Last Chance To See
The ritual high was fading among the thestrals, but the others still were chipper and feeling positive. None of the patrols since the performance in the night-hall had turned up an infestation or an incursion. Not a baku, not a nocnice, not a hag, not even any free-ranging minor nightmares. The night before, in common agreement between Ping, Fruits Salad, and Fruits Basket, they'd stood down the enhanced night-patrols, returning the volunteers to the day-lances, and making Baker Troop a fully-staffed organization again, just in time for their enhanced night-CAPs in the real world, as the Bit cruised over the dubiously-controlled and bandit-infested swamp-country between the Bitalian coast and the city of Roam.
But Ping, whose sight in all but the most grossly physical of senses had weakened or faded entirely, could not join his people in their cheer and optimism.
He could not see!
From his foalhood, Ping had been accustomed to see the ghosts of what could be, a melange of possibilities and probabilities, skeins of this-that-should-be and that-which-could-be. The real was always sharp beneath the phantasms of the possible, but overlaid over the mere present was always a luminescence of could-be and should-be.
That luminescence had been fading since Trottingham; it was now completely gone. And with it, that penetrating vision within the dreamworld, that let him keep track of his shieldmaidens, his bats. And the bigger, nastier dream-boggarts, when they'd been detected. All of it, gone.
So yes, while Ping believed his shieldmaidens when they said that they weren't finding anything, and the palpable lack of entity-spawned nightmares which otherwise would indicate the presence of malign shadows seemed to argue that the crisis was past…
Ping could not see.
And that was terrifying in a way he'd never felt outside of the Selenemeer.
He stumbled through his own patrol half-blinded, reduced to the same echolocation that the shieldmaidens used in their own passages through the dreaming night. Every step he took through the dream-made-strange carried with it now a sort of terror of the unknown which was quite unsettlingly new to him.
He had never known the unknown before, without should-be and could-be. How did ponies tolerate this?
Ping glided awkwardly through the dreaming, crowded night of the city of Roam, and wished he had asked for a wingmare, despite his pride and his unwillingness to let the others know that there was something wrong.
Ping flew with his treacherous pride at his side, as his only partner. And tried to ignore that creeping sensation that he was being followed by something he could not see.
Trixie took a deep breath as she stood indecisively in the corridor outside of the hatch that led into Lyra Heartstrings's state room. Trixie had spent the day after their arrival at the Roamish moorage posting her mixed teams of sailors and troopers from Charlie Troop around the sides of the Bit, with their swivel-guns properly mounted and charged with powder. Not loaded, of course - they didn't want the swivel gunners popping off at any sudden movements, or shooting some poor embassy employee coming to work late, or returning from lunch, or any of a thousand other possible sources of murderous accidental discharge.
But she'd also made sure that each side of the ship had a trusted gunner with a properly secured locker with prepared powder reloads and projectiles for their assigned swivel-gun crews. And the gundecks were posted with members of the battery, likewise supplied with grapeshot loads and powder, and strict orders to only fire in case of general insurrection or the return of Grogar the Father of Monsters, whichever came first.
Every preparation brought to mind that terrible, horrifying progress report she hadn't remembered writing in Barkalona, product of some stranger, some evil gleeful beast that had bragged about the killing machine she had been polishing that half-forgotten afternoon at the Fort Bing gunnery range, a monster that had signed the report Lieutenant Trixie Lulamoon, in Trixie's own horn-writing.
Trixie took another fortifying breath, and knocked on the hatch.
The hatch thumped twice as someone undogged its latches from within, and creaked as it opened.
"Dang, we really need to oil these hinges, don't we? Heya, Trixie, how's tricks?"
Over the green unicorn's shoulder, Trixie could see into the state-room, which was now crowded with a great deal of stuff, shelves, workbenches and one small black diamond dog. Strange lights lit up the space from angles Trixie couldn't see from her position out in the corridor.
"No rejoinder? Aw, come on, Trix. It'll be alright. Come on in, we've got something ready for testing."
Inside the state room, two hammocks had been hung overhead like a pair of stuffed crocodiles in a wizard's study, and below them, the luxurious bunks which had once graced this larger-than-usual-for-the-Bit space, had been converted into storage on the one hoof, and an impromptu work-bench on the other.
