The River Rose

by Stosyl

X. Luna's Dream

Emerald Alembic spent the rest of the day guiding Twilight through the process of mixing potions, answering her questions about alchemy, and bonding with his new pupil. He smiled on occasion at the way things had turned: not a week before, Twilight Sparkle had been a tool, a way of earning the confidence of the Princesses, and now she was his first student.

“Is it true what you said?” Twilight asked him during their last round of experiments.

“Is what true?” said Emerald.

“Can you really use the Elements of Harmony without…I mean—without the Elements?”

Emerald chuckled.

“Well, I can’t. But the Elements aren’t the jewelry. I thought we went through that. You’re the Element of Magic as much as that crown is.”

“So it is true?”

“Yes, more or less. It’s just a matter of designing the seals to imitate the jewels.”

“How do seals work, exactly? Why do you use them in alchemy?”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were too inquisitive,” Emerald sighed. “A great stallion once said, ‘Architecture is frozen music.’ Do you know what that means?”

Twilight shook her head.

“It means that every building is a piece of music: this one a symphony, this a ballad, this a polonaise. Harmony in architecture follows the same principles of relationship as harmony in music. Well, seals are two-dimensional architecture, flattened music. They say music is the language of the soul—well, it’s certainly the language of nature.”

“I still don’t quite get it,” she laughed.

“You will,” Emerald said through a patient smile. “To drive the point home, have you noticed how certain music makes you feel balanced and happy, while other music makes you inexplicably sad?”

She said that she had. Emerald nodded approvingly.

“I once heard a piece of music,” he said, “that gave me the unbearable urge to apologize. ‘I’m sorry,’ ran through my head whenever it played. ‘So, so sorry,’ I’d whisper. ‘Please forgive me.’”

“That’s odd,” said Twilight.

“That’s how specific the language of music can be. The Elements must, in some way, respond to musical harmony, like all emotions and ideas. Certain phrases in music can invoke feelings of happiness, yes, but people ignore the fact that it can invoke other feelings and ideas. Ideas like Kindness, Loyalty, or the desire to tell the Truth.”

“You’re saying that the seal plays a song, a geometrical song, that invokes a specific idea, and unicorn magic makes that idea a reality?”

“My, but you do catch on quick, with the right nudge,” Emerald smiled. “You’re much sharper than I was at your age. But then, I haven’t been your age for a very long time.”

A flask on the table began to bubble over.

“What’s it doing, Emerald?”

“It’s normal,” he said. “That means the bramble has finally incorporated into the whitethorn. Now comes the important bit: you have to add the winter cactus juice to the foam, then combine the two mixtures. Do it now, skim the foam off.”

Twilight did as her master said, dexterously mixing ingredients, stirring, swirling, shaking, aerating, boiling and freezing the mixture until her brow was dripping with sweat and Emerald told her she was done.

“Will you tell me what it is now?” she panted.

“Certainly,” Emerald laughed. “It’s your first healing potion, just like your teacher wanted. You do remember the process, right?”

“Of course,” she said brightly. “I have a very good memory.”

“I’m sure you have,” Emerald smiled. “Now drink it. Don’t worry—” he took a sip straight from the flask—“it’s safe. This potion is especially good for the brain. It gives your mind a massive burst of energy to build strong memory paths. Tomorrow morning you’ll remember every detail of today, even things you thought you hadn’t noticed—like the birds on the walnut tree outside the window.”

Twilight glanced over at the stained glass likeness of Princess Luna. There was nothing: it blocked out every detail of the night.

“Emerald, there’s nothing there,” Twilight said sheepishly, feeling like the victim of a prank. Emerald simply smiled to one side, a condescending glint in his eyes.

“Oh, don’t worry, you’ll see them,” he said. “Call it a gift from me to you. The first step of alchemy is opening the senses. That potion will show you everything your mind tunes out, all the wonders of life that you think you’re too important to care about.”

“You’ll teach me alchemy?” Twilight said, almost shouting. She glowed with excitement.

“Not so loud!” Emerald said. “Yes, I’ll teach you your first spell in the morning. Plant magic. Remember it?”

“Of course!” she whispered quickly.

