Equestrian Girl

by HorseStories

VII:Binding

Shim stared apprehensively at the blade, waiting for Beatrix to elaborate. When she said nothing, Shim raised a finger and pointed at it.

"What is that, anyway?"

"It's just a knife. No fancy names this time." Beatrix sounded acrimonious, and didn't try to hide it. Her gaze slowly moved from the dagger to Shim, studying her intensely. "Yesterday, you said you were interested in magic. Did you really think it existed, or was it just some kind of hobby?"

"I... I guess I just thought of it as a big joke. Astrology, palm reading, summoning, all that. I mean, I'm assuming that stuff is actually fake."

Beatrix nodded, satisfied. "Astrology and palm reading, sure. Big surprise, the wrinkles on your hand don't actually mean anything."

Shim couldn't help but notice the deliberate omission. "And... summoning?"

Beatrix gave a wry smile. "Well, that's more complicated. See, magic can't just be learned. It has to be gifted first. You couldn't do any of the things I could even if you practiced for a hundred years."

She fell silent again. Shim spoke up again, gently coaxing her on. "And... how did you get this gift?"

"You probably wouldn't believe it."

"I guess. All this magic has made me a little skeptical."

Beatrix laughed at that, a genuine laugh that instantly warmed the room. "All right, that's fair enough. Well, it doesn't matter if you believe me or not. It's not like you're going to be telling anyone anyway." Rolling up her left sleeve, she tapped her forearm. "Look closely."

Leaning in, Shim could just about make out a series of lines - or symbols - scarred into Beatrix's arm. The scars were washed out and faded, clearly made in childhood.

"What is that?"

"I... I don't know how I would describe it. It's a kind of - contract."

"A contract?" Shim shook her head. "What does that have to do with performing magic?"

"That's just it. I can't actually perform my own magic. Humans can't. We have to borrow something else's. Or a part of it."

"Something?"

"Well, that's where summoning comes in. Given everything you've seen in the last forty-eight hours, I don't suppose it's too much to ask for you to believe in parallel universes."

Shim cast her mind back to the teenager sleeping on her sofa. "I guess not."

"Good. Well, they exist. At least two, in addition to our own. One important, the other not. The important one we call the Discordant. From what I've been told, it's filled with all sorts of... well, they'd call themselves gods, but they're really just powerful beings asserting their authority through force."

Beatrix continued, keenly watching Shim for some kind of reaction. "Marius was the first in our family to figure all this out. He spent most of his reign trying to find a way to extend his lifespan any way he could, and to live forever if possible."

"And... did he?"

"Probably. He came into possession of a copy of a book called Cwalu aet Cwalu - in fact, we still have his copy today. It's pretty much the manuscript for eternal life. But he was only in his forties when he vanished, so there's no way to know if he actually used it."

Shim's ears pricked up at the mention of the book that had drawn her here in the first place. "Death of Death. You mean you could live forever if you wanted?"

"It doesn't work like that. Immortality can only be bestowed by a god, just like magic. Cwalu aet Cwalu is about possible offerings to various deities, and how to contact them. There are no gods native to our universe - at least, not that we know of. So, if you want to make a deal, you have to get the attention of one from another dimension."

Shim scratched her head, confused. "How do you do that?"

"You make a big mess." Beatrix reached into the open chest and pulled out another book, red with a golden trim. Flipping through its pages, she continued. "Marius settled on attracting a chaos god called Discord sometime in his late thirties. That's when his reputation for brutality started to develop. Before this, he was fairly content to assimilate captured settlements into his kingdom, but all of a sudden, he'd rather raze every captured town to the ground and slaughter it's inhabitants wholesale. Sometimes he'd round up an entire village and sacrifice them. He did this for eight years before he got what he wanted."

Beatrix laid the book down on the table, opened to an illustration of a monster Shim couldn't have dreamed up in her worst nightmares. It was a amalgamation of several different animal limbs fused onto a furry, snakelike torso, and it's dragon-like head was marked by two yellow eyes inset with glowing red pupils that bored into her soul.

"Most of this is public knowledge, of course. Most historians think Marius was murdered by his son, and his body was simply never recovered. We've no reason to dispute this popular theory. But the truth, as usual, is more interesting."

"It probably won't surprise you to discover that a chaos god wasn't interested in wealth, though Marius had more than enough of that. Instead, he wanted Marius to abandon this dimension and wreak havoc in Discord's home world. In return, he would never age, and his ancestors would be gifted with magical abilities that would allow them to conquer this world with ease. Most of this was recorded in Marius' personal journal."

