Chapter 64: The Train
Firefly led the way from the grove, flying down into the forest below. “I need to find Dusty,” she said. “We’ll catch up to you!” And she was off, leaving Lilac and Risk to make their much slower way back through the muddy trails.
They picked a rough day to be leaving. It was still raining, with a constant downpour that soaked into much of the dirt and made the trail a nightmare. Lilac went from smelling like nectar and flowers to dirt and slime in less than a minute.
It was always tricky to get her hooves under her after spending time in the city. But Risk tripped every few steps, barely keeping himself upright. “You’re not used to being changed. It gets easier each visit, I promise. Make it out here a few times, and it almost feels natural.”
“I’m not coming back.” Risk looked intact to her—right down to the camping supplies they brought and never used. “I would if you were in danger and we had to hide, sure. But I’m not a bug, Lilac! Being that small was confusing and scary.”
He rested a hoof on her shoulder, stopping her in place. That wouldn’t bother her normally, but there was mud on his leg. “If we don’t go back to town, the investigation will realize something’s wrong. Do you really want to fight the Lightless Star? Do you think Firefly might be wrong?”
Lilac pushed his hoof from her shoulder, harshly. “About all kinds of things. But the Watcher building a spell to try and kill her to empower a different god...”
She pawed at the ground, ears folding flat. “I think I know which one. They kept both of us alive, but they don’t need both of us. It would only take one Alicorn to make regular travel back and forth between realms.”
“But you don’t think you’re really one of the True Gods,” he said. “You think you’re right, and the whole city is wrong?”
Lilac nodded sharply. “Positive. But if you’re not, you don’t have to put yourself at risk with me. You could keep hiding out here, or—go back into town without me. Hide on your own, forget trying to defend me. They won’t realize we were together.”
Risk shook his head sharply, taking another dramatic step towards her. “If I leave, you’ve got Firefly and a changeling. Those creatures that attacked Canterlot... dangerous parasites. At least if I’m there, we have a unicorn to blast him if he tries to attack you.”
Lilac rolled her eyes. “I’ve known Firefly’s dad my whole life. He’s not gonna do that. I’m more worried about what might happen if we get caught breaking into the Royal Archive. Maybe a changeling spy will help with that part.”
“We don’t need to break in anywhere.” Firefly dropped down from the trees overhead. Beside her was—not her dad, but Velvet Moon. What was she doing here? The bat didn’t land in the mud, but perched on a large branch of a nearby tree, watching them.
Firefly didn’t seem to care, smashing down into the mud beside Lilac. “I know the Equestrian investigators. I spent the night with them once, and—I trust them. More than I trust the ones who just tried to murder me.”
“You trust the investigators?” Risk turned on her, glaring. “They sent Twilight Sparkle last time. Celestia’s personal apprentice. She won’t listen to you.”
“She did,” Firefly snapped. “About lots of things! Not... every detail. We don’t have to tell her that Lilac and I were summoned here! What if we just say the Lightless Star will try to hurt us with magic, and we want protection?”
“Do you not feel any loyalty to the True Gods?” Risk asked. “Either of you. You’re the only ponies to travel to Equestria from beyond its furthest border.”
And look back there, staining myself forever. A piece of my soul I’ll never get back. “I would feel stronger about the True Gods if we know anything about them for sure,” Lilac said. “Maybe Celestia is evil, maybe she isn’t. I don’t know, but I do know that Watcher tried to kill Firefly. Whatever his reasons, that makes him my enemy too.”
Risk paced back and forth through the mud, frustrated. “So what, we go straight to Canterlot? We break into this secret library; one we don’t even know for sure is there—”
“It’s there,” Lilac snapped. “Saffron can’t lie. The Good Folk can’t lie the same way you can’t stop breathing.”
“Okay, but—” His horn flickered for a few seconds, then went abruptly out.
“Twilight lives in Ponyville, not Canterlot,” Firefly said. “I think we should go to her first, or even Rainbow Dash. We could ask them to promise not to tell Celestia about us, or maybe not even mention that part. They don’t need to know everything to help us.”
“Assuming she doesn’t figure it out on her own,” Lilac muttered. “I like getting the information first. But Ponyville is closer than Canterlot. There’s a village on the other side of the mountains, Acorn Acres. How many bits do we have between us?”
They did some counting, and soon produced the number. Enough for train tickets, not so much for starting a new life in a new place. They’d have to conserve if they wanted them to last.
“What about your dad?” Lilac finally asked. “Not that Velvet isn’t cool. But she shouldn’t get herself tangled up in all this. She has nothing to tie her to us, best to stay hidden.”
The bat drifted down towards them—then spread her wings, and changed. Risk recoiled in fear and disgust, mouth hanging open at what he saw “Ugh!”
