Insurgent
To say that war is chaos would grant it too much dignity.
Chaos contains everything. This allows it to incorporate what might be seen as a contradiction: a touch of inherent order. Something which is necessary for chaos to function at all. But when it comes to a war...
Too many sapients believe it's possible to impose structure upon conflict. The blame for that particular delusion needs to be split up, because there's too much for placing at the base of any single source. Stories are partially at fault here: one blood-soaked word follows another and when you get enough of those together, you just turn the page. Any number of leaders have tried to dictate events through whatever they're willing to term as strategy or, with more than a few, what their terrified staff is unable to tell them was actually a horrible mistake. Look at the girl's own world, and the game's coding will not allow a hit from that distance unless a scope has been attached to a digital weapon: impossible accuracy then becomes the default. And strategy games tend to rely on a given set of rules.
War doesn't have rules. It doesn't take turns. War follows the most basic definition of a monster: it considers what you might wish to do, and then it fails to care.
No plan survives contact with the enemy? A truly good scheme might hold up for as much as five stages before breath stops, and that number lies at a near-unreachable end of the probability curve. Battles turn into a contest of Brownian motion between matter and antimatter particles -- except that a direct collision still may not produce the expected effect. It could be argued that nothing on a battlefield has full control of anything, including itself.
There's going to be a lot happening. Too much at once. War distorts everything, and one of the first casualties is time. The Sergeant understands that: the crucial moments can take place between ticks of the clock, while single moments of agony stretch out towards infinity.
Chaos, by definition, must contain that thread of order and war... does not.
But the sapient mind still needs some way of organizing it all. This generally requires a series of useful lies. And the girl has brought new games of strategy with her: the product of a species which was born for war.
So try to view it that way. There are at least two factions in this game, along with a number of subdivisions: some of those wouldn't mind a chance to strike against each other. (One side is blissfully ignorant of the fact that as far as the battle's initiator is concerned, they're actually playing misère.)
Rewind a little, to just before the attacking group made that first move. Scout the defenders. Locate some of the most crucial pieces on the board...
The oldest of the alicorns was never Honesty and on some of the worst days, that can make her feel as if she's entitled to lie -- especially when so many of those falsehoods are directed inwards. She's... just not particularly good at lying to herself.
The current lie is agonizingly familiar. It's also a worn, threadbare cloak tossed over hard-edged reality while failing to conceal a single aspect, and yet she's trying it out again because there's nothing else.
The white mare is trying to tell herself that she's not helpless.
She's in one of the palace's many mini-libraries: the one which hosts the scant supply of (hopefully) relevant texts is about halfway between her bedroom and the Solar throne. Sunlight pulls books off the shelves, flips pages in front of a violet gaze at a speed which doesn't allow for true reading. It doesn't have to, because she's only looking for a few key words. 'Magic absorption' would be a welcome discovery. 'Nausea' has made her stop far too many times, and none have provided any real assistance. There's one term which might be argued as more crucial than any other and so far, 'centaur' has been a lost cause.
It takes a lot to make the Doctors Bear speak freely about a patient. Requesting that an alicorn search both texts and centuries of memory for anything which might help the girl requires a lot of fear.
The white mare is trying. But this has never happened before. (She's aware that when she says it, the fear tends to spike.) She's been thinking, sorting through endless recollections for anything which might even come close, and the nearest approximation she could come up with was chaos pearls. The land inflicted (and in some ways, infected) by a power which hurts it, building up a protective shell around the remains.
(If it had just been an infection again. She could have done something about that.)
(She can't do anything --)
The girl's body seems to have been overloaded with magic: too many forms of it for any single party to deal with, all in a huge tangle which won't come apart by pulling on a single immovable piece. Those thaums currently aren't showing any signs of fading over time. And how does a centaur's form react to such intrusion? With unending nausea, for starters. But... what else? What could happen?
The doctors understand something about how the girl's body works. But there was no way to anticipate this, no reason.
It's probably too much to hope that the centaur is going to cough up a gem.
...the current book goes back on the shelf. Another comes down. She flips through pages. One engraved image of a poorly-stitched wound gains her attention, and too many memories replay.
She should be better at this. She's had so much time to improve herself. Too much time. And yet...
The elder has some medical knowledge. The foundation was gained in her youth, because the Discordian Era had endless ways to kill and in the event that one of them didn't entirely succeed, the survivors needed to know how to deal with the resulting wounds. Some of her efforts to help injured friends --
-- she stops. Waits for the shiver to pass, then goes to the next page.
She's stood outside so many triage tents. Forced her way into a few more. The old mare also keeps up with articles, glances at a number of journals, loves to speak with innovators and always tries to gallop in pace with the times.
But there are skills she's never mastered. She managed to learn musical notation, if only because her memory of the Singing Shores survived the Discordian Era and she wanted to record some of what they'd had to say -- but with actual instruments, she can kick a drumskin on rhythm and has at least some chance of not going down in defeat against pluckstrings.
She doesn't consider herself to be the least bit artistic. Her hooves shove pebbles into what she feels are interesting patterns, and then somepony who loves her will announce that she's screwed up the color balance. Innate base levels of artistic talent combine with personality to become major factors in illusion magic, which is why a millennium-plus of very occasional, extremely depressing practice has left her just about able to manifest hazy visual washes of up to three hues.