Beatrix tapped her marked forearm. "At birth, every child has the same promise scarred into their arm, to renew the agreement. I don't know if it actually matters if we don't do it, but nobody's wanted to tempt fate so far." She paused, before grinning sheepishly. "Anyway, that concludes my lecture. You may now ask your questions."

Shim had so many, she could barely focus on picking just one. "You said your family was given magic so they could conquer the world. So, why didn't they? I mean, they had magic, they had money, they had the troops."

"Marius' heir didn't trust Discord. He thought it was a trick to drag us into multiple unwinnable wars and wipe us out. He'd rather play it safe, hide our magic and use it to our advantage." She shrugged. "Honestly, I think he was right. Tricksters usually don't make sincere deals. And incidents of familicide have decreased markedly since we switched our main focus from warmongering to stock market speculation. It's nice not having to constantly worry which of your siblings might be planning to put a knife between your ribs."

"Who counts as family, anyway? Anyone related to Marius?" A thought occurred to her. "What about Sunburst? Does he know?"

Beatrix shook her head. "If only it were that simple. Marius's children all had the gift, but only his eldest son and daughter passed it on to their children, and so on. Today, there's probably about two hundred or so gifted members of the family. It's why there's so much pressure to get married and start having kids. As for Sunburst..." She scuffed the floor with her heel. "I suppose I'll have to tell him eventually. But I don't see any reason to do it now."

"And there's no way I could do this stuff?" Shim couldn't keep the disappointment out of her voice. Privately, she wondered if the same rules applied to Sunset - would she be able to perform her magic in this world?

"I'm afraid not. It used to be relatively easy to get a god's attention. Not so much in an age of genocide and nuclear weapons, not to mention population pressure. So much going on in the world today, it'd be hard for one person's actions to register as anything more than white noise."

Beatrix waved her arm, and collection of books and magical artefacts sprawled across the table leaped back into the chest, leaving only her kaduceus and knife behind. She picked up the orb once more, before extending her arm so the sphere rested only a few feet from Shim's eyes.

"I didn't know you were a philologist." There was a slight edge to her voice. "I thought you were a physicist."

Shim blinked, slightly thrown by the sudden change of direction. "I'm not - a what?"

"Philology. The study of classical languages - you know, Latin, Sumerian. Old English." She sighed. "All right, I'll cut the bullshit. I'm not stupid. You knew what Cwalu aet Cwalu meant in Modern English. You must have heard of it before today. And there's no way you could have come across it in some faux-magic bullshit pop culture grimoire. I should have seen it earlier. You know a lot more than you're letting on, don't you?"

An icy chill ran down Shim's spine. For a moment, she considered denying the charge, but decided against it. She wouldn't improve her situation by being confrontational - and she had a nasty suspicion Beatrix would be able to tell if she lied.

"It's more complicated than you think."

Beatrix smiled. "Isn't it always?"

Her features slowly hardened as her eyes began to glow a familiar unsettling green, thin tendrils of purple smoke drifting from their corners. Once more, Shim found herself weighed down in her seat by an unforeseen force.

"I know I spend half my time complaining about how awful my family is, but I do take their safety seriously. I take the security of our little secret even more seriously. So, I'm afraid that until I get a satisfactory explanation as to how you figured it out, I can't let you leave." Beatrix purred as she spoke, clearly happy to have caught Shim out. "Now, are you going to talk, or am I going to have to make you?"

Shim swallowed, the sound of her own beating heart impossibly loud in her ears. "I'll talk."

---

"...like this. And once you've done that, you just need to find the square root of both substitutions to get four possible solutions to your quartic equation."

Sunset laid the piece of chalk down before turning to face Cranky Doodle. "Is that correct?"

Cranky didn't look happy about it, but begrudgingly nodded his head. "Well... yes, I suppose so. Thank you, Miss Shimmer, please take your seat."

As soon as Cranky continued his lecture, Sunset felt her eyelids droop once more, forcing her to shake her head in a bid to stay awake. Her handwriting might have some ways to go, but she knew she was years ahead - literally - of most of the other students when it came to arithmetics. Unfortunately, she also had to attend other classes.

Biology had been... unusual. Sunset had read plenty of books about equine biology, and for the most part, humans were surprisingly similar to them - warm blooded, multicellular eukaryotes bearing live young, not at all dissimilar to primates, though taller and more intelligent.

