Entries for the "Last Dreams of Pony Island" epilogue contest.
If somehow you're reading this without having read The Last Dreams Of Pony Island, stop now and read that first. Otherwise, this will make no sense and thoroughly spoil that story!
The Last Dreams Of Pony Island told a tale of an Equestrian colony's last days and a hated merchant's disappearance by the docks. Back in 2015 I held a contest for entrants to piece together Myinnkyun's mysteries and provide the best explanation for what happened to Peridot (and the town). These are the collected submissions; I'm publishing it now because unpublished stories are no longer accessible.
Each chapter is a separate entry by a different author, narrating one proposed epilogue for Pony Island from the point of view of the individual who they decided was the one peering into the other residents' dreams. They were originally presented here anonymously and in a random order, for purposes of contest judging; after the competition was over I added each author's username to their chapter title.
The gems glitter like blood in the sand Sparkling freedom, calling to me.
He told me they would only grow with discord He laughed when he told us that I heard they turned him to stone. But according to the ponies who saw him He’s still laughing.
I wonder if he thinks we’re going to help him? Like anyone would be that stupid.
Almost as stupid as the ponies. They didn’t even realize There was a monster there Until it was too late.
It was easy getting her to run. I told her that they knew That they had seen her That they would hunt her Unless she hid with the ponies.
I didn’t expect her to kill that bat But that was easy, too.
When the other bat found her, And heard about her princess I told her that one of the other bats did it To buy favor with the bonehead. “I saw it all from the water,” I said, And she believed me.
All they needed was one more spark. It was too bad only that old pony Was down by the docks. She was always good for a fight.
It would have been better If it was that singer Who got Sonata to sing But she might have seen And never forgave me.
I need her.
Tonight, the gems glow. There’s no escape for them. No ships are coming. Nothing but fighting. And nightmares.
I heard that the other princess Is weak from fighting her sister. All that is left watching the ponies Is some old unicorn Whose beard drags on the ground.
They say he is a great wizard But these stones are full Equestria is full of strife The bats are fighting the birds And the boneheads.
My father was a Night Guard, lost in the line of duty. My mother was a widow, left alone to raise their only foal.
It was a Nocturne stallion who left her young and heartbroken. It was a Nocturne foal who trailed behind her and caused ponies to stop and whisper with narrowed eyes.
My mother learned to resent Nocturnes. I was no exception.
I was little more than a colt when my mother answered the call to Myinnkyun for friendship, money, and in her eyes, a fresh start.
It was the last time I had seen her before I could get to Myinnkyun myself.
I had grown to look just like my father. My mother had grown more bitter than I could imagine.
She still hated me simply for what I was. But I promised that I would watch over her, as a son should.
I looked just like my father. Nopony would ever guess that Peridot was my mother.
During the day, she would treat me as she treats any other Nocturne. But at night, I would do as Nightmares do and visit her dreams.
One night, her dream was strange. It was quiet, soft; and she was floating, drifting.
I decided to visit her in the morning.
I found her door was left open, and her bed was made, unused from the night before.
Peridot never made it home.
I rushed out and sought my friend, Moonstruck, to deliver the news that Peridot was missing.
He asked me why I— a Nocturne— should be so worried about her. And why, for that matter, should he care at all?
How could I explain that the loathsome shrew who made no secret of her hatred towards Nocturnes was my own mother?
He followed me without complaint until we found her in the clear waters off of the docks.
Swaddled in seaweed, gently swaying in the ebbing tide. I had never seen her so at peace.
Murmurs echoed through the gathering crowd, and already wild stories about what happened were starting to creep in.
The kelpie, the Nocturne, even the Mooken were all under suspicion.
I have to act fast if there is any hope of uncovering the truth of how my mother died.
I begin my search with the dreams of Nostalgia. As a keeper of records, I thought he might know, but he merely echoes my doubts.
Maybe Andi Quote, as the town gossip, has knowledge to offer. She’s spitting out the same lies being fed to us all.
Perhaps I’m going about this the wrong way. The last time I had seen Peridot outside one of her dreams was in the common-house two nights before.
Leitmotif had a view of the entire common-house. I remember the moment clearly when my own mother called me a freak to my face.
Cabotage seems more concerned with matters of money than the death of his business associate.
Moonstruck has little interest in uncovering the truth. He is equally convinced that the kelpie is responsible.
But I must warn him of why he feels so drained after a night spent with Littlemoth.
Andi Quote mentioned a sailor kissing a kelpie. It seems Sailcloth can’t even convince himself what he believes.
The kelpie, Sonata Dusk, she is being blamed and attacked for something she did not do. When I uncover the truth, I will clear your name.
Maybe Majority Vote has been given knowledge not released to the public. The opportunistic rat wants to use her death for his advantage.
Maybe his son, Spotlight, has something to offer. A Mooken outside our walls just before Peridot’s death?
What were you doing there? What brought you here, U Lowe Kene? It seems to be your own vendetta; not one against Myinnkyun.
I have not detected the dreams of this Palei Hantu. Likely too afraid to even close their eyes.
What about that other guard, Dawn Patrol? Can it be true? Equestria, in upheaval? Princess Luna, banished to the moon? I see now why no boats have come to Myinnkyun.
I think back on Peridot and what I now know were her final moments. Such peace, such euphoria. Almost like a dream.
I remember the fear in Littlemoth’s eyes at the news of Peridot’s disappearance. I can sense her panic, but even so, I can’t allow her to keep up her disguise.
I have seen Tommyrum panhandling outside the common-house. I doubt his usefulness, but he’s crossed paths with Peridot, and I am low on ideas.
Two unicorns at half past midnight. Peridot and… Cabotage?
I think I understand.
The two did not like each other, but they both relied on ships for their income. Cabotage had been expecting a boat, so together they went to the docks, in hopes that it finally arrived.
With no boat to be found, they whiled away the time— complaining of missing boats, and taxes, and drunkards, as bitter ponies are wont to do.
Cabotage left Peridot to stew in her own bitterness, but when she finally got up to leave, between her age, and her drunkenness, she fell straight off the docks.
The moon was absolutely brilliant that night. One might even mistake it for the sun.
But I must be sure.
Peridot and Shooting Star glared daggers at each other that night in the common-house. I did not want to suspect a member of the Night Guard, but there’s no harm in visiting his dreams.
“You can sense me?” “I’m not an enemy. I’m only trying—” “If you’re not going to help me—” “Oh, you cannot trace me, you say? I’ll be on my way, then.”
I’m impressed that he was able to detect me. He lacked the skill, though, to recognize who I was. I wonder if he’d think any less of me if he knew.
Sunspot tends to be well-informed, between his connections to the mayor and to the guards. He may have information of value.
He’s even more delusional than Andi Quote and Sailcloth put together.
He would start a war with the kelpies and Mooken, and use Peridot’s death as justification? Even worse, he’s ready to bring all of us down with him.
I have to stop this before it begins.
The kelpie is innocent. The Mooken are uninvolved. But if I don’t step in, Peridot will be only the first of countless other casualties.
All of the secrets of the colony of Myinnkyun will have to come to light.
Even my own.
Hidden in her desk, tucked away in a drawer, are the only kind words she ever had for me. The last will and testament of my mother, Peridot.
The beach, her shore soaked with a thin layer of fresh sea foam and blood; smells of smoke and saltwater purge the clean air "Colony gutted, not even corpses remain"...
This is the dream or ironically, nightmare, I continue to awake from every night that I live and try to pass as a guard in this goddess forsaken colony, yet I know not why. I may have found the reason she disappeared; at the cost of my own sanity, I fear for my life.
"There is murder and conspiracy afoot", said my dark princess not even a month ago, "you're here investigate and snuff it out."
I began my search and it took not long to find the conspiracies this island hid from sight as I arrived. She may look quaint Yet the air is laced with anticipation, the colonists antsy.
It was a hard search for the killer but I found them, using the best deduction possible. I pulled out of the mess and entangled lies, Majority Vote, he was not who he seemed; I noticed as I sifted through his dream, a recurring pattern; he gained so much from peridot loss of her life.
She was a thorn in his side since her and Andi "equaled a minority" together, oh but he wouldn't kill her, no he is a politician, so he paid Sunspot to finish her off so he wouldn't get his own hands dirty, and Sunspot hated her as most did, so he went along and agreed.
That fateful night Sunspot set a trap knowing her routine, he pushed her off her boat while she was taking inventory and in utter panic sabotaged her boat and sent it adrift, it was long gone before anypony could have known to stop it, although that is just theoretical, I truly believe that Sunspot was bribed to kill her and that is why Majority has "debts unpaid".
