26. Vast
Once Zest finally figured out how to zap herself through wires, the world opened up to her.
It hadn’t been too hard once she had that ‘leakage’ experience. Bleeding out a little had opened her eyes to using her electrical powers and now she was, finally, a pro ghost.
Though Sugarcoat would probably disagree.
She only went north and west with her new powers. Sugarcoat forbid her to go further south than the 40-degree latitude, the line where Manehattan was. Zest didn’t always obey Sugarcoat’s orders to a T, but that was a dictate she’d have self-imposed even if completely alone.
And then she only went west because the ocean wasn’t far east.
But Zest did go further in those two directions than Sugarcoat wanted her to. Especially north.
Crossing the electric grid, Zest found the furthest northern point she could travel. There was a weather station a good way into the Far Reaches, one that only operated in the summer. So now, on the edge of winter, it was abandoned.
The whole of the Far Reaches could be seen as abandoned at first blush. Today was an unusually clear day, giving Zest a much further view of the area than she’d normally have.
Turn in any direction, it didn’t matter. They were all the same. Dunes of snow went on and on forever, that distance just ready to consume you. Not even the dunes themselves could serve as any landmark. They were too ephemeral in the harsh winds that blew all but constantly up here.
“You could get lost so easily in this place.”
Zest dared not venture out into that wasteland. Even this tiny station couldn’t serve as a landmark. The winds threw dunes up against it, covering this side and then that side. It would always be invisible from one angle. There was a chance it’d even get buried entirely if luck were poor.
She looked up at the sky. Having been here six times already, Zest had given up hope of seeing the stars. She’d asked Sunny Flare about that already and she said you got very few days of clear skies. Those were almost exclusively in summer when it was daylight 24/7 for a month or longer.
Only in the farthest north, the ‘dark circle’, a ring with a twenty-kilometer radius around the north pole, were you able to reliably navigate by stars. But that place was too intense. Nothing lived there. The snow pony tribes were so superstitious of the dark circle that they shunned anypony who set foot in it just once. Not even MSI and their insatiable curiosity dared venture there.
Zest shuddered and brought her head back inside.
The Far Reaches weren’t as monolithic as Zest had always assumed. It was divided into ‘circles’ of latitude. Everypony who lived there existed almost entirely on the far, southern strip of the Far Reaches, in the first circle. The majority in the southern tip of that circle too. Several enormous lakes marbled the snow, lakes that melted in tandem with geothermal activity more than the seasons.
The second circle was a place you only adventured to during the polar day, in the summer when the sun stayed up non-stop for three months straight. You never stayed there longer than you needed to. That was where Zest found herself now. The lakes here froze long ago and never thawed.
The third circle was rough terrain filled with glaciers. Nothing that could be called living existed there, but certain dangerous things still slept there, restrained by the deep cold. There were photographs of truly massive tentacled creatures, estimated to stretch out over a kilometer in length, imprisoned in the glaciers. Horror stories abounded about ponies who collected tissue samples from those creatures, only for it to mutate and come to life. Only the most hardcore thrill seekers ever went there.
And merely talking about the final, dark circle could cost you your reputation and credibility in the Far Reaches. Incidentally, there was very little information about what it was actually like. Only one pony had ever managed to photograph it.
Even this desolate field of ice was a warm, summer paradise compared to that place.
So of course, that was where Ostracon had wandered off to.
Zest heard getting a snow pony to talk about the dark circle was like getting them to talk about their secret fetish. MSI commanded their loyalty, though, and they did talk in the end, telling a story of a frighteningly powerful lich who had some business out there.
If only the telegraph lines had gone just a little bit further. If only there were a way to get some copper wire up here. That and a means to tell which way was north.
The snow ponies wouldn’t come out here this close to polar night. But it might just be possible to get someone from MSI to drop some off at the weather station…
The institute was connected to a small village in Crystal Veil by a telegraph wire. But one did not simply walk into a place like MSI. The Mad Science Institute was the dark circle of North Equestria if Zest were putting her new geographic knowledge to use.
So instead, Zest zipped her way back home to find her liaison writing down notes on the upper half of the library.
Sunny Flare shared so much of her research with them, reporting everything she found to Sugarcoat. Between that and her being radicalized into a ghost rights activist by Indigo over the last few months, it was easy to forget she was working for someone else.
Zest flew under the balcony to approach from below.
“Sunny?” Zest poked her head up through the desk and whatever Flare had been writing down. “How do you travel around in the Far Reaches? Without getting lost, I mean?”
