Rainbows and Revelations
“You’re quite extraordinary, you know.”
His head shot up from gazing at the game board. “Pardon me.” He mimed cleaning out his ears. “Say that again. I could swear on my kith and kin that I just heard you call me extraordinary.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s a statement of fact, not flattery.”
“Oh, it’s fact now.” He eyed her skeptically. “Do explain.”
“Your first piece explains the matter quite nicely,” she replied, gesturing to the figurine, now having morphed into an equine-faced female holding a mirrored sphere in the hand that had once carried an upturned pistol “She’s dead.”
“Technically, yours has never been alive.”
She waved a hand. “Semantics. She’s always been complete.”
“The ruins of that fragment are more soul and spirit than the ordinary mortal will ever have,” he huffed. “Besides, she asked.”
She fixed him with a dim look. “Which, translated to the way in which ministers see the universe, means that she broadcast despair which meant that she was agreeing to your terms before having had them offered to her.”
“It’s a more proactive approach.” He ran a long nail over the contours of the figurine’s face as he nudged it sideways a space. “You require that the Reaper bring lost spirits and decide how those spirits should be reborn. Being dependent, moment by moment, on the whims of Death and its servants is the way of the slave, licking its chops over the scraps its master deigns to sweep its way.”
“It’s a matter of quality over quantity,” she replied indifferently, nudging her unchanging statuette in diagonal after his. “Medusa and her kin, the erinyes, the Ten Families…”
He quirked a brow, his figurine retreating a space. “Should I take anything from the fact that when you speak of the great examples of your Reaper’s wisdom, you name none of your own minions?”
“He does what he does in his own time and with an understanding of what is, was, and will yet be,” she shrugged. “There’s great profit in sitting by dumbly and not questioning. After all, it placed the Handmaiden in my hands already forged, completed, and deadly in her grace. You wield the shadow of a shadow, a manipulator’s spirit remade from the shattered ruins of mingled Evil and humanity, a spirit that was a shadow of her actual self, an actual self that still exists.”
“She’s not the only fragment I’ve snatched and remade,” he retorted in irritation. “I’ve numerous other ruins that have passed into my hands as they drift the Void, disintegrating and dying and meet as raw material.”
The fact that this drew a brief, very real, very pleased smile gave him that disquieting feeling that she’d tricked him again. “I am aware of that,” she responded calmly, composing her face into the studied neutral mask of the seasoned competitor. “Do you have in invocation?”
“I do.” In his hand, a short, squat stature of an unnaturally long-nailed hand with its bared nails dug into the ground materialized and conforming to his unspoken intent, the first gameboard rose off the table and a second appeared under it. Studying the board as if it was a map, he placed his figure to the middle-right and the new board disappeared under the old. “I invoke ministry.”
She blinked in blank surprise before her eyes narrowed dangerously. “I have just barely emphasized the horrible fate that awaits you if you touch the Light of Sol Selune and you are sending an Evil as your agent?”
“Calm yourself,” he said, a palm upraised in a calming gesture. “We’ve already agreed that I’m at least aware and intelligent enough to see to my survival. Slapping you across the face with a gross offense so soon after you showed off your trophy would be suicide, and I’m not prone to suicide.”
The dangerous narrowing eased marginally. “Yes, you’re correct,” she agreed, leaning back in her chair. “Still, it’s a dangerous choice when, by mutual consent, we are forbidden to command death or forbid it.”
He decided a touch of flattery couldn’t hurt. “When faced with a Power that can invoke agents like the Handmaiden, risk becomes necessary or there’s no chance for victory at all.”
She smirked but the flattery had the intended effect of easing the aggression in her posture. “Everyone likes flattery and where royalty is concerned, it’s best to apply it with a trowel?”
He grinned fiercely. “Das ist der Mann, after all.”
She laughed in genuine pleasure. “Yes, that’s it precisely. Ah, but I would have loved to place that soul at my right hand but alas, the cunning without limits fit poorly in the hands of the Light.”
“What does fit into the hands of the Light, if I may ask?”
She snorted. “The innocent, the boring, the too-principled-to-act-intelligently. How else does a young foolish girl rise to the highest position while making time for amorous indulgence with her mate?”
He snorted in reply, grinning. “That’s quite a bit more than I ever cared to know.”
“It’s not something you could comprehend.”
“Nor do I wish to,” he replied immediately. “Sacrificing the benefits to avoid the pitfalls is a fine bargain and frees the attention for the accumulation of things that are of greater long-term impact.”
She eyed him and shook her head. “Remember when I said that there were things that separated Powers from everyone else, minister?”
“I do, although you referred specifically to prizes. What of it?”
“So long as you cling to that exchange, minister, you will never be Powerful.”
Rainbow Dash liked her naps, in the same way that a starving pony liked food. They were appropriate to most occasions and had the added benefit of deterring ponies who wanted to make her do something boring, like reading (which, of course, didn’t include “Daring Do” books because Daring Do books were obviously too cool to be "reading", duh). As such, the normal penalty for awakening Rainbow Dash, especially before noon on any day that ended in the word “day”, was a grumble of resentment followed by a well-aimed kick.
Except when the designated awaken-er was shy, soft-spoken, and her friend since forever. Which is why Rainbow was speeding in a vaguely northwest direction while the sun was still in the process of rising, with nothing more than the obligatory complaints about needing her awesomeness-sleep so she could be at her coolest for the rest of the day.
