'Pants On Fire' Omitted Due To Local Lack Of Pants
There were a number of side effects associated with being Rainbow's friend, and that was when you looked beyond the frequent internal tendency to construct elaborate fantasy murder scenarios on a level more befitting to either a serial killer or a mystery novelist. (The writers possessed a stronger command of commas, while the serial killers tended to get out more and actually met people. Once each.) For starters, anypony who regularly associated with the weather coordinator was potentially going to pick up a fairly advanced knowledge of pegasus magic, because Rainbow absolutely wanted her friends to know that last stunt hadn't failed because of her. It was entirely the fault of inherent species limitations and in a more just world, those wouldn't even exist.
For example, there was the water issue. Pegasi were capable of manipulating bale-tons of it -- and simultaneously, would find themselves completely blocked by the contents of a 250-dram mug.
It was about dispersal. A pegasus could operate with water which had been spread thin within the atmosphere, strangling oxygen within chains of humidity or bound up inside the subtle matrices which created clouds. When the liquid was in a state where any given portion might struggle to reach a full dram of weight -- then a pegasus could readily move it. And when you totaled up all of the tiny amounts which were being shifted, considered just how much a cloud truly massed -- then it came in at bale-tons. Rainbow casually worked with numbers which Twilight couldn't shift --
-- and was utterly unable to command the contents of a hoof-deep puddle.
A pegasus could tell the vapor to coalesce, along with location and amount. But once it did, they lost nearly all future control. Any competent weather team could coax rain out of clouds, but it took the exceptionally tricky creation of a waterspout (and it had taken a few moons before Fleur had been given that story) to bring it back up again. And that was just manipulation of wind, while hoping the water would go along for the ride.
Bale-tons of vapor. But recreate the liquid state, and species magic would struggle to gain any degree of jaw grip. And Rainbow hated that. She could try to force humidity and vapor into becoming liquid in a hurry, the effort could be conducted along a determined path, and that was how a not-at-all-crashing Rainbow had tried to spontaneously invent the emergency speed-bleeding ground waterslide. Skid along the top of a now-slick surface, let momentum drop gradually...
Rainbow had spotted the ground tarpaulin at the construction site. She'd gotten the world's thinnest stream started, out to an initial distance of six body lengths. What she hadn't been able to do was control where the water went after that, and her body had gone along for the ride until the exact moment when the trail terminated at the pile of wooden beams.
(She'd once bitterly told Fleur that true control over liquids was clearly the domain of seaponies, Fleur had pointed out that seaponies didn't exist, and the weather coordinator had darkly noted that it was going to make lessons really hard to come by.)
But a talented pegasus could still manage a few tricks. For example, if the water was spread fairly thin -- say, absorbed by thousands of fur strands -- then it was possible to separate it from the hosting material. This could effectively dry somepony off all at once, but only if the pegasus was capable of getting the water far enough away to keep the subject from being resoaked by the inevitable splash.
Or, for a more advanced maneuver -- you could try to spread it out even more. Divide up the tiniest of droplets, and then subdivide beyond that. Do it again and again, and the result would be vapor. It was entirely possible, and the pegasus who attempted the feat with the pooled contents of the average cider mug would be defeated.
Still... when it was the body which had been thoroughly wetted down, a pegasus on Rainbow's level could at least make the attempt. And if they succeeded, then wisps of vapor would rise from fur and skin. Steam without heat.
Fleur, completely soaked by the humidity, her coat dripping into the street outside Caramel's residence, frustrated and angered and more than a little confused, had to settle for fuming.
The fuming didn't seem to be doing much.
I can't just pound my forehooves against his door. It'll make a scene.
A cinematic scene, but possibly not a literary one. Her escort duties had brought her to the premiere of that particular movie: she just didn't remember if the story had been a book first.
I need to speak to him in privacy. It's easier to dominate without an audience.
...I need to figure out what to say...
What could she say?
'You know I've been to parties in the capital. There were embassy staff members at a few of them. More than a few. Plus I used to live close to the Aviary -- the point is that I know how a normal tiercel acts, and that isn't it --'
'-- never mind who told me. Just because you're having bad luck with pegasi doesn't mean you need to try for anything with wings. Your truest inner desires have always been for pegasi, ever since what I'm guessing was your initial year of secondary school and what has to have been a mutual haypile hunt and look, anypony who's been around you for a week could work out most of this --'
'-- she's using you. She doesn't want you. I know what she wants. I always know --'
'-- I can't explain --'
'...please don't ask me to explain...'
