5 Seeing is Disbelieving
Chapter Five - Seeing is Disbelieving
After sealing the doors and casting a privacy spell over the room, I turned to Cadance and said, "A vision? Really?"
She frowned at me. "You're not very pleasant when you're playing the Bandit Queen, Twilight. You were very terse with everypony back there."
I took a very deep breath, and then slowly exhaled, using the unnecessary, but ritually satisfying hoof motion that she had taught me so long ago. I wanted her to know that I was upset, but was being patient with her. "I wasn't playing, Cadance. I was being the Captain, and all my friends understand that. I'm sorry if a bit of that carried over into our conversation. Shall we start over?"
I turned to Spike who was watching us both with a bit of concern. "Spike, could you take notes for me? General outline, any significant details, you know the stuff."
He had a pad and quill in his claws before I finished speaking. "Aye-aye, Captain!" he said, giving me a little salute with the feathered end of his quill.
Cadance briefly stared at him like he'd grown a second head.[1] "This is not a joke, Twilight! Visions must always be taken seriously. However they come to us, they are always a true warning of approaching danger."
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[1] Which is a distinct possibility for some breeds of dragon, but a fortunately rare occurrence.
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"I wouldn't know. I mean… Would it surprise you to learn that I've never had a vision? I know Celestia and Luna have them, but I thought the phenomenon was limited to them and a few crazy oracles living in caves." Far too late to recall the words that had just exited my mouth, I realized what I had said. "Uhmn… No offense," I added sheepishly.
She ignored my implied insult. "I've always had them; even when I was a young pegasus, and they’ve always guided me well. I… I don't know why you haven't had any. I assumed all alicorns did, eventually."
Considering the depths of my dislike for vague prophetic nonsense in general, I wasn't surprised at my lack of unhelpful visions, but I didn't say that out loud. I shrugged. "Maybe someday," I said, hoping that day would never come. "So, what happened in your dream—ah, I mean vision?"
She hesitated and licked her lips nervously. She squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath before speaking. "It was very unpleasant. A huge, evil creature stood over the world, one foot on the Yaket Range, one on the Kentaurus Mountains." Spike began scribbling furiously.
"Bestriding the world," I muttered to myself, nodding. "So a global threat, not just to Equestria. Go on."
"He was reaching down, ripping glowing pieces out of the land. Ponies—" Cadance hesitated, her mouth stretching out into a tight, thin line. I could see that she was truly distressed by the mere memory of her vision. She took a deep breath, nostrils flaring, and then continued. "—and other creatures were being thrown aside, falling and screaming. He tore open the Crystal Palace and your home in Twilight Town. He even ripped the top of Mount Everhoof off, and raked up a huge island in the Southern Ocean.
I glanced at Spike and he nodded. He was getting it all down. "Okay," I said. "Specific locations, that's good. What else? Did you see Canterlot?"
"I saw him reaching for Canterlot at the end, but the vision ended there." Her jaw muscles jumped as she clenched her teeth. She hadn't looked at me the whole time she was speaking and seemed to be barely in control of her emotions.
I didn't want to add to her distress, but there were several questions I had to ask. "Did you get a clear idea of what he looked like? I'm thinking this may be a warning that the Storm King is a bigger threat than I imagine."
"Huge," Cadance said, thinking hard. "Thick, shaggy fur. Big horns. He was mostly in shadow, so I couldn't see much but his outline. Does that sound like him?"
That's right, she hadn't seen the banner with his portrait on it before it went down in flames with the rest of the flagship. "Yeah, that sounds like him. Anything else? Details might be important."
"Those places he destroyed seemed very significant," Cadance continued. “More than just being familiar to me."
"Any idea about Mt. Everhoof or the island? The others are pretty obvious; they're places he can find powerful magical artifacts. That seems to be his prime motivation."
Cadance shook her head. "They felt important, but there were no specifics."