“Who the hay is this mare anyway?” She grumbled as she swept over the forest at a height and speed that would be studiously avoided by a wiser pegasus (or, translated into Rainbow Dash, a less awesome one). “So somepony’s watching her with a pack of wolves... so what? She’s a unicorn, she can deal with a few dumb wolves. You don’t need to be Twilight to have awesome magic.” She considered. “Of course, Twi has awesome egghead magic so that might be totally different.”
She rolled lazily in midair, feeling entitled to enjoy it a bit in retaliation for being made to go flying after some stranger hours before anypony should have been allowed to wake her up. A rotary barrel-roll or two made her grin despite herself and she threw in a climbing reverse and then stated on the mirror when her eye caught something and she turned the reverse into a stall, freefalling to regain momentum before somersaulting and catching the momentum to rocket in the direction she’d been originally going.
It’d only been a glimpse but she knew, with all the intuition of a lifelong stunt flier and relatively skilled weatherpony, that the flashes of shadow low over the crown of the trees was somepony racing in the same direction as her and trying very hard not to be seen doing it—which brought her mind abruptly to two suddenly important facts: first, that whoever was asking the wolves to watch AJ’s farm and follow this “Lily Shell” mare could obviously speak to the wolves.
Second, the only pony she knew that could speak to animals was a pegasus.
For somepony who always loudly protested that she was not an egghead because that wouldn’t be cool, her brain processed the disconcerting fact that whoever wanted to get this Lily might be racing to do it with her own two hooves quite rapidly, and with only a moment of freeze-up, she accelerated, the fact that she’d be unable to see a small white unicorn on the ground below at her new speed entirely disregarded.
The forest under her abruptly disappeared into the rolling grasslands through which the train passed to Canterlot and Rainbow chanced a glance backwards to see what the other pony looked like without the shadows of the trees to hide in. There was nopony there and Rainbow blinked; had she been imagining somepony racing her out of boredom? In answer, a shadow fall over the edge of her vision and she rolled sideways just in time to avoid a black shape shooting passed her, the wake of so much displaced air buffeting her.
What the HAY? She demanded in her head mouth open in disbelief as she caught another momentary glimpse of a the shadowy pegasus pulling out of the dive like a pro, twisting as she rose, rocketing back at Rainbow so fast that the rainbow-maned pony couldn’t see anything about her before she had to twist again to avoid the charge, again buffeted by displaced air.
She came about in time to watch her opponent reverse on a dime and veer into the blinding corona of the rising sun, causing Rainbow to involuntarily turn her head away from the stab of pain the blazing light caused and grunted as the virtual cannon of air blasted her sideways, forcing her to expend precious moments of concentration to correct and leaving her unable to do anything but cry out in frustration as the cannon rammed into her from the other direction.
How the HAY is she DOING that? Her mental voice demanded again she corrected a second time, having just enough time to brace herself before the next blast hit her from a rear angle. “Oh, buck this!” She cried, giving a few flaps of her wing and accelerating forwards, feeling the wake of her attacker’s air cannon race through her tail as she did. “C’mon, loser, let’s see if you can keep up with the fastest flier in Equestria.”
This time, she didn’t try looking back or otherwise checking where the other pegasus was; all that mattered was speed and speed was something that Rainbow Dash did better than any other pony. As she accelerated, she moved her head down in line with the rest of her body, squinting as the wind whipped through her mane. Rear legs went back and she stretched her front legs forward, streamlining to reduce air resistance. Wings beat and trembled as she stretched them out and thrust them down again, almost climbing through the air as it began to be a solid wall of roaring sound, the friction in the air causing sparks to dance around her. The wall began to bend inwards, becoming cone-shaped, hardening in defiance of the pegasus struggling against it. She could feel the moment approaching, the snap and an explosion of light and sound that would leave her pursuer in the dust. She shut her eyes in preparation…
Agony like she’d never imagined hit her across her back like somepony had dropped an anvil on her and the disappeared, leaving her breathless with pain that seemed to be everywhere at once. Blood dripped from her nose as if somepony had slugged her in the face and it was only the unconscious and automatic muscle memory of a born flier that kept her in the air, drifting stunned in the building light of morning.
“What… the… hay…?” She croaked, pressing a hoof against her nose, bringing it away to see the bright red blood on it. “How the hay…”
She shook her head, the pain fading as she looked around, expecting to see a black shape closing in for the kill, but there was nothing. No evidence that she was being pursued, nopony in sight that could be responsible for her abrupt exit from the air-cone that preceded a sonic rainboom, nothing at all.
“What the hay just happened?” She asked, both audibly and in her head, still thoroughly stunned by the hit she’d taken. Another look around confirmed that she was in the precise middle of nowhere, a dirt road winding below her with a white-coated mare carrying a large number of saddlebags trotting along, the tracks of the train off to the west and glinting in the rising sun, grasslands…
Rainbow blinked as her jilted brain suddenly connected and she looked down again. White-coated, golden-maned, carrying tons of saddlebags, a horn just visible at this distance… she grinned. “Hah! In your face, loser!” She proclaimed with a laugh. “Nopony can beat Rainbow Dash at her own game! Best flier in Equestria, right here, right now, at least twenty percent cooler!”
