Sunrise

by Winston

III - The Clever Cardinal

Sunrise
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Chapter III - The Clever Cardinal

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Early in the morning, a knock at the door interrupted the meal—breakfast for Celestia, a late dinner for Luna—that the sisters were quietly eating at their kitchen table.

The two of them looked up from their food and stared at each other for half a second. “I’ll get it,” Celestia said, managing to swallow and volunteer before Luna could finish chewing. Luna just nodded to avoid talking with her mouth full while Celestia stood up and exited the kitchen, walking through the living room to the front of the house.

When she cracked the door open and looked outside, a unicorn mare was waiting on the step. She was a bit shorter than Celestia and had a white coat that might have almost been tinted with a hint of green, although it was hard to tell in the dawn light. Her mane and tail were less subtle: the vibrant shade of fresh clover, spilling out and flowing in waves and ringlets from under a darker forest green cloak.

“Good morning.” The unicorn smiled and studied Celestia for a moment with striking gold eyes. “Are you Thaumite Celestia?”

Celestia immediately felt a little uneasy about being referred to by title, but nodded. “Yes,” she responded. “How can I help you?”

“Ah! Excellent.” The unicorn grinned. “I have the right address, then. You’d be surprised how often I get mixed up. Excuse me. I don’t think we’ve met. My name is Clover, and I’m a royal mage.”

Celestia was left tongue-tied for a moment with sudden incredulity. “Not… not Clover the Clever? Cardinal mage? The royal mage to Princess Platinum?” she finally managed.

“Oh. You’ve heard of me,” Clover deadpanned.

“Everypony in Quartz City has heard of you.” Celestia stared wide-eyed at the pony at her door. “Especially in Thaumosciences.”

“Have they? Well, the stories are all true!” Clover beamed. “…Ummm, or not, in the case of the ones that are unflattering. Anyway, may I come in?”

“Please do.” Celestia opened the door and moved out of the way.

“Thank you.” Clover nodded and walked inside. Celestia shut the door after her.

“I really should apologize, firstly,” Clover said, looking around the small house. “I’m sorry for showing up here. I know it’s your day off, but I’m told you’ve been spending every workday from dawn to dusk collecting data out in the field this last week or so. You’re hard to reach in person without resorting to this.”

“I’m sorry,” Celestia said contritely. “I didn’t know anypony was trying to reach me. I’m sure that if you’d left a message at the Thaumoscience Authority offices, I would have gotten it sooner or later.”

“Oh, no, I really wanted this discussion to be in person.” Clover shook her head. “Messages are… well, to be honest, I didn’t want any intermediaries reading them. Not this time.”

“Discussion about what?” Celestia looked at Clover in confusion. She couldn’t imagine what on Equus a cardinal mage of Clover the Clever’s stature could possibly want to discuss with an unknown junior thaumite like her.

“Your recent report, of course,” Clover replied.

“Oh.” Celestia’s ears lowered. “Oh, that.”

“Yes. That.” Clover took off her cloak and hung it on the coat rack near the door, revealing a small saddlebag underneath. She opened the saddlebag and used her magic to pull out a stack of papers bound together. Celestia recognized what Clover was holding, and wasn’t very happy to see it again.

Just then, Luna walked into the living room from the kitchen, looking curious. “Hello,” she greeted the visitor.

“Good morning,” Clover responded, turning to look in her direction. “You must be… hmmm, don’t tell me. Luna, right?”

“Yes.” Luna tilted her head and half-closed one eye. “And you are?”

“Luna, this is Clover the Clever,” Celestia hastily introduced her. “A royal cardinal mage.”

“Pleased to meet you.” Clover nodded to Luna. “You’re about to be a thaumite too, aren’t you? Apprenticing to become a lunarite specialist?”

“Uhh… yes!” Luna nodded, suddenly wide-eyed at their unexpectedly famous guest’s personal knowledge about herself. “How did you know?”

“It was in your personnel file,” Clover said.

