Insouciant
The first step in solving a problem was to acknowledge that the issue existed.
It was strangely quiet in the barracks’ bathroom, with the taps turned off and only a single centaur in the pool. It was possible to hear water lapping at the edges, or little drips hitting the surface of the water: condensed steam falling from the colder ceiling. (There was probably a pegasus technique to prevent that, but it hadn’t been renewed yet.). Any sound made tended to echo: the smallest of splashes created by her own movements, breaths which felt as if they were being broadcast to the entire palace.
She was trying to stay as quiet as possible: something which was becoming natural for a girl whose mere existence qualified as a disturbance. But it wasn’t enough. No matter what she did, a bathroom without Nightwatch in it seemed to be searching for a source of sound to fill the space, and everything she did expanded accordingly. Her breathing was too loud. Thoughts seemed to echo.
So did pain.
Pain was most of what she’d been thinking about.
Pain and helplessness.
Knights were supposed to understand strategy, and so Cerea had taken up those studies. Stories had helped a little there, although not as much as their authors might have wished. (For starters, while the girl was fully familiar with how plans unvoiced on the page were the ones most likely to succeed, she wasn't sure how that was supposed to work when it came to giving actual orders. At best, there would have been a lot of gesturing involved.) But it meant she understood that there were times when people could truly be too close to something to perceive it for what it actually was. Stand centimeters away from what appeared to be an impassable barrier and conclude that there was no way to deal with it: back up by a few meters and spot the gap in the wall.
You had to understand strategy. You were supposed to protect your liege, and that didn't just mean defending against sword blows. A worthy knight had to make sure their master (or, for the Guards, mistress) was sound emotionally. A knight was someone who could be consulted in confidence. A sounding board, an emotional bulwark, the one who would always do whatever was required to make sure their liege was of sound body and mind, because the head which bore the crown often found all resolve pressured into near-collapse by its relentless weight.
So you watched your mistress. You listened to her words, and tried to hear the ones which hadn't been spoken. You were always ready to step in, prepared to do whatever it took to make them feel better --
-- all four of Cerea's knees spontaneously bent, placing her a little lower in the pool's steaming waters. It wasn't quite enough to stop the shiver.
...all right: it wasn't always 'whatever it took'. If a knight truly explored every last possibility offered by the boundless realms of 'whatever', then they would quickly find themselves in Arthurian territory and from there, it was usually just a question of what kind of tragedy would come out in the end. Mero basked in stories where love led to everything going wrong: Cerea had a few concerns regarding those who were caught up in the nation's fall. A knight had to recognize where the boundaries were. But at the same time, they had to do whatever they could in fighting against their liege's enemies... including those which attacked from within.
They were long thoughts: concepts which could be drawn into fine wires, with inner syllables whipping against her flanks. The impacts from those thoughts had chased her to the bath, because the white horse had left the Lunar throne room in too-casual pursuit of her sibling, leaving Cerea with both nowhere to go and nothing she could do, with the echoes of another's agony still resounding within her ears.
The bath had... just been there. It was somewhere to go when you were hurting, and the heat of the waters were doing what they could. But the liquid didn't understand. It was incapable of recognizing that someone was injured, and it could never act deliberately. It had no concept of its own warmth, or what that heat did for sore muscles while never reaching the finer agonies produced by those thoughts. It would have been like expecting medicine to act as a thinking, feeling entity while combating an illness, and she hadn't thought much of that movie either. Ultimately, it was just the interaction of forces.
A pool couldn't talk about emotions. Steam wasn’t disgusted by her nudity. The newly-restored sponge panels were incapable of shivering with revulsion when they touched the bare skin of her upper torso.
Cerea had entered the bath alone, while carrying the pain of another. And there they had both stayed, because she had recognized that a problem existed -- but she didn't know what to do about it. What the cause was, or whether it was possible to do anything at all. She didn't understand how to help --
-- she isn't my liege.
The girl immediately recognized the nature of that thought, and kicked the inner enemy away. She was an immigrant, and even with the prospect of full citizenship being... some time away... merely starting the process meant she had effectively sworn her loyalty to the new nation. Legally, she was among Equestria's subjects. She just wasn't the dark mare's knight. Which implied a lesser level of responsibility...
...stop.
Her hands came up to her head. She began to run fingers through the too-long hair, separating out strands before the proper shampooing began.
A knight was, in many ways, someone who existed to bring comfort. To make the world a little better, and all of the lives in it. But not everyone wanted to be helped. She had felt the waves of pain emanating from the dark mare's fur, and it had made her want to help, but... it didn't mean Princess Luna would accept it.
If I could help at all.
If I didn't just make things worse.
Why do I even want to --
-- well, that last one was easy enough. She had recognized that Princess Luna was in pain, and... to be in the presence of hurt that deep was to wish for some way to help. In Cerea's opinion, you couldn't exist as a living being if you didn't respond to some kinds of pain with a desire to aid. She just didn't understand where the problem had come from, or how to deal with it at all, or if she even should. She... wasn't very good at dealing with pain. Not when it came to the agonies of others.
How would I even start?
The image flashed through her mind, almost too quickly to be recognized. It didn't prevent her from chasing the thing down and furiously shredding it into something less substantial than the steam.
...not that.
Cerea's teachings had centered on the inflicting of pain. When it came to learning about its healing, all she had was books, and they were mostly stories written about a species which hadn't believed anything like her could be real. And with personal experience...
...it would have to be one of the worst days. Something where I'd lost so many times as to feel like I was losing everything. And she would come into my room, sink down next to me, cradle me against her, and just... sing.
I wished for that. I wanted her to come. Because when she held me, when I could hear her heartbeat as another rhythm within her song... that was when it felt like I wasn't her project or tool or burden. I was her daughter, just for a little while. And she never talked to me when she held me, or criticized, or told me everything I'd done wrong, which was everything. She just sang.
