Chapter 1
Sunburst was humouring her, which was both infuriating and comforting at the same time. Chartreuse strained, trying to feel something on the edges of her perception that she was certain wasn’t there. If she had been honest, she might have said that she had no idea what to feel for, but pride kept her struggle a silent one.
“Reach down, Chartreuse, reach deep down into the ground and try to touch the magic far below. It will give you strength and the further down you go, the purer the magic is. Once you connect to it, quantum thaumaturgical entanglement takes place, and you will become a conduit. Keep your eyes closed and try to imagine that your magic perception is like your barrel. With each breath you take, your barrel expands and contracts.”
Following these simple instructions, Chartreuse breathed.
“Now imagine your magic perception behaving the same way. With each breath, it expands, going further and further down into the earth. Breathe as deep as possible and hold it for as long as you can without breaking your concentration. Dim taught me how to do this and it has greatly enhanced both my strength and my abilities as a wizard. Breathe… just breathe.”
In the window of her mind, Chartreuse tried to imagine her magical perception as a physical thing, something that expanded and contracted. She even pictured the ground below in a cross section, an omnipotent view that allowed her to look at how far she was going down. It all seemed like hokey at the moment, but she wasn’t about to give up and disappoint her masters.
“Dim taught me simple, complex magic,” Sunburst continued in a low, droning voice. “Every unicorn is a natural-born physicist, even if we don’t realise it. We can touch photons, atoms, molecules. The tiniest elements of life are under our command. Many of us never fully realise what we can do, or what we are capable of, but my eyes have been opened.”
The words were calming, soothing, almost to the point of sleepiness.
“Dim taught me forcepoint magic. How to unzip molecular arrangements and then focus the energy released into precise, pinpoint strikes. Even though it seems like something of mind boggling complexity, and I believed that it was, at one point, but it is so simple. But it all starts with breathing and acting as a conduit for magic. The aether in the air is a poor fuel for magic, Chartreuse, and we want the purer aether that hasn’t risen to the surface just yet. Now breathe.”
Chartreuse, almost drowsy, allowed her mind to wander a bit and when she let go, her breathing deepened. The heaviness of her eyelids was almost too much to bear. In this state, she had some small awareness of the unseen world around her, thanks in no small part to Dim, who taught her to feel what her eyes could not see. Nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, traces of methane, a hint of argon, and a considerable amount of water vapour; an abundant source of hydrogen, Dim’s favourite element. Pyrokinesis was really just molecular manipulation and making things vibrate until they became hot—or too hot, as the case may be. With but a thought, Dim could unzip water vapour in the air, collect the energy, gather the released hydrogen, compress everything into an excitable little ball of destruction, and then, Dim would let go.
It was a simple spell in theory but Chartreuse found it too complex to perform.
In what seemed like another life, in another city, Chartreuse had worked for Rarity. Under the tutelage of the famous fashionista, Chartreuse had been taught to approach magic as art, and she had learned much. From Rarity, she had learned creativity, beauty, and application, applying one’s self to a task and sticking to it. But Rarity had probably never reached down into the earth with an invisible force to tap into purer, better magic. This felt impossible, and had been for quite some time. At least frustration wasn’t devouring her mind today, and that was pleasant. This was pleasant. It was relaxing for once.
The eyes were the least useful organ. Her master’s voice—Dim’s voice—haunted her like a phantom. He believed that the eyes used up too much of the processing power of the brain and that a unicorn did their best with their eyes closed. It was a strange school of thought, and Chartreuse had no way of knowing if what he believed held a grain of truth or not.
The nose, on the other hoof, was a molecular organ that connected directly to the brain. By refocusing one’s magical senses and channeling them though the nose, one could—in theory—detect an entire unseen world. Breathing through her nose, Chartreuse focused on what she could smell right now, trying to detect the faintest scents.
Inhaling, she first noticed the feminine scent of her own perfume. It was something Fancy in origin, and she had balked at getting it at first, but Chalcedony and Nomination had talked her into it. It was more than just scented oil, the stuff fillies used to keep unwanted odours at bay, this stuff was complex and nuanced. It was impossible to even begin to describe what it smelled like, but it was fantastically good.
Sunburst smelled like sunshine, which is to say he smelled citrusy, with the hint of something exotic. It was his diet and her master ate a surplus of oranges each day. Losing herself just a little more, Chartreuse detected other things; the scent of burning wood, a hint of ozone, and the questionable scent of school lunch cooking in the nearby cafeteria. Some days it was… a bit more pleasant than other days, and today, something might have gone wrong with the lesson plan for the cooking class, who did all of the cooking for all of the students.