Celestia peered at Clover. “Forgive me, but may I ask why you were reading my sister’s personnel file?”

“Because your file said you had a sister who was also in Thaumosciences, so I took a look at hers, too, just to be thorough. Seemed the smart thing to do.”

“But… why were you looking at my file?” Celestia asked, with a trace of alarm.

Clover just waved the report back and forth a few times.

“…Right.” Celestia’s voice was flat and she lowered her head to the level of her withers while she stared at the floor. “Of course.”

“It caught my attention, that’s for sure,” Clover said. “A real standout among all the various bits of research that come across my desk concerning the, umm… well. The situation I’m sure you’re aware of. The one I know Star Fire has you working on. I have developments concerning it forwarded to me so I can keep pace with them, since it’s my job to keep Princess Platinum informed about these things. It’s a fairly high priority, as you can imagine.”

“Princess Platinum?” Celestia asked with surprise. “I hadn’t realized the plan to—err, it—was so concerning to the Princess personally.”

“Oh, you’d better believe it is.” Clover said. She pointed toward Luna. “Does she know what we’re talking about?”

For a bare fraction of a second, Luna’s eyes widened with alarm. Celestia saw it but kept a stone face. Clover hadn’t noticed, she didn’t think. As long as Celestia didn’t react, she hoped she wouldn’t give her sister away.

Clover waited for an answer. Celestia considered lying, but hesitated. She knew that if the truth was really in question, there was magic that could probably determine it. On the other hoof, she also knew this kind of magic wasn’t likely to actually be used, not here and not now, but just the chance…

No. It wasn’t worth it, she decided. Digging both of them deeper into the hole wasn’t what she or Luna needed. Besides, she had an unpleasant feeling that Clover wouldn’t be asking without a good reason, and must already have a pretty fair idea of the answer. Was… was this a test? Did Clover know? Did Clover just want her to think she knew to see what she’d say?

Best to just not risk it, she decided.

“Yes,” she sighed. “She knows. How did you know?”

“Actually, I didn’t, but I do now.” Clover grinned. “I just thought there was a good chance. You’re sisters, and roommates besides. Keeping secrets from each other can be difficult, I have to think.”

“It’s not something we’re used to, I admit,” Luna stepped in. “Please don’t be angry with my sister. It’s really my fault. I needled it out of her. It just… seemed to upset her so. I couldn’t sit and do nothing.”

“Nor would I expect you to,” Clover said, shaking her head. “That’s not what a good sister would do, is it? And actually, it’s better this way, since it makes things easier. Honestly, I think you were just going to find out one way or another. At least now we can get past the pretense and really talk without having to sneak around.”

“Please… you won’t inform my supervising mage, will you?” Celestia pleaded.

“Good old Star Fire?” Clover laughed. “No, I don’t think she needs to know. That is, as long as you don’t tell her I came around here. I think that’s a deal we can agree on, yes?”

“Oh! Yes, that’d be fine,” Celestia agreed quickly.

“Perfectly fine,” Luna added.

Something seemed strange to Celestia about Clover not wanting Star Fire to know about this, given how greatly Clover outranked Star Fire and really shouldn’t have needed to care, but she also didn’t question it in her eagerness to reach an arrangement that avoided getting Luna and herself in trouble. The less Star Fire knew about any aspect of her personal life, the better, as far as she was concerned.

“Wonderful!” Clover smiled. “Then I think we have some things to discuss.”

“Would you like to sit down?” Celestia asked.

“That’d be good,” Clover agreed.

Celestia led the way into the kitchen, where they all sat down around the small table.

“Would you like something to drink?” Celestia offered Clover. “Coffee or tea?”

“I’d love some coffee, if you have any,” Clover said.

“It so happens that we do.” Celestia filled a mug from the coffee pot, already brewed to go with breakfast.