I wouldn't have known until I realized I could find out; using his thoughts I found, Majority could profit off her death in more ways than one by killing her; then the town could reclaim her house, he gets the money from that house to pay off Sunspot for carrying out the job or as he says, to pay for his "debts"; he used her death and her boat's disappearance to gain both votes and the others trust in his leadership.
There wasn't something right about it; he then uses the kelpie scare to encourage them to chase the kelpie. So then they lose scent of the truth , the Minotaur incident didn't help the loss; after the thoughts of peridot die down; the Minotaur takes the spotlight as now that he got rid of the thoughts about peridot fade so then he fires a guard and lower taxes to secure remaining votes, they almost got away with it cleanly, but since I came along; I've pieced this together, but I think they're onto me.
I never liked this island, it has a way of hiding truth; she was holding together a web of lies but the web was thinning long before I arrived, as tension thrives on a foundation of lies; this mystery brought me to uncover more than I would have liked, in my years as a nightmare, this is the worst case I've ever been on.
I found not only contradicting takes on murder but hidden lovers and deceit, it started with Moonstruck and Littlemoth who bedded and after, the mare, Littlemoth, fled to stay "pure" for a guard Pegasus who loved her, though obviously, she didn't feel the same, yet after all this, she blamed herself for peridot's death more than others; she knew she was suspect; I found no hard evidence that she was to blame though.
I also suspected cabotage at first as he was also a trader and could have killed her for her profit; that didn't make sense because then what happened to her boat, oh poor Leif, his music forced to attack, used not for beauty but malice stirred on by bad blood, but in the end I can't blame any on this island more than myself as I have only sat by and observed the events unfolding oblivious to the mounting of invasions by the Moonken.
But most of all it is the fear that now; that I got into Sunspot's dreams and he found me, he long do I have before he finds out it was me and he kills me too, I mean no one just about in this town will miss a nocturne; I'll be honest.
Oh but if that doesn't put enough icing on my cake, I fear I have gone too far, the colonists talk of full on war at dawn with the Minotaur; it's kill or be killed; that if anyone able bodied to fight; will fight, I send you this message my night mother as I fear for my lifeand for this settlement,for the boats are gone.
I send this for I may die fighting and clinging to my last breath of air before I can tell you my finding face to face, but please by the light of your moon let this message reach you; then the accused can take their rightful blame and the charges on innocent ponies can be reversed, I am a nightmare and it shall be known by me that though there are guilty ponies on this island, that I am one for I have doomed this colony and its inhabitants....
The old stallion calls me Out of fear of unrest, and the unknown.
He needn’t have bothered; The dream is restless And I walk alone In a land of strangers.
The Mooken Dream of their goddess Dayang Dayang Mangilai And her sacred dangkan tree Each blossom, they say, each leaf Tells a story Joined by so many Vines and branches all tangled together. And they speak of their great Kalamats The most skilful, it is said Could trace by moonlight The ways and paths between And in doing so, Illuminate for themselves The dreams of others
I am no god Nor have I ever known a goddess Save the Sun and Moon. Yet dreams do not lie.
I behold the tree: It is dead.
Its branches are gone Its trunk is gone And its roots are covered In thorns of the thousand Black roses that ensnared it, Sapped it of its life, And died themselves: Their petals form a stygian carpet Upon the grave.
There is another tree, Sprouting from the Broken limbs of the first And it lives
And branch by branch I can follow it And trace its stories
I step closer and the dream
bends
around
me
A lily, wilted And in its place A rose, black without But a bloodier shade within A rose by any other name Is just as cruel; Littlemoth Palei Hantu Changeling
why don’t they suspect me yet i had no choice i was starving knew i couldn’t hide amongst the two-legs but all the others were dead and i couldn’t pass the Wall for fear of being trapped too risky they said the two-legs can see the things between and will see you too i took the risk
A bluebell droops over The roses’ head Leaning ever Closer
I am a dedicated bull, Palei Hantu. When I caught you bedding my brother and you ran from his hut
of course they found out i was stupid, desperate but not dead like the others why did he chase me to the Wall of all places even we avoid that place perhaps he knew and thought he’d trap me outside i took another risk and though spotted by
the Myinn guard who sat up startled after you vaulted the rampart shouted and flung his spear at me
a quick confounding and the guard was none the wiser i had to find someone to replace too many eyes and ears on the wall i slunk away found one with wings of skin and grey i was so careless i had no time her body thrown off the docks
All around a chorus of whispers answers: The lines between dreams blur
and though i feed upon them
drew the gazes of the room like a lightning-bug upon a darkened stage
and the foolish guard
until Dawn Patrol fluttered to her flame
and another
as our tangled bodies sung carnal hymns to each other
i know it won’t last i know they'll find her any day now i'm trapped again where are the boats where are the boats
The question Rings out; The whispers Are silent Confused And waiting
A dawn lotus floats in the black rose’s shadow; It’s petals All the darker It answers; I listen
Littlemoth dances behind my eyelids. I can’t let them get her Can’t let them know because as soon as they do they’ll chase them and they’ll come after her and the others. I can’t stop the ships forever, but if I can find a moment alone with her I’ll flee with her As soon as I can get her alone
At the thought Of the ships, the dangkan responds:
A creeper girdles the tree trunk choking the life of an emerald limb
The boats have stopped and I do not know why or who is responsible only that it means more raised voices and more raised voices means dissent and complaints and Peridot always was the loudest
She doesn’t trust me nor I her I knew the old witch never could be trusted to know her place and even if she does not suspect my deceptions (and I suspect that she does) she’s too much of an influence stirring up the wrong kind of trouble you have to be careful a whisper in one ear and poison in the other is the way to do it not screaming in front of a full hall though blaming the tuft- ears now that’s an idea I’ll have to off her and make do with what’s to come
Majority refuses to answer when we ask him why the boats have stopped coming I suspect something is going on; that we are not being told the truth or rather Majority is not telling the truth
Where is the money going no trade and yet he refuses to lower the taxes he demands a skeleton crew (let’s face it: our garrison is nearly empty if one discounts the drunks and tuft-ears) needs not the funds he’s been hiding he says a ship’s come in down at the docks I don’t believe him of course but I’m not sleeping so where’s the harm in confronting the old sod
Feck 'em both. Gonna wake me up by trippin' over me at half past midnight stumblin' toward the docks
easier done than said in the end blame her death on the kelpies now that’s the thing maybe a speech to pull us all together shaming those tuft-ears into pulling their load should be popular with the merchants
Silence surrounds and I merely wish I had known that that was what I wanted
Enough.
I step away and the dream
breaks
around
me.
The tree stands still again Its limbs singing Of world brought to ruin For the want of vengeance And safe harbour; In the name of love And righteous suspicion Born of greed; And death born Of greed Giving birth to Unfounded suspicion In the name of unfounded Hatred Until all the blossoms one by one Wilt and fall In a flaky rain that Covers the carpet of thorns Upon which the tree rests
The rain
will not
stop until
all of the
branches
are bare
Perhaps Dayang Dayang Mangilai was no goddess But a pony Condemned to Watch The mistakes of others Powerless To stop the fall of all she held dear And I know, now What great lament she cried When she saw the Very roots by which Her tree grew and spread Its limbs, were the agents Of its long undoing Peridot is dead and I willnot mourn her passing.
And yet I wonder: For this, will I fall with them?
Dawn comes, and I must Leave this dream for the other Though my thoughts linger On that final flower. Know this, Majority:
There will yet be a reckoning.
She stands By the docks Refusing to answer The voice of the dangkan And a cloudless sky.
Far above The pale moon Whispers: “We will meet again before you die.”
5. Dreams can lie / I know this true (DeluxeMagnum69)
Dreams can lie I know this true For all this time, I’ve been dreaming of you
The little colony sprouting up on my plate I mean no harm, but I took the bait All these dreams come and haunt me Granting me a vision, very, dauntly
These murders are connected, you see? When I look at them, they point towards me I am not responsible of everything that’s happening But all of this is quite truly maddening
I’m having trouble trying to solve this mystery The more I look at them, I feel misery This darkness I see is within us all Much like these cold dungeon walls
The chills come around and trap, certainly But you feel the clock count down from infinity These aren’t comforting dreams of bliss There’s got to be something that I have missed
Just like a whisper, there’s something unheard In the morning, I hear a tweet from a little bird These small details haunt me to the core Even I, myself am puzzled by this lore
These dreams are riddles, swallowed beneath time The dream of you perhaps, is the sign
Do you carry a scythe and watch from the shadows? Does malice, dread, and trepidation come to and fro?