A nearby outdoor alchemy station reeked of wet dog and burning feathers, which was an awful stink, but it was far enough away that it didn’t quite overpower everything else. In a small brick building, a charcoal-maker was hard at work. The stench of urine came from a nearby tanner, along with other strange smells.
“Chartreuse…”
The sound of her master’s voice seemed distant now.
“Chartreuse, my most faithful student, if you could open up your eyes for a moment…”
Yes, his voice was distant now, and came from a strange place.
“Chartreuse Le Feu, of House Le Feu, open up your eyes, right now, this instant!”
It was hard to overcome her sleepy state and when Chartreuse did open her eyes, she found the world in disarray. Everything around her was floating; her master, Sunburst, a nearby park bench, several ponies, a crystalline planter filled with dirt but no plants, rocks, bugs, bits of grass, and even the water in the fountain was now an amorphous blob hovering in the air.
Whoops!
With awareness came disaster and everything came down in a hurry. Sunburst plopped down onto the grass with a pained grunt, while some, but not all of the other ponies tried to land upon their legs. The park bench came down with a clatter, the planter fell, then cracked, and the water poured back into the fountain with a tremendous splash. The planter and the water in particular had indeterminate weight to them and Chartreuse was enthralled by what she had done.
While all of this was quite impressive, it did not soothe the sting that she had failed.
Again.
Failure was a special rank stank all its own, and Chartreuse hated it.
Hated it.
“Expect good marks in telekinesis,” Sunburst muttered while he lifted his spectacles up off of the grass. “I’m seeing a whole lot of improvement there, Chartreuse. That’s impressive!”
“But that wasn’t today’s lesson!” she huffed in a manner that was as close to whining as she dared allow.
“Nevertheless, that was today’s result, and I shall grade accordingly.”
“But I failed!” This time, Chartreuse did whine, and she regretted it right away.
“Look here, young lady, I take my successes wherever and whenever I can find them.” Sunburst stood up, shook the grass off, and began to straighten out his cloak next. “Otherwise, I’d never get results at all with Flurry. A teacher must adapt to their students. I’ll let Dim and Shining Armor know that your telekinesis mastery is coming right along.”
“But conscious application—”
“Shush!” Sunburst’s voice was stern now and his demeanour had changed. “Go home, Chartreuse! I am going to celebrate this victory, and I am not going to let you take it away from me. I am going to feel good about myself and my accomplishments as a teacher. As for you, it isn’t your job to critique or even question how I get results. Now go home, sort yourself out, and no more sulking… not another word! Go!”
Biting her lip, there was nothing that she could do but comply.
The mailbox, a tiny miniature replica of the Crystal Empire Crystalline Tower Palace, had some mail in it. With a huff, Chartreuse stopped to collect the mail, and her frustrations came out as pouty, persnickety, piqued pants. Today hadn’t gone quite as planned, but then again, nopony plans for total and complete failure. But to be dismissed and sent away without being allowed to wheedle or make promises to do better?
Ugh!
Peering through her triangle shaped spectacles, she had a look at the mail that she had pulled out of the novelty mailbox that Nomination had insisted on them getting. It was tacky, it was chintzy, and even worse, it was intended for tourists. To have it here, in the Crystal Empire, on display among the crystal ponies…
Ugh!
There was a flier from the Casual-Tea of a Name Tearoom, which had a sale on boxed tins of tea: buy two, get one free. With their limited budget, that would have to be taken advantage of. Chalcedony had a letter from her penpal, Sumac Apple, addressed to Miss Chalcedony Cuddlesworth the LXVIII. Those two were entirely too silly for their own good. There was also a letter for Nomination. Curious, Nomination never got mail of any sort. Oh well, there was a first time for everything.
Pushing open the door, Chartreuse knew something had to be wrong, because her companions were here, at home, rather than at school. Ears pricking, she could hear them talking in the kitchen, one floor above. Now in a hurry, she crossed the room, stood on the launch pad and…
WHOOSH!
Twisting her body about, she slipped out of the burst of air that had propelled her upwards and landed in the kitchen. Chalcedony and Nomination were sitting at the dining table, and Nomination was holding an ice pack over his eye. Chalcedony herself appeared as though she had been in a scuffle, having both a fat lip and a swollen nose. Surely, her friends hadn’t fought, so Chartreuse wondered what had happened.
The ice pack turned out to be a package of frozen peas wrapped in a towel and Chartreuse had a better look at them when she closed the distance. Both of her friends were miserable, probably in pain, and neither had said hello. Sitting down on a padded stool, she tossed the mail down upon the table, leaned in, and rested her forelegs upon the table’s edge.
