Chapter 19
When Twilight kissed Pinkie’s cheek, it was still damp and somewhat salty. Pinkie Pie started to say something, her mouth opened, and there was a sound, but then the hitching of her barrel started anew. Robbed of speech, Pinkie Pie flung herself against Twilight and sniffled. Sitting on the other side of Pinkie Pie, Seville did his best to console her, but in spite of his best efforts, the tears continued their steady trickle.
“Jackie, you okay?” Seville asked while giving Pinkie a squeeze.
“I’m fine.” A pause. “Mostly. It’s hard to see Pinkie this way.”
“Yeah… cheer up, Pinks, you won.” With a deft motion of his hoof, Seville swept Pinkie’s wet, clingy mane away from her eyes. “We should retire back to our room. There’s a pregnant mare up there that’d love to eat that.” His eyes glanced in the direction of the tart and then in Twilight’s direction. “I think Pinks could use some peace and quiet. What say you, my little Sugar Sparkle?”
For a second, it felt as though she had swallowed her own uvula and Twilight let out a little cough. Sugar Sparkle? That was a new one. It caught her completely off guard and truth be told, it felt pretty good to be addressed in such a manner. Applejack sniffled a bit, wiped her eyes with her foreleg, and then managed an honest smile.
“Shucks, I have all those silly blue ribbons of mine, but not a one of them feel as important as this does. All those rodeos will keep going forever. But this… this is an end. Feels like a mighty good end.”
At this, Pinkie Pie began bawling again, this time with incredible volume.
“Good going, Jackie.”
“How was I supposed to know?”
“Poor Pinks… she quit her job. She stopped taking her pill.” Seville’s eyebrow arched beneath the crooked brim of his weathered fedora and the corners of his mouth were tugged downwards, which caused his chin to dimple. “No wonder her emotions are a mess. Come on, let’s get her upstairs so we can get her sorted out.”
A sleepy Bundt Buttercream yawned as she emerged from the bathroom. Eyes closed, Pinkie Pie stood with her face over the air conditioning vent, and she seemed to be recovering. Over at the table, Seville was sorting out the crystalline recording rods; the ones that held a recording had a vivid blue glow about them. With Bundt now out of the bathroom, Applejack slipped through the door with a sheepish, apologetic grin.
Twilight’s memories clouded the present and yet again, she found herself thinking of Skyreach. Transfixed by Seville’s recording rods, she now had an unfocused, blank stare and vacant expression. A means to end all wars, a means to turn hatred and aggression against itself; a brilliant weapon gone terribly, horribly wrong. Something that had begun with good intentions, the best of intentions, but ended with hatred given life and body. Twilight shivered and her lower jaw quivered while she swallowed, trying to work up some saliva to end the dryness that had turned her tongue to leather.
A way to enforce harmony, a means to coerce unity. What was meant to be a magical solution to compel creatures to live together and end conflict held the potential to end all life. Twilight could see the merits of what lead to the ill-fated decision. How sound the idea must have seemed at the time. Create a force that discouraged conflict and pacified aggression, with the only means to stop it being to live in total and absolute peace. But living in peace did nothing to quell the secret hatred that existed in the hearts of many, the subtle undertones of aggression in almost everything. The centaurs believed in such simple goodness—how it must have hurt them to realise the secret wellsprings of hatred that existed in their creations.
Twilight knew what hatred lurked in the hearts of her fellow equines, and it pained her. Four friends had battled that hatred; Tarnished Teapot, Daring Do, Rainbow Dash, and Vinyl Scratch. Four fast friends whose incredible friendship reinforced everything that Twilight wanted to believe. Stout hearted, resolute, unflappable, unbreakable friendship. Together, they had faced the horrors of Skyreach and ultimately, they struck down hatred given life and form.
Just like the Founders of Equestria, they had done so with friendship.
That hatred had tried to find purchase within them, it had tried to take root. It burrowed into their very souls, searching for the sense of tribalism, a powerful source of conflict that it could feed upon. It could not be found. Even the teeniest, tiniest mote of tribal-based hatred would have been their undoing—their end. The hatred had come looking for something to eat, something to consume, and had come away hungry.