The moisture in the air had already turned chill. It was now steadily bleeding out vital degrees as a not-distant-enough Princess took heat away from Fleur's part of the world. That was a good reason for shivering.
Sun was being lowered. Nothing about the descent was pressing vital sentences into her brain. And the humidity was a lot like being in Rainbow's hastily-woven cloud again, except that she would be able to see further for a few minutes because Sun was being lowered...
She needed words.
She couldn't think of any.
Nothing where the suddenly-resistant were guaranteed to listen.
Not when the sentences wouldn't ruin --
-- I need to think.
She also had to go back. Without Caramel, she no longer had an excuse for being in town.
Return to the cottage.
Place herself within that which destroyed thought or worse, tried to think for her...
Moon was mostly obscured by clouds, and there were portions of the path which didn't offer a lot in the way of clear sight lines to start with. This became especially true once she passed the mi --
-- passed the place where something had once been.
(She didn't look.)
As long as I stay alert.
As long as I stay focused...
The cottage was on the absolute border of the fringe. Technically within the realm of control -- but the wild zone was right there. And the mares laid down scent trails, along with utilizing other methods which had been intended to turn an imaginary line into something a little more solid -- but ultimately, they could only try to guard the edges of the property. They couldn't secure Ponyville. And there were times when no matter what anypony did... something would cross.
So she had to be on alert, especially at night. She'd heard timberwolves in the area before, there had been a sighting of a morboar... and if the area near Caramel's residence was sufficiently lacking in streetlamps to justify a letter to Town Hall, then the twisting trail to Fluttershy's residence was effectively begging for its own petition. It was easy to describe the artificial lighting in the region: there wasn't any. Creating a fully-lit, spell-secured path all the way from the bridge out of Ponyville to the cottage... that was beyond Fleur's budget, along with being well outside her casting capabilities. And with the veterinary service operating at increased levels of client traffic, there was a matching bump in hoof and wing travel to go with it. Some of which had to force itself to cross the distance under Moon, because emergencies didn't respect the clock any more than they cared for the calendar.
Monster sightings were rare. But even one constituted a total of Too Many. And you also had to consider the natural world, because animals might move through the area. Those whom Fluttershy had never spoken with: fully wild, operating entirely on instinct, and -- nervous. Disrupted, unsure of what was going on, because... the cottage was in the area, and it had its own scent. Something which reflected dozens of species living in close proximity. A population breakdown which normally would have produced prey corpses every night, because there were too many predators living in a small region and they didn't seem to be doing anything.
It confused newcomers. Put them on edge. And when a shaken, waiting-to-be-attacked animal darted past an equally nervous pony, when both parties were potentially on the verge of lashing out...
We need something. Permanent light placements, standing enchantments... eventually, the natural world learned to steer around those. That which nature would never truly claim would struggle to get close. But Town Hall had yet to place anything this far out. Fleur steered by what little moonlight was available. And that was just the base of it.
She had the option to add a few lumens, of course: no unicorn who'd gone through puberty ever truly had to fear the dark. But igniting her field, allowing the corona to temporarily illuminate the trail -- that had the potential to send vital sensory information scurrying away from her. Or worse, encourage it to come in from behind.
Besides, you couldn't rely on sight too much. Hearing had to play its part, especially when eyes could only move so far and ears had a little more rotation to work with. Scent could be essential -- but then you were trusting a little too much in the wind currents, while hoping that nothing which was lurking in the night knew how to avoid them. And if Fleur ever found herself completely relying on something like prey sense... then that meant sapience had effectively been discarded. She would be operating on instinct, and the tactics offered at that level came down to 'run' or 'kick'.
Stay alert.
Stay focused.
There were times when she found herself looking up, because she had her clearest sight lines on the vertical and there were some attacks which arrived by air. Then she realized that she was looking for Gilda.
Or -- Zephyr. Gilda was supposedly bound by a promise, at least for now -- but Fleur wouldn't have been surprised by Zephyr making some attempt to sneak onto the grounds at night.
Talk to him in a 'neutral setting'.
