Worm
It felt as if he was spending most of his time in trying to keep them from killing each other.
Sun had been raised again, and the group had resumed its slow march towards the goal. (They were making progress -- physically. Spike's best guess was that they would reach Mount Llanero on the next day. In theory, it could be done under Moon for the current cycle with a collective push -- but they were dealing with a consistent slowdown factor.) This had started after they'd cleaned up what nopony could quite manage to describe as their 'camp'. It was a word which implied a certain degree of shelter and when it came to taking refuge within that portion of the dictionary, the night's rain had offered a subclause of LIE.
He'd slept in the rough vicinity of the Bearers, and done so rather poorly. The summer heat didn't bother him, but... dragons were adapted for superhot, superdry environments. You didn't get a lot of humidity in the vicinity of an active caldera. Enough time in the rain forest, and Spike would be at serious risk of illness. The discomfort was currently manifesting as a lot of tossing and turning at night, to the point where he'd put some distance between himself and the mares: he didn't want to risk scratching them by moving too quickly in proximity to fur. Plus his breathing felt odd, and he had an odd urge to find and eat cachalong opals. It probably had something to do with absorbing moisture.
(He'd risked two sunrise sendings of scroll scraps: one was for Twilight, with the other going to the Princesses. The base message had been the same: 'all intact'. Writing down 'all well' would have made for a rather awkward lie.)
Trixie had slept alone, some ten body lengths away from the others. A mare who had to deal with everything which could happen on the roads had turned out to have a degree of skill at improvising a shelter out of branches, and...
He'd caught Rarity glaring at the performer as light blue fur had emerged from relative safety. This was partially due to how dry that fur had been. The fact that most of the base hue could still be distinguished didn't exactly help, because the rupophobe's only true chance at washing up had come from an involuntary dip into black water and...
Rarity could fight the fear of contamination back for a time: multiple witnesses had seen her voluntarily suffer a coating of non-spa mud at the Social, because there was very little which the designer couldn't do for her sister. But that had been for a period of several minutes. This was verging on days. And it was too hot for ponies to be wearing any true degree of clothing in comfort, but the Bearers had to keep their marks covered and anything put on had only minutes before it became soaked with sweat, stained by plants, dirtied...
More factors which made her increasingly cross. Looking for a place to lash out.
He'd also caught Pinkie watching her. Surveying the edges of the eyes. He knew that was exactly what Pinkie was doing, because he'd been doing the same.
Rarity couldn't control the weather: something which had been repeatedly demonstrated, and she had reluctantly accepted that they were in a situation where Rainbow didn't have a lot of say either. Take out the meteorological factors and there still was nothing she could do about the environment: the stains were just going to keep coming, and she had no magic for seeking out or fleeing to civilization. The only thing she could truly hope to control was her anger. And she generally did that through letting it out.
(The Boutique's basement hosted a mostly-soundproofed room. It didn't exactly contain the venting after a design session failed to work out, but did manage to render the resulting screams into something which could pass for faulty plumbing. Once.)
There were times when the others told her that she had what was almost a regularly-scheduled tendency to go a little crazy. Rarity had crossly inquired whether they felt there was any improvement to be found in letting her save it all up for a few moons and then allowing all of the frustrations to fly --
-- at the wrong target.
Distorted mirrors. Every Bearer was a partial reflection of every other. Twilight and Pinkie could both get lost in their own heads. Rainbow and Applejack easily compared aspects of their core drives. Designer and caretaker... one would frequently blame anypony except herself, while the other's emotional attacks were typically aimed inwards. And in both cases, they almost never went after the actual source.
They were moving through the rain forest again, and there was still something of a marching order. Rainbow got to scout ahead: the only requirement was that she stay roughly in view. Rarity trailed her, Pinkie was somewhere behind that purple tail (and all of the artificial curls were gone now), and Trixie stayed at the back.
Spike roamed, doing his best to keep the peace. At times, one of the mares would offer him a ride, and... he didn't want to accept it, not when they were already carrying so many (partial) supplies and progress through the forest was already so difficult... but he was also trying to keep them from seeing how much the humidity had soaked into his body. Short rides helped.
