Sunflowers
“Paradox!”
At the sound of her name, the young mare froze in place, and Sundance saw what might have been panic in her eyes. Princess Celestia moved with smooth grace and before poor Paradox could protest, the big mare wrapped her wings around the smaller young mare and hugged her. Sundance could sense that there was history here, another one of Princess Celestia’s ‘projects’ perhaps. Princess Celestia’s affection was evident for all to see, and after almost smothering the stammering young mare, the princess pulled back and allowed the frazzled unicorn a chance to recover.
“How are your studies, Paradox?”
“I’ve been busy… so busy. Haven’t had time. Fallen behind—”
“Paradox… take a deep breath. Come on. Deep breaths. Be calm. I sent you here to get you away from your studies. There is more to life than books. How does it feel, having duties?”
“It feels great!” Paradox blurted out. “Being needed… it’s all I’ve ever wanted, but I didn’t know I wanted it. I like having a routine… keeping the fires lit and acting as the community wizard, it is immensely gratifying. Satisfying? You were right about everything. Well, maybe not everything, this place is the source of all my mother’s problems, and I think about that a lot, but I also think about fixing this place so that what happened to her never happens again. It’s kinda… empowering? But it also leaves me feeling scared and insecure.”
“Paradox, dear, remember to breathe.”
“Breathing is hard, I forget sometimes.”
“I know.” A soft, reassuring smile could now be seen on Princess Celestia’s muzzle.
“Headmistress, I have an amazing house! Will you come and see it?”
“Of course. When I do my inspection, I shall have a look at your house, Paradox.”
“Fantastic!”
“Canterlot has been rather dull without your explosions, Paradox.” The graceful behemoth drew in a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then let it out in a slow, steady huff, perhaps as an example for the flustered young mare that had trouble remembering to breathe. Making gestures with her wings, she did it again, a slow, deliberate act, all while lowering her head to look Paradox in the eye.
“Remember, Paradox… you have all the time you need for your studies. It isn’t a race. There’s no need to hurry. Perform your duties. Once things have gone back to normal here, I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time for your studies. I’m counting on you and your breakthroughs. Equestria needs your knowledge, dear one.”
“Thank you, Headmistress.” Paradox bowed her head, but Princess Celestia placed one wing under her chin. “It means a lot that you believe in my work. Everypony else thinks I’m a crackpot. Or that I’m wasting my potential studying something that isn’t magic. I get down in the dumps, sometimes.”
“I know, Paradox.”
“You’re the best.”
“Come, sit with us. I think we can squeeze you in at our table. Luna will want to speak with you and catch up.”
“I’d like that… I miss my equinities teacher...”
Lunch, it seemed, would take a while longer. Sundance, who was nervous for reasons he could not fathom, couldn’t keep up with everything going on around him. Paradox and Princess Luna were discussing plays, music, concerts, and artsy stuff—a subject that he realised he knew very little about. Princess Celestia was mostly quiet, listening to Commander Humblewood’s rather terse report. The older foals had scattered for the time being, because they wanted to play rather than listen to boring adult conversation, and who could blame them?
Hailstone meanwhile, kept watch over her slumbering siblings, Steadfast and Aurora.
Prince Gosling was chatting with his assistants, Beans and Toast, two of the stuffiest, most uptight, starchiest ponies that Sundance had ever met. They were planning something, but Sundance wasn’t paying enough attention to the conversation to determine what it was. Whatever it was, it was terrifically boring, and it might have had something to do with taxes.
There was a light tap on his withers, a soft touch, and then the unicorn beside him said, “We’ve been introduced, but we really haven’t met. I’m Moon Rose, Luna’s apprentice.”
Sundance found himself inexplicably tongue-tied.
“You seem nervous,” Moon Rose said while she withdrew her hoof from Sundance’s withers. “Forgive me for stating the obvious. I tend to do that.”
The young mare beside him leaned in close, which caused Sundance’s pulse to quicken. It wasn’t that he found her attractive, but rather, that he was overwhelmed. Though, she was pretty in some vague, undefined way. She was young-ish, though he couldn’t determine her exact age. Something about her made him think of Eventide, and this caused him to squirm.
