> Verse Averse: Tales of the Versebreakers
>  by horizon
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> The Clattering Crash of Destiny (AugieDog)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 
"Just relax."  Master Scrivener's rich, buttery voice usually did relax Daisy Chain, too.  Even with all the assignments she'd been messing up lately, a smile and a few words from Scrivener served to settle her stomach better than anything she'd ever known.

Usually.

"Let us know when you're ready," the kapellmeister went on.

The afternoon sunlight splashed across the practice room wall in front of her, but Daisy wouldn't let herself think about that.  This was all way too important for her to waste time noticing the dust motes dancing in the beam coming down from the window or the bright patch creeping slowly over the white paint, bringing light to what lay ahead and shadow to what lay behind, the constant motion--

"Daisy?"  This time, Scrivener's voice startled her, made her jump in place and snap her head around.

The old earth pony blinked at her, his face showing nothing but concern.  Beside him, though, Glottal Stop and Metonymy wore the same pursed lips and half-lidded eyes they always seemed to have on whenever Daisy was in the same room as them.  "Whenever you're ready," Scrivener said again.

Giving a nod that she had to admit was more a twitch than anything else, Daisy forced her ears not to fold when the music started: a simple, mid-tempo, four-beat pattern with a slight shuffling rhythm.  Her two fellow students began to bob almost instantly, Glottal's wings ruffling and Metonymy's horn weaving back and forth like a metronome.

Daisy tried to follow their motions, tried to feel it in her fetlocks the way Scrivener always said that earth ponies should, and she almost thought she was maybe feeling something when the kapellmeister began to sing, the first syllable of his first line catching the upbeat perfectly:

"Relax, my dear,
For you've naught to fear.
It's as simple a task as breathing.
Recall the days
When your foalish ways
Let you sing through the pain of teething.
Rejoice and shout
All your heartache out,
All the struggle and strife of living.
Renewal dwells
Where the music swells:
You shall find the world more forgiving!"

Glottal Stop and Metonymy had started a little dance behind Master Scrivener, and a shiver ran up Daisy's spine as she realized she was kind of doing it, too: her hoofs were moving more or less in time to the music, at least.  And when the pegasus and the unicorn came in on the chorus, the harmony of their tenor and soprano flowed over Daisy's ears as sweet as a cup of cool water on a summer afternoon:

"It's fulfilling,
If you're willing.
Every answer you could need
Shines around you
To astound you
As you blossom like a seed!"

The air itself swirled, the earth beneath her swaying in ways that Daisy hadn't felt since, well, that she hadn't ever felt.  The music swung into a jaunty key change, and Daisy's fetlocks told her they were coming to the second verse even as Scrivener launched into it:

"Allow your voice
To proclaim your choice!
We shall welcome you openhearted!
Awaken now!
Let us show you how!"

Sensing her cue, Daisy leaped in, let her full contralto ring:

"I am!  I will!  Just teach me where to start!"

The meter, the rhyme, the rhythm: she knew it was wrong the instant it came out of her mouth.  But by then, the trumpets were screeching to a halt, drumheads tearing and violin strings snapping, Daisy's mane standing on end to hear the whole invisible ensemble crash into dissonance, unable to accompany her line.  Glottal and Metonymy both staggered backwards as if they'd been hit in the face with multiple snowballs, but it was Master Scrivener's wince that stabbed into Daisy's heart like shrapnel flying from a shattered cymbal.

Horrible, horrible silence stretched to fill the practice room, Daisy's whole body frozen in place, until--

"Impressive," came a scratchy voice.

Daisy could almost hear her neck creak as she craned around to see a gray earth pony stallion standing in the shadows over by the door.  "And she brought it all down with a single line of iambic pentameter.  You were right about this one, Scriv."

Scrivener's sigh folded Daisy's ears.  "First time in my life I've ever hoped to be wrong," he said, but Daisy couldn't look away from the stranger.  How long had he been standing there?  Why hadn't he been pulled into the musical number, especially one strong enough to affect a clod like her?  And more than that, why did the unlit candle of his cutie mark make her chest go tight?

Master Scrivener moved to the gray pony's side, his face serious.  "Daisy Chain, I'd like you to meet my brother Snuff.  He...he's with the Versebreakers."

Two gasps echoed Daisy's own, and she was pretty sure she took the same step back that Glottal Stop and Metonymy did.  "A versebreaker?"  Daisy could barely say the word.  "Here?  But--!"

"Calm yourself, Novice."  Scrivener's mouth went sideways, his gaze sharpening.  "We of the Bardic College are close allies with the Versebreakers and always will be.  We share a common goal, after all: to make Equestria's musical interludes safe, fun, and beneficial for everypony everywhere."

Shaking, Daisy heard the words but couldn't quite process them.  All her life she'd heard nothing but snide remarks and fearful whispers about the Versebreakers.  "Monsters, my mother calls them," she heard herself say, then she dropped to her haunches and clapped her front hooves over her snout.

Scrivener's next sigh was largely drowned under Snuff's bark of laughter.  "That sounds like Chain Verse, all right."  He shook his head.  "The debates your mother and I got into at school, well, we usually left a few pieces of furniture unbroken."

Unsure if she was still breathing, Daisy could only stare some more.  Snuff cleared his throat, his shoulders shifting.  "Look, kid, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you're a natural.  And like Scriv says, we're all on the same team here."  He swept a hoof around the room.  "Bards step in and help good musical numbers get better, and us Versebreakers see to it that the bad ones get derailed before ponies end up throwing themselves off roofs or under trains or the like."  He gave a slippery grin and jabbed an elbow into Master Scrivener's side.  "What's the motto, Scriv?"

A very similar grin pulled at the kapellmeister's snout, and the two old ponies recited in unison: "No operas here!"

"But--"  Daisy wanted to say so many things--object to the idea of bards and versebreakers being anything other than mortal enemies; swear to Master Scrivener that she'd try harder next time; wail and rail against the truth that she felt as undeniable and uncomfortable as a popcorn kernel between her teeth.  "I...I'm a versebreaker?" she finally managed to squeeze out.

Snuff shrugged.  "A natural," he said again.

Scrivener stepped toward her and rested a hoof on her shoulder.  "I'll explain things to Chain Verse, Daisy, but your mother loves you.  She'll understand."  He gave yet another sigh.  "Eventually, I'm sure."  He sat and gestured to his brother.  "But for now, the sooner you begin your training, the better for all of Equestria."

"But--"  Daisy shifted her gaze from Snuff to Scrivener to Glottal Stop and Metonymy, but the looks her two fellow students were giving her--eyes wide, nostrils flared, lips curled like they'd caught a sudden stink--made her pull her eyelids shut.  "I'm sorry," she said, not really sure who she was talking to.

"Don't be."  Snuff's rough voice reminded her of Scrivener's now that she had her eyes closed.  "Maybe you're not gonna get invited to a lotta parties, kid, but you're gonna save a lotta ponies' lives."  Something bumped her shoulder, and she blinked to see him standing right in front of her, his grin more solid than before.  "Scriv already had your bags packed up; they're out in the cab waiting for us."  He turned for the door and started out.

Daisy looked back once more at Master Scrivener.  He nodded.  "It's for the best, my dear," he said.

Her legs prickling like they'd fallen asleep, Daisy pushed herself to her hoofs and followed her new master out of the practice room.
 
 
 
 
 

> Manehattan Takes Rarity (Sharp Spark)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The legend about Manehattan is that it was founded by a bunch of earth ponies who had seen Cloudsdale and figured they could do a better job at building a city in the sky. The story was obviously apocryphal, but with the number of skyscrapers threading in between the clouds, it was no wonder ponies believed it.

The Woolworth Building wasn’t the tallest of them all — it seemed like every few years some pony with an obscene amount of bits and a correspondingly large ego tried to outdo all the rest with some new mega-tower. But it was a mainstay of the skyline, popular for its classical style that stood out from the modernist structures surrounding it. It was one of the oldest skyscrapers after all, built and occupied by a conglomerate of sheep brokers until the city purchased it.

Now it housed nearly all of City Services, from City Planning at the very top through Education, Health & Hygiene, Transportation, Finance, Records… all the way down to the Department of Sanitation tucked away in the basement. Almost every important group of ponies that kept the Big Orange spinning were tucked away somewhere in that building.

Almost. The Versebreaker Division was housed in a dilapidated two-story building that used to be a firehouse, three blocks away.

Purple Fugue didn’t really fault the bigwigs in City Government. It wasn’t anything personal; ponies with his particular set of skills tended to unsettle others, given the normal equine harmonization with the cosmic forces of music. And to be honest, he liked the solitude. All things considered, the Versebreaker Division was thriving and well-funded, but they didn’t need much in the way of office space, given that their work was out on the streets. So it just meant him hanging out there, keeping track of everypony’s assignments. Arranging for shift changes in the case of illness or vacation. Dealing with any problems that came up.

He was in his office, snoring gently into a pile of incident reports, when a Problem Came Up.

The door banged open and Purple Fugue nearly fell out of his chair as a pony rushed in. “What?” he yelled out. “Who? ...Pierce?”

Pierced Rhythm was one of the younger members of the Manehattan Versebreakers, but a go-getter with a lot of natural talent. Fugue suspected it wouldn’t take him long to rise up through the ranks, and he looked on the kid with a kind of paternal fondness. That didn’t mean that he didn’t recognize Pierce as being a little too over-excitable though.

“Boss!” Pierce blurted out. “We’ve got an emergency on our hooves!”

“What is it?” Fugue shuffled some papers around on his desk to appear appropriately professional. “Some unicorn billionaire has decided to adopt a curly-haired down-on-her-luck filly? I keep telling Foal Services that they should give us warning about that sort of thing.”

“No. Worse!”

“A unicorn mare has fallen in love with a rough-and-tumble pegasus from the wrong part of town, and now two gangs are planning to have a big rumble right in our streets? That’s the third time this year!”

“No! Worse!”

Fugue paused, his eyes narrowing. “Okay, you better not be telling me another florist has gotten his hooves on a weird plant and it’s grown out of control and started to crave the flesh of ponies, because I still think the first time was some kind of shared mass hallucination.”

“No!” Pierced Rhythm took a big gulp, shaking like a leaf. “There are ponies coming in from the countryside. Tomorrow!”

Fugue let out a breath. “Is that all? We get wannabe stars blowing into town every day. That’s practically our bread and butter, keeping the business district from shutting down every time a rube with a head fulla dreams arrives to make it in the Big Orange.”

“It’s not just anypony. There’s a Princess, and—”

“Come on now, you know us Manehattanites aren’t much for respecting royalty, either. They put their indescribably expensive golden hoof-shoe-thingies on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us.”

Pierce shook his head violently. “Not just any Princess. The Princess from…” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Ponyville.”

Purple Fugue felt his blood run cold. That was a name he had heard before. Every Versebreaker had, and knew that Ponyville was a place to avoid at all costs. There were stories about that town that could chill the bone. Just thinking about them started to put a song in his head. And last he had heard, Ponyville also meant—

“She’s bringing her friends, too. And one of them is…” Pierce’s eyes drifted over to a wall, where yellowing posters were tacked up on the board for Manehattan’s Least Wanted. There, posted up right between Baby Voice Nelson and Alto Capone, was a mugshot of a little filly with an outrageous mane and an impossibly wide smile.

There was a reason besides seniority why Fugue was keeping a desk warm instead of being out on a regular beat. The Pink One had put an end to his career, one day fifteen years ago. 

It was still a mystery as to why the kid had shown up in the middle of Times Square. It had been a busy day – the city had organized a hushed parade for hometown hero Low Murmur after she had claimed the World Championship of ‘Shh’, plus a diplomatic envoy of silent monks from Neighpon had chosen to see the sights, plus an exhibition of Prench street artists had gathered together to demonstrate their craft. Nopony could have expected the Pink One to start singing. And only Celestia knows why she had decided to start at one million buckets of oats on the wall.

There were a lot of good ponies lost that day. And also some mimes.

Fugue gritted his teeth. “Alright, call everypony in. We’re going to need all the firepower we’ve got if we want to stop this.”

“Wait,” Pierce said shakily. “I might have a solution.”

“I’m listening.”

Pierce nosed through his saddlebags and produced a thick stack of papers. “There’s a Request for Approved Musical Performance.”

“Really?” A grin spread across Fugue’s face. “Maybe this princess is a pony we can reason with. And in that case, it’s simple: we’ll decline based on incomplete paperwork and she won’t have enough time to refile.”

Pierce shifted from one hoof to another. “That’s just the thing, boss. I think the paperwork is complete.” 

Fugue snorted and began leafing through the stack, wincing only slightly as he noticed each page was filled out in pink crayon, with loopy mouthwriting and a smiley face in every dot of an ‘i’. Still... “Nopony has complete paperwork. In fact, we plan it that way. The RAMP sub-codicil 26$A references a Form 347B, and the dirty little secret behind everything is that there is no Form—”

He froze, staring down at the page in front of him.

“Uh,” Pierce muttered. “It turns out the princess apparently personally designed and implemented Form 347B last year, under the Bureaucratic Inefficiency Act of 992.”

“I thought that was used to get rid of outdated forms?”

“No, you’re thinking of the Bureaucratic Efficiency Act of 974. I think that one got repealed for revisions due to some procedural issue.”

“How would she even know? What, does she read Equestrian law textbooks before bed each night?”

Pierce shrugged helplessly.

“What’s your solution then?” Fugue said, feeling a headache oncoming.

“Hear me out here.” Pierce bit his lip as he paused. “We let her have her song?”

Fugue cut a sharp glare in his direction. “That’s treading on thin ice. What’s she asking for?”

“One song, solo with up to five supporting roles and incidentals from external participants.”

“She can guarantee it doesn’t extend to a wider audience?” Fugue rubbed a hoof against his chin. “That’s… reasonable. What aren’t you telling me?”

“...And some montaging.”

Fugue groaned.

“And a reprise, as appropriate.”

“You’re killing me, Pierce.”

“It’s better than the alternative.”

Fugue shivered. He knew it to be true. An uncontrolled song with those as the participants? It could turn into a disaster of apocalyptic proportions: unimpeded choral harmonization, synchronized dance mobs, cats and dogs singing together. Mass hysteria!

“Okay,” Fugue said grimly. “It’s our only option. But the reprise is a downtempo solo at most. If I see so much as a single innocent businesspony drawn in as backup vocals, I’m coming down on their heads like a basket of oranges. And I want our ponies doubled — no, tripled — at the Fashion Week venue. The last thing we want is some ambitious model accidentally setting off a chain reaction.”

Pierced Rhythm dipped his head. “I’ll let the others know.” He offered up a tentative grin. “Just another day in the big city, eh boss? Nothing’s ever easy.”

Fugue leaned back in his chair. “You can say that again. All we can do is keep an alert eye open and be ready to come in off key.”

“Of course,” Pierce said. “That’s our motto, after all...”

