Standing Between A Crystal Heart And A Stone Jar
The great grey mass of Fort Gharne rose from the mists of a long, late spring morning. Gilda had left Gleaming Shield and a number of their underlings at the Tenpenny airdocks, getting ready to inspect the repairs and refittings of the almost-finished and allegedly deliverable Daddy Longlegs.
Or whatever proper warship name they could squeeze out of the damned superstitious sailponies who were getting starchy about the renaming. The quartermaster had even been joking about piracy and stealing the ship off the docks to get around the ship-ponies and their wittering on about 'old mare Amphitrite.'
Gilda's day wasn't shaping up to be nearly so interminably interesting, sad to say. She'd gladly trade long hours inspecting fittings, launch hatches, and envelope re-stitchings for yet another night in the midst of day, descending into the iron-barred hades which was the bowels of brooding Gharne.
She'd had enough of that when the Pies were still in town, and there were pink horrors to interrogate.
Other than Lance Corporal Eye, that is. And why was Gilda suddenly making that connection now?
Oh, right, procrastination. Hello, my treacherous old friend, it's terrible to greet you again.
Gilda took a deep breath and descended into the lower depths.
Gilda found the Concordat squatting in an office in the upper garrets of the administrative block of the fortress. She felt betrayed by the sunlight streaming into the wide, open windows facing out into the courtyards below, far away from any part of Fort Gharne designed to stave off angry unionists or raving clangriffons. Inquisition ponies ought to lurk in dark gothic basements, not airy aeries with plenty of sunlight.
They seemed well-established here - had they been in town all along? Gilda's experience with The Concordat for the Harmonization of the Heavens was heavily limited, very recent, and mostly mediated through Gleaming Shield and Ping. She'd never heard of them until Fruits Basket had suddenly started talking about them as if the shadowy organization was as fundamental to the Equestrian State as the Stable of Nobles or the Princess herself.
Gilda wondered how much else about the ponies had totally escaped her notice. It felt like a failing, not knowing so much about the state which she was sworn to defend. Technically speaking.
The agents of the Concordat - Concordotti, Gilda had heard them called, but not to their muzzles - had appeared with remarkable celerity as soon as the officers had tracked down Ping and had him send off the proper messages. The two mangled horrors had been tossed unceremoniously onto stretchers and carried off, and poor Trooper Bob had been hauled away in hoofcuffs not long after.
The mystery mares had disappeared into the bureaucracy without a ripple, rocks dropped into the lower depths, as Hawk Eye would squawk. As far as Gilda knew, the Concordotti had never given any indication as to whether the two had been who they claimed to be, or were some sort of impersonation, plot or conspiracy by warlocks unknown. If there was any way to distinguish any of that from a common garden variety matron, Gilda remained ignorant.
"We really don't know why you still care," said the batpony in the top half of a business suit, with a little heraldic pin of sun-and-moon interwoven on her lapel, sitting at one of the two desks in the sunny office.
"The late Nightlight is now our business," said the earth pony with what might as well have been the rest of the same business suit, as badly as it fit him, along with another heraldic pin, reversed, the moon-and-sun interwoven on his lapel. He was standing in front of the other office desk.
"Trooper Bob is our business," the batpony said, correcting her cohort, and looking disapproving from behind her uncluttered desk.
"Yeeesss…" drew out the unnamed earth pony, leaning back against his desk. "We do want to talk about that."
"The trooper believes in his story," said the unnamed bat pony.
"Which doesn't count for much. Ponies believe a great many things that aren't so," said the earth pony.
"Changeling conspiracies to steal the emotions of ponies," the thestral mare agreed.
"The existence of magic curses."
"The sea-goddess Amphitrite."
"Nightmare Moon," smirked the stallion.
The batpony glared at her partner at this last sally, and then turned to Gilda, composing herself.
"Why was this unremarkable stallion granted a Name?" the batpony asked in a flat tone, but her burning batty eyes belied the disinterest in her voice.
"The thestrals make such a great deal out of names, don't you know?" affected the earth pony in a labored attempt at a confiding tone.
"It rather feels like a setup," the batpony continued.
"Like somepony was priming this weak-minded colt for something."
"Or signaling his authorization for an incident like this one."