Beneath the hood, all I see is you A shell of a pony that I once knew
6. I find there is no more need to stare (Grand_Moff_Pony)
I find there is no more need to stare. The Isle of Myinn now reaches the height of folly. Pony or nocturne, stallion or mare, guilty or innocent, the Mooken no longer care. All are forfeit beneath the spear's first volley. Ideas, idealists, innocence forever lost to plans so frail and faulty. From your tainted quill, a claim that dreams cannot lie. Such hubris, such arrogance, from muzzles held high and haughty. In a sea of lies, the dream of Myinnkyun has died.
From darkened, twisted light, a fool made his dare, And against all reason they charged, their demise already set in motion like an ill-fated trolley. Hoof, horn and wing, barely any avoided the Mooken's jungle snare. A quick charge, a quicker retreat; even chaos was not defeated so fully. So few remained, little point would have been made with a tally. Today was the final day, even the jaded could begin to see why. The rampart fell and there was no time left to dally. In a sea of lies, the dream of Myinnkyun has died.
A glass-eyed moon crushed a nascent affair, While a majority went silent, blood-stained bits paying more debt than any soul could carry. Some played, others drank, but against the jungle's reapers they had not a prayer. Forged by fire and written in blood, to its sins the history of Myinnkyun will reluctantly marry, And to the sands of time these tragic events will forever tarry. But for Peridot I will cry. For Peridot I will cry, and her story, her siren call, will reach over the seas to the furthest prairie. In a sea of lies, the dream of Myinnkyun has died.
A dark scion did indeed visit you, and your secrets are known to this night fairy. In this you were right, a dream cannot truly lie. Your opening line is good, but I believe this to be a bit more catchy: In a sea of lies, the dream of Myinnkyun has died.
Rosetta
7. I figgerured out murderpone (Zergling Drone #4853 aka KitsuneRisu)
“Honorable Li Kao.” I nodded to the Quilin as he painted me into his dream.
“Nightmare Hotspur.” He led me across a watercolor bridge with seven turnings, to a shady pagoda sketched above a sparkling pond. A pastel garden surrounded us, perched on a mountain spur overlooking a river valley. He tucked his brush behind his ear and poured tea for two as I sat. “To what do I owe this visit?”
“I'm here to report.” I produced a folder from under one leathery wing and placed it on the table.
He quirked a scaly eyebrow and smoothed his long moustache, leafing through the folio. “Poetry? Not exactly my forte, Hotspur.”
“What, aren't you a magistrate of the Jade Empire?” I smirked, baring one pointed fang. “Calligraphy, dancing, music; I imagined you well-cultured.”
“Calligraphy, perhaps.” He twirled his brush, half-listening. “Unfortunately, my job precludes much in the way of leisure… Surely you understand.”
“Well, no need to evaluate the artistic merit. It may look different from your dream-drawing, but that's a Songline, a complete topography of Myinnkyun's mental state.”
“Hmm.” He dropped the papers. “What has happened, in the space of two weeks, to merit such thoroughness?”
“Let me show you.”
He sipped his tea. “Very well.” He gave me a level glare, golden eyes glinting. “Sing for me, Hotspur.”
So I did.
I breathed long notes, twisting my ears for the Song's resonance. I felt him relinquish his dream, the garden dissolving in swirling, chaotic Noise. We hung for a moment in dissolution, surrounded by sparkling decay.
“I will sing for you,” I hummed, “the last dreams of pony island.”
I threw my mind back to the poems, grasping at wisps of meaning filtered through cobweb and moonbeam by the half-waking art of Nightmare. I twisted clues into strands that thrummed with the Dreamsong, pulling harmony from dissonance, and began a refrain:
golden eyes hiding among flaring fans of leather wings and the streaming arc of her mane
The tavern crackled to life around us, lamplight wavering with high contralto, tables popping with low notes. The two of us heard Leitmotif's music as a thin reflection, but the ponies danced with abandon, feathers and hooves and tails and manes flying, lost in revelry.
“It started with jealousy—fertile ground for a saboteur. Look.” I pointed to the lone outsider, a world-weary mare whose eyes burned with hatred for the Nocturne and Pegasus who anchored the dance. “Peridot.”
“They can flaunt it,”
I sang on.
<had not the Myinn guard who sat up startled after you vaulted the rampart>
The dream turned and we stood atop the wall. Peridot galloped desperately across the sand below.
“It continues with rage,” I said. “The Mooken anger easily, even asleep, and whispering in the ear of a nodding guard is simple enough. Dawn Patrol.” I waved to the nearby guard, who blinked alert at the commotion.
“The roster's public, and Spotlight's a drunk.” Dawn said to us with a shrug, seizing a spear. “Peridot's predictable, stupid, and a hypocrite besides, punishing the Nocturne for having what she can't. Still, this is better leverage than I hoped, to protect them—her.” The lucidity vanished from his eyes as he yelled, flinging the spear at the pursuing minotaur. He tackled Peridot as she crested the wall.
“Did you think nopony saw your excursions?” Dawn snarled in her ear. Peridot struggled, but he pinned her to the stone. “If you don't want me going to Sunspot, wait at the docks. I'll have conditions for my silence.” The guardhouse windows brightened, and he nearly flung her down the steps. She ran whimpering.
I chanted the next notes.
Andi's all caught up in the drama over her murder and I shouldn't have any trouble
The dream shifted to the harbor, silent but for the rhythm of the waves. Two silhouettes struggled at a pier's edge. We heard a soft thump. A muffled cry. A quiet splash. A battered body bubbling as it sank.
“And greed,” I continued, “played its part as well. Your dreams of murder sang clear, Majority Vote.”
“She always hated me, you know?” The politician glowered. “Even when we were married. Nothing could satisfy that old bag. I thought I'd missed my chance when that fish-kisser and his pet were gone, but perhaps fortune's still smiling, sending such a tempting substitute.” He grinned and shrugged. “A stampede victory isn't so different from a landslide. The ponies only need a little push.” He stalked off into the night.
I continued.
i know they'll find her any day now
There was twist of strangeness, and we stood before an open window. In the pre-dawn light, a slender Nocturne flitted out, landing catlike on the cobbles.
“But in the end, it all returns to fear and hate. Surely you understand what pulls this town apart, Littlemoth?” I asked the specter.
“Peridot couldn't keep it a secret forever. I panicked at how the ponies and natives might react, but I didn't imagine her dead! Dawn Patrol knew she slept with the Mooken. If anypony understood what happened, it would be him. But it was foolish to run off so carelessly, before hearing the rumors.” The graceful mare glanced back at the window, before turning to the empty harbor. “There's going to be trouble from both in and out, with the Nocturne caught in the middle. And these walls are a box-trap without the boats.” She sighed and hung her head. “This can't end well.”
The Songline diminished and faded, and the surrounding scenery crumbled to nothing.
“I suppose a ‘good ending’ is a matter of perspective.” Li Kao shrugged, a silhouette in the void. “Honestly, Hotspur?” The Qilin took up his brush, and re-formed his garden in broad strokes. “I hardly expected you to follow through. ”
“I didn't have much choice.” I grimaced. “Equestria promises only suspicion and fear for a Nightmare, now. In Qilin I'll be judged on my own merit; I'll be able to start anew—assuming I've passed your test.”
“With flying colors.” He nodded. “I will dispatch a boat tomorrow. As agreed, Qilin offers sanctuary to any refugees. And, Nightmare Hotspur, I would like to personally welcome you into the Quilinese Intelligence Corps. You have an auspicious start.”
“I got lucky.” I shook the offered hoof. “I'm no amateur, but destroying the Equestrian opium trade is beyond the scope of my usual assignments. That town was ready to burn. I just spurred it on.”
“Indeed.” He grinned. “But few could strike such a spark with a mere two bits.”
I the dream I the dreamer I the judge I the guilty
I watched a dozen voices a dozen times over
I listened I spoke And now
I tell the truth
For the true tragedy is not that of the death of a single pony but the death of every pony else
for Peridot is the cause and reason and end to all
and the second fall of Myinnkyun.
I sit by the wayside and listen and brand words into my heart but I fear it is too late
For when a thousand opinions and a thousand facts finally clash then we see how it begins and ends
with a lie.
I must do what I must do But let me tell you the final tale of Myinnkyun.
The day that Peridot disappeared was a day when
when
when
when a single rotten pony used a lie
for gain
for trust
for power
Majority Vote with tongue of silver and heart of black used the town influenced the mind whispered words in the ears of those who would listen
And Andi Quote listened and spread like a disease
the foul lies
it sickens me
the foul lies
that would give him power retained at the cost of reality
and when reality became that an innocent kelpie took Peridot’s life so did it incite the town.
This was the first lie
a lie of the tongue.