But when it comes to directly serving as a physician? Something where having the proper mark still helps, but sufficient study would at least allow an intelligent pony some degree of mastery? She could probably manage an amputation, especially since she has a ready means of cauterizing the stump. And that's when she's been alive for centuries, watched as medical knowledge advanced, had any number of theoretical chances to put herself into formal classes and she should be better than this --
-- but placing a Princess upon a school bench will give the nation a reason to come calling for her. Every time.
I should be better than this.
Maybe I can find something.
Remember anything...
But this has never happened before.
I'm not helpless.
She's in one of her own little libraries, and suspects a Royal Physician may have gone to the big one. (Only one of them: they wouldn't chance having both out of the palace when the girl is sick.) And the medical building lore of the Canterlot Archives contains more written material than a hundred doctors could ever fully memorize, much less personally utilize, and she still suspects just about none of it is going to contain the word 'centaur'...
...still searching.
...well, at least it puts off the interrogation for a few more minutes.
(The attackers told themselves the interrogation couldn't have happened yet. They make up their own Facts and this time, they were right.)
Not that she intended to start until Luna was ready, but the younger hasn't come in yet. The sisters are going to be conducting the first stage of what's meant as a two-pronged attack: the second part won't begin until late afternoon. The elder isn't quite stalling, but she isn't exactly looking forward to their segment. The best hope is that they ultimately get something which allows them to --
-- just once. Is it so much to hope that just once, they get to make a second arrest?
And there's a morning edition of a certain newspaper on a table behind her, delivered while she was searching and the white mare looked at the articles just long enough to verify what she'd been expecting to happen. Some portion of the press is now aware that the arsonist was arrested (because the arrest was public, and a witness wanted to see his own name in print) , but -- not of where the unicorn is being held --
-- the thin, cheap pages are vibrating in place. The protestors are just that loud today. She almost wonders if they've somehow found a new complaint. Wordia has at least three every day. Count the protesters as a single unit and that's two unwelcome guests.
...the old mare may wind up having to thank the supposed journalist. That's going to hurt.
However, any such moment of self-inflicted nausea has to wait until after the debriefing. And the eldest is fully aware that she could have broken 'orders' and debriefed Cerea at any time, but -- the girl is sick. Additionally, she's found that when you find somepony with a strong sense of ethics, it's usually a good idea to follow their lead. Defer, because the mare was born in an time when too many ethics worked out to 'survive' and often expressed that conclusion in the singular.
It's been nearly thirteen hundred years and when it comes to the skills she's mastered, a truly bad day will make 'ethics' feel like a work in progress.
...of course, if the doctors had a little less in the way of ethics... such as, just by way of example, lacking the portion which had allowed Tirek to refuse treatment, then the girl wouldn't be --
-- no. That's not a wish she can allow herself to have. She understands why the Doctors Bear allowed the killer to send them away. Because you have to set a line. It's easy to say that you'll only break it once. One of the only things more simple is to claim you'll stop after twice.
...she should have suspected platinum. In that, it's arguably her fault as much as anypony else's. Not that she ever had the chance to watch any other centaur play with the stuff, but she's at least seen most of the sites where the other experiments took place. On a few occasions, she even helped to clean up the debris.
The white mare has seen Tirek's body, and intends to both attend and document the autopsy. Assess and evaluate the corpse.
-- and now the books are faintly shaking on the shelves.
It would be nice if she could file a noise complaint with the police without triggering at least three articles about abuse of power.
...well, two.
She keeps scanning through the books. And while she searches (and knows it won't work, but she's not helpless), she thinks about that eventual debriefing. The press conference, which she's been planning out before the details arrive. She wants to have the girl there. The alicorns will probably have to do most of the talking: the first gathering proved the centaur isn't much of a public speaker. Public vituperator, maybe --
-- the white mare almost smiles --
-- having the girl there...
...how many times has she done this? Stood in a library. A lost laboratory. Some distant ruin. There's been at least two caves. And the common factor between all of those locations is that for every one of them, she was desperately searching for anything which might save someone she lov --
-- it's the wrong term. She cares about the girl, but 'love' is still a little too strong. The white mare thinks of the centaur as being... awkwardly endearing. It's like watching an apologetic kitten struggling to master clawing its way up drapery. If that kitten had six limbs and was capable of demolishing a monster in less than two minutes.
And she's still searching. Because the white mare has lost Guards before. She's also had a number fall ill. And there are ways in which death is at least simpler than sickness, because death is finality. With death, she's had centuries of practice in learning how to move on, and... none of that makes the process any easier. But with the eternal uncertainty of illness...
...maybe the girl can recover on her own. Or the doctors might think of a solution: it wouldn't be the first time for that. But this is magic. (Do they need to call in Twilight?) What does the girl's body know about dealing with magic?
Cerea may have saved them --
-- ultimately, the labels of Solar and Lunar don't matter. Her staff. Their nation. But with Guards or staff, they're all hers.
She has to do something --
-- the sound peaks.
A dozen books jump on their shelves. Three fall.
The gates crash.
