Of Chimeras

by Siofra

Underseer 2

We visited a café on the east side of town, the same side which my home lay. The harsh winter snow brought Aurora inside. There’s always been something about the comfort of warmth which has irked me. A familiar scent in the air, hot soup in my stomach, a pretty filly sitting before me… The feeling – in this moment – that none of my burgeoning duties mattered and the temptation to stay this way forever; it was repulsive.

Aurora sat wordlessly in front of a steaming cup. She just wrote. It reminded me of my navy days, before I became an admiral. They would sit you in a room and interrogate you, writing down every word you said. Only this time there was no speaking. Every so often, she’d look up from the page she’d engrossed herself in and sipped her hot water.

“Enjoying that?” I asked, submerging a brick of chewy bread into my soup.

“No,” Aurora said. “Breakfast is for workhorses. A studious mind requires something more… mentally nutritional.”

“Which is hot water?”

“Yes,” she said, reaching the end of her page. I could see her script becoming smaller as she struggled with the space she’d left herself. Her eyes returned to me frankly. “Purple Prose? Tell me what she’s like.”

“Smart,” I began. “Er, purple. What is it you’re writing exactly?”

“A report, the Princess insisted on it. Though I’ll need more paper.” She guzzled down the last of her hot water and stared at my soup impatiently. “By the way, we’ll need to pick up my dragon at the post office. He should be here by noon.”

“Now young filly, I never agree-”

“If you responded to Princess Celestia, perhaps she would have told you the precise terms of my stay. What right have you now to refuse?”

I dunked my bread bitterly into my seaweed bisque. There was no arguing with this pony, no arguing at all. Still, I remained curious about this report of hers. What did she have to report on? She barely just arrived.

---

To be frank, our visit at the café was unbearable. The last of my soup I did not enjoy, but hurrying it into me was preferable to Aurora’s silence. I led her to the centre of town, which was lit up wonderfully in the blue winter air. My navy jacket offered me warmth from the snow, though Aurora – despite her pink coat being bare – seemed unmoved by the cold. She breathed a sigh of relief however as we approached the large, hollow tree. Its branches were bare. I trotted in front of Aurora before she could stroll in unannounced. It was still early in the morning even by the time we’d finished our breakfast.

Prose did not answer. Instead, the door opened to a colt I’d quite recognised with his creamy coat and purplish black mane. He glared at me with his usual contemptuous glare, which buckled somewhat as he noticed Aurora. His brow perked upward.

“I thought that boat had sailed for you Admiral,” said Inkcap.

“This is Aurora Star, she’s staying with me while she’s in Ponyville. She’ll be overseeing our preparations.” Inkcap’s brow sunk back over his eyes. “Is Prose awake?” I asked, peering over behind him.

“She hasn’t not been awake!” said Inkcap. “Poor filly’s been up all night revising that ridiculous speech. Brought me over for… social inspiration. Whatever that means.”

“Being alone with one’s thoughts certainly degrades the mind,” I said. “Let us in. It’s freezing out here.”

Inkcap dragged the door wide open and I brought Aurora inside. I heard the scratching of pen on paper, but I saw nopony besides the three of us. My head followed the sound yet I saw nothing but shelves upon shelves of books. Inkcap pointed a hoof upward, toward one of the alcoves carved into the wall. Lying beside a window with a quill in her mouth was Purple Prose. The warm morning sun highlighted the bags under her eyes, hidden between her straight, red umber mane.

“Good morning, Prose!” I said. As she turned to face me, her eyes lagged behind her head. She gave a laboured smile.

“Morning Admiral,” she yawned. There were no ladders up to her alcove, nor did she seem at all intent on getting down. “You’re up early.”

“It seems we all are today,” I said, looking back at Inkcap for a moment.

Aurora was already poking around the library, much to Inkcap’s annoyance. He despised ponies moving around like flies and Aurora was making herself quite at home. She retrieved some paper from the table in the centre of the room. I cleared my throat.

“Erm… Prose, this is Aurora Star.”

“Yes, I heard you at the door. Oh, Sea Fair… Is this really necessary?” Her head rested over the ledge of her alcove. She stared down at us all lazily, swinging her head back and forth.

“… Yes, it is,” I said glancing at the disengaged Aurora. She had already resumed her writing. Inkcap was inching toward the door. “Aurora..?”

“Yes, yes…” she said, licking the nib of her quill. Her head spun to face Prose. “It’s quite late to be doing revisions, isn’t it?”

“I… er,”

“Believe me, it happens every year,” I interrupted. “The mayor is a hard stallion to work around.”

“Very hard,” blurted Prose. “And very… intolerable of my jokes.”

I let out a sigh that was quite a bit more audible than I wanted. This caught the attention of Aurora, who immediately and hastily began to take something down.

“Can I hear this speech you’re writing?” she asked. Prose shrunk back into her alcove.