We wouldn't be on the grounds or in the heart of Ponyville. If I did see him, this would qualify --
She carefully examined the thought. Considered exactly what she was currently in the mood to deal with.
--not tonight.
This seemed to require an extra degree of reinforcement.
Not fornicatio tonight.
Also, there would be no fornicatio tonight. She wasn't in the mood for that either.
Think...
Except that she was having trouble focusing. Too dark, too much to think about when she needed to pay such close attention to her senses, and the air felt as if it was becoming more oppressive with every hoofstep. It wasn't the humidity: the Weather Bureau, in its infinite lack-of-wisdom, had scheduled an overnight clearing trend because that was the sort of thing you put in when just about nopony was around to enjoy it. It was the faint lights on the horizon, and the distant sound of a flowing stream. The first indications of the cottage.
It knew she was coming back.
She opened the door, and half of a beautiful face looked up from where the pegasus had been gently herding kittens towards what was meant to serve as their bed, and probably would for the first ten minutes.
"...I wasn't expecting you back so early," Fluttershy softly said. "Is everything okay?"
You lost another two decibels.
So no.
"He had other plans." Neutral words, carefully projected, under tight control.
"...I thought you said..."
"He changed his plans." Those syllables were permitted to carry a subtle undertone of frustration. "And I didn't know."
"...oh." The spectacular tail slowly shifted across the floor. "So, since you're back early --"
"-- I'm going out."
The one visible eye blinked.
"...you were just out."
"Out on the grounds," Fleur quickly clarified. "I want to check on the chicken coops. And a few other things."
The coral fall stilled.
"...oh," the pegasus quietly decided. "...all right." Slightly-oversized wings slowly began to unfold. "Did you want me to come with you --"
I need to think.
I can't be in here.
Maybe if I just go to the edge...
"-- no." The smile felt forced. "You've got enough to do." A small tilt of her horn indicated where a ball of mewling ineffective fury was attempting to roll into a corner. "I'll be back soon."
"...don't you want to dry off first? I knew the scheduled humidity was high, but..."
"I'll just get my fur soaked again," Fleur sighed. "It's better if I just get it over with and then clean up when it's done."
"...you're sure," didn't quite feel like a question.
"Yes."
Eventually, the pegasus nodded. Several mane strands slipped that much further forward.
She did check on the coops, because she couldn't try to vanish into the protection of verbal vagueness without clearing the directly-stated part first. The structures were full of chickens and because Moon was up, they were asleep. (Chickens had a tendency to rest from dusk until dawn, and did so regardless of the actual duration: winter had them in the nests for most of the day.) Fleur briefly considered waking one in order to give her a witness, but... someone should be getting the benefit of their rest and
the dreams are changing
it probably wasn't going to be her.
Fleur moved around the grounds for a while. Checking on various things, because there was always work to be done. At one point, she passed the place where she'd once seen a random grouping of debris, and forced her knees to operate normally.
And then she was at the border. Still on the grounds, but within a few body lengths of the wild zone. Following the same trail as the herb drag...
The unicorn looked up. Checked the other side of the border.
Moon was providing a little more illumination now. She could see wet branches, dripping leaves. It had clearly rained earlier, and fairly heavily. But on her side... the clouds were starting to clear, and humidity was slowly dropping. It was becoming somewhat easier to breathe.
To think.
She automatically glanced towards the cottage.
Let me think.
The sprawling structure said nothing. It wasn't capable of the act and furthermore, had no need for it. Speech added to static inanimate smugness would have mostly been redundant.
Fleur began to trot.
He's my charge.
She'd never asked for Caramel as a charge, and there had certainly been no plans to take him on. It had just -- ended up that way. It wasn't as if he even knew, and telling him what a charge was would have meant having to explain everything else.
I'm supposed to look out for him.
That was the most basic definition.
I need to bring him to the point where he can go on without me.
That was the core of the advanced one.
Except that Caramel wasn't ready.
She glanced up towards Moon again. Checked for monsters, griffons, and pegasi. Trotted forward, as saturated fur dripped onto damp grass.
Of course he isn't ready.
He's not even capable of grooming himself.
Which wasn't quite accurate. Caramel was perfectly capable of choosing and, with the now-defunct, near-constant assistance of a manestylist, maintaining the sort of look which had once rendered him into a Type. He just had a distinct tendency to make lousy choices. He specialized in the sort of decision which was so horrible as to effectively render itself personally invisible, because his mind refused to recognize the full scope of it.
