Parrothead in Paradise

by PastCat

Chapter 13

When I went to bed that night, I wasn’t sure I would actually get any sleep. Given what I had seen, I expected to toss and turn until I fell out of my hammock nest at least once before finally falling into an exhausted sleep just before dawn. Of course, with that prediction in my head I fell asleep almost instantly. What I did not expect was the dream that began immediately.

I found myself flying, really flying on my own two wings. It felt even more natural than the short spurts off Diamond Head, with my wings adjusting automatically to changes in air pressure and winds. I was soaring like the hawks I used to watch circling above campus on lazy summer days. It was not long before I realized I was not alone.

Beside me flew a smaller form, a pony of a sort I had never seen before in real life. A term popped into my head from Emmy’s Harry Potter book: thestral. It certainly reminded me of the ones in the books: it was shaped like a pony, but looked more emaciated. It was dark gray with a midnight blue mane and tail. The bat wings sprouting from its shoulders were larger than a pegasus’ wings and its eyes glowed gold like the coals in a fire and were shaped like a cat’s. If the Grim Reaper turned into a pony, he would look like that. The thestral turned and gave me a toothy grin that made its face look even more skeletal. His teeth were sharply pointed.

“I have been waiting a long time for someone to find my tomb.” The thestral said. Its voice grated against me like sandpaper. I flinched and my companion’s voice eased. “My apologies. It has been a long time since I have spoken to the living. I forget how rusty my voice can become.” Now it sounded like there was a layer of maple syrup between the sandpaper and my ears. “Better?” I nodded.

The thestral continued. “You saw my show among the sands today. You believed it, and want to know more, yes?”

“Yeah.” I said. “If I can know more about what happened, then maybe I can try to keep it from happening to my friends and me.” I shuddered a little at the thought.

The thestral nodded. “Those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it. I hope my insight gives you a fighting chance when those invaders return to attempt to claim this island for their own. I can not say when it will happen, but they will without a doubt return now that Ponykind has done the same.”

“Tell me.” I begged. “What happened?”

“They came from the sea. They were few at first, and their Master controlled the waters surrounding the islands. His minions saw the fruits of our labor and wanted it for their own. We appeased them with offerings at first. Fruit from our orchards and meat from our traps. The minions were satisfied at this; their Master was not. He demanded more. We offered jewels from the strongboxes and money from the bank vaults; he wanted none of that. He demanded that we sacrifice one of our own to him, a blood payment for the safety of our herd. We refused.”

“What happened then?” I asked. The two of us landed on a cloud overlooking Oahu in a way that made the land below us look like a map. I was too intrigued by the bat pony’s tale to consider our perch.

“He turned the sea against us.” I watched in horror as a great wave rose from the sea, engulfing the pony colony that had risen on the shore. It inundated the land as far as the H1, wiping the area clean of living things. Only a remnant population remained, centered around Pearl Harbor and the sheltered waters within. The inhabitants numbered no more than a couple dozen. I got the sense that they were mostly former servicemen and women from the naval base.

“We prepared to fight, my comrades and I. The waters of the harbor were protected, or so we thought. Then he changed tactics.” A sludgy film of oil skimmed across Pearl Harbor, starting at the entrance. It converged around a few boats and the USS Arizona memorial, subsuming them in blackness. The boats crumbled like used tissue paper, though the monument remained. From out of the sludge rose shapes. They were vaguely human in shape, but skeletally thin, as though they were only skin shrink-wrapped onto the bone structure. They moved in short, jerky motions.

The ponies fired at them with whatever guns they had, determined to make the invaders pay if they wanted a beachhead. Every hit shattered a humanoid, but they were armed too; their projectiles were more primitive, but every pony that was hit did not rise again. As the numbers of bipeds thinned, the amorphous blobs followed. They did not shatter when hit; they absorbed everything in their path. Rot trailed in their wake as they oozed towards the ponies’ shelter. Unseen by the ponies, other entities slunk around the perimeter, cutting the ponies’ escape route. By the time they were noticed, the shadows surrounded the shelter.

The view suddenly zoomed in and I found myself peering in at what appeared to be a meeting of the last survivors. Among them was the thestral, not nearly as gaunt as he was now. The ponies argued among themselves.

“Enough.” One of them, a grizzled earth pony said, stomping a hoof on the table. “We do ourselves no good by arguing. We need a plan.”

“A plan? To do what? We’re surrounded, Sarge. Any pony who sets one hoof out of a door gets squished.” A pegasus with a bandaged wing said.

“If we all stay here and do nothing, we all get squished.” Sarge said. “If we continue to do nothing, the enemy gets his tentacles on the Artifact and the whole island chain is lost. I need a plan, ponies.”

