Chapter 14: Unified Standard
The night passed without much incident. Captain Lodestone didn’t try anything with her, and she managed to resist whatever instinctive part of herself wanted to get closer to him in return. The only strange thing about the experience was her dreams, which seemed quite unfamiliar to her. She’d never seen so many ponies in armor in her life. But Hayden dismissed it as a dream brought on by her work, and woke at first light along with the captain.
He filled their canteens by squeezing out the cloud, before swearing under his breath and apologizing that he hadn’t realized their cloud was drifting. “Still, it’s only another few hours added to the trip. We’ll be there by lunchtime.”
And they were. Hayden could see what would probably become the camp long before they reached it—there were roads up here, stretching from east to west more than north to south. “What’s keeping the snow off all those roads?” Hayden asked, as the first one came into view. Over ten feet of accumulation surrounded the road on either side, which had become more of a tunnel than a simple passage.
“Magic,” Lodestone answered. “Cast on the stones. Keeps the snow from sticking to it, blows it off. Still have to do maintenance—it’s getting close in places that we have to worry about a collapse. That much will overwhelm the magic.”
“Woah.” The fort itself came into view shortly after—the fort and the wall that went with it. Not nearly as impressive as in Game of Thrones—it was no icy mountain hundreds of miles long, so much as an old stone structure about twenty feet high, though it seemed to line the northern border in a very similar way.
The camp itself was just as impressive—mathematical rows of identical buildings, regular paths between them. Beyond the fort’s own wooden walls were a few scraggly looking fields of strange white-leaved plants, which seemed to be struggling to survive out in the snow. Kind of amazing they’re still alive at all.
She didn’t ask about that, but she discovered the answer quickly enough anyway. As they angled down for a landing, she felt them pass through several layers of warmer air, as though descending through an invisible onion. By the time they were getting close and Hayden was beating her wings desperately to try and land, she was uncomfortably warm in her winter coats.
There were soldier ponies everywhere. Many of them wore guard armor, just as their captain, though many more were in simple brown vests, with identical signifiers but none of the weight of metal armor. Captain Lodestone took them down near the front of the fort, where two dozen ponies had gathered as they flew in for a landing and rose to attention as they touched down.
Well Captain Lodestone touched down elegantly, anyway. Hayden landed going too fast, tumbled head-over-ass, and only came to a stop after several embarrassing seconds of rolling. She rose as quickly as she could, testing her strained limbs. It didn’t feel like anything was broken—a small miracle, or a testament to just how strong these bodies could be.
That didn’t do anything for the shame and embarrassment, unfortunately. She could hear laughter, and plenty more soldiers resisting the urge to laugh. “It’s okay, you can go ahead and laugh,” she said to the nearest line of gruff-looking earth ponies, where at least two of the soldiers were obviously fighting to keep silent. “I would.”
Despite her apparent permission, the sound abruptly died. There were only stares as Lodestone looked over. “Is everything alright, Lady Star?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I don’t get out much. You can tell.”
“Nonsense.” The captain snapped one of his hooves down, and immediately the ponies throughout the courtyard rose to attention. “This is Lady Evening Star,” he called, loudly enough that all the silent watching ponies would be able to hear him clearly. “She’s the reason we’ve had such a good season. The reason our doctors are treating sprained ankles and ingrown hooves. Princess Luna sent her personally—her most skilled artificer. You will treat her with the proper respect while she’s visiting Defiance, is that clear?”
“Yes sir!” shouted a thousand voices from all around her. It was so loud, so abrupt, she almost fell over again. Hayden had seen footage of military parades in North Korea and such places, but to hear all that energy in person…
“Good.” Lodestone turned back to face her again. “I’m afraid my responsibilities call me to service, Lady.” Even as he stood there, a pony came galloping up—a bright green earth pony with urgency on her face and a pile of books as her cutie mark. “I’ve assigned our quartermaster Unified Standard to you for the duration of your visit. If there is anything you need, tell her, and I’m certain she will treat your requests with all the diligence she would my own.”
“Of course, sir,” she said. Unified Standard came to a stop panting and out of breath—visual evidence that not every pony in the military was equally fit. She was on the pudgier side, just not so much that she couldn’t fit into her uniform. “Lady Evening Star, if you would come with me? The sooner we… get you situated… the sooner we can get started.”
“Sure.” Hayden nodded politely, and Standard led her away from the courtyard. By then the soldiers had long since stopped laughing, though many of them still stared. She wasn’t sure she liked the expressions in their eyes. But would I have minded if Lodestone looked at me that way?