For example, he had decided that Fleur was his friend --
-- her legs froze. Nearly locked.
-- stop it.
I chose him.
As a source of information, and somepony who could be --
-- used.
The easy target.
The designated victim.
...Fluttershy needed to learn about rejection. First she had to accept that somepony could be interested in her, then she needed to actually say yes to a date and I was more than ready to settle for '...yes', and then if she wasn't feeling anything towards him, if a mare whose puzzle was a blank. white. slate. at the time hadn't taken on that first tinge of color, she had to push somepony away. He was attracted to pegasi above all else, he'd thought about her, and...
Would the date have been anywhere near as bad, if Discord hadn't interfered? No. But Fleur couldn't really picture it as having been good. In her opinion, without the sort of instant chemistry which mostly existed in the kind of movies that pretended there was a workable formula, nothing would have gotten beyond the third date. And if it had somehow seemed to have been working, a first shot miraculously hitting the target --
-- I would have encouraged it. Tried to make sure it lasted. Because that was the fastest way out of my sentence --
-- she'd... told herself that at the time. That if there had been a chance at love between the two, she would have done whatever was necessary to make sure it caught.
Except that she'd been -- sliding. And she didn't know exactly when the descent into love had started, because she'd refused to recognize that anything had been happening at all. Rotate the reels back to that doomed first date, and -- if it had all gone differently, if a spark had caught -- would she have already been deep enough to initiate her own sabotage? Determining, just as Discord had, that Caramel wasn't good enough, and begun making arrangements to remove him?
She didn't know.
Move.
I'm not accomplishing anything by just standing here. Just... move.
After a moment, her hooves began to shift again. Almost gliding across the damp ground.
...ultimately, it didn't matter. The date had been a reputation-wrecking disaster, and the sheer scope of the humiliation had allowed her to discover that somehow, Caramel still had a portion of reputation which could be wrecked. And after that, with the exception of a faint chance at any potential helpful information about Ponyville and the Bearers, she'd pretty much been done with him --
-- but he had a ferret. He came to the cottage once a week, because he was trying to keep the true love of his life alive. They'd kept seeing each other. And it had allowed her to witness the ways in which he ultimately owned the disaster, turned it into a source of outwards-directed laughter, started to come back...
He was... somepony who had the potential to be better. If he just had the right guidance.
And that was where Fleur came in.
So she'd done her best to get him under control. Set a budget for the gifts. Pay off every last loan over time, get him to the point where he was living on his salary: ideally, this would then be followed by saving up. Offer dating advice, along with not-so-subtle nudges in the right directions. Train him to listen to her first and, for certain situations, only. Especially when basic common sense was required and on matters like 'Do not attempt to go out with the linkless griffon', he clearly wasn't at the point where he could manage that on his own --
-- for every potential means of domination, there was a griffon.
The green pegasus... had her own pieces, and they hadn't contained any hues which Caramel had been willing to match.
But he'd been Fleur's charge for over a year.
Maybe he'd just grown accustomed to being bossed around --
-- this is not my fault --
-- wings moving overhead, almost silent but not quite, Fleur looked up, a pale face and huge dark eyes briefly stared down --
-- barn owl.
A familiar one. Not a resident, but one of those who knew to seek the cottage when hurt, and so obeyed the rules when on the grounds. Effectively harmless --
-- is it?
She paused in her trot again. Thought, as Moon silently watched.
And when it came to making observations of the immigrant, Moon wasn't necessarily alone.
Fleur wasn't Equestrian. She didn't think the same way as the natives -- which, when it came to a depressingly large number of subjects, had the locals barely thinking at all. Weather control: something which was just about taken for granted -- while still generating complaints because it wasn't being done to their standards. The settled zones created a degree of safety and protection, so why even consider venturing out? And when it came to their own marks...
They dreamed of manifest, when they were young. Getting the right mark.
Eventually, their flanks blazed. Hips glowed. And when it was over, the vast majority would have touched their truest self. Come into contact with their soul. Something which would quite literally mark their lives.
They would find themselves in possession of new magic. Fresh potential. And they would investigate the possibilities.
For about a moon.