“Look forward to it. Now, drink this and off to bed with you. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Twilight sipped the bitter potion and thought twice of it. Then she gulped it down quickly without thinking. It seemed to do hurdles in her stomach, but when that died down she felt no different, and was reassured.

She said goodnight to her new master and left his chamber. On the way down the spiral steps she met Princess Luna, pacing from wall to wall in front of one of the tapestry-covered windows. The Princess abruptly stopped pacing, but her body was shaking.

“Oh, T-Twilight Sparkle,” she stammered.

“Is everything all right, Princess?”

“I-I’m fine,” said Luna.

“You look pale. Did you sleep badly? Maybe you should see Emerald about some medicine. He taught me my first healing potion today!”

“That’s wonderful, Twilight Sparkle,” she said in a nervous voice, trying to sound sincere. “Perhaps you’re right. I could use something to calm me down.”

“Okay. Well, feel better Princess.”

“Thank you, Twilight.”

Twilight trotted the rest of the way down the steps, though her concerns for the Princess’s health lingered with her as she made her way to her room. Above Luna waited until she could no longer hear hoof steps, then started up toward Emerald’s chamber.

Her dream was haunting her like a nightmare. She felt like a little filly, dreaming of a monster in the closet, never content until the closet door opened and dispelled the illusion.

She knocked hesitantly on Emerald’s door, her knees knocking together with anticipation. Emerald answered, and she nearly toppled him when she pushed the door open and rushed into the room. Emerald cried out in alarm.

“What’s the matter?” he said. “Are you all right? Has something happened?”

“Shut the door.”

Emerald obeyed.

“I keep dreaming of you,” Luna said, shaking. “I don’t understand it, I’ve never understood it, it’s so strange. I don’t know what to do.”

“I’m flattered,” Emerald said with a lighthearted laugh.

“This is not funny, Emerald Alembic!” Luna roared. Suddenly Emerald agreed.

“It has been going on since the night we met. Every day, I dream you’re falling, and you fall onto ice, and you’re cold—so cold I can’t hold you. There is a blur, a black blur, above us. I hear laughing, but it’s nowhere, and it’s everywhere. I’m laughing, and you’re so cold. You aren’t moving, and I’m laughing. And my sister is angry at me, so angry, and Twilight Sparkle, and everyone. So, so angry. They chase me and I run. I come to a cliff. The snow avalanches down, and I follow it, tumbling through the snow, fading in and out. I can’t see; everything is white. I see a white bird on a white cliff. I know I’m dying, but it feels okay because the whiteness goes away and I see you again. Every day, it’s always the same.”

Emerald stared at Luna blankly for a moment. He was surprised at all this. He could think of nothing productive to say.

“The same dream?” he asked tentatively.

“Except for one thing.”

“What? What is it?”

“Tonight, the black blur was Stowaway Spade. And he was leading the crowd that chased me over the cliff.”

Emerald took a deep breath. He saw how anxious Luna was, sweat drenching her forehead, her body trembling with terror.

“It’s just a dream, after all,” he said gently. “Why are you letting it bother you?”

“It’s not j-just a dream,” Luna urged. Every so often, Emerald heard the click of her teeth chattering. “Ever since I was a f-filly, I’ve had dreams, and they’ve come true.”

“You mean prophetic dreams?” said Emerald.

Luna nodded.

“Have all your dreams come true? Every dream you’ve had?”

“Sometimes I have normal dreams,” said Luna, trying to be patient with him. I knew he wouldn’t understand, she thought. No one ever understands.

“How do you know this isn’t a normal dream?”

“I know,” she said, throwing Emerald a look that told him not to press the matter.

“I don’t know what to make of this,” he said weakly. “Is your dream saying I’m going to die?”

“I don’t know,” said Luna, clutching her head between her hooves. “In the dream you’re only cold. You won’t move. It’s never clear which parts of the dream are literal, or how they’ll actually occur.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means,” Luna huffed, “my sister could become angry with me, or she could become very angry over something that concerns me. It means you fall cold, but there is no way of knowing how or to what end. The cold and snow don’t even mean that’s how it happens. It’s all a tangle of metaphors and symbols,” she said, starting to breathe very heavily. “I’ve never been able to make sense of it.”

“Which means you’ve never been able to prevent it,” said Emerald.