Physics and Chemistry, on the other hand, were like nothing she'd ever seen. Ponies had never concerned themselves with the fine details of the constituent medium of things, yet it seemed to be the primary concern of human scientific activity. But she should be careful not to be too dismissive. Any science that could level a city to the ground by the splitting of a single atom was well worth investing in. She spent much of her spare time catching up on everything she had missed, and was confident she would be well ahead of her peers in a few months.

History was interesting, to say the least. Humans kept detailed, in-depth records of their own past, a mix of oral tradition and written record - in fact, for a species that took such great pains to record their history, it astonished her that they would have learned so little from it.

Information technology was what had amazed her the most. The way in which a tiny computer could receive, store, edit and send data that would have taken an entire bookshelf to write down to virtually any other device on the entire planet in less than a second was more impressive to Sunset than any magic she'd ever seen. If there was one aspect of human civilization she would have wanted introduced to Equestria, it would be the computer. Though the keyboard might need reinventing.

The bell rang. Sunset picked up her few belongings and stuffed them in the duffle bag she'd brought with her. As she ambled out of the classroom on her own, she wondered what she was supposed to do during lunch. Go hang out with Flash? It seemed like the natural choice, but somehow she didn't feel like being around Flash when the others were going to be there.

Instead, Sunset found herself wandering directionlessly through the school's hallways. She wasn't sure what she was looking for - a conflict, a dispute, a fight, anything she might be able to use to her own advantage, or at least take her out of her monotony.

As she rounded yet another identical corner, she found her path blocked by a mass of students shouting at the top of their lungs, waving their phones in the air and jeering. Pushing her way to the centre of the mob, she saw two girls yelling at the top of their lungs, behind held apart by a third girl who looked as if she'd rather be anywhere else.

Sunset recognized two of them as the girls who'd staged a fight in the lunch hall yesterday - Applejack and Rainbow Dash - and it sure looked like they hadn't quite resolved their issues with each other. In stark contrast to the large, athletic duo, the girl between them was a tiny weakling, and Sunset couldn't help but admire her bravery.

"Ah am not going to apologize, Rainbow! You made a liar outta me, and you're gonna admit it!"

"It's not my fault if you can't get the date of your own bake sale right! Me and the team hired a minibus to take us all the way to that pigsty you call a farm just to get sent home by your inbred hillbilly brother, and now you're blaming me?! Get a life!"

"...Rainbow, you really shouldn't say things like that..."

Applejack's face darkened. "Ya know, you're lucky Fluttershy's sticking her neck out for you. Didn't ah knock you down hard enough yesterday?"

Rainbow Dash swatted Fluttershy's arm aside and swung her fist at Applejack, missing by a few inches. "I'm lucky? What's the matter, waiting for me to turn my back so you can sucker punch me again?"

"...girls, please don't fight..."

"Get yer hands off her!" Applejack surged forwards, but stopped short of throwing a punch. "You're one to talk about family, Rainbow. Ah hope that bus didn't take too much out of yer mother's vodka budget."

"Shut up!" Rainbow Dash snarled. "I'm gonna show you - get off me, Fluttershy!"

"Ah said don't touch her!" Applejack grabbed Fluttershy and pulled her off Rainbow, pushing her to safety. For a moment, Fluttershy's eyes flickered back and forth, before she vanished into the safety of the crowd with a tiny squeak.

Left alone, Rainbow and Applejack watched each other intensely, sizing each other up, each waiting for the other to make the first move.

"No Celestia to save you this time, Rainbow."

Rainbow Dash barked a harsh laugh that couldn't quite hide her unease. "You don't get lucky twice."

"You can still turn tail and run, if you like. How's your ribs? I hope-"

Applejack was cut off mid-sentence as Rainbow Dash swung at her. Caught-off guard, Rainbow's fist crashed square into her shoulder, and she staggered backwards in pain, leaving herself momentarily wide open.

As if unable to believe her luck, Rainbow lurched forwards, striking Applejack in side of her head, then kicking out her legs from beneath her, sending her crashing to the floor. Sunset expected her to back off, but Rainbow instead leaned in and began to kick Applejack repeatedly, ignoring her yells to stop.

For almost a full minute, Rainbow kept stomping on Applejack, screaming in anger as she did so. Disgusted, Sunset found herself praying someone would step in and stop her. Watching the two of them fight had been entertaining in it's own way, but this was just sick.

Eventually, Rainbow backed off, panting slightly. The crowd had stopped their whistling and excited chatter, and it was now full of whispers and angry mutters. Rainbow was clearly aware of this, and her eyes flickered around and her forehead creased with worry as she realized just how far she'd gone.