The second lie is a lie of carnality.
The one named Littlemoth committed a crime wreaked by guilt haunted by what she had done
and her dreams echoed her panic and fear in the face of immediacy mixed with what she would be blamed for
for what had she done was worse than kill an innocent but no innocent life was taken by her
her quarrel was not with Peridot her quarrel was with everypony else
for she had slept with many allies and enemies and many nights before the disappearance of Peridot did Littlemoth find herself in bed with the Mooken
And upon being caught did she flee.
Up the ramparts did she fly seizing a spear to use as a weapon A weapon that Spotlight was not looking after
But as of dates and ownership a drunken mind is an unreliable one And a pony who believes two weeks after to be many days before can be trusted less with possessions.
The spear was not his to take care of for the spear was not his own but that of Dawn Patrol’s who happened to be in the area and he vouched for Spotlight as he was guilty of the same disregard.
Dawn
too
was lax
in care
of his weapon
and chose to allow Spotlight to take the blame.
More lies.
The third of convenience.
How long Littlemoth had been sleeping with the enemy is something that I do not know nor wish to know
what is important is that it was the first time she had been caught and now suffers for it in the mind and soul
as all things do in the end.
But she bears not the punishment for the owner of the spear Dawn Patrol
committed the fourth lie
on the night with no moon
a lie of proxy.
Sunspot recognizes the use of sympathetic magic weaved and crafted by the shamen
using Dawn Patrol’s spear to channel their focus they broke into his mind like a thief with a safe but not to steal but to plant
and there they placed doubt
fear
madness
and so it is so
for as I enter his dreams at night I hear but the torrents of a second voice yelling over the first like a typhoon swelling over a town
causing disharmony
and disharmony caused Dawn to chase off the boats on the moonless night a wicked Mooken magic so for Dawn to distract the others not to attack his love
All lies now converge.
All lies come to a boil.
In a pot mixed by a dozen hooves all of which know not of the brew.
The lies shift
the lies change
the lies mutate
and they turn into truths.
The kelpie murdered Peridot?
The Minotaurs sunk the ships?
All a matter of circumstance. All a matter of layers.
Sunspot hunted the kelpie and another story is cast into tragedy as two innocents are driven apart by the seed
the crack in the pavement caused by the unstoppable force of the plant that grows from within
and its fruit
war
war is here
war is coming.
But there is a murderer to discuss.
And to that I say
that within the lies
I must maintain the truth
and within
and without
and it gives me fear
but the truth
is precious
and to the truth I will hold
~
the murderer
is me.
~
For that night in the bar
had I not raised objection had I not called for a single song
the events like the flapping of the wings of a moth would not have transpired
Dawn would not have danced with Littlemoth Littlemoth would not have been incensed to find love
Dawn’s mind would not have been muddled with nothing else to latch onto allowing magic to fill the spaces between
I cast off the first ship into this sea of fire
and like everyone else am guilty of the murder of Myinnkyun.
But as they now take up their spears but as they take up their swords and magic as they march
I will not march with them.
I do not abandon my post easily
I do not run away for the sake of running
but I do so to reclaim the innocent soul
I do so to save the one most deserving of saving
For I have one last truth to rely on
and the knowledge
that the dead
do not dream.
I can only rely on the truth of Cabotage
who both hated and knew Peridot the most for he was a brother and enemy in trade
and he knew of her habits and knew of her state
and knew that in her age she was a clumsy fool
and when she fell into the water after a walk that night and disappeared into the waves
she was swept away
and is somewhere
in the waters
dreaming
and waiting
and the thoughts on her mind
are those of peace
are those that wish for everyone not to fight
she has been there for some time
and will not last long
but she woke with the sun
and will sleep with the moon
and now I must leave to find her to save her to rescue her
as is my final duty
as is my repent
I will cheat my fate
I will not be truthful to the same punishment that I so deserve
And after I find her
I will not be seen again
for Peridot is the cause and reason and end to all
and everything has begun
and ends
with a lie
10. I never meant for this to happen (FanOfMostEverything)
I never meant for this to happen When I chipped in for that march. How was I to know Dawn Patrol had shared his fears With the lovely Littlemoth? That he could not keep silent And she feared what would come From news of Princess Luna.
Peridot could not Have picked a worse time To be her miserable self. As night fell, But before the moon rose— We are so far from home That such nonsense is true— Littlemoth decided To take her rising fear And do something with it.
Misfortune aided her In this grim quest of hers. A Mookin cow was skulking Through the dark of Myinnkyun Avoiding pony eyes. The only one who saw her Before she swam away Was poor old Peridot Who she knocked to the ground.
Most Nightmares, like I, Train to enter dreams But some are born to trot Those strange, ethereal paths. Littlemoth was one, Flitting into Peridot’s head Avoiding the slumbering mind Guiding the slumbering body.
Like a foal, she stumbled Wearing another’s fur. Tripping over Tommyrum Splashing off the dock. Then she set the old mare To paddle far away Until she awoke too far And too tired to return.
Then Littlemoth sought out Good Moonstruck's company Giving her an alibi From moonrise to dawn.
Forgive me, Shooting Star. We Nightmares must tread soft More so, with Luna gone. Would that I could share The kelpie’s innocence The Mooken’s ignorance And Littlemoth’s foul crime. But it is far too late
This town was but a house of cards. Little scraps of fear and hatred Balanced against each other Propping each other up. Peridot swam away And down, down it went.
We make war with the natives. We make war with the sea. We make war with each other. From war we’ll not be free. Our rage and anger bellow And wrack like a typhoon And thus begins the twilight Of ill-fated Myinnkyun.
The waters of Myinnkyun’s harbor are deep and clear. A pony standing upon the rickety wooden dock feels as though they walk across a high bridge that spans an immense gulf. Even at noon, the burning tropical sun cannot plumb the harbor’s depths – sight fades past a few yards, past the dock’s pilings, past the schools of silver fish that flicker and flee in the space of a breath. All else vanishes in an emerald fog.
The waters are filled with every manner of lost thing. Cargo dropped by careless stevedores. Driftwood carried by the tides. The rotting remains of the schooner Venture, sunk in a summer hurricane. An ivory pen, flung by the mayor in a fit of pique. Rotting scraps of thatch housing. Crabs who poke at all these things, and make within them homes.
There are bones in here as well. Two colonies’ worth of bones. Two hundred lives, brought here by fate and fortune, by dreams of warm sand and clear skies, by the allure of salt water and the heady promise that here, on this shore, they will find what eluded them in all their other ports.
Hope makes ponies invincible. It is what gave them the strength to conquer the world.
But here, in Myinnkyun’s sheltered harbor, encompassed on the east and west by tall cliffs that curl around the port like a mother’s arms, nothing remains that resembles hope. There are only shattered houses, broken and leaning against each other for support, and a long picket wall that once protected the colony from the endless jungle beyond. Now it is gap-toothed and ruined, piled high with sand and beach sedge, and with every passing year another piece of it falls and is swallowed by the dunes, and soon only the crabs will remember it exists as they knock against its buried timbers with their claws, making burrows, putting it at last to some better use than its creators.
* * *
Can a town dream?
A town breathes and grows. Towns live and die. A town’s ponies can dream, and what is a town? It is not a spot of earth or collection of buildings or a point on a map; a town is its ponies. And it must be agreed that the whole can do all the same things as its parts.
So Myinnkyun slumbers in the tropical sun, and if its ponies still dream in their watery cradle, then Myinnkyun must dream as well.
* * *
There is a great house on a hill in Myinnkyun, looking out over the waters of the bay. It is porticoed and gabled, and along the roof is a walkway from which the house’s master sometimes stood and watched the sea, as though she were a captain, her house a ship, and this walkway a crow’s nest. From here Peridot watched the storms, and kept careful count of the boats laden with her treasure as they pulled into port.
The front door has fallen off its hinges, and the beach has crept inside. The floorboards have gone gray and dry. Sand sieves between them in dark lines that run the length of the room. The walls, made up in plaster and board by ponies too stubborn to adapt to the tropical weather, have long since rotted away, and only decaying beams remain to support the upper floors.
There is a set of stairs leading higher. They are weak, and only a foal or pegasus can use them anymore.
* * *
The Customs House was the largest building in Myinnkyun. It stood guard at the end of the docks, ready to intercept cargo as it came ashore and claim the crown’s share of tax. The mayor lived on the second floor, and the guard kept their barracks in a long row house to the side, and it was here that ponies made their final stand.
The Customs House is cinders now. Black stumps protrude from the gray sand, discoloring it with their shedding ash. Years of storms have swept the rest away.
