Four: You Believe But What You See
Raindrops swung to Lyra, who was looking distressed for some reason. "Should I say something? Omigosh omigosh omigosh, it's really them!" She turned to look at the foursome of ponies walking along the platform. "They're headed this way!" Momentarily panicked, she tried to hide behind Lyra, who was trying to hide behind her, and they went down in a tangle of wings and legs.
By the time they were back on their hooves, the Daughters of Discord had walked off the platform and into the station.
"Well played, girls," Vinyl Scratch giggled. "Very smooth."
"Thanks for the help," Raindrops snapped. "Come on, we're going to be late for the next train." She fumed at herself as she stormed off the platform. What if they saw me? I'll be 'that fan that fell over' forever!
Her funk only deepened as they boarded the next train, a small one that clattered and shook its way down poorly maintained tracks, though that wasn't the main cause. The three ponies sat in silence for a good twenty minutes, although in Raindrops' case it was more squirming in silence.
"Are you okay?" asked Lyra.
Raindrops jumped to her hooves and paced around the tiny compartment irritably. "My eyes itch," she said. "There's something heavy in my chest and there's an itch wandering around between my wings, and oh yeah, I just totally flubbed my first opportunity to meet my favorite band. Any of that sound okay to you, Lyra?"
Lyra sighed. Before she could say anything, Raindrops interrupted.
"You asked." Raindrops flopped back into her seat. "Shouldn't have asked if you didn't want me to answer."
"You brought some of their music, right?" asked Vinyl Scratch.
Raindrops' eyes narrowed as she turned to Vinyl Scratch. "Yes," she said cautiously. "Why?"
"I could do with some good travel music," Vinyl Scratch said.
"Well, I have records, but you put your turntable in the luggage car, remember?"
"Pfft," said Vinyl, levitating Raindrops' bag out from under her seat. "Ye of little faith."
"Hey, be careful with that!" said Raindrops, snatching the bag out of the air and Vinyl's telekinetic grip. She wrapped her forelegs around the bag and eyed Vinyl for a moment, before hesitantly pulling out a record and offering it, sleeve and all, to the DJ pony.
"Don't worry, I won't hurt it or nothing," Vinyl said. She pulled the record out of its sleeve and held it up in front of her a moment, staring at it with intense concentration. The electric-blue glow of her telekinesis flared brighter, and music began to play, thin and tinny at first, then suddenly swelling as she found her groove.
"Wow," said Lyra, "that's actually pretty impressive."
Vinyl grinned, though there was a hint of strain in her posture and voice. "Hey, this cutie mark ain't just decoration," she said.
Raindrops settled back. She didn't know that much about unicorn magic, but she'd been to enough concerts to know that most unicorn musicians couldn't create sound from magic alone; they needed some kind of instrument to channel it through. Vinyl Scratch really was good at what she did. Besides, it was one of her favorite songs, and she hummed along as the train rattled its way west into the desert.
War between her and the day
Need someone to blame
In the end, little she can do alone
You believe but what you see
You receive but what you give
Caress the one, the Never Fading...
She knew Vinyl was trying to cheer her up and calm her down, it wasn't exactly subtle. Still, she appreciated the gesture. If only she could do something about that damn itch!
Two records later, the train chugged and rattled to a stop. The three Ponyville ponies gathered up their things and stepped out onto the Jackelope Valley station, if one platform and a booth with nothing else around for miles could be called that. Lyra stepped off first, glad for the chance to stretch her legs and rest her ears.
Behind her, Raindrops took one step onto the platform and halted like she'd walked into a wall, which in a sense she had, a wall of hot, dry air that felt more like the ovens at Sugar Cube Corner than any weather she'd ever felt before. The itch wandering between her wings immediately fell in love with the heat, married it, and had a few thousand little million-legged baby itches that swarmed all over her back and flanks.
Raindrops shook her head, trying to get rid of the intense feeling of wrongness that filled her. The sky above was utterly cloudless, a washed out pale blue that seemed to go on very nearly forever before it finally dipped down to meet the red earth. There wasn't so much as a blade of grass in sight, just flat, desolate red rock stretching out ahead of her and to the right until it reared up in broken slabs to meet the mountains. To the left the rock broke downward, a series of broad rock shelves descending down into the bowl shape of the dry lakebed.
