Daring Do and the Iron Pyramid

by Unwhole Hole

Chapter 8: Apex Predator

Wun Perr-Synt, Scion of House Perr-Synt, sat in her chair in near-complete silence. A wooden desk had been brought for her, and it sat out before her, illuminated by the slowly circling lights that she had effortlessly projected and now absentmindedly maintained. Several sheets of paper had been laid out before her, and she held a fountain pen in her magic, occasionally spinning it into the air before catching it again.

She had long ago reached the age where insomnia had largely superseded sleep. That tended to be a byproduct of age far greater than that which could be obtained by lesser ponies. For them, a product of regrets, usually, although Wun was fully incapable of remorse and therefore lacked that problem. For her, it had always been the whispers. They disturbed her. The voice of the One True Goddess that came to her in the depths of her darkest dreams.

Son instead, she had changed her clothing, assuming a sleek sleeveless dress and silken gauntlets that nearly reached her shoulders. In that comfortable state, she had elected to draft a letter to her father. A box of plump pigeons were waiting in silence, terrified of her, prepared to fly across the great desert and return home. All Wun needed to do was finish the letter.

It was not a matter of sentiment. She felt no love for her father, in accordance with how he had taught her. Rather, it was a report on the mission. That they had arrived, and the revenite had been located. Further, Wun had outlined several plans for future inspection of the tomb.

She was weighting if sending a cloudbreaker to clear the storms was worth it. It would be necessary if she wanted to remove any substantial parts of the temple without having to slice the larger statues and structures to pieces and reassemble them.

The other option, though, was that she could invest from her personal ventures the money necessary to claim this tomb as her own. A new home, even if only for the winters. This pyramid sat on the southernmost edge of Equestria, beyond which was assumed to be nothing at all but which might be entirely new lands. It was the last known thing. The possibilities of opening the shipping company to such a location were manifold—and the risk incredible.

The thought of living in the pyramid itself, though, was a temptation that was almost too great to manage. In an indestructible monument to ancient glory, so that she could forever have it all to herself. No one could move the Pyramid. It would be hers, and hers alone.

Her thoughts kept wandering, though. Her long, pointed ears probed the silence, listening for hoofsteps. In her on way, she had hoped that Caballeron would come. That she would not be alone and cold, that she could claim ownership of something alive for once. Of course, she knew he never would. Not unless he wanted something very desperately. No earth ponies ever did. They understood instinctual what Wun knew consciously. She was not like them. As a unicorn, her race had descended from Equestria’s apex predator, and the earth-ponies and Pegasi from the ancient prey. This was why she so dearly loved the fear in their eyes—and why she was sure that there did not exist an earth-pony so prodigiously stupid as to ever attempt to truly attempt her.

This was another thought she considered as she continued to hold her pen, listening, staring into the deep shadows her spell cast. She continued to throw it up, spinning it, and catch it, again and again, listening. Until she saw one particular shadow move.

The pen shot across the room with incredible force, it’s scandium tip embedding several inches deep in one of the wooden columns that supported the roof of Wun’s tent. She heard a high squeal and, in her light, saw limbs flailing.

With the hood of her robes pinned, the tiny thestral slid out of the bottom of it, landing on her back. She looked down at her gray self and gasped.

“GAH! Nudity!”

“Would you have preferred I aimed lower?”

The thestral sopped flailing and stood up. She tilted her head. She was a filly, barely of cutie-marking age. “But how did you see me? Ponies like you can’t see so good!”

“I can. Likewise, my pointed ears, although glorious, are for more than show. You make a relentless squeaking as you move. I rather hate it.”

“That’s the echolocation! Wow, you can actually hear it?!”

“I have the capacity to listen. Do you not?”

“I do!” The thestral bounded forward. She had pale blue eyes, and an otherwise dark body. “I’m the Avatar of Curiosity! That means my name in your syntax is Curiosity! And you’re the one who grabbed my wings.” She frowned. “That hurt really bad, in my wings but also in my feelings. It was mean. Why did you do that?”

Wun magically summoned her pen, pulling it from the wood and refilling it with ink. “Because I was facing a pony named ‘Honor’. The name implies that he would be glad to fight me, but that attacking children would distress him and leave him mentally unbalanced. I could then leverage that situation to produce an outcome with a minimum of...mess.”

