An Order of Blues
The door opens to allow three of Eye Wall’s guards to carry the visitor’s bags after another round of verification. "Sir," says one of them, "Canterlot's replied. We've got the real deal."
Eye Wall's stare pins his visitor down, letting his lackeys plop the bag back on the table.
Half-baked soundproofing material cannot mask the storm's incessant knocking on their walls. Attacks were had back then already from the southern chaos; hippogriffs at times charge at them in the night, bent on exterminating the "foreign devils," though never-ending inclement weather tends to roadblock any serious offensive within the region.
"Terrifying," Eye Wall can only say. "This is dangerous. It’s certainly a volatile bribe, if you wanted to go that way. Don't think the princess will step down to greet you or pat you on the back for it, though."
He shoves the bag, lets it slide to the visitor's side.
"Deliver this safely. In case we do not receive word from you, we’ll pick up the pieces and try to send it forward.
"I’ll arrange for you to be transported to Equestria under pretenses for… you know, given what's happened in that hippogriff circus down there. The press and the courts will be after you. Don’t do anything stupid for a week, and you should be in Canterlot. Request an audience with the princess to present your side of the story. What you do after that… I’m not your mom." He holds his hooves up to absolve himself from responsibility.
So the commander offers a hoofshake and an agreement.
The visitor considers.
"Here, Cauliflower. Pull it down."
A grunt comes by as Cauliflower pulls down a crate from a truck the length of a cypress tree.
The gentle splash of the ocean coast, under a brightening twilight violet, drags in bobbing boats. Convoys slowly swim, engraved with numbers and gridded inverted triangles, of utopia touching down on the world—emblems of the Convocation of Creatures, transparent helmets letting enemies see the face of the creatures, mostly ponies, in full.
It's what she hones in on as the back-breaking work of carrying crates as heavy as a town hall stress her earth pony muscles. Gerwin has it easy, showing up the CC forces with a sales pitch of his supplies. A too early breakfast does not keep her stomach from churning; hours ago, he challenged her, "Selling guns, Miss Shrew, what’s the difference?"
"What’s the difference?! You’re helping them kill people!"
"Just an industry. I do my research, see demand and supply, give you my USP. Why buy from me and not the other guys? Once I answer that, we arrange a meet-up, exchange goods and money, we leave. Unless, of course, you want to scandalize the local bakery for doing the same thing."
A thud resounds when a huge steel crate falls to the ground. "Seen one of these bad boys?" Gerwin declares to a couple half-mocking, half-curious soldiers. A press of the button, and the world is sent a-shaking. Behind him, the truck’s cargo transforms, planting itself into the ground, drills spinning into the air and digging deep, cranes emerging to sort an assembly line that spits out more cranes and machines. Walls slide out from the underground, cubes and triangles and hexagons hanging onto each other like tiny molecules. From soil and metal and boxes has risen this automated construction depot, something that would’ve taken weeks if not months for manual labor to accomplish.
The explosion and its searing heat from days ago paled slowly. A watchtower like that, perhaps, can be reborn in hours. It's what Gerwin claimed.
"All these and more," he resumes, rubbing his claws, already receiving offers like at an auction, "as long as we uphold the deal and you don’t mess around with the locals. With this, you can withstand most things the belligerents will throw at you." His leer meshes well with the surprise of CC soldiers, already affirming with foal-like curiosity.
Cauliflower keeps her head down with another crate to unpack, voice recorder on at all times.
Inside another truck, they descend yet another hill, following the jagged lines of a rocky coast. A border zone is up next, says Gerwin, "so prepare. Things can get ugly. They know me. Just turn down any recording devices."
"Why would I do that?," she replies. Her wrist screen is turned on to archive their crossing.
"Wanna have that confiscated?” And have your life’s work jeapordized?
"Everyone deserves to see this," she insists, raising her tone against the casual laser-slinger. "Creatures around the world must understand what’s going on here. Once they see signs of this under their own roofs, the lack of security they feel, how separated their families are, they can stop it in their homes before everything blows up in a full-court mess."
Gerwin keeps quiet while the truck stops right before the gate. Its walls, escalating high and girded with more turrets to zap down any fliers, reach out to the east and west, without end. Rough accents and thuggish hats demand her ID and papers and money and guns and food and water before Gerwin glares at them, threatening them with a bag that separates him from her, containing the revealing size and weight of an ultra-explosive.