I forced myself not to snort in disgust. Visions. Prophecies. Useless, vague mis-information, more like. If Cadance had come to me the day before the Festival with this warning, it might have done some good. Sure, it was a nice confirmation that the Storm King was not going to give up on his plans just because we'd bloodied his snoot for him, but I didn't intend to give him the opportunity to continue any longer than was absolutely necessary, anyhow.
"Well, it seems like the best plan is to deal with him as soon as possible," I said. "Which just so happens to be my plan already. Convenient, isn't it?"
"I have the feeling you aren't taking this seriously, Twilight." Cadance frowned at me.
I sighed and put my hoof to my forehead. "Cady, my intent is to hunt him down and kill him along with any of his officers that seem capable of continuing with his insane ambition. How much more serious should I be?"
Cadance reared back. "You mean you're actually going to outright murder him?"
I stared right into her eyes. "Yes. That is exactly what I'm going to do. No fair fight, no trial, no negotiations, no mercy. I'm going to erase him and his thugs from the world as quickly and efficiently as possible."
"Twilight!" Cadance cried out. She flung her forelegs and wings around me and pulled me into a ferocious hug. "Oh, thank you, thank you! I was so worried that you'd want to go sailing in with your little airship, flying flags and waving cutlasses like it was some sort of game! I'm so glad you've finally seen sense about this."
That must have been an extraordinary vision! The Alicorn of Love was suddenly onboard with a straight-up assassination? I really wanted to ask for her reasoning, but I honestly couldn't see any beneficial outcome from questioning her, so I just hugged my sister-in-law back, gritted my teeth, and took the win. Sometimes, you have to make allowances for the idiosyncrasies of family.
= = =
Speaking of family, I had arranged to have tea with my parents, and while I was making sure everything was set up properly on the balcony facing the palace, one of the embassy stewards interrupted me by quietly clearing his throat.
"Yes?"
"Pardon me, ma'am. I know your parents will be arriving shortly, but there is a pony in the foyer who insists that she needs to see you immediately on extremely urgent business. Her name is Moondancer."
That was odd. I'd seen her on the day of the festival—well, the first, abortive day, just before Tempest and the hairy thunderers had shown up, and we'd had a nice little catch-up chat. I hadn't seen her that evening, but I'd made sure that she wasn't on any of the casualty lists. I couldn't think what might be so urgent. Maybe there was a friend who had been hurt that she thought I might help in some way?
"Send her in," I told the steward.
A moment later Moondancer galloped into the room, mane and tail in disarray, floating an untidy wad of papers next to her. "Twilight! I'm so glad I caught you! Oh, um…" She attempted a bow before she had quite finished moving, and nearly tumbled rump over horn.
I caught her, her papers, and her glasses in my magic, and gently sat her down before me.
"Sorry, sorry! But I had a brainstorm and I need to tell you about it right away!" She pushed her papers into a rough pile with her front hooves while using her magic to replace and adjust her glasses. "It's the same thing all over again isn't it?"
I had no idea what she was talking about, so I gave her a non-committal, "Mm."
"But I've come up with a way to fix it!" She looked up from her papers and pushed her glasses up her muzzle again. "Hey, are you taller?"
I smiled at her and said, "Take a deep breath and let it out slowly, then tell me what this—" I waved a hoof over the stack of papers. "—is all about."
She skipped the breathing exercise and dove right in. "Stealing magic! I mean, this—" she wheezed out the last word and then had to gasp for a breath.
"If you're here to steal my magic, you're going to have to wait in line," I told her with a grin. "I think it's become a fad."
"That's it, exactly!" she shouted.
"You're going to try to steal my magic? Really?"
"No, no! The fad thing! It's like everypony… uh… everycreature, or… is 'everymonster' a word? Anyway, everyone seems to want to steal our magic! How many times has it been now?"
"I've lost count."
"Right! So we need to do something about it!"
I was about to assure Moondancer that I was planning on doing something about it,[2] but she had the bit in her teeth and rushed on.