I longed for that.
But the only way to have it happen was to lose.
I... thought about losing on purpose, at least once. Just to have her hold me. But I didn't, because I loved it when she came to me and hated the reason why. That she was comforting a loser. I... wanted her to celebrate my victories. Rejoicing together. I kept trying, kept fighting because I wanted to find out what that was like, and...
...win a fight, get placed into the next weight class.
...pass a subject, and fifteen more books were on my shelves.
...clear a jump, turn around to see the bar being raised.
It was never enough.
And when I was nine, she stopped coming to me.
I was supposed to be old enough to deal with my own problems. I had to fix things by myself. When you were old enough, just showing pain became shameful. Letting anyone know that something was wrong cost dignity. You were supposed to keep control over your scent and posture. All the time. Even when I was failing over and over again, because the bar kept getting higher.
The other fillies kept it concealed until they could reach each other. They comforted each other. But none of them would talk to me. My father...
a desperately waving arm, a voice calling out a name it has no means of knowing as the yellow vests surge forward
...was just something on the other side of the house. And when I was nine, my mother decided I was old enough to never hear her sing again.
I don't know how to talk to someone who's hurting. I just know how to hold them.
She slowly made her way over to the pool's rim. Gathered up a shampoo bottle, found the protruding edge and used a finger to flip up the lid while wondering whether the usual work was done by snout or tongue.
It's the Princess.
She isn't afraid of me. She was never afraid, not even on that first night in the forest.
She was talking about screaming children. As if it was something which had the potential to happen every time.
Why would anyone ever be afraid of her?
It wasn't the alicorn's aura. Cerea was convinced ponies had no capacity for sensing the sheer force of personality and power which radiated from the dark eyes and in any case, it wasn't something threatening. It existed as a simple statement: there is strength here. Nothing about that implied hostility.
Were alicorns so rare as to be seen as something frightening? Too different from the average citizen, too strong, existing in a state of isolation where ponies who didn't visit the palace might never know one as anything other than distant legend? A single bloodline which had somehow managed to acquire political power, possibly in self-defense. But that was the sort of situation which generally led to revolt -- and if it was just one bloodline, then who were they breeding with?
(Her mind automatically attempted to picture ponies breeding, and then just as automatically shut the image down.)
Was it the association with the night? Fillies and colts who were afraid of the dark, transferring the phobia to the one who ruled over those hours? That seemed like the most likely possibility, but it also didn't feel common enough. And when it came to the Princess herself...
She was strong: ponies would know that on the intellectual level. But there was a purpose to that strength. In her interactions with others --
-- Cerea blinked. Then did it again, because some of the shampoo had gone into her eyes. It wasn't as harsh as Japan's blends, and she wondered if that was because pony eyes were so much more of a target.
The press conference.
When she was maintaining decorum. Keeping them all from yelling over each other with her field keeping their mouths shut.
There was fear at the conference, in every moment I was there. But when she was holding them -- it surged.
...were they afraid of her?
Why?
Cerea had spent hours near the dark mare. She didn't consider herself an expert on the Princess, because she was lost in a world which found ways of shocking her every day and she would consider herself lucky if she could work out how earth ponies styled their own manes. But she felt that she'd been in proximity long enough to learn a few things.
There were ways in which the formality felt like a mask. Listening to the Princess speak was frequently the audio version of watching a mathematician assembling a very complex equation. Those witnessing the process might wonder why it was taking so much work to simply solve for X and in that moment of self-distraction, find themselves ambushed by a well-placed integral.
The Princess could be emotionally blunt or brusque, but it wasn’t from lack of empathy. She understood how others were feeling: she just didn't care to spend five minutes on the slow approach before the true discussion began. If someone was angry, then they were angry: now what were they going to do about it?
She... acted quickly. Directly. Perhaps too much so. There's a bad reaction to being measured? Then you're going to be held still until the measurements are taken, because that way, it'll be over sooner. There was very little which was diplomatic about the Princess, perhaps because diplomacy would have been seen as a waste of time. Here are the issues, and here's how we're going to solve them. Cerea imagined that level of directness would be uncomfortable for many, especially in the press. She wasn't personally happy about how the measuring issue had been dealt with, but... she couldn't deny that it had been over sooner. It had just wrapped up in what felt like the most humiliating way possible, and...
...she didn't hate the Princess for that, because she didn't feel that the alicorn understood. Malice required comprehension. It was like Nightwatch saying that no part of a centaur's body could be vulgar for the little knight, because the pegasus didn't know where she wasn't supposed to look.
As with Cerea and the measuring tape, the reporters had found their agency temporarily restricted. That could bring fear. But... so much of it?
I don't understand.
Simply thinking the words to herself didn't make them any less shameful.
How do I feel about the Princesses?
She...
...she wanted to like them, and part of that was because they weren't afraid of her. There were only four ponies in the world for whom that could be said. But one was her instructor, a status he partially shared with the second. And when it came to any potential overlap between Nightwatch and the third and fourth...
...even as an immigrant, they're my lieges.
They...
Her fingers twisted into her hair.
...aren't my friends. It would be arrogant to think that way. Selfish...
But she had felt the dark mare's pain. And when you were in the presence of pain...
In the household, Cerea had been just about as helpless. For starters, she was the one who was in charge, because someone had to be. When you were trying to ride herd over five girls who usually displayed the group emotional maturity of -- well, Papi -- and possessed the collective damage capacity of drunken Bérets Verts on holiday, you couldn't afford to show weakness.