"Why are you here with her?" inquires a nasal accent, his partner the bulky rotating barrel of a gun powerful enough to cut down rocks like butter. She can feel the heat radiating from here, for one.
"Assistant," Gerwin replies. "She's—"
A head falls, the windshield cracks. Hums blast, red bright infernos everywhere—
Hooves scurry for the trigger, pressing and pressing, the cracks of bullets flying wild to maim her hearing. A claw grabs her face, smashes her down to the floor.
The truck bumps and spirals. Glass splinters, and liquid touches her cheeks, flows down her tongue. Red lights blare over a sputtering, staccato humming. A robot voice malfunctions, chants emergency measures. Her face against the pedal, a paw slamming it down. Fire or bile roller-coasters off her throat—
Sharpness slams her back to the chair. Gerwin's beak breathes too close. The claw on her chest immobilizes her on the passenger seat. "Hold! Stay!"
The forested road ahead is a soup of afterimages, of sunlight or fire visions attacking her. Smoke trails and screaming whistles soar overhead, launching from the mountains and the sea.
She can nod as fast as she can until everything clears.
A folder is thrown her way. She takes it up.
A table is spread out under the sunset, advertising more of what Gerwin scrounged up from old boxes, abandoned outposts, and the occasional strong-clawing of a bunch of villagers-turned-ransackers.
"Flashbang," Gerwin said just minutes ago, letting her feel the tube with her hooves. "Doesn't hurt permanently. Usually. This overwhelms the senses, blinds and deafens you. Gives the enemy enough time to apprehend you."
The folder hides documents and notes, detailing the other factions from Gerwin's point of view, not that they provide insights different from what her preceding journalists can unearth, of Romanticists and Integrated Syndics and Restorationists, whoever. Creatures have been packing their bags for northward salvation regardless.
Beside these lay pictures and renditions of propaganda posters. Under a label worded Yeti-Aris Union, a hand and a claw grip each other in a show of camaraderie. The text says as much: Say NO to a race’s total annihilation! Yetis and Hippogriffs are strong together! Be a better creature! Join the Yeti-Aris Union!
An hour and dozens of kilometers later, by the piers, warehouses glimmer in the dark. Patrol boats and patrol trucks and patrol drones oversee lines of yetis hauling materials onto solid ground, cargo ships spewing out their workload by the container. Obedience is demanded by painted lines—anyone taking a misstep is, in a literal sense, stepping out of line.
Gerwin excuses himself, mutters about a shipment of weapons from the Yeti Islands. Cauliflower shouting after him, only to gather the attention of everyone, both foregriffs and the yetis, who she now sees are following lines painted on the ground, never stepping out of their confines.
The foregriffs seem approachable without getting shot at, but they keep ordering the unusual creatures around. A quota must be fulfilled, they say. “Please do not bother me.” The next are the yetis, but more foregriffs bar her with batons and guns. If she gets past them, the chain-link fences will be formidable obstruction that just cutting a hole through won't do.
She reaches for her notebook, unwilling to let the minutes slip by unproductive.
"So, you’re the one?"
Metal shackles her, a claw cranks her mouth wide. Everything dulls into black.
"Wake up."
Her eyes adjust to the flashlight. Buzzing atmospheric lights expose a beak. By a table, several bags and crates. Manuals, batteries, the acrid scent of medicine and alcohol.
The one thing she can register in her what-addled mind is a name from a dossier, its crude mockery embossed on a nameplate.
"Gullibles like you, I’ve met." His words fall out of his tongue like non-stop rain. "You know my name—" Copperbreeze, First Partner of the Union "—so spare me your sympathies. I know what you want to ask. I’ll spare you from boring me.
"Yeti-Aris Union. Do you know forgiveness is better than revenge? Whistler and Bulb Laser were no Novos nor Silverstreams when they led the League. No reconciliation was sought with the Storm King’s remnants. The islands of the yetis would always breed hate and war to kill off the next generation, they said. That’s why they mobilized so much, forced our best and brightest into R&D camps, innovate at gunpoint—but you know that. Those who came before you told you that. They went here first, asked me, published it. Not all wanted to survive alone. They came back home. Some chose to stay. I don’t know their fates. I hope you stay, but I understand if you don’t. It’s a hard life here."