“There’s a device called a seeking shell, like a compass but with multiple needles,” Flare explained. “There are so many magnetic deposits that the needles will start spinning all around rather than pointing north. But if you know where all the deposits are, you can interpret the spins to tell approximately where you are.”
So Zest could get by with a magnet!
“Like you have a map? And it points to the nearest deposit?” Zest came up, moving to the other side of the desk.
“No. It’s always spinning. I’m likely the worst pony to explain it to you.” Flare shook her head. “There are so many little nuances to it. I grew up using this system since birth. Half my knowledge is locked behind intuition. I wouldn’t know how to explain it to you. I just understand how to interpret the magnets like I know how to walk. Everypony who grew up in the Far Reaches is the same. We just know.”
“How did the snow ponies use to do it?” Zest asked. “They’ve been there a long time. MSI must have given them compasses only recently, right?”
“They were the ones who taught us how to do seeking shells, which they invented, in the first place,” said Flare. “Don’t look down on them so much.”
Zest put a hoof on her headphones and winced. She just did a racism!
“The compass was invented when a pony brought a seeking shell down to Canterlot and noticed all the needles always pointed north,” Flare explained. “So you could argue it was snow ponies who invented the compass. We think before they invented seeking stones, snow ponies simply circled the edges of lakes. Two tribes still refuse to travel out of sight of their lake.”
So finding north would be complicated. She’d need a seeking shell and somepony who knew how to use it. But most of those who knew how to use it would be in much more danger than a ghost in the Far Reaches. Especially this time of year. Zest could easily bring a second ghost with her, but not a living pony.
Flare tapped her pen repeatedly against the table as she watched Zest.
“You know, their mythology is filled with terror of becoming lost and warnings about wandering off on your own,” Sunny Flare explained. “An understandable fear given how easy it is to become disoriented. There are few landmarks in the shifting snow. A whiteout or deadly blizzard can happen at any time. And there are horrible things frozen in the ice. If you accidentally release one…”
“I got it.”
“There’s a phrase in their language, roughly translating to ‘going alone’ that’s a euphemism for suicide. Growing up there, I learned to respect their sayings. None of us leave MSI’s grounds alone. A group of snow ponies escorts me from Crystal Veil to MSI each time.”
“Okay. I get it. Yeesh.”
“And the dark circle is much worse,” Sunny Flare added one more.
Ostracon must be an insanely ambitious pony. That or he didn’t give a flying feather thinking he was already dead anyway.
“Is there any way I could visit MSI, though?” Zest asked.
“Hm?”
“I could relay messages for you a lot faster than your current method,” said Zest. “And I can be safe around predeads for long enough to do it.”
The current method was Sunny Flare dropping off a letter at Maple Hill that would arrive at another town the next day. A pony there would send a telegraph to MSI who’d eventually produce a return letter.
At its fastest, there was a two-day delay in communication. Zest could bring that down to under two hours tops.
“But obviously I’d need you to tell them that I’m with you,” said Zest.
“If it’s alright with Sugarcoat.”
Nice!
Truth be told, Zest had a growing desire to see all these forbidden places after her time in Old Manehattan. The number of outsiders who saw inside the Mad Science Institute was about equal to the number of ponies in the second circle.
Zest swung around to be on Flare’s side of the table.
“Did you learn anything good this week?” Zest asked.
Flare had gotten a letter back from MSI just two days ago. She gave regular reports to Sugarcoat on Saturdays, which was today.
“They received the samples from Sour Sweet, but it will still be some time until they can do a proper analysis on them,” said Flare. “Sour Sweet has provided us with an amazing opportunity. To be able to study someone we know will become a ghost. This is perhaps what I’m most excited about. My superiors moved the priority of my studies up a good deal in light of this. They’ll be running my list of recommended experiments immediately.”
There was a bit of a problem with studying the bodies of those who became ghosts. By law, all bodies had to be cremated within two days of death. The ever-looming threat of the undead necessitated such a policy.
This left a very small window of opportunity for someone interested in studying them to find and collect the body. So to have somepony still alive they were reasonably certain would become a ghost was a huge deal.
Flare sent an agent down south to meet up with Sour Sweet. They’d gathered a great deal of tissue from Sour Sweet. A process that made Zest cringe in pain, even if it was consensual.
Flare now had samples of her spit, sweat, two pints of her blood, a huge bundle of her fur and hair, a horn scraping, and a whole bunch of other things. Basically, if you could extract it, Flare got it. But they wouldn’t be staying here. Sunny Flare sent them further north, back to MSI where the equipment to properly study them was held.
