Subjunctive

by Integral Archer

Chapter IX: Superlative

But, no matter what impression I and my lessons made on him, no matter whether he understood my words completely, whether I made him angry; or whether he looked at me with a slack jaw and unfocused eyes, so that I felt as though I were merely spouting megalomaniacal monologues—no matter the result of the lesson, Foil would always leave me on the same terms and in the same manner: a smile, a hoofshake, a thank-you; then he would pick up whatever he had left on the ground and sling it professionally over his broad shoulders, strike a posture with such assiduity that it would’ve been hard for anyone to think that he at times played a pony and believed himself not to be a soldier of Their Majesties’ Royal Guard, and then would walk away with a firm step, not a single undisciplined hair blowing out of its rank. In that moment, a sort of transformation would go through him: He would no longer be my student, and I would not even be able to say for certain that he had ever been. He looked like an animate statue struck with autonomous control and movement. His walk cycles were completely uniform, his neck and head completely immovable. Only his eyes betrayed the unmistakable evidence of his life, which would focus and burn into any pony in his way or field of view, as though seeing through all pretenses and appearances, and invariably making his target shiver with fear until the sentry’s gaze left him, moving instantaneously and rapidly, but the soldier’s ever-shifting stare none the less potent for it.

The punctuality of the sentries, his punctuality, was such that I could use the moment he left as a precise reference to the time of day.

Precisely five minutes and two seconds after he would get up and leave me, a visual phenomenon, as though of supernatural origin, would seem to split the air, sound, and time in front and around me. Five minutes and two seconds after the sentry left me, I would be lost to my surroundings, to the multicolored blurs that wavered past me down the street, unchanged in their motions and speech as though they couldn’t see what I was seeing.

It never occurred to me whether, in my trance, I evinced indiscreetly any intimations of my deviance. It never occurred to me; for, in the world of that sight, notions such as who I was and what I was doing blurred into the background as irrelevant as everything else around me.

Before midday, even on the clearest days, the sky, bright as it is, did not seem to touch the palace. The facade was dark, not so much matter as shadow. It was a titan blocking out the background light, a seemingly immutable entity making its existence known by darkening otherwise lighted streets, depressing otherwise bustling activity, and hovering ominously over the general livelihood.

And, moreover, the facade was a uniform gray-blue. You squinted and you thought you could make out some colors, but you could not honestly convince yourself that there was anything else. Enough time goes by, and you shrugged your shoulders, convinced that any colors you thought you saw were merely illusions.

Then it happened: five minutes, two seconds after the sentry left.

And when the upper turret of the structure caught that first ray of sun, the turret was not only illuminated: it sparkled.

You could hardly believe it. No, you thought: no, it can’t possibly glitter like that. You watched that firm line drawn by the sun travel down the facade, as if a thousand fireflies were leaving a trail of their iridescence along the stones. The turret itself was unremarkable, no more special than the galleries, than the ramparts, than the columns, than their pedestals: but it was the brick itself; or, rather, it was the amalgam of stone that was made specifically to give off this appearance. When you saw it, there could be no doubt: this wasn’t one of those happy flukes that occur to the novice artist which he so happily takes for his own doing. This arrangement of stone was chosen specifically to give off this appearance, to instill within you that feeling he wanted you to feel, the feeling that seemed to alight from the building and erupt within you five minutes and two seconds after the sentry left.

But that was only the preamble. The argument followed closely behind. These arguments took the form of enormous crystals, greatly elliptical, so large that you could see their detail while you stood on the ground as a mere observer.

These are the windows.

Minerals were different colors; I knew that. Crystals were often polychromatic, whose painter was the caprice of the earth.

But here I use caprice in its strictest sense when referring to the crystals of the earth. The colors in the windows were not capricious in form by any standard. Never before had I seen colors so deliberate. Never had I seen them so bright. I swear that they amplified the sun’s rays when hit, such that the first day I witnessed this unveiling, as it were, I was blinded, and phantom spots danced in my periphery for the day remaining, and for many joyful, sorrowful, despairing, liberating, assuring, and terrifying days to come.

The colors in the windows were painted in the form of certain figures, and the painter left the identity of these figures open to no interpretation. They were what he said they were.

And what were they? I knew there was a definitive answer to that question; but, at the time, I didn’t know what that answer was. There were about a dozen of these crystal paintings, each one a different window. Each one depicted a struggle. The object of hatred and opposition, the one defeated, was in dark colors; while the victors were in warm, bright colors.

Who were the victors? Some I knew instantly upon sight; others, I wasn’t able to imagine who they could be or why the architect had enshrined them thus. They varied. The royal sisters were there in a few of the pictures, but their likenesses didn’t interest me: one was always discordantly bright with the rest of the window, giving her an ethereal, non-existent appearance; while the other one was discordantly dark, drawing my eye away from her and toward other elements. On such windows, I found myself looking at the villain as if he were the intended center of intention rather than the sisters. My eye was certainly drawn to him.

But there were two windows in particular that perplexed me more than any other. On these two windows, the victors were not the sisters but rather six ordinary figures. Ah, but not ordinary, for such an adjective is inappropriate. Who could possibly be called normal who vanquishes him who threatens? Extraordinary.

And it is the extraordinary that interested me, no matter if it supported or opposed me. It was the extraordinary that made me feel as if there were still benefits of the world left to reap, as if the world were not a desert. Thus, I found myself looking at these six figures.

They, in their windows, were all consonant with each other and formed into an integral whole. Unlike the royal sisters, who I felt could be removed from their windows without repercussion, these six figures fit inextricably with theirs. In each one, a power came to mind, a power almost tangible, not mere pretense and hearsay like the others. I could never stop looking at the six. I would always watch until the sun passed.

When I was pulled back to the corporeal world, vague hints lingered in my mind. I thought:

Were these creatures of mere legend whom the sisters inscribed into the walls of their palace for posterity? Or were they living, breathing ponies, the windows of whom were monuments to their living excellence? I didn’t know. In any case, their images stayed with with me. I stared at those windows so long that I could recall and see them in my mind’s eye whenever I pleased. And though they were only glass, when I looked into their eyes, though they were not looking back, I felt something in myself that I’d never felt when looking into the eyes of a creature of another species:

Fear.

Comments

[Reese]

...I only just noticed that this story has the Fluttershy tag. I wonder what that means.

[TheStratovarian]

And in this, we have learning, where the real aspect of a people is revealed. Its culture, and how it is honored. In which does he really learn what matters. Of his view, and his focus, yet it is partial, a fragment of a whole, because of his perceptions. If he could bend his view to absolutes, he would see so much more, despite the narrowness of a view in that way, yet he has gleamed something.

Fear, oh, to see something unique looking back through the glass. Yet is it the power of the image, or what they represent that inspires the fear? But a lovely update.

[SomeRandomMinion]

Seems like Errenax's thoughts of "Changelings are superior" just got their first crack.