Lilac couldn’t really see what was wrong with him. Bugs weren’t exactly good looking, but at least they weren’t demons from beyond time and space.
“It is me,” he said. Still male, though it was harder to tell with a bug. The scent was a confusing mess, not familiar. He eyed Risk warily. “You are right to fear. I am an unnatural parasite. My queen’s invasion failed, there will never be any home for me in this land. I could have had it with the Lightless Star. But not at the cost of Firefly’s life.”
Still her dad after all this, huh? Lilac nodded. “We don’t know what’s about to happen to us. We might get caught by the princess, maybe even killed.”
What about her mom? Iris Vale had never been anything but supportive of Lilac. She’d been willing to kill to protect her, if the need arose. If there was anypony in Willowbrook she could trust, it was Iris.
But that would mean going back to town. Equestria might already have its second investigation here. Coming forward to them would only be attaching her fate to a murder investigation. Or worse, implicating Iris in the killing that probably saved her life.
I’ll send her a telegram when I’m in Ponyville. We should have enough bits left over for that. “Okay, here’s the plan. We go to that town—Ponyville. Firefly and I can try to meet with Twilight, if she’ll see us. If that goes wrong for any reason, we keep going to Canterlot, and go into the library.”
“Why do we need that?” Risk asked. “Even hidden away, won’t that be the Equestrian perspective? I can already tell you what Equestria says about the True Gods.”
At least their conversation gave the rain a chance to clear. It no longer pounded on the canopy quite so energetically. The mud would still make travel a nightmare, but less wind meant Risk might not freeze if they had to spend a night out here. “What do they say? I don’t think... we didn’t cover that in class.”
“You were never ponies, but evil Outsiders that pretended to look like us, so you could infiltrate and take over. You grew in power until Celestia and Luna realized how much danger Equestria was in. They fought and killed you all, banishing the imposters back to where they came from.”
“Sounds familiar,” Dusty said glumly. “Imposters who covet Equestrian magic and try to take over. But they are not bugs. I raised Firefly, I have been with her for ten years and longer. She is no bug.”
The story had all the ring of truth about it as the one the cult whispered to her. “Sounds fake as buck. Good guys and bad guys, no complexity at all. That’s not how things ever are around here.”
How could she explain to Risk? The Fair Folk had no need to send her to read lies. “Equestria doesn’t hide a secret vault with riddles to keep their propaganda away from everypony. That story is what we’ll find in the history section. When we get to the secret part... hopefully we get better stuff. The key to stopping the Lightless Star, or what Firefly and I really are.”
“If there really are true Gods, I’d take their help over having Watcher trying to kill me and knocking my house down with a tornado.”
“I think... that was you,” Dusty said. “An excellent storm! Shame about all those chairs. I’d been collecting them for years now.”
Risk shivered, shaking the moisture from his coat. The bug wasn’t doing well in the elements either—his wings started to buzz, and those transparent fins along his back went limp. Lilac and Firefly were doing fine, but their companions wouldn’t make it.
“We can’t take forever talking things out.” Lilac thought through the trails, then picked a direction and started walking. This mountain might look like simple wilderness to most ponies, but it was somewhere she’d visited hundreds of times. Her oath of service to the breezies would keep taking her back here for the rest of her life, however long that ended up.
Only a few more days, now she decided to defy the Lightless Star. They had already shown they would consider murdering their embodied gods, multiple times.
They walked through the day and into the next, sticking to the densest parts of the forest. There was no danger of accidental discovery, not in land Lilac knew so well. In her old life, the wild would terrify her, Firefly was the Scout. Now, she felt perfectly at home in the rain.
They made camp by a river on the other side, all cramming together into Risk’s little tent. At least Dusty could change back into Velvet to save space.
The storm was gone by the next morning. They rinsed in the river, then headed into Acorn Acres with minimal wandering.
Buying train tickets without raising suspicion was a little more difficult—but then Dusty changed into a Filly Scouts instructor, uniform and all. She played the role of an overwhelmed youth leader with convincing credibility, and soon enough they were tucked away together at the back of a mostly-empty train, bound for Ponyville.
Lilac had never been aboard an Equestrian train before. The technology looked almost identical to her sparse memory of the same machines from her old world.
She wouldn’t have cared if ponies stood out front to pull them manually, so long as Lilac didn’t have to be one of them. As it was, they soon accelerated to blurring speed, riding past unrecognizable wilderness.
“Kinda looks like... other places I remember.” Firefly pushed herself up next to the window, watching a red rock desert blur past. “Those formations look kinda the same. But I guess they would, if the same erosion or whatever made them. You think Equestria looks like—home?”