Compassion wasn't weakness. Compassion was supposed to be one of the defining qualities of a true knight. But compassion didn't mean staring down into the strange reflections of Suu's large eyes and falling for "It won't happen again," especially when the slime girl was probably just earnestly repeating what Rachnae had told her to say. And there was also this: at the core of everything about the household was conflict. They were rivals, every last one of them fighting to win a single heart, and to grant too much clemency was giving aid and comfort to the enemy --
-- to a sister --
-- it didn't matter. There had been only so much she could have done at all, and when it came to helping others through their pain... all she knew how to do was hold them.
It had been easiest with Papi: the harpy was in the same general age category as the rest of the group, but emotional youth meant the harpy both wanted to be held and was the most prone to wind up in situations which brought tears. Miia often guarded her deeper emotions, because lamias had their own opinions about weakness. By contrast, you couldn't talk to Mero about sorrow because she would enjoy it too much. Confiding anything in Rachnae meant giving aid, comfort, and information to the enemy: the arachnae seemed to feel the same way about Cerea, and never would have allowed herself to look weak enough to truly need anything. Lala often wanted to explore implication more than emotion, and with Suu...
There was empathy, when it came to Suu. Perhaps something about the chemical signature of drifting emotions triggered a reaction upon contact with the membrane, because anyone feeling horrible would often look up to find Suu nearby, silently waiting to see if there was anything she could do. It just wasn't as comforting as it could have been, because anyone feeling both horrible and sweaty would discover that Suu might try to comfort from desire, but she went after trace salts on instinct. The instinct always won.
And when it came to him --
(She sank lower into the water. Most of the heat seemed to have vanished.)
-- I held him because I wanted to comfort him.
That was what the centaur who had lived in the household would have said, generally in angry protest to five glaring girls. The one who was regarding her past self from a world away had a different perspective.
...do you feel me?
You're so much shorter than I am. Twenty-six centimeters. It means that when I hold you close with one arm and cradle the back of your head with the other, you're...
...I have to be strong. I have to be the one who directs the herd, because no one else will. They claim to listen to you, but they listen as part of the competition. So if they decide that doing what they want is what will win your heart, they'll go their own way every time. It means I have to be the one who's loud and angry and pushes and...
...I have to be strong.
I have to be cold. Hard. Steel.
But you hold my hand.
You hold my hand and I don't ever want you to let go.
I'm holding you.
I have to be so cold and hard.
But this is where I'm soft.
Do you feel me? I give way a little against your weight, but not too much. Resilient, even here. Firm. But I give way as much as I can, to let me bring you in.
I'm not cold, not like this. You're a little cool against me, and I'm still trying to get used to that. But I'm warmer than you. I burn hotter. I could show you that heat. I want to show you.
I'm soft and warm and...
...could you come to like this? I know you said legs, but that's not my fault, it's not how I was born, and....
...I'm soft. I am.
If you liked this... I have the most to offer. Not the minotaur because she doesn't even live here, she's finished and I'm not done yet, I see the difference every month, I know I'm not done and
if you came to like this
if you came to love this
if you came to love me
She had held him against her because it was one more excuse for having him touch her.
The dark mare had been in pain. Cerea hadn't understood why. But the pain had been there, she had wanted to do something and... she didn't know how to be comforting. It was the sort of thing which you learned from your parents, and all Cerea understood how to do was hug and sing.
(She'd hugged Papi. But she'd never sung for the harpy. For anyone in the household. Not even him.)
(She had sung for Nightwatch.)
The alicorns weren't afraid of her. But she was still a centaur. One of their subjects, but the wrong species. Someone who had been forced into their world, and the rulers never would have wished her to appear after knowing everything which had come from it. She was a live-in problem, she was causing more problems with every passing day, she was a source of pain and...
...she wasn't their knight. There were no guarantees that she would succeed in her training, especially given all the difficulties that passing would create. (In accordance with what the Sergeant had said, Cerea was now expecting multiple staff members to quit.) And even if she somehow did...
...there was pain. But she didn't know what had created it: she might not even have the right to ask. Inquiries were intrusive. It would make Cerea look as if she thought too highly of herself: look at how important I must be, to believe I'm capable of helping anyone at all! And even if she could somehow get past all that, even for a second...
...she wasn't good with words, especially not when formality had been ordered to depart. She hadn't spent a lot of time around anyone until she'd come to the household. She hadn't had friends or relationships, she hadn't had a single filly holding her hand during the time for love, she didn't have anyone and she couldn't hold Nightwatch's hand because the little knight could offer nothing more than hooves. She only understood how to hug and sing, that wasn't enough and even if it somehow had been...
...she couldn't hug a Princess.
The centaur carefully made her way out of the pool. Rinsed her hair by splashing water up from the sink, dried off as best she could because the sponge was new, but the drying vents in the walls apparently needed a recharge before they could blow hot air again. She put on her nightclothes, and then made her way to the patch of floor-spread blankets which served as her bed. And while she did so, she told herself that she was only recognizing the limits: both her own and what the existence of royals imposed upon the world. That to not act was the proper thing, and she told herself that because in some ways, she truly believed it. She felt that she was doing her best, had reached the proper conclusion, and there could be nothing wrong with that lack of action. She shouldn't act outside of proper bound, especially when she clearly wasn’t capable of doing so. That was all.
The first step in solving so many of her own problems would have been to fully admit that they existed.
It was a forge day, and the bottom edge of the croupiere was just about done. It was important to leave some space for movement within the backpiece: her hindquarters would be encased in that section, and that meant she needed room for her hips and buttocks to have full normal play.
(There had been some jokes about the size of her buttocks in the household. Cerea had finally become irritated enough to point out that when compared to humanity, most of the girls had their own anatomical issues. For starters, the vulgar human male desire to 'get some tail' probably didn't mean they wanted several scale-covered meters of it.)
