Chapter 35: New Information
It was Friday afternoon, about three. The sun was high in the sky. as it would be during a normal summer afternoon, people were outside relaxing, as they would on a Friday, and in general, most things were alright, as they were most of the time.
Most didn't mean all, however.
In the Ponyville hospital, in a room that had several layers of magical protection to keep things from coming inside, or going outside, things weren't alright.
Nemo paced the in her room in front of the wall with the window. She was worried, very worried, and scared as well. Why? The pri- no, A princess was coming to visit.
The memory of her nightmare was still fresh in her mind and she was scared that the princess would hurt her again. However, she could not say no to the visit, nor could she hide or run, and so, she had tried figuring out how she'd keep herself safe.
After deep thought, she had come up with one thing: don't let her become angry.
In her nightmare, she had lied to the princess and made her angry, so, she suffered. When she had left her room untidy yesterday, the nurse had reprimanded her. When she still walked on two legs and had hands, her father would punish her for her bad behaviour and rebelliousness. When her master had hurt her, it was because she had failed to do as he said.
The common pattern that she found was that every time she suffered, it was by her own fault, and so, she had to remove whatever faults she could.
The first fault she had found here was that her room wasn't neat, and as far as she knew, the ponies like cleanliness a lot, and therefore, the princess would like it a lot more.
She had cleaned her room as well as she could; all the toys were put away in the box next to the window, all the books were neatly stacked next to that box, whatever drawings she had made were hidden away in the drawers of the little table next to her bed, and everything was as neat as it could be.
However, she still wasn't happy with all that. Next, she had groomed herself the best she could in front of the bathroom mirror. She combed her hair, washed her face, even tried preening her feathers even though she didn't know how to. However, that wasn't enough either. Her right wing still had bandages on it, making it look ugly, and no matter how much she tried, she could not convince herself that she didn't look like the wretched thing she was.
Now, she just paced along the windowed wall, hoping that everything she had done was enough even though she felt in her heart that it wasn't enough.
Nemo paused all of a sudden, her ears swivelling to face the door and her face panicked. For a moment, it was silent. Then, she heard it.
The sound of hooves on the floor.
It HAD to be the princess. Nemo quickly looked around, trying to find anything that looked out of place, anything that could get her in trouble, anything that shouldn't be there, but she found nothing. The hoof-steps came closer and closer to her door, and with each step, Nemo's heart sank a little bit more.
At last, they stopped right outside the door and all was quiet for a few, very tense moments. Nemo's ears were pinned down and all her attention was at the door as she watched it fearfully as if it were going to be kicked in. Then, there was knocking on the door. The air in the room grew still in the ensuing moments of silence, and then-
"Nemo, I've come to remove your bandages," said the familiar voice of Nurse Sweetheart from the other side. She opened the door and walked in all by herself, letting Nemo relax a bit. She still had time till the princess came.
Nemo still wasn't in the clear though.
The ponies seemed nice but they would turn the moment she behaved badly in any way, and she had to keep that in mind at all times.
The nurse motioned for her to get onto the bed and she did that, and without any prompting, she stretched out her right wing, letting the nurse take off the bandages. Nemo had thought once about whether or not she could fly in her new body, but so far, she didn't know id she could. However, now that she could see her wing, she figured that she might be able to.
The wing looked mostly alright, unlike what it looked like three weeks ago. Some of the feathers were bent or out of place and now that they were exposed to the air, she could feel how they felt out of place, and now that she could feel it, she wanted to straighten them out.
"Hmm, do you need help with preening those?" the nurse asked Nemo as she disposed of the dirty bandages, to which Nemo shook her head no. There was no need to trouble the nurse. The nurse then said, "The princess will be here in about ten minutes. I'll leave you to it till then."
Once the nurse was gone, Nemo relaxed a bit but it wasn't for long as the dread of having the pony princess visit her came back. It wasn't as bad as before, probably since the nurse hadn't said anything about her room being untidy or Nemo looking ugly, but it was still there. She started straightening the feathers out, preening as the nurse had called it, and found that it was somewhat calming.
Princess Luna walked through the halls of the hospital silently, following a nurse. Not much was going through her mind since she had planned out what exactly she would do when she met the filly. What was she going to do? First of all, she was going to apologise to her for causing her pain and scaring her. Then, she was going to finish sealing her mind so that nothing else could ever take control of her.