“Okay, spill the beans,” Chartreuse said to her companions. “What happened? Why aren’t you in school? Chalcedony, who hurt you?”
In response, Nomination squeaked, clicked a few times, and pressed the makeshift ice pack a little tighter against his eye, which was almost swollen shut. For the briefest of moments, Chartreuse wanted to burn things, but the anger was sorted away in a hurry. Chalcedony licked her lips, winced, and patted Nomination on his side with a few clumsy touches.
“Nomination tried asking out Snow Dust, a pegasus colt in our class, and Snow Dust took it as an assault upon his masculinity, I think. He got mad… real mad… and after calling poor Nom a cock-loving faggot, he bucked Nom in the eye. Well, I wasn’t having that…”
Shocked, Chartreuse covered her mouth with her hoof.
“I could see Snow Dust pretty good, because his wings glow a lot, and I jumped him. Next thing you know, Snow Dust, Mister Macho, Mister I Buck Faggots in the Face, he’s getting his plot handed to him by a blind filly, and he’s crying, and squealing, and he’s begging his buddies for help but they don’t want to get their plots kicked, so they’re all running away—”
“Why would you do this, Chalcedony?” Chartreuse demanded cutting in on Chalcedony while she still had a full head of steam.
“Because Nom won’t fight back! It goes against regulations!”
An exasperated huff slipped free and Chartreuse saw Chalcedony’s ears prick. Before her friend could say anything, before the blind filly could get started about what she had heard, Chartreuse said, “Chalcedony, what you did was wrong. What possessed you to behave in such a way?”
Sticking out both of her forelegs and waving them about, Chalcedony almost struck Nomination and would have, had he not ducked away. Then, perhaps because her anger had plateaued, she hollered, “Because I’m mad, okay? Poor Nom keeps getting rejected, stupid ice orcs invaded our home, and I am sick and tired of ponies thinking I am helpless because I’m blind! I wasn’t so helpless when I was punching Snow Dust in his stupid face! I’m pretty sure I ruined his good looks and I don’t feel bad about it!”
Still sitting, Chartreuse put the teakettle on to boil, turned on the burner, and began to gather all of the things necessary for tea, all while saying, “I am very disappointed with you, Chalcedony.”
“Yeah, well, I’m proud of me. I made a big dumb jock cry like a scaredy yearling.”
“Nomination, are you okay, mon frère?” When the container of cream came down a bit too heavy and clunked, Chartreuse frowned and made a silent vow to do better, to practice this until it was perfect, and second nature, even if she was angry.
“No, I’m not okay. I have terrible taste in colts, apparently.” Dejected, the nocturnal pegasus leaned over and placed the bulk of his weight against Chalcedony, who didn’t seem to notice, not even in the slightest. “I can’t seem to catch a break. I go after the colts that catch my eye and almost all of them are, to a fault, horrible ponies. What does that say about me?”
Sympathising for her friend, Chartreuse nodded. “Well, most of the time, it is just rejection… rude rejection, on occasion… but I can’t believe that a fight happened—”
“Snow Dust is a Cloudsdale pegasus,” Chalcedony blurted out, “and you know how they are!”
“That’s enough!” Chartreuse banged her hoof down upon the table, causing everything atop of it to jump and clatter. “Am I a snob, Chalcedony? I’m from Canterlot! Am I?”
Chalcedony squirmed and looked down at the table, averting her eyes. “Sometimes—”
“Now is not the time for funny!” Chartreuse banged her hoof down, again, and just like before, everything on the table was bounced. “We are refined, good ponies, and we do not traffic in cruel, hurtful stereotypes. We are better than that. At least I am. I am beginning to have some doubts about you, Chalcedony.”
“No more fighting,” Nomination interjected, visibly wincing as he pressed his ice pack to his eye. “It’s against regulations.”
“I’m sick of those regulations, Nom!” Chalcedony’s swollen lips curled back from her teeth in a pained grimace. “Those stupid regulations make it so you can’t fight back! Ponies can hurt you, but you can’t hurt ponies!”
“They call us night terrors.” Nomination slumped over a bit more, whimpered, and shifted the makeshift ice pack around. “Ponies live in fear and terror of us. We are bigger, stronger, faster, we are superiour to them in every way. We must never, ever hurt them, no matter what they do to us. We must bear any and all abuse with good grace and gentleness, so that ponies might one day learn that we mean them no harm and that we only wish to protect them. For one of us to break the regulations, for one of us to bring harm to what we protect, it does a great disservice, as well as great harm, to all of us.”
