• Published 12th Oct 2018
  • 329 Views, 21 Comments

Theory and Practice - Snaproll



Moondancer has always been a pony who prefers to do work herself, pursuing her own solitary studies. But, when she's shunted off to work in the Applied & Theoretical Magic Department near Appaloosa, a new chapter in her life begins.

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Arrival

Moondancer rolled over, trying to get comfortable. It wasn't that the bedroll was uncomfortable, as it had a remarkably thick and soft pad built into the bottom of it. Rather, her discomfort had more to do with the fact that her usual bedtime routine consisted of reading one of her many books under her covers until her eyes were drooping and she was practically asleep. This wasn't an option, however, as her books were still all packed in her saddlebags at the moment, and the last time she had checked, they had all shifted to the bottom and were inconvenient to extract. Even without that, she felt she had plenty of fatigue built up over her journey that she should have dropped off to sleep almost the instant her head touched the pillow built into her bedroll.

Despite that, she was still awake.

I've got to be too tired to sleep. That's it. She pondered that for a minute, then shook her head. Get a grip, Moondancer, that's absurd. It's got to be something else.

She took a few minutes, cataloging her surroundings, and tried to find what it was that had changed. After a few minutes, it came to her. It's so quiet out here... she thought to herself.

Indeed it was. Moondancer had lived in Canterlot all her life, and while Manehattan might have been the "City That Never Sleeps", Canterlot was the city that "Stayed Up Until Three In The Morning Making A Racket Before It Shambled Off To Bed". Every night, Moondancer had been lulled to sleep by the sounds of passing carriages, the often overloud conversations of ponies in the streets below, or the sounds of ponies entering the apartment building after a long day of work.

Out here, in the Appaloosan Desert, there was barely any noise at all. The breeze seemed to float by, bearing with it a scent of the sagebrush it rustled through, but that was about it. Even Snaproll and Sazerac's muffled bickering had dwindled to quiet, and before long she could hear gentle snoring from the two brothers' bedrolls.

Turning her ear the other way, she couldn't hear anything from Braeburn but his breathing. It doesn't sound like he's asleep, though. She was seized by the irrational urge to ask him a question, but she stopped herself. I don't know him well enough to ask him anything while he's probably trying to sleep. And besides, he still irritates me. She nodded to herself, but then was struck by another thought as she stared into the dim glow of the campfire. What did he mean when he said he hoped I'd "Enjoy the view"?

Deciding she wasn't comfortable on that side, either, Moondancer rolled onto her back and gasped in surprise. Oh...oh my goodness...

Being a city filly, bookish and generally disinclined to leave the bright and well lit Canterlot thoroughfares after dark, Moondancer had barely spared the night sky a casual glance. Oh, certainly, she had studied astronomy, but that was different. She'd used a telescope and studied other stars and planets individually through an observatory telescope, or taken measurements on some of the brighter stars to be seen from the roof of the Canterlot library.

All of her studies, all of her knowledge of the heavens, had ill prepared her for the breathtaking beauty of the desert night sky on a clear evening. Stars, more stars than she could ever hope to count blazed away in the evening firmament above her. Directly overhead, blazing away among them, was a bridge of nebulous dark purple tinged with magenta spanned the horizon; a phenomena that she had only read about and had never been able to observe within the Canterlot city limits.

Wow...That's...that's incredible... She was stunned. Moondancer considered herself a rational mare, always concerned with data that she could gather and what it represented. However, out here in the Appaloosan Desert, she had found something so profoundly beautiful that it rendered her nearly incapable of cataloging what she saw. True, she could see familiar constellations, this time in their entirety, not merely by the brightest star or two that they contained. But instead of itemizing and tallying the stars, she found herself merely content to stare at them in wonder.

Presently, she became aware of their slow motion across the sky, accompanied by the slow movement of the waxing crescent moon. She felt her eyelids grow heavy as she thought to herself I wonder if I can listen hard enough, can I hear the stars move...



*******


She awoke the next morning to the sounds of the stallions bustling about camp. Sazerac had stoked one of the fires back up and was stirring something that smelled like mashed oats, cinnamon, ginger and other spices she couldn't quite identify. Braeburn stood nearby, stowing three of the bedrolls and some of the other camping accoutrements in the wagon. He smiled as he saw her gazing blearily around.
"Mornin' Miss Moondancer! How'd you sleep?"
She fumbled around for her glasses with her magic and gave him the best, most scathing reply she could muster.
"Hzzafuzzawuzza."