Her proclamations of awesome were apparently enough to reach the ground because the unicorn looked up at her, looking quite puzzled as Rainbow began descending, before a smile stretched over a starved-looking face and she raised her hoof, waving pleasantly as the messenger grew closer… until without any warning, a pleasant and pretty expression twisted into an ugly sneer and a large mirrored sphere floated out of her saddlebags, writhing with luminous black energy.
“Spite!” She hissed in a rasping, snarling voice that was very much not the voice of the extremely polite, harmless mare that Fluttershy had described. “The Sixth’s tame little pet.” The sphere was dropped to the ground where it still shone with the luminous blackness and Lily Shell raised a hoof above it. “Catch me if you can, fool. Klesae, pegasi EIT!” She stomped downwards and the sphere shattered.
Rainbow was dimly aware of a hollow, hungry howl filling the air as a blackness filled the air in front of her, a blackness that shown with the same luminous darkness as the white mare’s magic and she had an impression of a mouth, its inside blacker than black, the sum total of pure nothing gaping in front of her.
Time stopped. A chill wove through her hooves, her legs, her wings, everywhere, a chill that seemed to stab deeper than any physical cold and was both a force of nature and… alive. Weakness, soul-deep weakness, wrapped itself around her and she could feel her wings stop moving, her eyes drifting shut, that nothing getting closer…
Time started again and she was laying on her side in soft, plains grass, the gentle sunshine bathing her in comforting, safe warmth. Her brain lazily noted that she was in the air a second ago and now she wasn’t and gee, the sun was really warm and comfortable if only ponies would stop roaring and howling at each other. The thought of howling caused her languid brain to struggle out of its stupor and note that something big and black and terrible had just tried to eat her and she was now on the ground with no idea of why she was.
A keening roar drew her attention skyward and she looked up. A serpentine black dragon just barely twice the size of a pony was backwinging away from a towering… something. It looked like a shadow, if it was possible for a shadow to be as tall as the Canterlot castle and to be standing upright and taking broad, vicious swipes at the ebony-colored creature that was in the midst of roaring at it in a way that, without words, promised death and slaughter to whatever offended its owner.
The shadow took another flowing swipe at the dragon, and the shadowy appendage was met with a stream of glowing flame that seemed to be made of sunlight instead of fire, the shadow recoiling with a scream of such volume that it could be felt, a sonic expression of surprised pain. The hovering dragon didn’t give it a chance to recover, motes of light glimmering into existence around its four feet and being flung like a fist full of rocks at the recoiling shadow as the dragon spun upright in midair, its movements more like the pirouette of a dancer than a stunt maneuver. The light punched visible holes in the shadow, causing it to retreat with another tangible wail of pain.
The fight retreated into the background for a moment as another soul-deep wave of stomach-churning weakness washed over her, the accompanying sickness so intense that she retched, her stomach trying to heave up her last meal only to find that her last meal wasn’t there to be vomited. This somehow caused yet another wave of weakness to surge in her limbs, muddying her thinking to the point of incoherence, making the next cry of pain, now tinged with definite fear, recede into irrelevance for the wounded pegasus. The rust in her mental gears endured for an indeterminate length of time before, once again, her natural keenness kicked her thoughts into gear again and she struggled to raise her head.
The shadow was still there and still towering but it seemed… effervescent, the substance of its being drifting off of it sluggishly as if was blood instead of the absence of light. The dragon had alighted in the middle of the road, its posture one of mingled unconcern and hyperawareness of its towering adversary, and Rainbow could make out puffs of dust rising as the creature seemed to be writing in the road. Her vision blurred with exhaustion but she fought it off, the sight refocusing into the dragon rearing back onto its hind legs, its front paws igniting with the same sunlight-flame it’d used against the shadow, and it came down on them with a forceful air of finality.
The ground seemed to explode into white light, forcing Rainbow to clench her jaw against the stabbing pain of the brightness and her eyes shut against the blinding intensity. She heard the rapid-fire clinking of metal against metal, as if somepony was drumming on a length of pipe, and a despairing cry of agony and fear that all but deafened her, the cacophony forcing her to cant her ears in a desperate attempt to shut out the painful racket. The sound continued, pulsating, deafening, the air vibrating so hard with it that she could feel herself trembling before it.
And then it was gone and a soft, featherweight touch was drifting over her face and sides and her wings, light as a breeze, and the delicate scent of jasmine filled her nostrils. “That… animal,” A feminine voice hissed in an undertone, rich and throaty but trembling with rage. “To call a demon-shadow against an innocent just to save her worthless hide…”
Rainbow felt the weakness pressing in yet again. “Whuzzat?” she managed to ask in a thick, exhausted voice.
The voice sighed tiredly and the light touch went away. “It’s nothing. You have been gnawed on, brave pegasus, by something that should never have been permitted to touch you. I’m sorry; I’ve failed you.”
Rainbow blinked, trying to resolve the dark blur in front of her exhausted eyes into something that made sense while her befuddled brain tried to work through the words, failed, and decided they weren’t important. “Wha wuzzit?”
“Something foul that has been sent back to where it belongs,” the voice growled. “It means nothing; all that matters now is you. You have a valiant spirit and it fought the hunger of the klesae better than any in recent memory. But now, it and you are exhausted and must sleep.”
That seemed like a good idea. “Oh, sleep kay…” She managed, smiling weakly at the prospect.