“Thank you.” Clover sipped from the steaming cup. “Ahh, caffeine’s a lifesaver. It was an early morning. Of course—” she yawned “—that’s all a matter of perspective. I imagine it feels more like the opposite for you, Luna. I hope I’m not keeping you up too late with my visit.”

“It’s fine.” Luna shrugged. “The lunar schedule comes with inconveniences, but they don’t bother me.”

“Alright,” Clover said. “Well, Celestia, to get to it, what grabbed my attention about your report was the recommendations section. It was conspicuously not endorsed by Star Fire, which interested me because it meant that it might have some original thought for once on the climate and agricultural crisis we’re facing instead of being tailored to conclude with the standard parroting about unicorn supremacy.”

“I just wrote what I thought might best help, given the problem and what the data seemed to say about the cause,” Celestia said.

“The common sense approach.” Clover nodded. “I like it. Your recommendations were my thoughts exactly. They still are. If only everypony else would see things our way instead of just nodding their empty heads in agreement with a terrible plan.”

“You don’t want the plan to replace earth ponies to proceed?” Celestia asked.

“Of course not.” Clover rolled her eyes. “It would be an unmitigated disaster like ponykind has never seen before. Frankly, I’m not sure how any of us would survive in the long run. Earth ponies are obviously in the most immediate trouble, but it has bad implications for unicorns, just as much. This relates to the other thing that really caught my attention in your report—the genealogical portion.”

“Most of that work was far from complete,” Celestia said.

“Yes, but it was enough for me to know you’re on the right track.” Clover took a sip of her coffee. “It tossed more data on something that I’ve thought for a long time.”

“Dropping genetic diversity?”

“Exactly.” Clover nodded. “Unicorn Kingdom policies encourage us all to choose mates who produce the most strongly magical foals, but those policies failed to consider all the consequences of concentrating the same few magicality genes too frequently. As your report pointed out, there’s no reproductive crossover between different types of ponies anymore, as there would normally have been in the past, and even within unicorns, there’s growing isolation into splintered segments.”

“What does that mean will happen?” Luna asked.

“What I think it means is that unicorns are getting more magical through selective breeding, but it’s superficial and fragile in a lot of ways,” Celestia said. “Problems are going to start showing soon.”

“Oh, they already are,” Clover said. “The talent pools of most unicorns are narrowing. Good general purpose mages with a wide range of ability are getting harder to find than they used to be. There’s a lot of unicorns now that are very strong at one type of magic, but only one. Trying to make us stronger at certain magics is making us less fit overall, ironically.”

“Yes,” Celestia said. “I wasn’t able to prove it, but I’m sure that’s part of what’s happening.”

“It wouldn’t be easy to prove without generations’ worth of empirical data that we don’t have.” Clover nodded. “But I do know that the unicorns I run into that are both strongly magical and broadly talented all seem to come from more diverse backgrounds than normal these days. Like myself, for example, if I can be so bold.”

“May I ask what your background is?” Luna inquired.

“If you repeat this to anypony else, I’ll swear up and down all day long it’s not true,” Clover said with a small smile, “but just between the three of us, the walls, and the kitchen table here: my mother was a unicorn and my father was an earth pony. I’ve always suspected that my level of ability comes at least partly from some sort of hybrid vigor.”

“So there’s certainly hope for reversing things, if we can get ponies to understand the situation,” Luna said. “Isn’t there?”

“That’s why I’m here.” Clover nodded. “I think your sister is one of the few who’s positioned to see what’s really going on, and with more ability to pursue research on her ideas I’m hoping she might be able to help figure out how to cause just that kind of reversal, before it’s too late.”

Luna opened her mouth, but closed it again without speaking and just looked down at the table with a troubled expression.

“What is it?” Celestia asked, looking at Luna.

“Nevermind,” Luna said. “I’m not even a real thaumite yet. I don’t think I can offer much.”

“Psshhh.” Clover waved a hoof. “I don’t care if you’re a street-sweeper, I’m open to anything that sounds good at this point. Where it comes from isn’t important. Whatever help you can offer would be valuable.”