There was a marching order. But it usually didn't stay intact for long. Individual mares would move forward, drop back. Group together. Because for the most part, ponies were a social species. In a stressful situation, they would want to talk. They almost had to.
Rarity dropped back.
Further back...
"Exactly what are you doing?"
(Spike began to move.)
(He wouldn't be in time.)
(Again.)
The performer glanced up. A small, light purple piece of fruit floated away from her mouth, and a shaft of sunlight highlighted the green which was speckled around the bitten skin.
"Eating," Trixie calmly said.
On the most technical level, they were now trotting together. Perfectly matching pace, and that maintained despite Trixie's attempts to get ahead.
"Risking the native foods," Rarity smoothly continued, "after seeing what happened to Rainbow. Hardly a sign of intellect --"
"-- it's camu-camu," the performer stated. "I've seen it at import markets in Eeyorus. You can never tell if any given fruit going to be sweet or acidic until you try it. Donkeys love that." Her eyes slowly moved across the designer. "Even if all the ones I harvested from that bush near the last river are pure acid. Just like everything else around here --"
"You took food which you knew to be safe," Rarity cut in, "for yourself. And yourself alone."
"You've given out your opinion of what it means to have me cutting into the supplies," Trixie countered. (The streaked tail was starting to lash.) "When it came to that piece of sharing, you were really generous."
"Unlike you," the designer spat.
"Sorry?" Which didn't exactly come across as fully sincere.
"You know that our supplies are limited," Rarity hissed, "you found food which you know to be safe, and you kept it to yourself --"
"-- I harvested enough for everypony. I was waiting until we all stopped --"
Formerly-white hooves slammed into dark soil. "-- as if I would trust anything you gave me! Where's the core of this particular trick? Is this one of those foodstuffs where one has to build up a resistance over time? Perhaps the more green the skin, the more spectacular the reaction --"
"-- and what's the benefit in my getting everypony sick? That just leaves me alone in this forest, in the wrong part of the planet --"
He tried to move faster.
"-- using our disabled state," emerged with false calm, "to collect a signal device. Move away from us, create a lie about why you are no longer traveling with the group, then summon the Princesses. You, and you alone, would get to go home. After alerting the potential enemy to our presence, of course --"
"-- now there's an idea!" declared a burst of what Spike truly hoped to be pure sarcasm. "I wonder what kind of mind thinks of something like that?" The pause was subtly brutal. "Other than yours --"
The little dragon lunged.
"-- can I try one?" Spike asked, and desperately stuck his raised right hand into the narrow space between the two mares.
Everypony stopped talking. The natural sounds of the forest used the opportunity to take over. Multiple howler monkeys demonstrated what Twilight probably would have called nomenclature efficiency.
Both mares were staring at him.
"I'm a little hungry," he admitted. (He'd been trying to stretch out his own rations and, up until that moment, had been putting considerable effort into not calling any attention to that.) "I'd like to try one."
"I don't know how dragons react --" Trixie started.
"It smells fine. And I eat gems," Spike pointed out. "I'll be okay."
A slow flicker of field reluctantly opened loaned saddlebags, delved within and floated a promising specimen directly to his left hand before winking out.
"Spike," Rarity immediately cut in. "I must insist that you --"
He bit into the fruit. Held the pulp and flesh on his tongue for a few seconds, waiting for a reaction -- then chewed and swallowed.
"See? I'm fine." And he was. The taste had been somewhat unusual, but it was in no way offensive -- and his body seemed to be dealing with it normally. "Rarity, did you want to try --"
"-- you," the designer rather petulantly reminded him, "eat gems. I believe I shall wait until our situation becomes somewhat more dire." With a soft snort, "Assuming that is somehow still possible..."
Both mares kept trotting along. The little dragon could feel Pinkie looking at the group. Monitoring.
"Is there anywhere else you might have to be?" Rarity inquired, looking directly into green eyes.
"Ponyville," Spike firmly said. "So let's meet up with the others so we can work on getting home."
She snorted. Accelerated her trot, pulled ahead and steadily increased the distance. Spike continued to match the slower pace, and so got to be in the perfect position to spot the moment when the chlorophyll-stained head turned back and glared at him.