Lilac was barely even watching. “Dunno why it would. It’s another world. A much, much higher world, if you believe Equestria magical cosmology. So much more magical that the old one doesn’t even rank. It’s light to our darkness. Their laws of physics have nothing to do with ours.”
She looked to the side, expecting Risk to interject—but he only snored quietly away from his chair. I’m just lucky he came. Not sure how I would live with myself if he gets hurt.
She leaned to the side, resting her head up against him. “Just... wake me when we get to Ponyville. I don’t feel much like sightseeing right now.”
If they were lucky, nopony from the Lightless Star would hit them with a magical heart-attack on the way.
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If they were lucky, nopony from the Lightless Star would hit them with a magical heart-attack on the way.
That's not how a chapter should end. Now I won't be able to sleep for a week.
Great chapter though!
this reminded me of a book based on a Batman comic, where someone tried to do that to HIM.
the only thing that saved him was his Alias.
he had given them a fake name, and they used THAT name in the "spell".
WOoooo! Headed to Ponyville!
Guess the path of least resistance is through the Elements, regardless of how risky that is. Still, all the unknowns they're going to crash into demands fudging the truth as a precaution. Let's hope this trip is worth it.
I wonder if this was the plan all along or there was a change-up after Lilac's botched spell. The Watcher noticed the power of the demon and thought, "this must be the real god".
I hope your friendship with Rainbow Dash isn't clouding your judgement. At least you recognize that you can't just spill everything recklessly.
I can see some ancient humans establishing some kingdom here if they also have the power of the sisters. But there's no need to have a forbidden, hidden wing of secret knowledge if things are as white and black as history says. Seems like Celestia's might be greyer than canon at the least. There's real reason for the sisters to take a little precaution.
It might be more magical and different but it still doesn't make it better. To have Abaddon replicate Equestria's order even in small scale... To have it create beings that can interact and relate to the beings of the "higher" world and vice versa... Abaddon certainly has beauty of its own.
We can only hope they don't it because they would lose their offering for their god.
Hmm Firefly sure like to trust someone she only met for few days. I don't think i would trust someone so quickly that i've been told is my archenemy for years.
11337819
> The Watcher noticed the power of the demon and thought, "this must be the real god".
You mean the unmade being? Unlikely, since previous dialogue suggests that the Lightless Star has had encounters with such creatures before.
11337833
We'll, her "allies" in the Lightless Star have proven themselves to be enemies now, and you know what they say about the enemies of your enemies
A moment of silence for Dusty's chairs.
Inb4 the train conductor turns out to be on their payroll
The fact that they don't should tell you something, Risk. Of course, he's been raised on the local propaganda from birth. (As opposed to the exotic propaganda. The truth is probably somewhere between the two.)
And it surely won't be intercepted by the Lightless Star.
Aside from things like gravity and electromagnetism and matter still behaving in familiar ways when magic isn't involved. Equestria's laws of physics largely match ours; they just have more of them.
In any case, let's see how Ponyville reacts to this group, and vice versa. Hopefuly Risk doesn't embarrass the lot of them by laying eyes on Twilight and immediately begging her not to offer his still-beating heart to the Sun Tyrant.
Interesting. So Equestria's take is that the "old gods" were imposters who covet Equestrian magic?
Thing is, an imposter would never become an Alicorn, since it would blend in so poorly. This has Nightmare Moon vibes..
Not to mention, humans are magic rich, why would they come to Equestria...
... Theory:
Humans were the original alicorns. Magic-rich. Equestrian native. They lived happily for a time.
Eventually, somehow, an Unmade or w/e managed to latch itself into their brains (like it did with Lilac???), and take control ala nightmare moon.
The infection spread in secret.
After some time, Celestia and Luna were forced to banish the rest of the alicorns, as they were too far gone.
During the... Transit, the two aspects split. The Alicorns were sent to earth, where they live in safety beyond the 'valence tightrope' preventing phase transition into the realm of the magic-hungry beings.
The magic hungry beings were sent to the same location, just on the other end of the valence tightrope.
Firefly nor Lilac are the old gods. They are half of two old gods. The second half of Lilac is Derek Ashson, the second half of Firefly is some other.
...Kinda poetic, with Lilac's other half literally taking her human name, and more fully becoming the other half of her. Makes me wonder if it's intentional. Maybe i'm onto something...
And onward to ponyville!
I'm eager to see what happens when they get to Ponyville but to convince the Elements of Harmony to help them with that book will be difficult. I wonder if Twilight will notice Lilac's connection to the Umbrum.
I'm completely convinced Cadance is the most powerful alicorn given her kid's species .
Just pretend it's a tattoo.
So much for the vacation.
Let's meet the Elements!