"Perhaps his authorization for this exact incident," snarled the earth pony without a single change in his placid expression. Gilda was impressed at how much emotion he'd gotten into that without moving a single extraneous muscle in his muzzle.
"Wasn't that in the last report we sent you?" Gilda said, for the first time since introducing her self. It wasn't really a question. She knew it hadn't been.
"No." "No."
"What an oversight," Gilda said, trying to feel confident, and failing. "Um, the major felt that she didn't want a 'Nightlight' in our ranks, and had the matter addressed."
"What did she have against a good batpony name?" demanded the thestral mare.
"It's not really a very good batpony name," the earth pony stallion pointed out.
"All batpony names are better than daywalker names!" the batpony insisted.
"Half of them sound like fruitsellers' get," the earth pony groused.
"This one didn't," Gilda pointed out, hoping to widen the discord between the two Concordotti.
"He's making fun of the fact that Nightlight is a timid pony's name, ignore him," said the batpony mare. Gilda tried to not look interested, and waited for one of them to accidentally give the name of the other, or even better, their own.
"Regardless," the stallion continued, ignoring the byplay, "Your commander gave a batpony a Name… based on her not liking his?"
"It was, by some bizarre coincidence, Major Shield's father's name," Gilda admitted, trapped into responding in a way that didn't increase the disharmony between these two agents of harmonization.
"Hmpf," sniffed the batpony.
"Not proper pukkah," agreed the earth pony.
"Not relevant, either," sighed the batpony.
"Priming by misadventure?" asked the earth pony.
"Perhaps," granted the batpony.
"Impossible to track down, regardless," sighed the earth pony.
"Which brings us to your other problem, Master Sergeant Gilda," the thestral said, turning to Gilda and focusing her hades-shades at the hen.
"Your continued association with the mortal alicorn," the earth pony continued.
"The lesser princess," ground out the batpony with a gritting of teeth.
"Now the Duchess," said the stallion, his eyes narrowing.
"Do you know anything of the history of Mi Dolente Cadenza?" asked the batpony with an unsettling intensity.
"Her unconstrained powers?"
"Her unsealed talents."
"The disorder and the disarray which her trajectory through Canterlot…"
"The destruction and confusion."
"Mind-warped ponies."
"Weeping crowds."
"Howling mobs."
"War fever."
"Mass outbreaks of irrationality and erratic public outbursts."
"Nightmares everywhere," seethed the batpony.
The earth pony turned to his partner.
"No, no, I'm fine," she said, waving off his concern. She looked again at Gilda. "The Concordat exists for one purpose only. The oversight over ponies with power and authority over the pony mind. The subconscious, the mind in repose and rest, the mind when the mind is not thinking. There are a cadre of ponies with the ability to intercede in the pony mind."
"Mostly thestral ponies," observed the earth pony.
"But not entirely. The Princess Cadenza is, evidently, one of those ponies. Except while some few bat ponies can walk the sleeping mind…"
"More than a few."
"The pink princess warps the waking mind. In the daylight. Without oversight, without restraint, without much volition on her own part."
"Only those idiot noble siblings of hers to remind her of her duty," sniffed the earth pony.
They're talking about the White Sisters.
"Sadly, our remit does not include the oversight of true alicorns," sighed the thestral.
"Not even mortal sort-of alicorns like the pink one," sniffed the earth pony.
"Truly an oversight," Gilda said, in a mostly failed attempt to be arch.
The two of them glared at her, not at all amused.
"Do not think that the fact of Candenza's elevation to Duchess of this domain," the earth pony returned to their theme.
"In the midst of the former Temple of the Haunted Night," continued the bat pony.
"Escaped our notice."
"Wait, what are you talking about? That meeting was in the Cathedral of Labour?" asked Gilda. She kind of knew what they were talking about, but it seemed best to be ignorant of those sorts of spooky details.
"As if the modern, secular, imbecilic uses the Trottish put their nighthaunt-infested architectural relics to have any effect on said relics' danger and potential," the earth pony said in an astonishingly long statement for these two.
"The Temple is under proper guard, lock and key," the bat pony said, quellingly, looking at her partner.
"A single hausfrau and her idiot husband is hardly a proper guard," the earth pony harumphed.
"All of our charges are, in a certain sense, housewives," the bat pony said, with the air of somepony returning to a well-worn argument.