Something for her to say, but his sip of water is too short to let her speak.
"We believe in forgiveness and reconciliation, but we also understand justice. Those who’ve had a claw in the Storm King’s atrocities, we work to exhaustion, but there’s always light at the end of the tunnel. The rest, we trade with, trade to, trade as barter, I think. You are lucky I was here visiting Port Sealaw; your predecessors had to take a boat ride to the islands when I was away there, which we already rule. Some call it oppression, what we do there; I think it's removing Storm King idolatry, and I don’t care what the world thinks. We feed hippogriffs and we also feed yetis who understand what they’ve done.
"It is easy to say this while we sit away from the fighting. Not so easy when you make hard decisions. I see death, I command death. I have no time to sulk, but I still feel bad about it. So I asked Equestria. They gave me an answer: self-motivation books from pony writers. It helped me get over death. Send them my thanks; I have a list of authors here. Take the paper.
"Before you leave, I note you’re underequipped. Gerwin told me of your arrival before he came. He said you have a modern gun, but you don't seem to have it. Maybe you refused, maybe he forgot. We are good partners. If he trusts you, I trust you maybe. Buy his stuff, the best in the market. Shoo, we're busy. I have operations to begin. The Integrateds aren't too pleased with our incursions. Please show that in your byline."
Things slip out of her teeth and tongue, her own parrying efforts to understand as slumber threatens—
I tried to get something out of him, but… I wonder why I didn’t answer, didn’t butt in.
"Drugs."
She explodes in a scream. "You don’t just sneak up on ponies like that, Gerwin!"
His laugh echoes throughout the coastal copse. Sand and pebbles rattle around in the frogs of her hooves. Their beds and tent live deeper among the trunks and critters.
Getting here involved a spotty recollection. Fragments turn up, of being taken into a truck, of a handler telling her to keep awake, of a listless fog rolling into her head. Gerwin’s word is all that is had: she was taken to him, then they left without incident save for a sleepy mare.
Gerwin gives her a weak kick on the withers. "Keep your wits up. Arms are my forte; medicine, not so much. I can only guess on you from second-claw experience. Different biologies. Copperbreeze wanted you glazed, not remembering anything. Got you knocked out cold twice."
"Yeah, yeah, thanks for telling me you found my body about to hurled into the sea by a couple drunk sailors," she mutters. "I should be able to remember—"
"You got what the voice recorder needed. Which you left behind out there, but you turned on before they noticed a thing." He takes out her wrist screen from the bag he holds. "Muscle memory’s hard to beat. Good thing I'm good friends with the locals and told them to treat you nicely. Like not doing anything with your screen."
"I bet you bribed Copper with a hundred missiles to torture innocents with."
"Not that cruel," he mutters. "You don’t do torture with missiles." Pulling her up, though her back aches and her bones crunch; she lies like dead on grass like a pre-agriculture ancestor. "Not every big cheese is worth the sound bite."
The fire crumples like paper, endlessly, hypnotic to a fault. Under the stars, while bats and fireflies roam their favorite haunts from branch to branch, Cauliflower stares at the night sky, letting the healing come to her.
Around her lie a shrinking number of crates and bags. Gerwin said that sales go up and down; by the time they make it to the Integrated Syndics, he says, they will unearth a motherlode. Until then, they nap or lie in wait, letting desperate stragglers and escapers come over to trade for a chance at self-defense.
One in soot-stained cloths and broken feathers came in, desperate for a discount from the good Gerwin. He asked her why; it was to leave. The price was upped, dangling over her head as an aura of degenerate despair overwhelmed her until she was bawling on the grass, debasing herself for his mercy. Only then was a rifle, a pistol, and a few grenades parted from his claw at a slight discount.
She was sent away crying and thanking him. She was then shouted away.
Cauliflower has to sit up. Tapping the wrist screen on, she activates the microphone. Gerwin lies asleep on the other side of the camp. Clearing her throat, she begins.