He did his best not to react. Most of his limited success was registered as a snort from still-white nostrils, and the designer furiously faced forward before stomping further ahead.
...it was mostly preventing Rarity from murdering Trixie. Admittedly, just about all the weapons were verbal, which meant that any damage was applied directly to the psyche. It made something of a difference when it came to the nature of the wounds, and also meant the designer was occasionally free to keep attacking from a distance. Something which kept happening, because Rarity took out her anger on the wrong targets, this particular impact site was currently stuck traveling with them, and when it came to incentive...
"You're probably making her jealous," Trixie offered, and every word was coated in shadow. "Spending so much time with me."
There had been so many times when he'd dreamed of making Rarity jealous. Of having her want to cut in...
He knew what victory felt like. This wasn't it.
"If if helps," the performer finally said, "you can tell her that I would have just let Rainbow Dash move in to get her. If I had to do it over again." A little more softly, "Not that it matters, right? But if it shuts her up..."
"...would you?" he quietly asked.
She didn't answer.
They waked together in silence for a time. And whenever he glanced up at Trixie, the first thing he saw was that little sternum-hosted twist of distorted flesh and fur. The place where the Amulet had once been.
Spike thought he understood.
That normally would have been the worst part, but having been the direct and personal cause for why he understood usually managed to take over. On a good day, the residual embarrassment of the Noble Dragon vows would still have him unevenly shifting atop his walking claws until the little score marks produced on the standing surface threatened to accumulate into their own form of pacing groove. Because the Bearers didn't do 'life debts' or rather, they didn't do anything like that now.
The 'now' was because they openly included one little dragon among their numbers. The embarrassment, however, was just about perpetual.
He couldn't claim that nopony was keeping score of just how often they'd saved each other, because Rainbow was absolutely doing that. She kept a running tally for exactly how many times she'd rescued any given pony, then compared her stats to the rest of the group and tried to look for ways to get ahead. But all that was owed was a sincere thanks and if that gratitude was being offered to Rainbow, it helped to kick in something about how awesome she'd been. Also, it was perfectly fine to buy somepony dinner after and if that somepony just happened to be named Rainbow Dash, then she already had several suggestions regarding the food which she was absolutely not going to be paying for.
Gratitude, plus the occasional restaurant bill which ended in a weather coordinator fuming because she'd somehow once again somehow gotten stuck with paying for the tip. But that was as far as it went. Because saving a life didn't impose a debt on the rescued party. It created a reward: something which was automatically doubled, and generally went further than that. The gift of continuing to be together.
That was just how it worked -- with the Bearers. They all understood it, even if the youngest usually had to reflect on the equation with his head down and both hands behind his back.
But Trixie wasn't a Bearer.
He'd... been forcing himself to replay the memory of Rarity's fall. (The scream, the splashing, the cry of pain.) And it seemed to Spike that Rainbow might have been able to catch up in time to scoop the designer out of the water --
-- or Rarity could have vanished beneath the churning surface, trapped by current and undertow.
Drowned.
There was some chance that Trixie had saved Rarity's life, and Generosity was currently being exceptionally bad at dealing with received gifts.
"It'll be over eventually," Trixie finally said, keeping tones and volume soft. "We'll meet up with Twilight and the others. Everypony will solve this. And then we'll all go back, and she'll never have to see me again." This snort was exceptionally quiet. "Maybe she'll scream herself out before that. Or not."
"You wouldn't come back to Ponyville?" he quietly asked.
"I think the town's feelings are pretty clear," the performer softly stated. "You're having a hard enough time already. Stepping between me and an entire angry settled zone is going to wear you out in a hurry. I can keep sending Twilight letters." With a tiny sigh, "If you're willing to give us more flame for the vials. Sun only knows if the postpony would deliver anything with my name on it. And it's not as if I get back to any of my dropboxes all that often. Spike, it's not your job to keep stopping fights..."
The words slipped out.
"It usually is."
She blinked.
"...really?"
Spike's role in the group had once been described as 'Protector' and while he no longer cared to think very much about the pony who had first assigned that introduction (other than once a week or so, strictly to make sure he remembered the stallion's name), there were times when it felt like a title of honor.
