The Trinity of Moons: Mending Shards

by Cloud Ring

Chapter 39: Reevaluation

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All five of the team, Signal included, were around the table at their impromptu dinner, and now three of them remained there while Pink and Cursory were cleaning up: they moved off all the cups and saucers in small piles next to the sink faucet in an aside dark room. They never found how to light that room up, as Cursory’s candles and Pink’s glowworms were both dimming and sparking, giving out mere wisps of their former shine. Storm refused to help, and they decided against bothering Solid Line, as she buried herself head over hooves in her notes and did not look up since an unsuccessful attempt to ask Cursory about… Cursory still did not know about what exactly.

Cursory barely had time to make sure that the thick metal faucet was dutifully draining the water from the ancient reservoir, and there would be no need to collect rain, and was returning to the table for the third and last stack of dishes when the question was raised.

"Could you be the Red?" Solid Line asked, lifting her head from the sheets covered with diagrams and formulas in one quick movement and turning her whole body to Pink.

Cursory froze on the doorstep of the room, her wings half spread. She, too, was interested in the answer, as it could change a lot... if it was true, that is.

Pink pointed this out with her not quite rhythmic patter, edging to a song or rhyme, "Even if I'm a double and the voice of the Red, well, so what? Then I won't tell the truth as three questions were asked and three truths have already been told. Be I glassy, you would've seen me right through. But assume I am, yes I am the queen of unbeing, how, pray tell, would I be inclined to open my heart up for you? So be kind and dismiss your inquiry, as the answer will not bring you any joy.”

Solid raised her tone, the shift subtle and small, “Just answer the question. Even if it is a lie, do speak and I will record your reply. It's up to you to decide, of course.”

Pink drooped and looked down. Then she answered quietly, “I’m a friend of the Red — even, maybe, the friend, and I am on its side. I can't hide anything important from it. It can't see through me directly, but I can't lie to it. It can, to me, I can’t at all, but Gentle and Sharp possibly could...”

Cursory hopped closer and asked, quiet but forceful, without waiting for Solid's reaction, which still would be obscured, “You mentioned Gentle Touch? Please return her to us. This is my condition and my asking, as we went to seek souls together. I need her, and I… I don't even know you.”

Pink looked around, haunted, her blue eyes, always so full of sparks, and depleted now, quickly darted aside, then again, as if in search of a way out, and changed shape and color; the grayish blue turned into a pale pink with Gentle Touch’s signature thinnest blue web thrown over irises, and Pink's wide-open gaze also gave way to Gentle Touch’s slight squint. She staggered, took an uncertain step towards Cursory, and stopped, almost falling.

The room became voiceless and empty — no more Pink, the one that gushed, the one who was appearing in two or three places at the same time, the one who did not know what silence even means, and was always ready to answer any question. Gentle Touch, now there in Pink's place, was trying to squeeze inward, curl up and cease to be. She shuddered, unable to take even a single step to anypony; this step, just one, was taken for her by Cursory.

Solid asked, “Why did you interrupt our conversation? I was onto very important data. If she was in fact associated with the Red, and there was a link to it, and she had had even a hint of agreement with us, we could end our trek and my predestination right here and now, and the Red would be truly denied the sky for three cubic nines of rounds, precisely.”

Storm intervened, and without the helmet the synthesizer could not hide her condescence, “Pink said as much. She agreed that you will likely succeed in your equation.”

Cursory turned to her. Signal, staying in its usual place on the back of Solid Line's neck, also stared directly at Storm and aimed her ears at her.

Storm went on, “If you could, for example, attack my habitat center through my suit and destroy it, even notably damage it, I would also get rid of a suit... or attack you beforehoof. Pink all but outright confirmed she is the Red. So the fact that the Red has decided to leave is a good sign. It doesn't want to fight you.”

“Did you really assume that it had left?” Solid Line objected, pointing her hoof at Gentle, “All that we see is a change in appearance. This may be an illusion. The Red might still be looking through her eyes.”

Gentle walked closer to Cursory, slowly, bewildered, watching every step, and raised her head to look at Cursory. Tears trembled in her pink eyes, and the iris web was shifting, “No,” Gentle whispered so that only the pegasus could hear her, “I am not an illusion and not a spy. I am here. And I'm still against it. And we must find the ‘Guiding Starfall-TX’, I borrowed it from time and it must be returned so that the loop of events can be closed, otherwise I don’t know where and how I could exist.”

Cursory could not say that she does understand it all, but she saw this confusion and this tremble of ears and lips, up close and more than three times, including, twice, in the mirror.

Still, doubts remained, so Cursory asked in the same whisper, "Against what?"

Gentle kissed her on the cheek.

This answer was enough.

Storm got up and again, with a slight hiss, assembled the helmet around her head, “Then you will help me,” said her voice synthesizer, “And I will return the honour. I need to get to the secondary base, where the transport will take me up, and this must be done in two cycles. You will be my voice and my cover on the way, for me to avoid any awkward situations and confrontations. And I... My next assignment will most likely have nothing to do with you, but if an object of the Red did remove itself, then there is no reason for me to stay under the Moons anymore, and my task is complete. And I can thank you for your help along the way. Within our capabilities.”