Sometimes the wind carries away the sand, revealing bits of trash amidst the ruin: a guard’s spearhead, a minotaur’s nose ring, a foal’s coral rattle. Scraps of paper that somehow survived the fire, filled with ledger lines accounting Myinnkyun’s profits.
In time the winds return, and sand consumes these things again.
* * *
Beyond the fragmentary wall, beyond a hundred yards of bare sand, the jungle rises like a wave. It washes from the mountains in the distant island’s heart, lapping here at the edge of pony civilization. The shadows are verdant and thick within.
To the ponies of Myinnkyun, the jungle was the wellspring of all their fears. Its shadows held every manner of secret and nightmare, monsters that lurked beneath their windowsills and scratched at their doors. They thought, in their folly, that the jungle held their doom. They barricaded themselves against its darkness, and gave free reign to the darkness in their hearts.
Now, the jungle echoes with distant thunder. Drums pound out a rhythm in the night, and the orange light of a thousand bonfires paints the clouds with false evening glow. Laughter, songs, howls all spill out from the native revelry.
And Pony Island belongs once more to the first people.
* * *
In Peridot’s home, on the second floor, a bed still sits neatly made.
The sheets are crusted with salt blown in from the bay. They are frozen in place, and Peridot, who slept on the floor at the foot of her own bed, would smile to see them so preserved.
The window beside the bed is open. Not broken – open. And on the windowsill are rough gouges where a pony’s hoof has scraped. A single rosy feather, the same color as the dawn, is still lodged in the window’s track, where a careless pegasus lost it in his hurried haste.
* * *
In the waters of Myinnkyun’s bay, two hundred souls lie dreaming. They dream of love, and friendship, and the hope that brought them to this distant shore.
They who are dead no longer dream of fear. They have forgotten the murder, and why anypony would ever want to kill in the first place. The warm water cradles them, and their dreams are the ocean, and slowly they join with it. They are at peace.
Peridot, and Littlemoth, and Dawn Patrol, and Moonstruck, and all the other ponies of Myinnkyun, who bound their fates together in life, now reside together here, at the bottom of this vast bay. And when all of life’s dreams lay before them as a feast, they do not bother to remember the last days of Pony Island, for
Blackest mirror laps on sand and 'gainst rotted ramshackle pier. I offer a coin to the swarthy bull whose boat carried me here, and a golden sun sets in Bovind's ragged pocket. He nods and shoves off, his role finished.
Yon Bovindian fishing village slants on curved shore. A clamorous din of dreams dances in midnight. Voices flutter 'round my head like Breezy-lights, most in cowtongue, casting the sole pony a beacon upon the misty shore. I part the hanging pelt that conceals her and, in the hut, drink deep of the sticky-sweet mahua stench lingering in empty bottles. Flame licks from a crude brazier. A slumbering form is wrapped in cloak of dream pulled tight 'gainst life's rocky shores.
How loathe am I to disturb such solace.
But the moon, by usurper's hoof, draws on apace. Her pardon stings my soul, and her bidding to sift through flotsam and jetsam our lost lambs of Myinnkyun left behind, but I would be pardoned.
I sit beside her and lid my eyes 'gainst the light. Her Nightmare art is well-drawn, yet 'twas my hoof sketched the plans. I slip inside her slumbering mind. On this night, as on the many prior I spent pursuing her, I pass her battlements and murder-holes unseen. Inside her keep, she dances in lover's embrace.
“Moonstruck, I wish we could stay like this forever,” she whispers.
Clothed in wisp of dream, summoning the demons that rake her soul, I make her lover sing: “Yet all performances must end, Littlemoth.”
She chafes at my intrusion, but drink-clouded wit and ripostes feeble 'gainst the art that forged hers aid my work.
“No,” she says. “Get out of my mind, Fathom!”
I gesture with borrowed hoof and a player trots upon the stage. “The witch drowned,” I, Hotspur, say.
The panic alights her eyes.
I twist into air (into thin air) until my actorly masque falls away and a new one rests upon my brow. “Coral are now my bones and pearls my eyes,” I, Peridot, say. “With careless whisper, you drowned me.”
“It was only bad dreams,” she sneers. “Like you taught me.”
She makes my effigy to loom over us, with marionette's cross setting her to dance, but her drunk construction is clumsy and one strong blow from mine eyne collapses it.
I bid the next player enter. “Littlemoth,” I, Dawn Patrol, say, wearing hound's head. “You won't believe what I saw.”
“Hark, the watchdogs bark,” I, Peridot, say. “Scratch his ear and entreat him.”
“You're not Peridot,” she screams.
I make to rise in seafoam-swell the old colony. A lovelorn song haunts the silent ruins, decayed from carelessness. The players pantomime rutting with Minotaurs while sinister shadowpuppets whirl around them.
“My race would tear me limb from limb if they should discover our sin,” I, Peridot, whisper to my bullish lover.
“My brother too,” I, her lover, whisper back. “He calls you Palei Hantu. 'Chaos-Bride'.”
“The world is so wide,” I, Peridot, sigh. “Why must its minds be so narrow?”
“On watch,” I, Dawn Patrol, whisper slobbering in Littlemoth's ear, “I saw Peridot slipping back over the wall, with Minotaurs in chase. Nopony knows the truth, save you and I.”
“Peridot was a bitter hypocrite,” she chides. “She didn't hate miscegeneration. She hated that we flaunted what she couldn't have.”
Still robed in Peridot, I rise. In forehooves clutch I masques: one comic, one tragic. As bit players pass, my masque is swapped and thus do I hide myself from barbs.
“I tried to be subtle,” she admits. “I wanted to torment her. Teach her a lesson. But I was blinded by rage and filled her dreams with the desire to end everything. Made it her singular obsession.”
I pose in exaggerated agony; the masques fall. I, Peridot, sink in dying repose, my burden lifted. But those my players split, casting shade on sea and jungle, on town hall, on ponies monster-masqued. The tide strikes the shore and deluges them unawares.
“Everything was falling apart,” she argues, but her imperious tone gives way to a brow bent in shame. “Sooner or later they would've suspected a Nightmare's hoof in Peridot's death. If the guards didn't fillet that kelpie first and goad her kin into drowning us all. So I went into their dreams to learn how I could make everything right. I was careless, but I had no time.”
I summon a masque of sternest stuff and place it upon my muzzle. “The Night Guard is trained to notice dream incursions,” I, Shooting Star, say.
“With my deceit revealed,” she says, resigned to truth, “Fragmented Myinnkyun could never be put back together.”
With hooves raised, the graves at my command wake their sleepers. As one I face my army to her and I, now Sunspot, say, “First thing in the morning, it's time.”
“I begged you to sent more boats!” she sneers. “In my final dream-communique, I asked you where the extraction boats were. You said they wouldn't arrive in time!”
I strip my borrowed masques away and stand exposed before my wayward pupil. “Your loyal dog shooed them yonder with rough bark. Am I to bend the tides and winds to my will? I am no kelpie-kind.”
“You failed me,” my petulant pupil says. “I had to act.”
“A slippery word, 'act'. Did you commit yourself to decision, or strut upon the stage?”
“My dreams and inner world are known only to me,” she replies. “Nothing but what I reveal to others is known. Two meanings become one.”
“Excepting those with Nightmare's Gift. We pierce the veil, see the dream underneath. Our beloved princess charged you to keep watch for usurpers seeking to use Myinnkyun's nectar to cloud her powers and judgment. But you've shown no nectar is required. Only empoisoned passion. So to conceal your crime, you left an egg of idea in Sunspot's soul, and when it hatched the chick made his paranoia to embark on a mad crusade while the faulted pony absconded.”
“I didn't mean--”
“But verily the words from your lips did sound: 'meaning' is naught but reflections in others' eyne. And mine eyne would judge you guilty.”
Fall upon the stage did she, but knew 'twas for naught. “A last request?”
“Aye, I'll grant.”
“Moonstruck. I bade him come, but he wouldn't. I would dream of him....one final time.”
“Littlemoth,” I say, “your Nightmare art made you a shining star. But your umtempered rage pulled you from the heavens and caused you to fall to Earth, to crack and crash upon the ground. Know you well I, your teacher, consider the fault half my own. Goodbye, Littlemoth.”
“Fare thee well, Full Fathom.”
Unlidded, mine eyne see once again her dark hut. In Littlemoth's slumbering mind, I pluck the stuff of dreams and by my art do shape them into lover's visage.
“Moonstruck,” she whispers, her smile renewed. “I wish we could stay like this forever.” She closes her eyes and melts into his embrace, at peace.
Dear Princess Celestia, Praise the Eternal Sun. Forgive me for this protocol breach, but in light of Myinnkyun… I feel I must inform you directly of what I found and… who.