Luna nodded quickly. She sat on the floor to keep from pacing, and started to cry silently. Emerald approached her and put his hoof on her shoulder. She jumped and hugged Emerald, holding him so tightly it was hard for him to draw a breath.

“I don’t want you to die,” she sobbed.

Emerald rubbed her back to comfort her, almost finding humor in his composure.

“We’ll figure something out,” he said. “In the meantime, we need to calm you down. I’ll make some tea—how does that sound?”

Luna gave an indistinct whimper that Emerald took as confirmation. He gently pried the Princess’s hooves off him and conjured a tea kettle, which he placed over a flame to boil. He walked over to a locked chest by the writing desk and took a handful of herbs from one of its compartments, crushed them in a mortar, and put the leaves in two porcelain teacups.

A pair of plant stalks, thick at the stem and covered with large, coarse leaves, lay on a table near Erlenmeyer flasks, half-filled with unfinished potions, green, blue, or red fluids beginning to froth or crystallize. He plucked a leaf from one of the plants and offered it to Luna.

“Chew this,” he said. “It will help with the tremors.”

The Princess took the leaf and chewed slowly, grimacing at the sensation it caused in her sinus. By the time the kettle whistled, she had stopped shaking and was breathing slowly, calmer than she had felt in days.

“I’m feeling much better now,” said Luna. “I don’t think I need that cup of tea.”

“Yes you do,” said Emerald. “It’s a special herb from the western mountains. Bad dreams cause knots in the heart. This tea unties them. Besides,” he added, “the best property of any tea is that it gives two ponies time to talk.”

Luna let herself smile, and Emerald served their tea on a small coffee table.

They spent the next five hours chatting loudly. They talked about the way things used to be, the way dozens of kite vendors would set up rival stands in the parks, parks that smelled of maple sap—and wasn’t there always that smell of peaches underneath? During the Summer Sun festival, dozens of dishes made of peaches would be eaten to celebrate the start of summer.

They talked about their teacher, Star Swirl the Bearded. They joked and laughed about his mannerisms, how he always started his sentences with, “Do you know,” even when it didn’t make sense—especially when it didn’t make sense. They reminisced about conversations each had had with him, lessons he had taught them, journeys they had made together. They talked about how much they missed him, how much trouble they both had letting him go.

Emerald told Luna all about the way things were during her banishment: city life, provincial life, the way things changed and the things that never did; fashions decade by decade—how she should have seen the dresses mares wore seven hundred years ago! Put bells on them, and they’d have been the spitting image of Star Swirl!

Birds began to sing outside, calling the pair’s attention to the rest of the world. The sky was a deep navy, and the cool morning breeze blew dew onto their faces. It was time for the sunrise.

“I have to go,” Luna sighed. “My sister needs me to lower the Moon.”

Emerald began picking up, but Luna did not move. He cleaned up the teacups, and the crumbs from the cakes they had broken into when they got hungry, and wiped off the table. Luna sat still and let her eyes follow him around the room until he sat down again. The sky was lighter now, and a second wave of birds had woken up.

Emerald repositioned himself beside Luna and held her hoof.

“It was just a dream,” he said. “I promise.”

“Sure, Emerald,” said Luna. She forced a smile.

“Now, you’d better go lower the Moon. We’ve both got duties to see to.”

“You look so tired,” Luna said with a soft laugh. “I hope you’ll be able to teach your student tomorrow.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” he said, “I always sleep well.”

“Sorry. I sometimes forget that others go to bed when I’m waking up. I got carried away.”

“Maybe I should become nocturnal, too,” Emerald winked.

Luna didn’t respond. She stared at the window, studied her own image in the glass, hung her head, drew a figure-eight with a bead of water that clung to the table from the last round of tea.

“Do you think this is the last time we’ll talk?” she said at last.

“Don’t talk like that,” said Emerald firmly. “We’re friends, and friends don’t abandon each other, do they?”

“Friends abandon each other every day,” said Luna, starting to cry.

“Not this time. We’ll find Spade, rout him out, and that’ll be the end of it.”

“I hope you’re right,” said Luna.

And so did Emerald. He hoped he was right. All he could do was hope.

* * *

That night, in one of Canterlot’s gated neighborhoods, where lived the most privileged of the city’s number, and the highest ranked of her soldiers, a shadow passed unnoticed into a stuccoed house adorned with rose bushes. There the shadow stole through the marble halls, avoiding vases and busts, putting forth every effort to stifle the thud of his limp.