Much is disgusting about Yeti-Aris. If the Romanticist leadership can be seen as hypocrites, the Union's is much worse. They advocate for the liberation of every creature from the shackles of retribution, yet from what I see—and what no one else has taken footage of until now, I believe—the yetis themselves are hit the hardest by their alleged emancipation. I do not know what happens in the yetis’ homelands, but the little I hear does not paint a good picture.
My time was short by my host's design. I had not expected that he would induce in me a daze to short-circuit the interview and keep it sanitized. However, I can infer from the warehouses, ports, and small villages on the coastlines, how they were all said to be populated by mostly yetis, that a tiny minority class of hippogriffs are their masters. I felt their masters’ sadism when I heard their jeers of vengeance for the Storm King's sins to be paid for over a dozen lifetimes.
There’s a pregnant pause. She rubs her screen to think. I feel like I shouldn't be here sometimes. I was too far-removed from the events down south when the Storm King rampaged through the lands, but I could not imagine what level of hatred, what level of vengeance, necessitates such a blood-boiling yet cold-blooded system of vilifying an entire species.
It is a slow-action poison, and it's contagious. The yetis will feel justified to rise up, enslave their masters, conduct worse sins. A dozen lifetimes’ worth of punishment for the hippogriffs and their own crimes is what they’ll feel they need. Then, the hippogriffs will retaliate. Who will stop who? Who will give up their pride? I will speak more on this when I—
A sun rises. The stars are plunged into a crimson burst.
A gale smashes itself against her scalding skin, bends the trees to skin it from its leaves and branches. A roused Gerwin shoutsorders, but the world writhes with fields aflame bowing before a blinding pillar of conflagrating energy.
Instinct drives her hoof up, her wrist screen on, half-smacking it—"Hello, Date Line, are you getting this?!"
NO CONTACT ACCESSED
The trees cover her. Gerwin is screaming into her ear to get to cover.
By the trees, she waits. The tremors in her bones do not take their leave. Hours or minutes later, Gerwin offers medicine. She gladly inhales or drinks. It is hard to believe it is midnight when a second sun visited her with a sample of death.
Her screen outputs nothing.
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Huh. The italicized openers are going to be a motif instead of a one-off. My previous assumption was that the fic opened on Cauliflower being accosted by the Eye Wall and subsequently tossed into a holding cell. Now I’m no longer sure. The visitor’s gender is being deliberately undisclosed, so it cloud be anyone, even a character not formally introduced yet. With no solid leads other than the visitor being on some sort of covert delivery mission, I’ll have to withhold speculation for now.
Back at it with the crackerjack lines. There is indeed an uncomfortable dissonance in one of our protagonists selling guns to what appears to be this setting’s equivalent of Doctors Without Borders.
Only just now did I realize the insta-bunkers are probably a reference to Equestria At War’s game mechanics. All real time strategy games have some sort of mechanic where relevant depots are generated and placed instantly.
A very timely reminder. So timely that it is most likely foreshadowing that Gerwin’s blabberbeak is going to get him in trouble when he says something he wouldn’t want committed to record.
Our first proper action sequence. It’s the literary equivalent of a jumpscare, with the action tags staying terse, clinical, and detached. In an actual war fic, it’d be underwhelming, but this fic has established itself as only using war as a backdrop; our two protagonists are not fighters.
The interlude scene with the propaganda folder is both a needed comedown and an acknowledgement that Cauliflower is not the only news source in the setting. The continued worldbuilding through isolated scenes gives this story an almost slice-of-life feeling of exploring the setting.
There is however, a structure and goal that our heroine is pursuing, and this chapter checks our second faction leader off her interview list. Copperbreeze is, predictably, a force of personality just as strong as Queen Horizon, just channeled into pragmatic cooperation rather than Sound And Fury assertions of authority. It takes a certain psychology to be a faction leader, as Cauliflower is beginning to see.
She’s also beginning to lose her optimistic outlook, it seems. We can only hope Gerwin is softening up at an equivalent pace, given the discount he offered to the sobbing cold call.
The end of this chapter includes the frightening possibility that Cauliflower’s trusty wrist recorder might be broken. Or perhaps just disabled by the EMP from the nearby explosion. Either way, it’s definitely symbolic of her mood. The more she learns, the more discouraged Cauliflower gets. Presently, she is akin to a traveler with a broken compass.
aww, propaganda posters are always so fun
oof, the cycle continues