However, for all that to happen, Luna had to make sure that Nemo doesn't get scared of her, and she doubted that things would go that way.
The nurse stopped in front of a door and opened it, letting Luna hear a few panicked hoof-steps within the room as it opened. Once the door was fully opened, Luna peeked inside, letting her see that Nemo was sitting on her bed, barely hiding her fear. Luna sighed and stepped into the room, closing the door behind her.
Luna could tell very easily that Nemo was scared of her. Her wings were twitching, her fur stood on its end, she kept shifting nervously where she sat, her ears were pinned down, and her eyes kept darting to the bathroom door. Luna stood silently for a moment, thinking, and then she stepped forward to Nemo.
Nemo did her best to not immediately hide behind her hooves when the princess stepped forward, and she succeeded in that. However, she did flinch, and that made the princess frown, which was very bad in Nemo's mind. She didn't have time to chastise herself for that though, as the princess came up to her side and sat down on the bed beside her. Nemo would have put distance between herself and the princess but it wouldn't do her any good to do that.
Luna took a deep breath, thinking what she'd say. Nemo just kept getting more stressed as Luna stayed quiet. Finally, Luna looked down at her and spoke, "I've come for some important work, but more importantly, I wish to apologise to you, Nemo."
Nemo, to put it simply, did not expect to hear that. She had never in her life been apologised to by someone older than her, not genuinely at least, and so, it took her a minute to process that. Once she processed it though, she figured that it probably wasn't anything genuine. A small part of her wished that it was not how she thought it was.
Luna continued, trying to ignore how the filly didn't seem to believe her, "What happened that night in your dream was... was unfortunate and my sister's behaviour didn't help either. I didn't mean to cause you pain; I only wished to stop any more monsters from coming after you."
Nemo nodded, still unsure of the apology despite Luna's clearly visible guilt.
"I... I've hurt a lot of people in my time, but today is perhaps the first time I could try apologise to one of them. I doubt you will accept my apology but it is good to know that I could at least give you one."
Luna then looked away to stare at the carpet quietly as memories popped up in her mind, each one stinging her just a little.
Nemo watched as the princess's sadness grew despite her not doing anything. She was still unsure about the princess's apology but no matter how she put it in her head, it looked to be genuine. The words didn't seem hollow, she hadn't tried dismissing how Nemo felt, and now, she didn't seem as dangerous as she did. In fact, now that Nemo thought about it, in that dream, only the other princess had been bad.
Nemo slowly reached out with a hoof, her fear still present but not so much so that it stopped her from seeing that the princess was truly sad. Perhaps, the princess didn't mean any harm ever and was nice. She ended up touching the princess's foreleg, making her glance Nemo's way.
Wordlessly, the princess put one of her wings around Nemo. The leathery appendage felt weird but strangely warm to Nemo, who had mostly forgotten her fear now. Together, they sat in silence for a few minutes.
Eventually, Luna said, "Tell me Nemo, do you think you can trust me?"
"W- why?" Nemo asked, looking up at her questioningly.
Luna drew in a long breath before answering, "Your mind is still exposed to the world beyond, and I have to seal it properly this time, but I'll need your permission if I want to do that."
"Will it hurt?" Nemo continued, hoping the answer would be 'no'.
"Yes, it will hurt for some time," Luna said, giving her the truth.
"D- do we have to do it?" At least this one could be a 'no'?
"Unfortunately, yes, we have to. The things from beyond will see your exposed mind and take control of it to further their own goals, and that is a threat to everyone's security," Luna explained, withholding one detail for a moment since she wasn't sure if she should say it. However, the filly deserved to know, and so, she continued, "My sister will not tolerate that and... the consequences will be harsh on you. She has had ponies like you, agents of the eldritch as she calls them, punished... severely, and I do not want that to happen to you."
While she didn't explicitly say the kind of magical torture and death an agent would be put through to remove them from the world entirely, she did convey the severity of what would happen to the filly if she didn't do what Luna had asked of her. Luna felt guilty since she seemingly taken away the choice from the filly and it showed on her face very well.
Nemo, on the other hand, looked very troubled. She didn't know what exactly would happen to her but she knew that none of it would be good, and so, she asked with fear in her voice, "What- what do we have to do?"