Like so much else about the armor, it was a balancing act. There was only so much jointing and shifting, overlapping panels she could install in that section: even the narrow gap between plates was an invitation for a blade to get in. And allowing too much space would simply have the metal bouncing against her flesh: bruising would be guaranteed, and using too much padding in the name of preventing it would lock her joints all over again. It was an issue which Trinette had repeatedly solved, which meant it was something which the apprentice was desperately trying to work out.
She needed full flexibility for her hind legs. It wasn't just running and kicking backwards: it was jumping and, if necessary, rearing up in the name of bringing the whole of her weight crashing down again. (The raw mass of a centaur was the foundation for another group of jokes, an enemy to scales everywhere, and tended to look a lot more serious when the power behind all of it was directing fast-descending forehooves to land in the center of someone's rib cage.) It meant the piece had spent a lot of time out of the forge, moved into a more open area so she could try all of those motions while wearing it. An intricate system of knots had placed the croupiere against her fur, and not having anyone to help with them meant the metal had spent a lot of time impacting the walls.
Barding had watched a few of those trials, mostly to see how much damage the walls were taking.
"What's the holdup?" came from the hallway, and did so at a somewhat greater elevation than before. The smith always wanted to watch her working, but... as with every other pony but one, there was something of a difference in their heights. He'd eventually pushed a portable ramp up to the door and called it solved, because the opinions of everypony who had to vault the barrier didn't count.
"The tail." Because she could only speak to him about metal -- but that was a topic which came with subcategories.
She could almost hear the char-coated ears twist. "What about it?"
"I'm not sure whether to conceal it or not," Cerea reluctantly admitted. "The exercises which the Sergeant wanted me to do..." She'd been trying. Nightwatch had provided a length of thin rope, one which had a little bit of metal braided into the hemp. It was meant to match the approximate length and weight of any razorwhip which would have been mounted on someone of Cerea's size, and the deliberate lack of edge meant the mistakes did nothing more than pummel against her humiliation. (Every impact technically raised blood, but most of that wound up in her face.) "They're not going well. I don't think I'll be able to use a real razorwhip before the training ends."
"They're a tricky weapon," said the smith who'd made a number of them. "Hard to control, and that's just when I'm testing flexibility before they go into the armory. I'm not sure anyone could get them down in less than ten moons --"
"-- and if I can't use one," the girl's inadequacies cut in, "then my tail isn't serving as the sort of weapon which the Guard knows. It's just one more thing which can be bitten or grabbed."
It was a subject better suited for the Sergeant. But Barding thought about it.
"Default on Guard armor is exposure for the hair," he said. "But you've seen that. Ring of metal around the base, to protect the coccygeals --" paused. "What kind of weapon do centaurs use their tails for?"
Because weaponsmithing was some part of metal's many uses, and she had just implied that there were different options. "It depends. Some of us braid flexible metals into the fall. Adding weight. So if we have to whip someone across the face with our tails, they'll really feel it." She could almost hear the approving nod. "Other mares just tightly braid the hair, and then soak it. And I know a few who --" she hesitated "-- liked to go with mud. Fresh, near the end of the fall. Because if you whipped someone, the mud might get into their eyes. But it dried too quickly, it really didn't stay on for long, and it was just undignified --" which was when she heard the pace of his breathing change, and knew she'd lost him again. "But it was mostly weighting."
She'd already decided not to tell him about the two who swore by something worse than mud. Generally at a great distance, because no one in the herd wanted them to get any closer until they'd finished washing up.
"So no one came up with razorwhips?"
"Not in my herd." He was just about the only pony she would use 'herd' with when discussing centaurs, simply because he didn't think about it. The Princesses wanted the public to, if they thought about any additional population at all, regard it as something very far away: the fact that it was true probably wouldn't do much to keep the panic down. "Combat among ourselves was mostly about surrender. Anything with an edge had a greater chance to kill." And when it came to any possible encounters during a patrol...
You tried not to leave too many wounds or rather, if inflicting injury became necessary, you tried to make sure those wounds looked as if they had come from a single source. Hooves or hands. Never both.
Both was evidence.
Both was danger.
The smith thought about it.
"Tail's a problem near a forge," he eventually said. "But the Guards keep theirs exposed. You might as well fit in. Leave it free. Just give yourself space to tuck it if you need to."
Cerea tried to picture herself standing in a Guard formation, with all of them wearing their own version of full armor. With her at the center, nearly twice the height of anypony there, possessing two limbs which nopony else had. Fitting in.
She almost laughed at the inner sight, and just barely managed to hold the bitterness back --
-- wait. It wasn't just the forms which didn't match...
"Barding? How does Guard armor get its color?" Because there were two different hues, and neither smelled like real gold or silver would: pony spines also weren’t collapsing under the weight. Her own creation was currently the typical mottled blue-black with hints of purple: something which didn't exactly indicate allegiance to either shift.
"Two ways," he immediately said. "The second one's out, because we're keeping centaur steel a secret. There's a pissed-off unicorn filly who comes into the palace with about six Guards flanking her. She can make anything solid into any color she can think of, and the change holds after she's done. That's how we've been doing it for the last --" he audibly considered it "-- year or so, I think. I don't let her into the forge because she's supposed to be on probation for something, and getting armor into the right hues is part of how she's working it off. That still means she did something. I can tell quality through more than just the color. It doesn't mean I want her getting the chance to pattern anything with rust, because somepony else is going to come along and get it wrong."
She nodded. "And the first?"
"Chemical wash," the smith replied. "That's what we're going with for yours. I already took a few scrap pieces and put them through. Works fine, even if it winds up needing the usual renewal every few years. If you get onto a shift, you'll have the right color. I just don't want to process the whole thing until you're assigned."
It didn't surprise her that he'd been doing his own testing. He wanted to know everything about what he called centaur steel, was trying to figure out ways of refining the creation process, improving the results. And with the magic of his mark backing those efforts...
