The Trinity of Moons: Mending Shards

by Cloud Ring

Chapter 38: Prioritizing

☄☄☄

Cursory Streak woke up in a gray gloom of an unfamiliar confined space. The last thing she remembered was that they, along with Storm, were following the trail of the pink pony. Cursory asked about life above. It turned out that these upper sky ponies never learned how to grow normal food and some materials still had to be delivered from below.

“Finding a replacement for the fire of life is not easy,” Storm said, and it was all the more surprising: why hide from the Moons if what They provide is so important and irreplaceable?

But then, the comparison with food — "it’s like you feel very hungry, but ordinary food just does not make it for you" — helped Cursory to see a glimpse of what it means to be addicted to the modifier.

And, once she did see, she was mortified.

She then immediately wanted to actually do something about this because if modifiers were determinators of ponies’ wishes and aspirations — being, still, nothing but liquid or gaseous chemical compounds, not even self-aware ones as ‘Guiding Starfall-TX’ was; Faraway Storm, somewhat amused, confirmed this to her — then upper sky ponies definitely had an issue to fix, and do so urgently. It would be a high priority for Cursory Streak anyway, and she would be so very glad to help them… if they made a direct request. Without one she still could think and make plans and wish to ease the burden of these ponies, and nothing more. She had no right to intrude in the lives of other ponies. Everypony chooses for themself.

She could dream of impossible solutions, knowing that they really cannot be implemented, and that you can only save somepony who wants to be saved, and that all solutions of the sort are false, and that it’s silly to make any plans without even having a clue about how their society works.

For example, first find ponies involved in the issue and explain what they are doing wrong, and how it harms others. If after that they would not listen still, refrain from communicating with them. Otherwise, help them return to their own path. And once this strategy failed — she was not so naÍve to think it would really work out — well, Cursory Streak in her Protecting aspect would find another way to help them.

In the middle of the conversation she fell asleep. Too much time has passed since the last good rest.

Too much time since she and Gentle Touch were sleeping at a hospital hotel, not next to each other but still together. Since Gentle Touch was still just Gentle Touch, young and shy of her own power, without this… Herald of the Red mess.

Cursory did not even try to fight the oncoming stream of sleep — knowing how to put it off for later, she also knew when a debt piled by stubbornness would become too big to pay.

Sleep was expected, awakening in a closed space was not — although clues from the magnetic sense suggested that they had not moved very far.

She looked around, already recognising this place being neither a well nor an underground containment cell — it couldn't be the latter anyway, as White Moon's presence was still there for her — but a room, and inhabited one, at least for now. She focused her ears on the sounds of quiet conversation, got out from under the covers and jumped off the couch. The cat snorted indignantly, stretched and followed her suit.

Unwilling to resist the impulse, Cursory brushed herself against Signal in a gesture of affection: she knew that the cat was a reimplant and a former pony, but her subconscious refused to believe it, and the yellowish flame of traditions and rules flickered dimly out of reach. Signal, apparently, did not mind.

Also, Cursory did not forget to ask for permission beforehoof.

They went to a table with her companions around it. Pink nodded to her and pushed a low, wide cup across the table in her direction. So we have found Pink after all, and nopony was hurt? Delightful! — and Storm raised her voice to the normal conversation level.

Solid, on the other hoof, was almost whispering, "...I might solve the Red's equation too... Solid-past, that is, maybe…”

“How’d you do that?” Storm asked, voice full of curiosity and taunt in equal measure.

“I’m not sure... I only know some of the boundary conditions. That's not sufficient for a solution. To get the rest we will need to summon...” Solid sank deeper in her chair.

"You saw the result of the summoning," Cursory heard disgust in Storm's lowered voice.

The foxberry jelly in the cup was thick, sour, and sweet. Cursory was only going to taste it, but each next spoon asked for another, and soon the cup was empty. The conversation subsided, the ponies were clearly waiting for Cursory to join, but did not want to rush her. And yet, they turned their chairs in her direction, and Solid put aside several sheets of paper with flowcharts and diagrams on it.

So, they were summoning the Red? And they didn't even wake me up for that? Cursory took note of a potential joke for later use at her station. Are they even still waiting for me, or am I already replaced by somepony younger and less rough already? Do they even remember me?

Pink beckoned her closer and smiled, “Hey, team leader,” she said while Storm shook her head but did not object, “Resolve our dispute. You are the only one from this time, one who is not an not an alien... a stranger... ally, maybe? Allianger. Gentle Touch maybe, but I'm biased towards her opinion, and she herself... Well, you know.”

Cursory shook her head, “First, what’s up with this summoning of the Red?”

“Nothing! Not a thing!” Pink answered cheerfully, “Well, actually, a little thingiesy, but it's not that important.”

Cursory tried to give the earth pony a stern look, but Pink neither budged nor begrudged, smiling and leaning and staring back. Cursory did not back down either.

