word! What could they hope to do alone against the windigoes? The pony tribes may have betrayed us but our people are all loyal! They are here, now, ready and waiting to serve! None hesitated to fly off into the storms and danger to see aid and they gave their very souls in sacrifice! Nothing greater could they have lost, and they do NOT deserve such awful words and even less to be attacked by their Queen when they gave their all to aid us in this desperate hour!”

Damsel gazed at her daughter disbelievingly as the whole court held its breath, then she turned and looked upon the concerned faces of the few hundred of her people which remained. The tense atmosphere didn’t last for long; as something at last broke the hardness within Damsel. The Queen returned to her throne and sank wearily into her seat, casting a longing and lonely look upon the empty throne beside her. “From where did this strength come, my Daughter?” she inquired, her voice suddenly softer as she turned and regarded her once reclusive daughter now standing tall.

"Perhaps it was always here, Mother,” Lacewing sighed, wilting slightly from the unfamiliar weight of confrontation. “I only never needed it before now. I know I can’t hide behind you anymore, not when you’re stumbling under this burden. I should be beside you, to help you rise above the clouds. If we can’t count on the ponies, we can still help each other. But… perhaps not here. One thing that Smart Cookie pony said did make sense, Mother. We should try to find a new land. We can’t hold out long here.”

Damsel slowly shifted herself upon her throne and regarded her court in silence. Every ear and antennae within the space held still with rapt attention, awaiting their Queen’s next words. “Leave… leave our home?” the Queen’s voice wavered with indecision and doubt, and the telltale tightness of fear. “Can we do even that now?” The icy wind’s vicious howl drifted through the glade, drawing attention to the deadly devastation inching closer all the time, reminding all present of how tenuously they clung to survival in their dying valley.

Comments

[Ixion]

I don't know if I really want to take you seriously... maybe I'll give this a roll, but I don't know. Your track record is sketchy.

[A_Stupid_Name]

“Got any 3’s?” she asked herself, apparently in the middle of a card game which, if it had rules were total and completely incomprehensible to anypony save the Chancellor, and then proceeded to pick from the deck and add it to the growing geometric card structure, which somehow retained the shape of a half-completed sphere.

Oh my gawd. That is the Death Star ISNTIT?! PUDDINGHEAD WAS ACTUALLY SOMBRA ALL ALONG.
CRYSTAL EMPIRE ORIGINS EXPLAINED.

[Alondro]

7628786 Puddinghead was Darth Plagueis!

[mastermenthe]

I love this!