"None of them as young as that mare," the earth pony sniped.
"No incidents to speak of since we arrived on this station," the bat pony carolled.
"This certainly qualifies as an 'incident'," her partner riposted.
"This occurred across town, in an EUP facility, between ponies we have no evidence ever set foot in the Temple," the batpony returned.
"That being said," the earth pony said, abandoning the brewing argument and eyeing Gilda, "We don't care for the involvement of the mortal alicorn in this matter."
"Duchess Cadance has absolutely zero involvement in the attack," Gilda pointed out. "She hasn't been to the garrison since the squadron formed."
"It is still her regiment," the earth pony said intensely.
"I don't see as how that follows," Gilda said, mildly. "She's not our ceremonial colonel, let alone an official royal colonel. It does require paperwork, you know. She certainly doesn't have the usual uniform."
"The Crystal Guard is clearly associated with Mi Dolente Cadenza!" the bat pony snarled. "It matches her cutie mark, and the elder princess-"
"The true princess," the earth pony corrected piously.
"The true princess," the batpony granted with a roll of her eyes, "gave the gift of those commissions to Cadenza, clearly with the intent of reviving the Crystal Household. Cadenza's physiognomy clearly shows her to be of Crystal descent."
"Debatable," sniffed the earth pony.
"Obvious!" snarled the bat pony.
"Regardless," Gilda said, trying to hold up her end of the argument, "Cadance simply gave the commission to Gleaming Shield. She's done nothing to exert influence or authority over the regiment, and has dedicated herself entirely to the governance of the Isles, and her own military establishment. Which we have nothing to do with any more." More or less.
"The two of you have been active enough in the new Duchess's employ, with this mustang business," the earth pony said heatedly.
"Which is most certainly not in our remit!" the bat pony said to her partner, with a note of warning.
"Bah!" The earth pony turned away, lighting up a tobacco cigarette, and walking to the window to look out over the inner yards of the fortress and blow clouds of smoke out into the open air.
"While my partner collects his self-control, I suppose I ought to wrap up this interview. Your position is that you have no idea what possible reason the Princess Cadenza might have for maddening a thestral trooper into attacking two of our own?" The thestral seemed to be taking up the slack for her smoking partner.
"Are they, in fact, our own? I've yet to hear either of you say anything about these mystery mares. Were they active matrons?" demanded Gilda.
"We will not be talking about that. To repeat the question, you have no idea why the alicorn was meddling in batpony affairs?"
"No! I mean, there was no meddling!"
"Cadenza had her pet officer create a refuge for thestral troopers," the earth pony barked out, grinding down his cigarette butt on the stone windowframe and flinging it out the window. "Opened the doors wide open. Gave them provisional commissions! How is that not meddling of the first water?!"
"Major Shield merely opened up recruitment to all tribes, without restraint or prejudice. The fact that the batponies poured in by the dozen was totally unforeseen," Gilda said in her own attempt at pious conviction.
"A likely story!" snarled the earth pony.
"No, that actually tracks," the bat pony said with a note of hesitation in her voice. "I've seen reports of… rumors. The mill's been on overdrive for months."
The Concordat earth pony turned and glared at his partner. He didn't say a word.
Gilda looked back and forth between the Concordotti, as the armed silence between the alleged partners grew. Then the silence grew trenches, barbed wire, and parapets, and it occurred to her that she might withdraw under the cover of the distraction.
"Uh, you two have issues that I seem to be… how about you let me talk to my trooper, and we can both be on our way?" Not the most adroit move the young hen had ever essayed, but the Concordotti were distracted.
Gilda got her dungeon pass before fleeing the Concordat office.
Hopefully it was good for leaving Gharne's dungeons as well as entering them.
Bob's spirits had been holding up better than Gilda had expected. Apparently the darkness and the dank reminded him of home.
"Oh, night, yeah, it's just like a week's pass back to the ol' colony. Except nobody wants to do my laundry and they don't have mom's sweet-tarts. I asked, the guards didn't think it was funny."
"You do know you're in a ton of trouble, trooper, right?"
"Yes ma'am! Mountains of it, for sure."
"You don't seem… touched by that."
"Well, it's all above my pay grade, isn't it?"
"Trooper, you got yourself into this. You took out your service weapon and you leapt over your commanding officer's head and impaled a random passerby, leaving her in a medically induced coma!"