“If I could somehow get a blood sample from Nailbat. Or from anypony I knew would become a ghost. I can only be so certain.”
“You’re not going to start a fight with him, are you?” Zest asked.
“We prefer bribery whenever possible. Like with you. I do have one other interesting thing I’m going to report, though. I found something statistically significant in the demographic data you gave me.”
Zest’s ears perked up and she drifted back over Flare’s desk to listen.
Their first guess, that it was based on family or lineage, turned out to be a bust. Sunny Flare confirmed near-immediately that your family, with the possible exception of the Noctilucents, did not correlate with becoming a ghost.
“Nearly a quarter of the ghosts were born during a full moon. Of the Shadowbolts, you, Sugarcoat, Juniper, Wallflower, Su-Z, and Sour Sweet if we’re counting her were born during full moons. Conversely, not one pony out of a thousand was born during a new moon. The distribution curve with the phases of the moon fits fairly well.”
“So the moon does it! If somepony is born during a full moon then–”
“That still only leaves a tiny fraction of those born during the full moon to become ghosts. Something else must happen merely related to the moon… they called it being blessed, right? The moon simply makes it more likely to occur, I think.”
“Yeah! You know, I’m more and more convinced that it has to be something you’re just born with!”
“Except this ‘blessing’ seems like it needs time to develop and fades over time. Remember ponies between twenty-five and fifty-five make up over ninety-five percent of ghosts.” Flare looked up from her desk and off to the side. “Luna… that name means ‘the moon’. It’s what inspired me to check the moon signs in the first place.”
“It does all seem to fit! I think we’re on to something! Science is the answer to everything!”
“That makes me wary of my conclusion.” Flare brought her gaze back down to earth. “As a scientist, you need to be very careful of cognitive bias and the danger of conjecture. You could, for example, find similar patterns in other astrological signs and events. The tides, for example, share a similar distribution curve. It could be the ocean that affects you. We know there are many sleeping things beneath the tides.”
“Ah, geese! I felt like we had it, too! Science ruins everything!” Zest put her hooves on her headphones and backed off. “Hey. Are we really the first ones to figure this much out?” Lemon Zest asked. “It seems kind of… simple? It being related to the moon, I mean. Nopony noticed that?”
“There were rumors before, but without actual data, one could simply dismiss them as superstition. There are too many claims connected to the full moon to take any of them for granted. Even if somepony did notice this correlation, they wouldn’t have been able to prove it. I’m likely the first to draw this relation with actual data.”
“Do you have any ideas for why Aria’s family are always ghosts?”
“Too many,” said Sunny Flare. “For one, they may know all the rules and say, induce birth during the full moon along with any other steps. We don’t have the birth dates for any of these Noclisent ponies, but I’ll predict that’s the case. Of course, they’re also all born in Hollow Shades so that may be a factor. Or their bloodline.”
They'd have to bring this up with Sugarcoat later. But...
The library had grown a decent amount. That snot-nosed colt from town started leaving books at the signpost in exchange for them leaving small bits of gold. The result was about five as many books as before.
At some point, Zest became self-conscious of her middle school dropout educational level. Sugarcoat seemed to know everything and Zest didn’t even know what trigonometry was, let alone how to do it!
Sugarcoat was very much on board with the idea, creating a reading list of things Zest needed to know to meet ‘the minimum threshold of basic literacy to function in society’. She even offered to make tests for Zest to take to see when Zest reached the level of a high schooler.
It was so weird. When reading and doing tests was actually important, Zest couldn’t even begin to try! Her grade was maybe twenty-something in the eighth grade, which made dropping out of school an easier decision. It just seemed so pointless to try when there was no way to dig herself out of that hole. One of her classmates calculated that even a perfect score on every test from then on would still result in her failing the eighth grade.
But now that nothing mattered? Now she was interested in learning about history and math and taking tests? Going through the list felt like a bit of an adventure.
Sugarcoat had always spent at least two to three hours a day in the library reading and Zest began joining her for that. She’d sit barrel to barrel with Sugarcoat as the two of them read. It was nice. She could tell Sugarcoat enjoyed it even if she’d never admit as much. Reading time was when Zest was the most likely to catch her boss smiling.
Or at least, Zest tried to read two hours a day. On a good day, she’d make it to maybe one hour of reading!
Right now she was reading about the revolution, where the SA overthrew the royal family, and the words were beginning to get away from her. She looked more and more at the page rather than anything written on it.