He wasn't in charge. (He couldn't be in charge.) But he had to protect them. Even when he was protecting them from each other.
But the words had slipped...
He didn't know what he could say. Especially when it was Trixie --
"-- they're very different mares," she said. "You see that after a while. Personalities with edges, rubbing at sore spots. They're going to irritate each other. So there's going to be fights. And you try to stop them. Maybe they don't want to fight as much with you, or even around you. Since you're the youngest. Which means you get stuck trying to make peace most of the time."
He was staring at her.
Light blue shoulders executed a mobile shrug. "Ask me about reading an audience," the performer softly said. "Looking for that first real heckler. Seeing how cheers and jeers just about leap from one pony to another. You can't survive on the road without a little empathy, Spike. I... just started reacting to how I thought it was going to be. Instead of letting it play out, and seeing what there actually was..."
The streaked tail slowly swayed.
"Peacemaker," she said. "There's always one kid in a big family who gets stuck with that. But a lot of the time, it's the youngest."
It had almost sounded like experience...
"You're the youngest?"
Birdsong filled his ears. Remarkably calm birdsong, at least for what was coming in from a distance. He hadn't heard one major upset among the avians. You didn't need Fluttershy's mark to pick up on a frightened flock, not after spending some time in the Everfree. It was a warning signal...
"I don't know -- look, you can stop staring," she irritably said. "It's the right answer. I don't know. My dad isn't the most faithful stallion on the planet. I could have some siblings. Half-siblings. We don't exactly talk about it. Which might not matter, because he probably doesn't even know --"
-- her words stopped. The mare's body continued to push on, through humidity and shadow and steaming hate. But for ten endless seconds, there were no words at all.
"-- you're too young to hear about this," she finally said -- then, a little more quickly, "Did you understand any of --"
He shook his head. Then he kept shaking it, and only stopped when he felt the crests beginning to independently vibrate.
"...good," the performer exhaled. "Besides, listening to me isn't your job either. If you keep hanging back here, one of the other three is going to get upset. Or with that one, more upset --"
"It's easier than my usual job," Spike told her.
"Which is?" was the driest thing in the rain forest. "Assistant librarian?"
The next three words didn't slip out. This level of factual statement didn't need much in the way of lubrication. "Keeping Twilight alive."
Her head tilted very slightly to the right. The performer's eyes regarded his crests, and then moved down.
"Explain that?"
Spike sighed. "It usually means not letting her starve -- well, you've seen her. She's slender to start with. And she doesn't really cook for herself, not past the basics. She'll take some stuff from the raw bar, but... when she really gets going, when she has some research to finish or a problem that she's just got to solve -- it's like she starts trying to live on words. So I have to get her out of the lab, or away from the library. And that's kind of hard when she basically lives there. And then there's the kind of experiments when she's been awake too long because she's decided that now she doesn't need sleep either and the safety parameters start to slip, so somepony has to pull on her tail and drag her into bed..."
But there was something else which kept a pony going, and -- he hadn't been enough. All he'd been able to do was watch as she starved for social interaction to the point where she could no longer remember or care about why it had ever been important at all, as her empathy shriveled into a twisted husk --
-- and then the remnants had turned out to be a seed.
Trixie quietly nodded.
"She does too much. And thinks it's not enough. Never enough..."
Stopped again. Both ears dipped.
"Get ahead," she told him. "She's getting angry again. Angrier. Go."
He was roughly towards the middle of the line, three body lengths away from Pinkie. (Rarity, trotting at the pace of perma-huff, wasn't looking at him.) The natural sounds of the rain forest echoed around them, and...
...he thought they were the natural sounds. It was hard to be sure, because he didn't have enough experience. Birds which Fluttershy had never hosted, animals that had never been anywhere near the cottage -- but somehow, all of the too-many noises produced felt as if they had come from a normal creature. And he kept hoping for one of the sources to come closer, this time with a piece of paper tied to one leg, but...
...even if she manages to send one, it might not get here. If this was the Everfree --
If they'd spent this much time in the depths of the Everfree, well away from the relative protection of the few paths, allowing the wild zone to have its way with them --
-- we would have been attacked by now.
But nothing had happened.