There is a broken storm in the tallest tower, cradled within the artificial stillness of the air. Something which barely lets any sound pass through, because vibration must be stilled before damage is done.
It does not know.
It cannot act.
The smith has been hoof-hammering at the metal for hours.
It's about half of what he's been doing over the last few days. When he's not near the centaur, he works the steel. There was a huge job in front of him, something which would be so much easier if there was another set of hooves at work.
Hooves and hands --
-- about half of his time passed in her sickroom. Most of the rest was spent in the forge. (He's not dead, so he presumes eating took place at some point. Actual details of the meals seem to be escaping him.) The job is necessary, and it's not just because he doesn't feel there's anypony else who can do it properly. He knows nopony else could manage it, and he's a little too aware of how he's ending those indefinite pronouns.
...when he works, his thoughts are in tune with the metal. He thinks about metal, of metal, and possibly in metal. That's how it's supposed to be. And he's been heating the steel, shaping it, and getting well ahead of schedule. Some of the results have already been sent out. At just about any moment when he isn't with her, he's down here because this is supposed to be where the mark takes over.
If the mark takes over, then thinking about anything other than metal stops. That's how it should work.
But he keeps thinking about her.
He's put the big job aside for a little while. Right now, she's the reason for his being at the forge.
...he heard about the assignment, the mission, the mistake by accident, and he's been calling it a mistake because the results obviously have a few issues. Yes, Tirek is dead: he'll take that as a positive. (From what he's heard, someone wasted perfectly good platinum.) But she didn't tell him. So he worked until she was brought back, then he worked some more while he was waiting for her to wake up and it reached the point where he had to sleep, plus all that work had produced the usual number of little burns and if he had to sleep, then it might be a little more comfortable to do so after he had the burns looked at...
He fixed her second set of armor. (They should have tested that shoulder joint more thoroughly.) Polished up the first. And then there was more to do.
And she still didn't wake up.
The blacksmith is sweating. He doesn't do that as much as other ponies. But it's been happening more often --
-- she has to stay.
He's been trying to figure out how to make that happen.
(He should have proposed when he had the chance. A spouse has to get some degree of say in whether their partner leaves the country.)
And that's why he's at the forge.
He's going to make her a gift.
It makes perfect sense. You give people gifts, and then they have to stay. But the steel is heated, it's ready to be worked, and... he doesn't know what to make.
Shoes? No, she could create those herself. It should be something she can't do on her own. Can't or won't.
Maybe he can make a bra for her. She's clearly carrying a lot of weight there, and metal is obviously more supportive than mere fabric. That's a practical gift. How hard could it be? All he has to do is reverse-engineer the measurements from the breastplate and he's practically good to go on the spot --
-- she has to stay.
The steel can't go to Mazein. Not yet.
Fine: with their smiths, the steel wouldn't exactly be in the worst place. But the girl has to stay. How can he make that happen? Because it's too crowded in the forge, the girl is just too big and there's barely anywhere to stand and that's the perfect excuse to make the palace expand the place and...
...she's sick, she's sick and no part of his mark is about fixing the weaknesses of flesh --
-- he can talk to her about metal. About what almost feels like a whole other world of metal. There's no one else like that. So she can't leave.
...what if he made her a mug? Something where the loop was sized for fingers?
She needs a properly-sized bench. He can at least assemble the base.
He could...
...could...
...benches...
...places with a lot of metal benches...
...what about taking her to a hoofball game?
The blacksmith has somehow acquired the impression that the girl is rather athletic. So... why not show her what Equestria has to offer? He's vaguely aware that there's supposed to be some sort of problem with bringing her outside the palace, but this is hoofball. If the spectators can get used to the insanity of the sport, then a centaur shouldn't be an issue.
...what if she likes hoofball too much? Enough that she decides to participate --
-- nah. It took centuries to work out the rules for three pony species. It'll take a while before anypony updates the book for a centaur. Besides, she'd have to stay until that happened. At least that long. So it's probably safe. And once he gets tickets --
-- how's the team doing this season?
Who are the current players?
He used to love hoofball. (He loves it, so she'll love it. True smiths think alike.) But he hasn't been to a game in...
...in...
...he should go find out what the schedule is. Also whether there's tickets available -- wait. Doesn't the palace get tickets? He could ask the alicorns for permission to use the stadium's Princess Box. See the Canterlot Express in style.
...too much sweat. He usually doesn't...
...he can talk to her. About metal...
The blacksmith is sweating. He doesn't do that as much as other ponies, especially given the heat coming off the fires. Resistance to high temperatures is one of the little gifts granted by his mark. And yet there's water running down his features, in quantities too great to be absorbed by charred fur.
...he can hardly talk to anyone about metal...
Some of the sweat is trying to take a trail across his eyes. That's just annoying.
...maybe... maybe if they talked about things which aren't metal...
...it's coming from his eyes...
...she has to stay...
There's a dark orange pegasus stallion who keeps getting shuttled between shifts, because the Sergeant won't take him off probation. He's currently guarding an empty Lunar throne room, mostly from itself.
He hates the centaur.
But Tirek is dead.