Fugue finished for him. “C♯ and B♭.”
 
 
 
 
 

> The Sound of Silence (FanOfMostEverything)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 
Morning in Ponyville shimmered. It had been doing that quite a bit lately.

This particular morning was nearing its end, and the shimmer had worn down to a pleasant glow about the townsfolk. Many gave warm greetings to the stranger moving through town, a grey unicorn stallion with a dark blue mane, his cutie mark apparently a black boater hat, upside-down and positioned so its brim was a straight line.

Many did, but not all. A blue earth stallion shuddered as the newcomer passed by. A white unicorn mare, bobbing her head to an unheard beat, came to a halt as he approached, then began pursuing him. A Pinkie Pie felt bizarrely conflicted, some seventh sense telling her that a welcome party was not in order.

And one filly, trotting across the main thoroughfare, stumbled to a halt as she passed in front of him. Sweetie Belle turned and looked into the stallion’s eyes. Her pupils shrank to pinpricks, and something reached through her conscious mind and throttled her midbrain in a grip of animal panic. She reared up and fled with a wordless whinny of alarm.

The stallion looked around at the crowd, all eyes on him. “Er, sorry.”





Enemy. Danger. Run.

By the time Sweetie Belle came back to herself, she didn’t even stumble. If she was galloping away from that strange stallion, then she probably had a good reason for it. And she was already more than halfway to Carousel Boutique.

Soon, the boutique was in view. Sweetie brought her head down and redoubled her speed.

“Yo! Crusader!”

Sweetie stumbled, went head over hooves, and tumbled until she was just a few feet from the front door.

“Yikes.” Hoofsteps approached her at a trot. “Sorry about that, kid. You okay?”

Sweetie brought herself to her hooves and shook her head. “I’ll be fine.” She looked to the speaker. White unicorn mare, bright blue mane, tinted glasses. “You’re… um… that DJ?”

The mare nodded. “DJ PON-3, but you can call me Vinyl when I’m not in the booth.” Her grin softened. “I saw your flipout back there. Wanna talk about it?”

“Um…” Sweetie edged away from her. “I’d really rather just stay with my sister right now.”

Vinyl nodded. “Yeah, I get that. But I can help you out. Explain what it was that made you bolt like that.”

Sweetie’s eyes darted about. “I… I don’t know…”

“Hey.” Vinyl slowly crouched down, putting her at eye level with Sweetie. “I know how you’re feeling right now. On edge, scared out of your gourd, flinching at shadows, and you got no idea why. Sound about right?”

Sweetie tried to speak a few times, found no words, and just nodded.

“I’ve been there, and I can tell you what happened. We can have your sister right there with you if it’ll help. You can trust me, Sweetie. Cross my heart, hope to fly, et cetera.” Vinyl made all the appropriate motions. “Okay?”

“Well…” Sweetie gulped. “Okay. I guess.”

Vinyl nodded. “Cool.” She walked Sweetie to the door and knocked.

Rarity opened it, a puzzled look on her face. “No need to knock; we’re currently— Vinyl Scratch?”

”Yo.”

“Er, yes. ‘Yo.’” Rarity cringed. “To what do I owe this… surprise?”

Sweetie wrapped herself around one of Rarity’s forelegs.

“Sweetie Belle?” Rarity looked back and forth between the two. “Vinyl, what happened?”

“Sweets here had her first run-in with a versebreaker.”

“Oh?” Rarity put a hoof to her lips. “Oh.” She embraced Sweetie. “You poor dear, you must have been terrified.”

Sweetie just tightened her grip.

Rarity looked back up at Vinyl. “I suppose you could explain this better than I.”

Vinyl nodded. “That’s the plan. Figured Her Royal Purpleness wouldn’t be available.”

“You’d be right. Twilight’s in Canterlot. The rest of us are leaving for the coronation tomorrow.” Rarity lit her horn, and a “Closed” sign floated onto the door. “Come in, come in, I’m sure we have much to discuss.”

Several minutes later, they were seated in Rarity’s kitchen, the table bearing a pot of tea, a plate of cucumber sandwiches, and a big bowl of ice cream. Both mares gave Sweetie some time alone with the treat. Spoonful by spoonful, her shaking withers relaxed, her tears dried, and her ears perked back up. Soon enough, her sobs had given way to appreciative little murmurs.

After Sweetie had tipped back the bowl, Vinyl said, “So, Sweetie, you ever heard of versebreakers before?”

Sweetie shook her head as she put the bowl down. “Mm-mm.”

“From the start, then. You ever start singing out of nowhere? Full band and everything?”

“Mm-hm.” Sweetie swallowed. “On Hearts and Hooves Day, when we were looking for a coltfriend for Miss Cheerilee…” She looked down and blushed. “Well, you probably know the rest.”

Vinyl nodded. “Okay, so you know what it’s like. Lyrics popping into your head, body moving on its own, that sort of thing. But there are times when that ain’t appropriate, like tax audits or stage productions.” She chuckled. “Nothing Bridleway hates worse than the audience breaking into the wrong song, especially when the actors get caught up in it. That’s where versebreakers come in.”

“So they’re just ponies who stop ponies from singing musical numbers?” Sweetie looked into her bowl. “Then why didn’t that stallion scare anypony else?”

“Same reason us pinheads don’t need to preen.”

Rarity frowned. “Vinyl, language.”

Vinyl shrugged. “What? It’s cool if a unicorn says it.”

Rarity opened her mouth, but Sweetie preempted her. “What did you mean?”

“Music ain’t a part of some ponies the way it is for others, same as wings or horns. I know a shiver went down my spine when Whole Rest went by.”

Sweetie said, “You know him?”

“Know him? He’s my uncle, mom’s side.” Vinyl leaned back on her stool. “I always felt a little creeped out around him. Got used to it after a while, as much as I ever could.”

Sweetie slumped. “You probably never screamed and ran.”

“Well, there was that time on my cousin’s fifth birthday…” Vinyl shook her head. “Not the point. Point is, when I saw him and heard you, I knew what had happened, and that you didn’t. I’d have given him a piece of my mind, but screaming foals kinda take precedence, you know?

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Sweetie. It’s just… well, like your sister can tell you, us ponies are all about harmony, with or without capitals. Versebreakers aren’t. Like, at all. They’re the sour note that brings down the whole piece. Some of us pick up on that, ‘cause—“ Vinyl tensed up. “Oh, son of a mule.”

Rarity had chosen a very bad time to sip her tea. “Vinyl, honestly!” she sputtered as her magic reached for paper towels.

Vinyl bolted to her hooves. “We got bigger problems. Sweetie, keep breathing.”

Rarity paused, towel still in her magic. “Sweetie?”

Sweetie stared at nothing, her breaths coming quick and shallow. “He’s coming.” Her head darted up. “He’s coming!”

“Sweets, it’s okay!” Vinyl cried.

“He’s coming! He’ll stop the song!”

Rarity held her sister tight. “Sweetie Belle, please, calm down!”

Sweetie thrashed against her. “He’ll stop the song! He’ll stop the song!”

“I only quiet the song.”

Everypony went still. All eyes turned to the stallion in the kitchen’s entryway. He bowed his head. “Forgive my intrusion, miss.”

“You are forgiven, sir,” said Rarity, “but given the state you’ve put my sister in, I would very much like to know why.”

Vinyl stomped towards Whole Rest. “Seriously, Unc, have you gone nuts?”

“I just wanted to apologize.”

“To the filly who practically crapped herself from passing by you?”

“Vinyl Scratch,” said Rarity, “he may not have thought this through, but he meant well.”

Vinyl snarled at her. “Look, Clothes Horse, I get snippy when I’m afraid. You ain’t a musician, you don’t know. I may have built up a little tolerance, but you never really get used to versebreakers. Especially not when it’s the breaker’s talent.”

Whole Rest nodded. “So I’ve been told. But the filly can’t live like this. She’s going to encounter versebreakers more often. I’ve seen this kind of extreme reaction before; anypony with the training will elicit a fear response from her. She needs to see that we’re just ponies.”

“Yeah, great rutting job, Unc.”

Rarity gasped and covered Sweetie’s ears. “Vinyl—“

“Have you looked at her?” Vinyl jabbed a hoof at Sweetie. “She can’t hear a thing we’re saying.”

Rarity looked. Sweetie had stopped thrashing, at least, but now she was shaking in place. “Sweetie Belle?”

No response.

“You see?” Vinyl whirled back on Whole Rest. “You put her in a rutting coma!”

Rarity bit her lip as she thought. “I have a plan. If this doesn’t work, nothing will.” She gasped. “Sweetie, your cutie mark!”

“Huh?” Sweetie blinked and looked at her flank. Still bare white. “Rarity, that’s not—“ She stiffened and started to shiver.

“Miss Sweetie Belle?” Whole said from the entryway. She turned to him. “My name is Whole Rest. I am—“

“A… a versebreaker.” Sweetie gulped. “I know.”

Slowly, evenly, he said, “It is my job and my talent to quell the music of Harmony when necessary. But only when necessary. Aside from that, I am a stallion like any other.”

“I…” Sweetie took a deep breath. “I did something wrong during a musical number once.” 

Whole Rest gave a sad smile. “I’m not a boogeypony, Miss Belle. I’m not going to punish you for your past misdeeds.”

Sweetie screwed her eyes shut. “Even if I sang during a funeral?”

“Was it for very long?”

“Four words. Then the song moved on.”

Rest nodded. “I see. Did you apologize afterwards?”

Sweetie’ gaze dropped to the floor. “After Mr. Waddle yelled at me.”

“Will you do it again?”

Sweetie opened her mouth, but shut it again before saying anything. After a few moments, she said, “I don’t know.”

Rarity frowned down at her. “Sweetie Belle.”

“I don’t want to, but if the song puts me there…”

Whole Rest nodded. “Exactly. And if it happens again?”

Sweetie bit her lip. “I’ll apologize on my own?”

“Good filly.” Rest grinned, and Sweetie returned it.

Vinyl’s mouth hung open. She shook herself. “Sweetie? You feeling okay?”

“Well…” Sweetie eased herself out of Rarity’s embrace and took a step towards Whole Rest. She shook her head and retreated. “I think I’m as okay as I can be. Sorry, Mr. Rest.”

“You’re far from the first, Miss Belle.” Whole Rest grinned and looked to his niece. “Isn’t that right, Vinyl?”

“Go ram your horn into a subwoofer, Unc.”

“I love you too.”

Vinyl scrunched her muzzle. “The hay are you even doing here?”

“Four musical numbers inside of a week? Even for a town with a known party pony, that’s a ludicrous number. We’d have sent somepony to investigate by the third, but Princess Celestia herself had barred any action on our part until now. It seems to have settled down, so I’m making sure nothing was strained.”

Rarity tilted her head. “Excuse me?”

“Um, I think he’s here to make sure that Ponyville can still have musical numbers after Princess Twilight became a princess,” Sweetie said.

Whole Rest nodded. “Precisely. And I should get on that. Good day, ladies.” He smirked. “And Vinyl.”

“Oh, no. I’m not through with you.” Vinyl followed him out.

The sisters sat in silence for a time. Rarity spoke first. “Feeling better?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Still feel up to seeing your friends?”

Sweetie nodded. “We still need to find our cutie marks.”

Rarity blinked before shaking her head and smiling. “Go on, then. I have to at least pretend to work today.”

Sweetie hugged her. “Thanks for the ice cream, Rarity.”

“I love you, Sweetie Belle.”

“Love you too.” And with that, the filly was off.

Rarity sighed. “You can lead a pony to water…” She got to her hooves and gave a sad smile. “Ah, well. In good time.”





Vinyl and Whole Rest walked side by side. “You feeling alright?” he asked.

“I can handle it.” After a beat, Vinyl said, “Nice work cleaning up after your own mess.”

“I have some experience with especially sensitive ponies. The foals always have it the worst.”

Vinyl scowled. “So, why are you really here?”

Rest frowned. “I already—“

“I have studied acoustic magic, Unc. You can’t expect me to believe that the Bearers’ town got knocked out of harmony.”

Rest sighed. “You always were too smart for your own good.” He lit his horn, and Vinyl’s skin crawled. “There, just in case of eavesdroppers. I’m also here to give a job offer.”

Vinyl shook her head. “Like I told you before, my magic’s for making things loud.”

“The offer’s always on the table, but I didn’t mean you. We got a report in Manehattan about a mare disrupting a musical number… from the inside, without training. Very impressive.”

Vinyl quirked an eyebrow. “So how come you ain’t in Manehattan?”

“Because Lyra Heartstrings lives here.”

Vinyl stumbled. “Lyra?”

Whole Rest came to a halt. “You know her?”

“Sure. It’s a small town; not too many other musicians. But word on the grapevine is that she’s on vacation with her fillyfriend right now.”

“Don’t suppose you know where?”

Vinyl shrugged. “Grapevine didn’t tell me that. She heard it from Berry Punch, who heard it from Ditzy Doo, who heard from Carrot Top… We’re talking, like, fourthhoof gossip here.”

Rest grunted. “I don’t suppose you could pass the message along for me?”

“You want me to get some coffee while I’m at it? I’m your niece, not an intern.”

“Could you at least show me where she lives? I have a written notice rigged with a ‘your eyes only’ spell for this situation. The versebreakers could use a pony with her talents. Or yours.”

“Haven’t changed my mind from a minute ago, Unc.” Vinyl took a deep breath. “But I guess I can show you where to find her.” She turned and headed for Bon Bon’s Bonbons.

Rest followed her. “Thank you, Vinyl.”

“Hey, going by the current trend, this town’s only gonna get crazier. Probably a good idea to have a mute button on hoof.”

Afternoon in Ponyville shone, more quietly for some than others.
 
 
 
 
 

> On the Roof (horizon)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Welcome," False Note said, sweeping a hoof around, "to the Rooftop of Hopes and Dreams."

Lyra blinked back the afternoon sunlight, brushed back the mane that an insistent breeze was blowing over her eyes, and took a step out from the doorway to glance around.  While her trip to the so-called "Versebreaker Academy" had been one long string of subverted expectations, she had to admit that the broad, flat rooftop did look both hopey and dreamy.  Most of the city of Canterlot was built hugging the mountain, as if afraid of falling off; the Versebreakers' squat and blocky three-story headquarters would have been impossibly modest by Cloudsdale or Manehattan standards, but here it was a beetle among ants.  Standing atop it, she had nearly a 360-degree view from the spiraling towers of the palace to the sprawl of the city to the rainbow expanse of Equestria.  The air tasted brisk and clean, and the world around her seemed poised with potential.

Her stomach twinged.  A little too poised, in a way she was beginning to recognize.

Lyra backed into the shelter of the doorway and shot a questioning look at the orange pegasus.  "This place is a musical number waiting to happen."

"Of course.  Why do you think we came up here?"  False Note grinned, and waved a hoof in the direction of the roof's edge.  "Go on."