"Ugh," said Raindrops. "It's, um... very dry."
"It's pretty, in a desolate sort of way," said Lyra. "But yeah, I see why they tell the stories."
"Well, it is a desert," Vinyl chided as she stepped out of the train car and slipped around Raindrops. "I'm going to grab my stuff. If you want, go ahead and check in with the boss-mare."
Raindrops sighed and tagged along with Lyra as the unicorn trotted down off the platform and toward a cluster of trailers that stretched from the platform to the north shore of the "lake." The nearest trailer had a large banner over it, reading "Jackelope Valley Music Festival." Underneath that was a sign on the trailer itself, saying simply, "Office."
The door to the trailer was open. Inside, a middle-aged brown mare with a brick-red mane waved in greeting as she bustled between two file cabinets and the cluttered desk. "Hello-hello," she said, a trace of bovine in her accent. "What can I do you for?"
"Um, I'm Lyra Heartstrings. I'm a performer..? And, uh, this is my guest, Raindrops.”
The mare nodded and pulled a clipboard out from under a pile of paper on her desk. The pile teetered and swayed, but didn’t quite fall over. The mare flipped through the pages on the clipboard. “Ah, here you are, darlin’,” she said. “You’re sharing trailer 27,” she said, passing Lyra a key and a sheath of papers. “There’s a map of the festival grounds and a schedule for your performances. I think we’ve got you twice a day on Stage 5.” She smiled. “I’d have someone show you there but everyone’s busy setting up, half my staff isn’t showing up until tomorrow’s train, and as you can see,” she waved her hoof at the tottering stacks of paper that covered every available surface in her office, “I’m still scaling Mount Paperwork.”
She pulled a quill from behind her ear and checked a box on the paper. “Safety warnings next. Don’t want none of my precious musicians getting’ hurt, y’hear? So drink all the water you can hold. Somepony passes out on stage every year, don’t be that pony. Tell Dusty if you’re plannin’ on exploring the valley—that’s Dusty Cliff, the park ranger for the valley. Wandering around the desert is dangerous if you’re not prepared.” She smiled. “Anything else you need, that’s me an’ my little ponies. Red vests are security, yellow is techs, and blue for medics. Or you can just ask for me, Strawb’ry Cheesecake.”
Lyra thanked her and then turned to Raindrops. “I’m going to see what the acoustics are like on the stage. You coming along or going to explore?”
Raindrops stared at her. “And miss a chance to see the Daughters of Discord practice? Of course I’m going exploring!”
Lyra chuckled as they left the trailer. “Okay,” she said. “They gave us two maps, but only one key, so meet me at Stage 5 when you’re done. If I’m not there, I’ve already gone back to our trailer.”
“Gotcha!” said Raindrops. As soon as she had the map, she flew up to get the lay of the land. Spotting what she was looking for, she swooped down to land a respectful distance from what the map informed her was Stage 2. She trotted the rest of the way, trying her best to be silent and invisible to not disturb—ohmigosh omigosh omigosh it’s them! On stage!
“Awright, ladies,” said Vinyl Scratch, emerging from behind the stage and trotting around to the front. “That’s everything, give it a try and let me hear how it sounds.”
“Honestly,” said the pegasus standing at the left of the stage. “Shouldn’t you have had the speakers already set up? Adding one just as we’re trying to practice--"
“Yeah, yeah,” said the unicorn at the front. “Needed an audience to do any real practice anyway. Complain later, Thunder, because now!” She turned to face Vinyl and Raindrops. “It is time! TO ROCK!”
“No, actually, it is not,” said Carda. “Unless you intend to rock without Thunder Axe.”
“You’re STILL not ready!?” demanded the unicorn.
“Sorry, Sauce,” answered Thunder Axe, the pegasus who’d already spoken.