He still gets to use the locker room when he's on probation. Even if some ponies talk around him more than to him, he still hears them talk. And that's one of the dominant stories making its way through the palace. It would be almost impossible not to hear it and for those who somehow miss out on every word, there's always newspapers.
Tirek is dead.
The stallion managed to get a glimpse of the body. It's so small. So much smaller than it is in his dreams, especially at that point where he's just barely managed to get into a glide, but it feels like the loss of his magic and core and self has stolen maneuverability and the shadow of the giant hoof is descending --
-- he didn't have that dream last night.
He hates the centaur. The one who's still alive. The last living centaur. He hates her so much that two different Guards have independently inquired as to just when he's going to ask her for the date.
He tried to electrocute her during a training exercise because the dream came into the waking world and all he could see was a monster which he hadn't been able to beat. Something that nearly killed him. That's why he's on probation, along with having been put into therapy. But he had to keep going through training exercises with her. And the sword is gone, and the centaur is sick, and --
-- Tirek is dead.
Tirek is dead and there's only one centaur left to hate.
The reporter hates being in the palace.
If asked for her feelings on the subject -- not that anypony cares to do so, or really talks to her at all -- well, she's prepared what she feels is a rather effective simile. She feels like a seapony out of water, because it's not so much that she's been removed from her natural environment as being trapped in one which is eventually going to kill her. And seaponies don't even exist.
The mare is trapped in the palace. It's something which makes her somewhat unsure as to whether she truly exists. And it's still better than stepping outside, because that's when existence might get a chance to stop.
(The mare's occupation means investigating a lot of conspiracy theories, if only to see if she can get a decent column's worth of implied accusations out of them. But she's never been able to do anything with the Seapony Truther Society. What do they believe? That there are four elements, and a pony race to represent each. The pegasi clearly stand in for air. 'Earth' is a rather easy guess. Fire? Most of them claim that's the crystals, because their buildings create internal hotspots and you can't leave any paperwork sitting in the middle of one. A minority say there's legends of something called 'kirin': nopony can produce a picture, but the artists' concepts are nicely deranged. And water? Seaponies. Which are extinct. Because the Princesses wiped them all out. Why? And where's any evidence that they ever existed? Um... and the 'um...' is where the mare got off the train of illogic before it crashed. Blaming the alicorns for the loss of a full pony species might be good for moons of headlines, but she at least needs something which faintly resembles a waterlogged artifact for that first carefully-blurred photo. Also, four elements? Does the Society even know what mercury is? And she's not bringing it up because she's personally offended, but... how did they manage to completely leave the unicorns out?)
She can't leave her assigned bedroom without having Guards follow her everywhere. At least one of them will be a mare, and that means the restrooms have developed a distinct lack of ditch points. She wasn't even able to make a full break for where Tirek's corpse is most likely to be kept --
-- Tirek is dead. She does believe that, although she's really hoping to get a few more details. Ponies... try not to talk around her. Anywhere near her. She's tried to take her meals in one of the kitchens and the Guards allow that, but... nopony approaches. She gets a table to herself, and that table acquires a radius of empty tables.
She's in the middle of the palace. (Well, not the exact middle. Her assigned bedroom is in the Solar wing: one of those given over to the international guests who lack hotel and/or embassy. It has a decent-if-angled view of the front, and she's been trying not to look outside because one of the protesters might look up. She suspects the reasons for it being both Solar and the smallest one available are the same: namely, the white alicorn holds the senior grudge.) It should be easier to get information than this...
But she still hears things, usually at a significant distance. Tirek is dead. (Nopony has thanked the mare for the part she so obviously played in that. Nopony. The ongoing lack of notice has moved well beyond mere irritation.) And the centaur killed him.
Why?
Hard to say, especially when she's not hearing any details on the actual fight. Maybe there's so few centaurs in existence because any two who meet will automatically try to kill each other --
-- the centaur is sick, and the sword is gone.
She's almost sure the alicorns don't know she managed to overhear that.
The drains were probably Tirek. At least, the palace blamed him. But they're not giving out any details just yet.
It was probably...
She's had exactly one chance at truly writing anything down. The mare has left the office to chase a story before, but she has to tell her employers that she's doing so: the other option is to be marked absent, unpaid and, after a few days, unemployed. So she asked if she could send something to the Tattler, just to let them know she was still working. The alicorns agreed, the unicorn spent a few hours constructing her message --
-- and then she met her new editor.
The unicorn said a few things. Some of them concerned freedom of speech. Of expression. There were a number of accusations regarding censorship and abuse of power.
The dark alicorn still confiscated the paper, looked it over with red ink at the ready, and crossed out every part of the mare's cypher in less than five minutes.
There... wasn't much left after that.
So much for the subtle art of steganography. (In retrospect, the unicorn should have used a considerably more modern technique.) She's been wondering how long it'll take before she's fired. This may have already happened: she is somewhat... fungible, and somepony else can be found to operate the boiler. But...
...she can't leave.
...well, strictly speaking, she can. The mare can trot out at any time, although she can just about guarantee that the Guards would search her first. But she's been waiting for somepony to target her. Because she talked. She provided more details than the article had initially contained, she had to --
-- it was common sense. There are multiple side effects associated with seeing the world end, and she's pretty sure that one of them is having newspaper sales drop. But there are ponies who aren't going to see it that way, because there's only a single way in which they can see things at all and it's usually through a red mist of self-imposed rage. The mare understands how fanatics think, because she has to be aware of her audience. And with that potentially turned against her...