"Come here," Luna said as she got off the bed and sat down close to the center of the carpet. Nemo got off the bed as well and sat down opposite to Luna. Once she sat down, Luna's horn lit up ans she said, "Now, this part won't hurt but it will feel strange. I'll have to cast a spell that lets us into your mind."
Nemo nodded, not understanding much about what Luna was doing, but she didn't stop her, letting Luna bend down and touch Nemo's horn with her own.
A blue coloured pulse went out from where their horns touched, and suddenly, the world felt a lot more... different. Nemo couldn't tell what exactly had changed, but she knew something had. She looked around once Luna got up after finishing her spell, and saw that they were still in the hospital room, and that nothing seemed to have changed. The carpet was still there, the window still had bars, the bed-
The bed was gone.
In its place was an all too familiar mattress. It was old and covered in stains of all kinds, and it was torn at its corners, letting one see the yellow foam that it had inside. It had a simple brown cloth on it that served as a blanket, and Nemo could make out a depression on the bed, vaguely in the shape of a person, under the blanket and that confirmed her suspicion.
It was her old bed.
She looked around again, and the room had changed. The bright coloured walls had been replaced by familiar brown wooden walls, and the carpet was gone. There was no furniture in the room now, but there was still a window and it was still barred.
Nemo was in her old room.
Immediately, her breathing became rapid and her head turned to the door and her ears perked up, listening for the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. There was not a single sound. However, she was still scared and right now, all she wanted to do was run away.
Suddenly, she felt a hoof at her shoulder, making her jerk her head that way to see who it was.
It was the princess looking down at her with concern and pity. "I take it that this isn't a place you like very much."
"A- are we alone?" Nemo asked, hoping that none of the people who lived in the town were there.
"We should be. There won't be any danger to us here; it is your mind after all," Luna answered as she rubbed a hoof on the filly's back to comfort her. Wherever they were, Nemo didn't like it at all, and if she became too agitated, the spell would break and that wasn't something that would feel great and so, Luna couldn't allow it to happen. As much as she disliked it, she had to cast a certain few spells that would keep Nemo from being too scared from whatever she saw. Manipulating someone's emotion through magic might have been illegal, but it was necessary here to prevent anything worse from happening.
Luna took Nemo's hoof in her own and looked down at her with a reassuring smile. "Come with me, we must find the breach in your mind."
The princess opened the door and led the filly through. Nemo was somewhat less scared knowing the princess was with her (and also due to the effect of the fear suppressing spells), and so, she went along without any protest. The two went down a small flight of stairs that led them into a moderately sized room.
The room had a bed in a corner, a sofa against a wall, and a chair stacked with clothes. Adjacent to the room was a small kitchen which had no real distinguishing features other than being cleaner than the rest of the 'house'. Nemo looked at the downstairs area with slight nervousness for a bit before she looked to the large door that would lead outside.
Luna opened that door as well, letting them both out into the settlement that was once Nemo's home. There wasn't much, just a few buildings in a circle, all made out of wood or metal scrap, probably houses, and one large building which had a cross above its door. Besides the buildings, there was a wall all around the settlement, and in the empty area in the center of it all was a simple wooden platform that Luna assumed was for delivering addresses to a crowd. Nemo looked around sadly, unhappy that she was back here once again.
The sky above was dark with just a few stars every now and then and no moon to be seen. However, what caught their eye was a large rainbow coloured crack that spanned across it. It looked quite similar to a cracked window, and its colours shifted, never staying the same in one place for more than a few seconds.
"Is that it?" Nemo asked, looking up at the crack, slightly enthralled by its shifting colours.
"Yep, that's the breach," came the answer from someone in front of them.
Luna and Nemo immediately jerked their heads down to the intruder. In front of them stood a large black and white spider-like creature. It had ten eyes that looked like the night sky, ten legs that ended in hands, and a simple green tophat on its head. It stood taller than the princess and looked down at the two with mild interest.
Luna immediately left Nemo's hoof and stepped in front of her with a shield already cast to defend the two against the intruder.
"Y'know, that ain't very nice, the whole 'immediately put up a shield' thing. I mean, I get the whole stranger danger thing but that's kinda an overreaction. You get me?" the spider said, rubbing its chin with one of its front hand-legs, bothered but not scared by Luna's aggressive stance.