Luna still hesitated. Celestia reached out and gently put her forehoof on hers, giving her an encouraging little nod.

“South.” Luna finally said, looking up and staring right into Clover’s eyes. “We need to go south.”

“South?”

“Yes.” Luna nodded emphatically. “South.”

“What makes you say that?” Celestia asked.

“Do you remember when I asked if we were good ponies? Right before you found out about all this?”

“I have been wondering what that was all about,” Celestia said.

“It’s because of a dream I had,” Luna said. “I saw Quartz City being completely buried in snow, and there was nothing that could stop it. I watched it happening, and I knew something had gone terribly wrong—it was something wrong with us, something we were doing to make this happen. I didn’t know what it was, I just knew it was m— our fault. It was more than a week ago, and I… I thought it was about something different, at first. But now that I’m hearing all this… well, I don’t know. Maybe it’s just coincidence. But I know how it made me feel. What it said to me. It said, ‘South’.”

Celestia felt surprised, and vaguely worried. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

“Because it was just a dream.” Luna shrugged. “It felt… how do I describe it? Strange, and real, in a way most dreams don’t… and I worried about it, but I thought it meant—” Luna coughed. “I didn’t think it meant anything at all. That’s just silly superstition, isn’t it? To think a dream can tell you what you have to do? How could a dream know where those kinds of green fields are?”

“Green fields?” Celestia was floored, recalling her own vivid dreams, suddenly feeling it fit together. “Did you see it? Did… did you see the mountain? The meadows? The sun higher in the sky than it ever is here? And they all told you it’s where you have to go?”

“Yes!” Luna exclaimed. “You did too?”

“I saw it too.” Celestia nodded. “But only just recently, last night.”

“Last night?” Clover asked. Her ears perked up. “Luna, you happened to dream this right before Celestia learned about this plan, and Celestia, you just happened to dream the same thing right before I showed up this morning?”

“It seems that way.” Celestia nodded.

“Interesting,” Clover said quietly. “Very, very interesting…”

“Do you think there’s something to it?” Celestia asked. “More than just coincidence?”

“I think I’d better see this dream you and your sister had,” Clover declared.

“You want to see our dreams?” Luna asked dubiously. “How are we supposed to do that?”

“Oh, easy.” Clover waved a hoof as if the answer was obvious. “I’ve got the equipment back at the palace. It’s too large and delicate for me to haul out and set up here, though. We’ll have to go there.”

“What? You want us to go to the palace?” Celestia asked incredulously. “As in, the royal palace?”

“Well, of course!” Clover smiled. “That is where I work, usually. Come on. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can get closer to some answers, I hope.” She was already up and moving, grabbing her cloak from the coat rack with telekinetic magic and settling it over herself.
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☙ ☀ ❧

 
 
A few moments of preparation and a quick teleport later—a more pleasant natural unicorn-magic teleport, not one of the harsh machines in the transit center—the three of them were standing just outside the gate to the grounds of the Quartz City royal palace. Celestia stared at the magnificent structure with wide, awestruck eyes while Clover led the way through the open gate, down a long path through the lawn towards the building.

Royal guards, standing evenly spaced in a perimeter around the building’s facade, were already watching them like hawks. They were holding long, formidable spears, and the armor they wore was more ornate and polished than the usual city guard, with a crystal set in the front chestplate that Celestia recognized as a thaumoshielding lens to protect them from magical attacks. Each and every one of them was perfectly motionless, but Celestia could feel their stares boring into her, silently challenging her presence, accusing her without words of being in the wrong place.

The intimidation factor, she supposed, was part of the point of having guards like these. It was working, too. The closer they got, the more she wanted to turn back with her head hanging and her tail between her legs.

“Are they even going to let us in?” she asked quietly, voicing her most immediate concern.

“What, the royal guard? Don’t worry about them,” Clover said, proceeding along confidently as if they weren’t even there. “It’s fine, you’re with me.”