The earth pony stallion nodded sagely. "Right. Wait a minute." He trotted off towards the fire, and returned a few seconds later bearing a mug in one hoof. A mug filled with a blessed, familiar dark brown liquid whose acrid aroma blazed its way through her sinus cavities and jump started her mind into wakefulness. She managed to get her glasses back onto her muzzle while she sat up onto her haunches and seized the mug with her magic. She glanced at Braeburn and muttered "Thanks" begrudgingly as she sipped at the bitter ambrosia. To be sure, it needed some cream and sugar, but for the moment it was doing its job as it forced her mind to wakefulness. She swallowed a gulp of coffee, and then stood, shaking out her mane as she held the mug steady in her magic.

Braeburn gave her a quizzical look. "How didja sleep, Miss Moondancer?"
She bit back her most scathing response. She had not slept well. To be sure, she had slept, though it had been restless and her sleep had been punctuated by dreams, though the memory of those had been burned away by the coffee she drank. She took another sip of the brew to cover for her hesitation while she tried to come up with something polite to say to the earth pony stallion. "Better than I expected, thank you."

This was certainly true, she mused to herself. She hadn't expected to get any sleep, after all.

Braeburn nodded, satisfied. "Glad to hear it. Now c'mon over, let's get some breakfast into you."

Her nose hadn't lied to her. Sazerac had been preparing a veritable mountain of oats, redolent with cinnamon, sugar and ginger, and as she approached he floated a plate piled high with the stuff over to her. "Here you go, Miss Moondancer. Go on and eat up now, we've still got a good walk ahead of us."

Moondancer frowned as she extended another bit of magic out to the plate, levitating it in front of her. Sazerac's drawl had vanished, and his accent was much closer to Snaproll's, though his register was still a bit deeper. She blinked in confusion for a minute, then glanced over at Braeburn, opening her mouth to speak. Sazerac chuckled before she could. "Don't worry, you're not going insane. It's just a joke I like to play on my brother." When she turned her confused gaze on him, the tan stallion explained. "See, Snap doesn't get why I like Neigh Orleans stuff. Food, culture, drinks, et cetera. Gives me no end of grief, he does. So, I like to tease him by putting on that accent. Ruffles his feathers to no end." He winked at her and gave her an apologetic shrug. "I hope you don't mind me using you as part of my joke. I didn't mean anything bad by it."

Moondancer was too bemused by this development to say anything other than. "Oh, of course. No harm done." She turned and trotted over to one of the logs around the camp, sat down and began to munch away at her oats, washing them down with the coffee. As she ate, her mind started to properly wake up and she began to take in her surroundings properly again.

Braeburn had been correct; there was little to no dew that lay on the ground this morning. The sun was already starting to climb higher into the morning sky, having managed to rise over a mountain ridge that kept it from being directly at eye level. Braeburn was busy bustling around the camp, tidying up the tripod that had stood over the other campfire. She watched as he stowed this deftly along the side of the wagon, which he then rummaged inside for a pair of buckets that he withdrew. He glanced over at the unicorn stallion, who was spooning the last of the oatmeal onto his own plate. "Hey Saz, where away was the stream again?"

Sazerac pointed across the trail with the spoon suspended in his magic, in the opposite direction from the grove of trees that served as the bathroom. "That way, just past that row of green bushes."

"Much obliged!" and with that, Braeburn left, holding the buckets by their handles in his mouth.

Moondancer glanced around the camp, and then realized something. She turned over to Sazerac and asked, between bites of oatmeal "Hey, what happened to Snaproll?"

Sazerac rolled his eyes as he chewed and swallowed his mouthful of oats before he spoke. "The featherbrain took off this morning just after he ate. Said he wanted to 'Scope things out' or something." He snorted derisively. "My guess is, he didn't want to clean dishes again. So I guess we'll have to do it."

Sazerac glanced up, and then smiled. "Or maybe not. Speak of the draconequis, and he appears." Moondancer followed his gaze, and, sure enough, she could make out the silhouette of a pegasus flying fast and low. She recognized him as Snaproll a few seconds before the pegasus stallion flared and landed at the campsite quickly, billowing dust around him and threatening to coat Moondancer and Sazerac's breakfast with the same. It was only through Sazerac's quick thinking use of a small shield spell that prevented the pair being covered in dust. The unicorn stood and confronted his brother. "Confound it, Snap, what the hay do you mean kicking up all that dust?"

Snaproll, however, was breathing heavily as he rounded on his brother. "Come on, Saz, we've got to kick this into gear. We need to be out of here, and pronto." There was a sense of urgency to the pegasus' voice as he started gathering up dishes and rinsing them in what remained of last night's dishwater.

Sazerac frowned as his brother spoke. He gulped down the last of his oatmeal, glanced at Moondancer and said "Why, what's going on?"

