The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Baited And Chumped

"Shinespark? Who was Braen?"

Shinespark started, not expecting anything but silence. She and Nyala were sitting on a bench within sight of Crystal's door, but not close enough to make out what was being said inside, even though the mansion was quiet. "Sorry?"

Nyala was looking at her. "That mare recognized me, didn't she? I'm not the first one to use this armor... Was Braen someone like me, in the same situation?"

Shinespark rubbed her face. "Listen, we're sitting in the middle of a hallway where anyone could hear us, and that's sort of... classified. I'll tell you, but we'll have to go somewhere else. Somewhere a whole lot more private than this."

"It's that big a deal, huh?" Nyala asked softly, watching as Shinespark grabbed an out-of-date flyer from a nearby bulletin board, flipped it over and imprinted a message telling Valey where they'd be with a fine point of magic from her horn.

"No, it's all history now." Shinespark straightened up, leaving the note on a bench. "There are just a lot of ponies we left behind who will be happier thinking the story they know is the full story... myself included. We didn't really want Ironridge following us here after everything that had happened."

"I feel like I have so much to catch up on," Nyala admitted, following Shinespark out of the building. "I must have thousands of years of world history to learn. At the very least, I should know who you and this armor are. Valey was more concerned with being glad to see me again than telling me things I didn't immediately need to know."

Shinespark nodded. "All your friends are something special, some for different reasons than others. Maple and Slipstream left comfortable, ordinary lives to heed the call of adventure. Gerardo, I still don't know what his story is, but he's definitely got one. I'm sure everyone would appreciate if you asked to get to know them, too. As for me..." She sighed, making it outside the building and walking around to the back side, where the town's sprawl was stopped by the winding river and farms and countryside spread into the distance. "Let me tell you about Braen."

Nyala listened as Shinespark recounted the armor's origin and gradual improvement, Arambai's involvement and her own role masquerading as a mysterious armored knight who led the Spirit of Sosa. It wasn't a full retelling of her story, because that would have taken days, but Nyala still brightened when Braen stormed the Defense Force base to try to rescue Maple and Starlight, and shrank when Braen finally met her end when Shinespark reclaimed her cutie mark atop the collapsing dam.

"I see," Nyala said eventually. "So it was you, only... like me, as well."

"I still stay up wondering what to think of it," Shinespark admitted. "Exactly how much Braen and I were the same. We did experiments and everything, and we always were linked in what we wanted and other things. I learned to control her, somewhat, by wearing my heart on my sleeve... If there was something I felt strongly about, she felt about it too. But when I feel strongly about something I can change, I act on it myself... She just had greater freedom to do so because she wasn't a princess in an industrial society, so maybe I wasn't so much controlling or influencing her as I was both of us at once. I guess I'll never figure out whether she was a puppet, or a clone, or we were somehow two halves of the same pony..." She sighed. "Either way, we're back together now. I'm whole again. So, don't lose heart, or anything."

"I wasn't!" Nyala promised. "I just... wonder how it works. Why do you get to keep your body when your cutie mark is removed? You said you still felt and acted like you and everything. I wonder if my old body would even remember me."

Shinespark shrugged. "My cutie mark came back to me the instant I freed it from the armor. It remembered."

"Yeah, but..." Nyala hesitated. "You were still you, somehow, and I'm supposedly some mean scientist now. Why am I different? Or... is it you who's different, or me?"

Shinespark grimaced. "I wish I could help you, but that's something I'd have to research to find out. We were always more interested in the applications of a cutie mark once it was out than what happened when you took it out of ponies. Experimenting on myself was one thing, but that's not something you want to subject others to, you know?"

Nyala hung her head. "Yeah. Especially if it can do things like what happened to me."

Shinespark opened her mouth to reply... but before she could, Valey bustled around the corner, looking thoroughly wound up. "Arrrrrgh!" she moaned, wings spread, flopping face-down on the wet grass. "Bananaaaas..."

"Valey!" Shinespark jumped to her hooves, moving to Valey's side and putting an unsure hoof on her shoulder blades. "Are you okay?"

"We're not going back there," Valey growled into the grass, trying to drain her tension. "Bananas, I feel awkward. Whatever you want to investigate, we can do it another way. I wish Amber was here..."

"Amber?" Shinespark frowned. "What happened? You were just trying to see Crystal, right? Was it a bad experience?"

"You think?" Nyala deadpanned, kneeling slowly to make sure she didn't fall over. "I'm guessing we should go back to the ship, then."

"No," Valey grunted, wings still twitching. "I need to cool my head a bit. She... argh."

"Valey?" Shinespark frowned in concern.

