The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

The Temple Gates

Starlight stumbled, tripping over herself as she tried to get anywhere but where she was. It wasn't safe there. A stone archway passed overhead, and her friends' voices distantly registered in her ears, but it was too much. Ponies that were staring? Magic reacting to her alone? Cutie marks? She wasn't thinking, but she needed to think, but to do that she had to get somewhere else. Panic rang in her ears, she couldn't look where she was going-

POOOF!

Her entire body fuzzed, and Starlight shivered so hard she tripped, bowling head over tail until she crashed into something hard and metal.

Momentum gone, she was on her back, thoughts swimming too hard to make out anything more than the vein of treacherous blue that had snagged her. Her stomach hurt from rolling, her head hurt from the crash, and her ears told her she become even more the center of attention.

Sarosians, adults and elders alike, stood around her at a respectful distance, though still too close for her liking. Most were cooing. None sounded mad. Starlight's fur was standing even straighter and more charged than it had when Maple trod on the vein; she knew she looked ridiculous. So, all her coping mechanisms having failed her and with no way to disappear, she lay back down and quit.

More batpony chittering sounded in her ears, but there was nothing she could do. She wasn't sure what she had landed against, and didn't look. All she could do was pretend to be dead and hope the world passed on by...

"Starlight!"

Her friends were here. They could fix things. Starlight heard pounding hooves... and then drawn-up stops and gasps.

She lifted an eyelid, fur tingling with static, and saw that some of the attention had turned to Maple, Valey and Gerardo. The batponies were looking at them, but they were looking above her...

Starlight rolled, suddenly feeling like she needed to see what she had landed against.

It was metal, quadrupedal and huge, stationary and immobile where it stood. Proportioned like an alicorn, it had folded metal wings so big they couldn't close at its sides, yet clearly wasn't a pony. Black and silver plating covered its form, and from the construction of its joints, she had a feeling it was supposed to move.

"What's that?" Starlight asked, poofed fur almost forgotten as she crawled on her back away from the thing, trying to look up at a better angle.

Maple caught her, clearly more worried about Starlight than the metal effigy. "Why did you run away like that!?"

A pang of unease wormed quickly back into Starlight's heart. "Mmph," she mumbled, hiding her face in Maple's chest. "I want to go back to the boat."

Talking briefly surged among the batponies, and some started trying to shepherd others away from the scene. A robed stallion pointed toward a bench near the side of this plaza, and Maple returned a thankful nod. Starlight was quickly picked up and carried there.

"Are you alright?" Maple whispered, setting Starlight on the bench and sitting in front of her to block most of her view of the plaza. "Here. What can I get you?"

Starlight looked at the ground, senses starting to return along with a wave of embarrassment. She couldn't be freaking out like this in new places. What if her friends were in danger and it would make her unable to protect them?

She swallowed. "I'm fine. I need some time."

Maple silently nodded, reading her mind and staying right where she was. Slowly, Starlight pieced herself back together. She had already made the decision long ago that she would get a cutie mark if it would help protect her friends. Being better than others or somehow special was worth it in the same conditions. Just because things reminded her of her old fears, especially when they reminded her of her old fears, she needed to remember that she wasn't scared of that anymore. She wasn't. She had grown and gotten better for her friends. She was better than this because she needed to be...

"I'm fine," Starlight mumbled, releasing a deep breath. "I just forgot when I was and got scared."

"Are you too high-strung?" Maple brushed her mane with a hoof, trying to calm some of its magical frizziness. "I wish we lived a less-stressful life..."

"Mmph." Starlight closed her eyes and focused on breathing, trying as hard as possible to relax. She was going before the Monk Lords soon, after all. Whatever happened there, she knew her friends would need her at her best, so at her best she would be.

Soon, as the plaza and her thoughts quieted, she began to make out Valey and Gerardo talking. "Yeah, we're from Ironridge," Valey was saying. "Only a world and a half away. At least, I am. Birdo here's from all over."

"That's an apt way of putting it," Gerardo agreed. "We've heard you don't get travelers often."

"Not for years," a dignified, heavily-accented mare's voice rasped. "You must have stories."

"Indeed we do," Gerardo chuckled. "I can't imagine information from abroad is too free-flowing out in these mountains."

More voices chittered, and the first mare translated, "The Night Mother keeps us appraised of anything major. I'm more interested in what in the world could have led travelers here again."