"That wasn't a random passerby. That was a villain!"
"How could you have possibly known that? You didn't have line of sight. Your own lance-mates insist that nopony said a word to you, you were asleep in your bunk until you sat straight up out of a dead sleep and ran off with your spear and a helmet!"
"I was told!"
"By this mare of shadows, yes, so you've said before."
"Mother of Dreams, master sergeant. You shouldn't make fun of the Mother. She protects us all, keeps a wing over our sleeping minds, and recruits the heroines of the night to do her work for her."
"You're no heroine. You're not even a hero. You're a ranker in the files. You're not even a file closer!"
"The Major thought enough of me to give me a Name! That has to mean something. And look! The Mother of Dreams came to me! Told me I was honest and loyal, and that she needed an emissary in the waking world, to put an end to an evil plot! Told me where and when, and look! There they were, black as pitch and meaner than hades!"
He wasn't wrong. Gilda still got the douchechills thinking about the faces of those two 'matrons' - before Bob speared one, and that griffish lance corporal beat the ugly off the other one.
"Bob… Major Shield didn't quite intend for you to do… this, when she gave you a new name."
"Oh, I know, Names aren't that straightforward. It's more of a mark of distinction than a destiny, like, well - oh! Ha! Cutie marks! I never made that connection before!" He laughed like the idiot he was.
All Gilda could do was shake her head, and bleed inside for the poor fool.
Evenings came late in early June in the Trottish latitudes. Gilda looked around in the fading red light of the sunset as she emerged from the gullet of Fort Gharne, spit up by the proverbial leviathan, Gonah's great wind-whale.
Dealing with Trooper Bob left Gilda in a weirdly scriptural mood. Like everything, even the most trivial and meaningless of actions, had import beyond intentions, well-meaning or otherwise.
Gilda sniffed, and narrowed her eyes, carefully not looking around. She took to her wings, leaving the guarded gate of Fort Gharne behind her, and made for the nearest rooftop that faced away from the guards' eyelines.
"OK, Ping, I know you're out there," Gilda muttered to herself as she flew. "Come on out."
Ping was waiting for her on the opposite side of that rooftop, hidden from view in the direction of the fortress.
"Let's hear it," Gilda said, her eyes narrowing at her squadron clerk.
"What do you want first, ma'am? The inspection of the carrier just wrapped-"
"Not that bollocks. This Bob business. I know you're keeping tabs on it."
"Despite ponies' talk, I don't know everything that goes on in the squadron, master sergeant."
"Pigeonshit. This is thestral business, dark as the void and shriller than a factory-shift whistle. You are the big bat around these parts."
"Ma'am, you and the Major have appointed several batpony ensigns, a sergeant, and numerous line corporals-"
"Cut bait, Ping. That fish is too big for you. Start talking. What do we do about Bob?"
The batpony was silent, staring at Gilda in the darkness of the shadow of the rooftop peak, almost invisible against the red glare of the sunset-lit clouds behind him.
"Talk!"
"Ma'am, can you trust me?"
"No, corporal," Gilda replied instantaneously. "Not in the least. In my experience, when someone asks you to have confidence in them, you're about to be conned. Don't ask me for trust, give me something to trust."
"Bob is innocent," the little batpony said, intensely.
"Well, duh!" Gilda scoffed. "I know that. The major knows that. I think Fish Eye knows that. Why weren't you out there in the courtyard when it all went down? I sent you out with Hawk Eye and that lance of griffons to collect her stuff. Only the hippogriff and the griffons were there when Bob went spare and attacked the so-called matrons. Where were you?"
"I had a side errand I had to take care of, I was going to catch up later, but events interceded."
Bah. True enough, the colt was constantly running around, doing Gleaming and Gilda's bidding, usually before they knew it was necessary.
"Hrmph. We can't leave him in those bastards' clutches. They reek of conspiracy, and they don't intend our Bob any good."
"No, I expect not. They're probably planning on interning the poor colt in the Plain of Jars."
"They're going to kill him?!" Gilda shouldn't have been surprised. These ponies were so much more ruthless than Grampa Gruff's stories of sweet, harmonious ponydom… but still.
"Ah. Not exactly. What do you know of the Plain of Jars?"