She had brought the new technique into the world. And once the true smith fully understood it, she would be no better than second --
"Cerea?"
It had almost been -- awkward.
Her ears perked. Twisted backwards.
"If you don't get through training..." The earth pony hesitated again. "The metal's working out. We still have to see how it does in combat conditions, plus everyday wear and tear. And the usual spells haven't been fully tested on it yet. But when that all gets finished, once it goes through... the whole Guard still needs to be reequipped. It's a lot of work. A lot of metal. And..."
She could hear hooves shuffling at the top of the ramp.
"...it's a good excuse," he finally continued. "It makes the palace expand the forge, pay for fresh tools and a better fire. They'd have to. Carve out a new hollow, or dedicate some extra space to this one. Because there isn't enough room in here for two smiths working together, and -- it would go a lot faster..."
Stopped. She heard the bare little extension of muscle and bone scrape against the underside of the protective garment, and then the rest came out all at once.
"I told the Princesses that if you're not a Guard, then I want you as a smith. Working here. We can't let any other nation have you. It's centaur steel, but it's Equestrian steel too. They said yes. They just didn't want you to know that yet, because they wanted you thinking about the stupid Guard stuff. But I thought you had to know."
The girl blinked.
And then she blinked all the faster, leaning her head back so that the tears wouldn't fall away from her face. Running down skin and into cloth, unseen and unscented.
"Just so you know that... if you don't get through, you've still got a job," Barding awkwardly finished. "A place."
Down in the cellar. Where nopony has to worry about just coming across me by accident. Out of sight, away from open sky. Nowhere to run. No gallops, no exploring the new --
-- there's so much new out there --
-- just confined in the basement, surrounded by bone while I hammer out death. For the rest of my life.
It was putting her into another kind of gap. It probably wouldn't be a gap with a commute: she doubted non-Guards were allowed to use the barracks, but she didn't think the palace would want to risk the consequences of having her jog to work every morning. They would probably modify a cell for permanent residency.
That was the darkest way to look at it, and so the girl's mind tried to go there first. But there was another thought present, and that was the one which had brought the tears.
But...
"Because a smith needs a forge," the stallion stated. "And yours should be here."
...he had offered her a place. A role. Salary, value, shelter. Existence.
Not just that: he'd gone to the Princesses. Asked that a place be made for her.
Barding had done that.
Barding.
"...Cerea?"
It was probably just for the sake of the metal.
She recognized the cause of the uncertainty, and it hadn't been from his spotting her shaking shoulders: she'd simply been silent too long. "I understand." A thin trail of salt ran into her mouth: she took a moment to swallow. "Thank you."
"I don't even know why you'd want to be a Guard at all," he irritably added. "Not when you can be a smith. It's not like you've got a mark telling you to put on the armor instead of just making it."
The next question felt natural, at least up until the moment her voice released it into the world: after that, she immediately decided it had been offensive.
"Do marks talk?"
The sounds of breathing from behind her slowed.
"Not with words," the smith eventually said. "And it's soft. Less than a whisper." The disc warmed against her throat. "You really don't know what that's like, do you? You're never going to know."
She wasn't sure whether nodding or shaking her head would have been appropriate, or how much of either Barding would really register. "No."
It made him silent for a time, and the pounding of the hammer filled the forge.
Eventually, "Anyway, color is next to last. Then you mount the Solar or Lunar insignia. And that's it."
Insignia. She hadn't really thought about that, simply because it was so universal. The little sigil over the sternum.
"Is that the only heraldry?" And waited for the wire to hiss, because it was a word which suggested a world of knights, different powers warring over territory and belief...
It didn't. "Usually," Barding admitted. "Most Guards don't customize their armor too much, because that usually means telling me to alter it and I've got better things to do. But a few of them go to the city smiths." The snort was automatic. "For whatever good that does them. But they're allowed to tweak it a little. Heraldry, though -- most of that is in the armor for the Houses, and you only see that during Founders Day parades for a settled zone because the stuff isn't used. Too old. Mine brought it out on the holiday."
Cerea waited for it.
"Stupid," the smith added. "They worked their crest right into the criniere. Embedded it. Weakened the whole thing." Which triggered another snort. "And when it's right over the throat... Anyway, some Guards do a little heraldry. The ones from Houses don't advertise, though. It's just about always hometown pride. You'll get a city flag at the lower edge of the peytral. Patterned discoloration of the metal, because that doesn't weaken it. I've got an acid which does the job, because all it does is discolor. The difference holds up through the wash."
Houses. There had been talk of nobles, although it hadn't felt like any discussion of a ruling class. Cerea, with very little evidence to go on, had still been thinking of it in terms of the British system: a lot of leftover titles, none of which really meant anything -- except for a somewhat enhanced ability to get your personal humiliations into the tabloids.
She was completely certain that Equestria had tabloids.
"We should try the acid on centaur steel," Barding decided. "That's something I haven't done yet. Want to test it now?"
Cerea nodded, and hooves trotted down the ramp. The sounds entered the forge, and she heard the smith's snout pushing things aside on a shelf.
The vial poked her in the left foreleg. She carefully lowered herself until she could take it from his jaw.
"Don't need eye protection for the fumes," he told her. "Got to keep it sealed all the time because once any drop completely leaves the vial's spells, you've got about six seconds before it evaporates. And the fumes don't go more than about a quarter hoof-height before they're too weak to do anything. Just don't get it on your skin." A little more trotting, and he came back with a thin brush: she had to pick up it just below the tooth grip curve. "Bristles don't react. Go ahead."
She picked up a small piece of scrap, carefully opened the vial, dipped the brush, and gently swept the results across steel.
Colors shifted. Black and blue receded into the background, and the soft hiss drew purple out into the world.
The girl silently considered the results, then lowered the scrap for Barding's regard.