"Adventure, I guess?" Valey said. "And we wanted a chat with the high council, or whatever they're called. This seems like a cool place, though. Normally everywhere we go there's guards or political jerks, but here we've actually been treated decently for a change."

The mare sounded grateful. "I'm glad you're not finding our hospitality wanting."

Starlight found herself wondering if this was really the same civilization that patrolled the Empire's waters with ruthless pirates, but her friends didn't act too bothered. "So what's the deal with that statue?" Gerardo asked, pointing from the edge of Starlight's vision. "Seems a bit of a clash in architectural style with the rest of this place. Does it have a purpose?"

"What, this ugly thing?" the mare asked. "It's a long story, and by that I mean it has no story. It showed up a few years ago with the council saying it was a gift from the Night Mother, but the thing looks like something out of a book for teenage colts and no one can decide where to put it. If you ask me, some wealthy patron they can't afford to offend donated it as a prank, even though they all know it's hideous. So it gets moved around a lot, and there's something of a guessing game as to where they'll put it next... Every society has their oddities."

Starlight couldn't help herself and peeked. Maple had been blocking her view of the effigy, but from this far back she could see it clearly. It stood four times as tall as an adult at its back, plated with black and silver metal that looked halfway between armor and a striped fashion statement. The head and the wings were draconic, and she realized the hooves were actually claws: it was a pony-shaped metal dragon. She had read about dragons in Equestria, in the books she and Sunburst used to share. This one looked far more equine than the ones she was used to, but it was undeniably what it was.

Only one feature gave her pause: the tail. Short, wide and growing wider as it went out, it looked like a barrel that had exploded, or a massive drill. Concentric rings of metal surrounded a dim, midnight-blue crystalline core... Starlight realized with a shudder that, adjusting for the presence of color, the tail was exactly the same as she had seen on the mechanical monstrosity in Yanavan's dream.

She had an unsettling fear that this metal dragon could move, and a pony was supposed to wear it.

"Ah-ha!" Jaxy's loud voice interrupted her thoughts, the armor-coated stallion striding out from another archway. "I see you're enjoying our capitol's most magnificent sights. A true favorite of mine, this one." He marched straight up to Valey and Gerardo, wings folded, giving the metal dragon an appreciative look. "Really, they ought to put this where more of the population can enjoy it, but I digress. The council wishes to meet with you immediately, my good travelers!"

The mare who had been translating gave him an uncultured look, turning to leave and taking most of the other onlookers with her.

"Yep." Valey squared her shoulders. "Cool, I guess break's over. I'll go get Felicity. She stayed in the other room."

Starlight climbed on Maple's back as her mother returned to Gerardo and Jaxy. "How much further is it?" Maple asked. "I know one of our friends is having issues with the stairs, so if it's much higher..."

"Not long, not long," Jaxy promised with a wave. Leaning closer, he whispered, "They've sent an armed and capable squadron down to your ship who should be able to safely bring the prisoner up to the council chamber for them to do their thing. This is in our hooves now, so you all just sit back and enjoy the show."

Valey and Felicity caught up, and Jaxy led on, his words ringing in Starlight's ears. The sarosians were taking care of things. Yanavan might still be a problem, but they were accepting responsibility for things. Somehow, for once, all the major things in her life were as good as she had ever asked for.

But there were still little things that bothered her around the edges. She had no new ideas on how Gerardo's sword had somehow become hers, and the similarity between the tails of the metal dragon and the nightmare machine in her dream was eerie at best. She couldn't shake her last conversation with Glimmer, either, where she had been begged to return to normal before she was tempted to become any more acquainted with the Nightmare Modules. What would she have used them for if she had stayed gray? When was she next going to regret not having them? Aside from her shadow cloak right then, when she was being stared at...

Her shadow cloak. That was how she was thinking about it already. Starlight swallowed, letting Maple carry her on.

"Well? Here we are, then," Jaxy declared after only one more flight of stairs. This plaza wasn't open to any cliffs, though the stars did shine above, its floor built into a steep recess between twin peaks of the mountain. It was like being at the bottom of a giant hole, only far more open, the circular floor ringed with statues of noble-looking batponies carved into the walls. Another entrance pierced the mountain directly across from her, and it looked to be the final one.

Comments

[MazingerZ]

The metal dragon is a mecha?

[Phoenix Kitten]

I love the idea of the Sarosian's hanging out in a bar or something, discussing where the statue ended up, and taking bets on where it goes next.