"Not a winds-blessed thing. Never heard of it before Fruits Basket started blathering about the blasted Concordat and other weird batpony cultural touchstones I'd never even known existed. A cemetery of some sort?"
"It's not a cemetery. It's an artifact."
"It sounds like a place. Plains aren't normally things you can pick up and put in a pannier pocket."
"Places can be artifacts, if the artifacts are big enough. The Plain of Jars is a reliquary for ponies too damaged by the things they encounter to be left free in the open air."
"What, like Tartarus?"
"Tartarus is a hell of punishment and incarceration. A place for the worst of the worst, the true villains, the unredeemable. The Plain is… a sort of limbo. Ponies whose minds have been devoured by nightwalkers, souls corrupted by things I won't talk about in the evening hours, sorcerers and black magicians who strayed too close to the wards, or warded not carefully enough… the hope is that some day, when the draconequus's riddle is solved, and harmony is once more in our hooves, the souljars of the Plain can be opened, one by one, and the lost redeemed from perdition."
"They're going to put that poor stupid colt in a psychic prison for forsaken souls?" Gilda should have been more surprised… but it seemed somehow more pony than just murdering him outright.
"They say that the denizens of the Plain don't experience time. It's as if they are suspended in aspic. For most of them it's a mercy. And you'd be astonished at how many poor stupid colts inhabit the Plain of Jars. Stupidity is a great recruiter to the ranks of the corrupted and mind-warped."
This was an awful lot of esoteric, hermeneutic knowledge for a simple company clerk. Especially a male one, given batponies' cultural misandry. Gilda's eyes narrowed as she studied the batpony emerging from the shadows as the sunset colors faded overhead.
"Bob is an idiot…" Gilda finally said, measuring her words. "But he's our idiot. He took the bit, and didn't turn on any of ours, whatever the four winds that business in the courtyard with those matrons was."
"If it makes it any easier, I strongly doubt those nags had our interests at heart, ma'am." Ping's eyes didn't waver. Gilda could see him making the decision, to tell her something vital.
Everything else was just trivia, really. Obscure batpony cultural and magical knowledge, but nothing operationally relevant aside from Bob's predicament. But this… talking about the maybe-matrons whom even the Concordat ponies didn't want to talk about. Ping knew too much. He had just given her rope, rope that could maybe hang him. Could it hang Gilda? Did she now know too much?
"It is the absolute opposite of 'easy'," Gilda said, "And you know it, but thanks for playing. Can we get Bob out of their clutches?" Could she still pretend she didn't understand what he was offering her?
"The Concordat has no leverage points. Nopony can tell them what to do. They oversee the Night Shift like a hawk." Damnit. This was too much. And too blatant.
"What, nopony?" None of this was Gilda's business.
"Technically, they answer to Princess Celestia and the Elders of the Colonies in concordance. In practice, the Elders never meet with Celestia. Not in living memory, nor for at least… uh, maybe sometime in the Fourth Celestial?" Why was he telling her this? Why did Ping know this?
"Why the buck not?" Why are you telling me this, Ping?
The batpony looked measuringly at Gilda. Finally, he spoke. "Gilda, the Elders and Celestia hate each other. Furiously so. The Concordat is their neutral ground. Their compromise with each other."
"Uh." Gilda tried not to blanch. "OK. I have no idea what or why, but I get the impression that this is…"
"Deep dark dangerous waters, Gilda. Even asking the question can get you in trouble with the Concordotti. And they have zero sense of humor. About anything, but especially about the matrons of the Night Shift. And-"
"Anything having to do with dream magic?" What had he done? What was Ping's game?
"You've been talking to our local Concordat representatives." The little colt wasn't so cute anymore.
"Yeah?" Gilda asked, lost.
"I will not willingly go into a room with those ponies. If I am summoned, I will disappear." Fuck.
Gilda's eyes narrowed at her alleged subordinate. Was he saying that he'd desert before he gave himself up to authority? The Concordotti were insistent that their authority only extended over batponies. Ping was certainly that. And winds knew how much else.
"I won't go away, they just won't find me," Ping attempted to reassure her. Did Gilda want to be reassured?
Darkness rose into the skies from the dark rooftops all around them.