There was a small, immediately-acknowledged-as-stupid part of him which almost wished for a monster. Something small and easy to stop (because you had to be really specific with that kind of idiotic wish), which could serve as a true group target. After all, the Bearers hadn't truly come together until they'd all had to face down Nightmare. Trying to save the world had turned out to be a rather effective bonding experience. If there was something which the entire miniherd could collectively take on...
He briefly considered making an excuse to get away from the group. Something which would let him get out of sight long enough to find a monster and either lure it into view or use fire to drive it along. Then he quickly realized that he'd just experienced a rather quintessential old-school Cutie Mark Crusaders sort of thought, which was immediately followed by rediscovering that dragon anatomy wasn't quite suitable for subtly kicking himself.
We would have been attacked by now --
"Monsters," Spike said out aloud, and felt every pony gaze immediately focus upon him.
"Did you hear something, Spike?" Which came from Rarity, because no mere huff was going to remain intact against the prospect of an actual fight. "See or scent?"
"Nothing from up here!" Rainbow called back -- and then the yawn drifted towards them. "Nothing at all..."
Trixie was silent. Grey-tinged eyes were surveying the shadows of the forest.
"I'm ready!" Pinkie quickly declared. "As ready as I can be. Which isn't ready-ready, not when it's monsters. But I think I can get a giggle going --"
"-- nothing," Spike hastily told them. "I was just thinking out loud."
"About monsters?" Pinkie asked, and the rounded features began to work into a frown. "Why?"
He took a careful breath. "I was thinking that in any other wild zone, we would have found a monster by now. Or it would have found us. We aren't close to anything settled, not from what the map says. I know we don't have the bestiary --" something else which was presumed to be in Fluttershy's custody, and he couldn't seem to remember any specific names from books or plays "-- but there is one. All we've had is animals."
It was almost possible to feel Rainbow's distant shrug. "Sometimes you get lucky, Spike. As far as I'm concerned, we're due for some luck." Which was followed by another yawn. "Not that I'd mind a little excitement, but..."
Rarity merely shrugged. "I can explain it rather readily, dear."
Which instantly put him on full alert. "How?"
"Reluctance to engage with the competition," the designer firmly stated. "Look beyond the pony skin, and they can see that we already travel with a monster --"
There was a moment when all he could hear was pounding hooves. The same instant which found him unable to move in time. And then Trixie stopped the charge less than a body length away from Rarity, with head lowered to bring a dark horn into an attack angle, as widened nostrils blasted air in and out --
"I made a mistake," the performer snapped. "Ponies make mistakes. I'm still paying for it, I'll always be paying for it. It doesn't made me a monster --"
"-- a matter of opinion," Rarity interrupted. "And not a popular one."
As a follow-up volley, "-- I like myself --" seemed to lack force.
He was running again.
"Oh," the designer considered. "So you adore monsters. Very well. Should we encounter any others, you may take the lead in any necessary negotiations. There is some slight chance that they might respect their own kind --"
"-- I don't have to put up with this --"
And then he was between them again, with both arms outstretched and trying to keep his own nostrils from flaring. A dragon who inhaled in a very specific way was a dragon who was planning to let more than air come back out.
"STOP IT --"
Pinkie was starting to move in, because the Bearer who was most in tune with emotional states had picked up on a potential breaking point. Rainbow was coming back into full view. But there were a few seconds when it was just him and he could feel the weight of the humid air moving into his lungs, because even the moisture could be burned off --
-- his nostrils twitched.
"-- quartz," Spike automatically said.
Everypony stopped moving.
"Quartz?" Rarity repeated, because sheer incongruity on that level had just shut everything down -- at least for a few seconds. "Is it the cave you saw? Are we that close?"
"I can go up and get a sighting," Rainbow eagerly said. "Just give me a few seconds to clear the stupid canopy --"
"No," Spike slowly answered. "There's just some quartz around here." He took another breath. "It's just... sort of weird. Quartz is the base scent, but it smells like something happened to it..."
"Many things contaminate quartz," Rarity reminded him. "Which is the reason why it comes in so many hues. This may simply be a variety which we would not encounter in our own land." Which temporarily gave her a new priority, and her horn ignited. "Let me see. Perhaps there is a souvenir of sorts about..."