She's a target. She knows it, and the alicorns obviously agree: otherwise, why would they let her stay? This is the one place where she can be guarded (or Guarded: some of them are visibly irritated about that) at all times. Put her back into the world, and she will be vulnerable.
(The unicorn is vaguely aware that in many ways, she's just about in the same position as the centaur. The main difference is that any attack against the larger presence is going to come with slightly fewer screams of "TRAITOR!")
She's safe here. But she doesn't know how long she can stay. She has no idea of what it might take for convincing anypony who hates her to back away: telling them that the world sort of needs to exist and she may be the only reason anypony can attack her outside the shadowlands doesn't feel like it's going to work. And nopony here really talks to her, she takes her meals at the center of a vacuum and there's never enough drinks served with any of them. Especially breakfast. There's all those bottles in the basement and they've mostly stayed there.
The mare doesn't think the same way without the bottles.
She doesn't like some of the thoughts she's been having.
(There's been headaches. Some tremors. Light bouts of nausea, followed by surges of anxiety. There is no way she's going to tell the Doctors Quack about any of it.)
The bottles are the only way to stop thinking and if she doesn't get some soon...
...but she's still waiting for the consequences of her actions.
So she listens to the chanting outside.
She waits for it to start including her name.
For reprisal.
And when she hears the gates crash down, something within her darkly fails to be disappointed.
Technically, the black-furred pegasus is still off-duty. (She keeps testing her wings, and the grade continues to be 'No.') But she's decided to see it as taking on a new assignment: one which, for a Lunar, is all too familiar.
She's been trying to rest in the barracks. (The pegasus is on top of a stack which consists of one mattress, two blankets, and several pillows. She's trying to find a position for sore wings which works.) It's something which means she gets very little of the sounds coming in from the outside, and that should make it easier to fall asleep -- but the last few days have seen her schedule detonated by high explosive. She's been greeting Sun and Moon in turn during partial skip-shifts, sent back to the waking world by stress and the occasional touch of potion. Plus she's been staying up too long, trying to be alert and in the room with Cerea at just about all times...
'A little groggy' is the least of it. But she can't rest. The current assignment is too important.
Cerea has to get better. (The mare is deliberately refusing to imagine the other options.) And once that happens, she needs to stay in Equestria. (In the forge. The pegasus mare has mourned the loss of the sword, but... it's more important to have Cerea alive than to have her in the Guard.) And in the parlance of the Lunars, that means the mare has to figure out how to prevent that charge from ditching her.
(Her wings start to shift. The aches come in slightly before the breeze, and she forces both magic and limbs back down.)
What would be so great about any of the other nations? How are things supposed to improve for the centaur, just from the act of crossing a border? Equestria is where things have already started to get better. Where she's been making connections. Slowly, only a few, but they're connections all the same and --
-- yes, the party turned into a fiasco, but that wasn't the girl's fault! And once the debriefing is complete, the Princesses can tell the world that Cerea saved them! Things have to surge towards the positive after that! Ponies will think differently about a hero! They...
...they have to.
(She's aware that her tail is starting to lash. At least that kicked-up breeze is fully natural.)
(She keeps looking at the empty nest of blankets on the floor.)
The project is almost ready. She can tell Cerea about the arsonist having been brought in: that's scheduled to happen shortly after she reaches the medical offices again. But the mare has to keep the project secret for a little while longer.
Cerea can't leave. She'd have to start all over again. And who would look after her? The Princesses would be on the other side of the border. The pegasus wouldn't be able to guard --
-- how does somepony yell effectively, in that way which makes you yell at yourself? She might have to ask Princess Luna. Of course, her Princess would want to know why, but she's pretty sure that royalty wouldn't have any issues with the cause...
...the pegasus gets up. Paces around the perimeter of the barracks. It doesn't help.
Cerea wants to go home. Dreams of it. The pegasus knows that. And... she wants to see it happen. To witness her roommate trot onto the road which leads to family. There are ways in which the best thing she could ever wish for her friend is a single perfect goodbye.
But until that day comes, the girl has to stay in Equestria.
This is where her friends are --
-- the palace alarm goes off.
It's a high-pitched ringing, broken up by a tolling of bells, and the pattern repeats no more than three times: after that, the noise just gets in the way. Every Guard knows that sound by heart, and never wants to hear it.
There's a moment when her entire body tenses. A quick breath finds her pushing sore wings back into the rest position, and that happens on the move because a Guard who can't fly is going to react to that alarm by breaking into a gallop. She doesn't know what's going on or where the problem is, but that alarm has gone off, somepony is going to know why and that means --
-- the pegasus is injured. Temporarily off-duty, medically unfit to serve.
It doesn't matter.
She's still a Guard. She's already prioritized. Her actions and, if necessary, her life.
That's the way it has to be.
The dark alicorn is under Sun.