“You don’t know me, but I know you. I’ve seen your dreams. Been cataloguing your various interests as a project lesson. Mistress Luna wants a detailed profile of you.”
These words made Sundance’s breath catch in his throat, and there was a deep, gruff squeak.
“That… that didn’t go as planned. I’m no good at the small talk stuff, or striking up a conversation. The more I dabble into dreams, the harder it becomes for me to handle the waking world. When I was a filly, why, I could talk somepony’s ear off. Well, once I got over my initial shyness. But now… everything is weird now, because I know what’s inside ponies’ heads.”
“Is there anything disturbing about me that I might not be aware of?” he dared ask.
“You sure do dream an awful lot about sunflowers,” she replied.
Breathing became a little easier for Sundance.
“We’re pioneering new fields of psychology,” Moon Rose said in a dry, scholarly manner. “Mistress Luna works with Princess Cadance and together, the two of them work to understand the mind. If we understand how ponies think, then we can do more to help them. To heal them. We can take broken minds and make them better.”
This sounded somewhat interesting…
“So,” he asked, “is there a ‘type’ for nobles? I mean, can you look into a pony’s mind and determine if they’d make a good baron, or baroness? Or lord or lady?”
“Well…” Moon Rose batted her eyelashes and a disturbing smile slowly spread over her muzzle. “Sadomasochism is shockingly common among successful nobles. Power play. A love of pain is especially prevalent. Which makes sense… successful nobles take their lumps. Many seem to enjoy being dominated in the bedroom after a long day of ruling over others.”
Sundance swallowed.
Hard.
“Fascinating,” he said in a voice that squeaked like a rusty hinge.
“Are you worried that you’re a sexual deviant?” she asked, point blank.
When he did not respond, she said, “Don’t worry about it. You’re fine. I might be biased though. Had to grow up fast when I did finally become Mistress Luna’s apprentice. As a filly in the dream realm, I was exposed to all kinds of kink. Which, I suppose, looking back on it all, might have been one of the reasons why Mistress Luna was hesitant to take me on as her apprentice. I was exposed to all kinds of sexual horror. Don’t feel bad for me though, I’m totally fine with it.”
“How?” he asked, hating his own inquisitiveness.
“Mistress Luna taught me how to compartmentalise my mind. There are some doors I don’t open. I have closets for things that I find upsetting. Occasionally, my master goes through and cleans out my closets for me and declutters everything so I don’t go insane.”
Twisting his head around in an owlish manner, Sundance had himself a look at Princess Luna. What fresh horror did she witness on a nightly basis? How did she bear it? What stark terror did she observe in the minds of hooligans and deviants? For the first time, it occurred to him that Princess Luna did a truly thankless job, a terrible, horrible, awful, no-good job, and that she was exposed nightly to all manner of mind-wrecking horror.
His mother, Officer Mom, she was exposed to the worst sorts of things. On a daily basis, his mother dealt with murders, rapes, domestic assaults, every rotten thing that could be done. But Princess Luna… she looked into the minds of the awful sorts that performed these acts. Just thinking about it made his blood run cold. His mother had turned into a hard, flinty mare because of all she’d seen, all of the awful things witnessed.
Something within him felt as though it was on the verge of breaking.
It was a struggle to draw breath now. The sheer crushing weight of it all settled upon Sundance’s withers and threatened to snap his spine. His own troubles now seemed so meaningless, so trivial. From an early age, he’d always worshipped his mother as some sort of hero because of her work. As he grew older and gained understanding into the nature of her work, that feeling of hero worship progressed steadily, until it was what it was now, which was an indescribable sort of reverence.
Which he now felt for Princess Luna.
“I cannot wait another moment,” Princess Celestia said. “Sundance, please escort me to my orchard. I simply must see it.”
Dizzy, disoriented, Sundance tried to make sense of whatever had just happened. He was no longer sitting at the table, crushed beneath the weight of his own realisations. No, at the moment, he was standing on an outcropping of rock that overlooked the ravine that sheltered his orchard. Princess Celestia’s orchard? Mere seconds before the world turned topsy-turvy, he’d heard her say, ‘my orchard.’
“What—”
“It is far too nice a day for you to begin moping over frightful realisations,” Princess Celestia said to Sundance.