“Oh, wow!” Curiosity’s eyes grew wide. “You’re so smart! Is that pointy thing part of your brain? Can I touch it?”

“It extends to the center of my brain, yes. And no to the second part.”

“Why is it curved? Are you one of those filly-foolers?”

“Why? Are you?”

“I vex all the fillies without relent!” she cried, putting her front hooves in the air. “I vex all! ALL! Or at least that’s what Honor says. And you can’t answer a question with another question, that’s rude!”

“I threatened to excise the wings of a child named ‘Adorableness’. Rudeness is not my concern.”

“Yes, she is still crying and hiding. But in a cute way. That was super mean. Are you all mean, or is it just you?”

Wun smiled, not showing her teeth. “How about a deal, perhaps?”

“No, I will not do a little dance for money!” Curiosity paused, then hung her head in shame. “Actually I will...my family is really poor...”

“Not that kind of deal. For every question you ask me, I shall answer. In exchange, you may answer one of mine.”

Curiosity gasped, her pale eyes lighting up. “Oh wow! Sure, that sounds great! But I have so many questions, I don’t know which to ask! Which one should I ask first?”

“My name, I would think.”

“Oh wow, that’s a great idea!”

“I have answered your question. Now it is my turn.”

“Gosh darn it!” sighed Curiosity. “I wasted one!”

“There is no rush. How many thestrals live in this are?”

“Exactly forty-eight, including me! Twelve of them are really little and don’t have their cutie marks yet, but they’re really sick because they’re too small.” Her excitement faded for a moment. “And...well...you know how it is. Some of them won’t get cutie marks anyway.” She perked up. “But with all the magic medicine you brought, the might make it that long now! Yay!”

“That means the rest them are your age.”

“No! There’s only a few, we were all born at the same time. Most of them are super old. Not as old as Wisdom, but way old. They’re not so happy about you being here. Only Honor and Dignity are not young and not old. And the old ones say they need to get married soon, even though they’re siblings. I had a sibling once. He never got a name.”

“Those are the two with those unusual swords. Well, I do suppose most of your kind have swords like that.”

“No way! There’s only two swords, that’s all we have! The rest is spears, and you broke all those. We can’t make more because we don’t have any more sticks. So we don’t really have weapons right now except whips I guess, but Honor told me not to tell anypony. He’s worried that if you knew that, you might send all those scary cat-guys to use their boom-sticks on us.”

“That would be possible. I have no need to right now, though.”

“I don’t think you’d do that anyway. You’re super mean, but you’re not stupid. And there’s no way you could know how many of us there are , we move in a way that makes our forces seem really big. And the weapons part? That’s a super-big secret, so no way you’ll ever find out.” Curiosity paused, frowning. “Wait a minute...”

“I think it is time for your question.”

Curiosity gasped. “It IS!” She began to hop excitedly. “Okay! What is your name?”

“Wun.”

Curiosity gasped. “Like the Chosen Wun?”

“It is not your turn.”

“Darn it,” swore Curiosity.

“Second question,” said Wun. She leaned back in her chair and her spinning pen suddenly stopped, pointing toward the Pyramid. “Why exactly do you protect that pyramid?”

Curiosity paused. She suddenly seemed highly afraid. That excited Wun, because it meant she had asked a correct question.

“We’re...we’re not supposed to talk about that.”

“Then you can go back to whatever hole you live in and I can progress with my insomnia, and the game will end. I am willing to allow you to depart. I will not even sell you to the griffons.”

“That’s really nice of you...” Curiosity inhaled sharply. “We don’t talk about it. Nopony ever does, except when one Wisdom talks to the new Wisdom. But...I think Honor knows. He’s not as mean as he looks. He just likes the old traditions...” She turned her head to the direction of the Pyramid, staring for several seconds. “This isn’t my question, so you don’t have to answer...but can’t you feel it?”

“This one is also not my question: feel what?”

“It watching. How it always watches, and never stops. The eye in the top of it. There’s not really an eye, but...we don’t like getting near it. We don’t build windows facing it. Only the mound-breakers, what you call sha, only they get close. Because they are evil things.”