Soft blue played across the length of something not quite bone, and then she nodded to herself. Trotted towards one of the largest trees, with the group eventually following her.
She stopped at the base of the trunk. (Spike came to a halt some five body lengths back: it was as close as he cared to get.) Looked down, and sniffed at the stone's exposed surface.
"Useless," Rarity judged, and then bent her foreknees so she could do it again at a shorter distance. "Milky white. Uneven facets. Stronger than some of our native specimens, and it compensates for that through having inferior hydrothermal veins. No interior sparkle at all --" and more quickly "-- my apologies, Spike. But quartz also lacks natural cleavage lines, and a poor specimen for working, even when head-sized, remains a poor specimen. I see no need to carry this along. So if you wish to consume...?"
He shook his head. He wasn't always much for base quartz, and this one didn't smell right.
"Then we leave it in place," Rarity decided, and straightened. "Onwards --"
"-- can we leave us in place?" Rainbow quickly asked. "For about an hour?"
And then she yawned again.
Rarity briefly closed her eyes. Sighed.
"Do what you must," she told Rainbow. "We will wait."
The pegasus gratefully nodded, then began to look around. Trixie, moving with exceptional lack of speed, came a little closer.
"Is anypony else --" paused, and then risked a glance at Rarity. "-- are you getting that?"
"More specific," the designer irritably said. "Getting on my last nerve, perhaps?"
The unlit horn tested the air. "I..." The performer took a breath. "...I'm not sure if something happened. It's nothing specific. It just feels almost as if there might have been something cast here once. I can't judge the amount of time. There's barely anything. I'm not --" and the word seemed to pain her "-- sure..."
"Excellent," Rarity decided. "We have the world's first unicorn barometer. Please do let us know if you detect more humidity."
"Rarity," Pinkie carefully said, "if she thinks she's found magic --"
"-- and who would be the expert on all things gem?" Another sniff. "Even when the term barely applies. I sense nothing, Pinkie. Rainbow, do you have a spot yet?"
Too hot. Too humid. Conditions which make it hard to keep going, especially as a continual effort. There was no slow climb into summer, no chance to become acclimated to the conditions -- and this is harsher than what a Bureau schedule would ever consider imposing. It's the sort of weather which drains strength as it shortens tempers. and while there's nothing which can be done for the latter...
There's a consistent slowdown factor for their travels, and she needs to rest.
On average, when looking at the three major pony races, pegasi have the fastest metabolisms. The weather coordinator's is especially quick: it's part of why she rests so often. The miniherd needs her to be strong, because there's no telling what they might encounter. Additionally, she'll need to keep watch at some point, and falling asleep in the middle of that shift would be especially bad.
Simply using magic to continually cool herself down, and making that change hold as she moved... it might have drained her more quickly than the weather. So they stop every so often. Allow her to nap, recover as best she can. It also lets the rest of the group pause for a time. (The performer has retreated to the absolute border of sight, and isn't going to come forward any time soon.)
The pegasus sleeps.
She went high into the trees for this. The theory is that humidity tends to sink, and that means it might be possible to get above some of it. She wasn't quite right about that, but -- at least she's still in the shade, spread out across supportive branches in the tallest parts of the canopy, and...
...she wanted to go higher still. Get a cloud together, sleep within the sky. But she acknowledges the risk of being spotted by the wrong parties. She just wants a little more room to move. Something which means sightings on the mountain may have been a little too frequent, because they also allow her to see more than endless green and wet and...
She checks on the mountain, and also looks for signs of the lost. She always finds the mountain. As results go, she wouldn't mind too much if those two got reversed.
It's not a very good tree. Too many bumps on the branches. Rough bark. Inferior sleeping surface. She wants to find some better trees. Also, from what everypony said, it's possible that they've been searching for a sort of hospital. A hospital is going to have beds somewhere.
As sleeping trees go, this one stinks. But she fell asleep anyway.
And as she sleeps, she dreams.
Dreams about a friend plummeting into a river.
(She's been feeling a lot of guilt about that. Something which is only free to manifest here, because there's been enough fighting already. She doesn't need to start battling herself.)