“But I—”
“I have missed this place.” The princess closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and let it all out in a huff. “With the resources of this land, I made a nation. It all started here, in a sense. When I first saw this ravine, it was not so deep and broad. Erosion has shaped it, as well as the industrious labour of strong, sturdy peasants. Much can change in a thousand years.”
He realised that she was saving him from himself, and he allowed his troubling thoughts about Princess Luna to slip away. As he stood watching, she opened her eyes, and he saw that they were misty. His own emotions were a seething caldera, but he struggled to bring them back under control.
“Let me show you,” he heard her say, and once more, Sundance felt reality collapse all around him.
The orchard below was crowded with ponies of all colours and tribes. Tree limbs were heavy with a bounty of fruit. Sundance blinked, trying to recover his senses, and then he noticed the incredible change in the world all around him. He saw stone towers, stone cottages, and he could hear the steady ring of metal on metal. Sharp-eyed pegasus ponies circled overhead and peered out from the towers.
There were too many ponies to count. When he breathed in, his nose was tickled by the tang of cider, a faintly spicy smell that made his mouth water. The river that flowed along the floor of the ravine seemed swollen, almost on the verge of flooding. Waterwheels creaked as they harnessed the flow of water, turning unseen machinery inside of stone-walled mills.
This was a land of plenty…
“Not long after Nightmare Moon was banished, with my home in ruins, I headed north.” Princess Celestia struck a commanding pose. “It was a time of great upheaval. Equestria as you know it did not exist. I had the First Tribes, those that had survived Discord’s terrible reign, and the New Tribes, those that survived the Windigo Winter.
“The Everfree, cursed as it was, could not sustain us. We faced yet another exodus and we ventured forth into the vast unknown. Discord’s rule had ravaged the land. The Windigo Winter had left the weather quite hostile. These were bleak times, and it felt as though death was the only constant thing in our lives.
“Canterlot, as you know it, was still under construction. It was a fortress, a watchtower, the only thing keeping us safe from the terrible threats to the west—threats that I knew would have to be dealt with, but to do so, I would need an army. The east was no better. All manner of pony-devouring monsters roamed the east, and our only consolation was the fact that these monsters were not quite so rapacious as those to the west, which actively sought our extinction.”
A crude airship passed overhead, and Sundance stared up at it, slack-jawed.
“It was our great fortune to find this place,” Princess Celestia said, continuing her impromptu history lesson. “Sure, it smelled awful, but so did the peasants. Phew! The weather here was brutal… far, far worse than it is now, but we had steam vents and boiling hot water. Several hundred died during our very first winter. I could not save them.”
Closing her eyes once more, the princess let heave a forlorn sigh, and then her eyes fluttered open.
“You see, I was weaker then. Having just banished my sister, I was still trying to manage the heavens all by myself. It took up so much of my magic that I barely had enough to do anything else.” Again, she sighed. “With spring came hope. Work was started on this orchard. We lit beacons and kept the lights on. A flood of survivors came pouring in, those scattered from Discord’s reign, or the Windigo Winter, drawn like moths to the light.
“The second winter saw almost half our number die. Our numbers grew far too large, with far too little food. Somehow, that second winter was even worse than the first winter. A pony can only take so much loss. I was missing my sister, and with all of the death, I almost went mad with grief. Plus, there were still threats to us. When spring came, it was a relief.
“We got strong. We got resilient. An army was mustered. Every stone that we could spare was sent to Canterlot. Scouts were sent out into the wilderness to find survivors. The orchard—this orchard, was nurtured. Crops began to grow, but the soil was still badly tainted. Bad magic abounded and gave birth to monsters. The sun and moon began to behave themselves. The third winter laid siege to us, but we were defiant. There were deaths, but not as many. After that, we had enough food to send to Canterlot. An expedition was sent to recover Luna’s land to the north of Canterlot, what we now call Lulamoon Hollow, the land forever shrouded in shadow. We found powerful wizards there, Luna’s descendents. They were all too happy to join us in exchange for food. They ensured our survival.”
Princess Celestia turned about to have a look around.
“In time, this place became what you see now… a bastion of plenty. From here, we secured the Canterhorn and formed a circle of fiefdoms around it, with Canterlot as our watchtower right smack in the middle of it. Eventually, Canterlot would become our capital. Food does not grow in Canterlot though, so this place was vital to our continued existence.”