“I’ve actually heard you practicing that in your room, Nom.” Chalcedony rolled her sightless, milky eyes, heaved a sigh, and then her anger escaped in the form of a lippy raspberry. “I’m sick of being helpless and I’m especially sick of poor Nom being helpless because of his stupid regulations. I’m disgusted.”
On the stove, the kettle made ‘I’m a kettle and I’m getting warmer’ noises but was not yet boiling. The table was still being set, with Chartreuse pulling bread out of the breadbox, along with jam and butter out of the icebox. Three plates were put down and Chartreuse tried not to think about how much Nomination enjoyed licking the plates clean before she washed them. Because of course he did. Nomination was a strange creature, of strange tastes, and peculiar manners. He wasn’t a pony, even though he sort of looked like one.
“Nomination, before I forget, you have a piece of mail.”
“Thank you, Chartreuse. I’ll look at it when my head doesn’t hurt so much.”
“Poor Nom, he can’t seem to find a colt that’s gay. Poor me, I can’t seem to find a colt willing to give a blind filly a chance. Somepony needs to give me a chance. I’m desperate and willing to engage in sexually risky behaviours. And poor Charty… she’s not even looking for a colt.”
“I am busy with my studies and my duties, thank you very much.” Peering through the lenses of her spectacles, Chartreuse gave her friend a stern look, even though her friend was incapable of seeing it. “Chalcedony, please do not make jokes about becoming a slattern.”
“Since when did you become my mom?”
“When was it that you started to act like a foal again?”
“Oh! Oh… oh… oh no, you went there. That’s mean. That’s not nice at all. What would Twilight Sparkle say?”
“Plenty, I’m sure. Shall we write her a letter explaining your recent behaviour and then ask what a proper friend would do in response?”
“You’re still going there, I see. Well, Nom, we have a Mom. It’s just us now, Nom. Just you and me. Charty has given up all notions of foalhood and has joined the ranks of the adults. We’ve lost her.”
“Well, Chalcy, I’d tell you to act your age, but you’re about a thousand years old—”
“OH NO YOU WENT THERE OF ALL PLACES!” Reaching out, Chalcedony clubbed the colt beside her by accident and then clutched at him with apologetic gentleness.
A series of clicks, pops, and squeals poured from Nomination, and then something that sounded like laughter, if laughter was being throttled into submission. After a while, Chalcedony began to giggle and when this continued for a time, Chartreuse allowed herself a wry smile, considering herself to be the victor of this little exchange.
“What kind of jam are we having?” Chalcedony asked.
Unscrewing the lid, Chartreuse replied, “Lavender and cucumber.”
“Not my favourite, but still pretty darn good.” The blind filly sighed, snuggled against Nomination beside her, and then remarked, “I still have a hard time with how common sweets are. I have trouble keeping track of just how many favourites I have. There are so many amazing flavours, all of which is better than flavourless runny gruel.”
“Get into a fight in school again and it’ll be flavourless runny gruel for supper.”
“Charty, you wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me.”
“Nom, we’re in trouble, Nom. I’ve heard that voice before, Nom. Ice orcs screamed a lot and the world got real hot, Nom.”
“That’s because most of the world was on fire, Chalcedony.” Nomination pulled the ice pack away from his eye, wincing, and tried to blink his swollen eyelids a few times. Turning to look right at Chartreuse, he said, “I must confess… I was quite disturbed when you went outside to challenge the ice orcs around our tower and invited them to chomp your vivid yellow derrière. Never in my life had I ever seen anything quite like that.”
Without even thinking about it, Chartreuse began to butter three slices of bread at once, a feat that she would have found quite difficult even a short while ago, before she became an apprentice. For Chalcedony’s bread, extra butter was spread around the crust, otherwise the picky filly would eat the middle and leave the crust behind. For an orphan that once ate flavourless runny gruel, the blind filly sure had discriminating tastes now, and a fussier crystal pony one would be hard-pressed to find.
“I didn’t come here to be a soldier,” Chartreuse said, more to herself than to her friends. For a moment she hesitated, reminiscing, recalling everything that had happened, and the longer she thought about it, the more her ears drooped. “Those ice orcs were rude and I had to go sort them out. They arrive uninvited and start wrecking things after the Crystal Cotillion. Just rude!”
“And when Dim takes you to deal with infestations of shadowlings and monsters under the bed?” Chalcedony suffered a visible shiver and huddled against Nomination while waiting for an answer.