The voice gave a short, strained laugh. “Yes, sleep is okay.” The gentle, barely-there touch rested over her eyes. “Rest well, Rainbow Dash; you have finished your race and won your honor and now await your crown.” A wave of drowsiness, a warm and pleasant and comfortable drowsiness, settled on her like a warm blanket, and with a yawn, Rainbow slipped into the dreamless oblivion.
Spite gently lifted her hand from the face of the slumbering pegasus and sat back on her heels, contemplating the battered form and fearfully listening to the slight unevenness in her breathing, and the small but revealing tics that signaled extremely deep wounds in her lifeforce. She had been perfectly truthful with Rainbow: the sheer stubborn loyalty woven throughout her spirit had proven very difficult for the klesae to consume. The tragedy was that any wounds to the substance of the spirit were dangerous, the smallest nick being nearly as dangerous as a gaping hole hemorrhaging life.
Oh, what I wouldn’t do for even the crudest apprentice healer of the Families! She sighed. It would make this so much easier. But, no, penance is required for my failure and this is my responsibility. I just... She snorted amusedly at herself. Heh, who would have imagined that I’d ever see someone with a dragon’s greatness and majesty of soul, and then be called upon to make it literal? The circle is closed in the most unexpected of ways.
Ironically, this most significant of acts, infusing fragments of the Void translated through herself into a mortal, was one of the easiest acts as well. It was different in every situation; in hers, it happened in the form of motes of luminous darkness welling up on her fingers, and being absorbed into the soft, cyan coat as she ran them gently over the toned athletic form sprawled in the grass. The process brought a grimace to her face, not because it hurt or cost her anything but because of the opposite: the flow of the life-destroying substance of the Void was far too easy and natural. At least, she reminded herself, I can take some comfort in the fact that if I was any other scion of the Void, I would be poisoning this innocent creature instead of saving her.
To her relief, the tics quickly faded and her breathing became slow and even, making it easy to deliberately forget the fundamental rule of the transference: you cannot infuse the Void into a mortal without changing them in some way. Pushing the uncomfortable thought aside, she stooped down and gathered Rainbow into her arms, a quick push of her legs and sweep of her vast wings letting her slip easily into the sky and propel her on the way to Ponyville and relative safety.
After a few minutes, Spite looked down at the sleeping pegasus in her arms, leaning down to nose one of the mare’s multicolored strands of mane into a semblance of order as her wings carried her over the light woodlands. The valiant pony had given her quite a chase, recovering stubbornly from each of her attempts to knock her down and exhaust her until she could no longer carry her message. It was only with a quick shadowstep, timing her next charge so it would strike Rainbow just as she’d reached the velocity that would make the air itself as hard as a brick wall, that she’d finally stopped her.
Too late. Lily couldn’t have prepared a spell of that magnitude or complexity if she didn’t have fair warning and while she’d played the surprised and innocent unicorn when Dash had approached, her real self roiled and oozed beneath the surface. Using a valiant and entirely innocent creature as a distraction was vintage Lashaal and within herself, Spite raged at the mad spirit—and herself.
I should have been faster. She raged. Should have hung close enough that when she commanded the klesae’s hunger, I could have thrown Rainbow out of the way. She knew it was incapable of even stirring a strand of my mane but that… abomination was not meant for me. She gritted her teeth. That… animal! That rabid, drooling, pathetic excuse for a web-weaver! Unleashing a demon-shadow on an innocent! Oh, when I get my claws on that… that… twisted whore, I’ll make Rejnu look like a mercy killing!
Her rage suddenly spent itself and she sighed, chuckling softly. <Oh, would you listen to me, Rainbow…> She said in her native draconic tongue, letting a clawed finger run gently through the windblown rainbow-colored mane. <You know, there was a time when I would have looked at you and sneered at the pathetic, naïve little fool. I would have once called you a, in your own terminology, loser and laughed scornfully at such silly things as friendship and an undying loyalty to those friends. There was a time in my memory when I was just as much a twisted whore as Lashaal or a monster like the klesae. Then I found friends and nothing was ever the same.>
She set her wings and let her muscle memory, built through centuries of flying in all sorts of conditions and winds, instinctively handle the mechanics of the flight. <I wish you could meet my friends, Rainbow, the way I’ll soon meet yours. You’d approve of them, I think, if what I’ve been seeing these last few days holds true. They are, in your own delightful phrase, cool. Or maybe you’d call them awesome; I haven’t exactly gotten to talk to you, after all.>
“I should change that.” Without even thinking about it, she’d slipped into the tongue of the ponies and said the words out loud. She blinked at herself, surprised to hear the words from her own mouth, before she smiled a little. “Yes, I imagine I’ll have a great deal to talk to you about, Rainbow Dash. The love of flight to start, and then perhaps the pride that comes of knowing that whenever your friends need you, they know that you’ll be there.”
The pegasus stirred a little, murmuring incomprehensibly, and Spite gently reinforced the spell the kept the pony in the charmed, recuperative, deep sleep that would do more to repair her tattered spirit than even the emergency measures she’d taken. “This is going to be one hell… one hay of a situation, Rainbow,” she commented to her unhearing listener. “As far as any of your friends know, as far as even the wolves I befriended know, Lashaal is what she appears to be. I, on the other hand, will show up with your limp body in my grasp, telling a fantastic story about Lily Shell unleashing a demonic shadow on you to prevent me from tracking her to wherever she’s going. Me, who asked wolves to follow Lily, and who has every reason in the world to be the one that harmed you to stop you from alerting her. And one of those friends? She’s an alicorn, one of astonishing intellect and magical power who, if she’s even remotely reasonable, will worry first about saving her friend from the scary black dragon, and then worry about whether that dragon keeps breathing.”