Snaproll grimaced and glanced to the northeast. "We're just lucky I decided to stretch my wings is all. I decided to fly off over Lonesome Lake." He shook his head. "There's a natural storm brewing out there. Big one, too. Some of the ponies that live over thatway are raising the alarm for the weather team in Appleoosa, but they're going to be at least an hour-maybe more- before they can get on scene, break the storm into something more manageable, and divert it to the orchards around town."

Sazerac goggled at his brother for a minute, and then said "Well, why didn't you use your fancy pegasus mojo to break the storm up?"

Snaproll rolled his eyes, and said, with no small trace of sarcasm "Golly gee! Why didn't I think of that!" He bonked his head and crossed his eyes, the picture of comic idiocy, before glaring at his brother. "Trust me, a storm like that is hard to break up, one pony all by himself. Plus, they move fast out here. I could either try and break it up, or come here and warn everyone before it overtook us." He glanced off over to the northeast again, and then pointed with a hoof. "There! You can see it from here!"

Moondancer followed his gesture and was treated to another first. Canterlot, she recalled, had its weather curated by the loyal Weather Pegasi stationed around the capital. She could remember their charter to the city from her lessons as a young filly. The rain may never fall 'till after sundown. By eight, the morning fog must disappear. Certainly, the Weather Pegasi had had the occasional storm, generally after a petition to hold one accrued the requisite amount of signatures. She was aware, of course, that some parts of the realm had to deal with naturally occurring weather. She was also aware, intellectually, that this must mean that some parts of the realm experienced storms on their own.

All of this reasoning, however, was insufficient to prepare her for the sight she beheld.

A thunderhead, a towering colossus of cloud, was tearing across the plain. Though it was many miles distant, the cloud construct was so vast and took up so much of the sky that Moondancer fancied that she could reach a hoof out and touch it. Below the clouds, the vast plains were cast into dark shadow, and she could see tendrils drifting below the clouds. Bizarrely, she was reminded of a vast jellyfish, until she realized the dark and shadowy tendrils below the clouds must be rain.

Moondancer felt her breath catch in her throat as she watched the storm. Granted, the night sky the night previously had made her feel small and insignificant, but the approaching storm was different. The night sky, though beautiful, was impersonal and distant. The storm was significantly nearer and threatened to make her and her companions cold and wet, or worse. Even now, this far distant, the wind suddenly shifted, sending forth a blast of wind that tossed her mane and tail back, its chill promising damp and cold.

Moondancer was stunned out of her reverie by Braeburn, who was racing out of the side trail, carrying two full pails of water. "C'mon, shake a leg! We gotta break camp 'fore that storm hits us!" He glanced at the two other stallions. "Sazerac, I need you to pack up your kit and get it into the wagon there. Snaproll, can you get out and see if you can stall that storm?"

The pegasus frowned up at the approaching storm, his eyes calculating. And haunted. He gazed at it for a second, then two, then nodded. "Yeah, Brae. I think I can stall it. Maybe a bit."

Braeburn gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder with one of his hooves. "G'won, git movin'. We'll see you at the Institute." Snaproll gave him a nod, and then took off, flying towards the storm.

Braeburn gave Moondancer a nod. "Miss Moondancer, I have to see to filln' the cat-hole and then loadin' the wagon. Can you take these here buckets of water and douse the fire pits?"

Moondancer glanced down at the buckets, then out at the storm, before she said "Surely the rain will put the fire out?"

Braeburn shook his head. "We can't take the chance. Besides, it isn't smart to leave a fire unattended for so long. On the off chance that storm doesn't pass over this here campsite, the fire could spread to the sagebrush and we'd have a much bigger problem on our hooves." He shook his head and trotted off towards the grove that served as their toilet. "I'll be right back! Just make sure you spread the water 'round the fire pits!"

And with that he was off. Moondancer shook her head and, using her magic, levitated both pails of water over to the fire pits. Carefully, she managed to empty them so both pits were saturated. A small, billowing cloud of steam issued forth from both of them. Satisfied, she stacked one pail inside the other and lofted them both into the waiting wagon. She crossed to her bedroll, which still lay in the open, and deftly rolled it and tied it fast before levitating it neatly into the wagon as well. Finally, she used her magic to lift her turtleneck sweater from the ground. She gave it a firm shake, then used her magic to pull it onto herself. She pulled a tie and managed to get her mane into her characteristic messy half-top bun, and then took in the rest of the camp.

Sazerac was floating the last of his cooking apparatus into the wagon, his magical aura glowing a brilliant rusty red. The unicorn stallion then flipped the wagon's tarp over the top of the bed and threaded a rope through its eyes, securing it against potential rain.

Behind her, Moondancer heard the pounding of hooves and turned to see Braeburn galloping back towards the campsite, clutching a shovel in his mouth. This last tool he placed in a rack on the side of the wagon, spat a splinter from his mouth, and then eyed the storm. "C'mon. We ain't got much time to lose." He took his familiar place in the wagon harness, Sazerac taking his brother's place. "Let's git goin'!"