It was a relief to Twilight to know at least four ponies unblemished by hatred.
She had proof.
Remarkable proof.
“Twilight? You feeling alright?”
Eyelids fluttering, she turned to look at Seville, startled from her thoughts.
“You had that thousand-yard stare again. That look that ponies get after seeing war and death.” Several wrinkles appeared on Seville’s brow while he studied Twilight’s face.
“I was just thinking about how fortunate I am to know some truly extraordinary ponies.” It was an honest enough response; not the whole truth, but not exactly a lie either. Seville was looking at her with such a fierce intensity that it made her cheeks grow hot. The look of concern upon his face touched her in some profound way that she could never express. She had seen many expressions upon his face; lust, desire, mirth, longing. But moments like this one, and faces like the one he wore right now, Twilight knew that she was loved. No mere conquest, no prize.
The affirmation was fulfilling in ways that she never knew she needed until now.
Reaching out her left front hoof, she booped Seville on the nose.
“Why I oughta…” he said, grumbling whilst she pulled away.
“Boss, if you don’t mind me saying”—Bundt offered up an awkward grin—“you’ve found quite a special fella.”
Twilight found herself blushing.
“It’s rare to find a gentlepony.” Bundt held her breath, eased herself into a chair, sat down, and let out her held breath in an enormous huff. “Or maybe it’s just me. I’ve only met the worst sorts. Might be the industry.”
“Goose and I, we have something in common. We’re terrified of our mothers.” Seville’s eyes darted around the room, perhaps as if he worried that his mother might pop out of hiding at any given second. “Don’t get me wrong, my Pops, he can be a scary guy when he’s got the angries, but my Ma… alicorns preserve me. She’s relentless. I’m pretty sure that Gosling’s Ma, Sleet, I think she’d tear me a new one if I screwed up. His Ma and my Ma would take turns.”
Eyebrow arching, Twilight cast a curious glance at Seville.
“Don’t look at me like that, Dollface. You’ve met my mother. I live in a castle with princesses. I’m in a relationship with one. And you know how my Ma is. If I step one hoof outta line, she’s gonna finish breaking that crack that I have in my ass. And Sleet? Sleet has wings. Sleet is certain death from above.”
“I haven’t met too many fellas afraid of their mothers,” Bundt said to nopony in particular. “In fact, most of the guys I know treat their mothers like garbage. No respect at all. And if I was to be completely honest, some of those mares were kinda trashy. I feel bad for saying it, but it’s true. I think I’ve been exposed to a different class of pony for most of my life.”
“Don’t get me wrong or get the wrong idea,” said Seville, his eyes narrow and thoughtful. “My Ma, she’s not abusive. She’s just… well… she’s... “ His words trailed off into a sigh, he shrugged, and shook his head from side to side. “I don’t know how to say it without making her sound bad. She holds me accountable by any means necessary. My actions determine the means and what is necessary. I don’t ever want to give her an excuse to set me straight, because I know she will.”
“And that’s why you’re the fine, understanding pony that you are today.” Bundt’s head bobbed up and down. “I can dig that. Look what it’s got you.”
“Yeah.” Seville’s eyes cast a quick glance in Pinkie’s direction, and then Twilight’s.
For some reason, Twilight thought of Sumac’s fear of his own mothers, all three of them.
“If I was to do something questionable to Twilight or Pinks… or do something to jeopardise my good standing with the Royal Pony Sisters, my Ma would plant me in a shallow grave beneath an orange tree. I guess that sounds bad? Maybe it is.” Seville rubbed the side of his neck where his camera brace often rested. “The point is, I know how to avoid it. All I gotta do is behave myself and treat mares with the same respect I give my mother and everything is fine.”
“That’s not such a bad thing.” Bundt rested her front hooves upon the rounded curve of her stomach, sighed, and then squirmed in her chair in an attempt to get comfortable.
“My mother keeps Tarnish on the straight and narrow,” Pinkie Pie said from where she stood over the air conditioning vent. “My not-so-special somepony… I don’t think his mother raised him right.”