Equestrians, by and large, took their own marks for granted. Treated the core of their existence as a given. Brushed the surface of it, told themselves there was nothing more to learn, and -- stopped.
It was, in Fleur's opinion, more than a little insulting.
She'd investigated the dubious gifts which had risen from her own tainted miracle more deeply than nearly anypony ever would have considered trying. Pushed to the limits, because that was what she'd had to do. And so when it came to thinking about pony talents, Fleur had a rather simple, fully-consistent standard to apply:
'What could I do?'
Keep moving.
Rotate my ears. Listen. Check for all the little sounds.
Make sure I'm not being tailed.
She'd thought about what she could do, with Fluttershy's talent. And in Fleur's opinion, the spying potential was almost unlimited.
How many small mammals were present on a given section of open land? She had an answer to that: an acre would typically host about a hundred, and quite possibly more. But, just as much to the point -- how many could a pony actually hope to spot?
'...follow her. Please. Tell me what she does. What she says --'
-- not quite that last. An animal spy could report back on Fleur's actions, but wouldn't be capable of recognizing the vast majority of pony sounds. Recreating was right out --
-- she could use a parrot. Something which could try to duplicate any noises.
The wince was almost automatic.
Or a lyrebird.
Another lyrebird.
They'd hosted one during the previous summer, and an avian which was capable of precisely echoing anything it heard because the bird was under the permanent delusion that one of those noises had to attract a mate and would happily run through words, sounds, and thunder in the attempt... had gotten off the grounds and gone directly into town.
Which had resulted in a surprisingly long chase, because that false thunder had a way of disrupting the concentration of anypony who was trying to catch it.
And then they'd discovered that the bird's long-distance trip to the cottage had allowed it to overhear a number of monsters.
The avian could duplicate those sounds too. At full volume, typically from a distance of three hoofwidths.
...it had taken about an hour for the herd to collectively decide that there was a new menace on the loose. Fluttershy and Fleur had tried to tell a few what was actually happening (generally with one in full gallop and the other pushing for the best air speed she could manage while lecturing on the wing), and all that had done was set up an series of more accurate panicked cries. Which had mostly emerged as "LYRE! LYRE!"
(A high percentage of Ponyville's population had been born outside the settled zone. Nearly all of them had brought their native intonations with them. A number tended to slur terminal vowels.)
(Bon-Bon, whose spouse nearly wound up being implicated by accent, had needed a few days to calm down.)
Eventually, the bird had been caught. It had taken another two weeks before Fleur and Fluttershy had mostly been forgiven or rather, until something else happened and the entire settled zone focused on that. (Fleur still insisted that none of it had been her fault.)
But the incident had revealed another small part of her love's ultimate capabilities. Because there was an animal in the world which could reproduce sounds exactly -- and all Fluttershy had to do was ask what it had heard.
And would the pegasus ever consider doing that? Yes: Fleur was sure of it. If there was a mission which required that kind of relay and the species lived in the area, then Fluttershy would ask. Reluctantly, while being worried about its safety -- but the request would be made.
A request. Not an order. And with Fluttershy... 'I'm worried about Fleur: please keep an eye on her and tell me if anything happens...' ...well, the unicorn had been watched on the grounds before. Because in Fluttershy's view, that was protection.
That was part of how the pegasus saw the talent. As something meant to communicate, assist, and aid. And she would absolutely spy on Fleur -- out of concern. And love.
But it was still spying. And if Fluttershy was doing that, if the owl hadn't just been coincidence, then it meant that Fleur didn't have true privacy. All she could keep to herself were thoughts, and those were only controlled when she was awake because the dreams were changing and --
-- try to look normal.
Lock down the anger.
Push everything back.
Don't let anything visibly leak.
It's only because she cares --
-- it's still spying...
Fleur tended to view talents in terms of their ultimate limits. How far she could have pushed them, if only her life had been different.
Fluttershy: how can you hide from all of them? You can't. There's no escape. They're everywhere, and so am I.
Joyous: it doesn't matter what you were. You're mine.
Twilight: it's all mine...
...that's not me any more.
(Was it?)
What can I tell Caramel?
He was supposed to listen. The charge obeyed the guardian.
(The guardian had to recognize when the charge was ready to go on without them.)
(Caramel wasn't.)
How do I get him away from Gilda?
Without telling him more than absolutely necessary.