Applejack was lying on the floor in a heaving lump. Every inch of her face that wasn't swollen or bruised was covered in blood, and her breathing was slow and ragged. She opened her mouth, but merely groaned instead of saying anything.

Rainbow shook her head numbly. "No, I didn't... I didn't mean to... to do... that..." Her normally loud, obnoxious voice was gone, replaced with a hoarse whisper. "Applejack?"

"Psycho."

Applejack had pulled herself up to a sitting position, impressing even Sunset. She didn't think she'd have be able to recover quickly from a beating like that, but Applejack seemed to shrug it off like it was nothing. Rainbow reached an arm out towards her, but Applejack batted it aside, glaring at Rainbow through her one remaining good eye.

"Don't fucking touch me!" Applejack snapped, her voice full of fear and rage. "You got problems, Rainbow. Ah don't know why I didn't see it earlier."

Two other students approached Applejack and helped her to her feet. Applejack swayed slightly as she stood up, then brushed the others aside. "Ah need to go see Nurse Redheart."

Applejack turned her back on Rainbow and limped off. As Sunset watched, Fluttershy exited from the crowd and ran after her friend, glancing back at the crowd long enough for Sunset to catch the look of disbelief and horror on her face.

The angry muttering had grown louder now. Rainbow took a few steps backwards, then bolted with incredible speed. One second she was there, the next, she was gone so quickly Sunset half expected to see her leave behind a cloud of dust. Nobody tried to follow her. Slowly, person by person, the crowd broke apart and drifted away. Sunset was alone once more.

---

"Wait, wait, wait. Slow down. You're being serious?"

Shim nodded. "I can't say for certain it's the same one, but it's a portal, all right."

Beatrix strummed her fingers against the table, unimpressed. "And you knew this how, exactly?"

"It wasn't easy." That was an understatement if there ever was one. Shim was actually quite proud of herself for figuring it out. "The portal was pretty much invisible. No ionizing radiation, no thermal anomalies, no auditory signals, nothing."

"So, how did you figure it out?"

"Luck, more than anything. That statue produces a constant stream of ultra high frequency radio waves than can jam mobile communications, but their range is limited. Kind of a surprise nobody else had picked up on it first. I figured that out... about three years ago. When I was testing it with an EMF meter, I saw the signal was being broadcast at 2900 MHz, way higher than any terrestrial communication. It's the kind of thing you'd expect from a commercial aircraft. So, I did a little more digging."

"I set up a dedicated EMF meter up at the site, and kept tabs on it, but it wasn't really that important to me. Then, thirty moons ago, there was a huge spike in-"

"Excuse me?" Beatrix sounded skeptical. "Thirty moons ago? You mean thirty months?"

"I'll get to that. Anyway, I saw a huge spike in signal power. Almost seventeen orders of magnitude stronger, in fact. That got my attention. I went back that same night, hoping to set up more meters and gauge the rate of signal dropoff, but-"

"You went skulking around a high school in the dead of night?"

"Could you focus for once? Anyway, when I go back, I'm not the only one there. There's two other men there, and they're acting strange, like they're keeping guard or something. As I'm watching, this other guy steps out of the statue, and then they all just... walked away."

Beatrix nodded her head slowly. "Did you get a closer look at the statue?"

"Are you kidding? I got the hell out of there before those guys spotted me and dragged me back to vivisect me. A few days later, the signal drops back to normal activity. Then, a few days ago, exactly thirty lunar cycles after it first opens, the signal amplifies again, stays like that for three days, then closes again."

"And when you noticed the connection between the moon's cycle and the portal opening, you began to suspect some kind of magical explanation." Beatrix sounded satisfied.

"Well, that and watching someone walk though a solid statue."

"That's the part that worries me." Beatrix sighed. "The fact that there's a portal to the Discordant just out in the middle of nowhere is one thing. People coming through it is another."

"Can't you... I don't know, close it? Seal it off?"

"I don't know. Maybe?" She groaned and sank backwards in her chair. "My mother usually handles stuff like this. High level magic, I mean. Creating a portal is seriously complicated. But closing it... I might be able to." She shook her head, a grim expression on her face. "I have to be able to."

"You can't ask her for help?"

"I'd rather not have to explain you to her. No offence. Besides, you said it yourself, the portal's closed. Will be for another two years." Beatrix's confidence seemed to grow every second. "I can definitely give it a try. And... you'll help me. Right?"