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[2] Without going into details about hypersonic chunks of rocks, lightning storms, and magically focused gravity blades. Moondancer had been born in Canterlot, and aside from the occasional monster attack, had lived the sheltered life of a scholar there. I didn't want to shock her.
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"This—" She stomped on the pile of paper. "—is the answer! I've come up with a way to stop it once and for all!'
Well. That was intriguing. "Go on."
"What if we steal it first? No, don't look at me that way, I mean it! You can use power from an amulet, a phylactery, right? So what if you put all of your power into a specially designed amulet and then just drew it from there as needed? The power storage could be synchronized via milliwave raptor entanglement, and locked into the substrate of the gemstone so that it couldn't be extracted all at once like Tirek did! Only ponies attuned to the matrix would be able to draw on it! It wouldn't even need to be anywhere near you, and that could be done with everypony! The whole kingdom! I'd have to work out the—"
I lay down next to her pile of formulae and diagrams. "Show me."
She shuffled the papers into order and spread them across the balcony floor. "Okay, so we know the spell matrix variations for the extraction process—"
Mom and Dad arrived sometime later, took one look at the scattered papers and the several pin and chalk boards I'd teleported in, and seated themselves at the table without interrupting. They told me later that it had been a very nice tea, and asked if maybe we could get together for a late supper or early breakfast.
"I am so sorry, Mom! I'll have the chef make a really nice dinner for us…" I remembered that I was scheduled to have dinner with Luna. "Oh, ah, do you mind if Luna joins us?"
"Not at all dear!" She smiled and kissed me on the cheek. "If you're still busy then, your father and I can catch up with her while you work. But do remember to eat something, won't you? There's a whole platter of sandwiches left on the table. I'm sure Moondancer could use some food as well."
Moondancer looked up at the mention of her name. "Oh hi, Ms. Twi, Mr. Twi! When did you get here?"
= = =
It turned out I did have a nice, leisurely dinner with my parents and Luna after all.
After a few more hours of thaumic engineering speculation, I was convinced that Moondancer's plan was entirely possible, and had begun to have thoughts about the repercussions of success. That avenue of thought soon became a tangled warren of dim alleyways and I decided to call it a night.
I heaped well-deserved praise on Moondancer, not just because she had earned it, but also to take the sting out of what I had to do to her.
"Please sign here and—here." I told her, pointing to the spaces marked on the form with little horseshoes.
"Royal Secrets Act?" She frowned at the clipboard. "Is this really necessary?"
"Just a formality, Moony,'' I told her breezily as I stuffed all the research papers into a thaumically neutral envelope, and closed it with an official ambassadorial magic seal. "As soon as I take care of the Storm King, I'll come back and we can dig into this again. It'll be fun!"
She smiled at me, a little doubtfully, and signed the form.
I walked her out and hugged her goodbye. When she was out of sight, I stepped just outside of my embassy grounds to add my official Equestrian Royal Seal to the envelope, and then went directly to the armored vault in the basement and placed it in a static spatial fold that was heavily booby trapped.
In the half hour before dinner I dictated a to-do list to Spike.
"Twi? I'm spelling some of these words phonetically, because I have no idea what they mean. Are you sure you don't want to write this list yourself?" he asked, squinting down at the scroll in his claws.
I reached over and ruffled his head frill with my wing tip. "Your misspellings couldn't possibly be less intelligible than my atrocious quillwork! Besides, I think that's the last item." I pretended to think for a moment. "Maybe add, 'Make sure there's a big amethyst cobbler for dessert tonight.'"
He grinned at me. "Really?"
I smiled back. "Maud sent a crate of choice specimens up from Ponyville last week."
"Spicy ones?"
"That's what she said."
He licked his chops, his tongue practically wrapping all the way around his snout. "Oh, I gotta send her a thank you note in the morning!"