We're in deep with this colt already. He's running our books. Helped hire half the officers, and most of the NCOs. We don't have that many levers over the batponies. Do I trust him to not fuck us over? Fuck, this is how Hawk Eye felt, isn't it? I hate irony.
Finally, Gilda spoke.
"We're getting off track. Can you get Bob lost in the system?"
Ping visibly relaxed. "I have my limitations, ma'am. We might need to break him out of jail."
"Won't that redound on us?" Gilda was almost reassured by the naked proposal of common criminality. The brazenness of the suggestion was oddly comforting, but the consequences... "Shame he couldn't 'die in custody'."
"I thought you were offended by the idea of Bob being killed?" asked Ping.
"This is still technically a warzone," Gilda mused. "Bodies can be found. Pony bodies are more difficult, but a fire, a pony nobody really cares about except us… the Concordat are just being stubborn. They know Bob isn't a danger. They're possessive."
"Hrm. Have to be a winged body. Can't fake that," Ping said. "Let me check the morgues to see what's on hoof."
"When the time comes, would a distraction help?"
"Pretty much vital, ma'am. Hard to arrange on demand, though."
"They still arguing over the name of the light carrier?"
"Uh, yeah?" Ping said, confused by Gilda's sudden left conversational turn.
"I have had an idea. I need to go see Cadance," Gilda said, smiling evilly. Time to share my pain.
"The Duchess? Why?"
"She owes me a favor. And I think I need something."
"Like…?"
"A letter. Of marque and reprisal."
Gilda had a sudden flash, as if Gleaming Shield was standing in front of her, her eyes full of disappointed judgment. She stopped dead, her wings half-unfurled.
"Er," Gilda equivocated, nervously. "Maybe check in with the major first?"
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Gilda. I love you for your your cunning and take on things.
You get a sense of just that much more, the hunches of some greater gleaning.
Guard whats yours more jealously than any dragon.
And inspire trust in even those which are shadows and ghosts.
Well done!
(legal) Piracy Ho!
Actually, I could see it being called The Princess's Bit.
Of course, then there's my all-time favourite ship name, the I'm Not Overcompensating, You're Overcompensating.
Gilda, as ever is the first one to sink into the depths that they know not when or if they shall rise from, and the last one who want's to deal with it all in the first place.
I was under the impression that Cadence was an immortal Alicorn like Celestia since she ascended and all. As such the lesser thing is an insult do to her youth and perceived importantance in society.
I'd love to suggest a name, but quite honestly? I doubt I could come up with better than you've.
But at least one pony has to be both bold and stupid enough to suggest something akin to "The Sunny Booty", and someone else gotta go with direct and unimaginative "Crystal Heart" and REALLY stupid with "Gleaming Shield's den of Debauchery and Sin". Obviously that one came from a rare moment of levity from Cadence, but no one needs to know that. Right?
Thank the Furies you update often! The pile of "Oh s
t, when it that going to topple over on us?" is growing higher and higher!
Yes, it's terrible bad luck to rename a ship, but if it was good luck, this story probably wouldn't be as eventful. And a major who has renamed herself might just get away with it.
Oh, they're just blatantly trying to throw 'em off the trail, now. In reality, they know perfectly well what's actually up, don't they?
Either way, they don't seem at all fooled by Ping's attempt to make Bob the fall guy, so there's still that little hiccup...though I'm unsure if they are standing against it, trying to cover it up, or something else.
Actually, I don't know if it was intended, but the way these two "Concordotti" talk and banter with each other kind of reminds me of the the Lutece twins. Even if it's not intentional, I think it's still a semi-suitable comparison though.
Which means, just for the record, Luna, the master dreamwalker, is going to be fully exempt from their meddling, assuming her return/reformation proceeds without serious complication and in accordance with the major points of canon. For some reason, that thought pleases me immensely, though I'm not sure why--I actually think the idea of a Concordat is a smart idea, considering. Maybe it's the smug attitudes of these two operatives making them feel like they need taking down a peg...?
First they were all taking offense to the idea Bob might have been set-up for his role in this mess, and now they seem like they're trying to set-up Cadance to take the blame, using nothing but, at best, circumstantial evidence and a general distrust of her to prove it. In reality, they have no real evidence at all to think Cadance was even involved, other than assume by default that she is an enemy of the bat ponies because she's a day pony, the immediate princess of power, and overall not Luna. But that doesn't fly--what would Cadance stand to gain from it, and why allow so many bat ponies to join the ranks of her regiment, as they put it, if she was deliberately plotting something nefarious towards one or more of them?