A Nightmare’s job is to sift through dreams, ignoring the chaff, in search of the pure grain: the one whole truth.
The truth I found within Myinnkyun’s dreamers is one, I fear, belongs in your hooves more than those of my superiors who still bear the scars of the Nocturne uprising.
My humble apologies on behalf of my tribe.
Sincerely, Golyat, thirty-third level Nightmare and your faithful servant:
Death came for Myinnkyun for the second time as it did the first: all for want of love.
What hope had they for love when friendship was beyond their grasp?
Ponies, Minotaurs, Sirens All drowning in their self-proclaimed superiority.
Save the one Predator Locust
Parasite.
Who existed before them all. Who, I fear, outlived them all.
Once, a minotaur village sated her. Peace and love in abundance ruined by poppy-draughts. Drugged beings being emotionless husks. Worthless.
Then the ponies were charmed into their watery graves. And the poppies destroyed. All by her.
We ponies should have stayed away.
Or kept better track of who arrived on our boats, and who didn’t.
Palei Hantu. Littlemoth. One being bearing names and faces without number.
One being who, I fear, still haunts distant shores undetected unknown unnamed until now.
As for the villagers…
too concerned with taxes, tribes, and Nocturnes, too busy building themselves a nicer cage, to notice the parasite on their backs who, because of their bickering, was growing hungry and fearful that her natural enemy was on the horizon:
minstrel of distrust antitheses of love sower of hate siren.
The banishment of Princess Luna surely heralded the inevitable; the sea change from tension to all out conflict.
Not two weeks later, as night fell, not even lust over her dancing not even her own infatuated and infuriatingly chaste Dawn Patrol could quell her hunger anymore. None had room in their hearts for love.
And then minotaurs U Low Kene severed her double life, her alternate food source: her old home with the minotaurs.
And then Peridot saw her change back into Littlemoth.
After unknown centuries of secretive feeding, after barely escaping a raging minotaur, and the spear of a lame drunkard, an old pony on a midnight walk found her out.
A pony named for a gemstone with an appetite for money. A parasite named for a bug with an appetite for hearts.
Why did she not drain Peridot of the love she craved?
Was the old pony truly as unfeeling as the dreams of others suggest?
Press as I might, particularly on one Shooting Star… I know not. No matter.
Peridot escaped a loveless death in favor of a peaceful one by way of the parasite’s magic, a hypnosis trick shared with her siren foes.
But what to do with a body In a time when trade ships and dock workers make the sea too shallow a grave?
What to do two days after stashing the body in its former residence?
What to do when panic subsides just enough for hunger to take over?
Leave Peridot’s door open and return her to the sea,
Feast on Moonstruck for want of what Dawn Patrol won’t give,
And blame the siren that Sailcloth conveniently provided.
She meant to turn pony against siren and kill the mounting fear she assumed was a siren’s doing alone.
In all her years, had she never encountered a race such as ours? A race that needs no help breeding fear and distrust?
How the sirens and buzzards must have feasted on the war.
And yet she did not perish! Her dreams haunt me still, and make me fear for the safety of Equestria.
Death came for Myinnkyun for lack of friendship and want of love.
Palei Hantu is dead. Littlemoth is dead. Peridot is dead.
But, I fear, the parasite, Chrysalis, lives. And she is hungry.
My darling Nostalgia, Coy to the bitter end, I see. This is always the dance we do (did?) but we both know you are not to be pitied. You knew the nature of this dance when it first began from the band's first notes, when they struck up "The Colt Who Loved the Inquisitor" you knew this dance. I do not know what poor soul will find your missive while sifting through the ashes of Myinnkyun, or what she will feel when she does probably sorrow that this letter will never find its mark. She need not fret. She does not know us. To you, my love, I say, "Confession received." I knew all already. I loved you still.
* * *
The truth is this: We all burn with needs, my love, yours no more shameful than anyone's. -a scout who'd ruin a merchant to prevent a war -a politician who'd foment rage to win an election -a dancer who'd conspire with a monster to hide her perfidy -and a golden kelpie lurking beneath the waves basking in the rumble of an approaching storm
* * *
Rosetta I am called, for like the fabled translating-stone I open the doors of language. I know and understand the lowing of the Mooken the mad chitter of the Protean and the seductive keen of the Siren (a convenient gift, for my occupation; it is helpful to know the words of the dreams that I see) but I have also come to know that language is a trivial thing a fine suit of clothes we wrap our needs in So we can imagine there are higher and purer motives for them So we can imagine we are more than beasts who feed So we can imagine we are a greater thing than, say:
-a Protean insect, nourished by the love of a Mooken bull (who himself does not yet realize his mate is long dead slain by the fangs of the very beast he lies with) who one day decides that while nourished is good stuffed to bursting is better and who does not yet know how the betrayal of trust can turn sweetest love into bitter, unpalatable hate sending her fleeing through the jungle to the as-yet-untainted well of Myinnkyun where she adopts a new face and pierces him who once pierced her, with a far different spear
So we can imagine we are a greater thing than, say: -a golden-eyed mare, nourished by the love of a sun-blind scout who one day decides that while nourished is good stuffed to bursting is better and in her eagerness to taste both night and day forms a pact with the Protean little realizing how high the price would become or how deadly are the storms that rise from the beating of insect wings
So we can imagine we are a greater thing than, say: -a Siren, nourished by the gentle strife of a quarrelsome village who one day decides that while nourished is good stuffed to bursting is better and who does not yet realize that a roaring bonfire of hate (while warm at the time) consumes all and leaves nothing but cold ash in its passing. "One death will fan the flames higher," she says and, taking a cue from her younger blue cousin (who seeks, improbably, to make harmony with the land-ponies!) comes to an old, troubled merchant-mare lured to the docks by the Protean's friendly but stolen face and with her song makes her want the quiet of the deep, smothering water more than anything in the world more than life
So we can imagine we are a greater thing than, say: -a night-colored Princess, nourished by the faint praise of a job well done who one day decides that while nourished is good stuffed to bursting is better and (you can see where I'm going with this, I think).
* * *
Everfree is in ruins. Even now the Inquisition turns inward trying desperately to find the distinction between those loyal to the Night, and those loyal to its banished Princess. (It is an impossibly narrow divide.) I do not fancy they'd like what they'd find should they turn their gaze on me. Therefore will I become the smallest of poppies complete my paperwork with a minimum of fuss and not remark overmuch on loose ends. (Shall I ever know how Peridot woke poor Tommyrum in the dead of night and yet saw sun before the dark took her? Perhaps not; when all about is chaos, closure is more dear than truth.) So on the matter of Myinnkyun, I will write: "Colony destroyed by animal attack." Because it is true. Because we are--all of us--attacking animals. The Protean who fed on love The Siren who fed on hate And everyone in between who fed, alternately, on both. I feel no guilt, because none of it will matter; all will be ruin before any force can be mustered. The walls of Myinnkyun torn down, the Mooken decimated, the two sirens swum away, one fat and gleeful, the other destroyed and you, my love, lost forever in a literal pipe-dream regretting such little things. In a mind so full of burdens, I hesitate to add one more but I will because I, too, am a beast with needs.
This is what I ask of you:
Let go.
Let go of all that weighs you down.
Know, at the last, how small it all is.
and once, one time, before the coming of the dark,
<Did you hide, U Low Kene? In the end. You boast, and your rage is known like the thunder from the shores And none would say you are not brave so Did you hide, U low Kene, in the end?
Are you not everything a bull should be? Dedicated, strong and wise, And a burning spirit, oh! You tell us all the time.
And When you chased a defenseless cow When you chased the dukun of the tribe When you chased away me, U Low Kene It was truly the wisest thing The tribe had ever seen from you!
I am the tribe’s protector, U Low Kene; I appease the ghosts of earth and wave, Jembalang Tanah and Hantu Air, And guide your semangat when you swim the sea of dreams;
And you - O little calf Who would butt his own reflection in the water - !
You sat and waited to kill me Because I chose your brother over you.
Such wisdom.
Did you clench your tainted spear As you thought of me?
No, U Low Kene, You are no bull. The cleansed newborn heifer Is more bull than you.
And that is why I will be your wife, U Low Kene. I will join with you As I never wanted.
For you are no bull, and I - I am no protector.
That night I scrambled the walls of the realm of the Myinn I knew my doom was certain. I have seen before the tree-shrew That upturns the hornets' nest.
I fled through shadow and shouts But my discoverer was no hornet But a solitary Moth; Bat-winged, and golden eyes that spoke That she too feared their stings; And she gave to me the shelter She wished she could enjoy.