She went out to the gardens: the Eastern Saddlezania section, as she was in the mood to look at a not-so-natural hot spring. (Two Guards are politely lurking out of direct sight, doing a moderately poor job of pretending they're not there.) And she's been awake a little too long: something which would normally render her somewhat irritable, while an excess of Sun exposure can make that worse -- but standing on the left bank is allowing the steam to do wonders for her sinuses.
The Sun exposure doesn't matter. 'Excess' means more than an hour or two: she gets that much in the course of her normal waking cycle. In this case, she's hardly going to be within the warm steam and chill light long enough to have that time matter. And even if she was... there's going to be an interrogation soon. Given the increasing noise level being produced by the idiots outside -- well, mostly idiots: she understands the ones who are present because they don't feel that the Tirek question has been given a full answer, and longs for the chance to dispel their terrors -- it may have to be conducted via shouting. And when she thinks about who they're going to be questioning, along with the exact reason why...
There's a pattern which the sisters have been known to use for extracting information: the sunny smile and the lashing tail. Sun-induced irritability doesn't hurt her tail. With this questioning, the dark alicorn suspects that when it comes to her sibling, most of the elder's efforts will be used to keep the star-free tail still.
They might be able to acquire some desired answers. But both are anticipating that their own efforts will fail, especially since neither can actually touch the arsonist. (The dark mare has taken some pains to remind herself of that minor detail.) And, given that expectation, have arranged their upcoming failure as the first stage --
-- how does she make this right?
Not just the arsonist. Not only the foal. (She knows Tia has been looking for anything which might be done for the foal, and is largely aware of that because when the younger sibling tried to reach that part of the Archives, she found it already occupied.) The girl. Because the girl is sick, and...
...both siblings are struggling with that. (It's another reason for the younger to loathe all which abeyance stole from her: at least Tia has less books to review for the first time.) But for the dark mare...
...why does this upset her so? She uses fear, here and there. There can be a little thrill to a successful intimidation: to her, it's little more than one more weapon in the arsenal, and she's the one who normally has to use it because the sunny smile has an image to maintain. But she never wants to invoke terror unintentionally, and...
...more than four years since the Return, and ponies still...
She had talked about it with Tia, when they were both failing to come up with solutions. At one point, they had both indulged in a mutually-shadowed discussion of the last resort. To simply take the long road. Something which was near-literal graveyard humor, because 'the long road' meant outliving every generation which could ever know that fear. Every generation for just about every species, just to make sure no elders started circulating matters again.
Tales would fade. The Return itself would be shoved into the sidebars of history books. There would be a world which had never known anything of Nightmare and in the dark mare's estimation, the best case meant all she had to do in order to reach it was advance forward at a rate of one second, per second, every second, across a minimum of...
...three hundred years.
She hadn't laughed at the proposal, because... Tia had crossed a thousand. Alone upon the sea of ages, drifting towards an impossible shore as the only one who remembered anything at all. However, as quality graveyard humor went, it had still been supremely unfunny.
But in the current age, she had been offered the presence of a single sapient. One who had never been afraid of her. Not because of the Nightmare. It had also been someone who had been battling against a story. Someone else who was waging the same war. Who might have won, when the dark mare could not. And now...
She hates feeling helpless. Weak, inadequate, and small.
...she had been small once. A long time ago. Something which memory put less than a single instant away. And in dream, without that effort...
At least the elder could hope for an infection to burn out. The best which the dark mare can manage under normal circumstances is slowing blood flow. It's possible to go further, but... doing so is a last resort, and not every species responds in the same way to that level of cold. With a centaur...
The dark alicorn wants to do something.
She wants to lash out, because she can't.
(There had been several reasons for visiting the hot spring, and one of them was because she had to make sure the steam kept rising. It let her know that she was maintaining some level of control.)
And the idiots are far too loud.
...they were still getting louder.
There's a moment when she wishes for somepony she can take it all out on --
-- and the world provides.
Some of the pieces are about to leave their starting positions.
Watch.
Wait to see if any fall.
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I very much enjoyed the perspective shifts for our, shall we say, main cast sans Cerea in the moments leading up to what is likely to prove to be a ridiculously cathartic attack.
Regarding Celestia's lamentation of not sitting in on updated medical classes over the past millennium:
I'd have to wonder if that's the extent of it. She's clearly right that the nation will disrupt anything approaching "quiet" time, as seen in Passing Storm Passing for instance, but she's also "talked herself into a phobia of needles" as she told Doctor Bear in A Mark of Appeal. So is it that she didn't want to disrupt a class (or get a private tutor, a la Anise for "basic cookery") or is she using that as an excuse for not being near any doctors lest they start getting ideas of the largest case study in Equestria? (To say nothing of what her appearance in a hospital could do (Blessing for patients, or the Protoceran commodities market seeing her trying to learn to do medicine) or what the gaggle of reporters would do (Good For Nearly All Princess Labor, Public And Private).)
*
Regarding Luna's fear of continuing to be mistaken for the Nightmare:
How much is that going to potentially stop her from going all out? The general pony, outside of Ponyville or the Palace, perhaps, is afraid of her. If the idiots in the mob see her letting loose (as she's bragged about surrounding all of the armor of a small battalion in her field before (Princesses Can't Cook)), how are they going to react? Would their series of panicked surges overwhelm her field and weave and song (after all, we haven't really seen either do anything more than listen)?