“So you consider it cursed.”

“Honor says we need to protect it,” she said, growing more agitated. “That there’s something in there. I think that’s the Eye, but I don’t know. We don’t actually know what’s in there anymore, except Wisdom. But it can’t ever come out because that would be bad.” She paused. “Maybe...I don’t know. Maybe there were once enough of us to stop it, but there aren’t anymore...”

“This sounds like superstition.”

“It is. But that’s the tradition. That’s what Honor likes, but I don’t like it that much. Because we can’t leave. You came from the far side of the Red Desert. You’re the first one in a long time. Before I was born, someone came. Wisdom said he had no leg, and that something was wrong with his eyes. That he had a very bad mark on his hoof.”

“I do not understand what that means.”

“I know! Neither do I! I really wanted to be the next Wisdom so I could know everything, but I’m too annoying. According to Honesty. I don’t like her.” She sighed. “But we don’t know what’s out there. None of us have never gone that far, ever.”

Wun raised a nonexistent eyebrow. “Do your kind know the name ‘Nightmare Moon’?”

“It’s not your turn.”

Wun shrugged. “Indeed. Your answer was uninformative but has tickled me. You may ask the next.”

“The pretty pony, the one with the fluffy wings like the cat-meanies. What is she?”

“A Pegasus.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. What is she, to you?”

Wun paused, wondering if that counted as a second question. She decided to be charitable. She had already eaten. “She is my sister.”

Curiosity gasped. “But she’s so little, and not as scary as you are!”

“Yes. I am aware of this.”

“I saw her outside when I came in here. She was flying around to all your boxes, taking all kinds of green stuff and grass out.”

Wun frowned. “And where is she now?”

“That’s your question! She went to the tent with the fancy-smelling earth pony.” Curiosity leaned forward and whispered. “I think they’re snogging right now! I wanted to watch, but Dignity says I should stop doing that, so I didn’t.”

Wun’s head tilted, and she leaned back in her chair, stabbing her pen into the table. “Then she has undercut me. This is unexpected.” She shrugged again. “However, I suppose it had to happen sometime. They age quickly. He is a poor match for her, but she needs the experience if I am ever to expect fluffy little nieces and nephews.”

“Do you have children at home? I mean, where you come from?”

Wun’s expression darkened. “No.”

“That’s okay. Some of us are like that, because the disease makes us not able to. From eating the bad mushrooms when the good ones run out. They say I’m like that now after the last famine.”

Wun’s eyes tilted upward sharply. “I assure you, I am quite capable of reproduction. And it is mandated that I produce.”

“Well, it'll happen eventually, I guess. You just have to find sompeony that's...I don't know, blind maybe? So he can't see the scary?”

“No. There is no 'eventually'. I am a pureblood. I can only breed with another pureblood.”

“That’s stupid.”

“That is my obligation. Except that I am the last pureblood of my type. The rest have become contaminated. The High Houses of Western Equestria have refused my pairing requests because of my color, and the colored purebloods there no longer keep to the ancient ways.”

“But you’re supposed to marry somepony you love.”

“I am a unicorn. We are incapable of both love and pain. Such is the burden of absolute racial superiority. I am the last of my line, a burden I will carry for at least seven centuries. Without a pureblood mate, no child I ever produce could rightfully be referred to as my daughter.”

“Then what would you refer to them as?”

Wun’s head tilted the other way. “It is not your turn.”

Curiosity just nodded. “Okay.”

“How do you feel about needles?”

Curiosity frowned. “I’ve never seen one. We’re too poor for them. But Wisdom told stories about having seen one, once. I really would like to see one.”

“Excellent.” Wun produced from below her desk a pair of enormous steel needles, their ends sharpened to lethal points.

Curiosity’s eyes widened. She could not stop herself. “What—what are those for?”

“I cannot sleep, and you are here. So you will be amusing me for...well, until I am done with you.”

Curiosity did not ask an additional question. She only squeaked.

Comments

[Thought Prism]

And I thought the conversation last chapter was cute. Poor Curiosity is too precious for this fic.

[Opium4TmassS]

Aww.

[alamais]

She's giving Curiosity The Poke?