If they think it was instead sparked by Cadance by accident (which, granted, we know can happen), then that's immediately shot down by the fact that she has had literally no contact with anyone in the regiment since the day of its founding, all before all of these bat ponies joined it, and I remember how Cadance's abilities worked from the last story, she couldn't really signal out and influence any one specific pony without first being in close proximity to them--otherwise, she'd end up either influencing a whole group of random whomevers too or having no effect at all, deliberate or otherwise.
Basically, long story short, something doesn't smell right about these Concordotti, especially since they're being all "make accusations to misdirect away from the subject of the matrons," and I suspect they have their own agenda they're trying to fulfill...one I'm not sure I'm liking at this, my first glance...
Now, now, Bob...that's something Gilda ought to be saying.
Actually, I'm honestly surprised Gilda didn't still concede to the truth of that point, regardless of whether she continued pressing the subject like she did.
Ouch! No offense to my fave hippogriff, Fish Eye, but if even she's not fooled by this, then Ping never had a prayer of actually pulling this charade off.
Danger, Two Pings, danger! Your master sargent is not fooled. Even if you manage to side-step this matter for now, you can better believe Gilda's not forgetting it, and it will be coming up again, we can promise you that.
Oh darn. I was actually hoping she'd go over Gleaming's head on this, if only so to be assured that I could sit back and enjoy the fireworks later.
The inevitable avalanche of silliness...
She's One Of Ours, Sir!
*Something irredemably rude in hopes of starting an argument*
The 1lI1lI1lI1lI
I've always been fond of the ship name: "It's One of Ours, Sir!" Guaranteed for a moment of confusion in a battle, and often a moment is all you need. ;)
This would be vetoed so hard by Gleaming it would end up six foot deep, but what about Twilight's Sparkle? Bonus points if the ship gets painted to match their uniforms.
I'm slightly confused why some of the information on the Plain of Jars Gilda seems to have been present for last chapter is repeated to her here. Ping just making sure? Gilda downplaying her knowledge?
For the rest of that, though, woo, things are rolling now. :D
9940913
We rarely get totally novel information delivered de novis from this source or the other. The more reinforcement, the more we trust a given fact echoed by this voice and that.
Even if the underlying source is the same voice, echoed via this source or that.
Nothing is so disturbingly echoed and re-established as the same fact, returned to you by some external source. Presumably independent. Assuming no connection between your internal sources and the external ones, against which you've exerted your very best, to establish the independant truth of the matter under examination.
9940928
Ah, thanks. :)
Wow, those two spy/inquisitionist/conspirationnist are really a piece of work. And the whole Concordat is probably like that too. Feels like they have too much power in their hand and no oversight but at the same time, they face against people that are really dangerous if left alone.
What a lovely bunch. I feel they will come back to haunts the Regiment in later stories once they get Bob out.
Cadence is receiving a lot of shit for being the new Alicorn on the block. Hard to be a mythical creature when the only other one 'alive' (Luna still being gone and turned into the boogeyman) having the subject of worship for over a thousands years. It raises questions about belief and people don't like that.
At least Ping is starting to open to the rest of the cast, in a 'I got everyone by the balls but I also need you'. There will be some explaining to do.
And Celestia and the Matrons hates each others? We knew that the olds bats hated her but I didn't know it was reciprocal. I wonder if it got to do with Luna fall to the Nightmare? Like the Matrons of back then had something to do with it.
But oh boy the Concordat will shit bricks when Discord and Chrysalis comes around...
...I have no idea what the fuck just happened in Gilda's conversation with the Concordotti and I feel like that was the point.
So, are we ever going to get a straight, laid-out-all-right-there-in-front-of-is answer to all this bullshit with the Nocturne?
9940643
Depends on who you talk to.
I'm generally in favor of that basic logic, but that would mean every alicorn ever should still be kicking around. And if ascension is possible for mortal ponies in general... Tangentially if ascending makes you immortal, then PU (primary universe?) Alicorn Twilight Sparkle definitely is too.
Good choice, Gilda, make sure your commander is okay with your scheme before you drag the company into it.