Obviously, she can fight (see AMOA), but that was against minotaurs in Mazein while under the effects of Joyous's pheromones. Against her own ponies, those she swears to protect every night when handling (hoofing?) Moon? As much as I'd want to see her kick some flank (en masse), I'm increasingly terrified she'll freeze up at just the wrong moment.
It just keeps building. I feel this pressure in my chest as I read. Waiting for something to happen and it just keeps getting heavier. Damn your impeccable writing. Gonna give me ulcers over here.
Also, rare error:
Protester pov, minutes later.
I wonder just how complex this particular game is going to be, or if its going to be pawn, knight, pawn, bishop, table flip thing?
This may well be the closest you'll ever come to acknowledging Pony Life. (Not that I want you to. I just grab hold of whatever amusement I can find in atmospheres of dread.)
How does a pony play guitar, anyway? I suppose pegasi might have an edge there, but it still boggles the mind.
You can't just put away Loyalty.
Well, it was a nice thought.
Imagine the look on her face...
One claimed to have a bottle of wine. Wordia wondered which chemistry lab he'd swiped it from.
Hey, someone's got to be æther.
The players are in their positions. Time to raise the curtain. Let's see who'll be able to walk offstage under their own power.
Well then.
Through all of this, Celestia and Luna are going to curse that none of the ugly artwork they wish to get rid off were broken in the castle riot. Even the ones they put in place for such a case centuries ago.
But we might get to see the Princesses get a bit serious on fools. That's going to be a delectable threat.
There is a certain kind of worry for when you puke something you don't remember eating. For some, it's baby corn, for other, it magic gems.
... is he making her a bikini armor?...
This is adorable.
Some random thought, if he had metal magic from Warhammer fantasy battles...
Fortunate son overload 🤣
11191325
Personally if they actually start wielding the stick instead just threatening to that will be something. Celestia and Luna have played nice so long that they don't realize that to keep people in line sometimes you actually have to have a punishment for when they start acting out. Their subjects have behave like spoiled children who have been told no and don't want to hear it.
Theory: Cerea has Discord's power in her, as well as some of Tartarus. The power of Tartarus is what has kept her from straight out dying, but it is also keeping Discord's in. If they brought her to where the rest of Discord is (storm in tower), the power might leave her and Discord would be restored.
...
Well, I know who I'm hoping doesn't.
And hopefully the Tower or more exactly, the thing inside, leaves their position at some point...
Perhaps the Chaos just isn't close enough? It's about to get closer... Oh! and how many Hybrids are part of the protesters? Hmmmm
The insurgents approaching Luna heard glass breaking as they charged through the halls of the castle.
They just didn't understand where the guitar music was coming from. Or where the sound of a mare laughing maniacally was coming from.
Ah well. It was probably nothing.
"Don't be silly, Bob, vampires don't exist!"
The continual denial of the existence of sea-ponies makes me wonder that when we see them...it's going to be worse than we can imagine.
Because that's how the sausage gets made here.
11191281
Yeah, I can see Luna going Batmare on their faces. Or if I may tip a hat to another fic, Death Metal Pony.
I am beginning to get nervous and I do not like it.
Excellent chapter!
Oh boy, next chapter is gonna be a good one
Seaponys exist!
But please let Luna crack some heads I am fully here for it.
11191365
I like it.
Reading back a bit, I think her symptoms are exactly how ponies felt while touching the sword. Just like how ponies can't live without magic, Cerea's body can't operate normally with it.
We need to See Dr. Choppy
11191297
Re: pony guitar, it's probably something like banjo picks.
And the Seaponies will rise from the depths, chanting "Cthulhu Fthagan"
I know it would never work.
I know she would never say yes.
But God I would love to see the shockwaves caused by Barding and Cerea getting married.
The whole subplot of Barding "waking up" is just.... well, it waters my crops and clears my skin.
11191652
I love to see the ponies of equstria react just to barding proposal
👍
"less books" and "less shouts" should both be "fewer."
Very good suspense-building. Looking forward to having some of that tension relieved in the next couple chapters.
11191325
Isn’t the Yak Prince gift out now, thanks to Cerea cleaning the barracks?
In fact, aren’t a lot of the ‘we hate these, hide them’ artworks now out, because of that? Or are they in a construction zone? Will this play in?
6,741 words of cliffhanger.
Gorgeous words. Beautiful setting. Enjoyable insights into what characters are taking which actions. Everything I wanted to know and more...
...yet still an entire cliffhanger chapter.
11191847
Perhaps. Cerea is going to need weapons since now she is unarmed. Plenty of artwork to throw or smash things with or on. At worse, hitting a motherfucker with another motherfucker is a valid option, she is no minotaur buuuuuut she isn't weak either. Some rioters might get really surprised when their head is suddenly stuck in a painting canvas and then used as a rendition of the Olympic hammer throw, even worse for the receiving Pony who end up with a face full of it.
Heck, I wouldn't approach Cerea if she only had a door to defend herself. Forbid she reach the smithy or the kitchen 😱.