The living shadow made his way to the bedroom and dragged his gimp leg toward the bed. He stood over the stallion who lay there sleeping. Without waking him, the shadow gently poured a potion down the stallion’s throat, rubbing lightly to ease the liquid into his stomach. The sleeping stallion’s body quietly accepted the medicine, swallowing on reflex.

The shadow shook him awake.

A panic overcame him; all he saw was darkness.

“Who’s there?” he cried out into the dark room.

A lamp fire flickered on by the nightstand and enveloped the shadow in light.

The stallion recognized the figure immediately—his description had made its way to every palace guard by the previous morning: the spots and scar about the eye, the useless leg, the jet-black coat.

“Stowaway Spade!”

The stallion pushed himself up in bed, shaking the bedstead and knocking a painting of a seaside landscape off the wall. Spade’s coat was rustled, his eyes bloodshot and tired, his leg secured with a makeshift wooden splint.

“Lieutenant Whitesnout,” said Spade, his voice all the more terrifying because of its weakness. “Howdy.”

Whitesnout began to sweat.

“What do you want with me?” he said.

“Blue Swamp Lily’s just ‘bout to kick in, lieutenant. You know what that does?”

Whitesnout shook his head furtively.

“Oh, I think ya do. In three minutes y’all are gon’ tell me everything I need to know.”

“Or you’ll what?” said Whitesnout, regaining courage.

“It ain’t a question of if, lieutenant. It’s the swamp lily as does it. I got a friend, you see, loves this flower. You know why? It’s ‘cause it can wipe a stallion’s memory of very partic’ler things. He’ll forget a single pea on his dinner plate, and remember the others, if that’s whatcha tell it.

“But that ain’t why I love it. I love it because one dose of the right potion, and bam! No more secrets. That friend of mine, he loves secrets, lies his tail off. He hides from other ponies, even hides from himself. If I had it my way, this’d be a world without secrets. But hell, I can have it my way just this once, eh?”

“I’ll tell you nothing,” Whitesnout spat. “I’ll die before I compromise palace secrets.”

Spade began to laugh, coughing into the air and holding his belly.

“I ain’t after politics, y’old dolt,” he said. “You’s gon’ tell me everything you ever done wrong. You’s gon’ tell me everything you regret.”

“Excuse me?”

Whitesnout grew pale and doubled over in a fit of nausea.

“You can’t fight it,” Spade said. “Now tell me, lieutenant, what keeps you up at night? What ghosties haunt yer dreams?”

* * *

When the potion began to wear off, Spade finished his interrogation and gave Whitesnout another potion to drink. Whitesnout hesitated.

“Now, mind you, lieutenant, you disobey my orders and I won’t just have yer throat—I’ll have yer soul. Ponies don’t kill as many as you’ve killed and make it to Elysium.”

“I haven’t killed anyone!” Whitesnout shouted.

Spade snickered.

“Private Southfall would beg to differ. What was it he said to you, just afore he died?”

“Stop it!” said Whitesnout. He began to cry. “All right. I’ll do what you want.”

Whitesnout drained the potion, the purple liquid dripping from his mouth. In an instant he felt rested—as if he had been roused from bed four hours late, instead of four hours early.

“That’s a good foal,” Spade smiled. “Now, yer gonna report to Princess Celestia, and yer gonna tell her I’m dangerous. Yer professional opinion and all. Yer gonna tell her that you and yer soldiers need to be armed to attack, not just defend. The only stallion what can teach you to attack is Emerald Alembic. Be on the lookout fer his tricks.”

He slipped Whitesnout a folded piece of paper.

“That's the names of six sergeants in the Royal Guard.”

“What has this got to do with me?” said Whitesnout.

“They’re loyal to me, same as you, and now they’re all under yer direct command. When this here leg gets better, I’mma let ya know. After that, anything happens—and I mean anything happens as makes Emerald Alembic vulnerable, gather those soldiers and report to me. Got it?”

Whitesnout nodded slowly.

Painfully Spade shifted his paralyzed leg and limped out of Whitesnout’s gated home, into the dewy morning.

Comments

[dbanksischillin]

damn son. this just got even more interesting