Lyra shook her head, feeling her heartbeat quicken and little prickles of sweat dot her forehead.  "Uh … no thanks.  I'm good."

"And I'm serious."

"Can we — maybe, uh, tomorrow?  I mean, training."  Lyra tried to drag words through her sudden haze of panic.  "It's been a tough day, a lot to think about —"

"I know it has," he said apologetically.  "I did warn you.  This is the last of it, though."

Lyra chewed her lip as she fought to rein her emotions in, then took a deep breath.  "That's fair.  It's just … as much as I've learned today, not a single thing was about how to break songs, and the only time I did that on my own, it hurt.  Please, False.  Don't make me do that again until you teach me a better way."

False Note gave her a blank look, then his face cracked back into a wide smile.  "Ha!  Was that all you were worried about?  Your job now is to get out there and sing one."

Lyra bolted.

Or tried, anyway; his hoof blocked her retreat.  His smile didn't waver, but the amusement dropped out of it.  "Lyra."

"No," she said, scrambling back and flattening herself against the stairwell.  "Nonono.  No."

"Lyra.  Look at me."  False Note leaned in, gripping her shoulders.  His voice softened.  "What's wrong?"

"You weren't there."  Vertigo gripped her.  "Bonnie.  The crowd.  The music —"

"Lyra.  It's okay.  There are scary numbers out there, but please, trust us.  You're surrounded by experts.  There's crowd-dispersal enchantments and restricted airspace and half a dozen wards and centuries of tradition here.  You're safe.  You'll never sing a safer song."

Lyra forced herself to nod, then took conscious control of her chest and took several tight breaths.  Logic began to percolate back through her brain.  I came here to become a Versebreaker … they're responsible for ponies' safety.  They have to be able to rely on me if I get caught up in something bigger than myself.  This is a test. 

She swallowed through a dry throat and nodded wordlessly.

"Great."  False Note's smile returned, this time encouraging.  He nudged her out onto the rooftop.

"Okay," she forced herself to say.  "Okay — wait!  Where are you going?"

False Note glanced back up the stairs.  "This is your number," he said.  "About why you're here, and what you'll face.  I wouldn't dare stay.  It's one of our most important traditions."

"But —" Lyra bit off the sentence and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment.  If I can't face my fear now, I'll never have what it takes.  "What do I do?" 

"Just walk up to the edge of the roof," he said with a reassuring smile, "and let it happen."

She stared at his retreating form until the stairwell door swung closed.

Lyra looked around the roof, featureless except for the squat box of the stairwell, and up into the empty skies.  Nobody to witness her shame if she chickened out.  Nobody to help her if something went wrong.  What if she just twiddled her forehooves for three minutes and then went back downstairs?

No.  They'd figure it out.  Worse, she'd know.  She had to do this.

Lyra set her saddlebags down against the door and took a deep breath.  The edge of the roof had no guardrails.  Nothing even resembling a railing, just a slightly raised cornice that false instincts told her to place her front hooves on.  She ignored them and scooched forward on her belly, craning her neck forward to peek over the edge.  Some of her fear eased as she saw the safety nets anchored in the building a floor below.  False Note had said she was safe … though Lyra doubted the Versebreaker Academy got too many students who were terrified of musicals.  At the things musicals made her do.  The way they took her over, changed her.  

But this was a tame one.  Defanged.  She was probably a bigger danger to herself than the song was.

Lyra drew in a deep breath and stood up.  She lifted a hoof and moved it forward, hovering above the cornice.

The world held its breath.

It sounded silly to think of it that way, but she could swear that was how it felt.  A rest seeking its beat, a dangling tension, a swelling internal pressure, a vocalization threatening to burst forth — the chorus of a thousand voices, a million, of Harmony itself, the yawning pelagic abyss around her little island of individuality, with an infinite whirling maelstrom tearing in across the waves.

It was too much.  She'd been drawn into musicals before, but only as a background singer.  Never at the center.  She tried to jerk her hoof back, but her leg wouldn't move.  Her heartbeat pounded against her ribs with the crash of a kettle drum.  It was too late.  She couldn't hear the music, but it had taken hold.  A tsunami was sweeping her away, tumbling and battering her and filling her lungs, drowning her silent screams —

Lyra felt her hoof click against the rooftop, and everything she was dissolved in a triumphant flourish of strings.

The storm seared and crackled, churning up the waves that had drowned a tiny and terrified little pony.  Lyra was gone.  Lyra was.  The storm, the sea, the sky, the electric air and raging surf and still depths, it all came together into a unity far greater than she had ever dreamed herself capable of conceiving.  The layers of reality folded and mixed into each other — the maritime metaphor, the music, the pony on the rooftop, and Lyra was each of them, transcended all of them.  As unconsciously and effortlessly as if she were blinking, she stirred up a gust of wind, watching her mane billow out as the voices of a phantom chorus joined the strings.  Aah-aaaaaah, they breathed, she breathed, and the sound reverberated through her, through the roof and air and the metaphorical infinite sea; and all was one, and all was as it should be, and all was as it needed to be.

And through it all, a lone green unicorn stood transfixed.  As her viewpoint spiraled out from face to body to rooftop, Lyra watched her open mouth slowly pull upward from awe into joy.  Some part of that insignificant little unicorn at the center of the universe wanted to cry at its magnificence, but there was no need.

Instead, she drew in a breath, and tugged words from the torrents tumbling past her.

This whole darn day has been so strange.
I took this trip expecting change —
I never knew what kind.

Lyra's voice carried, clear and crisp and unafraid, the instruments on the wind smoothly shifting in support of her mezzo-soprano.  The voices of the chorus receded into hums, and her words danced to the gentle rhythm of the violins and cellos.

You lose yourself into the song.
I always found that concept wrong.
But in this moment, I don't think I mind.

How could she have ever been so afraid of this?  The question answered itself: She'd never controlled it before, never seen it from the inside.  She'd been swept up in the crude, blunt tunes of awkward bookworms or conniving charlatans or … whatever Pinkie Pie was.  This infinite power — she added the delicate contrapuntal plucking of a harp to her dominant vocal line, and broadened the strings' accompaniment into lush, sustained chords — was flawless.  It was ponies that were the problem, in their imperfection and their need and their pain, wrestling with the tunes and pushing them in directions they were never meant to go.

She could fix that.

Stopping the music … that was madness.  She had been mad to wish for that — mad, and afraid, and naive.  How could she have hoped to destroy what simply needed better guidance?  Even the Mark on her flanks would have told her that, if she'd only listened. 

Her laughter rang out as the second verse swept in.

Look at me now!  I'm singing!  Me!
The things Bon Bon would say to see!

And the first notes of unease plucked at her heartstrings.

She should be here instead.

Lyra leapt to the southern edge of the rooftop, staring out at Ponyville in the distance.  

I hope she won't be too upset.
She'd sell her soul for one duet.
But in this moment, she's at home in bed.





Bon Bon tossed and turned.  As much as she needed her usual afternoon nap, she couldn't get her mind off of Lyra.  Of Lyra's trip to Canterlot.  Of the letter with the royal seal that had invited her there.  

Of the recriminations and reconciliations and the tension that had been left unspoken after their vacation.  The unexpected musical number at the coronation that Lyra had sworn she had enjoyed.  The sobbing in the bathroom, late at night, after Lyra thought Bon Bon had fallen asleep.

Bon Bon hadn't cried when Lyra had asked to go join the Versebreakers.  At least, not until after Lyra had left.

She wasn't crying now, either.  She was just lying quietly on her bed, doing that thing where her emotions twisted and curled and thrashed around inside her like a wounded lightning-snake.  Its storms raged through her mind.  

This time, if the swell of violins and voices in the background was any indication, the storm was escaping.  She would never have dared let that happen if Lyra was around, but …

No.  She shouldn't.

… But what harm could it be, really?  She was alone.  Resisting it all the time would just leave her more drained for the times when it mattered.  There would never be a better time to give in to the song, and maybe it would crystallize her growing unease into a thing she could be rid of.

Still, she shouldn't.

Then the delicate tones of a harp joined the strings, and she knew she had no choice.  The guilt was already crushing her.  Far better to feel guilty over having done something wrong.

Bon Bon threw back the covers as her cue approached, rolling to her hooves.  She snatched the Academy recruitment letter from Lyra's nightstand, balancing on one back hoof and effortlessly pirouetting with it, feeling the music sweep her away and fill her lungs, burning on her tongue with a passion effortlessly returned:

My search for songs hurt Lyra so
They even let the princess know.
That's why she left to train.

"Jump!" says the song, and up I hop.
I know, for her, that I should stop.
But what she doesn't know won't cause her pain.

That one was going to hurt when the music was over.

She had been right — the song was a bad idea.  But the verse was over and the next was approaching.  She was committed.

My song burns in me like her scream.
How could I hurt her for my dream?

Her guilt obligingly crystallized in the most uncomfortable place possible:

The problem here's my voice.





The unicorn on the rooftop burst back into motion, twirling across the rooftop as she sang, forelegs thrown wide, mane streaming in the breeze.

The song burns in me like a kiss.
How could I cost my love this bliss?
In this moment, now I see my choice.

Lyra looked down at the photo of Bon Bon she didn't remember digging out of her saddlebags.  She hadn't had it in her horngrip when the second verse had finished, and yet it had been in her field when she started her dance.  Nothing was wrong with that, of course, but some quiet inner voice noted the disconnect.

She clenched her forehooves around the photo and continued stepping upright around the roof, dancing a slow and graceful two-legged waltz with the love she'd left behind, as the strings and harp obligingly slid into three-quarters time for an instrumental section.  She snapped one foreleg out as she sent the photograph whirling forward —





— and as the music shifted into a melancholy waltz to match Bon Bon's mood, she whirled across the bedroom, the edge of their mattress catching her croup like a partner's waiting hoof as she bent backward, one fore dramatically spread and one hind thrust out for balance.  She pushed herself off of the bed, whirling back toward the mirror she'd pushed herself off of, until she arrested herself by clinging to it at hip height, staring into the photograph of Lyra she'd taped on at eye level.  She swayed back and forth to the beat, leaning forward until her forehead touched the photo's —





— and Lyra drew the flimsy photograph, dwarfed by the forelegs wrapped around it, deeper into a hug.  Cheek to cheek with a frozen and distant image, she swayed back and forth to the beat, until the music signaled a shift back into its standard measure.  The strings receded to their chords, and the harp to its counterpoint.

Lyra reverently set the photograph down on top of her saddlebags against the stairs door.  Fear had held her back for years, but her mind was clearer than it had ever been.  As the music continued its inexorable march toward the final verse, she strode back to the edge of the roof, and took a deep breath.

I'm quitting the academy.
How thrilled Bon Bon is going to be!





Bon Bon felt, rather than heard, the sad, solitary waltz shift expectantly back toward its verse structure.  With an effort, she pulled herself free of the mirror's embrace.

Lyra's photo was stained with tears.

She plodded over to the window, throwing it open and staring at distant Canterlot, and took a deep breath.

They say to love you must set free.
For Lyra, I'll live silently.





But in this moment, Lyra sang.





But in this moment, Bon Bon sang, unconsciously shifting her tone down by a third.





Lyra closed her eyes, feeling the pull of some ineffable harmony, as the instruments and the chorus and her voice all soared to the climax:

I … 
… will sing … 
… for me.

The instruments swept into a brief, subdued coda that left an oddly bittersweet taste in her throat, then faded back into the distant sussuration of the city.  Lyra sank to the rooftop, the waters of the song receding, depositing her gently back on the sandy beaches of her consciousness.  She rolled to her back and let her eyes drift closed, filling her lungs with crisp mountain air, letting the warmth of Celestia's sun soak through her pelt.  There wasn't any of the vertigo she was used to, just the lingering afterglow of Harmony.

It would have been perfect, if not for the regrets.

Lyra let a long breath out, chest deflating.  The Versebreakers did an important job, and she'd liked everypony … everyone she'd met, and they'd given her this moment.  She owed them everything.  She wasn't looking forward to telling them she was going to walk out on them before her training could even begin —

"I'm sorry," a smooth feminine voice said from inches away.  "I'm afraid I can't accept your resignation."

Lyra's eyes shot open to the sight of the dark chasms of draconic pupils.  She shrieked and flung herself sideways, scrambling to her hooves near the edge of the roof, and gasped for breath against the sudden ice of adrenaline.  The owner of those eyes — a white unicorn with tufted ears and a Cutie Mark of an eighth-note — regarded her with calm amusement.  

Lyra glanced at the door to the stairs.  Still closed, with her saddlebags untouched at the base.  Her mouth opened and closed several times.  "W-who ..." she finally managed.

"Siren Song," the Moontouched unicorn said.  Lyra's eyes widened, but Siren was already speaking again by the time she opened her mouth.  "To answer your next few questions:  Yes, the Academy director, but call me Siren; the rooftop is strictly first-names-only.  No apology necessary.  I heard the whole thing.  We'll teach you about song-shrouds in Third Bar.   And to answer that … can I share a story?"

Lyra had no idea what her last question was supposed to be, but she nodded anyway.

"My parents were old-guard Full Moon Cult," Siren said.  "I was taught growing up that Princess Celestia was a usurper, and that I would fulfill my destiny by tearing down her nation of lies when Nightmare Moon returned.  I hid my nature throughout my youth —" she blinked twice, and for a moment her pupils were a pony's normal circles — "and entered Versebreaker Academy as a sleeper agent.  When they left me alone on the roof to sing my initiation number … it was a villain song."  Siren chuckled and shook her head.  "If you think my arrival was awkward, imagine my face when Director Beat deshrouded."

Lyra stared.  "But …"

"But I'm Director now, yes."  Siren looked straight into Lyra's eyes, smiling.  "False Note wasn't lying.  That was your song, Lyra, and every word of it is yours alone, just as every word of my song was mine.  Director Beat never told anyone else, and when I decided to come clean to my classmates and teachers after a few months of soul-searching, he stood at my side and vouched for me."  Siren touched a hoof to Lyra's shoulder.  "I'm here because it's a sacred gift to share the Versebreakers' greatest teaching … and, for reasons that should be obvious, I take our traditions very seriously."

Lyra's heart sped up.  "But I'm quitting.  I sang about quitting."

"And I sang about destroying Equestria.  Look at how well that worked out for me."

Lyra swallowed.  "… Why didn't you?  If you don't mind me asking."

Siren nodded.  "The first words out of Down Beat's muzzle were, 'Do you still want to be a Versebreaker?'  Once I got over my shock, I asked him if he was really still willing to teach me, knowing that I was there to destroy everything he stood for.  Then he told me the story of his initiation number.  One guess how awkward his talk with his Director was."  Siren strode over to the edge of the roof.  "Harmony's the greatest thing there is, Lyra.  It's grand and infinite perfection.  Getting swept up in a musical number is the closest we can ever come to it, but even a musical is just a brief brush against its edges.  And here's the thing.  The greatest teaching.  The central core of everything we do."  