...preferably while telling him somewhat less than that.
Without telling him...
...about me.
If he knew...
She didn't truly notice when her pace accelerated. The unicorn's mind was racing, and it meant her thoughts were going in a circle without closing in on the distant lead, let alone crossing a finish line because she didn't have an answer and she was trying to create one while sight and hearing and scent were on full alert and she just kept pushing forward along the damp grass of the border and she didn't really register anything from touch until her left forehoof went into the mud.
All of the force behind that trot pushed, and the keratin sunk. The limb dipped into the earth, submerged to the fetlock, she stumbled as every instinct tried to bring her to a halt before she broke something, the right foreleg tried to brace and then that was going down --
-- she just barely managed to stop, and felt several muscles protest the abrupt deceleration. Several of them were in her neck, because twisting momentum had sent her head forward and down: she was mere hoofheights away from having her horn in the grass and, given her what lowered eyes could now see, the mud.
Fleur furiously jerked her head back. Isolated sections of pain waved across her musculature to each other, then decided to make friends.
The unicorn carefully looked down. Glared at every part of the wallow which Moon would let her see, then braced her hind hooves against what was still solid ground and did her best to rear up while jumping backwards at the same time --
-- she stayed where she was for a few seconds. Listened for wings and, by the total lack of whirring sounds heading for the cottage, determined that Fluttershy had not been spying on her.
...or it was something ground-based and they were going to need a minute.
No. Birds would have been more practical.
And I'm sure I didn't fall on anyone.
The mare slowly, painfully forced herself out of the wet grass. Stood up, oriented on the cottage, and squelched her way towards the back entrance. There was at least a theoretical chance to reach the bathtub without being seen if she came in from the back, although there were going to be some problems with wiping out her own trail.
Water dripped from her grass-stained coat. Clumps of mud fell away from her pasterns. Her mane decided it was a good time to show empathy and did so by having the last of the soaked styling come apart.
Disordered. Filthy. Somewhat less than attractive. And somehow, that wasn't the worst of it.
She still didn't have an answer.
Any answer.
She didn't know what to tell her charge.
What kind of guardian...?
No. That question had an answer.
The kind who can't even beat a stick.
She briefly looked up. Moon, which had seen the whole thing, kept its silence. No pegasus or griffon laughter echoed through the night.
The cottage waited. Loomed.
The mare forced herself forward.
"So you're going to do this again," the griffon told him, and then lazily stretched out across the nearest Moon-lit, half-coalesced cloud. "Only this time, you'll do it right."
There was a single instant in which Zephyr briefly considered kicking it out from under her. Dispersing the perch, because it was night and in his opinion, he was supposed to either be in bed, a bar, or somepony else's bed. She had him in the sky, standing on a cloud which wasn't supposed to be there any more, and she was telling him to work.
He was sure that he could break up her resting place with what might be a single move, and he was almost certain that she couldn't do anything to keep it together. Zephyr didn't think griffon magic worked like that, mostly because he'd been trying to remember what it was and since nothing had come back to him, it probably wasn't important. But it didn't feel like she could reinforce a cloud.
Then again, she could just move to the other one.
Or the other-other one.
Or the other, other, other...
...they were coming back together. Reclumping. Everything he'd put a little effort into, all of the work, was just undoing itself...
"You're just lucky," the openly lazing griffon declared.
"HOW?" was somewhat louder than he would have liked.
"You've got me here," she told him, and the smirk didn't have to be etched across an inflexible beak when it had already saturated the voice. "And she probably didn't come out to inspect this yet. Probably."
Zephyr blinked.
"She'd do that?"
"Oh, yes." The parting of the edges, however, still represented a smile. "You're just lucky I took the night off and decided to check on you. Or you'll be lucky if there's still time. So you'd better fix this in a hurry, hadn't you?"
With the kind of open frustration which was fully justified by the existence of unpaid overtime, "Why can't you just do it--"
"-- will you take 'griffon' for an answer?" the tiercel yawned.
He managed to keep his tail from lashing. It wasn't good for the look. Also, he'd had to settle for low-cost bonding gels, and you couldn't push those too hard.
Zephyr didn't enjoy working. He didn't understand how anypony could. He firmly believed that the best way to do just about anything was to get somepony else to do it for him. And the terminal syllables were tripping him up, because he was down to 'anyone'. Stuck with a griffon.