“Feeling better, Pinks?”
“Yeah… I just got super-emotional there for a bit.” Pinkie turned her body around and parked her hindquarters over the vent in the floor. “I still felt kinda bad that Twilight couldn’t join me and then Applejack and I did all that work and then the gold chip happened and I was still pretty unsettled about Twilight not being able to join the fun and everything felt super-weird. For a minute there, I was really conflicted about getting a gold chip, but, now, I’m okay. I think. Maybe? Hard to tell.”
“Anything I can do to help?” Seville asked, his face concerned, solemn.
“Wanna help me make a cream pie?” Pinkie replied with equal seriousness.
The sudden coughing fit almost knocked Twilight right out of her chair and when she went to breathe, all she could do was splutter. Stars danced in her vision, stars that bore a remarkable resemblance to her cutie mark. Shrill laughter could be heard over the sound of her coughing and spluttering, but only just barely.
“Nope. No, not okay. Not okay at all. Here we go.” Pinkie Pie shook her head from side to side, and then, with the same suddenness that it had started with, she was bawling her eyes out once more.
“It feels weird, being around decent ponies, ya know?”
No, Twilight didn’t know and she looked up from her trough of salad. Her new assistant was distressed, visibly so, and Twilight wasn’t sure how to respond. Perhaps the best thing she could do right now was listen, because there was a lesson here, uncomfortable though it might be. Twilight maintained a stable of decent ponies, helpers that did her bidding, and for the first time, she wondered if they were a sort of insulating barrier.
“Like, Bourgogne Blintz, she’s fairly decent and professional, but she’s not nice. There’s a coldness there. And some of those stallions she’s got working for her? I was terrified of being caught alone in a room with them. Real aggressive types. Power broker types. They truly believe the world owes them something. They don’t know how to take no as an answer, which is why Bourgogne employs them. No is just an invitation for aggressive negotiations, as they’re fond of saying, and this is applied to just about every aspect of their lives.”
Applejack was still grazing, but her eyes now focused on Bundt.
“I find it very strange how safe I feel around Seville.” Bundt wiped her muzzle with her foreleg and her face flushed dark with extra colour. “Life is a funny thing. I grew up never feeling safe. I had my Ma’s stories as all the reason I needed to trust nopony. The big city is a jungle, ya know? A big concrete jungle.”
“It is,” Seville said, his words soft-spoken.
“I barely know you all, but I feel like I can relax.”
Now, Twilight just felt awkward.
“When I was a filly, I traveled to Manehattan,” Applejack said while lifting her head from her salad trough. “Thought maybe big city life was for me. I had this notion that it’d be fantastic and there’d be glamour. So I packed up and left to stay with some family. The Oranges.” Her eyes darted in Seville’s direction, lingered for a time, and then returned to Bundt. “When I’s at the train station, a strange mare approached me and asked me if I wanted to make a few bits. She said I could meet her friends and become a movie star.” The apple farmer fell silent, and her lips pressed into a tight, straight line.
Twilight’s appetite came dangerously close to departing with all due haste.
“We got the same hustle,” Bundt replied. “From the looks of things, you said no. I said yes.” She shrugged and for a time, her mouth moved but no words came out. After a few seconds of struggling, she finally managed to say, “I had no idea what I was getting into. Ma never asked where I got the bits I brought home. We needed them just to keep the rent paid and the lights on. It’s just capitalism, ya know? I had something that somepony else wanted, and I learned how to trade it for bits. I got smart fast. Now here I am… in a strange place.”
Rather than be angry, sad, or depressed, rather than allow hopelessness to sink in, Twilight summoned up her pragmatic nature. Bundt was an asset. She had knowledge unique to her experience. This knowledge, like all knowledge, was valuable. Twilight was canny enough to exploit it, but she also knew that she had to be exceedingly careful so that Bundt would never feel exploited. There had been enough ruthless exploitation already and Bundt had suffered enough. Twilight, staring down at her salad, began to think of ways of getting her new assistant to feel that her experiences were a valuable, indispensable asset.