"Begone, foul beast! Leave this little filly's mind alone!" Luna shouted at the spider-thing, to which the spider chuckled,its mandibles moving side to side as it did.
"I would, princess, but then who'd stop the nasty stuff from beyond getting in? I guess this body don't look real nice. Hey, kid, do I look scary? I hope not since the whole 'transforming into something else' thing won't look pretty at all and I kinda don't wanna do it," the spider said, going from replying to the princess to asking Nemo a question.
Nemo, who strangely didn't seem scared of the beast, said, "Y- you look alright."
Luna, meanwhile, was trying her hardest not to resort to violence, at least not in front of Nemo. "Beast, did you not hear me? I told you to leave and I expect you to do so!"
"Chill bro, I'm not doing anything bad; everything's fine," the spider said, before looking around it and adding with a ten-legged shrug, "Well, as fine as they could be. Jeez, this place looks sucky as hell. Like, no offence to you kid but you really need to do something about all this fear and crap.
Anyway, as I had said earlier, I would leave but I can't really."
Luna was not happy to hear that answer, and ordered, "Explain."
"Okay, so, I was once like y'all, well, I wasn't a fluffy pony exactly but I was like in the same tier of things as you guys, like there's the eldritch tier and the normal tier and I was in the normal tier like you guys, but that's beside the point. So, basically, I was like you once but that changed a while back. Anyway, I'm a contractor who does contract work for all the eldritch beings that'll pay me for it. You can call me 'Ranger' by the way," the spider, now Ranger as he called himself, explained but he ended up only giving Luna more questions.
What did he mean by 'he was like them once'? What was he doing exactly? Who did he work for?
Luna still kept up her guard and shield, but lowered her voice and asked, "I'll need some elaboration on quite a few of your claims."
"That's alright. I like talking; it's been a while since I've talked to someone who isn't just pure business, or trying to get me into a hedonist cult thing. Like, I appreciate my boss's honesty and straightforwardness but it sucks real hard because he's just pure business all the time. I don't even think I should talk about those cult guys, right now at least," Ranger rambled until he realised he was rambling. He then added as his spider body lowered to the ground so that he was laying on the sandy ground, "So, what do you want to talk about?"
"What are you doing here? Who's your boss?" Luna asked, glancing at Nemo who had come to stand to her side instead of behind her.
"What am I doing here? Well, I'm just sitting here, looking all menacing, till that breach gets fixed by my boss so that no one else gets in here with their schemes and stuff. As for my boss... well, I can't just tell you who he is, like his name and all, but I can tell you that he's mostly nice, just a bit uncaring, but whatever. The point is that he's chill."
"Why does your boss have an interest in Nemo?"
"Ehhh, I'm not exactly sure since he hasn't told me exactly, but he did tell me that the cun- loser who enslaved Nemo was trying to kill his agent and since he couldn't allow that, he killed Nemo's master and therefore, took ownership of her. Don't worry though, he's just gonna fix that breach and let her go since he doesn't need another agent."
Luna tried to hide her dismay upon hearing that there is another agent somewhere on the planet but Ranger noticed it. Ranger then looked slightly troubled. "Did I say the whole thing about his other agent? Man, I am so dumb."
Ranger took a deep breath and then said, "Well, I guess it's alright since you don't know the agent and or any clue about his i- no, was he a girl? or a guy? I don't know so I'll just say they. So, you don't know much about them so it's alright."
"What... what is this agent doing?" Luna asked, wanting to get as much information as she could.
"Now, I can assure you that the agent is not doing anything evil like starting a blood cult or somethin' so you don't have to look scared like that; they're just getting back some trinket for boss. It won't be something you'll miss, I think, but you don't have to worry about someone rampaging through your planet and doing evil crap anytime soon," Ranger answered, reassuring Luna that everything was alright. "So, I've answered a lot of questions, why don't I ask one. Okay, so, how does sugar taste? I don't really remember it since my first boss, that dic- LOSER, took away a huge part of my memories and then just threw me away after I did what he wanted me to, and I haven't got a chance to really eat sugar since then."
Luna stared at Ranger questioningly. She had expected him to ask something more... more sensitive in nature when he said he was going to ask a question. "It tastes... sweet."