She suddenly laughed. “You know, the best description of this situation comes from a people you do not know and probably never will. The humans say that your friends will ‘shit kine’.” She paused and frowned. “Or is that ‘have a cow’? Colloquialisms have never been my strongest subject.” She contemplated it a moment and shook her head. “Anyway, Rainbow, I doubt it will go well if I meet your friends while I’m carrying you to get help. I do hope you understand, and can forgive me for leaving you in a crumpled heap in front instead of carrying you in myself.”
><><
Applejack was the first one to break the heavy silence. “Ah dun get it.”
The silence endured some more before Twilight glanced over at the farmer-pony. “What do you mean?”
“Ah mean, Ah don’t get it,” Applejack repeated. “We jus’ got Rainbow outta bed an’ ask ‘er to zip down th’ road a bit an’ deliver a message that somepony who dun feel comfortable spyin’ herself is sendin’ some wolves t’ follow Lily. An’ ‘bout two hours later, the hospital’s sendin’ messages t’ the lot of us sayin’ that she got so thrashed that she’s in a coma. How th’ hay does it get from deliverin’ a message t’ one o’ the fastest an’ most skilled pegasi in all o’ Equestria cata… cata…”
“Catatonic?” Twilight supplied.
“Yeah, that.” Applejack looked worriedly at the prone form of their friend, breathing deeply and easily but totally unresponsive since one of the patients, leaving after a simple test, had come running back in telling the doctors that there was a pegasus outside bleeding and unconscious in the grass.
“Aww, don’t worry AJ.” Pinkie smiled, giving Applejack a one-leg hug. “Dashie gets bumped and bruised allllll the time and she just gets up and keeps going and is all like ‘yeah, I’m Dashie and I’m so cool and awesome’ and then is like ‘whiz, boom’ and…”
“Pinkie…”
The bouncing pink earth pony’s dazzling smile dropped from an eleven to something around seven or eight and her mane lost some of its curly cohesion. “Sorry Twi, just trying to make AJ feel better.”
“And you’re doing a fabulous job, darling,” Rarity assured her. “But maybe wait until after the shock wears off?”
“Okie-dokie-lokie.” Pinkie Pie continued to beam but Twilight could see the well-hidden maturity that had become an increasing hallmark of Pinkie-when-nopony-was-looking poking out in the way she was just… there, comforting instead of the focal point for all the attention in the room.
Given her crazy, random, reality-defying, free-floating-happy nature, it was jarring to realize that of all of them, the affair of the Guardian had changed Pinkie the most. It’d been quite subtle at first: a radiant smile that was just barely less radiant, a few less balloons at a party, a slight downgrade in the frequency with which Pinkie popped out of nowhere to startle ponies, and other things of that nature. It wasn’t until Twilight was on a trip to Canterlot and came across Pinkie Pie talking to someponies over a light lunch that the change became readily apparent. The insane Pinkie of the wildly curly mane had become a serious, considerate, gently-smiling Pinkie of a simply-styled straight mane that had internalized the fact that ponies in emotional pain sometimes needed quiet, considerate happiness rather than loud, colorful happiness. Even more jarring was that, with the couple Pinkie had been talking to still nearby, Twilight had the first conversation she could ever remember with a mature, wise mare whose aptitude for simple kindness was a rival for Fluttershy’s. Naturally, when the couple she’d been comforting was gone, insane Pinkie was back, but the glimpse into the deeply good mare under that nonsensical skin was something that had stayed with Twilight.
Since their meeting in Canterlot, Twilight could see more and more of the warm and subtle Pinkamena peeking through the odd and obnoxious Pinkie and it made her actually appreciate the walking, talking party-in-pony-form rather than just liking her. She also had a suspicion that the reason the rest of the girls were coping so well with the aftermath was that she wasn’t the only one to have gotten a visit from Pinkie’s underlying mature side. The situation here illustrated it perfectly: she’d only needed to say Pinkie’s name with a slightly pleading tone, and Rarity only had to ask, and Pinkie was there to comfort by being an available and accepting presence instead of through the antics that made her the more literal Laughter.
“I can only think of one explanation,” Twilight said after another moment. “Whoever was after Lily figured out what Dash was doing and ambushed her, but Dash didn’t matter to her, so she brought Dash here to get help then went after Lily.”
“But wouldn’t that mean she already knew where Lily was?” Rarity pointed out. “To ambush somepony, you need to know where they’ll be and when they’ll be, and that would mean she knew where Dash was going… which would mean she knew were Lily was.”
“How’d ya figger…” Applejack paused. “Oh, right, fergot.”
Rarity gave her a tolerant, although slightly strained, smile before looking at Twilight. “Which means she followed Rainbow.”
“So she’s as fast as Dashie?” Pinkie’s eyes became impossibly wide. “Wow! So she’s, like, the fastestest flier in Equestria?”
“So now our mysterious pony is a pegasus, as fast or faster than the only pegasus in generations to fully master the sonic rainboom, and can talk to wolves, not to mention making the wolves like her enough to do something because she asks nicely,” Twilight summarized. “Is that our working theory?”