“Hey Raindrops,” said Vinyl, as they started in with the same song that Vinyl had played on the train. “Typical, isn’t it? It’s always the one who yells at the techies that screws things up.”
“Hey, lay off Thunder Axe!” Raindrops objected. “She’s the coolest pony on the planet, she’s probably just cranky because of the weather.”
“Sorry, sorry,” said Vinyl. “She your favorite?”
“Yeah,” Raindrops agreed. “Most people go for Awesome Sauce--she's the black unicorn with the zebra haircut? But it’s cheating. I mean, her special talent is being awesome, that really shouldn’t count.”
On stage, the argument seemed to have been settled. Thunder Axe spread her wings and flew up a couple of feet. Raindrops took in a slow breath; she’d known what to expect, but it was still disturbing to see.
“What’s wrong?” asked Vinyl.
“Steel shoes,” said Raindrops. “Nailed into her hooves, see?”
Vinyl looked. Once or twice she’d met unicorns or, more often, Earth ponies who wore permanent horseshoes. It helped protect hooves and reduced the amount of care they needed, but at the price of being heavy, noisy, and, well, permanent. But she’d never, ever met a pegasus with them.
Before she could ask, Raindrops said, “It means you can’t walk on clouds anymore. Can’t touch them, sleep on them--it means you can never do more than visit a pegasus city ever again.”
On stage, Thunder Axe was beating her wings rapidly, shaking her feathers as she did so in an odd flailing motion, causing little sparks and crackles of static electricity to form around the edges of her feathers.
“Why?” asked Vinyl.
“Look at her guitar,” answered Raindrops.
Vinyl did. “Whoa,” she said. “That’s… is that even possible?”
Thunder Axe’s guitar was not the acoustic instrument most ponies played. It was a unicorn guitar, made to be played with magic. Flat and utterly lacking any hollow space inside, it couldn’t work without magic.
Thunder Axe cradled her guitar between her forelegs as she hovered, and brought her hooves to the strings. Electricity flowed from her wings, down her forelegs and into her hooves. The shoes glowed dull blue as a continuous flow of energy jumped the short distance into the guitar, and then she stroked the strings, making her instrument scream like an orphaned angel.
“Now I’m ready,” she said.
The drummer--the only stallion on stage--counted them into their first song of the practice set. Strings swelled from the crystaphone and Awesome Sauce’s surprisingly sweet voice soared, full of nostalgia and regret and sour old anger.
Sparkling angel, I believed
You are my savior in my time of need
Blinded by faith, I couldn’t hear
All the whispers, the warnings so clear
As the song continue, the strings were joined by a chorus vocalizing, an ethereal sound that slowly grew louder and darker.
I see the angels, I’ll lead them to your door
There’s no escape now, no mercy no more
No remorse, ‘cause I still remember...
Suddenly the anger ripped out from under the sadness in an explosion of guitars and drums and strings, and Awesome Sauce's suddenly furious song:
The smile when you tore me apart!
The first song continued in rage and sorrow for a time, a lament of betrayal and lost innocence. After it ended, they moved immediately on to another, one Raindrops had never heard before. “New song!” she screamed, completely inaudible over the band. “I’m hearing a NEW SONG!”
She recognized it as being basically the same as Lyra’s song about the Jackelope, but subtly different. It started with ominous, low strings from Carda harmonized with a slow, sinister bass line by Awesome Sauce and an aggressive, almost tribal beat from the bass drum. Then the snares kicked up and Thunder’s guitar blared out the Sun theme for a couple of lines, before Awesome Sauce began singing the destruction of the valley from the Ballad of the Jackelope over top.
The chorus was not something Lyra had sung. Raindrops didn’t know if it was because she forgot or because the Daughters made it up, but it was sung to the Moon theme with the ominous bass and strings behind it.
There’s no one here
There’s no way back again
This empty valley’s burning
And I can never see you!
The band played on, Awesome Sauce’s clear high voice contrasting with the grinding, despairing rage of the instruments, the swelling tide of darkness the flowed from the strings and up the drums, but never quite made it past Thunder’s guitar. Awesome sang of ending and failure, of being unable to protect the ones she loved, but of being absolutely determined to keep trying. Near the end of the song, haunting, echoing bells replaced her voice for a time as Carda took a solo, and it nearly broke Raindrop’s heart.