Siren set a hoof down on the cornice.  A breeze kicked up, and a brass section began to play a shifting string of chords amid a harp's lush flourish.  "Harmony," she said, as the air swelled with potential.  "Sometimes."  A phantom choir stirred to life —

"Is wrong."

The music came to a crashing halt.  Siren lifted her hoof, then walked calmly back to the center of the rooftop.

Lyra stared.  "Uh … yeah.  I knew that.  That's the whole reason I came here."

"You know that.  You don't understand."  Siren looked out at the sweep of the distant horizon.  "Don't get me wrong, Harmony is perfect.  The problem is, we aren't, and sometimes we get so close to perfection with musical numbers' stories that their light burns us rather than illuminates us.  Versebreaking isn't about bad ponies perverting the music — Harmony wouldn't allow villain songs if they weren't part of some greater tale.  Versebreaking is about knowing when the song is good for us, and when the song is too good for us … and then setting the singers back on the right path, no matter what it takes or when you step in."

"With all due respect, ma'am," Lyra said carefully, "being in the song taught me how perfect Harmony is, too, and frankly I don't see what that philosophical distinction has to do with my plans."

"Two things.  One: We're not here to stop 'bad' songs.  We're here to stop songs that hurt ponies … no matter how right they are, because often those hurt the most.  And two —" a smile crept back onto Siren's muzzle — "if you ma'am me again, so help me Celestia, I'll throw you off of this rooftop myself."

Lyra couldn't help but laugh.  "Sorry, m— Siren."  Her smile quickly drifted away.  "But what makes you think that my choice is going to hurt anypony?  You heard the song.  It's clear as day — I'm quitting to stop hurting Bon Bon."

Siren nodded.  "How many verses did your song have?"

"Huh?" Lyra said, but by the time her brain caught up to the question, her mouth had already supplied the answer.  "Four, plus the half-verse at the end.  Why?"

"How many verses did you sing?"

Lyra's eyes widened.

"Oh, stars," she whispered, taking a step backward and sitting down heavily against the stairwell wall.  Her forehooves flew to her mouth as the song flashed back through her mind.  The whole song.  "Oh no.  No.  No."

"Lyra."  The voice was clear, firm.  Siren crouched over her; hooves dug into her shoulders.  "Breathe."

Lyra did, and hyperventilation receded.  "It was a duet," she said, still light-headed.  "She's quitting musicals."

"I know.  I listened.  I've done this enough to hear both sides."  Siren brushed Lyra's mane back and stared into her eyes.  "See what I meant?  Harmony has a story to tell, and we both know where that story wants to go.  You quit and go home.  She goes ballistic over you turning down a royal commission and abandoning your dream, and blames herself.  Another big argument solving nothing.  You whirl apart and spend weeks soul-searching and learning painful lessons.  Maybe you reconcile, maybe you fall in love with someone else along the way.  Or," Siren said, "you stay here, we charter a train to Canterlot for the most important mare of your life, and you talk about your duet, bring her to this rooftop, and show her you can both get what you need. Sweep straight through all the road apples.  Harmony's happy, you're happier."

Lyra's eyes blurred with tears.  She sniffled and smiled.  "I … I think I'd like that."

Siren leaned in and hugged her, smiling broadly.  "In that case," she said, "congratulations, Versebreaker, on your first official success."

A harp flourish danced in on a stray breeze.  Aah-aaaaah, the phantom choir breathed.  The violins swelled and receded, and all was as it should be, and all was as it needed to be.
> The Badge (Orbiting Kettle)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 
A blade of Celestia’s sun slices through the penumbra in my office, specks of dust dancing in it, shadows of fireflies without a worry in the world. It is a spotlight shining on the amber-filled glass, the centerpiece of the mess that is my worn-down desk. It shimmers like liquid gold, the sweet smell of apples fighting the ever-present scent of dust and broken dreams.

I light a twisted cigarette, trying to to control the shivering. Little-known fact: Equestria has a tobacco industry, a small cadre of family companies that supplies the few ponies in high-pressure jobs, those that retire early or crack. Nurses, hotel workers, psychiatrists, and, at the end, those like me, Versebreakers. A small market of trusty customers.

I take a deep breath of the aromatic smoke, let it linger in my lungs, and then blow it out again. I hate the taste.

A few minutes pass. My hoof is firm again. I close my eyes, then open them. I reach for the glass and gulp it down, the sweet cider caressing my throat. My stomach churns a bit. Should have probably eaten something, or at least I should probably chug down better stuff. I stare at the drops still in the glass. Years ago I wouldn’t touch anything less than Sweet Apple Acres Reserve, today on the other hoof…

I shake my head. Nothing good lies down that road.

I am thirsty again. As I shuffle through the chaotic contents of my desk drawer, looking for a non-empty bottle, I stumble upon an old photo. Damn. I pull the picture out along with a bottle of “Old Pony Swig’s Almost Real Cider.”

Dammit, the saxophone starts to wail. I don’t need that now. I don’t need it ever. The bittersweet melody surrounds me, it flows through me, and I can’t do anything to stop it. No words, nothing to throw a wrench into. 

Wiggly Stanza looks back at me, smiling in his new uniform, fresh out from the academy, hope in his eyes. I pour another glass. Sweet Celestia, I loved him. They try to hammer it home when they train you. Never fall in love, the job is hard enough without emotional strings attached. A tear runs down my muzzle, falls in the glass. 

I raise it for Stanza. They got him last year. Tried to break a raving Freestyler. That guy used some newfangled metric from Griffinstan, something we are never prepared for. The music reaches its apex. It’s our song.

Stanza deserves a bit of respect. I drink, slowly this time. The salty touch frames my mood perfectly.

I see him with that crooked grin on his face. Never understood how one can seem so seedy and honest at the same time. We are sitting in the soft light of the lanterns hanging from the roof of the Café Minoian. There’s a bottle of the good stuff between us, two empty glasses, mine is chipped, ice cubes are melting. He was just promoted, broke down a whole parade, the thing was going for minutes when he reached it. He was good. He would have become chief in his district, given time. He...

I got lucky. Being a Versebreaker for the court is comparatively easy. Canterlot is calm and collected. Not like that hellhole, Ponyville. I heard stories.

I think about Rose Song. She whimpers. Between the sobs she recounts a tale of the Pink Terror, ponies hopping on tattered roofs, a week-long streak of unbroken songs.

My cigarette has burned down to a small ashen worm. Time to get back to work. I take the manila folder, open it. 

Well, what do we have here? Flim and Flam, brothers apparently, a few previous encounters with the law, repeat offenders. Folk rhymers. Should be easy, I can probably use all the traditional words.

Somepony knocks on my door. The dust-stained frosted glass shows only a silhouette. It’s time.  If I’m lucky, they will make an error and shut themselves up without too much of a fuss. Considering my rotting record, I don’t think it will happen.  I rise from my desk, grab my rhyming dictionary and my badge.

I linger a few moments on the metal disk. It’s the cleanest thing in the whole room, my muzzle reflecting on the polished brass, superimposed on the image of a broken quill and the words “Aurantia metrum non habet” around it. I put it on my chest.

As I walk to the door I straighten. It’s a hellish job, but somepony needs to do it.
 
 
 
 
 

> 4th District Court, Canterlot, 11:35 a.m. (horizon)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

(Judge) The defendants may now make a statement prior to sentencing.


Thank you, Your Honor.  We will keep it brief.


We wish to throw ourselves upon the Court's mercy.


In the interests of justice.


We realize that we have many wrongs to redress —


— and this is not meant to detract from those.


Not in the slightest.


But don't let them say we didn't have a cure.


Do to us whatever you feel you must,


But don't deprive the nation


Of the most magnificent creation of the Flim-Flam Brothers,


The audacious,


efficacious,


all-natural and incidentally herbacious —



(Gavel.)



(Judge) Defendants are cautioned that this court 
has previously enjoined them from rhyming verse, 
and that their current statements tread upon dangerous ground.


Ahem.


My apologies, Your Honor.  As you know, it's a constant struggle.


Don't let them say we didn't have a cure.


That's really all we ask.


We cannot let ... the Everfree Elixir stay ...


... Brother?


... obscure.


Fight it —


We must take this chance to show them
Our creation —


Brother, no!


Don't let them say we didn't have a cure!


(Music.)



I'm so sorry.



(Judge) Order!  Order!



(Bailiff) Someone stop the clerk recorder!


It's imperative to tell you 
That one drop will stop a cold!


(Noble) This is shocking to propriety!



(Judge) Go find that darn calliope!


Our granny drank a bottle —
Now she's twenty-three years old!


Flim, this helps the prosecution!


Then we'll offer restitution
With free samples from our ample stock
To help the world shine!

We can't withhold this miracle!


(Prosecutor) My life has turned satirical.



I'll fight this — I can fight this —


Sing the chorus, brother mine!


(Music pauses)



... Of course!



Don't let them say we didn't have a cure!


The world has to know that while our motives were impure,


The Everfree Elixir was a surefire pony fixer!


Don't let them say we didn't have a cure!



(Bailiff) The crowd's dancing.



(Judge) Bailiff, fetch a versebreaker.



(Bailiff) Ma'am.


Now, it's fair to say, 


as you did,


That we should not have diluted
Our elixir, 


Since a pony would


Expect effects to last!


But each customer returning
Was a way to boost our earnings


And those mercenary days of pay


Are firmly in the past!


We recognize we oughta


Stop pretending tonic water


Is the brew that you and you


And you!


And you had hoped to see!

So step into our pharmacy


(Prosecutor) Oh stars, here comes the harmony.


The real deal's a steal
And the first one's always free!


(Judge) Order!  ORDER!


(Noble)  I'll take four!


Don't let them say we didn't have a cure!

(Yeah!)

The world has to know that while our motives were impure,

(We know!)

The Everfree Elixir was a surefire pony fixer!

(And is!)

Don't let them say we didn't have a cure!

(We won't!)



(Stallion) Will it help me with my diet?



Yes!  And so much more besides!


Here's a sample!  Go on, try it!


(Mare) Check those muscles on his sides! (swoons)



(Mare) Will it help with my lumbago?



Are you kidding?  Challenge, please!


It will make your whole darn day go
Just as smooth as this foal's knees!


(Versebreaker) Will it help me grow my oranges?



It will —



(Music record-scratches to a sudden halt)


... uhh.  Ooooh.


Ergh.


Ow.


... Oh.  I am SO terribly sorry, Your Honor.



(Judge) Swift Quill?



(Recorder) Ma'am?



(Judge) Please return to the Clerk Recorder's chair.


Oh dear.


So terribly, TERRIBLY sorry.



(Judge) And add Contempt of Court to the charges.



(Recorder) Yes, ma'am.

 
 
 
 
 
 
> Song and Seal (BlazzingInferno)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Curio rolled over in bed and his eyes shot open. All the tuning forks hanging in the window were ringing, the C-sharp’s vibrant tone eclipsing that of its neighbors. Judging by the wan slivers of light sneaking through the edges of the painted-over window, it wasn’t even eight in the morning yet. Who in their right mind would be singing this early?

C-sharp let out a mighty peal, prompting Curio to reach over and silence its vibrations. The singer’s identity was largely immaterial anyway, so long as he adhered to his duty. Blankets flew off the bed, knocking over the ever-growing collection of hard cider and painkiller bottles on the nightstand. He shuffled through the dimly-lit room, extremely conscious of the glass bottles now rolling around on the floor. What would happen if he tripped on one and broke his leg?

The voice of Curio’s father, not even silenced by the grave, rang in his ears with a ferocity that no tuning fork could match. “And what if you fail one day, boy? What if you just go back to sleep instead of doing what I taught you?” Around this point his father would usually lean in close and give him a wicked grin. “Why, the whole world would end! That door the family’s been guarding for nigh-on three thousand years would just up and fly open, and some terror beyond comprehension would jump out and rip that fool head of yours clean off. Would serve you right, too!”

Another tuning fork started to hum. B-flat this time, if he wasn’t mistaken. Some pony out there was really tempting fate, and on a Monday morning no less. As soon as he was done saving the world, he’d draft another letter to the mayor. Even if government and law couldn’t safeguard the society against eldritch horrors from beyond reality, it could at least enact a noise ordinance to prevent their being summoned before breakfast.

At last he made it to the closet. He threw open the door, pushed a few blankets aside, and pulled the trap door open. At the bottom of a six-foot shaft rested a stone door nestled between the pillars of earth and timber supporting the house. The smooth stone was framed with ancient metalwork, and inlaid with carvings that time had all but erased. The door’s edges glowed green, and the nauseating feeling of dark magic made his horn ache. Over by the window, nearly all of the tuning forks were humming merrily. This was a bad one; he’d need to act quickly.

He started with a nursery rhyme, taking care to miss every note and butcher every rhyming couplet. On most days that’d be enough to pacify the door’s seal. The throbbing in his horn made it abundantly clear that today wasn’t one of those days. Pinkie Pie had probably roped the entire town into a musical number again.

The tuning forks kept humming, and so he kept singing in the most ear-grating way he could. Tens of minutes flew by, as did his memorized collection of songs. Repeating even one of them wasn’t an option; repeating a song was a kind of a pattern, a chorus even. Better ponies than him had nearly ended the world with such simple mistakes. What could he try next? Trashing the Equestrian anthem would hurt his throat too much, especially when he didn’t have a couple drinks in him. Why did this have to start so early in the morning?

His father’s voice came to him again, fittingly enough. There was nothing the world more dissonant than that old stallion’s banter.

“See, this door’s been sealed since the very beginning, since before Ponyville, since before Equestria even. And ever since then, the family’s been right here keeping it shut. See, there’s this magical seal on it, put on there by pony-knows-who. Point is, the seal feeds on all the dark magic trying to get out, and if you get—”

Curio could hear melodious singing just outside his house, and see a conga line of shadows bobbing along in the window’s meagre light. “Don’t you ponies have something quiet to do? Shut up already!”

The pain in his horn shot down the length of his spine. He glared down at the stone door and continued in his father’s screeching voice. “The seal feeds on all that dark magic, but if you let too much normal magic weaken it: bam! Apocalypse time! Now let me tell you about magic. See, spells and potions and the like aren’t nothing special. You get some ponies together singing though… singing’s this infectious little thing that can make even the strongest pony start tapping their hoof, and can even pop the magic seal off of that door. So you guard that door, boy! Keep that lyrical nonsense out of here, even if you have to board up the house. And another thing! You get yourself a mare who’ll give you a colt that can carry on the family duty, you hear? You’re not gonna shirk your duty and let the world end, are you?”

Another of his father’s diatribes was on his lips, ready to screech through his now-raw throat for the sake of all those clueless, singing lunatics outside. Thankfully, the door’s deep green glow was nearly gone. Even the tuning forks were starting to calm down.