Working was pain. Therefore, the prospect of having to do any part of it more than once had to be torture.
"I can't do it," she casually shrugged. "Not my magic. Yours." The golden eyes abruptly narrowed. "But I know how it's done. Which means I know what you didn't do."
"And what's that?" was just barely pushed out between half-gritted teeth and a new kind of internal agony.
In a completely matter-of-fact tone, "You broke up the clouds. Not the moisture. And now you're going to fix it, because we kind of need you to keep your job if any of this is going to work."
"How --"
"Squint those pretty eyes," she condescendingly told him. "Switch your sight. You know how to do that, right? But you're not looking for heat. You want humidity. Water in the air. The little twinkles. Focus on that. And once you've got it, I'll give you the next step."
She probably doesn't really like my eyes...
Zephyr looked at her. He was still having trouble reading her own gaze. Were griffon eyes supposed to shift around that much? Did they always track whatever was moving, on instinct?
There had also been times when they seemed to lose focus.
When she wasn't looking at anything.
As if there was nothing to see --
-- she was probably just tired. He felt like he could have cared a little about that if she hadn't gotten him up.
"You'll fix it here," she ordered. "Then we'll check any other site she put you on. Hope you got a lucky wind current, colt. Something wild, which decided to care about you." Snidely, "Not impossible, right? But it didn't come here, because it didn't love you that much." And then her voice shifted into full smirk again. "And what's that face?"
He couldn't keep the tightness out of his words. "I hate doing things more than once." And I'm not a colt.
"So try doing it right the first time." Another shrug. "Tell me when you can see the humidity. We're wasting moonlight."
He forced himself to focus, reported the results. She gave him instructions. Telling him how to do something which she was utterly incapable of, making it into an order, and then it became multiple orders because she would only give him the next tiny wing flap after he'd cleared the last, this was all stuff he'd previously decided he didn't need to know, things which had been ignored because he wasn't --
-- he didn't want to --
-- why is this...
"Now that face," the griffon bemusedly declared, "I know. It's working. The humidity's breaking up. And you can't believe I'm the one who told you how to do it."
"How can you..." No: he could push on this one, because it was a natural question. "How can you know what to do? You can't see --"
"-- I had a good teacher," she stated. "So now you've got one. Keep going, colt. And then we'll clear out for the next."
It took nearly an hour to redo all of it, with the griffon assuring him that she was watching for any approach, could get out of sight in a hurry and if there were any questions, he could just tell his boss that he'd been double-checking on his own work. That devoted to the job. And he'd better be ready to present that explanation regardless, because there was a good chance that the boss would be looking deeper into it than just seeing if the sky was clear. She might inspect his weave and see how fresh it was.
She didn't want him to lose access to the overwound bundle of energy. And for now, neither did he.
Zephyr finished. They left.
The prismatic arrived eighty minutes later. Looked over the area, as Moon watched her features twist between frustration and reluctant acceptance.
Rainbow flew away.
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This is in
The Triptych Continuum Rebooted (group)
AU (folder)
Praise be to the Lyrebird!
Glad to see you back on the horse, dear Estee.
I think this is first time anyone actually mentored zephyr to do a proper job, it ironically something he needs done to help him grow, even if it been done for selfish reasons.
And I hope rainbow dash comes to realise she become no better then her previous boss, in trying to find a reason to fire zephyr.
11752165
There's clear similarities, but if Gilda weren't here, she'd be warranted in firing him because he's not doing good work.
...
He got a talent to coast and not think too hard about pegasus techniques because thinking about them means thinking about his parents' job and stuff. mmm. Trauma-based mark, or something. Parallels!
----
Liar, Liar title reference! Ha!
So much lying happening! How much has Fleur been injured by her fall, if at all? Hiding her vulnerability behind makeup and stuff. hmm.
Rainbow the teacher by proxy! Heh. Chapter opening very relevant to both sections!
11752220
if Gilda wasn't here he not have this job in the first place, too much hard work for zephyr, personally i think he got Autism, not really trauma based, but still zephyr needs a real mentor, someone who kick him in the flank when he needs it, but also has his best interest at heart, currently he got those who want to get rid of him, those who want to use then discard him, regardless of who succeeds either option will end badly for both zephyr and fluttershy
and if he half assed work and rainbow found out normally , it be fine to fire him, but here she deliberately trying to find reason to get rid of him and that the problem
What's a morboar, anyway?