“It’s really just a draft at the moment…”

Aurora shot Prose a sharp glare. Sharp enough to tear every book standing between the two ponies to ribbons. A glare that was then forwarded to me. Wordlessly, Aurora’s horn lit up dimly and before she knew it, the draft sitting between Prose’s hooves had been snatched away from her. Aurora’s razor-sharp eyes scanned the page. Her intense expression did not fade, if anything it had only gotten worse, shrivelling like a grape to raisin.

“Fillies and gentlecolts… ugh.” Aurora read the whole thing up and down in puzzlement. “I’m honoured to be giving this speech today… Is that necessary?” She continued reading, her eyes scanning left and right frantically. “First, I’d like to thank the…”

Aurora stomped the page under her hoof onto the table. Her eyes had shut in agitation. She took a deep breath, quill sweeping around the air in front of her before pressing against her report. Prose looked at me meekly. I shook my head.

“Aurora, I think in the interest of being an effective overseer, communication would be key.”

She silently continued her report until punctuating the thing with a vicious stab. She glared up at me with her lazy, empty eyes. “Where do I even begin? This entire speech is two pages – front and back – andhalf of that precious space is occupied with… petty congratulations!” Aurora stood from the table with the speech in her grasp. She was waving it around, now facing Prose. “Sweet apple acres I assume is an orchard?”

“Yes…” Prose said slowly, as if trying to follow Aurora’s wild trajectory.

“Then why are they being congratulated for record apple production? Its their job!” She trotted toward me and shoved the page into my face, throwing a hoof under one line in particular. “Ahem, ‘I’d like to thank the Cobblestone rock farm for their contribution to Ponyville’s developmental efforts’? What does any of this have to do with Hearth’s Warming?

“I admit, it does seem a little distracted.” I looked at the rest of the speech for a moment and witnessed some familiar clichés about harmony. “Really though, it’s only a speech. They rarely are spectacular.”

“Hearth’s Warming is about appreciation!” said Prose, standing to attention. The alcove’s roof was so low that she immediately bumped her head. “Ow…”

“Too specific, too long…” Aurora said conclusively. Her horn lit up brilliantly, and in a flash of light the paper was reduced to cinders. “Do it over, more concise this time. And I will be having a look at this play of yours.”

Prose’s face quivered. She sat back down in her little nook. Aurora trotted off deeper into the library, down to the basement. She took her report with her.

I clutched a ladder and spun it around the wall of the library, beneath Prose’s little recess. She shook her head.

“She’s right, Sea Fair. Maybe I need a little sleep.” She trotted off to another winding tunnel within the tree and I followed. “I don’t think Inkcap likes her.”

“I never thought he would,” I said. “I have a long day ahead of me, it would have been nice to… Oh, nevermind. I suppose he wandered off.”

“Don’t take it personally, we were in words before you arrived.” She lead me to a sleeping chamber in the tree and very suddenly I felt like an intruder.

“Words? Er… Should I be here?”

“I don’t mind,” she said. “I won’t be sleeping anyway, not until that filly of yours finds what she’s looking for.”

“Yes…” I pulled the agenda from my pocket and held it in front of me. “You know, I arranged to come see you in the morning because I thought you two would be fast friends. I suppose I don’t know you as well as I think, eh?”

“No, not well at all,” Prose chuckled. “Let me guess – Batterfly last?”

“That was the plan. You little ponies have a way of spoiling any plans I make, I woke up to that fanged menace knocking on my window yet again. The guest bedroom.”

Prose erupted into laughter, doubling over onto the bed she’d settled herself on. I could see her picturing the image in her head as I described it. The laughter settled into an efervescente giggle from which she found difficult to recover.

“That is perfect! Hm hm hehehe…” She laid down and rested her eyes, but any time she became a bit too peaceful, another fit of humming laughter quietly escaped. “Has she had a chance to see your handiwork? I’d be very surprised if she found something to complain about, ha ha ha!”

“You’re too kind,” I said, planting my flank on the floor. Celestia knows how long Aurora would take, so I may as well have taken advantage of Prose’s hospitality. “No, she hasn’t. First up is Angel Dove.”

The periodic giggling immediately halted. Prose’s head perked up from the frame of her bed. In that moment, I heard footsteps approaching from the stairs. Aurora came stomping in with a beltful of books hanging between her teeth.

“There you are!” she said, dropping the volumes at her hooves. “I’d like to lease these, please.”

Comments

[Herald of Opera]

The fun part about writing the past is that there will be fewer continuity issues with ignoring later seasons. Basically, unless Chrysalis shows up you don't actually need that "Alt Universe" tag (although keeping it anyway as a statement of intent is probably fine).

[Siofra]

11366212
Things will come up later which would definitely bother people were I not to include that tag. I really wouldn't consider it alternate universe for the most part as much as selective interpretation of canon, but its better to be safe than sorry.

[Herald of Opera]

selective interpretation of canon

Which is actually necessary in order to have a coherent universe in the first place because we care more about continuity than Hasbro did.