"Ah, I remember now, sugar was nice," Ranger said, remembering some fond memory. The three were left in silence, until Nemo spoke.
"He is... gone? Forever?" she asked, referring to her former master.
"Mhm, good riddance too. My first boss was like yours, like, he made me do the same 'kill this specific person' task, and I bet your boss would have thrown you away like mine threw me away after I did the thing," Ranger answered, scratching his head with one of his hands. Nemo was satisfied upon hearing that answer.
"So, when will you be gone?" Luna asked, the last important question she could ask.
"Well, I think one week in your time, then I'll be gone. You won't have to worry about me then, or anything much since no one else is gonna come in here, except you maybe."
Luna doubted that answer. While Ranger seemed to mean well, he also seemed very dumb for an eldritch thing, especially if he expected an eldritch being to simply leave a pony just like that. It was apparent that Nemo would have to be kept under watch. There was also the issue of the other agent and whatever they were doing. Celestia had to know about all she had learned.
"Also, don't try the brain breach healing spell since boss is already working on it and the spell will be redirected back to the brain and that'll hurt Nemo," Ranger added a warning. "Anyway, you guys wanna chat more?"
"No, but thank you, Ranger," Luna answered, cancelling her shield, following by cancelling the mind spell. Both her and Nemo blinked, and they were back in the hospital room, sitting on the carpet. Nemo looked around, confirming that she was in her room, before looking up to Luna, who had stood up now with a semi-grim expression on her face.
"Nemo, you'll have to come with me."
Celestia sat in her chair, her face impassive as Luna finished recounting her attempt at trying to fix the agent's mind and the conversation she had with the eldritch thing. Luna had returned to Canterlot with Nemo right after the conversation she had, and gone straight to her sister. Nemo, on the other hand, was currently in a guest bedroom of the castle. Right now, both the sisters sat in Celestia's bedroom, at the table, which had two cups of tea on it, both of which had gone cold by now.
"What do we do, sister?" Luna asked.
"I still think that we should execute the agent, even if it seems that she's not possessed any longer," she answered, knowing that keeping the filly alive was trouble. An execution probably wouldn't have happened with how Luna opposed it, but she still supported the idea.
"Tia, she is a child, an innocent child!" Luna said, still not understanding how her sister could suggest something like that. Celestia knew better, of course, with the memory of the last time an agent was in Equestria still fresh in her mind. Far too many had died to an 'innocent pony'.
"I won't try arguing with you on that matter, Luna, but I'll have her put into the care of the Jade family; they'll be able to take care of her and keep an eye on her as well.
As for this other agent, they're clearly working with those monsters, and so, they'll be put down when we find them. I know that that thing told you that 'the agent is nice' but we both know that there is no trusting the eldritch."
"...I agree with you on that, but we do not know where they could be."
Celestia got up and walked over to her window. She looked out at Canterlot, watching as teams of pegasi cleared the skies above the city, and said after a long silence, "I bet they're close by, because after all, trouble always seems to be close to Equestria."
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Celestia is evil damn
11913538
Not evil, just... she likes having options. It's going to be elaborated on in later chapters.
11913541
I look forward to it
Thanks for the chapter!
11913538
I don't know about that just more like putting aside her morals for in her eyes defending equestria. And from what it seems most agents that equestria encounters don't have an Anya and Voth to save them from their masters so they will usually either carry out whatever messed up mission they were given or be stopped
Holy shite Celestia ain't playing around,I'm guessing this isn't pretty pony princess Celestia and is instead chess master harsh Celestia.
11914590
u didn't miss anything, but yes, this is alternate universe
11918596
Well, if Anya wants some extra income, she'll probably do that stuff and more, though I do not expect bone crafts to be particularly popular since any bone that the crucible makes is either gonna be chicken (which probably isn't great for carving and won't be used as a result) or pony since Anya had to put a sample of herself in the crucible, and you can imagine how pony bones would go down.
Customer: cool bone knife, what bone did you use to make it?
Anya: pony
Customer: ...
Anya: don't worry, it's my bone technically
Also, bird beaks are made of bone with some keratin (the thing that makes your nails and hair) on them. However the keratin is there so long as the bird is alive, and so, carved bird beaks will fall under bone craft
I'm not sure about ivory though