The song ended as the drums and bass gave way to mournful horns and strings. Slowly everything else died away, and there was nothing left but a single viol playing alone in the silent dark--and then with a clack of drumsticks like an echoing hoofstep in a long black corridor, even that ended.
Raindrops blinked and looked around. She was still in the desert in the middle of the day, not a night lit only by the dying embers of a once-beautiful forested valley. “That… was… AWESOME!” she shouted into the sudden silence. “Yeah! Wooo!” She flew up into the air and began clapping wildly. “You rule!”
Awesome Sauce grinned fiercely. “Not bad,” she said to the band. “I think we’re ready to play that one tomorrow night.”
Raindrops did a long slow loop-de-loop of joy.
Hours later, exhausted, starving, and her throat sore, but with the itches and discomfort of the desert nearly forgotten, Raindrops staggered back in the general direction of Trailer 27. Or tried to--she was too tired to fly, and in the twilight and from the ground the festival didn’t look much like the map at all. She soon found herself on the edge of the cluster of trailers, which didn’t make any sense at all.
She turned slowly in a circle, trying to figure out where she’d ended up, and saw something glinting in the last rays of the sunset. It looked like the rainbow shimmer of a soap bubble, but hard-edged instead of round. Curious, she tried to walk toward it, but it was on the far side of a slight ridge, and in her attempts to go around Raindrops lost sight of it.
“What was that?” she wondered out loud. She shook her head; her eyes were dry and her head pounding from a long day of glare and bone-dry moisture-stealing evil desert air, so she was probably just seeing things.
Raindrops sighed. Tired as she was, she was going to have to fly up and get her bearings. She beat her wings slowly and rose in a series of ungraceful surges, a few feet at a time. Just as she cleared the top of the ridge, she saw the rainbow shimmer again out of the corner of her eye.
She turned to face it. Inches away was the most bizarre rock she’d ever seen, two multi-branched iridescent gray crystals almost like a crystaphone, each one a good three feet tall and half that wide, sprouting from a brown boulder that looked almost fuzzy.
Then the brown rock—slowly, in obvious pain—uncurled and wasn’t a rock at all. It was a large, lean brown bunny, with a longer face and ears than the bunnies Raindrops had seen in Ponyville, bigger than most cats. It turned to face her, its eyes enormous, almond-shaped, and pitch-black, ancient seas that seemed to swallow everything they saw with perfect peace and endless sadness.
It could not be anything but a jackelope.
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And just like that, it updates! WOO!
Also, the fact an actual Jackelope is around is hilarious.
Update?!
Think that's supposed to be "Vinyl."
Hmm...wonder if the comic's version of jackalopes will in any way affect what they're like in this...
i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/518/183/5db.png
2374702
Oops. Fixing now.
And no. Clearly this is a Western Jackelope, while Fluttershy is discussing the Vampiric Jackelope. Totally different subspecies.
I should really read the comics at some point...
2374702 ....further proof that Flutershy is more badflank than she lets on. I mean, look at everypony else's reactions, and flutershy is looking on hapy as can be gushing about the wonder of nature. Even RD and AJ are sick, and they're the outdorsy types.
A pony called Awesome Sauce who's special talent is being awesome! THAT'S SO AWSOME!!!
Shouldn't Scotaloo be the head of her fanclub?
2374702
I so love Fluttershy's expression in that comic
2374974
well, Scootaloo also thinks her bongo playing and her singing are awesome, so her musical taste is.....weird.
2374974
How do you know she isn't?
I was considering dropping a mention that Pokey Pierce is a big fan, but decided not to on the grounds that I prefer the idea he's never heard of her, as their meeting would likely end the universe.
I posted a picture of Awesome Sauce way downthread.
As promised, here's that last song.
Quite nice. Permanent horseshoes... one hell of a sacrifice for the craft.