Defiance was a tent city, but not in the way she was used to the term. These tents were sturdy structures unto themselves, many of which were two stories of thick cloth. There was no need to insulate for the cold weather—the cold had no way of penetrating the camp. But there were a few stone structures for the upper officers, and it was there Hayden’s quarters would be located for the duration of her inspection.
“It’s about time they untie Luna’s hooves,” Standard muttered as they walked. Hayden couldn’t quite tell if the mare was talking to her or else just muttering to herself as she walked. “Small wonder Equestria hasn’t torn itself apart with Celestia administering it. Completely unconcerned with what matters…”
“That’s why there are two princesses,” Hayden offered. “They can oversee different things. Individual focus when it’s needed.”
They stopped at the door to Hayden’s small room. From the look of the other open doors, it was larger than the officers here got, but not by much. The bed was bigger, and there was enough floorspace for a large desk and work area, but other than that there was just a narrow alley to access either one. The stone was thick, and the window barely a slit. Either for arrows or built before there were pegasi to keep it warm. She had no way of knowing which.
“The noble ideal,” Standard said dismissively. “No duty is less important than any other. We’re all doing our part to build a harmonious Equestria just by doing the best job we can where we are. We’ve all heard that.” She waved one hoof with obvious frustration. “Yet how many needless losses have we suffered because we didn’t have enough blankets or enough doctors?”
“I-I…” Hayden just stood in the doorway, opening her mouth to answer but unable to produce a response.
Standard didn’t wait for her. “Since I started serving here, thirteen-hundred ninety-five. Exactly. Oh, up in Harmony they’re just bits and gold. But out here? Those are ponies’ lives. Ponies who could’ve held spears the day the Griffons come back.”
“Don’t you think Princess Luna understands that? That’s why I’m here. These innovations go to you first, not the cities.” She wasn’t going to mention that she hadn’t even thought of testing them in a military base. Standard didn’t need to know that. “Water sanitation is just the beginning, Unified Standard. I mean to change the world.”
The earth pony stopped, looking her over with a mixture of mild confusion and contempt. “You mean Luna does, right?”
She shrugged. “Princess Luna wants the best for you, as I said. That’s why she sent me.” She made her way to the end of the room, peeking out the open window. There was an impressive view out there—not just endless snow, but an ocean inlet, only partially iced over. A distant beach, and far across the half-frozen water, a tiny desolate island peeking up from the waves.
I’ve seen that view before, she thought, staring out the window with sudden intent. What the hell was she seeing that the island looked familiar to her?
The quartermaster grunted. “Is something wrong with the view, ‘Lady’?”
“No.” Hayden straightened, quickly turning back to face her, and tossing her saddlebags onto the bed. That mystery would just have to wait for another time. “It just looks familiar, is all.”
Standard laughed bitterly. “Must be your imagination, noble lady. No civilian has ever been up here. The army owns the whole island and all the surrounded territory. Celestia’s generosity on proud display out there, giving us a frozen rock!”
The longer she spent with this pony, the less Hayden liked her. You’re not like the captain at all, are you? He didn’t like nobility coming here, but at least he gave me a chance. She almost said something extremely stupid, like pointing out the two tours she’d served in Afghanistan. Bet I’ve seen things that would make you ponies shit yourselves. But Hayden didn’t much want to think about those things either, and letting ponies like this know inconsistent details about her past was exactly the sort of mistake Luna would be afraid of.
“Lots of pine trees out there,” Hayden said instead, after taking a deep breath and cooling herself off. “Can build a lot with pine. Easy to work.”
Standard laughed again, even more bitterly than before. “Working requires tools, noble lady. Notice how we’re all living in thousand-patched tents? Bricks require mortar, and the crown’s provisioners refuse to send lime. Cutting down trees takes a saw, then many hours of work nopony has the energy to do because we’re on the edge of starvation.” She raised a hoof. “And don’t you even say that we have earth ponies and pegasi and we should be able to grow our own. All the magic in the world couldn’t make grain grow in the acidic soil we’re living in. The only reason Icefalls has any farms at all is Princess Luna’s magic, and it doesn’t reach this far. If it weren’t for the measly carts of potatoes…” She seemed to realize she’d been shouting, possibly because several ponies from down the hall had peeked in to stare at them.
She blushed, ears flattening, and she lowered her head in a forced bow. “Forgive me, Lady Star. It isn’t my place to complain. It is no fault of yours that all the crown could give us in such desperate straits is some tinkerer who would give us all more work to do digging latrines and hiking out into the snow to piss every night.”