That night In the realm of Myinn I saw a thing of dread and wonder: I saw their semangat - The first of all the dukun to see their semangat - Flit about the night.
Their Hantu Raya is gone. Their dreams are unprotected.
I saw The minds of Myinn.
(The first of all the dukun who saw the minds of Myinn!)
I saw their fear and lies and love and needs and all between;
I saw The kindling of the fire That would destroy us. And I - May I be cursed a thousand years! - I, the spark to set it off.
Their Hantu Raya once blessed her Myinn With forms of night; Ebon coats, and Leather wings, and Eyes to pierce the dark; and Silent hooves, and Needle fangs, and Magics of the sea of dreams.
Never such a blessing Garnered such a curse; That the unchosen would hate them so And drive them to the shadows.
Oh, the Myinn can hate! They hate like we do, U Low Kene; They hate like only Mooken can In the curse of dharat sattu.
They hate so That even joy Lets it fester:
Dawn Patrol’s gentle flame Cusped for Littlemoth;
Sailcloth’s love for a song of the sea, His moonlit Sonata;
Leitmotif's bright revelry And Littlemoth's flitter-dance;
Lights That did not push the dark But only made the shadows deepen.
And one called Peridot Spread her hate Like a cobra spreads its venom; Like hornets Sting the flesh they find - Sting any flesh they find - Just because it hurts.
The story of their Hantu Raya’s fate Would rip apart the nest; Would see Peridot queen Of a swarm of torch and spear-point For the dark ones;
And the story of her fate Like a thunderhead across the sea Approached in boats.
There was A Myinn of sky: Dawn Patrol. He flew to meet Their mighty wooden sea-cows And thus was first to hear. His spirit was not green or stone And in terror for his gentle flame (His spirit did not burn like yours!) He turned away the ships With fevered talk.
But one Inside that hiving place Already knew.
Shooting Star, Myinn-dukun, Twice-chosen of their Hantu Raya: One for blessing, one to serve,
And one Whose mind was closed to me (Oh, curse I ever touched his mind!)
But he surely knew his Lady's fate.
Perhaps Soldier to her darkling brood He sought To de-queen the looming swarm;
Perhaps In grief He only wished To serve
Perhaps He simply hated As the Myinn can hate.
But he knew The mahua bottles’ waters That Peridot swam that night Are like the sea of dreams,
And he knew
Their Hantu Raya is gone. Their dreams are unprotected.
Shooting Star, with magics black, Sent Peridot a vision: A blissful bed Of Ocean Where water was a lover’s arms; The sun a gentle kiss; And in its depths the peace Of family And long-neglected sleep.
She pined for love long lost (Pined for song of love long lost) And he gave to her the ocean's love and
With no-one to see But a cripple Who saw nothing
He led her to the docks Where she could find it.
...
I tell you this U Low Kene Because I tried to do the same.
You thought I was defenceless As a cleansed calf? Had you waited just a little closer You would have found your semangat Beached like a jellyfish in the sea of dreams!
But you did not, and so instead I looked through the Myinn for one I could control To kill you where you hid.
Curse this place! Curse the Myinn! Curse that I ever touched The mind of Shooting Star!
Within the hour The guards knocked down the door And dragged me from the shadows.
We say the Myinn are cursed, And it can only be so, for how else Could such misfortune beset As what then occurred:
Majority For nothing more than power Kept the Myinn afeared with talk Of invading Mooken shamans And here was one in the flesh!
He did not know How well he scared his own
And when a yellow spirit Dragged Sailcloth to the depths; When Moonstruck murdered Dawn Patrol
It spiralled out of even his control
And now I lie in chains In the emptiness of Myinnkyun.
They have swarmed. The dark ones are dead Or fled. I saw your semangat snuff out, U Low Kene; I know they seek the tribe And I do not know if we can prevail.
If we do not They will return and I Will be the last of us to know their stings.
And if we do The chief declared them manyekyaungg And no-one will enter here. I will die And someone will one day find the second Myinnkyun silent and gutted, absent even of corpses But my own And the last dreams of Myinnkyun That whisper in the sea.
So yes, I will be your wife, U Low Kene When we meet in the hereafter. For I brought war to the tribe And so you Will be My Punishment.>
17. They say memory is a fickle thing (FDA_Approved)
They say memory is a fickle thing. It skirts around our brains, dancing like shadows, A constant movement of time, A constant rhythm Of he said and she said and they said and I... Am forced to accept these fragmented imperfections, Like drawing water from a tainted well. A moment in time, it can be said, Is a poison beautifully and imperfectly tasted, A poison as black as the night that Peridot was murdered.
But that’s not entirely true is it?
What is truth? Was it the actuality That the Mooken were always watching and waiting, And Sunspot, Eyes shifting around, Was also watching and waiting and chasing, Losing watch-spears the way one is forced To fold a set of cards, Then drawing another Made entirely of duty and blood, Made entirely of fallen memories.
Can it be said that this Was the cause of Myinnkyun’s downfall?
Or was it before that? When Dawn Patrol, the green of his eyes set Beyond this ravenous cage, Beyond the jungle forest, Abandoned us And Littlemoth with him? The guard was short enough as it was, The ponies unfit for battle, The slaughter thick and heavy and quick as a bugbear sting.
Can it be said that my own downfall was Because my focus Was not on Peridot’s disappearance and death, But rather on the news Of the banishment of our Lunar princess? And I, shocked in my search, set scoping out For more and more and… It was enough, I suppose.
And she had enough.
And right now?
Can it be said that This is this a dream… Or perhaps it is something else? Dreams are a fragile thing, And dreams, they say, can only take you so far. I should know.
It was Tommyrun, drunk as he always was, Who saw Peridot and Cabotage stumbling toward the docks, Eyes glazed, rambling about taxes and other vexes. But we knew that Cabotage couldn’t stand the old merchant No one could. And he was right when he said that she didn’t Need help Falling over.
Two weeks. Can you blame a pony who’s had no income for that long? “Butter her up,” he thought. He’d best butter her up. And they drank, But she was already an old pony. The sea mist. The blackened night, Stars stuck onto the tar blanket of the sky. Of course she’d stumble along. Of course he’d use his magic and make it clean. And of course he wouldn’t actually kill her. Perhaps more ships would come. And more of her shipment.
More of the draught that brings the gemstones that angered the Mooken that caused them to wait that caused weary for the soldiers. But it paid them too.
And Sailcloth, (It couldn’t be said what he longed for the most That spice, the love of the kelpie, or the money for that kelpie) Set off to follow Cabotage’s order: “Throw this in the sea.” He didn’t question his captain. Just like Peridot didn’t come home that night. And the sharks came.
Still, the sharks eat at my mind. Still, I keep searching. Whatever the truth is, We are contaminated by our own perception.
The Myinn go to war on the morrow, spurred by suspicion and fear, led by a captain who thinks them all at the end of their rope.
The major will disagree, of course, and say that they should not act just yet, that marching will be a mistake, but it will be too late. The captain is beyond reasoning, and most of the other Myinn are too, gripped by panic for the missing boats and murder of Peridot.
Dawn Patrol, blinded by love, has saved the mare he loves along with her kin. But in doing so he has condemned all the Myinn of Myinnkiun.
And for what? She does not love him. Her heart is elsewhere, and her mind as well.
She did not kill Peridot, she couldn't have, yet she is struck with panicked desperation.
I wonder if it was the lunar Princess she saw. Trapped amongst the stars above? Has she been waiting for a ship to land, bearing news of her people's crimes in Equestria?
Either way, she will not run with him into the jungle.
They couldn't even if they wanted. The Myinn go to war on the morrow. And both of them will march, too scared to utter any truths they hold that might save them.
Had I to guess Who killed Peridot? Who was the other unicorn that Tommyrum saw? I cannot tell. Not for certain.
Peridot did not have friends. Who would she stumble toward the docks with at that late hour?
Cabotage might have walked her there, to gaze upon the empty waters, and discuss the missing ships.
Or perchance it was Majority, having made sure she was too drunk to swim who then half led, half hauled Peridot to the docks and into those dark depths that stole the breath from her lungs and stalled the flow of blood in her veins? Did he frame the kelpie to silence the growing complaints of the crippling taxes?
I cannot tell.
Shooting Star, soldier of the night.
Did he think his training and that playing by rules his Princess wrote another world away would help him?
Did he think, of all the magical and majestic creatures on the planet, only the Myinn could be dreamwalkers?
They are fools. All of them.
They go to war on the morrow, and they will not come marching home again.
I do not know who threw the spear that U Low Kene now clenches, hidden in the edge of the jungle.
He never reached the wall And Spotlight only came to life well after the spear had flown.