“I need a flask of ‘Guiding Starfall-TX’ for my friend," Cursory Streak said, and Gentle Touch nodded — that means, pushed Cursory’s foreleg with her head.

Solid asked, "Are your houses in heaven observable from below? I am surprised we don't know anything about you.”

With a barely noticeable pause, Storm answered, spelling out — as if reading from the screen, Cursory thought, “No. But if you are in doubt, then I can bring you up above with me. Please note that you are unlikely to still have any desire to return from the visit.”

“Why?” Solid Line asked.

“Because almost everything that you do, you do for the sake of your Moons, and we have no place for these lies. Those who have seen the light do not want to descend into darkness again.”

Is it a quote? Cursory wondered, replying, “Solid Line is part of our business, not yours! Isn’t that so?” the yellow unicorn nodded, and Cursory did not wait for an answer, as she went on, and for three beats that followed she felt that other voice was speaking through her, “She needs to find her friends and return home in no way less than you, ruffian, and I will not deviate from the path that I am laying for our thread, no matter how hard you try to hinder us!”

These words sounded in a way that Cursory herself could never have been able to. She always was the biggest in height and strength among all ponies there, even Storm with her suit. Still, something even greater was coming. Cold superiority, aloof whiteness, a crystal lake that accepts only true connoisseurs, that seemed new; except it was not, as Cursory recalled a few past encounters.

In these beats, she was taller, stronger, better than everypony around, not only by the body — although that was fitting! — but also by the right of long and ruthless work on herself, countless rounds and generations that have passed in honing all talents, skills and abilities, purity of thoughts and intentions. This was also completely out of Cursory's accustomed style — the kind of Cursory she thought she was from the birth, or from a birth looking at it from the other side.

But the ice non-princess, in turn, was ready to see Cursory for who she was — to assess, to assign, to attest, and to stay next to Cursory to help her reach her best and achieve her goals.

And it went on. Cursory felt infallible ice inside, the ice in nothing but color alike to one of White Moon’s five flames, and utterly defying White Moon in all the other means; words, will and power of the entity that was not Cursory Streak except when she was were, for now, woven together to perform a true strike on a designated target, “You say our world is dying. You say we must save those who are worthy. You say you need our help. Why do you, a stitch on the fabric of the highest goal, give up so easily and succumb to difficulties and obstacles, and why are you so ready to weaken our glorious party? Everything that we do requires perfection in our hearts. We all invest everything we are capable of in the common cause, and hide not a shard of power in our aspirations. And you, with all your experience and strength, were going to leave — to leave when there was no more than one pony remaining to invoke the six you were looking for? What scares you, oh my friend and foe of many of our lives? The light of the Moons, the failure of your technology, the need to commute with strangers?”

Cursory exhaled sharply, but the voice inside, which was not Cursory and yet was always Cursory, was not yet done ruining Storm’s mental defenses, “I would say that I am disappointed, the seventh out of the six, and, should you leave, I will be — I assure you that I will be — not only disappointed but working on your miracle only reluctantly, as an artist making a commission without a spark of divine inspiration — but the time is not up yet, so I hope that you gather your will to stay on the way, give it everything that you can — as we will do ourselves, and as we had done so many times in the past, together!”

She coughed; ice non-queen was not there anymore, as if she never had been in the first place. The room became warmer, and on the floor under Cursory's hooves — she looked — there was definitely no skin of frost. Storm's helmet was turned towards her and through glares at the visor’s glass Cursory could see her wide, confused eyes.

The hanging silence was broken only by Gentle Touch’s quiet sobs, and Cursory did not know how she could help, but she could not turn away, or show any sign of weakness for that matter.

After a few beats, the helmet parted to the sides again, revealing Storm's face, and she said, with a deep serene sadness, “It is much worse than I thought. I have to change my mind. The six are there, and the traveler returns victorious.”

She stomped with her heavily armored leg, and a shudder went through the floor of the room; the remaining cups chimed.

“I'll go with you, to look for the last lost soul. I'll regret it, but all the other ways are… unleashing the six in an uncontrolled manner, I think,” Faraway Storm said, her newfound resolve tainted with despair.

It seemed that Cursory should have been satisfied, but instead she was trapped in an illusory cloud, to fight her way out only as all her friends were already gone. She was awarded a platinum medal for victory, but too easily, without truly deserving it, and with her name written on it with a typo. She had returned home; home with windows wide open to outlandish cold, and rooms chilled, and larvae crawling on the floor. It is a trap! her intuition screamed out loud, and Cursory was used to trusting it.

But first...

“So, I'm the leader of the team, I am allowed, temporarily and within reason, to choose for you, and you willingly and consciously grant this right to me, and it is established?” Cursory asked.

Storm nodded silently. Solid Line grunted in the affirmative. Gentle just came even closer, so that the distance became almost negative, and that was the answer too.

Well...

"Then we'll escort Storm to her base," Cursory said quietly but with confidence. “I think she’s right. We walked too long along the Moons’ road, not even thinking where it would lead us. Let's try to take off.”

And, after all, to understand how the ponies of the upper sky live, she thought. Then she directed all her inner fire at the ice non-empress from the other side, I — am — choosing for myself!

Nopony — and nothing else — replied.

Comments

[Numinos]

Oh, hi there, Rarity : )

Nice chapter, as always : )