Maybe I'm missing something, but the Duchy is an independent, sovereign nation, and any authority the Concordat, or any other Equestrian group, had ended when Celestia stepped down as ruler, severing the Duchy's "protectorate" status. So why is the Concordat getting away with acting like a law to itself? Whatever agreement the Elders made with Celestia doesn't apply in the Duchy (any more than it would in the Dragon Empire, or wherever) and Thestrals in service to Duchess Cadance are no more under their authority than some random Yak would be.
9941410
The Duchy is still full of EUP troops, sworn to the service of Equestria. In theory, it's its own sovereign entity. In practice, there's a large army occupying it, owing allegiance solely to the new duchess's mentor and ally, Celestia.
Including, by the way, the Crystal Guard, which is technically and in all fiscal senses a regiment of the Peytral, not the... Coronet, I suppose. Talking about the official sovereignty of the Duchy of Trottingham has gotten so dusty and notational that all but the protocol-ponies have fallen out of the habit of using the proper terminology.
The exact status of the Fires and their secretive post in the Cathedral of Labour is a protocol question which will, no doubt, drive the lawyers absolutely batty.
If anypony other than the Concordotti and the thestrals knew that it was an issue at all.
9941457 Ah, so the Duchy is now like a banana republic, sort of, Celestia can claim that she isn't running things and can dump any problems or political fallout on Cadance as the "real ruler", but the Duchy is already under occupation, so nothing that Celesita doesn't approve of will ever be allowed to happen (including tossing the Concordant out on their ears).
She gets to retain full control, without being "answerable" to anyone.
9940643
Too many ponies are getting away with being absolutely flippant to/with royalty.
9941260
That would defeat the point.
Well isn't that an interesting idiom?
In any case, that meeting with the Concordat gives some fascinating glimpses of the ongoing tension between sun and moon, even with one of the principles long absent. (Not the principals; totally different universe.) And Gilda definitely has an eye on Ping, even if she's not entirely sure what to look for.
As for rescuing Bob, yeah, best to bring Gleaming on board. She named him; that makes him her responsibility.
Also, I know several unicorns are going to propose naming the ship the Twilight Sparkle, just to tweak Gleaming's snoot.
9940699
Oh good, I'm not the only one who thought of the Luteces.
And thus the cover art is finally explained.
" 'Struth, Cap'n-Major, the eyepatch is traditional. Arrr."
"You will pay for this, Gilda."
"Oh, I know, I know, but until then, arrr."
9943822
Where'd you get that from?
9944064
A letter of Marque and Reprisal, of course.
9940662
More like a rare moment of hope and desperation. "Please loosen up."
9940727
9940744
Oooh, I like that one! I'll have to remember it!
So he is an authority recognized implicitly by everybat in the unit and is not exactly afraid of associating with other nightly authorities, but the even talking to the Concordat is out of the question. Either he's off mission and know the jig would be up, the Concordat can't be trusted, or he's sitting on some protracted power play.
This chapter was Gilda at her best. She's really flexing her noggin to keep everything under control.
Project save Bob is a go, I repeat save Bob is go.
. I am glad that they are going to try and save Nightlight I mean Bob. Should be quite funny.
Ping better give tons more info to Gleaming or Gilda soon. His half baked plan nearly cost them big time.
Why do I keep hearing Sabotage by the Beastie Boys?
There's nothing like a gigantic explosion to smash open conspiracies.
All plans fall in the face of cataclysmic detonations.
Of things like red supergiants and so forth. (Alondro plays FOR KEEPS! He ain't got no patience for BS!! Shoot em all and let God sort em out, that's Alondro's motto!)
Well this calls for fireworks.
Isn't she technically sworn to defend the currently nonexistant Crystal Empire?
Huh! Their legends go beyond Nightmare Moon, it seems
Oh no. They implied a meddling mindbending alicorn, they'll get a meddling mindbending alicorn?
So.... the issues with this version of Equestria go way past just Cadance being gloomy, something went and cranked the average Paranoia level up to 11.
Gotta wonder how many of the non batpony members of the Concordant realize they exist only as a smokescreen to keep The White Witch from screwing with the Thestrals, only getting those rogue or corrupted Matrons the Thestral leadership let's them catch.
And good to see they will be saving Bob, can't gave a proper unit without Bob!