Ten seconds later, he finally took a ragged breath. He collapsed at the closet’s edge with one hoof dangling into the abyss. Even breathing hurt, but he managed to squeak out a cry for a help, unfortunately just to his sister instead of the still-unacquired wife or kid. Staying within running-distance of that accursed door didn’t lend itself to a healthy dating life. “L-Lyra… Lyra!”

His bedroom door opened a moment later. “Curie? I was just about to bring you your breakfast. Is something wrong?”

From this perspective he saw her hooves before anything else, including the one about to land on a cider bottle. He reached to her, but barely managed to squeeze out a whisper. “W… wait!”

Why are you on the floor over th—wah!” Lyra slipped backwards and the bottle went flying, right through the bedside window. Warm sunlight flooded the room for the first time in decades, all to the tune of breaking glass. The tuning forks swung and vibrated wildly in the early morning breeze, picking up a distant song on the wind and, through their own motion, forming a beautiful harmony all their own. 

He felt it in his hoof first, the one hanging in the shaft over the door. It began as a tickle, and soon felt like he’d stepped in a campfire. His pained cry echoed Lyra’s, and for a moment the sweet hum of the tuning forks provided the perfect sonic backdrop.

Crack.

Then everything went silent. Curio stared at Lyra. Lyra stared at Curio. He didn’t have a voice left, and she didn’t have any words to speak. Instead they just listened to a low groaning that shook the house to its foundation, the sound of heaven’s gate swinging shut.

Lyra’s ears drooped. “Oh… Oh dear.”
 
 
 
 
 

> Master Class (Flink)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 
A chilly breeze blew through the streets of Fillydelphia. Most ponies outside were hurrying along, wrapped in coats and jackets, wishing they were inside. Only a brave few were embracing the fall weather. Two ponies sat at an outdoor café table before an otherwise lonely square. One was a bored-looking white unicorn mare with a young face and a mane in striking shades of blue. She wore a heather-grey hoodie with the hood up against the chill. Sitting across from her, nursing a mug, was an older grey earth pony mare. The breeze ruffled the tails of the duster she wore and tugged at her dark grey mane on her uncovered head. Sitting with her back to the café, her sleepily lidded gaze belied her intent monitoring of the square; her upright ears turned every few seconds.

“What a gloomy afternoon,” groused the white mare to her partner as she poked at the few crumbs left on the small plate on the table in front of her. She shivered as a gust blew right through the cotton weave of her hoodie. “Nopony’s going to start something in this.”

The sunlight on their table dimmed and the grey mare glanced at the sky. It was heavily mottled with thick puffy clouds all racing east, with blue sky appearing and disappearing as pegasi rode herd on the disorderly cumulus cattle drive. Unpredictable movement of clouds providing shadowy gloom or bright spotlight as the moment demands? Their perp couldn’t ask for better weather. She spared the rookie a laconic raised eyebrow.

“Why are we here again, Sea Cliff?” sighed the younger mare.

The older mare swept her gaze around the square. The student union of the perp's alma mater, the Fillydelphia Classical Conservatory, had empty tables and chairs spilling out along one side of the square. A sole trio of hardy souls had gathered around one table, exuberant camaraderie keeping away the chill and the solitude of the day. Further around was an instrument shop. Earlier today she had had a quiet conversation with the proprietor, who had mentioned the recent receipt of a valuable zauberflöte, to be picked up shortly by a visiting musician teaching a master class at the conservatory. A small bank tended to the needs of the student body. Why indeed? She looked down at the gently steaming mug of tea with honey that was keeping her hooves and her voice warm, then back to her partner. “Tea,” she replied. The younger rolled her eyes, and the older returned to calmly watching the square.

After another idle minute, the white mare casually put her forehoof up to her ear inside the hoodie. She smiled gently and her head began to bob ever so slightly.

“Vild Note,” the veteran said sharply. The other mare quickly jerked her hoof down. “Need I remind you vhy you are on probation?”

Wild Note looked guiltily at her partner and saw that her gaze had gone from sleepy to dead. Uh oh, she’s pissed, thought Wild Note. She dropped her eyes and looked away, her gaze landing on her own cutie mark: a quarter note with a double jag lightning bolt for the stem. That’s how she liked her music; awesome, just like her cutie mark. None of that boring historical stuff for her. Thumping beats and synthesized sounds were the only thing that could leave her mesmerized. She even mixed a few tracks of her own on the side. It was this narrow affinity that had landed her a spot on the force. 

She was thrilled to be a Versebreaker, but the job could get pretty boring. On her last assignment, she had been so bored out of her mind that she had put some tunes on her earbuds to pass the time. Unfortunately, she was so wrapped up in her own music that she had been completely oblivious when the perp showed up. She was so disconnected from the performance that the perp had collided with her, breaking the spell. 

Harmony works in mysterious ways, she thought. It was terribly embarrassing, but it had all worked out in the end. The chief hadn’t seen it that way, however, and now she was on probation, a hair’s breadth away from being tossed off the force. Wild Note did not want that. She loved her job. It fit her skills, and she was proud to be one of those who safeguarded the music of Harmony and prevented ponies from twisting it into something unhealthy or malicious. 

Now Wild Note was stuck with the old grey mare over there. Her face was careworn, with hints of white around the eyes. She only had two expressions, sleepy and dead. She had a speech impediment or was Germane or something. Her cutie mark looked like someone had taken a double bar line and stomped on it. The old fogies thought she was hot stuff, but Wild Note figured she sure ain’t what she used to be. You didn’t need all those dated old techniques when you could give a perp a caesura by stumping them with a line of unmetric, unrhymable “poetry”. But Wild Note needed the veteran’s approval to get off of probation, so for now she would do things Sea Cliff’s way. If she didn’t die of boredom first.

“Vhat have you learned about our perp?” asked the veteran. She noted a flicker of uncertainty in Wild Note’s eyes before they narrowed in frustration. C Clef gave a mental sigh. It wasn’t just the perp who had a lesson to learn today. She had agreed to take the rookie despite her disciplinary record because C Clef saw potential to be nurtured. Cacophony as a hobby was ... interesting, but not enough. A good Versebreaker needed more tools in her arsenal than just obliviousness. Both the music of Harmony and inattentive novices needed guidance and control.

“Yes, Sea Cliff, I read her file,” Wild Note answered with annoyance. “Light blue mare, pale teal and white mane, often wears a cape. Cutie mark an argent quill, goes by the name Silver Song. Raised a ruckus in some small town; we need to bring her in for counseling. Last seen arriving in Fillydelphia, which is why we are here.”

“And since this morning?”

“When I got off the train this morning, my senior partner said to meet at this café at twelve thirty and then ran off without further word,” said Wild Note with an arch look. “Luckily, a friend of mine has a studio here, so I hung out with her for a few hours to pass the time,” she continued, dropping her gaze idly back to the table.

“You vent off duty?” 

Wild Note jerked her head up and glared back at the dead look her partner was giving her. “I didn’t go off duty,” she growled. “I hired a couple runners to spread out, keep an eye out for any performances, and come report to me at a fixed location as soon as they saw anything. I’m not some clock-punching rent-a-’rrupter calming overexcited country bumpkins singing about their first visit to the big city! I was in the top half of my class at the Academy, and I follow procedure.” After a beat she mumbled, “Usually.” She brightened and continued with a smirk, “Bribed some friends of mine with a couple of new tracks I’ve been working on. Gives ’em a resistance boost too.” She sat up. “And for the record, I was here exactly at twelve thirty, just as you asked. You didn’t bother to show up until twenty minutes later, leaving me here poking at muffin crumbs and tapping my hooves. What have you been doing?”

The grey mare did not rise to the bait. “Investigating,” she replied. She took a sip of her tea. “You heard about Ponyville?”

“Ponyville?” said Wild Note, momentarily lost. “Wha—? ... Oh! There was that wild breakout performance there recently, right? I heard ponies there still scream and dive for cover whenever anypony says, ‘Let it go.’ Perp’s an unknown though.”

C Clef nodded. “Hoofington?” she prompted.

“Hmm.” Wild Note scratched her forehead in thought. “I haven’t seen an official report, but scuttlebutt says a typewriter and camping supply store was completely demolished by its own salesponies. Weird thing is, they said they were under the influence of a song, but it didn’t have a single word, only nonsense syllables! I’m not even sure that’s possible,” she frowned. The younger mare’s eyes got wide as she realized what her partner was implying. “Wait, that’s our perp?!”

C Clef nodded again. See? Just needs a guiding hoof. Out loud she said, “She’s no silver tongued shoplifter or glib hay-oil huckster. Runners in headphones have no chance.”  C Clef nodded toward the Conservatory. “She has training, and she has talent.” Leaning in, she spoke with quiet intensity. “Sie ist ein Kapellmeister.”

With a low, melancholy sound, a bell in a distant clock tower struck one.

Concern rose in Wild Note’s voice. “Well, then what should we—”

“Hsst!” interrupted the senior mare sharply as she suddenly sat up, ears twitching, eyes wide and alert but looking at nothing.

Wild Note brushed back her hood and listened intently.[►] There was, perhaps, a strange bass rumble, not like any instrument or synthesized sound she was familiar with. Improbably, the bell tolled softly again. The breeze between the buildings became a slow alto choral melody.

“Herzlied,” breathed the grey mare. Wild Note shivered. 

A quiet recitative started, and both versebreakers looked around furtively to find the singer without drawing attention to themselves, but to no avail.


I always thought the audience inconsequential.


They’re crass, and unspeakably inane.


But maybe they’ve a glimmer of potential


When guided by my vision and refrain.


A shaft of sunlight suddenly illuminated a pale blue mare on the roof peak of the student union. With a descending line of xylophone and drum accompaniment, in four quick beats she leapt down to a dormer, down to an eve, down to an awning, down to the tabletop surrounded by the stunned music students. She sneered at the frozen ponies and began to sing.


I know that your powers of composition


Are as weak as a tin whistle’s slide.


But dense as you are, if you listen,


My words shall stir something inside.



I learned in your flawed institution


Performers get all the respect.


Denied my deserved approbation,

To both Silver Song’s and Wild Note’s surprise, C Clef called out clearly across the vacant square:

You think stealing the show is correct?


The blue mare glared briefly, but the music continued undiminished, so she gathered two students in her forelegs and, grinning, launched into the next verse.


My studies and my songs were my life line.


I prepared my sensational debut.


No more ignored outright,


Soon first in the spot light.

That’s far enough, thought Wild Note, and she jumped in confidently with an unrhymable word:

And where do we oblige?

Silver Song rejoined tartly:

Your tactic I despise.


The music crescendoed as the blue mare stood on her hind legs on the table with her cape billowing behind. 

I’ve practiced. I’ve learned.


Every skill, I have earned.


Does my triumph mean nothing to you?


Just rewards for the gambit I’ve dared.

At the climax, C Clef boldly interjected:

We’re not scared.


Silver Song was caught with her mouth open but no line to sing. Like air being slowly let out of a balloon, she lowered her raised forelegs as C Clef completed her line.

When the verse was over, Silver Song dropped to all fours and leapt off the table. The music of Harmony diminuendoed and modulated. She stalked across the open square toward the versebreakers, scowling viciously. The sky overhead darkened.

Silver Song resumed in recitative:[►]

Don't you disrespect me little mares.


Don't you derogate or deride.


Then, more melodically:

This is my song now, not your song.


And I’ve got Harmony on my side.


Wild Note and C Clef both jumped as the three music students sprung out from behind the blue mare, singing:

She’s got Harmony on her side.


“That’s a chorus, ladies,” flaunted Silver Song. “Just a little parlor trick we songwriters can use. Don’t worry.”

I barely slowed her down, and whatever Sea Cliff’s doing isn’t working either! thought Wild Note as the Silver Song resumed.


Sit down at your table.


Remain quiet please.


If you relax it'll enable me to do


Anything I please.


I won’t play second string,


The A to your E.


Wild Note desperately tried another ploy, attempting to modify the beat:

But you can’t sing when your song has no rhythm,


Rhythm, rhythm, doo-wop de-doo


Rhythm, rhythm, doo-wop de-doo


Silver Song just raised eyebrow. Wild Note’s confidence faltered and her words petered out. “You don’t really think you can capture my meter, do you little filly?” asked the song mistress. Then she launched right back in as if the disruption never occurred:

I’m in full control you see!



I’ve got major, I’ve got minor,


I’ve got modes I ain't even tried!


And I’ve got Harmony on my side!


The three students appeared around and between the versebreakers:

She’s got Harmony on her side.


Wild Note’s eyes dilated in panic and her forehooves scraped futilely on the seat of her chair as she tried to push herself back away from the freaky mare. The touch of C Clef’s hoof to her withers interrupted her hysteria, and she did her best to bolster her courage with the older mare’s calm regard of the singer.

The background accompaniment modulated again. The enraptured students fell back as Silver Song began singing an almost reverent melody:[►♀] [►♂]


The magic of Harmony 


Surrounds us all and ties us all.


Together we're much more than when alone. 



The music of Harmony


Lets those who have the wherewithal 


Accomplish greater deeds than on their own.



A student of Harmony,


Through sweat, tears, and indignity,


Through taunts of those who'll never understand.



Control over Harmony,


Talent and skillful mastery:


The mare who earned the right to sole command.



Song player,


Course layer,


This role I'm born to fill.


Defiant


Naysayer


Shall fall before my will.


Not so, thought C Clef. Time to teach. C Clef leapt to her hooves and stood boldly before the blue mare. Wild Note watched in awe as C Clef sang resolutely while Silver Song helplessly reiterated her chorus:


It is not truth


(Song player)


That might makes right.


(Course layer)


Early misery can never justify your spite.


(Defiant naysayer)



It is not truth


(Song player)


On which you stand.


(Course layer)


There’s greater Harmony in friendship than command.


(Defiant naysayer)



The magic of Harmony


Will ever choose the laudable


Over the contemptible and vile.


As soldier of Harmony,


I’ll stop your course deplorable


And offer friendship without catch or guile.


C Clef looked at Wild Note expectantly. I can feel it, realized Wild Note. Not an interruption but a conclusion. I see where this needs to go! She grabbed the melodic line aggressively with her warm alto, blocking Silver Song before she could retake control and knowing that Sea Cliff would back her up on the antiphony.


Versebreakers,


Rhyme shakers,


We'll foil your symphony.


Yet we are


Peacemakers.


Join us in Harmony!


(Laughter, generosity)


You can use your songs to hurt,


(Friendship and loyalty) 


Or you can use your songs for good,


(Kindness and honesty)


And with us join


In Harmony!


The heart song ended with a tremendous climax and a ringing soprano note. The hapless music students fell back in exhaustion and the poor soprano collapsed in a faint. Wild Note panted with exhilaration. Silver Song sat huddled in her cape, looking cowed.