Dinner was wonderful. I suppose having just survived a potentially deadly invasion made me appreciate a quiet evening with family more than I usually would have, but it really was fun, and my parents stayed late. I finally shooed them out when Dad couldn't keep himself from yawning, and had a couple of embassy guards escort them home. It was completely unnecessary in the upper city, my mother insisted, and I agreed with her and sent them anyway.
"She is a delightful mare, your mother," Luna said as we stood at the gate, watching as they walked out of sight down the High Street.
"She loves you to distraction, you know," I told Luna, leaning against her luxuriously muscled shoulder.
"Ah! Also a mare of taste it seems."
I would have bitten her on the ear, but I couldn't quite reach, so I made do with nuzzling the corner of her jaw.
She made a happy sound deep in her throat and then sighed. "I wish I was accompanying you."
We'd discussed it, but the possibility of having one of the diarchs of the most powerful kingdom in the world exposed on what was a blatant assassination mission aimed at another head of state… Well, if I may indulge in a vast understatement, it would look bad.
"Sorry," I muttered into her neck.
"Well," she sighed, "I suppose, on this last night together, I shall have to endeavor to ensure you do not forget me while gallivanting in foreign lands."
"As if I ever—eep!"
Luna swept me up in one wing and effortlessly slung me over her back. She spun and trotted toward my suite. When I tried to wiggle off, she swatted me on my rump and growled, "Be still thou pirate wench! Memories await!"
= = =
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That was a well-done fake-out with Cadance.
we have never seen her parents. are we sure she is not their daughter as well?
Twilight:"You know . . if you ever decide to have an actual love life, you will make somebody very happy with that."
11873845
It's worth remembering that canon has consistently shown her as the only alicorn who could fight their way out of a wet paper bag. And canon is almost never consistent about anything.
Bloody hell, iisaw, how do come up with stuff like this? And why do I love it so much?
@
iisaw
btw . . why is this book 4? Should this not be book . . 7 or so?
Storing all pony magic in a single object? That feels like it’s just asking for disaster. Better make it three of them just to be safe.
In any case, we have the first of the titular prophecies, and that plural means Twilight’s in for yet more headaches. Especially if the Storm King gets his paws on the Bewitching Bell. (Darn it, Moondancer has a point…) And I wouldn’t be surprised if Twilight has a vision of her own at some point in this story… and possibly some choice words for whatever force dispenses them.
This will definitely get more complicated before it gets any less. We’ll see just what comes of it.
11873960
We're looking at a prequel to the former book four here, so the book numbering had to be re-adjusted to fit it in.
11873962
Was it one single phalctery for all of ponykind, or custom keyed ones for each pony? I'm picturing something in Crystal Empire heartstone.
So, probably, is Cadance's alicorn sense.
I have to admit, Moondancer, Silent Queen of Canterlot and her plan to save ponies by lichifying them was not on my bingo card.
Either way, that's nightmare fuel of Dandelion the Abominable proportions.
11873960
They're numbered chronologically, therefore this is now #4.
11873962
Luckily these characters' fates aren't written by disrespectful hacks.
But I suspect Twi is going to store away a bit of "Dark Queen Twilight" just in case.
11874009
you do not know much about Gen5 right?
11874055
No, not in particular.
11874058
ya ain't missing much.
it's a buch of moronic nonsense.
but what fome wrote is more or less the premise of that world.
11873860
Speaking of ponies who are really good in a fight I don’t remember how Starlight Glimmer was resolved in this timeline. Even though canon Twilight is basically a pacifist unless enraged stalemating her was still impressive. Between that and her extended fight with Super Chrysalis, she’s the most skilled magical combatant whose abilities are more than informed in canon.
And the prophecies appear
Really looking forward to seeing where this is going.
Happy Unicorn Day!
A double-scoop of Cadenzaness for y'all!
11873899
Honestly, I credit the rum. Yo ho ho!
11873960
Yes, I re-numbered them in chronological order. If The Chrysalis Disaster ever appears, It will officially be number 5, and bump The Skyla Pseudonym up to number 6.