“I have an idea.” Every pony in the room turned towards the speaker, a pale blue unicorn. She turned to the only other unicorn in the room. “How much magic do you have, Winnie?”

“Some, Crystal, but not enough to teleport.” The other unicorn answered.”Why?”

“If we could create a distraction of some kind, preferably an illusion that is believable enough, somepony could make a run for it with the Artifact. If it can be carried far enough inland, the blobs should not be able to reach it before the sun returns and they dry out.”

“I hope you don’t mean run in the literal sense, Crystal.” Sarge said. “Those things won’t let anything out at ground level. So far, though, they do not appear to have any air support.” He turned to the pegasus and the thestral next to him. “What can either of you do to further this goal, gentlecolts?” The pegasus shook his head but the thestral looked thoughtful.

“If you trust me with the Artifact, Sarge, I am willing to try my hoof at flying it out.” The bat pony said gravely. “Vinnie can help with the illusion; the air is wet enough that he can probably contribute enough fog for me to slip away. I know I am not a strong flyer, sir, but I should be able to make it just far enough.”

No one in the group looked encouraged at this; I gathered that the thestral was not known to be a fast flyer. The big earth pony’s ears were flicked back in distaste, but he sighed and nodded. “All right, Slick. We all know we are none of us getting out of here alive, so I will take the slim chance that the Artifact will stay out of our enemy’s grasp by placing it in yours. Crystal, can you and Winnie create a believable illusion that can keep the uglies busy?”

The unicorns discussed this quietly for a moment before nodding. There was a brief acceleration of time as the survivors made their preparations. It was like a sports movie montage, but there was a feeling of despondence instead of encouragement. “They knew what would happen when our enclave was destroyed,” the skeletal thestral beside me said. “Their bodies could then be used as a tool for the invader to further his cause at the expense of the other living things on the island. Instead, Sergeant Kinerim decided to depart this world with a bang, destroying everything and everyone left in the bunker. A brave man; he knew the risk he was taking. He didn’t trust me; I had been a bum and a thief, but I was his last hope.”

The scene below me played out. The unicorns built an illusion out of magic and pegasus-generated fog. The earth ponies in the bunker rolled oil drums full of some kind of fuel into the center of the bunker. The sergeant tied a length of fuse to a detonator and, waving the thestral out through a hatch on the roof, set off his makeshift explosive. A fireball taller than any of the nearby buildings incinerated everything in its vicinity. The blast wind tossed debris in directions and shredded the blobs that didn’t burn. The airborne thestral was thrown clear into the forested area above the former naval base. He landed roughly, hitting a tree. The scene went black briefly.

“Sorry. I'm playing this through my memory, and I blacked out from the hit.” My thestral companion said.

“What did you carry with you?” I asked. He had fled the bunker with a heavy-looking pack on his back. His wings had struggled at first until the fire-created updraft carried him skyward.

“Records. A couple of notebooks from the ponies in our colony who had been interested in writing down everything that happened. I doubt they survived the years, but it’s possible. The identification tags from my comrades who fell in battle defending the bunker, when I found them. There were a few other items with names on them, so that someday someone could find their relatives and reveal their fates. Most importantly, I carried the Artifact.” A vision appeared showing a large glowing red stone set in gold. It looked like it had once been part of a larger object but had broken off.

“That doesn’t look natural.” I said. “Not even for a magical pony world.”

The thestral gave a dry chuckle. “It isn’t. It is not of this Earth. This artifact was brought to Earth by Equestrians sent millennia ago in the hopes of aiding our kind’s transition to Equinity. They hoped it could be useful in teaching your dragons their ways. Unfortunately, magic items tend to attract those who would use magic for their own ends.”

“Or who would stop at nothing to possess them.” I added. The thestral nodded. “So what happened to the Artifact?”

The Thestral waved a wing and the scene below us returned to life. It was a view of the harbor from high in the tree’s canopy. The area around Pearl Harbor was covered in a mat of ashy gray dust. The remnants of the buildings looked more like rectangular hills than anything else. The water seemed to writhe and boil and shadowy shapes oozed to and fro in a mesmerizing pattern. They tried to go further inland, but could not escape the moonscape their attack had created. The few remaining blobs retreated to the water or were melted by the sun emerging from behind the clouds

The thestral climbed down carefully from the tree. He examined his body; all four legs worked, but one wing was in tatters from the wind and its fingers crushed by the impact with the tree. Even through the haze of a dream, I could sense how painful his landing had been. The thestral carried his pack deeper into the forest and toward the hills above. There was another brief montage of his struggles to climb higher away from the devastation below before the scene stilled again. My guide and I watched as the thestral crawled into a cave beneath a rock overhang and fell, exhausted, inside.