“Um… she’s also nice,” Fluttershy offered.
Rarity glanced at her. “Why do you say that, Fluttershy darling?”
“Well, um…” Fluttershy smiled shyly. “…the wolves said so. And she has to be nice if she was trying to catch somepony going north and west but took the time to get Rainbow help instead of just leaving her. And… she must have caught Rainbow far enough away that nopony noticed… and… and so she went very far to make sure she was… looked after.”
“Amend it then,” Twilight gave Fluttershy a nod of acknowledgement. “A pegasus as fast or faster than Rainbow Dash, that can talk to wolves, that has earned the loyalty of those wolves, is determined enough to hurt Rainbow, but kind enough to go out of her way to help her.”
At the chorus of nods, Twilight frowned. “I think this calls for a letter. First Lily appears, a starved-looking unicorn who’s carrying awfully dangerous things in her saddlebags, if how she acted at Applejack’s house is any indication, then this mysterious multitalented pegasus appears to try and keep an eye on her.”
“Why not give her the message in person, darling?” Rarity suggested with a broad smile. “It’ll give you a wonderful excuse to wear your new dress.”
Twilight eyed her. “You’re… already done with it?”
Rarity affected a sad look. “Twilight, you wound me! As if I’d put a dress for a friend going to spend time with her mother on the back burner!
Twilight eyed her again and couldn’t help but add a smile. “You never fail to impress, Rarity.”
Rarity beamed. “Oh darling, what a kind thing to say! But wait until I get you back to the shop before you praise my work.”
“I’m sure it’s a wonderful dress, Rarity,” she assured the fashionista. “So, girls, does anypony mind if I take first watch?”
“Why don’t we all stay?”
“Because when Rainbow wakes up, it’s much easier to find out important things from her if just one pony is standing watch,” Twilight replied. “By the time everypony had welcomed her back and hugged her and—Pinkie, I can see that cupcake box, stop trying to sneak it under the bed—asked questions, precious time could be lost. So I think it’d be best if we took turns.”
“Fair ‘nuff, sugarcube.” Applejack agreed, seeming to be speaking for the rest if their various expressions were any indication. “Jus’ dun get so caught up in askin’ questions that ya forget t’ send a message t’ the rest of us.”
“I won’t forget,” she promised.
Her friends filed out of the room, Pinkie hoofing her the cupcake box and solemnly informing her that the cupcake with her cutie mark painted on the top was hers and the one with Rainbow’s was Rainbows. Twilight thanked her with a quick hug then trotted over to the comfortable chair beside the stricken Dash’s bed, pulling out one of her friend’s favorite Daring Do books and settling in to read it to her, as much to pass the time as to greet her with one of her favorite stories if—and when—she emerged from sleep.
She was a few dozen pages in when she noticed that everything had become… quiet. The normal sounds of the hospital seemed to be filtered through cotton, sunlight streaming in through the window was muted as if passing through darkened glass, and Rainbow herself seemed to somehow slow down. Curious, she looked up from the book and discovered that the room had changed. Specifically, everything faded out beyond the circle composed of her, Rainbow Dash… and a dragon unlike any she’d seen before.
Where young dragons like Spike stood upright on hind legs, this one lounged casually on her side in an obviously quadruped way. The adult she and the girls had shooed away from Ponyville was horned but his one’s head was smooth and serpentine. She couldn’t remember having ever seen a dragon with a mane, but this one’s charcoal-colored one spilled off her head in shining luxury that would make Rarity envious. Most noticeably, at least to a highly intellectual pony like Twilight, was that her manipulatory digits were unusually long and clearly meant to grasp things and make fine, precise movements. The dragoness regarded her with vividly amethyst eyes and a placid expression, the barest hint of a smile curling the edges of her muzzle.
“Good afternoon to you, Twilight Sparkle.” She said, her voice rich with an exotic accent Twilight couldn’t place that had a strong, purring quality to it.
The book dropped to the floor as Twilight leapt to her feet, her horn blazing with magic awaiting an application. “Who are you? How’d you get in?”
“Calm yourself, Twilight,” the dragoness replied, raising both paws in a calming gesture. “I will explain that, but I’ll first say that I’m not here to fight you or to do you harm. Quite the opposite in fact; I admit that I was hoping Rainbow would be unattended so that I could look in on her.”
“Look in on her?” Surprise and a touch of confusion made Twilight dim her horn slightly. “Are you a friend?”
The dragoness smiled sadly. “I most earnestly wish to be but no, I’ve not had the chance to win her friendship.”
“Then why…?”
“Would an apparent stranger want to look in on her?” The smile lost some of its sadness. “Firstly, I was and am still concerned for her. Secondly, I felt guilty for not having stayed at her side when I brought her to the doors of the hospital. Thirdly, although I had hoped she would be alone, I couldn’t pass up the chance to meet you, Lady Sparkle.”
“But why?”
“Because Lashaal has slipped my grasp, one of the Elements lies gravely wounded…” She took a breath and let it out again, the gesture seeming frustrated and worried. “…and I don’t think it wise to continue without explaining a few things.”
A/N: Here's hoping my solution to the Pinkie-writing problem I mentioned in my blog is credible!
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The change in Pinkie sound legitimate.