“…Right…” Celestia had trouble processing what was happening. It was all so fast—a few minutes ago she was eating breakfast in her house, looking forward to a quiet, restful day off, and now all of a sudden she was here at the royal palace, about to just walk right in? If it wasn’t actually happening right before her eyes, she would have laughed at how absurd it was. Was she still dreaming and just didn’t realize it yet?

They closed in on the building and ascended a long flight of stone steps. At the top, they reached a covered landing and a set of massive doors cast from dark bronze. The doors were decorated in finely detailed relief with life-like figures—proud kings, queens, princes and princesses, unicorn knights in heavy armor, griffons, warrior pegasi, eagles, dragons, all kinds of fearsome martial creatures. Glittering jewels set in their eyes served as anchors for powerful protective spells intense enough for Celestia to sense in her horn without even trying, like feeling the heat radiating off of burning coals.

More royal guards stood around the landing. None of them stopped or challenged Clover when she opened the doors with some sort of specially keyed telekinetic magic and escorted the sisters in. Celestia realized there was no reason for them to bother. With such strong protective seals in place, nopony unauthorized could have possibly entered anyway.

The three of them stepped out of the cold outside and into a much warmer grand vestibule. It had a stone floor of checkered black and white polished marble and a high vaulted ceiling. Huge chandeliers made from thousands of small glowing crystals illuminated everything with pleasant light. The walls were lined with statue alcoves, paintings, and relics on display behind thick glass. Celestia and Luna looked around, silently gawking as they took in the opulence of it all.

“The royal court is through there, if you’re wondering.” Clover pointed a hoof straight ahead toward a set of wide wooden doors at the opposite end of the vestibule. “But our stop is this way.” She turned toward a smaller hallway branching off to their right.

Celestia’s eye caught a hint of motion, something iridescent blue and green. She turned to look and saw a peacock walking toward them, a gorgeous living gem shining with intense sapphire and emerald plumage. A peacock! she thought, incredulous and wanting to laugh with sheer wonder. Right here, just free roaming in the vestibule! The sense that she had to be dreaming was stronger than ever.

The bird wandered up close to Clover, his long train dragging behind him and short talons clicking quietly on the hard stone floor. He stared, his avian face seeming almost hopeful.

“Sorry, Beryl,” Clover said to him. “I’m afraid I don’t have any seeds for you at the moment.”

Beryl lowered his upstretched head a bit, looking as if he understood just enough to be disappointed.

“Princess Platinum’s pet peacock, Beryl,” Clover introduced Celestia and Luna. “He has the run of the palace. Like all peacocks, he thinks he’s king of his harem flock, which I should probably warn you, you’re automatically part of as long as you’re inside the palace. Fortunately, he’s quite benevolent towards his ‘consorts’.” Clover leaned down gave him a gentle nuzzle on the breast. “Aren’t you, Beryl? Yes, you’re just a big sweetheart,” she baby-talked.

Beryl squawked, a loud, surprising sound that made Celestia and Luna startle. He hopped backwards out of nuzzling reach with clumsy half-flaps of his wings, rebuffing Clover’s audacity for touching him. After looking around awkwardly for a second or two, he started preening in an attempt to reclaim some of his injured dignity.

“Aww, well, he’s a little skittish, I guess. Anyway…” Clover turned away from Beryl and looked up again. “Onward,” she declared, resuming her march toward the hallway off to the right side of the vestibule. The sisters briefly exchanged a look of wide-eyed disbelief, then followed close behind her.

The hallway they turned off into was more plain, with few decorations. Instead, the walls were lined with doors marked as offices and private rooms. The floor was carpeted, which made it quieter and easier on the hooves.

“So you really have a dreamwalking device?” Luna asked while they walked. “I thought they were very rare.”

“Oh, yes.” Clover nodded. “I built it a while ago. I needed it in order to… well, that was then, and it’s a long story that doesn’t matter now. But yes, I have one.”