The gaunt thestral who had guided me through the dream now turned back to me. “This is where the story ends, I am afraid.” He said. “The flight and climb were too much for my stamina. I hid the Artifact and my burdens in this shelter as best I could, then collapsed the overhang to prevent anyone from finding it without help. My task complete, I escaped into the Dreamlands to await someone who could find my cache and tell our story to others. When your flock came to Pearl Harbor, I chose to show myself to you.”

“Me? But why? I'm nothing special. Just a tourist with the luck to come out looking like something off of a rum bottle.” I said.

“Yet you have tasted the wind, though you have only been Returned for a few months. You and your companions have been to the sacred dry place and read the names. You braved the void that was once my home and came away with determination to survive that which we did not. The invaders will challenge you for the Artifact. They will destroy you unless you destroy it before they can get their hands on it. They may try to destroy you anyway in order to keep you from possessing it.” The thestral said.

“You… really believe I can do this. And that we as a group can survive.” I said, rather bewildered by his words.

“I do, young griffon. I am no clairvoyant, but I sometimes believe I can feel when a course will lead to a better outcome than the present. If you and your friends destroy the Artifact, the invaders will lose interest. After all, you pose no threat here. You are not armed with the weapons the military ponies bore. You can rebuild this place as a paradise for those who will Return in the future. However, no reward comes without risk. As long as the Artifact remains on your shores, it will attract attention.”

“All right.” I said. “Two things. How do I find the Artifact in the first place, and how do I destroy it in the second?”

“For the first,” the thestral said. He waved a wing and we once again had that Google Earth view of the western part of the island. “The cave entrance that I collapsed was located here.” He highlighted that point. “It would not surprise me if it is heavily overgrown. I marked it myself… in a way.” He gave me a knowing glance. I did not need a mind reader to grasp his meaning. He’d probably died not far away. “As for destroying the Artifact, I do not know for certain, but seeing as it is being hunted by a being of wind and wave, perhaps the opposing elements would suffice. It was brought here from the Big Island after being taken from its guardian at Hale Ma’uma’u Crater.”

“Oh? Oh.” My imagination flashed to the end of The Lord of the Rings with Frodo dropping the One Ring into the fiery lava of Mount Doom. I wondered how long the flight would be to get the Artefact to the fiery lava of Kilauea. I had better work on that flying. “I understand.” I said.

“Good. I wish you good fortune in this endeavor, young one. It is a heavy burden, but I believe you will bear it well. I have one final wish before I depart.” The thestral said.

“What is it?”

“When you find my bones, could you place them in the sacred place, at Diamond Head? And carve the names of my comrades from the pouch into the stone of the Cave of Names? They deserve to be remembered, even if I am unworthy of the honor.”

“Very well. One last question before you depart. What is your name, so that I may include it alongside your comrades’?”

The thestral hesitated before replying, “I am not worthy, but I will give it to you. My name at birth was Daniel J. Paxton. The name I gave myself at rebirth was Slickwing.”

“You got the Artifact away from the invaders. That’s worth remembering. I shall include both of your names. Fare thee well and sweet dreams Slickwing.”

“Fare thee well, Parrothead. May we meet again one day.” He seemed to fade away leaving only the landscape below. I watched as the island below recovered from the invaders’ assault. The forest grew back over the devastated city below, looser than in the hills above. Yet the empty gray of the wasteland around Pearl Harbor remained. Nothing would grow until the invader’s mark had been scoured away, a task too monumental to contemplate.

I woke with a start. The image of the map was still fresh in my mind. I scrambled to find a pen and my notebook. I did my best to draw a map with the approximate location of Slickwing’s cache before it slipped out of my mind. The dim moonlight was enough to see the black lines on the white page as long as I didn’t shadow it. I hoped I would be able to read it in the morning. My last thought before I drifted off to sleep was how am I going to explain this to everyone else?

Comments

[Dances With Unicorns]

As Rainbow Dash would say, “That was awesome!”

[Dances With Unicorns]

Wait a minute; I’ve played the Shadowrun game, as well as writing magazine articles and two convention adventures for that game. The great wave that rose from the sea reminds me of three Shadowrun spells combined into one and carried onto the shore by a destructive tidal wave. Those spells are Toxic Wave, Radiation Burst, and Pollutant Wave and that is why the vegetation between the beach and the interstate highway is small and in poor physical health. It also has been shown in the cannon series that it is possible to combine spells, so it is possible that the big bad could have combined spells to kill the ponies while making the sand the wave deposited on the ground between the beach and the interstate highway toxic for hundreds of years.

SR5:Spells:Combat