(She isn't quite sure how she feels about Trixie now. She knows the performer helped, but... there's a lot of reasons to try and get on their good side. And even if it was sincere -- well, just try telling Rarity that right now. That's going to take some very special talking to get across, and the pegasus was never the best with words...)
And within the nightscape, she immediately goes into a dive, tries to reach the unicorn, but something happens as she moves and there's a dual flash of anti-light along her flanks and her mark is gone and her speed vanishes as the white horn submerges beneath the waves...
Perhaps she would have had that dream regardless. Her reaction, when Twilight told them about what had happened to the nameless stallion (and she's hunting for his name as much as anything else, because he needs one in order to be properly remembered)... it went deep.
A moment of doubt about her mark? Twilight asked Rarity about that sort of thing first, under Luna's advice. And the pegasus has never doubted her mark. She had the first mark, the one which led to all of the others. How is that not special? Her mark is beautiful, ideal, spectacular --
-- but if Twilight had asked...
...if Loyalty could have found the strength to be honest...
The mark is for a lifetime.
The talent is not.
The primary focus of her magic is speed. Her mark boosts her potential, grants her occasional moments of insight into how she can move faster, sometimes allows her to react at the speed of impulse. It's a wondrous thing, and every last aspect of it is temporary.
She'll always be faster than she strictly should be --
-- for her age.
Because everypony slows down.
Nopony is a Wonderbolt forever.
Reflexes drop. Reaction time slips.
You're doing twice as much just to keep up. Then you're a hazard within the formation, because you can't react in time.
There's a ceremony. A nice plaque which gets mounted on a wall. Your stats go into the books, and every last one is marked as Final. And you wind up at the memorabilia shows, signing autographs for the colts and fillies of the next generation. The ones who tell themselves that they have to learn who every last former marvel was, and that's the only reason they know your name.
She's going to slow down. She's told herself that she can hold it off for a while. She's already fighting. (The naps are an important part of that strategy.) With the right training, peak can be maintained for a few extra precious years. But... not forever.
Given enough time, the Rainboom will be duplicated: she's always known that. Her uniform will be put in a display case, the trading cards won't have any new printings, and...
...she'll be in the history books. She's told herself that. She's a Bearer and in spite of what previous evidence might suggest, she's pretty sure that in a thousand years, somepony will still know who she is. In that sense, she's immortal. She won.
But while she truly lives...
...truly living requires speed.
She's... told herself that there has to be a next step. But -- what is it? She's tried exploring other options. Writing is -- coming along. Slowly. She's approaching competence, and doesn't know if she can move beyond it.
The pegasus has some experience as a teacher. It's mostly mixed. She was exactly the wrong pony to be helping Fluttershy, she's tried to learn from her mistakes as she instructs Twilight in flight, and... she's still not sure that she's the best pony for that job. Besides, even if she gets better --
-- yes, there are retired Wonderbolts who basically move into the Academy and make sure the next generation is safe. But she won't be able to demonstrate certain techniques any more. She'll just be -- a relic. Something which should have gone into the display case next to the uniform.
The mark gave her a chance to be special. The talent is going to weaken.
What does she do with the rest of her life?
(The average Wonderbolt is on the squad for less than six years. The record is nineteen.)
What's left?
Perhaps she would have had that dream anyway. She's certainly been going through the thoughts which trigger such visions.
But neither group has encountered any monsters. There are reasons for that. A number were cleared out. Others retreated. Because a monster can only care about itself, and so those with any degree of self-awareness decided to prioritize for their own survival.
Rarity had the right of it. The sarcasm simply fell upon the wrong target.
There were monsters in this forest once. But the ones which could think -- they looked at the first corpses to fall, and then decided not to engage with the competition. Running from the place where the true horror dwells.
Perhaps the pegasus would have had that dream anyway.
But it's easier to guarantee it.
At the base of the tree, the milky quartz swirls. A singular gaze looks out from the facets, regarding a silent scene, and the resonance of doubt continues to radiate into the nearest pony. The one which has now been identified as one of the intruders into her forest.
A fresh set of subjects is approaching.
Every experiment must be properly prepared.