C Clef walked over and placed a gentle hoof on the blue mare’s back. “Come.” Silver Song looked up with trepidation. “Ve’ll help.”

Wild Note came up behind the lost mare and, with a nuzzle, helped her to her hooves. “You do have incredible talent. Once you’ve paid your debts, I’m sure you can find a better way to use your abilities. As Sea Cliff said, we’ll help.” She smiled at her partner with new respect. “She’s a great teacher.”

After attending to the students, C Clef led Silver Song to the train station, with Wild Note following watchfully behind the perp. I think the students have each learned a lesson and are ready for more. Vhat more could a teacher ask for? mused C Clef with a brief smile.
 
 
 
 
 

> Anthem (Caliaponia)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You have got to be kidding me."

Captain Blank Rhyme stared at the piece of paper in her hooves, willing it to go away.  When, after several seconds her Earth Pony magic had failed to manifest any paper-destroying capabilities, she fell back on her second approach – yelling.

“White Noise, I need you in here!”

Moments later, a portly stallion poked his head into the room and gave her a questioning look.

“They know what we do, right?” she said, shoving the paper towards him.

The unicorn caught it easily in his telekinesis and began to read, eyebrows steadily rising as he scanned the scroll, muttering.  “Every unit to come up with its own theme song...  Perform in front of the whole department in two weeks…  Is this some sort of sick prank?” he finished, looking at her in concern.

She snorted.  “I hope so.  If not…  I just don’t know what the Chief was thinking.”

“I suppose we can ask her.”





“It builds morale. You know, esprit de corps?” Chief Gleaming Badge said, as cheerful as if she had just proposed a stakeout at Donut Joe’s.

Blank tried to keep the exasperation out of her voice.  “Look, I understand the workshop you attended was very nice and did cover some effective policing techniques, but we’re the Versebreakers.  Our unit’s whole purpose is to defuse an out-of-control musical number as quickly and effectively as possible.  Composing an anthem is completely off-mission.”

“Well, that may be, but with your in-depth understanding of music, you might find that you’re uniquely well-suited to the challenge, too.  Besides, using those skills and talents in reverse might give you some insight to help you do your job even better!  You never know until you try,” Badge said, smiling like a used chariot salespony.

Blank answered her cheer with a look of thinly veiled skepticism.

"Look.  The fire department holds a barbeque, right?  This is the same thing, basically.  Just give it a try.  What's the worst that can happen?"
 




The captains sat apart from the rank-and-file, clustered about the podium.  The records unit completed their number with a rousing climax, returning to their places in the audience amid a round of enthusiastic applause.

Sergeant Strong Hoof stepped up to the podium and cleared her throat.  “An excellent performance, archivists, thank you.  Next up, the Versebreakers, led by Sergeant White Noise.”

The murmur of the audience abruptly increased in volume as a small herd of ponies trotted up to the stage.

Chief Badge leaned over to Blank. "So you came up with a song, then?"

She nodded, reluctantly.

"How'd that go?"

Blank grimaced.  "Survival of the fittest."

The shuffling of hooves subsided, and across the room, somepony cleared their throat.  Chief Badge and Blank Rhyme quieted down as Night Beat blew into the pitch pipes.

A sound happened then, a confused melange of off-key notes and mis-timed verses that somehow still managed to resolve itself into mostly-coherent words.

"This is the song that never ends..."
 
 
 
 
 

> Heart of Silence (Sharp Spark)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 
March 21st, 892 A.L.

What manner of enigmatic madness must it be to creep silently, invisibly into the inner heart of a stallion like Faden Quartz? Perhaps it was an incessant ennui, born of the ambivalence of a career at its very apex; an ambitious spirit pressing onwards towards the next tenable goal only to find a sprawling void and the terror of a life unpurposed, unchallenged. He was the greatest of us all—the crown-prince-in-waiting of the Imperial Versebreakers—and therein found his own destruction, as his dissatisfaction gave way to the most destructive of impulses. Perhaps.

Or perhaps it was something more malignant in its execution. A spell, a curse,—a Song?—that had pricked at his consciousness, inextricably pulling him from the comforts of civilization with the immutable siren call of some dark magick at work. Back home, safely ensconced in Canterlot, such superstition seemed foolish, really, inimicable and at odds with our modern understanding of spellcraft—I would have heartily laughed at a pony with the temerity to propose such. But here, as I pen these words at the ramshackle settlement on the yawning mouth of the river Kuoza, as I gaze into the mist shrouding the feral jungle and contemplate the fierce savagery of nature running rampant within, I begin to reconsider whether there might be a grain of truth to those purported fictions. No sane pony would flee to such a remote clime. No cultured, aristocratic stallion—for that was Faden Quartz to the very letter—would embrace the shrouded dangers of a place so far removed from the firm cultivating hoof of ponykind. Perhaps some barbarous enchantment really had in some way obtained occult license over his soul.

Or perhaps it was the Word—the Word is at the crux of the whole issue, and how could it not be? Had Faden Quartz simply vanished on his own, no small hue and cry would have been raised on his behalf and much effort would surely have been mobilized to effect his safe return. But for him to abscond with a Word? Abominable. Unconscionable. Inconceivable—in every sense. Not just any Word, but the third most notable in the litany of War, which all Versebreakers memorize as part of the most basic of training. It is gone—gone from the books, gone from our very memories. As far as I am aware, the scholars of our number are still investigating the mechanism by which he managed to accomplish such a theft.

And so, I find myself tasked with this mission, one of a certain questionable constitution: to locate Quartz and ensure retrieval of the Word, at all costs. His trail has been remarkably arduous to uncover, and had the task not been of such paramount importance to the very essence of our organization, I believe the search would have been called off long ago. His flight had been premeditated; the subtlety of his escape made that much clear, and my pursuit has led me to these foreign and backwards lands—he has chosen to flee to a place where few ponies would dare follow. Unfortunately for his stratagem, I pride myself on being a pony of singular character. Tomorrow I book passage on a ship travelling upriver in pursuit of my quarry and his precious contraband. I pray that Celestia guides my hoofsteps through the darkened valley of this primitive land.

Silver Ninth, 1st Lieutenant, Her Majesty’s Imperial Versebreakers, Special Operations Division









March 23rd, 892 A.L.

After much effort, the precise details of which are far too mundane to fully explicate, I have secured a place on a steamship. Its presence here was fortuitous and wholly unexpected. Though the vessel could hardly hold a candle to the sleek cruisers of the Navy of the Equestrian Empire, upon my arrival I had feared that the rough circumstances would limit conveyance to a native canoe or raft of some sort. Instead, I find myself in a position of relative luxury, and intend on enjoying that advantage to its fullest. 

Aside from the zebra labourers that have been brought on to crew the vessel, there are few personages of note. The Captain is a shifty sort, interested only in the quality of my coin and studiously unconcerned of the purposes of my journey. I would not find myself particularly taken aback if I were to discover that he had made a name as a brigand of some sort and simply shifted to more legal service in an area of such isolation as a temporary measure to evade Imperial enforcers. If so, so be it; I have no quarrel with him, provided he safely delivers me to my destination and I am able to accomplish my mission.

Also making the journey is a griffon trader, as stout a specimen as I have ever witnessed—I would never speak it to his face, but I must confess to wondering if his lineage is not more turkey than eagle. I have not had opportunity to speak with him at length, as he was primarily occupied in overseeing the stowage of several large crates of his wares. I plan to investigate further into his affairs, in part admittedly due to a natural curiosity but also in part for more practical purposes. If he has made this journey often in the past, he might possess knowledge of the situation further inland, intelligence that would be invaluable for locating Quartz.

The final member of our party is a zebra, but one set apart from the primitive labourers that crew the ship. She cuts an imposing figure, standing a full hoof taller than any equine I have previously set eyes upon, and keeps at her side a spear, of all things. This affectation is barbaric, but the craftsponyship in her weapon is undeniable and she carries it with the calm confidence of one who has had cause to draw blood in previous occasions. Most striking of all are the chains of gold she wears around her neck—whether it is one unbroken length circling around countless times or several smaller necklaces worn together, I cannot tell. Regardless, I find myself wary of her presence, and intend to keep a watchful eye ready.

We depart in the morning, and the Captain has indicated that provided no serious mishaps occur, it will be a journey of two weeks time to reach the furthest navigable point inland. I earnestly hope that this final leg of my lengthy quest is nearing its end.

Silver Ninth, 1st Lieutenant, Her Majesty’s Imperial Versebreakers, Special Operations Division









March 27th, 892 A.L.

Several days on the river so far, and our journey has been uneventful. As we left behind the open horizons of the sea, the river has steadily narrowed from its original broad span, and our pace has declined correspondingly. I’ve taken to sitting at the rail as we steam upriver at a speed barely above that of a good trot. The sinuous contours of the muddy watercourse put me in mind of some great serpent, winding through the dense foliage—and if that is the case, what are we but some delectable morsel swallowed whole, en route to our doom deep in the bowels of the beast? But this is absurd—I fear the monotony of the perpetual jungle preys on my mind, to bring me to such excesses of the imagination.

After days of this interminable routine, I struck up an acquaintanceship with the griffon trader—one Gerlach von Grigoleit—who regarded me with some suspicion until we discovered a mutual appreciation for the sport of Whist. With only some small inconvenience, we succeeded in recruiting more players—the Captain and a zebra hoofservant of Mr. von Grigoleit—and sat down amidships with a battered deck of cards. I held my own in the course of the game, despite finding myself hindered by the inexperience of my zebra partner, and where I gave up points—and a small amount of bits, given that we had to agree to play for coin to tempt the Captain into joining us—I received more than adequate recompense in information.

“You are looking for Faden Quartz?” the griffon had said, in good humour after a spot of finesse had landed him a pair of tricks. I nodded—having fabricated an identity as a courier seeking him on behalf of business interests—and affected nonchalance to ask: “You know him?” The griffon’s eyes glittered and his beak curved up in a smile. “A brilliant fellow,” he replied. “Remarkable ideas, truly a revolutionary mind. You can mark my words—his work will change the course of history. I would be glad to supply his efforts, even had the arrangement not been so profitable to my own interests.” “Then your cargo is intended for him?” I pressed. “What manner of provisions does he require?” The griffon rustled his feathers, clicking his tongue at my inquiry. “Seeds,” he answered dismissively. “For fruit trees. You know, that sort of thing. I believe it is your lead?”

He would speak no further, and I let the topic drift away for a more opportune moment. It was then that I noticed a figure lurking at the boundaries of our gathering—the amazonian zebra leaned against a wall nearby, watching us with some inscrutable meaning in her gaze. Upon noticing my attention, she drew herself up and stalked off to the bow of the steamship. “Don’t concern yourself with her,” the Captain interjected with an air of amusement. “Zohara is no threat to you.” I raised an eyebrow “Still, she interests me—what brings her on this ship?” I mused aloud. “Perhaps I should seek her out and ask in person.” This brought a hearty laugh to the Captain’s lips and no further explanation.

The sun drifted beneath the horizon and our interest in the game waned. The moon held court over a cloudless sky, casting a luminous glow plenty bright enough to continue play, but the shadowy visage of the Mare in the Moon seemed particularly cruel this night. I retired to my small chambers to write this account and ponder on what had been said—and not said. The circumstances of Quartz’s disappearance seem now more than ever a riddle extending far beyond the destructive impulses of a bored aristocrat. I long for an end of this river and its persistent grip on my consciousness, no matter what answers my destination may bring.

Silver Ninth, 1st Lieutenant, Her Majesty’s Imperial Versebreakers, Special Operations Division









March 31st, 892 A.L.

I look back on my previous entry with rueful longing for that despondent naïveté—far superior to complain of a general malaise than be forced to face mortal danger head-on. It took place in the afternoon, as I lingered at the rail, keeping an eye both weary and wary on the near bank of the river, where colossal vegetation reached out with verdant arms as if to draw us into its bosom. The cry came from the opposite side of the ship, a zebra watchpony raising an alarm in their rhyming cadence, but before his couplet could be completed there came a sickening crunch that I can still hear echoing in my head.

I turned, rushing to the site only to see the giant cragadile’s jaws disappearing below the murky water, leaving behind a jagged gouge in the deck of the ship and a stain of dark crimson that made my stomach turn. The other crew took up voice as they dashed to positions to bring the ship swinging around away from the beast. I looked to the surface of the river only to see a massive dark shape just underneath, moving with alarming alacrity to keep pace. It crested the water once again and I saw right into the yellowed eyes of an ancient menace, a beast that had doubtlessly dwelt in these waters for longer than I had even lived—and who saw our presence as an intrusion to be mercilessly quashed. It swung open its gargantuan jaws to display rows of murderous fangs—still slick with the blood of its earlier victim—and all thoughts of my mission vanished from my mind as my very life passed before my eyes.

That was when the zebra’s voices resolved into a Song. I felt myself jerked back by an astonishing force on my tail just as the thunderous jaws slammed shut a hairsbreadth from my muzzle. The cragadile swayed backwards, its eyes narrowing as the milky membrane of a second eyelid blinked slowly. The Song took form and I felt its thrum grip my heart as I looked back to see Zohara with my tail clamped in her teeth. Her eyes met my own in a moment of wary recognition and she spat out the hairs, still unspeaking.

I had presumed the reptilian monstrosity to be wholly limited in intellect and savage in nature, but to my astonishment, the cragadile itself came in on the second verse of the song—a deep rumbling bass that caused the deck of the steamship to vibrate to such an extent that I feared it would crack in two—its bestial words resolving as thickly accented ruminations on how best to devour the vessel and its crew. The zebras had only served to buy us time; time that the Captain tried in vain to use for our escape. But the cragadile easily swam alongside us as it sang, showing no sign of tiring as it effortlessly herded our ship away from any convenient straits. I felt the heavy hoof of Zohara rest on my withers and met her gaze again as we shared a flash of instinctive resolve and mutual decision—an instant of communication that transcended the verbal.

I Broke the Song in the chorus following the third stanza, in a call-and-response between the cragadile and the zebra crew—the subject was the exact manner of our consumption and I had the presence of mind to deploy ‘borscht’—leading to an immediate effect as the abrupt snapping of melody and rhythm caused the river to churn and the ship to list at a perilous angle. The cragadile itself splashed backwards, a dazed look in its eyes, as I shouted for the Captain to take the narrow opportunity to escape. That was when I saw a shadow flash overhead, Zohara springing upwards in a mighty leap, her spear clutched in her mouth. She landed on the head of the great beast, all of her weight driving the tip of her spear into its beady right eye, and when she jerked her head back—her pronounced muscles straining at the effort—a gout of vile black blood erupted from the socket.