11873962
Well, it turns out that the three types of magic in close proximity (atomic scale) cause a bit of a thaumic heterodyne, so they have to be separated.
11874009
One for each tribe. I honestly enjoyed the G5 movie even though the rest of the gen left me cold enough to become a superconductor. And yeah... the fridge-horror of every connection they made to G4 is... (Damn, I'm supposed to be a writer of some sort and I'm scrambling for a word here!) "Depressing" is probably the most charitable choice. It seems to be a fad in Hollywood nowadays to denigrate and/or kill off beloved characters across all sorts of franchises, so why not My Little Pony?
11874065
Glim-glam is canonically a magical powerhouse and tends to resort to some frightful spells when under pressure. She was neutered/ignored so that the movie could happen. Same with Discord, really.
11874137
One silver lining the fanficers have noticed is that the legal problems with Discovery causing so many continuity hiccups combined with Equestria Girls making the existence of the multiverse canon, it is really easy to conclude G5 is actually an alternate timeline from the FiM we saw.
My personal headcanon is that given Opaline’s tactics to break up Equestria were apparently pretty much identical to the Trio’s in the finale, G5 is a timeline where Neighsay won and the School of Friendship was never founded and the Young 6 never met. When Opaline tried her stunt in the main timeline her game was recognized right away and was thwarted the same way the Trio’s was but even faster because everycreature already knew what to do.
11874166
My current theory, especially as Season 2 of Tell Your Tale shows that rising magic levels lead to a general abandonment of all sense and thoughtful writing, is that G5 as we know it is the far future of Pony Life. The ocean should turn pink any day now.
11874288
I wholeheartedly subscribe to this theory!
11874166
11874288
11874330
For what it’s worth, from the moment the G5 film was released, I headcannoned its past as having a version of Twilight and her friends, but not the one we know. With how many comics and superhero properties that soft reboot but are also a continuation of past events, but a simplified version of said past events that will freely contradict it from when it was told, it wasn’t an unprecedented leap. Especially with the G5 film having entered production when they only had the first seven seasons of FiM to go off of, and Twilight always being her “normal” alicorn form when glimpsed in G5 rather than her future epilogue variant from the end of FiM. Far as I’m concerned, G5 had Twilight and the Mane 6 come together as friends, Twilight got her wings, and literally nothing else is “canon confirmed”.
Of course, I still mightily hold it against G5 for forcing up to make those leaps in the first place, and for falling into the can’t-win scenario of being too connected to G4 to ignore but being far too cryptic to ever satisfy. But, them’s the breaks sometimes.
In any case, TYT is getting closer and closer tonally to Pony Life, so I’ll concede that connection now. Certainly TYT has broken continuity with MYM enough times that it’s its own universe.
Tl;dr – the G5 film and MYM have a massively abridged G4 backstory with nothing locked down beyond Twilight, the Mane 6, and her going from unicorn to alicorn. TYT is that but also a Pony Life followup. Case closed.
[Haven’t read this chapter or the fic yet at all, just saw this comment by chance and felt compelled to chime in.]
11874603
In conclusion, this is somehow Starlight Glimmer's fault.
11874603
Mysterious spectre floats in through the wall, utters unholy wisdom, floats out again... Yeah, that checks out!
11874606
It all makes sense now!!!
11874137
Would that be related to the fotos Twi showed bug horse and pseudo-prince?
11874892
Oh no, that's a totally different disaster related to Chrysalis! (She's pretty good at disaster-making.)
11874903
I propose that Chrysalis is, in fact, a walking disaster nexus. All the disasters that happen around her are merely extensions of the single continuous and ongoing disaster that was/is/will be Chrysalis.
11875062
Hmn... That would explain a lot!