"Interesting," he decided. "Wasn't expecting that color. And we'll have to check it later, make sure there isn't any residue working in, when it would just evaporate off normal steel. But it's a similar effect. I'll see how the treated area responds to the wash tomorrow "
Cerea nodded. If the Guard was reequipped, hometown decorations could continue. There just might be a lot of purple involved --
-- it doesn't matter.
No one will even know --
-- I'll know.
She picked up the vial and brush, gathered another piece of scrap. Sketched slowly and carefully, because drawing with acid didn't leave a lot of room for mistakes. Looked the results over, then lowered them for inspection.
There was a long silence.
"Looks like Griffonant," Barding eventually decided. "One of their symbols. Couldn't tell you which, but they work some of them into their own armor. Is that centaur writing?"
She shook her head. It didn't surprise her too badly: realistically, there were only so many shapes in the world -- or worlds. If species could be duplicated...
Cerea raised the little piece of scrap. If nothing else, it showed that she could render the shape -- but duplicating it repeatedly and exactly by hand along the fringe of the armor was too much to expect. She'd need to make a stencil.
"So what is it?"
She looked at the purple fleur de lis.
"A reminder of where I came from."
The girl had been born in France. (She had expected to die there.) She wasn't the same species as the majority, and she'd still thought of her nationality as something she could take pride in. So she would carry the best of her country with her, in the form of a simple symbol.
But she would only be carrying the nation.
Not the people.
It had been an exchange program. Something which sent students to distant lands.
There was a reason for that.
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Oh now you’re just making us look up words. Unfair! I was told there would be no education here.
You are so wrong Cerea.
Questions only foals would ask.
btw
Left some formatting in there
Hmm. Yay! Cerea's got a place even if the Guard thing falls though! Even though I think it won't.
Dreams... Luna does Dreams... Will Cerea reveal her problems in them??
----
Wooo!
----
What. OMG. This is gonna be sooo weird.
Griffonant. So that's basically confirmed... Hmm.
Cerea's mentioned France... Hmmmmm.
----
Has anyone put the idea of putting Cerea's to Tirek's like Zebras are to Ponies?
So is it a 'Fleur de Lis'? That's one of the symbols I could associate with France. And wine, bread and cheese might be hard to render in acid drawings.
Great chapter as usual. It's nice to see Barding and Cerea interact like this and I wish him a great new forge with all the brand new tools and cutting edge equipment he wants.
And Cerea started to ask herself some interesting questions about her host.
In Equestria, that's where most folks get tripped up.
I keep wondering how Cerea would do in the Crystal Empire. They had to deal with the trauma from a monster even worse than Tirek and he wore the shape of a fellow pony. If anyone has the perspective to see past Cerea’s form it should be the crystals.
That's why she's so divisive. She's like the Twelfth Doctor, and she just doesn't get as many stories where she kicks a proper monster in the face. Okay, if it's a bug in the meta I can get on board with her much easier.
Nice to see Spectra and Patina face some consequences. And hopefully some lawsuits.
From chapter 18:
They absolutely want you as a sounding board and shoulder to lean on.
Soocial feelings in a royal castle?
Discord has the popcorm maker on Flares?
Purple, as in certain House and Dragon?
First thing I tried doing in numerical CNC was the Fleur De Lis, but for some reason the machine kpt resetting feed to full. Awful time typing the manual feed down button fast enough that the bit didnt slam into the aluminium. Never mind working out the maths needed to turn the image curves into CNC codes, when they had to be entered manually.
Cerea is going to use folded loose joints in places so she can have flexibility and rotations, but not gaps of opportunity there?
10494821
All hail Estee. Thesaurus master.
Shower-thoughts, the chapter.
Hey will you look at that, Cerea's got a definite fallback. That means more to her than even she knows methinks.
I was going to say something about the EMH, but then you came in with an Osmosis Jones reference of all things.
Getting warmer...
And you can almost hear the sighs from elsewhere in the castle.
You're training to be a guard, dear. There's a certain implicit expectation that you'll help ponies, if only by standing between them and certain doom.
The tense used makes me worry that she'll never do so. At best, she'll be forced to after a much longer and more painful road.
I'm worried that he might casually drop the term in other conversations... but the question there is with whom.
Good to see Spectra doing honest work. I'm sure her mother's appalled.
Cerea's made a friend, and quite an incredible friendship at that. I wonder if she'll ever appreciate just what she accomplished.
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis may not be strictly true, but the etymology of a language can still say so much about the history that shaped it.
After her experience with the press, the question is whether it has anything else.
And a casual confirmation of an element of Anchor Mare. The question, of course, is what it means in the local context. And how Cerea will react if she ever meets Fleur.
... Oh goodness, Fancy's party for the graduating class. That meetup's practically guaranteed. There's plenty to get through before then, but still, something to anticipate, for good or for ill.
10494879
Mehhh, I'm not really on board with that analogy. Perhaps... Cerea is to Tirek as a pony is to Chrysalis?
10494964
Eeee... maybe if they see Princess Cadance conversing with her and accepting her... it seems like they'll fall all over themselves to do the same. Otherwise, these are the ponies who "look at every shadow as if it's about to become [Sombra's]."
Also from Post Negative Comments Only:
Cerea isn't; she's just practically a vegetarian because she can taste the messed-up stuff we do to meat. Of course, we know that she would probably abide by the Treaty of Menagerie just on her own principles, but... they might not know that. Though probably, again, a word from Cadance that she won't intentionally harm anypony who doesn't attack her could go a long way.
They talked about it in a previous chapter but can Cerea eat diary like ice cream and cheese?
10495022
I am sure this will help her a lot down the line. In a way she is helping Barding too. The more metallurgy, science and projects she interests him in, the more he is going to come out of his shell.