The beast let out a howl that shook the very trees of the jungle around us as it thrashed its limbs—we were uncommonly fortunate that it didn’t strike the ship itself in its rage—and Zohara hastily made another leap towards safety. The unstable footing of the cragadile’s head had given her scarce purchase and she barely caught the rail in her front hooves. I fought against the heaving of the deck to stumble over and help haul her in—I felt as an ant trying to lift a boulder—managing to help the zebra over the railing to ostensible safety. The Captain finally succeeded in plotting a course away from the gargantuan menace and we steamed ahead around another crooked bend of the river, pulling out of sight of the cragadile. Its howling could be heard for minutes afterwards, until it cut off in an abrupt silence even more unsettling.

It was then that Mr. von Grigoleit burst out of his lodgings belowdecks, squawking a litany of curses about the commotion. It was only when he saw the scars on the ship—the broad span where the rail and deck had been bitten clean through in an imprint of those terrifying jaws—that he trailed off into a silent horror. I simply laid on the deck, my heart rushing in my chest as I gulped in the dank air like it was the finest wine in Canterlot. Zohara offered a hoof—surprisingly gently—and I took her assistance to stand once again. We exchanged a moment, a flicker of time, in mutual recognition, and then she was gone, stalking off to the stern of the ship to watch the waters behind us, spear gripped in her teeth.

It is a newly bitter memory to me now, of how in such recent times as my Versebreaker training I used to read the histories of conflict and long for the valor and glory of battle: the tales of Versebreakers leading regiments of soldiers in brave assault, ponies rising to singlehoofedly shatter the spellchants of the wyvern stormcallers in the Draconic Wars, the Imperial Order holding a final desperate defense to repel the reindeer skalds in the disastrous Northern Campaign. Now such embodiments of chivalry have turned to ash in my mouth. All I can see is the blood of the zebra who fell victim to the cragadile and the briefest margin of fortune that separated me from suffering the same fate. There is no glory in death. As I write this letter, I hear the zebras mourning, voices raised in a dirge with no words—not a Song, but a song with power in its own way. Even now I can feel the sorrow and remembrance, deepening the wound laid upon my heart.

Silver Ninth, Versebreaker









April 6th, 892 A.L.

All is quiet—at least metaphorically speaking. Even if the ship was not constantly suffused by the thrumming of its churning engine, the jungle itself is awash with a cacophony of life:the humming of insects, the cries of native birds, and the occasional snarl of something prowling just out of sight. Something large and hungry—and something that I have no desire to observe in closer detail.

I am relieved to relate that the only event of note in the previous week was our running aground upon a sandbar in a particularly narrow stretch of waterway. It occurred in the early morning—I found myself rudely awakened by the sudden lurch. Springing out of my bed, I hastened to the deck—imagining all the while that we were under attack by some new beast of the wild—only to find the Captain cursing as he paced back and forth, sending the crew scurrying about in futile attempts to resolve our predicament. I exchanged words, but he was hardly in the mood for pleasantries, and quickly directed me to “Keep silence and stay out of the way,”—to which I obliged in letter, if not spirit.

The commotion afforded an opportunity that had been previously closed to me—investigating the cargo that my griffon acquaintance claimed to be destined for Faden Quartz. I had attempted to gain access to the cargo hold shortly after hearing the seemingly flimsy description of his goods, but found the door guarded by a resolute zebra in von Grigoleit’s employ. However, extricating us from the sandbar apparently required the assistance of many able hooves, and I found myself able to easily slip belowdecks unnoticed. The most difficult task proved to be finding a crowbar with which to open one of the heavy crates.

What I found was shocking in its mundanity. Seeds, indeed—small, pale things, packed tightly in hessian sacks. I dug through the crate with a mounting frustration, certain that I was missing something. I do not know what I expected to find—weapons, perhaps? contraband or items of forbidden magick?—but seeds were not the kind of objectionable supplies that I expected Quartz to desire. As I lifted the lid back to seal the crate once again, I considered its brethren, packed shoulder-to-shoulder in the dim hold. Even if his intentions are purely agricultural, why so many seeds? I hardly imagine the jungle to hold much in the way of arable land.

It remains a mystery. It took the better part of the day for the crew to liberate us from the bar’s muddy grasp, but we were fortunate in that no damage was done to the ship itself. We set off, and if anything, the delay was refreshing; the banality of the problem and its solution provided a brief respite from the strained tension of the jungle—the savage alienation that settles on my withers as inescapably as the wet, hot character of the air. 

Silver Ninth, 1st Lieutenant, Her Majesty’s Imperial Versebreakers, Special Operations Division









April 13th, 892 A.L.

Today marks the third week since our vessel set sail at the mouth of the Kuoza. That place—the sea—seems impossibly far now. I long for the rolling grasslands of my home, the vistas spreading out to the horizon. Ponies were not made for places such as these, where the flora conspires to tangle and trip and provide safe haven to innumerable predators. Even von Grigoleit seems ill at ease—I oft catch his eyes lingering on the sky above, and he irritably refuses any further invitation of cards.

I have found myself in the habit of holding long conversations with Zohara—long on my behalf; she has yet to respond in as much as a word. But rather than that being a discouragement, I find having a silent audience to be oddly soothing. She seems perfectly happy to listen to my disjointed complaints and reminiscences—once in description of some youthful mischief perpetrated by myself and some close friends, I saw her stifle a chuckle, unable to hide the sparkle in her eyes. One day, I spoke of Versebreakers, and at first she nodded with familiarity as I stumbled about explaining the basic concepts. But as soon as I began to detail my training and the details of the organization, she listened raptly as I rambled on until dusk. I must admit to one potential folly—I let slip my true purpose and Quartz’s possession of the Word. I do not know what fit of pique caused me this indiscretion, but I felt immeasurably unburdened in sharing my secret. Zohara’s sharp gaze didn’t waver and she showed no outward response to the admission. At the very least, I feel rather safe that she will keep my confidence, given her own reticence to speak.

We cannot be far from Quartz’s encampment now, though the Captain refuses to discuss how much further we must go. When next I put letter to paper, will I be reporting the successful return of the Word? That hope seems too fantastical to hold, yet its smouldering presence in my breast and the solid presence of my zebra companion are the only things keeping me sober and sensible in the midst of these wilds.

Silver Ninth, 1st Lieutenant, Her Majesty’s Imperial Versebreakers, Special Operations Division









April 13th, 892 A.L.

Disaster.

They came soundlessly out of the jungle, silent canoes gliding out of narrow tributaries. They were nearly upon us before the watchzebra’s cry rang out. I was on deck, irritably pressing a member of the crew for further details of the distance to Quartz’s camp when a wooden shaft bloomed from the side of his neck—a rose inverted, with its crimson blossoming at its roots. I threw myself to the deck, narrowly missing being impaled myself and found myself staring into the poor creature’s eyes as he gasped and gurgled away his last breaths. Before this misbegotten venture, I had never seen an equine die. Now I have witnessed far more than my share.

The zebras raised voice in an attempt at Song once again, but our assailants fought with purpose, arrows raining from the woods on either side to seek out the throats of those who would make melody. Out of the corner of my eye, I witnessed von Grigoleit take to the air—wings flapping ponderously to bear his weight—only to be felled under a rain of deadly missiles. The Captain shouted, taking command, and our ship began to pull ahead, hastening to pull away from the canoes that trailed us. We careened forward perilously, drawing out of range of the ambushers along the river’s banks, as the surviving zebra crew madly shoveled coal into the ship’s boiler—until… until!... With a creaking groan of iron stressed far beyond its integrity, the boiler exploded.

I confess to momentarily blacking out. When I came to, the experience was the closest analogue to Tartarus that I think any pony has been forced to witness. Dark smoke mixed with the mist of the jungle to cloak the river in a haze, punctuated by the screams of the damned. I could see fire raging across the water, and grey figures moving with otherworldly stillness as they scurried across the half of the steamship still above water, carrying off crates from within. All around me was death and destruction: splintered remnants of our vessel, corpses floating muzzle-down in the water. I clung to a fragment of wood to keep afloat and despaired of survival. When something underneath me grasped a foreleg, I cried out, certain that my end had come at the hooves of some creature lurking in the river’s depths. But a moment later, a familiar striped face surfaced near me—Zohara! With strong strokes, she pulled us upriver, away from the carnage until we found a small spit of an island to momentarily rest on, midriver.

I did not know what to say. I had been rescued—but to what end? With no boat, no supplies, no knowledge of this strange and dangerous wild, had I not simply exchanged one demise for another, more protracted one? Zohara swam the short distance to the river’s banks, and motioned for me to follow her into the jungle, but I could not. I watched wordlessly as she waited—lips pursing but even in this time of calamity refusing to speak—until a look of immeasurable sadness crossed her face and she turned to continue on, alone. I could not express to her what I felt: that I had gone as far as my legs would carry me, and if I were to die in this savage land, I would do so alone, not costing her the possibility of survival.

I laid there on the sand for a long time as daylight gave way to night. Only as the blanket of stars spread out overhead did I find the strength to rise and take stock of my situation. My journal had remained in my pocket, relatively unspoiled, and that brought a bitter laugh to my throat. I will write this account down and perhaps some future explorer will one day discover it. Perhaps they will take caution and turn back, for I know with certainty that these jungles hold naught but death.

Silver Ninth, Versebreaker









Apr 16

No food. Almost no ink too.

I continue, though I know not for how long. Each log floating downstream swims in a haze before my eyes to resolve as a one-eyed reptile seeking revenge or a canoe crewed by more grey phantoms. I would welcome a fight over the slow agony of wasting away, but I refuse to enter that accursed jungle.

To whomever may find this: Tell Princess Celestia that I am sorry. I did my best.

S.N.
































Apr. ??

—At least I presume this to still be the correct month. I have been recovering for days now, and they blend into the dim beige of one another. Only with a great effort—involving shouted threats intermixed with more pathetic supplications—was I able to convince my benefactors to return my journal and provide a small supply of ink.

I do not know how long I spent on that island—hardly deserving of such a name, it was but a shoal in the midst of the waterway—as hunger gnawed away at my body and I fell to delirium in the heat and sun. I was not in my right mind—let me emphasize this!—when I turned in desperation to instinctively attempt what I had sworn an oath to never do. I began to Sing. I do not know the tune or the words, only that it was an outpouring of emotion: regret, sorrow, resignation. I could feel the power of the Song flowing through my bones, carrying me along at the eye of the maelstrom as melody swirled around me. Being the prime mover of a Song was like nothing I had ever felt, different—far different—from any of my petty insinuations in the Songs of others for the purposes of Breaking them.

I do not know if it was the work of the Song which drew them to me. When the canoe appeared from around the bend upriver, I felt certain that I was singing my own funereal hymn. In my fevered madness, I saw the grey equines as servants of the Pale Horse himself, here to ferry my soul into the next world. I kept singing, my voice growing hoarse as they approached, until it trailed off into stillness as I stepped onboard. The silence was overwhelming—in the twilight of my Song, even the beasts of the wild held their tongues. We set off upriver, and I lowered my head, a vast weariness enveloping me. All I can remember is one last foggy glimpse, of looking up as we pulled into a dock to find myself amongst the neatly ordered trees of an orchard, somehow having returned to civilization once again.

They have cared for me since, keeping me under guard in a tent of thick, richly purple fabric. My benefactors—or captors, I know not which—are not ponies as far as I know. They are uniformly solidly grey, the colour of the sky on an overcast day, and lacking any form of cutie marks. I suspect they understand my language, but they do not speak it in turn, only a system of quiet whinnies and snorts that I find incomprehensible. I do not know where I am or what fate awaits me. I know that I should not hold out hope—through my actions I have broken the most solemn vow of the Versebreaker order, and I fear that this is a sin that I cannot atone for.

Silver Ninth, Pony









April 26th, 892 A.L.

I have met him—Faden Quartz. I was resting idly—having almost entirely recovered but finding my captivity to be newly stifling—when one of the Greys rushed in, letting out a light whinny of alarm. The guard at my bedside straightened up and they moved as one over to the tentflaps, drawing them open wide for the first time, at least in my conscious experience. The sun was out and blazing, and at first all I could make out was the dark silhouette of a pony framed against blinding light.

“How goes it, my dear?” he said. I blinked, shaking my head to clear it. At the outset of my investigations, I was provided with an image of Quartz’s likeness for the purposes of identification. Today, I would not be surprised if his closest family had difficulty in recognizing him. He is far thinner—dangerously so—and pale, with his eyes sunken into their sockets as if retreating from the outer world. Yet there is an intensity of purpose in him that is startling in its magnitude—to the degree that it makes me more than a little uneasy. And his voice—that voice! Even as his exterior has shriveled and wasted away into the gauntness of a skeleton, his voice is a vibrant baritone, booming with a cheer that is manic in its constitution.

“I must sincerely apologizing for not calling upon you sooner,” spoke he. “I was away on a minor expedition. There is much in the way of responsibility to tend to, as you must understand.” I found myself taken aback by his presentation, and wet my lips hesitantly before replying: “Of course.” He smiled, lips cracking to display a narrow line of white teeth. “I trust you have been well cared for?” he asked, but did not wait for my answer. “I’m afraid these fellows are typically nigh useless without my guidance, but you appear plenty hale and hearty. I will reward them appropriately. But enough of that—you must tell me! What news of the old country? How are the Versebreakers getting along?” I don’t recall moving or recoiling, but something in my expression must have registered to him, because he broke out into a booming laugh so loud that I flattened my ears in instinct. “Do not be concerned, my dear—Tell me your name?” he cheerfully said. I allowed him the courtesy: “Silver Ninth.” He appeared pleased, jerking his head up and down in an approximation of a nod. “Beautiful. My dear Silver Ninth. I do not seek to harm you—or you I, I would presume. We are ponies, even if we are far from the bucolic pastures of Equestria; it would be unbecoming to behave as savages.”

The conversation moved from there as I haltingly acquiesced to his questioning. He pressed me on a variety of subjects—recent news, fashion trends, whether Equestria had succeeded in recovering the Ashes from those brigands in Hosstralia—bouncing from one realm to another without any easily discerned order. Finally, I could see him tiring—his foreleg rapping an erratic rhythm against the ground—and he leapt up, sending the Greys into sudden animated motion. “We are going to get along fabulously, you and I!” he crowed, and then walked out of the tent, departing as suddenly as he had arrived. I hesitated, not knowing if I was meant to follow—the Grey guard had left along with Quartz—but when I stepped outside there was nopony in sight. Only another smattering of tents, a larger wooden edifice that I took to be Quartz’s own dwelling, and rows and rows of trees planted in orderly lines all around me. The smell of citrus was strong in the air, and looking up in the branches, I discovered their nature: orange trees.

Silver Ninth, Pony









April 27th, 892 A.L.

Quartz was waiting when I awoke this morning, sitting by a carved wooden platter piled high with food. I pushed aside the unsettling idea of him watching me sleep, and looked over the breakfast at his urging—orange juice, oranges sliced into salad, and several pieces of toast topped with what I took to be orange marmalade. I partook of the food ravenously and found it to be fresh and delicious, if monotonous in composition. He remained silent throughout, and parried my questions by simply stating: “Today is a day for business. And it is unrefined to discuss business over a meal, my dear.”