After a nine of beats Storm had to put an end to the battle of glares, “We just saw a recording. The Red was called here, and it ended very badly for the summoners. Pink says, basically, that we can repeat the call — if, and only if, we have something to say and offer to her.”

Pink nodded, “That's right. After that call… well, Solid says she can eliminate the Red, and I agree that she can indeed, for an unwieldy price. I want to bring it back to the skies, albeit I can’t — can’t yet. Storm wants to hold it accountable for all the damage, and I really doubt she is able to. What do you say?”

Cursory sat down next to her and paused. The question was too unexpected and too irrelevant. On the road of Moons you will perish, all three of you, a memory surfaced, clear, cold and glassy.

However, the answer was no less clear, as she had only to center herself and cut off the excess with a mental wingstrike, “I do say that we have a different task. We must collect the lost souls, as the Black Moon asked us to do, and then let Her decide what to do next and propose us options and possible payments to follow up. Which we then will accept or decline,” she replied.

The ponies looked at each other, and three heaps of coins floated off the table towards Storm; she smiled triumphantly, but said nothing.

“And yet, what about the Red? Imagine that here she is, what are you going to tell her?” Pink pressed on nonetheless.

“I’ll get scared... and then I’ll invite it to the table,” Cursory laughed to defuse the tension. “Although, you know, no. I will express everything I think about it, ask a few questions that I have in store, and prepare to die in six cycles or a little more, from delayed internal burns. Why do you ask?”

Pink looked at her, smiling, unblinking, “And if you are stronger than it is? If you can decide what to do with it?” The pink pony asked after a pause, slipping a pile of donuts towards Cursory.

There was no need to think here, only draw from experience; one special kind of issues were live ones. ‘Problematic individuals of greater impact’, to say it in that much more words and that much lesser precision. Those who were once, or still remained, ponies at heart. The faces that Cursory saw on the other side of the flickering screen, deemed too dangerous for close-up contact. Two or three nines cases per round, on average — whimsy, rough, spoiled, suffering.

In next to no cases unreachable.

“If you really can just talk to it,” Cursory began slowly, Pink nodded in reply, and Cursory went on, “I would have listened to what it had to say, and then made a decision. By the way, why hasn't anypony talked to it before? I remember a few attempts at communication with severe issues arising after that, but, to think of it, I never heard of… just the talk. I need to check the system to be sure.”

“Because it requires sacrifices, apparently, and makes no deals and no promises, so no gain for a big loss,” explained Storm, and Solid added a short "hmm".

Signal jumped on the back of the little unicorn's neck and rumbled to her ear. Storm added, “We saw a much more successful case of summoning here, by the way.”

Cursory remembered those who failed to escape the Red's rays. She paused and answered, “Even so, there must be a way to speak, if not by voice then by letter or mnemogram. And without hearing it out I will not decide on its own matters, that’s rude and may put it in danger. Let's go look for the remaining souls. This is more important for us, and this is what I agreed to do. Let the Moons deal with the Red, as They know more and understand better.”

The cat purred for three beats, and Solid turned quietly to Cursory, ”My aunt tells you to think the question through anyway. This is the right question, you have to answer it.”

Cursory swallowed the first reaction, thought, and chose words much softer, “I believe the question is correct. But I don’t believe that your three answers, although these are likely good answers, exhaust all possible options.”

They watched as if they expected Cursory Streak to continue, although Solid's face remained obscure, encrypted, hiding the true currents of thought and feeling amid the slow movements of a living golden mask. The first of its kind, the first so opaque of all who Cursory Streak has ever met, so impenetrable for her sight. Cursory could barely look at this face without a slight rumble of pain in her head, and yet she tried on, stubborn as she was, hoping that eventually the riddle will be solved.

Cursory shook her head, sighed, and concluded her points, “I’ll decide after I talk to it. And if I never do, then this is not my business. I believe it could be reached — in more than one sense of the word.”

The unicorn came closer. Now Solid Line was looking straight into her eyes, and Solid Line’s dark green eyes — darker than the pegasus remembered — were slowly filling most of Cursory’s world. Solid Line spelled out then, in a rhythm too slow and too steady for anything that lives, “Aunt is asking you, then: did you dream of the ocean these last few cycles?” A pause followed by, “Just in case, so as not to regret later — it is of utmost importance to me that I would have your...“

Solid began to draw a sigil of neon green with her horn in the air; Cursory jumped a few steps back, adding wings to the push; Solid promptly extinguished the unfinished image.

“Your... answer... I think,” Solid Line finished, with a long silence between each word.

Am I overthinking it, or did she change over what she actually was going to say? And could I be sure that the aunt was Signal, not some other aunt? Cursory wondered. She never asked it out loud, as that would be too awkward. The topic could wait until later. Besides, asking again might provoke another act of drawing a neon sigil; Cursory Streak shivered at the thought.