10494989
It's a good use of previously created characters. Personally, I am eagerly waiting for a comeback is that unnamed-not-a-vampony noble from Canterlot from the story Fifty Shades of Toast. With is smell, he would truly be a nightmare for Cerea if she get a Guard job involving him.
10494847
10494997
Well of course she’s wrong: much of her perspective on knights, and thus how she ought to act, is from the fantasy or other fiction books. You know, the ones that are almost completely disconnected from reality and history and instead draw more from Arthurian and similar stories. These stories never really dealt with all the shortcomings and imperfections inherent in people, nor is the constant intrigue and uncertainty (i.e. how your vassals really feel about you, the state of your enemies, etc) really brought up.
10494907
There’s also the millennia or even more of it being a symbol for France in some capacity.
10494879
What about France? We know that’s where she’s from, we know there were xenophobic dickwads among the protesters, and I suspect she met her father in a very awkward and public fashion.
10494989
Well said.
10495036
You know, for as much as I hate her mother, I feel just a little conflicted because I’m pretty sure none of it was malicious. Still, if I don’t wanna bitch slap the stupid outta her for all of Cerea’s self-esteem issues.
The real question is why anti slander and libel laws don’t exist yet. Though, to be fair, considering the folks with the bright idea of insurance decided to start in Ponyville doesn’t speak well of the implementation of new ideas, or their formation.
Overall an...interesting chapter. Good kind though. I do think it’s appropriate she has the Fleur de Lis, not just cus of the obvious, but while not really a symbol of The Revolution, I do think it’s appropriate for the symbol of the country that so radically changed the face of Europe and, by extension, much of the rest of the world. Because for better or for worse, and regardless of what the world looks like when she’s gone, it’ll be much different because of her.
Wait ... was that ... oh, no I feel even worse for Cera
So, Luna has empathy, she can recognize when another is in distress, and then chooses to ignore that distress (no, turn it into emotional torture) simply because that distress is inconvenient to the Princess ... and this isn't malice?
Discord's dentures, but Cera seems to have had an absolutely horrible experience with her countrymen
10494879
That's actually a really good idea! But I'm not sure how well it would work with Wordia and the rest stirring the pot ...
10495415
In Luna's defense, I think it's less malice than "toughen up the children". Remember, she was raised in medieval times followed by the Discord era, and in this new Equestria she has returned ponies have become too "soft" and "spoiled" in her opinion.
10495357
I mentioned France because just in case the ponies wonder how she got the idea of a Fleur-de-lis, she can explain more easily.
"When it came learning about its healing, all she had was books, and"
"When it came to learning about its healing, all she had were books, and"?
"and that meant she need room for her"
"and that meant she needed room for her"?
"a few who --"she hesitated"
"a few who --" she hesitated"?
"population at all, to regard it as"
"population at all, regard it as"?
"real gold or silver would: pony spines also weren’t collapsing"
"real gold or silver would; pony spines also weren’t collapsing"?
I'm glad for the Barding half of the chapter. Good character moments, loved that this eccentric artisan is opening up to this weird stranger purely on love of his craft.
Not a big fan of the bath scene though. Purely from a reader's perspective of the narrative, it looked to me like two thirds of a chapter dedicated to Cerea ultimately deciding to do nothing. "She had thought about it, and then decided to stop thinking about it. What arrogance, to even consider offering sympathy to the royalty of this land."
But I do recognize I have a limited view here. Looking forward to seeing how you play out her relationship with Luna!
Nice to see there’s still a pony peaking out from under Barding’s mark. Excellent chapter.
I still love your story Estee, but every time I get to a section about armor and how it works I cringe. NO ONE in their right mind wears armor against bare skin. It's almost universal practice to wear a gambeson/ padded barding under plate. It becomes painfully obvious you don't have experience with the design and function of a plate harness every time you start talking about it. There are plenty of armorers out there, I'm sure you could get a few to talk to you if you tried. I reiterate, I love every part of your story, except for when armor is involved.
10495868
Is this also the case for actual horse barding? Her human torso certainly needs a gambeson or similar but does the part of her covered in horse hide?
10496075
Mind you I am NOT an equestrian, much less a revivalist knight. But, every time I have seen a revivalist's horse, they have more cloth than armor.
10495868
Given their extreme reliance on magic for pretty much everything, there could very well be a cushioning effect woven into the armor's enchantment suite. Or it's simply being done offscreen/outside the narrative.
We need a Fluer cameo so she can put her pieces together.
Fluer is awesome.
10496559
Also part of the point of padding is absorbing the kinetic force from impacts, thus protecting the flesh under.
10495868
Padding.. they were talking about the padding. Setting up the metal to go over the under...
And she has a padded training uniform. Which means they have the capabilities and measurements to make a quilted garmet to go over her body before the plates. Youre too caught up to get that.
10494821
I'm rather proud of my vocabulary, and I had to look it up as well.
Thinking about this chapter, Cerea's general place in the world, amd the potential interactions she could have...
...I want her to meet a dragon.
Not a small one like Spike, nor a gargant like the King or the forest one. Something in between, like about her own size.
Not just because she's a knight, and in Earthican legends, knights and dragons are mortal enemies, so being not would probably throw her for an amazing loop. ...and I think she would get a kick out of it once they got to chatting.
In part, because I can't help but expect that a dragon - which are often assumed to be the apex of Fantasy - would likely be the least plussed by Cerea. "You're a centaur? So, what? I'mma' sit here and chat, and that's just how I've decided things will be."
Also! Because of the potential commonalities. Like size. She doesn't have to walk on rice paper around some being her own size. And societal experience. I'd expect a certain kinship with another who's regarded as a constant potential threat. (Big teeth, y'know.) She can talk knightly things, and the dragon can talk dragonly things, and they can both talk about how ponies are ponies.
