The Trinity of Moons: Mending Shards

by Cloud Ring

Chapter 12: Distancing

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Quiet Melody has not celebrated anniversaries for a long time. The festive mood came to her without checking up the number of the round or the name of the era. Sometimes she realized that it was time to change a name that had worn out; sometimes a name left her by itself, like how a child swarm separates from a parent hive. Generations of ponies were following each other; she was invited to cute-ceañeras, weddings and funerals, and sometimes she agreed to come, although the latter she did not really like. There is no sweetness in sorrow and loss.

But for her, festivities were not tied to regular intervals of time — not anymore. A feast could be made out of any joy, any small or big pleasure. For example, now that she was expecting guests, her joy was cake. Wafer cake, with blueberry cream, with a pinch of ground coffee and cream cheese, as Solid Line loved it — without confessing this love; never asking for more, but Quiet Melody felt the taste of this pleasure anyway. Quiet Melody knew that the yellow unicorn was not there, but she remembered that she would be, and the feast was associated with her.

So the bees said, and they are never wrong, even if they hear much less than Moons.

From the central railway station and to the far Descent of the Blue Moon — despite not being a follower of the Blue, or any Moon at all, she kept using such a naming convention out of æsthetic reasons — two ponies were coming to visit her with a joint question from Moons, which she learned both from a letter with a seal and from nine bees, imperceptibly following the guests.

Melody did not really want to spoil the first impression with a look through the eyes of the swarm, and definitely was not ever going to let any guests into her home proper, so she apologised to time itself for what she was about to do.

Of the many possible futures, she examined one branch of what will happen three cycles later, one where she does meet the guests, but away from her domain. In this branch she will narrow her eyes and look around; her eyes now were not as they were before.

She will see the usual for this part of her domain: dark semi-opaque water, white marble tracks that were outlining hexagonal cells of bridges, blossoming pear trees away from the tracks and at the water's edge.

Two ponies will stay on the track. Outside, beyond the confines of her loneliness which she shared with her close ones, an eternal blizzard was, and will ever be, raging, and on the face and sides of the pale orange earth pony — powerful Herald of the Blue — will be cut marks of vicious ice dust. The coat on her side will be marked by a long line of mostly absent fur; the pony’s eyes will be watering, but Melody will understand that she will be seen very clearly, and that there is no point in hiding.

The pegasus next to the earth pony will blink, “This is a dream, isn't it? And you are not an alicorn and not a Moon?..” suggesting that there may be ones that are not others at the same time.

Having made sure this is indeed the branch she's interested in, Melody then set it as the one to be recalled by the guests, even as it will not happen in the main flow.

She tucked her legs to appear shorter and said, “No, it’s not a dream. It’s what will most likely happen to you, or happened already. I can’t clearly distinct these ones anymore. I am immortal like them, but I am not of Their kin. Have you ever heard of Moons that aren’t known? I didn’t put the weight of the whole world onto my back. I have enough ponies to care about. My little Starfall and her friends... and my friends too. It’s not my thing to patch up the history for all eternity, it’s easier to just make friends with Time…”

She knew that she would not have time to finish the thought and then she would forget it, but trying to preempt it would only disrupt the flow further; nevertheless, Melody's transparent wings fluttered in irritation, buzzed, and two bees got entangled in the guest's orange coat two beats before the earth pony wedged in.

“Black Moon said that you can protect us from the Red!” she exclaimed aloud.

...a burning pain, a heavy putrid smell...

Melody blinked, “Is that what she said?”

The earth pony glanced at the grayish-white pegasus; she fluttered her wings, snorted and replied, "We don’t remember. Something like this. This place is marked on Her map.”

“Oh,” Melody realized she didn't know what to say. She herself never had and will not have protection from the Red, no amulets, no charms, no spells... Only by taking refuge in a fragment of space and time hidden from the world could she and her close ones be relatively safe. But she had no way to offer this protection to somepony venturing outside.

She asked, heard the refusal even before she finished — no, we have our own way, and we still have to wake Solid Line — and cut herself off. Instead she asked in surprise about Solid ahead of time, “I could protect you but only if you would stay here with me among the ponies of my family— Solid Line?.. So is… will she be alive?”

Melody fluttered her thin wings in annoyance again, hearing the rejection a second time, note-for-note as at the first.

"Just asleep for now," — "That’s good, I guess?” — “Yes, she is alive," — "What do you mean?" the voices of the guests split into a cacophony in Melody's head when she momentarily lost her focus on the desired branch.

Melody tried to apologize, “I've lived too long, and I can't always tell the past from the future. Sorry.”

The earth pony smiled, “If Solid Line wakes up, I'll take care of her. This is my calling. And that's okay, I understand. Although it baffles me that you have no protection... we walked here…” she frowned, trying to figure it out, “not yet so far, or for how long? For a cycle and a third since we left the train... sleeping in the open air in the wilderness, chasing away snow ghosts... and for what, to find nothing that could protect us here?”

Melody winced from the bitter frustration that earth pony tried to hide. She inhaled and murmured, “Give me a moment, I will try to find something for you. I trust that Black Moon had a good reason to guide you here, so… yes, I will try.”

She froze, thinking feverishly and slipping through the branching time, connecting the largest bee swarm to her mind to help her process the options. She really didn't want to disappoint the ward and those two who were woven into the ward's calculations. Nines of nines of variants, each with its own chord of time, intertwined into a uniform gray noise that grew and receded like the hum of bees.

She found nothing.

Melody tried to look deeper — Time glanced back at her in annoyance and raised a hoof to forbid and disapprove — but I have to!—

She still found nothing at all.

She lowered her head, lifted and lowered a pale pink hoof. Then she exhaled, almost crying, “No. I can not. I don’t know. If you don't want to stay here, then I just don't know how to protect you. Maybe she means that you have to find something here that will help you? My ward is never mistaken, especially in such matters, but her advice is never simple.”

The earth pony came over and hugged her sympathetically. The pegasus snorted, her head lifted.

“It’s okay. Thanks for your honest answer, Melody,” the pale orange earth pony said, splitting into two ghostly images, one pulling back, the other remaining in her embrace. Melody shook her head and re-focused. “When we will come... or we have come already... I mean, when the order of things will be normal, we will stay with you and take a look around. Maybe we can find…”

The pegasus nodded, sharply, “Yes. Something that reputable Quiet Melody does not even notice over so many rounds. Somehow she lives here, and is not afraid of the Red. I bet two to one, that is the answer.”

“I accept the bet,” the earth pony replied.

“Well, anyway, I had a cake for you. Or, I will have, right?” Melody asked, guilt in her voice. She started disconnecting from the branch.

From the look on their faces, both of them will not mind the cake after the long hike, and Melody will think it might be that she has not much to blame herself for yet.

Three beats before they will have their leave Melody will taste their emotions: bay leaf of the readiness to protect and cover, to stand up against any enemy, the sour fermented grapes of uncertainty and the frostbitten passion to be stronger, ever stronger, so that the elder one would appreciate, and something dark and inebriant, and an awkward tingle caused by an event that made this branch unlikely to be revisited by the guests.

But Melody already looked too deeply into the future; any more and she would lose track of the branch entirely. And so she focused on the main branch of the predicted future in her mind, trimming away all the side branches, reducing it to a single thread that can be comprehended easily by young ponies, and imparting it as a vision onto her yet-distant future guests.

Most importantly, the very act of sharing such a prophecy made it so that this future would not come to pass, thus ensuring that her home will be safe from intruders.

Comments

[Chatoyance]

Cake is nice!