Hayden thought she did a good job not showing anger at the remarks. After all, she hadn’t caused any of the problems these ponies were suffering. There was no reason for her to feel guilty about bad things she hadn’t even known about. If Luna was better at her princessly duties, if she wasn’t constantly overwhelmed in Harmony, maybe she could’ve dealt with these issues. But Hayden suspected she knew, and didn’t have the resources. All the forts in Equestria are probably like this. Ponies don’t care about maintaining their army until the next war comes around. I wonder why they don’t all just desert.
“I am not a ‘tinkerer,’” Hayden finally said. “I’m an architect. Or a general contractor, if you prefer. General Sunspot sent me out here to help deal with all your concerns, not just getting sick. From what I’ve seen so far, you’ve all done an admirable job with water sanitation… that’s a great first step. But I’m not just here to inspect your latrines and then fly back to Harmony—that would be a waste of your time, and mine.”
She took a step closer to the quartermaster, who seemed to be too out-of-breath from her shouting to respond. “Every problem you’ve mentioned has a solution. If I’d known your condition was so serious…” If she’d known she would be abducted during her backpacking, she probably would’ve stayed in the city. But she also could’ve loaded up on references materials! “Well, there’s much we can do if your ponies are willing to work. It sounds like food is the most immediate concern. So, let’s get the inspection of your water practices out of the way, then we can talk about quarrying limestone.”
And indeed, little time was required for her inspections. While the fort lacked the resources to build anything approximating a plumbing system, it had relocated all the associated functions outside the border of the camp, except for a single location reserved “in the event of attack or emergency”. The source of Standard’s resentment was immediately obvious then, and perhaps the other soldiers as well. Adding a half-mile hike to any use of the privy was a tough thing to ask, as she learned herself the next time she needed to use it. It worked. They’re not getting dysentery. She probably should’ve been afraid that such a disease even existed in Equestria, given how different it was in other ways. So many similarities. Even geographical. Star Swirl better be wrong about what Earth is. It’s a real place! I know my memories are real.
There were more important things to worry about than just an unpleasant walk into the cold in the middle of the night when soldiers needed to use the facilities. Food was still spoiling, and more than that there just wasn’t enough of it despite the contributions of “earth pony magic.” The supply problem was a little more long-term, but she discovered the solution to the storage problem in just a few hours, when Standard gave her a tour of the granary. The whole facility was underground below the castle that formed the officer’s building.
“And that’s exactly the problem. You said the winter up here goes on forever without pegasus ponies to get rid of it, right? So why aren’t we taking advantage of the cold to keep everything from spoiling?” The answer seemed obvious to Standard and the other officers—if all the fort’s food was stored somewhere else, then that somewhere else became an easy target in any future attack.
They found an immediate compromise. Unfortunately, it would involve an incredible amount of work, work soldiers would have to do without enough food in their bellies. She brought her proposal to Captain Lodestone the very night of her arrival, during dinner in the officer’s mess. Despite what he’d said on the trip up, he offered her a plate of apparently fresh fruits and vegetables like the other officers were eating, not moldy potatoes and gruel. “Wait…” One of the other officers stared down at her quick sketch. “You want us to excavate a dozen feet into the rock behind the back of the granary? Are we finally expecting adequate provision from Harmony?”
“No,” she admitted. “I’m not part of those decisions. This space is for refectory brick, and a layer of insulation, then another layer of brick. And that separate access… those are for ice-carts.”
“I don’t understand,” Lodestone said. “Why would we keep carts in a granary?”
Unified Standard rolled her eyes. “It’s true the cold can keep off decay—this isn’t new information. We’ve just been waiting for the crown’s enchanters to start casting preservation spells on the grain they send, like they promise. You can see how far that got us.”
“It’s a simple proposal, really,” Hayden continued, finishing off her plate. It was obvious what they were serving her was quite expensive, considering how little had been on even the general’s plate, so she didn’t ask for seconds. “We’ll build a dozen sledges… exactly like this. See the big, open trays? We fill those with water, then leave them out beyond the fort. They’ll freeze, and we take them in this new ramp in the back of the granary. We seal the place up, only open it once a day to remove the day’s ration. Under those conditions, and with the insulation I propose… we should only need to rotate the sledges every few weeks. You’ve got a river, and the cold is free…”
“The cold is free,” captain Lodestone repeated. “But masons aren’t. Do we have the supplies to create this, Lieutenant Standard?”