Moondancer barely had time to snatch her saddlebags up and trot in their trail. Behind them, she could hear the dull rumble of thunder as the storm rolled across the plains.

*******

They spent the rest of the morning outrunning the storm. True, as they plodded along the trail, the sky darkened and the air grew colder. Every time Moondancer spared a glance behind them, the storm seemed to have grown to encompass more of the sky. She could even see chains of lightning- great, jagged arcs of pure energy- lash across the sky from time to time. If she looked hard, she could, on occasion, see a small speck against the storm, fluttering along the leading edges of the cloud. That must be Snaproll, she thought to herself, wondering just how foolhardy the pegasus was trying to forestall the massive storm. An hour after she spied that particular speck, it was joined by a dozen other, similar ones. Must be the Appaloosan weather team, she reasoned, but after that she had little time to focus her surroundings.

Just put one hoof in front of the other. Get to the Center dry and un-lightning struck. That's your job, filly, she told herself, as she did just that.

Moondancer's mind, however, was not an idle one. It was incapable of wandering when occupied with nothing but a mundane task of simply trotting as fast as one was able ahead of a storm. Seeking for something to ponder, her mind landed on the Center for Applied & Theoretical Magic and everything she had heard about it.

This wasn't much, she decided upon reflection. The Center was supposed to be a hot spot where the brightest ponies tested new magical theories far from the rest of the population of Equestria. That, Moondancer thought, was the most intriguing bit about the center. The spells they must study must be quite powerful and, crucially, they might deal with the very fabric of reality itself. She was aware just what the gravity of what she might be called to study here. Equestria was a land that included creatures that were several orders of magnitude larger, more powerful and more fearsome than a pony. The flora was scarcely less dangerous. If one wasn't careful, either seriously change a pony's physiology, if not outright cause them to become a part of the flora themselves. It might be remote and desolate, but there's a real chance I might be able to make a difference out here. She thought to herself as she trotted in the wagon's wake, smiling despite her aching muscles.

Her thoughts drifted to the enigmatic director of the Center, Professor Pomme DeTerre. She had read a few of his papers in graduate school, and found his work groundbreaking. If he had been more outgoing, more accessible to the scientific press, he would have been a household name. As it was, he was well known amongst the Magical Academia of Equestria, but reclusive, preferring the solitude and isolation of the Center in the Appaloosan desert. Oh, certainly, there were rumors aplenty, and some of them were too outlandish to be believed. Professor DeTerre was an alien from another dimension, some would say, or others theorized that he was an almost unheard-of Alicorn Stallion, and visited the Princesses Celestia and Luna for clandestine trysts at Canterlot during the solstice. Still others swore that he was a dragon in disguise, others that he was a changeling. The proponents of the latter two theories were remarkably similar, either suggesting that DeTerre was sharing his knowledge for the betterment of ponykind or, more sinisterly, to control it. Moondancer had sifted through each of these theories individually and decided that the best course of action would be to meet the professor himself.
Though, admittedly, his papers are groundbreaking and his conclusions incontrovertible. If nothing else, it will be a treat to deal with such an intellect. Indeed, in that light, her trip to the Center would be a chance to prove herself to the Greatest Mind of a Generation.

The trail wended its way beneath her as she trotted behind Braeburn and Sazerac and their wagon. An hour passed, then another, and still the storm grew closer behind them. And still, the ground rose beneath them as the trail rose into the desert. Moondancer felt herself panting as the miles ground away behind them. Water! Water would be lovely. Followed closely by a catered meal, a soak in a bath deep enough to cover me to my neck. Followed by a hooficure. Suddenly, the trail dropped away beneath her, and she was presented with a new vista.

Below her stretched a vast caldera. At its base pooled a lake filled with dark blue water. The ground sloped away and the trail with it, leading to a collection of adobe buildings a hoofful of lengths from the lake's edge. Though she imagined in still weather the lake would reflect like a mirror, in the wind from the incoming storm its surface was disturbed into ripples. The edges of the caldera were barren of any vegitation larger than sagebrush, save for inside the cluster of adobe buildings. There, a grove of trees stood tall and proud, rivaling the earthenware buildings for height. One long, low wooden building stood apart from the rest of the others, and Moondancer wondered what that could be, before Braeburn shook himself in the harness.

"Welp. Here we are. Home sweet home." He turned his head in his harness, took his hat in one of his hooves, and bowed to Moondancer. "Miss Moondancer, may I be the first to welcome you to the Equestrian Center for Applied and Theoretical Magic. Now, if'n you'll follow me, it look's like we kin git you situated 'fore that storm hits."