"Have you gotten out into the city yet? It's a great place to play tourist, you know! My second time here. Managed to tag along with a tour group three years ago, right about when you were getting kicked out of the school. Oops, uh, forget I said that… right, Roam! We have a great view of the Stadio Maximus. Or so we should, we're floating over the Equestrian embassy, right? I haven't been able to get out of here since the engines powered down… I assume that means that we're in Roam, right? Come on, Trix, give me something to work with. You've been out and about, and I've been stuck in here with the little hellhound, working on your cure!"
Trixie looked up at the sudden break in the unending stream that was the Lyrabrook. "Trixie isn't sick, she doesn't need to be cured." She wished that sounded more convincing…
"Nah, of course not. My mistake, I said it wrong. But we want to get a better look at that noggin of yours! Strip down, we'll have you… Queenie! What's all this crap on your bunk! We need someplace for the lieutenant to stretch out!"
"Use your own bunk, cavall magia mestre. We're using mine as a workbench, remember?"
Lyra snorted, and began clearing off the boxes and bags and other detritus, piling them on an unoccupied corner of the narrow deck-space not otherwise already cluttered. "Are you done with that last bead, Queenie?"
"Yes, Mestre. Queenie's just been polishing it the last ten minutes to keep pony from assigning her some other silly time-wasting exercise."
"They're not silly! You need the basics, you mop-headed hellion. And go get your bangs cut! I need to look you in the eyes when you say things like that! And cut it out with the illisms. That's Trixie's gig, isn't that right, Trix?"
Trixie blinked, wary at being drawn into yet another little squabble between the two mages. "Trixie is not a selfish mare. The little dog may refer to herself in the third person if she so desires. Trixie is nothing if not generous and magnanimous."
"You see that, Queenie? That's how you do illism in Equish. Take notes! And it's good to hear you sounding more like yourself, Trix. Just lie down here, and get comfortable."
Trixie followed her instructions, laid down on her back, and tried to think of nothing at all, as the two mages reassembled the rickety, spider-like construct around the artillerymare's head. It looked somewhat different from the last version that had so signally failed to produce any results earlier that week in the infirmary.
"What you're looking at here, Trix, is the soul scanner 2.03e. It was going to be the soul scanner 2.0, but we had some teething issues."
"Queenie told you those quartz lumps weren't proper àgates!"
"That's not what you said at the beginning!"
"Well, Queenie was wrong. She was lookin' over everything quick-like, sue this perro if she gets a few thing' wrong time to time. And the others were proper pedres taumiques, once we got 'em charged."
"A likely story!"
"Not like you knew what you were doing, Mestre, either."
"The more often you call me 'mestre', the less I think you mean it, Queenie."
"Queenie is nothing if she is not sincere, cavall magia mestre."
The pony magus turned and gave her strange new assistant her best stink-eye.
"Trixie hates to be a bother, but she has duty in the morning, and would rather like to sleep tonight at some point?"
Lyra turned back to her patient - or study subject - and looked apologetic. "Sorry, sorry, Trix. Just a second, and we'll have you strapped in. Then, we need at least a half-hour baseline of waking thought from you."
The magus returned to her assembly of the apparatus, and indeed, began wrapping straps and braces around Trixie's head, and fed through her mane.
"After that, you can go ahead and doze off. It'd be preferable. I have some theories I'd like to test out, and getting you while you're dreaming would be pretty much ideal. But try not to drift off until then, OK?"
Trixie would have nodded, except that she now couldn't move her head. "Alright, Lyra. Be gentle?"
"Ask anypony I've gotten into my bed! I'm the gentlest mare there is in the sack!"
Trixie's eyes shot to the right, where the distinctly adolescent diamond dog was fussing with something or other on the bench across the room. Both ears twitching furiously.
"Lyra…"
"Oh, come on, don't get all starchy on me, Trix! Queenie comes from a polygynous, depraved society. I couldn't scandalize her if I tried!"
Trixie could almost hear the little black dog's eyes roll from across the room.
Ping looked around at a dreamscape of unfamiliar black pearls.
He didn't want to admit it, but he was lost. None of the pearls sounded like any of his charges' well-known dreams. He was supposed to be alerted when he approached or crossed the wards, but somehow, neither his echolocation nor his now-absent farsight had given him his expected warning.
It was sometimes hard to tell by time elapsed within the dream-night, but Ping was fairly sure that he'd been going this direction for too long for him to be still within the carrier, or even the embassy grounds.
Even his weakened senses could detect the gloaming to the east, a great dark shining mass of shadows, which had to be the Imperial Palace. They were supposed to have their own team of matrons taking care of the courtiers and the Emperor and their assorted hangers-on.