And rioters aren't the most calm and rational peoples, some get too excited and let themselves do some vandalism and looting on the side, but knowing the Princesses luck on such matters, all the pieces they dislike are going to be ignored, missed on pure luck or a brave palace employee has the time to save just the one they heroically could.
I was thinking this afternoon that the chaos and disharmony of the uprising would be enough to partly revive Discord enough that he can get to Cera and reclaim the rest of his power. Well, perhaps not yet, but I think we are about to start seeing the cards Estee has been hiding...
11191900
Please take a look at the chapter's associated Patreon post. I had some concerns about this one myself.
11191961
A minor concern, but as others readers have noticed the threat presented by the rioters/would-to-be-murderers is kinda lessened as long as there are two alicorns in the palace who can stop the scum on their tracks simply by flexing muscles.
Wait what? Tirek was STILL ALIVE when they brought him back to the castle? Did we know this or is this a new revelation? I had thought he'd died back in Tartarus and they just recovered the body. Was he not only still alive, but he survived the trip back to Canterlot long enough and conscious enough to refuse treatment?
11192107
No, the refused treatment was the first time Tirek was caught, the one that resulted in Discord’s current state. Celestia is blaming herself for summoning Cerea by way of inaction. Which brings up a obvious question. Should anything happen to anyone currently residing at the castle because if the insurrection, does Murdocks and those associated with him finally get their due?
11191367
On that last question, I expect zero, at least in regards to the ones breaking in. Remember, these are mostly ponies who hate the other two-thirds of their kind, and I think enough hybrids know their nature by now, especially in Canterlot, for them to not buy that nonsense.
11191988
Well, the Princesses don't know this is a coordinated assault . A lot of the rioters that aren't part of the plan will serve as distraction elsewhere within the palace and they might be counting on this to distract the guards.
I guess it will depend on a few factors like how much of hhe staff will remember the drills and go to safe locations or how much the guards will be able to funnel the rioters in certain sections. After that they need to consider the time needed to accomplish their mission and get out, those with the mission to target Cerea or the prisoners will probably make a beeline toward their targets before the guard finish rallying. If they can do it before the Princesses intervenes they think they have a chance. And there are ennemy within as well like that saboteur and other sympathizers or ponies like that Guards who hate Cerea and might not think straight when the time comes.
And let's hope nobody start a fire, accidental or not, that would make the situation even more confusing.
I don't think they even factored the Princesses would even fight back since Equestria has been at peace for so long that they haven't seen the warrior side of their Princesses in hundreds of years. They are probably expecting them to be put in a bunker by the guards once the alarm goes off. The guards probably want to that anyway.
Poor Tirek. He worked so hard, killed so many to have the thaums trapped inside him not fade over time. Now this undeserving girl, who wasn’t as clever as him, who never suffered like him, has perfectly stable thaums (HIS thaums) she can’t even get rid of! It’s enough to turn any good centaur monstrous.
A way to disrupt the riot... Could be mass Love Potion? That seems to alter minds to focus on something else, very well? Want It Need It, but maybe reversed? So something to run away from or avoid?
There's those Emotion Resonance wards... Or is that tech too new?
But probably don't want to encourage mind control / altering magic, that's not just focused on disrupting the Herd effect.
11192434
Those feels like last resort methods. I could see some ponies accusing the palace of mind control or some offense on their persons and drag the institution to court if methods like these were used.
But, I really wouldn't be surprised if the palace got a few trick up it's ancient marble sleeves. With magic and thousands of years in existence, there is bound to have a few bright idea or discovery made by the few odd mad scientists that gave suggestions to the palace. Like a Pony with a music cutiemark discovering the brown note and weaponizing it.
11192434
I don’t think we’ll see any resonance bombs here, but something like that could definitely work. I’m pretty sure Cadence has been referred to as ‘the last resort’ before in one of Estee’s works.
Estee, how do keep writing cliff hangers that make me want to throttle you for not having the next chapter out yet and yet still be utterly amazed at how well you keep the tension so high without making it feel tedious?
Oh, haha, didn't expect Barding to have fallen in love with her. Super awkward for them if or when he finds out she's technically still a minor lol. Still that aside it's adorable and sweet to see so many characters care so much about her (even the negative ones can't get away from her). I bet she'll play a role in stopping the shitshow about to happen. Idk how since she's so ill but Estee Finds A Way. Thanks for the update!
Sad news: MonMusu is going to be off Crunchyroll as of the 31st, for studio-related reasons I'm not entirely sure of. If anyone was thinking of checking it out, now's the time to do it before it goes god knows where.
11191281
When you hear Doom music in your favor.
Sometimes the Knight doesn't make it home at the end of a story. Sometimes the Knight ends up in a new home.
On the one hand, DT isn't anything to fuck around with.
On the other: What is Wordia like when she ISN'T sauced?
You give all these characters such distinct voices. I think I could tell who it was without being told. Good writing.
Has anypony considered using platinum medicinally? IIRC, it didn't affect her before, but only because she didn't have any thaums to drain.
Is... is Cerea making Barding fall out of his Mark?
11201746
More like guiding him out. Showing him the way back to...basically, the rest of the world.
11192320
This is hands down the best and most underrated comment of this whole fic.