2376032
The soundtrack for that series is amazing, especially for a series where despair is a major plot point. Have you tried embedding the links into the story so readers can listen while they read (dawg)?
2380396
I didn't know that was possible! Definitely going to consider doing it from here out.
Great chapter, I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to the next one, also loved seeing Vinyl play the record via magic.
2376027 Nice update! Though I weep for Pokey being denied the awesomeness of this music, merely due to the flimsy state of the material universe.
Nice story. But I think you're overstating the permanency of steel shoes, you would just need a farrier to remove them. And as to the cloud stuff, if a Pegasus's ability to stand on clouds was entirely weight based then their ability(in some fics) to reduce weight would surely compensate. However, if a Pegasus's cloud interaction was a result of their magic wrapping them in a invisible shell that allowed them to treat clouds as a solid, then ThunderAxe while not being able to stand on clouds should be able to sleep on them.
Also she only needs steel shoes on her fore hooves since those are the ones she uses to play with, so she could walk around with her rear hooves while using her wings to keep her upright and balanced. Unless she also plays with her rear hooves to wow the crowd.
There is also the concept of Thunder Forged Steel that was introduced in the Winningverse. Thunder clouds are used like an Induction Forge to process steel and in doing so gives the metal the ability to stay on clouds like a Pegasus. Though it is a bit costly to make the steel.
Other than that, I like to idea of a Pegasus channeling her electric ability into steel shoes in order to play a magic guitar, but I think you should go back and rework the part with Thunder Axe because the cloud stuff just doesn't make since to me.
2685086
I think "you need to go to a specialist to get it removed" is quite permanent enough. And I regard the shoes as sucking the pegasus' magical field into themselves, which is why Thunder Axe's trick works. So even though the field normally surrounds their body, with the shoes on it flows out through their feet and dissipates, making them unable to sleep on clouds as well as stand on them.
She needs hooves on all four feet because otherwise her front legs would be a good inch or two longer than they should be relative to her back legs, which would be very uncomfortable to walk on.
Since this is the Lunaverse, not the Winningverse, Thunder Forged Steel doesn't appear to exist. Unless another Lunaverse author wants to introduce it, I'm going to assume it doesn't. Mostly because I love the image of a pegasus using lightning powers to play an electric guitar and I want to keep it, but I want Thunder Axe to have sacrificed for it.
2775321Okay, I guess that all works, but I think you should make Thunder Axe's shoes be specially made or enchanted in order to do what it is they do. Otherwise, it sounds like(to me) any piece of steel slapped on a Pegasus will start draining their magic field, then how would you explain Pegasus armor and weapons? And don't say that their enchanted, cuase I don't think the rest of the Lunaverse would go for that.
2775734
Nah, it's specifically because it's not just worn, it's nailed into your hoof. The magic field is generated inside the hooves, after all.
Hi. Um... I don't want to seem overconfident, but I've been trying to actually contribute to the Lunaverse group, so I offered my ability to draw. I really enjoy this story so far, so I was wondering if you'd like me to draw you a cover for the story?
I'll be looking forward to this updating. Incidentally, that second song feels a bit more like "The Poet and the Muse" from Alan Wake, admittedly with wildly different lyrics.
2874124
That'd be awesome! Go for it!
2990937
Nice song! And yes, I see what you mean.
"The shoes glowed dull blue as a continuous flow of energy jumped the short distance into the guitar, and then she stroked the strings, making her instrument scream like an orphaned angel."
BEST, goddamned metaphor for an opening electric guitar riff i have ever read/heard.
Totally diggin your taste in music, Nightwish rocks, any chance we will get a pony version of "I wish i had an Angel" or "Bye Bye Beautiful"?
Also love what your are apparently doing with the jackalope(s). I love it when fantasy races have something that make them culturally distinct from other beings besides thier appearance. that whole "making two things work together that shouldn't work otherwise" theme is very unique. Say, was if a Jackalope that first mixed chocolate and peanut butter?
Oh, I got some singing to do when I get here. Why didn't you link the songs int the story itself?
Within Temptation? Hell to the yes. One of my absolute favourite bands.