None of his business, really.
But somehow, it vaguely occurred to Ping that the Imperial Palace was supposed to be north-east of the embassy, and also that if his other senses were fading, gone, or mistaken, then perhaps his internal compass was also out of commission.
There was no way to avoid facing it, he was lost.
Ping had never been lost in his life. He had no idea what to do.
Just go to that dark mass of nightmares, and ask for help. The night matrons are there for a reason. You know they are there.
No, Ping wasn't going to do that.
Why are you afraid to show your dream-face to your elders, little horse?
Ping wasn't afraid! He was proud. And he'd already refused the help of the aunties.
Have you now? How childish of you, little bat.
OK, that wasn't how Ping's internal monologue sounded. That was one of the prime warning signs of…
Took you long enough, little bat. Squeak, squeak, squeak. Fear me! I am the night!
Ping frowned, satisfied that he'd detected the intrusion, but irritated at the mockery.
Am I an intrusion? Am I, gasp, a nightmare? Oh, deary me! You had better exorcise me!
Ping had never in his life been compromised like this. He drew his dream-wings about him, and tried to meditate, in preparation for the-
Is that supposed to be doing something?
He couldn't feel the darkness. Couldn't smell it. There were none of the telltale signs, no extra shadows, no green or purple or black glows.
Look over there! Maybe I am that!
And there it was, a creeping nocnice, its horrible appendages stroking the surface of one of the nearby black-pearl dream-globes.
Ping drew his spear, and charged, headlong.
The night-haunt splattered like the faint, weak parasite it was, coating the lower surface of the dream it had been probing for an invasion.
Oh, very nice! Quite valiant, little bat. I approve heartily. But that was not me, either.
"I will find you, monster, and destroy you utterly!" shouted Ping into the shadows of the dream-night, breaking his silence.
Oh, that might have been a mistake. You are outside of your wards, are you not? Interesting, what I find in your surface thoughts. You know more than you are willing to admit to yourself, did you know that? Of course you knew that, or else I could not know that.
Ping had been slowly spinning, pausing every quarter-turn to search the shadows thrown by the dream-pearls. Nothing else had been moving, before his accidental vocalization. But now…
And here they come. Really, I am not sure why you all do not hunt this way. Just scream, and let the haunts come to you.
They were distant, and dispersed, but they were approaching. One, over by the great darkness that had to be the Imperial Palace. Two more, the other way. Was that maybe the Terrier River basin? Well, gorge, really, in the city proper...
Why are you afraid to go to your aunties? Have a complex about your aunts? Oh, I see, they are not actually your aunts, are they?
"Shut up, nightmare!"
Oh, little blind bat, I am not your nightmare. I am nogriff's nightmare, honestly. Would you believe this is the first time I have ever truly explored your world?
"No, I would not, liar! Get behind me, night-hag!"
There I am, right behind you.
"Gah!" Ping whirled, stabbing blindly behind him, sending out echolocation screams as he spun.
Boo! Hahahaha!
"Stop mocking me!"
You cease talking first, foolish, blind bat! And maybe I was lying. This is not my first time inside your twisted little world.
"Ha! I knew it!"
Better start moving this way, if you are not going to find sanctuary in that dream-fortress over there. You will be flanked if you stay in place.
"You can see them?"
Of course I can see them, little bat. I am not a blind little bat. Like you.
"What do you know about that? Are you the one who did this to me? Are you stealing my vision?"
Oh, what a question. A good one, though. Yes.
"Aha!"
And no. No, I did not take your farsight from you, your future-sight.
"What? But you just said-"
Do not interrupt your Auntie when she is in a helpful mood, little bat.
Auntie? One of the aunties?
Ha! No, not that, either. And I did not take anything from you. You gave it to me, foolish little bat. Threw away what you would not use, though your world is ending. What use is sight, to he who would not see? What use is knowledge of the future, which you refused to know? So yes, I have custody of your farsight, and your future-sight as well. Someone must take care of gifts like these, when they are spurned by their possessors.
"Bold talk, of possession, when you're possessing me, demon!"
Demon am I? That takes me back centuries. Millennia, even. I do not need to help you, little bat. It is not in my nature, nor my inclination, but I have put much upon my worshiper this week, and she asked of me a boon.
She? Worshiper?
Ah, the light dawns. Perhaps this is not quite yet the end of days, is it?
"The Goddess Amphitrite?"