She shook her head. “No, sir. The labor would be trivial—I know plenty of ponies who would be happy to have something useful to do. Unfortunately, we don’t have the skills to make any of this. No masons, no bricks, and the straw she wants to use for insulation was meant to be eaten. I just don’t see how we could do it. I already told her so. She shouldn’t have wasted your time, sir.”
More eyes on her. Hayden didn’t even blush. “I have all the requisite skills,” she said, sitting up a little straighter in her seat. “Bricks, mortar, woodworking. If no pony in Defiance can do them, I’ll teach them.”
“You can’t make bricks from thin air,” Standard argued, glaring at her across the table.
“No. I’ll fire them from clay, the way bricks are made. And I’ll make mortar from limestone…” She looked away from the contentious mare. “Captain, I know the land around us seems desolate, but it contains everything we need. The skills your ponies would need are not difficult to teach. Making our own raw materials will be… time consuming, but it seems to me all your ponies have is time. Aside from those running patrols of the border, everypony here just looks bored. Perhaps it’s time to give them something productive to do?”
“How long…” Lodestone began, before taking a deep breath and starting again. “How long do you intend to remain here, Lady Star? Long enough to give us a list of demands?”
“Long enough to take responsibility if I’m wrong,” she answered. Honestly, I think the longer I’m out of the castle, the better. “If you give me the chance. Please—you ponies aren’t the only ones who are suffering. General Sunspot explained that Defiance was a typical fort in Equestria. Somepony must be the one to try these changes first. My first suggestions worked, didn’t they? Imagine how much better we can make the lives of Defiance’s ponies.”
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I kind of hope Hayden sends word to Luna of Standard's grumbling. It's... technically praise. Definitely a case of a pony who prefers Luna to Celestia.
Operation: Self-Sufficiency certainly seems promising. Now to see if it will work. And what lasting impact it will have on Defiance. I can see a few ponies here thinking that if they don't need the capital, then why should they defend it? And there's always the chance that Celestia might see this as an attempt at an insurrection...
We'll see how it goes. Despite my doomsaying, I have a good feeling about this.
Could this be the start of the Luna republic
I admit that is the kind of thing I want to see happen as normally in the stories like this history doesn't really get changed, Luna still goes nightmare moon, gets sealed and so on. I'm hoping that it happens differently in this one and this chapter does seem to show the starting of changes which I hope continue
8510527
I'm hoping everything works out, too.
8510668
I don't want Luna to be sealed, either. I really hope the alternate universe tag implies she remains Luna.
Oh my goodness, she's seeing the captain's dreams just by sleeping next to him. I wonder if the captain saw any of her dreams, and if a similar connection had anything to do with what happened last time.
8510890
Maybe she wasn't just taking on his dreams, but possibly the dreams of other soldier ponies. It's possible she is becoming attuned with the Military type of ponies. At least that's my theory.
Now all I have to do is wait for a new chapter @.@
Frankly, I kind of expect Celestia to kill Hayden causing Luna to go nuts. Or some idiot feels their power base is threatened and assassinates her.
Standard is complaining about the long walk to the new latrines, and has allegedly been keeping very close track of casualties at the fort. I guess she's too dismissive of the changes to notice the abnormally low sickness rates that has the commander ecstatic. Skepticism is one thing but she's dragging her hooves really hard and I hope Hayden calls her on it. Probably in private, though, instead of in front of the commander or in public.
Well, perhaps that's unfair. She's fighting it hard but "dragging her hooves" is yet unproven. After all, the latrines did get implemented. We'll see whether she supports the project, despite her pessimism, or tries to undermine it.
Minor word issue?
Straw generally has rather low nutritional value and is used for animal bedding.
Hay is dried cut grass used as feed for grazing animals.
Unless things are different in Equestria, or if the government is REALLY screwing over the military, they shouldn't be using straw for food.
8511324
"hay fries" are a staple of fast food in modern Equestria. I would assume "Hay" is different in equestria and holds more nutrients and substance before cut and dried. After dried it would lose the nutrients but I think it keep much more. That, or the Equestrian government really is ROYALLY screwing them over.
8511719
Or the key part is 'fries'.
Over half the energy in fried carbs is absorbed fat often.
8512159
Well they had to start somewhere, just like our potato fries. We didn't just suddenly start frying potatoes when we first found them.
Edit: And I also completely misread what the guy was saying
8511228
She is probably just feeling angry and lashing out at someone she feels she can blame even slightly minor issues/annoyances. if Haydren's ideas keep working but she keeps being this way then its a problem.
Things are getting more interesting.
Nice!
Save the troops!
Whoop !