👍
11752697
It's a boar, but more.
Really nasty, aggressive, do not want.
Moon's tears but it's painful to see Fleur falling apart like this.
It's hard to tell if she is just unwilling to reveal the full truth about herself even to save Caramel's life (which genuinely might be in danger if she can't stop him from going out with Gilda), or if she's so traumatized that she is literally unable to consciously perceive full Honesty as an option here, but either way it is still a painful demonstration of how far she still has to go before she is healed.
Huh. I'd been beginning to wonder if Zephyr was so sloppy with his techniques because he had some kind of disability and his pegasus senses weren't functional, the way Twilight was before she figured out how to touch her inner Rainbow. But no, it sounds like his pegasus senses work just fine, so it really is just extreme laziness... though the way he is reacting hints that it's something a little more pathological than laziness as conventionally defined, that there is some kind of trauma or mental disorder intertwined with the laziness. Though if I'm right and his mark is for coasting through life, it may be nothing more than a moderate case of falling and him having to defy his Mark-defined nature for the first time in years if not decades.
11752165
I'd disagree with that, actually. Rainbow has good reason to distrust both Zephyr's character (based on what she knows about the way he treated Fluttershy) and his work ethic (based on what she's seen happen with his previous jobs), so she has a justification to keep a close eye on him and make sure he's doing the job right.
Fleur being concerned that she had inadvertently driven Carmel into the paws of a domineering, mentally unstable, griffon is a reasonable fear. She may not have had anything to do with it, but it's legitimate concern.
Not being willing/knowing how to talk to Carmel about who she was, and how she knows things she's trying to advise/guide him on is another matter.
11753161
11753492 Fleur dose consider the concept of Honesty as a virtue to be some massive joke the ponies are playing ...
You know, the more the verse says seaponies don't exist, the more I believe they actually do. Especially since the ponies have an elemental theming going on with earth ponies being earth, pegasi being air, and unicorns getting the scattershot leftovers (energy maybe?). All that's missing are fire ponies and whatever the heck is going on with the crystal ponies
11753957
i think i once read a story saying that Seaponies USED to exist, but Discord killed them off by turning the water into Taffy...
and a few other stories where Seaponies were VERY violent, "there is no overkill" levels of nasty!
for example, there's a chapter of "mlp time loops" that's a short crossover with the movie "Aliens", where the Marines were Seaponies.
they not only nuked the city, the nuked the planet to PIECES, knocked the pieces into the star, then blew up the star!
A morboar, you say. I’m going to assume it’s vampiric until further notice.
In all seriousness, Fleur’s state is deeply tragic, made all the more so by how her trauma-scarred decision process has both led her to it and locked her out of any viable solution. If she could just trust someone, if she could bear to bare her heart and actually talk about her feelings, she’d find nothing but receptive ears. But to expose herself is death. To show weakness is (perhaps literally) unthinkable. And to divulge the truth of her origins when there is literally any other choice, even letting Gilda win, is anathema.
And why is that? Because, just as she thinks of what she could do with another pony’s talents, she can’t help but assume they’ll do what she would in any given circumstance. (Or, at the very least, the worst thing she can think of doing.) For all that she intellectually recognizes that Equestrians don’t think like her—and in some cases, barely think at all—she still keeps watch for the worst sorts of things her mind can conceive. Even to the point of muscle straining paranoia and kind of blind panic that made the Greeks think there were ghosts specifically devoted to frightening horses.
It’s not always the cottage that keeps Fleur from thinking. Sometimes it’s even closer to home.
Meanwhile, Gilda is ironically the best thing that’s ever happened to Zephyr. For now. We’ll see how long that lasts…
Hmm, some interesting parallels with charges and guardians.
it will be intersting so see if Gilda ends up either slowly coming back through actually ending up creating a proper link with Zephyr, or we are going to get a dark twisting of how such a relationship should work.
Thanks for writing!
11755724
Oooooouh that's an incredibly good observation! It does feel a bit like it's going in that direction with the end of this chapter; Gilda taking charge of Zephyr because he's so painfully obviously unprepared to take care of himself. I'm excited to see where Etsee takes it.