Minor suggestion: Tone down Applejacks accent a bit. 1. Her speech has as much to do with unique colloqualisms as it does an accent. 2. While noticable in the show, its not overbearingly heavy. 3. In its current form, her lines are hard to read. We know what she sounds like from the show, changing every 3rd word is a bit much.
1265280 It's a good suggestion but I'm not really sure how. I've heard her accent and speech but don't know how to portray the heaviness correctly.
“By the time everypony had welcomed her back and hugged her and—Pinkie, I can see that cupcake box, stop trying to sneak it under the bed—asked questions, precious time could be lost. So I think it’d be best if we took turns.”
Oh that made me laugh
1265447 You don't really need to portray it all that much, just enough to let us know it's there. Like Cyclone said, we already know what she sounds like. You don't need to try to get us to hear what we already know.
1265816 Fair enough. I tend to forget that I don't need to make it too obvious to miss if other people can know what the person i'm depicting sounds like.
1265899
(aaaaa misaimed reply)
As was mentioned before, everyone here (should) have a basic grasp of her manner of speaking. The "Ah'"s are alright, but you should leave out most of the other stuff, like the "an'"s. At the moment I end up absently skimming her dialogue because it's tedious to decipher.
It's less about pronunciations and more about capturing her overall manner of speaking. At the moment I think you're doing that well, but its hard to see it through the emphasized pronuncations.
Compare:
"Ah mean, Ah don't get it,” Applejack repeated. “We just got Rainbow outta bed and ask her to zip down the road a bit and deliver a message that somepony who doesn't feel comfortable spyin’ herself is sending some wolves to follow Lily. And about two hours later, the hospital’s sending messages to the lot of us saying that she got so thrashed that she’s in a coma. How the hay does it get from delivering a message to one of the fastest and most skilled pegasi in all o’ Equestria cata… cata…”
vs.
"Ah mean, Ah dun get it,” Applejack repeated. “We jus’ got Rainbow outta bed an’ ask ‘er to zip down th’ road a bit an’ deliver a message that somepony who dun feel comfortable spyin’ herself is sendin’ some wolves t’ follow Lily. An’ ‘bout two hours later, th’ hospital’s sendin’ messages t’ the lot o’ us sayin’ that she got so thrashed that she’s in a coma. How th’ hay does it get from deliverin’ a message t’ one o’ the fastest an’ mos’ skilled pegasi in all o’ Equestria cata… cata…”
More readable, right? It's good to throw in a southern pronunciation here and there to remind the reader of her accent, but consistency is not good, especially in common words like "the".
1266101 "Nobilis"?
1266004 OK... I'll try to remember not to write what I hear. I think, though, that the occassional throw-in sabotages the flow more than the literalism. Maybe a hybrid approach...
Thank you, Biglulu and Likeness for your helpfulness.
1266004
You nailed what I was trying to get across. Thanks!
This chapter. I like it. Another!
I'm waiting for the random crossover with Chess Game Of The Gods.
Not that they're anything alike, weirdly.
But no gorgons in this story? Aww... I'm enjoying the interplay between the deity-figures, the pieces they play are hard to tell immediately because a symbol can be a symbolism. Was the spell the Lily's? Was she only able to cast it because of the Darkness piece? Or is said piece being played in Canterlot, to go after the King (Celestia) or to promote a pawn (freeing statues from her garden)? Who knows? Maybe not even you! Nopony knows!
1267146 "Chess Game Of The Gods"? I haven't heard of it, honestly.
There's a reason one of them casually mentioned Medusa...
They are symbolic, but symbolic representations of the actual people.
'Cept me.
I always know. 
1265816
1266004
1266223
Just in case you three ever wondered why I wrote that block that way.... it was meant to represent Applejack's accent becoming thick-to-the-point-of-incomprehensible (although her friends would easily understand, seeing as how they're long-time friends) due to distress. Naturally, the circumstances of finding out that a friend is in a coma after going on a routine messenger run aren't likely to repeat... and neither is me writing her accent much thicker than it actually is.
Yanno, just in case you three were curious about the why.
I wanted to thank you for cleaning up the way you have the "Diety" section layed out so it is easier to read but I must still say I have not got the slightest damn clue what is going on in there parts.
I mean we have nothing on those characters and they keep throwing out terms left and right that just leave me scratching my head and going "Screw it, the rest of this is where the real story is.". But that's not fair to you or the story, I mean TER's those little moments hiding deeper meanings were what made it so great. I also feel the other main problem with them is we don't really have a conflict from them, I mean one is light and the other is dark and sure they are gambling some greater-demon-world-hell thingy but that's really all we got. Why do they care about the MLP characters? Was the Guardian one of there pawns and they want revenge?
There are just a lot of things that are out there with no background playing major roles, and it's hard to have an investment in a character when you can't even figure who or out what the heck it is they are.
Also, as more pawns show up they could use names, plane appropriate preferably all of those Lasheels, Mekholaps, and Bealzabus are going to be impossible to keep track of.
Still loving it, still can't wait for more.
-Macisbest859
Thanking you for writing her that way. I have always found her to be a annoying character whose only use was to fill in plot holes in some reality bending fashion. I hope that you continue writing her in this fashion she is much more manageable.
1267500
The problem is present in a few earlier blocks too, though. To a lesser extent, maybe, but still there.
1267512 I'm playing a long game; most of the things that are mysterious and vague will become clearer as time goes on. Unfortunately, for the important details to pay off for you, you have to pay close attention.