Shim considered this prospect. In the unlikely event Beatrix was able to close the portal, Sunset would be stuck in this dimension for good. But, then again, she still needed Beatrix on her side.

"Sure." Shim shone Beatrix a weak smile. "Why not?"

Beatrix's eyes lit up at her words. "Great! You won't regret this, I promise. Look, I..." Beatrix blushed, apparently at a loss for words. "I'm really sorry about earlier. I shouldn't have threatened you like that. I was just - I was scared I'd made this huge mistake, and that everyone was going to find out, and it would all be my fault - "

"Beatrix." Shim held her hand up. "I get it. You don't have to make a big show for me."

Beatrix looked relieved. "Well, thanks anyway."

"No problem. Can you do me a favour?"

"Sure. What is it?"

Shim pointed at her kaduceus. "Do you have one of those I could borrow? Just to study it, carry out a few tests."

She had expected more questions and suspicion, but instead, Beatrix wordlessly pulled a golden amulet out of the open chest that was still resting on the table, and tossed it across the room. "Here. Knock yourself out, but I wouldn't expect miracles. We good?"

Shim turned the small golden token over in her fingers. It was warm to the touch, and pulsed slightly at regular intervals. "Yeah. We're good."

---

It took a few minutes for Rainbow Dash to spot Sunset lingering in the classroom doorway. The moment she did, she whipped around and pulled her fists up to her sides.

"What?!"

Sunset shrugged. "That was some show back there."

Rainbow sneered at her. "What, you got a problem with it?" Her eyes narrowed. "How did you find me here, anyway?"

Sunset jerked her thumb behind her. "It wasn't exactly hard. There's a trail of bloody footprints leading to this classroom." She stepped forwards, causing Rainbow to take a step backwards. Something about Sunset was off to her. She didn't look like much, but she moved like a trained fighter.

"I don't know you. Leave me alone!"

"What were you two fighting over?" Sunset pressed onwards. Rainbow took another step backwards, only to find her back pressed up against the wall.

"I said fuck off!"

"You really hurt her, you know." Sunset took another step forward, and suddenly the two of them were only a foot apart. "I think you broke her nose. I'll ask again. What were you fighting over?"

For a moment, Sunset thought Rainbow was going to attack her, and she tensed herself in anticipation. "Ugh. Why do you even care? She gave me the wrong date for some bake sale and won't admit it."

"Seems like a pretty poor excuse for breaking her nose."

Rainbow cringed. "What, you think I'm proud of it? Like I wanted this?"

"No. I just wanted to let you know I understand."

Rainbow blinked. "What?"

"I mean, she started it. She insulted your mother. Then she loses and wants to play victim?" Sunset shook her head. "I wanted to let you know... that you can talk to me, if you want. About anything."

Rainbow still looked suspicious, but grateful. "I... thanks, I guess? I mean, I don't actually know you. Are you new?"

Sunset smiled and stuck her fist out. "Yeah. Sunset Shimmer. I think we have math together."

Rainbow bumped her fist, her usual cocky grin returning. "If you say so. I pretty much black out the second Cranky Doodle starts flapping his gums." Combing her fingers through her wild hair, she struggled to find something else to say, but was mercifully saved form more awkward conversation by the sound of the school bell ringing.

"Shit. I have to go, I can't be late to another Biology class. Cheerilee would crucify me." Rainbow paused at the door frame. "I... guess I'll see you around."

Sunset smiled. "Sure."

With another grateful smile, the girl was gone. Sunset's smile immediately slipped from her face.

Rainbow Dash. Ringo had mentioned her yesterday. Mostly talking about how 'fucking hot' she was. But that wasn't what had caught Sunset's attention, of course. Athletic prodigy, captain of every sports team, and on and on and on.

And, like a gift from heaven, she had fallen right into Sunset's lap. A confused, angry teenager with an unhappy hope life. A puppet waiting for someone to come and pull the strings. In all honesty, Dash disgusted her. But she was exactly the kind of person she would need to control this place. And, until something better came along, that was good enough.

Author's Note:

Wash your hands and don't touch your face.
Also, don't drink fish tank disinfectant unless your doctor tells you to.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Hmm...

Very interesting developments for both Sunsets. Shim's gotten a artifact for Sunset, but now Beatrix wants to close the portal, and I can't imagine the attempt will end well no matter what the outcome. And Sunset...

Well, a very charitable reading of what just happened is that she's making more friends. We'll see what she does with them. And if there's another force behind the scheduling mishap.