11874166
11874288
11874603
To be fair, G4 already had enough continuity issues in and of itself that it was probably several timelines with no explicit delineation of such. Most infamously, it's hard to justify enough time between the season 3 finale and the season 4 premiere for Equestria Girls to have happened as shown. At least some of my "explanations" for this sort of thing are deliberately nonsensical just to annoy Twilight Sparkle.
tell that to Barf and Belch.
also, i hope more comes, I WANT......................................MORE!! please? :3
11874892
"pseudo-prince." puh, that's a a big kick in his non-existent dick. XDD
11876884
New chapter every Tuesday!
11876904
sweeeeet, :D
11876898
Aw, don't be too hard on the darling. It's not easy being the last, useless appendage of a mediatized dynasty that hasn't ruled sovereign over anything in over a millennium.
I have a soft spot for ol' Bluey and the fanon House of Platinum.
I do enjoy the fact that you do not mess around with Twilight's intentions....not a good person, trying to conquer the world, messing with her friends, this is a fast track to an instant dirt nap. No questions, no waiting, no lawyers, just add ZAP (wait for it) BOOM! Done. Keep it up! Really enjoy your writing!
11877129
i don't like him, he treated Rarity like trash, that was enough for me.
11877129
I like the idea of a 'House Platinum' because of the number of authors that have successfully used the concept to make an otherwise impossible entity a plot-relevant character with influence and political power. But since realistically not even being of Platinum's bloodline could grant him a royal title in an alicorn-ruled Equestria, I tend to view the character as nothing more than a self-important fake. My personal headcanon is that he's the heir of the duke or duchess of Canterlot and was granted the style of Prince, which used to be a thing in sovereign duchies. If Celestia moved her seat of power into the domain of one of her vassals instead of a place directly owned by the crown, they probably got her to make a couple concessions before she was able to build that silly castle and enjoy the view. His parents, like a bunch of Bluebloods before them, told their offspring to call her 'auntie' to endear him to cake butt. She just rolls with it at this point and pretending he's family also makes his antics more tolerable. ^^
11877319
My headcanon on Equestria, princesses, alicorns, and the House of Platinum is rather involved. The shorthand is this: there is politics, there are ponies, there are the gods, and there is Harmony.
Princesses are creatures of politics. There is a constitutional order (technically a set of ancient treaties, agreements, and traditions), and that says what a princess is. Which, is to say, an alicorn. They superceded the old sovereignties in the mists of Equestria's Dork Age, between the founding, and when the sisters took over.
Then there are the ponies, and the old entities which used to rule the various components of Equestria are still around, just in a 'dignified' state. There isn't a Pegaloposian commandery, but the tribunal families still run the better part of the EUP. The Earth granges are gone, but the plutocratic families that ran them still finance Equestria's first-world economy. And the House of Platinum rules nothing - but society.
And that ain't nothing.
Meanwhile, there's the question of where alicorns come from. And the idea here is similar to that of the lamas.
Harmony Chooses - though the heavens fall. Wise dieties, states, and social strivers stay out of the way of alicorns.
Nopony ever accused the scions of Platinum of wisdom. They have a long, proud tradition of existence, and they pout if Celestia doesn't let them adopt new alicorns when they appear, shiny and new, from wherever Harmony finds them.
It can be awkward if they're not conveniently orphaned.
"He tore open the Crystal Place and your"
"He tore open the Crystal Palace and your"?
"into a rough plie with"
"into a rough pile with"?
And caught up! Thanks for writing. :)
11877328
I know a lot of people ignore the comics but I feel Friends Forever 26 establishing that Blueblood is a master diplomat who is intensely loyal to Equestria makes him a lot more interesting. I find "hero in their professional life, jerk in their personal life," to be a fun archtype to explore.
11877490
Fixed, thanks!
11877328
That's a very interesting take on things! There has to be a reason why there is a rank equivalent to the ruling monarch's that doesn't actually convey any (or much) power in and of itself.
11877652
The Tower and Well method of character creation! The best characters have a tower (their strengths) as tall as their well (their weaknesses) is deep.