“How do you read for so long?” Zest whined. “My head starts to hurt after ten minutes!”
“Concentration and willpower are like muscles,” said Sugarcoat. “It hurts when you exercise a muscle you don’t normally use.”
“Guh! You saying I never concentrate on anything, Boss?”
“I thought that was obvious.”
Sadly, it was. Zest buried her muzzle in the book.
“Just keep concentrating on your reading, even if you’re not really getting it,” said Sugarcoat. “It will become less painful over time.”
Zest nodded, and went back to her book determined to make it to the two-hour mark no matter how bored she got! Sugarcoat gave her a pat on the head and that gave Zest endless motivation!
For the next ten minutes.
She made it ninety minutes, which was much longer than normal, at least. Sugarcoat was still going strong. Maybe a little too strong.
“Sugarcoat? Can I ask you something?”
“Hm?” She didn’t look up from the page.
“You seem.” Zest paused. She thought about what to say before coming here but still drew a blank. “How come you don’t want to go after Ostracon? You’re a lot more down recently. But we’re doing so well! So…”
Sugarcoat’s eyes drifted over the page too slowly. Then she answered.
“Our recent success. It frightens me.”
Now Sugarcoat was the one looking more at the paper than the words.
“That. Doesn’t make sense?” Zest shook her head. “I’m way stronger than I was before! And we managed to discover all of this stuff already! Shouldn’t you be more excited? I’m excited! Sunny Flare is excited. So… why not you?”
Another moment of contemplation. Another beat.
“I’m not sure if this is an odd thing to say.” Sugarcoat closed the book she was reading and let the moment linger as she remained silent, eyes closed. “Sometimes. I like to imagine that you’re the daughter the two of us could have had.”
Sugarcoat turned to Zest with such a sad look in her eyes.
The two?
“I like to think of myself as kind of your daughter too!” Zest grabbed onto Sugarcoat in a tight hug. “I would have loved it if I could have been raised by you and Pheonix instead.”
Sugarcoat said nothing and slowly stroked the Zest's back with a hoof as the two of them hugged.
“You’d take a lot more after him, of course. Your eyes are…” Sugarcoat pulled Zest’s head back to look into her eyes, a facsimile of an echo of her husband’s. “Zest. You really are a lot like he was. I pulled you out of a difficult situation. He did the same for me. And we grew strong together. All of this is nothing compared to the power I used to command as his wife. At the height of my power, I felt poised to change the world.”
“Mom…” Zest pressed her muzzle against Sugarcoat’s neck, looking up at her as Sugarcoat turned her gaze to the side.
“I can’t help but feel like… once again I stand at the height.” Sugarcoat closed her eyes and buried her muzzle into Zest’s mane. Zest felt her heavy breath against her head. “Zest. I don’t want you to get hurt. More than anything, that’s what I want. We could be safe for a long time if we just… be careful. Hide.”
“Mom.”
Zest shook her head and pulled out of the hug. Tears still lingered in her eyes but she tried to look strong.
“If White Pheonix really is like me. You know what I’m going to say!”
“I do.” Sugarcoat nodded. “And… that’s why I love ponies like you. But promise me you won’t try to get ahead of me. I should be the one putting myself in danger for you. The other way around is unnatural.”
“But I don’t want anything bad to happen to you either!”
“That’s not the way the world works, Zest. The older generation sacrifices for the younger. One day–”
“Don’t! We don’t know that!”
“I suppose things are dire enough that you’re right. But please. Promise me you won’t get ahead of me. And if you do something stupid behind my back, you’ll take Indigo with you. If you can’t convince even her, then your plan is overwhelmingly stupid and reckless.”
“Will you… promise to not give up?”
Sugarcoat paused. Then nodded.
“Alright. I know I still need you,” Zest admitted. “I promise I won’t do anything alone.”
“Good. Then. If that’s the case, I’ll give you permission to go to MSI.”
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So many updates!
Sweet chapter too.
Hbbgbhbhbh I love these babies
ManEhattan?
Global warming would be pretty bad for Equestria.
i.imgflip.com/69pdq2.jpg
These two are so adorable. If anything bad happens to them I will just be so peeved. Peeved I say!
That's never a problem for me when epsilon-delta updates their stories
They gonna die a ghost death.
I like to contextualization of their relationship!
These few paragraphs on the geography of Far Reaches are just excellently done. They invoke such strong emotions of morbid fascination/existential dread. Fear of Cold, of Nothingness.
Wonderful stuff. I love it.
<3 <3 <3 <3
The end of the chapter was beautiful!!!