Had Bourgogne Blintz done the same?
The thought left Twilight troubled. There was a difference though; Twilight wanted what was best for all ponies, including Bundt, while Bourgogne only wanted to push her own agenda. Starlight Glimmer came to mind and Twilight’s thought’s went to dark, unwanted places. Cults of personality were dangerous things. As dangerous as Starlight had been, Mister Mariner had been even more dangerous. He had taken Starlight’s message, cleaned it up, packaged it for neat, tidy consumption, and then had sold it to the masses. The desperate, disenfranchised masses. Starlight and Mariner both were the strange mare in the train station, preying upon those who faced uncertainty.
Twilight understood that if she gave everypony a future somehow, the strange mare would have no takers. But that was the tricky, difficult part; assuring everypony a future. The world was changing faster than society could keep up. Outside of Equestria, the world was a terrible, dreadful place. She had seen it, witnessed it, and now lived in fear of it. But Equestria was at risk too. It couldn’t run forever on the memories of past glories. The glorious heydays of Feudal Equestria were now barely even memories for most. Holdouts like Seville’s parents were few and far between. Equestria’s Civil War? Soon, that generation would be gone, and with it, the lessons painfully learned. Equestria was coasting, waiting for the next big thing.
Trixie Lulamoon insisted that a return to feudalistic roots was the only thing that could save them…
Could the past survive a collision with the future?
“I want to help you, Twilight Sparkle.”
Jolted from her thoughts, Twilight focused upon her new assistant.
“I want to help make society decent again. I want this.” She gestured at the ponies gathered around the table. “It should be like this for everypony. Whatever it is that you have planned, I want to be a part of it. It feels so good just to feel safe again. Everypony deserves this, ya know?”
“Miss Buttercream… you and I are going to do extraordinary things together.”
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Aw, Pinkie. Even when her emotions are all broken, she still tries to make others laugh.
I think this should be removed
I smell a bit of Project Eternity towards the end there.
Meh you're improving my feelings towards Pinkie, Kudz...
9122532
And now, I am picturing Vimes battling Grogar, demanding to know, "ARE YOU MY COW?"
It is fucking terrifying.
9122571
I loved The Fifth Elephant.
Gah, I know it's not meant to say anything about me in particular, but all that talk about mothers really rubbed me the wrong way. My own situation growing up was... not good, to put it mildly. My own mother was, and is, one of the absolute worst human beings that I personally know. Whatever sense of morality and common decency that I developed growing up was in spite of her, not because of her. My father, in his own way, wasn't much better. I didn't really have a lot of positive role models growing up, and I made a lot of mistakes, but despite all of that I still try to be a good person. I don't need the fear of someone waiting in the wings to come down and punish me to make me want to do good, and I try not to let my terrible relationship with my mother affect my relationships with other women. Which is definitely a good thing, considering a lot of my friends are women.
I just... I don't like it when people put other people into boxes based on how they grew up. I won't lie to people and say that my upbringing hasn't affected me, isn't still a part of who I am, but who I am and how I decide to reconcile with my past is and will always be my decision. No more, no less.
9123050
Just hope you understand that these are just the observations made by characters in a fictional setting and are not neccisarly the authors view.
9123218
I know, I know, I guess it's just a bit frustrating seeing characters that I actually like espouse those views. Honestly the fact that I care at all is a good sign that I'm getting invested in the story, it's just a little weird seeing them say something that hits so close to home.
It seems odd to me that such an advanced race could be so naive. But, that doesn't mean that they really were, I suppose, but that is indeed a way to see the way they empowered the pony races and created godlings and such, that they had this unrealistic faith that their movement of great power in the pony race was because they trusted them to do good without thinking of the bad that can be done.
But that doesn't mean it's not more complicated than that.
9123827
it was likely more thought in the vein of "they will be better than us. they -must- be better than us. there is no other way"
The way you describe it, sounds like either the predecessor of the windigoes, or maybe that the wraiths of legend were just a metaphor for something worse.
Also, am I the only one who wants a follow up on Mariner? For all the times he's referenced, we hardly spent any real time with the guy.