Entranced, Sundance watched everything around him, trying to take in every detail. The significance, the importance of this land was now understood, and he began to understand why watching it go to ruin pained Princess Celestia so much. She had eked out a future from this hard, stony land.
“How am I seeing this?” he asked. “Is this a dream? Am I dreaming?”
“Of a sort,” she replied. “This is a daydream. Now that Luna and I are once more in balance, our magics have merged… in a sense. It’s complicated.” Holding out her wing, she pointed. “Look, over there. In that direction. You can make out the shipyards. The land blessed us with timber, and we built a mighty fleet. With those airships, we pushed east and west, and over time, we secured our coasts.”
“Don’t airships need electricity?” he asked.
“Pegasus ponies captured lightning in jars… that was how we got electricity back in those days. Or we tapped into a sparky unicorn. Once we dominated the skies, we dominated the land, and eventually the seas. Anything that was a threat was obliterated. I held a different maxim back then… make peace or face anhilliation. Peaceful diplomacy would have to come later, after we’d pulled ourselves away from the precipice of extinction.”
Sure enough, he could see the shipyards if he peered between the tops of trees. A ship was under construction right now. A pegasus pony went whizzing by his head carrying a bucket of steaming, smelly tar. When the wind shifted, he caught a sour smell that made his mouth and eyes water.
“Vinegar,” Princess Celestia murmured. “With vinegar and underground storage, we had excellent food preservation. We pickled everything that we didn’t eat fresh. Why, we were the pickliest-eating ponies you ever did see. I hitched my future to vinegar production… a gamble. We had to sacrifice food to make vinegar, but we had to have vinegar to preserve our food. The gamble paid off.” She shook her head while clucking her tongue. “Now, we have modern refrigeration. Vinegar is, at best, a condiment. It is no longer the vital lifeblood of Equestria. But just a few generations ago…” Her words trailed off and she licked her lips.
Then, just as suddenly as it appeared, everything faded away, collapsing like sands in an hourglass.
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I think I know what Paradox's contribution will be. But she'll have to talk to Minnie Ball first. Or see how small she can rip a piece of paper.
In a den of lions we find the sheep.
I thought bureaucratic red tape was his strong suit. Unless Beans and Toast are just extremely good at making anything too dry to listen to.
9641749
It is one thing to endure bureaucratic drudgery, it is quite enough to have enthusiastic chit-chats about industrial tax policies and coercing industry to pay its fair share.
9641764
Ah I see, it is more a strong-suit of endurance, and not one of enjoyment.
Ohh... there is a ton of character info in this... rereading when I get home.
I am glad that Luna has someone who has a small idea of what she goes threw for them.
Loved this one especially. For-totally-unbiased-reasons-you-can't-prove-it. But also for his realizations.
Hmm don't know... this repetition sounds a bit off..
One thing... Luna survey of dreams is used also as a police action? I mean, dude is dreaming gory things, pony sacrifice, treason to the crown and so on, will the dude be put under quiet surveillance, arrested straight away, left completely alone?
9641895
It can, yes.
This has been brought up. The job is very difficult when dealing with millions of minds. It becomes a matter of focus.
Leyden jars, perhaps?
I'm sure Paradox could whip up something for you to take back and set off.
I know I can't be the only person I'd like to have parts of my mind decluttered.
Hopefully Luna will know the sort of reverence the Sundance now feels for her. It's good to know that you are appreciated.
Nice seeing the barony as it was. And maybe something like it will be again. Perhaps.
Oh no, it's an attractive young mare working for Luna who has been building the profile, that is far worse than Cadance.
Well, as long as they aren't a metaphor for something lewd.
History time with a mare who was there for it. Neat backstory for the barony.
9641901
Two words.
Mirror Pool
THE FUN HAS DODECADUPLED!
9642234
No. Watch the video clip. An actual glass jar with lightning inside.
Moon Rose.. wasn't she that filly that could pull nightmares into reality?
9642591
Dreams.
Nightmares are a type of dream.
The flashback sequence was delightfully vivid. And this Equestria's history intriqueing.