Assuming, of course, that dragons exist within Equstria, and have understandable measures of sapience.
*crosses fingers*
10500295
Meh. It's a good quote regardless. Something to salvage from the wreckage of the prequels.
10498663 I'm not going to go back through each chapter just to prove you wrong, there is a sufficient quote here about her croupiere that reiterates what has been said up to this point.
No, Estee has repeatedly said that the armor is going DIRECTLY against her coat. If it was NOT, then the measurements would be done IN her padded barding/ gambeson. I reiterate, research about armor is needed to clearly convey the construction and fitting of armor.
10503651
Using too much padding... Its in the quote.
Estee aint daft enough to think putting metal directly against the body without padding was a good idea. You're letting that aspect overtake your sense.
Don't be so literal
10505904
That's
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/371665/1/horsefeathers-or-ill-say-she-isnt/its-all-duck-soup-from-here
10505440
I think you're ignoring what's been clearly written, to see what you want to see. Go back and reread the sections about her starting the project, you'll see.
10506479
Bruh try bottom up processing
um How does barding not know what a fleur de lis looks like??? what about Fancy pant's wife lol
10495415
No, it's not malice. Not only does it not fit what malice means, but you've misconstrued the circumstances. Cerea is extremely sensitive/embarrassed/demeaning regarding her body, including her "Tracts of Land," and for this and I assume other reasons hates getting measured, especially for a bra. Luna recognizing her obvious distress and making Cerea go through with it anyway is pretty fucked up. However:
It's been well-established that perhaps the hardest part of Luna's adjustment, which will take the longest to change, if it ever does, is her worldview, thought process, and distance for the modern, very soft, pony;
With this in mind, her acknowledgement of Cerea's reaction but ultimately ignoring it makes sense: what's more petty and easy to say just-get-over-yourself than someone who doesn't like getting measured/fitted;
Most importantly: it had to be done.
Now this isn't strictly true obviously, but Cerea of all people needs the support a Bra provides, especially for when she's really running. Also, she need clothes besides old Minotaur stuff or hastily repurposed tablecloths. As bad as her reaction to getting measured was, that was a fraction of her reaction is she had to go topless, and with the genre change her Bra is actually useful which is nice.
None of this is done out of Malice, which is when you set out to cause harm or distress. In addition, as I've outlined, Luna did so because it was something that had to be done sooner or later, and "may as well do it now, and do all of it now so it's over and done with" is very in character for Luna and really the only practical reaction other than just kicking the can down the road. Lastly, Luna doesn't do anything that makes it even more embarassing or otherwise worse for Cerea-I have no idea where you got "Turned it into emotional torture" from-nor would I say she does it because it would otherwise mildly inconvenience her. Again, where the hell'd you get that idea from?
10515307 Let's start with the initial cause of the situation - clothes. Cera wears clothes, but ponies don't, so the only reason to get Cera more clothes is to make her feel more comfortable (or too hide some of the "horrific freak"). However Cera never mentioned or indicated a need (or desire) for additional clothing (if my memory is correct), so there was no need for Luna to have arranged the fitting in the first place.
Once Cera had her phobic attack, (which Luna confirmed in the very next chapter that she recognized) there was no legitimate reason not to postpone the fitting until a later date (when, among other things, Cera would not be being ambushed by her phobia). Instead, Luna decided that it just had to be done now, literally imprisoning a phobic with the source of her fear for an extended period. (A phobia that to Luna's knowledge does not negatively affect Cera's quality of life to a harmful degree, nor does it prevent her from performing her job (which at the time, was basically prisoner) or from participating in society, so there is no "greater good" to justify that the matter be dealt with immediately, or even ever.)
Then, after trapping Cera with her phobia, Luna gags her. The only practical reason for gagging Cera would be so that Luna doesn't have too listen to her. Psychologically, however, the increased helplessness would only make the phobic attack worse. (There is a reason that "not being able to scream" is a part of nightmares and general horror, something that Luna, as the "guardian of dreams", damn well knows.)
Also, while a phobia of being fitted may seem "petty and easy to say just-get-over-yourself" from the outside, it is still a phobia. A very real, very powerful psychological disorder that can be very damaging if abused (which Luna's actions certainly were).
So, our dear Luna accidentally triggers a phobic response from Cera (and I believe it truly was an accident -- to start), but then she deliberately intensifies the phobic attack (both by trapping Cera and by gagging her) and prolongs it (I have no idea how long a fitting like that would take, but I don't see it as being less than thirty minutes -- a half hour chained with a source of unreasoning, overwhelming, fear -- not able to flee, not able to fight, not able to even scream), despite having no "legitimate" or "good" reason to do so. (And considering that Luna is A: not a psychologist or psychiatrists and B: her own unreasoning fear (and depression) about her immortality caused the rise of Nightmare Moon, she is definitely not fit to judge whether someone else needs to "get over" their own phobias and issues, nevermind trying to force them too, especially on the grounds of "That's a stupid fear, you're just weak and I know what's best for you because I'm not weak, so I'm going to make you "deal" with it, my way".)
So yes, I do see Luna's actions as emotional/psychological torture, and I do see them as indicative of both malice and contempt on Luna's part. I hope this explains my stance somewhat, and if your view on Continuum!Luna happens to be kinder and more forgiving than my own -- more power to you.
I just have this image in my head of Cerea just cradling Luna head and singing to her and I want that more then anything.
this reminds me of a scene in the online "girl Genius" where a Prince gets sick of stupid people thinking that being POLITE is a sign of weakness, THEN says, "oh. oh NO! THIS is how my father feels ALL THE TIME!"
10494989
Who and who? I get the feeling I should go read triptych sometime soon.
10494989
Read “Orange is the New Blue”. That’s where they’re from.