Once I had finished and pushed the tray aside, I tried again, cutting to the heart of the matter. “What do you want with me?” I asked, finding myself oddly fearful of the answer, given his propensity to uncomfortable endearments. His answer came sidelong: “It was relayed to me that when you were found, you were Singing.” I heard the capital letter slide into place with a heavy finality and suppressed a shiver. “I say this not to condemn you,” he continued. “I find the customs of the Versebreaker order to be needlessly archaic.” I swallowed, the tang still swirling in my mouth suddenly bitter. “The oath exists for a reason,” I started, but he waved a hoof in easy dismissal. “Perhaps,” he said. “But only to artificially limit the exceptional. The majority of accomplished Versebreakers are totally incapable of Song. It is a rare few that possess a talent that cuts both ways.” I did not find much reassurement in his words. “By which you mean that you…?” A dark look flashed across his muzzle before he forced a thin smile. “No, I do not have the gift. But I have my own talents as well. Let me ask: what is it that gives a Song its power?” I studied his face for a clue to his motives. A single eyebrow lifted, mockingly. “Puzzled? I will assist: it is not the music. It is the words. Language has a power all to itself. Smaller minds would propose that linguistics reflect reality in terms we can understand—but the precise opposite happens, in truth. Through language we circumscribe reality to bend it to our will. Perhaps a demonstration is in order! Come, come!”

I found myself pulled upright and hustled out of the tent, he pulling me along more by sheer force of personality than through any strength of his emaciated limbs. As we walked, a pair of Grey guards fell to on either side of us, their unreadable eyes constantly moving in search of threat. “Here!” Quartz called out, bounding out in front of us, not towards the cottage that I took to be his dwelling, but yet another tent purple in colour. He pushed through with no hesitation and I followed, a flicker of unease already stirring within me. The interior of the tent was lit by candles—hundreds of them—flickering as our entry stirred the air in the room and set their flames into abrupt motion. I found myself staring at the pinpricks of light, each tiny and impotent in individuality, but coming together to form a whole of luminescence that made the room warm and inviting. And then I turned at Quartz’s purposeful cough, and saw the zebra laying in the dirt with hooves bound.

My mouth opened—whether to protest or question or simply out of shock, I cannot say—but Quartz hissed out an ugly noise that made me keep my silence and watch. He drew himself up to tower over the prone zebra—whom I belatedly discovered I recognized, as my Whist partner in a game that had to have taken place a lifetime ago—and when he spoke, his sonorous voice filled the entire room. “It is time for you to speak,” Quartz intoned, and I could see madness in the reflection of candlelight in his eyes. The zebra wriggled futilely in his bonds. “Speak,” Quartz commanded, and I had to hold myself back from instinctively following his command. The zebra looked up, the white portion of his stripes chalky white. “I hear your voice and know the threat, but I am still an equine yet,” he shakily said. Quartz bared his teeth, rearing back and—this is no fabrication—the light of the candles flared up even brighter. The shadows that Quartz cast against the wall of the tent twisted and wormed as the candles flickered, until they showed something not quite equine, a figure crowned with horns. “Speak!” he repeated, voice booming out as the walls of the tent shone in garish colour and I realized his purpose. The zebra must have as well. “You may taunt with purple hue, but I shall never bow to you,” he replied, and then spat into the dirt in front of him. Quartz bowed down, one hoof reaching out to gently trace a line across the muzzle of the zebra. For a fraction of a moment, it appeared to me as something else—a talon? a claw?—and then Quartz whispered one final command: “Speak.” The zebra shuddered, wrenching his eyes closed. “To your demands, I’ll not oblige,” he screamed out. “I’ll never—I won’t—I—I…!”

What I saw next was chilling to my very core, something far worse than any of my other experiences thus far. I had seen equines—zebras—breathe their last breaths, not even weeks previously. But I knew with a sickening feeling that what I witnessed was a death not of the body, but of the soul. As the zebra’s words sputtered out into silence, I saw his colours began to dim and his stripes blur into one another. My eyes flickered to his flank, to the distinctive swirl of black and white that gave every zebra its identity. There, before my very eyes, his mark faded away into nothing. His coat transfigured into the gray admixture of the blacks and whites, and I knew with dawning horror just what kind of equines the Greys that served Faden Quartz were.

I stumbled out of the tent, the abrupt sunlight spearing my eyes, and half-digested oranges mixed with bile splashed against the ground. A moment later, Quartz stepped out after me, keeping a few hooves distance until my stomach ceased its heaving. The zebra—or whatever he was now—waited alongside him, its eyes dull. I drew a cannon across my mouth, wiping away the last remnants of breakfast. “You—You’re a monster,” I spat. He seemed to take some mirth in that. “Silver, dear,” he said, in the tone of a parent lecturing an unruly child, “please do not be overdramatic. It’s merely a zebra. And he’s perfectly fine.” “You’ve ruined him,” I cried. “Stripped away his equinity.” Quartz clucked his tongue. “Hardly. It’s not as if he was a pony! Zebras have more in common than the apes of this jungle than you or I.” I stared at him, shaking in the grasp of some emotion too powerful to name. “Tell me, do you think zebras are native to these lands?” he asked. “No. Theirs is a land of savannah—grasslands—some distance away. The zebras have been brought here, for the benefit of ponies. You are familiar with Dr. Living Stone?” “The explorer,” I murmured. “Very good! Yes. It was he who first hired zebra porters for his travels, finding their more… animalistic natures to be well suited to menial labour and adverse climates. And really, there are far too many zebras on such a fertile land as is in Zebrabwe. It has been a great boon to ponykind to encourage their migration so it might be better cultivated.” My stomach roiled. “You’re evil,” I said. He let out a long, theatrical sigh. “No, my dear, I am practical.” I shook my head. “No, you’re… you’re—something has twisted you—corrupted you—in such a way...! You think that you are above the zebra? There is no nobility in what you say. You are hardly worth being called a pony at all.” That drew blood, and his sunken eyes bulged outward at my accusation. I saw him visibly strain, one hoof pawing violently at the dirt, before he spoke again, a chill in his baritone: “You clearly need time to consider all that you have seen. We will speak of these matters later.”

He stalked off towards his cottage, the erstwhile zebra obediently in tow. I retired to write these very words. Even now, my mouthwriting is hasty and distressed. I have witnessed fantastic dangers and horrific menaces in my journey to the depths of this wild jungle. But the true evil lurking in this place comes not from nature or even the customs of barbarism, but from an ostensibly civilized source.

Silver Ninth









April 29th, 892 A.L.

I’ve yet to see Quartz again since two days ago. A pair of zebra guards—I will call them as they once were, they deserve that much—stand watch at the door to his cottage. Instead, I took to exploring the encampment. The orange groves extend in all directions on this side of the river. I headed east yesterday morning, towards the rising sun, in the vain superstition that Celestia herself would guide me to an answer. I did not get far before I noticed smoke rising on the horizon, leading me to gallop the rest of the way.

I found a team of zebras hacking away at jungle, machetes in mouth. Nearby, a pile of already dismembered foliage had been set alight, sending a smoky trail up to the sky. I realized—this is how Quartz had established his orange grove, by fighting back against the jungle with his captive labourers. They did not pay me any mind as I observed, not answering any of my questions or acknowledging my existence at all. I suppose they had no reason to be concerned with me—I was imprisoned by the very jungle itself, and Quartz had to know that. Attempting to flee into the tangle would only be a form of suicide, as countless miles of impassible terrain separated me from any form of civilization. I made a circuit of the perimeter of the groves nonetheless. The only other site of note was the rough docks that fronted the river. No canoes were in evidence, and I could only assume that either the zebras kept theirs hidden somewhere else or that they were currently away on other business—perhaps continuing Quartz’s campaign of piracy against other unsuspecting travellers or explorers.

These days have given me much time to reflect, however. I do not wish to throw away my life in an act of petty defiance by vanishing into the wood. Even an attempt at genuine escape seems implausible at the most generous estimation. The Versebreakers sent me to this place to retrieve the Word, a task in retrospect I find myself staggeringly unsuited to accomplish. At one point, in the aftermath of the attack upon the steamer, left alone and half-mad with hunger and fatigue, I questioned the very premise: what Word is worth so many lives? Would it not be preferable to let Quartz alone in his tiny kingdom in this squalid, darkened corner of the world? Having seen firsthoof what he does here and how, I can no longer agree—but not out of the sanctity of the Word. I have decided: with all the evil in this place, there is room for one final malicious act. Faden Quartz will perish by my hoof, or else I will perish in the attempt.

Silver Ninth









May 1st, 892 A.L.

It is the first of May. Somewhere, far from here, ponies are celebrating as summer dawns, frolicking in the grass under the warm comfort of Celestia’s sun.

I do not know what it was about this day that convinced me that my plan must be enacted. I still had not seen Quartz since his demonstration with the zebra. At first I thought he was leaving me to my own devices as another form of manipulation, but upon observing zebras bringing meals to his cottage in the form of steaming orange stew I realized the truth—Quartz was far weaker than even his appearance indicated, and had used the majority of his vigor in his performance for my benefit. It might have been that conclusion that provided the impetus to act, but I think it was something more primal, something innate. For days I felt myself wind more and more tightly around my resolve, stretching like the taut string of an instrument, where the slightest touch would break forth into sound. That is how I felt this morning. That was when I started Singing.

As soon as the first words left my lips, the zebras had immediately ceased in their tasks, drawn towards me by the power of the Song. I thought at first the guards would attack, and indeed I saw the struggle written plain across their faces, but the music had taken hold at that point, a sweeping orchestral score blossoming into being. They could no more stand in my way than hold back a flood. Instead, zebras drifted into line in between the orange trees that lined my path towards the cottage. I felt invincible, all-powerful, and I Sang as much, putting into lyrics my challenge—my purpose. When the door to the cottage slammed open and Faden Quartz strode out, I discovered my folly: the song had empowered him as well—for what climactic showdown could exist without its villain?

He did not seem angered, or distressed, or weak. His sunken eyes glittered and he wore his thin smile, finding amusement in the audacity of my challenge. I put aside my fears—knowing the enraptured zebras observing from either side of us would certainly leap upon me in an instant if my melody were to fail—and focused solely on Quartz, hammering all of the pain and anger and heartache of my journey into a single white-hot point of clarity. I Sang, and the words came from the air one after the other, a direct conduit transmuting the feelings in my soul into linguistic armaments. He started to try and Break my Song—as I knew he would. At first, he tried trivial means, call-and-response interspersed lines with obscure rhymes that I effortlessly twisted to my own purposes. He shifted into true form, the standards taught to every Versebreaker during training, but how does one Break a Versebreaker? I turned them aside with half-rhymes and the music behind us swelled even higher. There was only one Word that I could not answer—the Word he had stolen from us. That was the ultimate gambit, whether he would be willing to go that far to defeat me—and whether, as I fervently prayed, his relinquishment of the Word would also relinquish his control over the zebras.

The fourth stanza moved into the chorus once more, and our pitch shifted a step higher. We approached the apex, circling around each other as the zebras watched, swaying back and forth. He drew closer and closer, our muzzles almost touching as we Sang against one another, baritone and soprano in jarring contrast. I finished my line in one final taunt, leaving his counter-response open. He took a breath, his lips curled back in a grin—and he struck me, hoof crashing into the side of my face, sending me falling to the earth, ears ringing. The impact and the jarring disconnect from the Song left me breathless, face in the dirt, tears welling up in my eyes. He bent down, and I could feel his hot breath as he whispered in my ear: “So sorry. Sometimes the direct approach is preferable, my dear.” I could barely fathom it, my head still reeling—nopony had been able to physically break a Song in decades, certainly not one as momentous as ours had been. The Word empowering him must be truly tremendous, and I quaked, certain in my failure.

It was only then that I realized that the sound still ringing in my ears wasn’t shock, but the music—it hadn’t ceased, only held in a fermata. I looked up to see all of the zebras looking away from the two of us, down the lane of orange trees in the direction of the jungle. A figure was walking our direction—abnormally tall, striped in bold black and white, neck afire as the sun glinted off of gold chains. And in Zohara’s mouth, she held her spear, obsidian tip glittering. “No!” Faden Quartz cried. “It is done! The words are gone!” Zohara did not stop her advance, and the music sprang back to life, the brassy flaring of a trumpet taking lead as it sounded off in a minor key. Quartz screamed, trying to take back the song with his lyrics, throwing out snatches of phrase meant to Break that were parried effortlessly by instrumental answers. He reared back, and once more I caught glimpse of a form alien to his own, of the stolen power burning within his decaying physical shell. And then Zohara reached him, bowing her head in a motion that bordered on apologetic as her spear moved forward to pierce his chest.

Quartz screamed, an unearthly howl that drowned out the music and caused me to clamp both hooves over my ears. Then he fell to earth, hardly more than ragged fur draped over a skeleton. Zohara withdrew her spear and inclined her head to me. I scrabbled in the dirt, pulling myself over to Quartz, watching as his feverish eyes rolled back and forth in his skull. “The Word!” I said. “Relinquish it!” He looked at me, and stretched one foreleg out in supplication. He took a rattling breath, blood flecking his lips, and then let out a whisper so soft as to barely be audible. “The chaos, the chaos,” he said, and then his spirit departed.

Would that I could say the rest were easy. Quartz’s death and his discharge of the corruption of the Word released the zebras that he held sway, but they remain colorless. I hope that in time, their identities may once again return to them. There is much to be done, still. We started in chopping down orange tree after orange tree, piling them into a bonfire where the zebras danced and sang in their wordless whinnies until late in the night. I found myself seeking out Zohara in the midst of the festivities, who kept herself apart from the rest. “You saved me, again,” I said. She merely smiled in response. “But how? I know firsthoof the power of Song, but how could you not Sing?” She lifted one hoof to her neck, and unwound the gold chain there, looping it around her foreleg as the flesh underneath came into view. Her neck was scarred with wounds and I knew then: she did not Sing because she could not. “Then… Quartz? He did this to you? He took away your voice?” Her eyes were distant and sad, but her head moved from side to side, and I understood. “You did this to yourself. Then what—who?—did he take from you?” She would look at me no longer, preferring to gaze up into the stars, but in the moonlight I saw a tear darken the fur of her cheeks.

I do not know where I will go from here. I have completed the task set before me by the Versebreakers, even if through my actions I have renounced my own membership in the order. Perhaps that is for the best. I have seen the corruption and malice that such power can bring in the hooves of one unworthy. I would like to believe that in the hooves of good, the opposite is true, but mine own are too stained to tell. I look out into the jungle now at the edges of the firelight and no longer feel fear or unease. I have faced the darkness and savagery borne of a heart of evil. Now it is time for me to find my own light.

Silver Ninth