“And it won’t—”

“No, it won’t scramble anypony’s brains,” Clover said in sudden exasperation. “We’ve all heard the stories about Cometchaser, but that’s not what happened to her, I assure you.”

Luna’s eyes went wide and she was speechless for a moment. “…I was just going to ask if it won’t need us to be asleep to work,” she said timidly. “…Who’s Cometchaser?”

“…Oh,” Clover muttered. “You nevermind.”

They walked on in silence for a short time.

Before long, somepony was coming toward them down the hallway. It was a mare, and she was beautiful, with a perfect snowy white coat and a long, well-coiffured mane of silver hair shining like fine-spun strands of metal. A crown of mirror-polished platinum set with water-clear, pale blue aquamarines rested on her head, balanced behind her long, gracefully tapered and fluted horn. A cape of intense purple trimmed with ermine draped over her back and down her sides.

Clover stopped and moved to the side of the hallway as she came near, signaling the sisters to follow her lead.

“Good morning, Princess,” Clover said, bowing her head respectfully. Celestia and Luna bowed likewise, taking the cue.

“Good morning, Cardinal Clover.” The princess stopped for a moment. Celestia noticed her eyes when she looked past Clover momentarily, glancing at the sisters. They were pale icy blue, expressionless and aloof, cold and opaque as the frost covering a window on a midwinter’s dawn. Those cold, royal eyes sweeping over her sent a jitter through Celestia’s nerves, but she didn’t dare to let any hint of it show.

“Who are these guests?” the princess asked.

“Prospective research assistants, Princess,” Clover replied. “I’ve brought them here to interview them personally. I have a feeling these two will be quite helpful.”

“I see.” The princess sounded remote and disinterested.

In her periphery, Celestia briefly caught sight of a pale blue glow in the princess’ horn, and she thought it felt like there was a strange sort of magic in it… something strong, and unfamiliar. She wondered at first exactly what it could be, but then she saw the blue glow envelop the crown on the princess’ head, adjusting it slightly. Maybe it was nothing more than telekinesis, she reasoned. She was probably just letting her nervous imagination run away with her. Yes. That must be it.

“May I present Thaumite Celestia, and her sister, Luna,” Clover introduced them.

“Welcome to the palace.” The princess gave them a single tiny nod.

“Thank you, Princess,” Celestia said, still not brave enough to look directly up at her. “It’s an honor to be here.”

“Yes, thank you, Princess,” Luna repeated. “We are honored.”

“I’m sure,” the princess said. “Well, I’m due in court. I’ll move on and let you go about your business.”

“Yes, of course, Princess,” Clover said. “Good day.”

The princess moved past them and continued walking down the hall, leaving them behind without another word.

When she was gone, Clover resumed leading them through the hallway.

“Did we just meet Princess Platinum?” Luna whispered.

“I think so.” Celestia nodded.

“You did indeed,” Clover confirmed. “What do you think?”

“I think I would have brushed my coat and done something nicer with my mane if I’d known this was how I would be spending my morning,” Celestia said.

“I’ve heard Princess Platinum’s special talent is that she can always tell if somepony is telling her the truth or not,” Luna said. “I felt a spell she used. Was she trying to detect that?”

“I’m impressed,” Clover said. “You’re exactly right, Luna.”

“But you told her you were interviewing us to be your research assistants. Can’t she sense it if you’re not truthful?”

“She certainly can.” Clover nodded. “So it’s a good thing I wasn’t lying to her, isn’t it?”

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

10928118
What's TEFL?

[Starlight Nova]

Does Sombra appear in this story?

[Winston]

10943251
TEFL = Time Enough For Love

10943252
What and who appears in this story is something best found out by reading the story.

[Georg]

Yea! Chapters coming out more oftener. And... I see a typo. Curse of the editing class, I suppose.

[Winston]

10943265
Yep, I'm going to be picking up the pace on posting chapters.
Always gonna be typos, though. Unlike Pokemon, no one can ever catch 'em all.