“There’s been a real issue with darklings and shadowlings since the ice orc invasion.” Chartreuse’s response was almost absent-minded and her ears rose while she slathered jam on buttered bread. “Ponies are scared and these… monsters come along to feed upon their fears. I understand the way of things in a way that I never could before. Dim has shown me much. I am”—here, again she hesitated and her words faltered for a moment before she could continue—“not a soldier, but I will be a wizard one day, and I will be obligated to protect all around me from the unseen things that I have seen. That I can see? Oh drat it all, it sounds mad in hindsight.”
Chalcedony, who was now slumped over and shivering against Nomination said, “There are worse things than bed bugs…”
“And there are working wizards that will deal with impertinent uninvited guests. Be they ice orcs or monsters lurking beneath the bed, we working wizards will sort them out.”
“Charty, you’ve changed. Help me out, Nom. She’s changed, hasn’t she?”
After a string of clicky-pops, Nomination agreed by saying, “She has.”
As the kettle found its voice and began to whistle, Chartreuse gave her friends a wry smile and went to work to prepare the tea. All around her, the kitchen was alive with magic, and serving tea was one of many services a working wizard could provide. Looking after rough and tumble blind fillies was another, and setting the occasional ice orc on fire was not unheard of. Comfortable with herself and her friends once more, Chartreuse relaxed, settled in, and was determined to enjoy her tea.
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Oh good! I was hoping to see more of these guys!
*looks at the Author's Note*
MINE EYES
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Die Farbe! Der Schmerz in den Augen! Der Schmerz im Gehirn!
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You son of a mother! Why would you do this to us?
kudzu, I thought we were friends, kudzu. Why have you done this?
Do the regulations say anything about dodging? Surely it's not threatening to just duck an weave until your opponent wears themselves out.
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It looks like a lemon meringue pie that’s gone off Kudzuhaiku. Is that what you want? I don’t like lemon meringue pie as it is, and here you are making me think about spoiled ones. You’re a cruel boy.
loving this chapter, poor nom, i wonder what kind of talk snow dust will get
That is one bright filly. She clearly does need to be weaponized.
My eyes my eyes no wonder Dim was complaining even wearing a welding mask
It occurs to me that "Charty" would be pronounced as "Sharty." It gave me a good giggle :P
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Bring on the sunglasses!
As before I still completely understand the position that Nom's people have to take. Ponies are natural xenophobes. Something has to be around them all the time, completely non-threatening, helpful/useful for awhile with no negative qualities before they'll accept it. Ponies are LOOKING for a reason, any reason at all, for them to be labeled as your everyday monster and fully ejected from any hope of joining society. Nothing the Crown says can change that. It may not be fair but it is a hurdle they must overcome for the future. Let's be real, ponies would have a field day if Nom had hurt Snow in defending himself. Not to mention with his testimony I can see them trying to work in that Nom was trying to rape Snow or something, aggressive sexual advances and such. Because as things stand ponies are afraid of them and want them gone so they no longer have to be afraid.
The entire tribe/species has bet all their hopes, dreams, the future of their whole race on becoming accepted by pony society. Every single one of them, and every future whelp, will lose everything if they give the right ponies the wrong idea, and the wrong ponies ammunition to use against them. The herd structure is, by nature, alarmist as a survival mechanism. Which means that like all cultures starting out, terrible sacrifices have to be made. It was the same for every culture for everyone reading this - we enjoy our luxuries and everything we take for granted because people worked impossible and unfair means, because children were had by the bushel knowing half or more would die - just so there'd be enough left to carry on. Every culture is built on the sacrifices of those who looked to the future and gave up their whole life to make the smallest advances towards it, every culture is built on the dead who never had a choice in the matter.
Rather than labeling the regulations evil at this point and all the "how dare they" outrage sure to come once we meet Nom's mother who I am expecting to be a severe hardass, for now I'm going to hope they can find a way for Nom to be useful to their society without placing him in harm's way and forcing him to come up against his regulations like this again. All so that future Noms will never have to know what it was like to make his sacrifices.
I find this to be incredibly reminiscent of my impressions of Rarity. I don't know if that's what you intended, but either way, it's funny to see how her one-time idol has shaped her.
68?
Glad to see a return to these characters. However, having two females who's names begin with "Char" is occasionally confusing.
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Where?
I can't find a second character with Char anywhere.
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Yup. Mother Nature made it VERY clear that this pony was dangerous. Jeez, the moment she was born her parents should have been prepared...
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Yes, it's Roman numerals. We used to have them back in grade school.
(IDK if they still do) Some folks still use them because it's supposed to be cultured
("Starkist don't want Tunas with good taste Charlie. They want Tunas that taste good!")
(Ad campaign that was probably before your time)