Give that colt a kelpie doll! The bit finally drops. You should get moving. There are three coming that way.
"What way?"
Your right. No, your other right. Look, your wards are over that way. Hurry up, little bat, and find your way to safety. No amount of strength and power will protect those who will not see.
"I didn't ask for this! I didn't throw away my sight!"
You did not ask for anything, you stubborn little colt, you gave it away freely. And my patience is almost at an end. What do you want, little bat?
"I want my sight back!" Ping shouted, as he scrambled blindly to his left, following the voice's directions.
Do you? What would you give for it?
"I knew you were a demon! I would give nothing!"
Well, are not you the very mural portrait of a stubborn mule. But I promised my Eye… see, little bat.
And suddenly, Ping did. He could see the three spirits creeping up on him, and the four further out, racing in his direction.
He charged the unprepared three, stabbing once, twice, three times - and tearing through their substance like the shadows they were.
The nocnice died screaming.
After the last of the four spirits in their outer hunting-ring died on the blade of his dream-spear, Ping looked up, and saw, in the gathering luminescence of his much-missed future-sight, the blurring of the wards around the Bit.
He flapped his wings, and flew as fast as he could towards the wards.
Before you slip behind your wards, and I have to drop this connection, turn and talk, little bat. What I have done is only temporary, an intervention. It hurts me terribly to do so, gifting you, an infidel, with my grace.
Ping stopped, just outside of the wards. He looked up, still seeing nothing. "What do you mean, temporary? I thought you said you stole my sight from me!"
Fool of a bat! I said you gave it to me! You may not have intended it, but it was what you did. You did not want to see, so you blinded yourself.
"Why would I put out my own mystic eyes? I am not mad! I am not a lunatic, to blind myself! And I most certainly would have remembered deciding to do it!"
Your lack of decision is what decided for you, little bat. Your refusal to see what was in front of your muzzle is promising to damn you. Why were you and your bats so besieged for so long, little Ping? Why so many infestations inside your wards? Did it never occur to you that they should not have been inside the protections of so many powerful thestral shieldmaidens, so insidious, so pervasive, so overwhelming?
"We had it under control!"
Did you, now? Or did she have you under her control, dancing to her tune, marching in her measures?
"Her? Her who? Who is this demon that was bedeviling us? Aren't you confessing to your own wickedness?"
Oh, foolish little bat. I am not your goddess. I am merely a passer-by. A rubber-necker at your wreckage. The evil goddess whose worship is destroying you is not me, foolish little bat.
"What goddess? We are Equestrians! We have no gods!"
Do you not? What was that little ceremony earlier this week that roped me into your measures, blind little bat? Whose grace were you propriating? What do you call her? Mother, Mother of- what was it?
"The Mother of Dreams? She is not a god! Don't, don't-"
What, blaspheme? I am a goddess, foolish little bat. I cannot blaspheme, I can only mock other, foolish gods. And your goddess is as foolish as you, little bat.
"She is not our goddess!"
Well, whatever you like, blind little bat. My borrowed power is waning. Though my priestess is full of grace, and we are deep in my aspect's embrace, I can only do this for so long. Would you like to see, foolish little bat?
"Of course I would! What are you offering?"
See me, little bat, and give me your heart.
"It sounds to me like a demon's bargain, ma'am."
You will find, as you grow wiser, that the distinctions between gods and devils lay mostly in what is done with our grace. It is you, foolish little bat, who make of your divinities good and evil. And I fear for your race, that their spear-carrier is so wedded to his own blindness. See me, little bat, or be damned. I care not which.
Ping turned, finally, to the spot in his blindness, and saw the thing he had been conversing with.
It was great, and black, and full of rot and decay and the sharp stench of the sea. There were holes in its essence, and ten thousand eyes staring out of it like despairing, hungry ghosts in a bottomless abyss.
Ping screamed in terror, and recoiled, kicking himself away from the horror, across the line of wards.
He must have blacked out for a minute or two, because when he heard Fruits Basket's voice, he found himself laying prone upon a familiar dream-pearl, a pearl that smelled like that sodden reprobate Mickle Joe. Never had a random trooper's dreamscape sounded so much like home.
Ping looked up, trying to find his subordinate shield-maiden, and warn her of the greater dream-demon lying outside of the wards, with her lies and her corrupting influence.
And Ping found that his sight was gone again, and worse. He could barely make out Fruits Basket's features in the dark of the Bit's dream-night.