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Yeah, Glimmer seems to be natural choice to tackle a concept of destiny head-on
More and more Rarity is proving to me that she's going to make a critical mistake because of her anger and refusal to forgive, and that it'll have to be Trixie that saves her.
In the Triptych Continuum Rebooted I moved this story to the newly created Year 5 folder because it makes more sense that way.
I think of it as a bomb squad of one. And since he's still alive, he's good at his job. Very good.
Am so much not touching that line.
Only time will tell exactly how much Glimmer has prepared for the. But even so, the best laid plans...
You’re really hammering home how messed up Starlight is there at the end. I kinda hope that Trixie stays after all of this. She and Rarity really should bond a bit more once things get less intense.
"So there's going to be fights"
"So there're going to be fights"?
"..she wanted to go higher"
"...she wanted to go higher"?
Oh dear. :D
...Yes, that was somewhat a mixed reaction, but, well, I'm on this side of the screen, and I do expect this to be fun to read... :)
I admit, I had to skim over parts of this one. I understand that Rarity's in a terrible mental place right now, but that doesn't make it any more enjoyable to watch the stress overflow onto Trixie, much less see Dash suffer for it. I can only hope we're past the peak with this particular development, not that I have any way of knowing. Unlike Starlight, who's quite happily gathering new data (assuming she can be genuinely happy about anything.)
Worm... As in computer worm, but also Wyrm as in "dragon"?
Hmm, I don't think Glimmer would've planned for a dragon to infiltrate. Hopefully he helps even more...
If he smells more quartz around, it'd be even more suspicious. I really wonder what would've happened if he ate it.
For some reason, I think he's gonna need to eat a Shiftstone to get Discord in play.
Rarity, get the f
over yourself and stop antagonizing her. You're making Spike sad.
F*** F*** F*** NO NO NO THIS IS WHY I HATE READING THIS STORY IT GIVES ME ALL THE ANXIETY—
"Would you still love me if I was a Worm?"
~Starlight, maybe
Brother, the last section is making me fear. RD does NOT need this crap. Good job making me suffer! 👍
Just how many creepy ways of mental manipulation does Starlight have?
And I wonder now just how angry Luna will be if she learns of this.
You know, I'm becoming increasingly certain that Trixie is going to defect and join up with Starlight at some point soon. We already know that she has an uneasy relationship with her talent, and Rarity here is doing a birching good job of convincing her that she will never be allowed forgiveness or acceptance in Equestria - I could seriously see her deciding that she's better off with Starlight. Unfortunately, Rarity will probably never realize that she was the one who pushed Trixie into betrayal... unless maybe Spike spells it out for her.
This is probably why she's so at odds with Rainbow Dash: both have problems with self-awareness and impulse control.
Very ominous ending. Thank you for the chapter! even though it was stressful to read lol
Every group has that one member who is just a bit calmer and more controlled than the others, and they usually get stuck being the voice of reason and mediator ... until they snap
I know Rarity is tired, afraid, and upset and lashing out without thinking about it much, but come on!
11562915 But will Trixie be willing to save her by then?
IMO, they're ALL at risk for fungal infections + the ponies for prickly heat (?) + electrolyte depletion (sweating too much without sports drinks) & heat exhaustion.
Hmm... You know, I don't believe Starlight knows yet that there is a dragon in play. I'm fairly certain that this trap only detected the presence of a pony. And I'm hoping that, having planned to trap and convert a group of ponies, Starlight will not be ready for a dragon. At the very least, her unmarking spell certainly will do nothing to Spike, and it's possible that her other mind-control spells, being built for use on ponies, will not work properly on a dragon's mind.
Not quite everypony, actually. Celestia, Princess Luna, Cadence, and Twilight will never age, never wither or slow. If the Elements had chosen Rainbow in addition to Twilight... she would still be doomed to someday die, but until that day she would never lose her speed. It's obviously not impossible, because both Celestia and Princess Luna ascended last time. I can't imagine that even Rainbow could be less than horribly jealous of Twilight for having gotten what Rainbow so desperately wants, though I'm certain her loyalty will let her bottle up that jealousy - after all, she also knows that Twilight had no choice in the matter, and that it's not her fault that Rainbow was left to wither by the Elements.