Most of them are going to have more ordinary names; "The Handmaiden", for example, is simply named "Spite".
1267625 Well, then it'll be hard for a few people to read what Applejack says. I appreciate suggestions and I'll work on using the contractions only where necessary but there's only so much alteration of stylistic peculiarities that it's reasonable to expect of an author.
1267624 Yeah. Until "The Vampony Chronicles" and "The Powers of Harmony", I hated her as a character. Then the authors of those works proved that it was possible to preserve Pinkie Pie's uniqueness as Laughter while making it more apparent that she's not a babbling idiot that has no purpose but comic relief.
I'm going to guess either Celestia, Twilight, or the royals are the "Light" of the world. It can't be the EoH as a whole, because Lily harming Dash would have violated the terms.I'm also guessing that the mentioned violator (
"Folly", most likelyNo, he wagered for an as-of-yet unknown sibling world) was the one behind The Guardian, and its death symbolized its master's death. The EoH could, then, be thought of as the world's owner's (Lord Quezel?) method of direct intervention.Edit: more stuff
The "Corruption Vanquished" prize is obviously meant to symbolize The Guardian's death. This seems to imply that "prizes" are generated by a significant event, especially (or only) during a Game - with "better" prizes coming from more significant and likely events.
1267799
Actually, it's none of those. She describes it as "murdering love", "murdering friendship", and "tormenting the good for sadistic glee". The "Light" in this specific usage refers to all of the forces for good in Equestria, such as love, friendship, and general goodness of character. Technically, Lily unleashing a klesae against Dash is such a violation but... well, you'll see in the next chapter.
Yes but no. Rejnu (the name of the violator, mentioned by Spite in internal monologue) was behind The Guardian but its death didn't represent her death. It's death was followed by her death, however; the agony-twisted skeletal body that the representative of Light shows to the "minister" is Rejnu, tortured to death and used as a trophy.
1267867
Though you could look at the concepts on a granular or a macro scale, which would likely be the point of contention between our two deities: "murdering friendship" has two very strict components to it: Murder, over say, merely killing or letting die. As well, Friendship is tricky. If you take it one way, betraying any living entity at all would be impossible, as would any serious injury or death, as it would cause Friendship to one entity to die. On the other side, the concept of "Friendship" would require a VERY good deal of attack to murder, Discord might have attempted it unsuccessfully as a piece, to make every entity too mentally off to ever form or maintain a friendship. Order did similarly, to sow distrust amongst closest friends and make unclear who is friend or foe. That's a much greater assault than merely taking out Rainbow Dash; an, admittedly, replaceable pony.
1269743
...huh?
What the Light meant by "murdering friendship" is deliberately left unclear and the only other person in the room was too scared at the moment to challenge her on the list of particulars. Generally, though, it'd be fair to say that she was referring to all of the damage done to the bonds of trust and friendship by the corrupted Order over the numerous centuries; clearly, at the direction of his puppetmaster, he used nightmares to do immense harm to such bonds, not to mention the other harm done.
The entire point of the scene, however, is a graphic demonstration of the fact that while Light is generally regarded as righteous or noble or virtuous, the Light in this instance is very much not angelic although she represents a much more benevolent attitude than her opposite.
For reasons unknown to me, the below comment from Ravenscroft didn't show up in the comments. It showed up in my email, tho, so I resurrected it for the purposes of replying. Apologies to him if he deleted it or something.
I'm glad you do.
For for further information, and the general enlightenment of anyone who reads the comments, my concept of Light, Dark, and Evil is that Light and Dark represent the two fundamental creative and lifegiving forces of the universe. They're roughly equal and necessarily both allies and rivals (although at this point in the flow of the universe, they're more allies than rivals). All creatures hold some measure of Light and Dark in them, even the representatives of the two forces. Because of the natural equality (bright light dissipates shadow, shadow fills every space where there's an absence of light), each force is harmful to its opposite, although the harmfulness varies wildly with how Light or Dark a creature is (as an example, the Ninth Prime, the strongest representative of Darkness, has a strong enough affinity with Light that it's effect on him is vastly muted). Evil represents the opposite of creation and life, the unliving force representing the compulsion to destroy and to revel in suffering, and is the bitter enemy of both Light and Dark. Since some of the creatures aligned with it are reasoning creatures, the three forces will interact politely and according to ancient traditions of hospitality (for example, in the story, the Light receives the creature of Evil with relative grace since he's implied to have complied with the necessary traditions) but outside these polite precincts, the Light and Dark will always, always put aside rivalry to exterminate Evil; revealingly, their catch-all term for any Evil creature or being is "abomination".
Does Lily perhaps have powers over the starvation of others? It would fit with what I already suspect of her.
What about a Griffin, or a dragon? And what if they were already halfway there before Rainbow? We know that's not true, but how would they. After all, Fluttershy started out after the wolves gave away Lily's position.
1282980
So the Minister is of void, rather than darkness? That explains some of their interactions, but I thought Folly was a Lord of Darkness?
fell
then?
The idea I was going with was that Twilight was beginning from the premise of the mysterious other flier being a pony. Showing her expanding her speculation to include all of the other flying creatures she knows of--hippogriffs, griffons, dragons--is a good idea, however, since Twilight is meant to be a very smart pony, both in original canon and my own.
Yes and yes. Thank you for spotting these. :)