Valey gave a massive huff. "I go in there. She's doing nothing. Doesn't care about anything, no motivation, I can do whatever I want, blah blah blah. Real nice and helpless. She's also showing off that cute dress all the maids have, and her legs, and bananas, even though she's way older than me they're some nice legs. And then I dunno if she notices I'm there because of her or that I'm looking or that I don't wanna leave or what, but she gets up and starts exercising of all things in the dress while continuing to be a massive pity-me doormat and blurrrrrgh..."

She planted her face in the grass again. "Eventually I've completely forgotten what I was there for and she finally tells me to get lost, that she's not looking and that she's pregnant. She was turning me on while... I've never fallen into a trap so hard in my life! She read me like a book and I got ridiculously baited! At least I think I made a cool exit and got in the last word, but bananas, I feel like I'd get less abused talking to the windigo than her. And the worst part is, not only do I feel super awkward now for thinking about a mom like that but I can't even stop thinking about her! I've been being a perfect gentlemare for so long and then she taunts me and she was so hooooot..."

Shinespark nodded in sympathy, telekinetically hauling Valey to her hooves. "Note to Amber, you're high-strung, like needy mares and respond well to bait. Would it help to think about something else? Like, did you find out anything at all about Chauncey?"

"Who's Amber?" Nyala asked, tilting her head.

Valey groaned and mumbled something unintelligible. "Please put me down. I'm trying to cool off..."

"Oh!" Shinespark gently dropped her. "Sorry."

"Mrmmph." Valey rolled over in the wet grass. "Chauncey? Never came up. I don't think we got beyond 'Hey, can we talk?' 'Hey, why are you such a wet blanket?' and 'Hey, you're kinda turning me on, here.'"

Shinespark sighed. "Well, I guess that didn't go well, then. Anything you want to do next?"

"Definitely not crawl around a stuffy science lab..." Valey whimpered. "I need to repair my ego. Bananas, Ironflanks made dealing with pushy basket cases like me look so easy! Why is it me who walks into the traps?"

"Maybe because she doesn't get distracted?" Shinespark frowned. "You look pretty distracted right now."

"Ya think?" Valey growled.

"We could always ask Maple to talk to her, instead," Nyala offered helpfully, leaning in.

Valey winced. "No! No way. Ironflanks is on vacation and I can basically guarantee this hag will stress her out. She doesn't want to be helped, and Ironflanks would take it way too personally and never rest again. And, like, call me paranoid or having a backlash but Crystal was mean enough I don't even know if she'd be a good guy if she came out of her room. Beats me what her deal is."

"She seemed nice enough when Meyneth was with her earlier," Nyala countered.

"Yup. Sure did." Valey's wings were limp by now, but she hadn't re-folded them. "How she was when I went in there at first, too. 'Oh, you can do anything you want to my stuff, I have no attachment to them whatsoever, you don't have to worry about what I want, I'm just a hot little blah blah blah blah blah...' I told you, I got chumped. Go talk to her yourselves if you like."

"...I think I'll pass," Shinespark replied. "We've got plenty of other leads to follow, and we don't even know what we're looking for. Think you're ready to go?"

"Meh." Valey lay chin-down in the grass.

A silence followed from there, with Nyala giving the closest thing her metallic face could manage to a wistful look. "Do the raindrops on the grass feel nice?"

Valey opened her eyes. "Huh?"

"The rain, in the grass." Nyala pointed a hoof. "I... I can't feel things like that, but I can remember some of them. I don't think I've ever laid in grass before, but I know what the rain feels like against my face. I was thinking about that while we were in the storm earlier."

Valey's ears folded.

"It's not like I remember," Nyala went on. "Just that I can imagine it, even though I don't have a face. It feels nice, doesn't it?"

"...Rain was pretty rare in Icereach," Valey finally sighed. "It mostly snowed or did nothing at all. Only rained for maybe a few storms a year, and usually from the light clouds that followed after the brunt of the storm had gone past. There, rain on your face meant you'd just been weathering high winds in a cave underground, and now everyone was coming out to face the world again. You, uh... really enjoyed showing it to me, one time."

"Only one time." It wasn't a question so much as acceptance. "I would have figured we'd do something like that whenever we could. It sounds like it was special."

"To me, yeah." Valey stretched, flexed, and got up, finally shaking out and folding her wings. "You remember all that, huh? Despite being stuck in moon glass for ages, you know what it's like to do all that stuff?"

Nyala half-nodded. "Like I said, I can imagine it. I can... think what having a body like yours would feel like. It just seems like it would feel right."

"...Huh." Valey started trotting back around the mansion, aiming toward the commerce building. "Yeah, well, consider my head cleared. Bananas, now I'm cold. Let's get back to the ship, or something."

Comments

[Venlinelle]

Valey, you really need to make out with Shinespark before you explode.

[sploopy slooder]

valeys been saying "bananas" WAY to often in the last few chapters. like ever other sentence. its like some shitty ass catchphrase.