He was blind again.
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Oh poor, foolish Ping. Just because you don't call something a god, doesn't mean it isn't one. And the corrupted Princess Luna isn't on your side.
You fool Ping. You complete fool, you have just made a fatal mistake and I hope you survive it.
10463412
This is more of a situation where they are following their “master” even if they are wright or wrong.
You done fucked up, bat boy!
Amphrite seems more than a touch Lovecraftian.
So it was Aunty Amphitrite who were behind Ping lost senses. But to clarify, farsight is what allows him to see in the dreamscape unlike the rest of the Bat ponies who rely on their ecolocation? And Future-sight give him vision from the future? In retrospect, it was obvious that he was able to see the future, always being where he needed to be, always ahead with the paperwork...
Aunty is really messing with everybody on board and they can't exactly trust her, she probably have her own agenda.
Not surprised that Trixie and Reina kept working on their apparatus, they are quite the focused team when given a project. What surprised me is that they didn't rush in town to buy materials and tools for more projects and school furniture for her brand new apprentice that she didn't plan on having...
Besides, following Lyra Hearthstring the Insane, while she is visiting somewhere, is it's own kind of adventure/learning experience.
10463567
She is the Sea. Oceans and seas are the very definition of Lovecraftian. Be it the depth of the abyss, the confines of a creature psyche or the vastness of space.
The Sea full of Life, death,wonder, awe both full and some and crushing weight and mysery
The mention of a kelpie in story is kind of ironic considering that the kelpie themselves made an appearance as a species of ponies in the IDW comics recently.
It's pretty easy when you never knew the alternative to begin with.
Not info I needed to know, thank you, Lyra.
...Why do I feel like it's going to become his business here soon?
Oh, so that's what happened. Actually, I have been wondering about whether or not Ping really knew what he was doing with his "sight" for a few chapters now...even though I've been pretty vague on just what that "sight" was...until now.
Yeah, Fish Eye can be persuasive, can't she?
Now there's a thought I hadn't considered...but then how could I have when the fic's been so darn vague about all things bat ponies and the dream realm? Darn you and your wonderfully mysterious nebulous writing, Mitch H!
But alas, I suppose being more upfront would only make it all to easy to put two with two, wouldn't it? And we can't have that...not before it's time to. 
That all said, this does clear up a few things about the bat ponies for me. I've long been wondering what their endgame is, what their true intentions behind all that they do actually are, but it occurs to me now that the reason I haven't found the answer to that is because I've been asking the wrong question.
I should be asking what the intentions of the "Mother of Dreams" are. And that is a little easier to speculate on.
10463741
It's actually Mitch H's way of Equestrianizing an old US idiom, "win a kewpie doll," which means to win a modest prize. Auntie A's obviously using it sarcastically here.
Serious comment: I'm deeply confused about Ping's perception of the Mother of Dreams. In what sense do they not worship her? And with what Ping has seen of her personally, how is she not a goddess? Wrathful, certainly, but...
Joke comment: Ping needs an adult.
Seriously, he should talk with Gilda.
Well, some interesting answers and new questions both here. :D
A distressing thought occurs: Ping's second sight may not have faded. It could simply be that with the Nightmare's impending return, there simply isn't much future left to see.
Granted, that doesn't explain his failing vision in the dreamtime.
The more I hear about batponies in this setting, the more they seem like a dreamwalking Bene Gesserit, presenting themselves as ubiquitous advisors and functionaries while maintaining their own agenda under the surface. Which would make Ping a Kwisatz Haderach who's gone and lost the path. Awkward...
Ah. Well, this situation is certainly more preferable than a diminishing prophet margin, though still terribly awkward for Ping. He has some hard choices ahead if he wants his second sight back, assuming he can ever reclaim that which he willingly abandoned through neglect. And that's before considering whether Lyra's research will raise even more awkward questions.
10464082
Pigeonholes are very, very important to most
peopleponies, for all that they are myopic and misleading at the best of times.10480397
As the popular song "Everybody Have Fright Tonight" by the band Wangst Chung demonstrated, obviously.
Ah it looks like your pride caught up with you ping.
10464082 I am an adult!
So, Auntie A is behind Pings issues.... and I get th he impression she does mean well, but has neglected putting ranks in Diplomacy and instead got by on Intimidate being maxed out.
Still, she's not wrong about the return of NMM being very bad news for every creature. Ping.... sit down and have a nice long talk with Fish Eye when she gets back.