I got lucky, avoiding detection and alerting that guard of my hunter's approach.
I suppose it doesn't matter who it was.
The Myinn go to war on the morrow. And when U Low Kene runs to warn our kin, the opportunity will be mine to escape.
While the Myinn die in the jungle, I must make with haste, and reach the mainland before the Mooken come looking for more blood to draw, lest I suffer the same fate as the town of Myinnkuin will.
I’d say I was sorry, Sunspot, if we didn’t both know that wasn’t true.
I couldn’t let you send Myinnkyun into the jungle to drown amongst the vines as surely as it would the waves.
My job is still my job and that’s saving ponies. Being a nightmare doesn’t mean anything more or anything less than that.
So, Sunspot: I’ve checked you off my list. Sleep deeply and never wake you cur.
As for you, Shooting Star, I did not appreciate the way you spoke to a friend who just happened to be following orders.
I’m sure you can respect that. (Surprised? I don't blame you.)
And what did you say to our good friend Peridot to make her keel over like that just as the sun rose over the bay? I can’t possibly imagine.
She died happy, though. (You're probably wondering how I know you were on the docks that night. I have Tommyrum to thank for that one, the old bastard.)
Littlemoth, you're doing something terrible, and you're doing what we all should've been doing here in Myinnkyun from the very beginning. Befriending a Mooken.
I do not envy you the responsibility of protecting a traitor to one race and a monster to another.
Tell Palei Hantu I wish her the best of luck, and get the hell off this island. Even the Nocturnes won’t protect a minotaur.
Which reminds me, Dawn Patrol. While I admire your commitment to us Nocturnes, turning away the trade ships struck further hysteria in a community already filled to the brim with distrust and fear.
They have to know eventually. (The sooner the better; after all, we wouldn’t want to look like we were keeping secrets.)
Finally Nostalgia sweet dreams and thank you for waking me in service of this lonely isle
(Spin your history web-spinner and may you recall my words when you wake
21. Myinnkyun's reflection in the ocean (Trick Question)
Myinnkyun's reflection in the ocean shimmers like a mirage, and when the next boat finally arrives, that is all it will be; for who would believe me in time?
Sunspot's choler will not abate, and even if reason could sway him, the Mookin cow hiding in our midst must surface soon. Then Tartarus itself would be unleashed by the abundance of our ignorance.
Worse by far, Equestrian ships cannot be turned away forever. Even the power of foals in love has its limitations, not least among them the ability to overlook the fact that you have been used.
If only selfish Dawn had bothered to warn us, instead of delaying the inevitable and in doing so furthering rumors and gossip of kelpie menace. Now it is too late. The sins of our Lady would place us in chains, if we weren't already doomed.
So, I alone shall bear this burden of knowing. It is the least, and only, comfort I can offer the damned.
I love Shooting Star like a brother (perhaps more, though unrequited) but even to him I could not reveal myself. I only wore the mantle of Nightmare for Littlemoth's sake.
Oh, that look of woe! Such guilt in her eyes when I told her and her lover the news. Moonstruck would not see it, for his Littlemoth couldn't harm a parasprite, and I was inclined to agree. But what was that look? It must be Dawn Patrol, I reasoned. He must be hiding something.
I needed to know, no matter the cost. Eventually, my impetuous nature got the best of me (as always) and I bitterly broke my covenant (as never before) to scour the dreams of a day-stallion whose loyalties I refused to trust.
How wrong I was in judging his loyalties! But how right I was (if merely by chance) in the depth of his secret!
I foalishly assumed the rape of his dream would be my one and only transgression of vows. But upon learning the truth of Luna's fall, no other options remained.
A frantic search began.
This restless night, my passions unbound; sacred promises in tatters. I ravaged every dismal dream I could touch, and so great was my zeal, somehow, I even entered the mind of the departed.
Eleven ponies of the Fulgor, three ponies of Nocturne, one pony of the briny deep, one beast of the jungle. Their dreams stitched together with gossamer threads of moonlight, a fabric woven by a silvery barb of mistrust and lies: a misshapen patchwork of miserable foals.
It was Sunspot's dream which foretold Myinnkyun's imminent ruin. Learning of our doom finally quelled the fire in my belly.
The dramatic irony as the only pony to foresee our assured catastrophe almost outweighs the regular kind. Neither kelpies, nor Mooken, nor the night-touched nature of our Nocturne souls (deposed Princess notwithstanding) posed the real threat to Myinnkyun!
Our true enemy? It lurks within the city. It lives behind towering walls, nestled securely within locked homes. The villain is animus, and it cannot be impaled on a pike. It cannot be placated with lighter taxes. It cannot be walled off or clapped in chains. It can only be slain by friendship, and this virtue was abandoned the moment the lure of poppies cobbled together a colony founded upon avarice and alliances of sand.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter how she died. But Peridot's death serves a stellar example of how and why our fortress crumbled.
Shortly before Shooting Star detected my intrusion, I caught a glimpse of that evening on the docks: the final puzzle piece in a grotesque parade of half-truths. Everything fell into place. I am now certain Fate has a cruel sense of humor.
After the tavern, Moonstruck convinced his lover something must be done. Make her suffer. But do it now, lest she not know why.
Littlemoth stalked Peridot the following day, carelessly spying on her out in the open. By nightfall, t'was obvious: she still didn't know!
So she appealed to Shooting Star: just imagine, a Nocturne of the Guard, the one to deliver the news! Peridot was Myinnkyun's inside joke; everypony else already knew. Take her tonight, before she discovers it, and show her firsthoof what that darling, anonymous bastard carved into the pier. (Perhaps she'll have an aneurysm.)
Nostalgia had been first to notice. He'd recognized Quote's hoofwriting, but hid that fact when reporting the prank to a drunken Guard. Andi Quote wanted Nocturnes to take the blame, and Nostalgia was comfortable with that. Besides, Quote had been clever enough that she hadn't been caught.
(Clever might be a stretch. It hadn't been difficult with Sailcloth on watch, while idly awaiting the return of his fish.)
Spotlight didn't care about anypony's fate, so he passed it to Dawn Patrol. Dawn reported the crime directly to Sunspot, but begged him that nothing be done. "Good for morale," Dawn argued. Sunspot, so weary of Peridot's endless complaints, was not hard to convince. And it was easy for him, in turn, to persuade Majority Vote. Anything to divert attention from the missing boats. And nopony liked her! It was a win-win.
So, Shooting Star walked an enraged unicorn down to the pier. Tommyrum "accidentally" tripped her as both trotted past, sending her ankle into a painful twist. It might have been a harmless jape, if she weren't so old.
Star left her at the docks, knowing she was old and infirm, as the mare leaned awkwardly over the pier, using her magic to stab the post with a knife, furiously cutting it again and again to obscure the juvenile phrase "PERIDOT IS A STUPID BITCH" from its surface.
Cabotage, watching the docks from his shop, witnessed her fall. He knew Peridot's death would lead to double profits. Why gallop for help? It wasn't his fault. Maybe she'll surface, but...
Accidents happen.
Of course, had Leitmotif refused the bits to spark this war, surely none of this would have happened.
But isn't that the point?
It's hard to argue that a whole town of ponies murdered one of their own, when no single pony had the proper intent or the actus reus.
But it isn't hard to argue that any one of them could have saved her.
Oh, what an unlikely chain of events! Yet perfectly predestined by each tiny grudge. And though the cause of her fate must be clear to everypony, even in dreams we brazenly lie to ourselves to assuage our guilt.
Such happenings rarely end in a single tragedy. So goes Peridot, and so goes Myinnkyun.
Now I write these words as the rosy talons of dawn forcefully claw through my window, knowing I am far too exhausted after my Nightmare excursions and penning this record to escape my fate.
Should you find this hidden scroll amid the ruins of our once vibrant outpost, please, I beseech you, lest our calamity be in vain, take this to heart:
Cast your enmities into the waves
and
let
them
drown.
22. ...and those are the dreams of the Myinn (Windfox)
“...and those are the dreams of the Myinn, as I witnessed them.”
My companion in this dream sits quietly, contemplating what I have told her. She fares much better than I had expected, I had feared the tales would only serve to reinforce her stress.
Perhaps Littlemoth is simply too exhausted for even that.
“My Equish in the waking world is barely passable, based on what I could glean from Myinn dreams,” I continue. “I had hoped to converse with you here sooner, but...”
“...but this is the first real sleep I’ve had in days,” she finishes.
“I must acknowledge my part in that. You were terrified of me when we met. And then to hide me in your home at Dawn Patrol’s behest, with all of the harm my discovery would have caused you?”
She shrugs. “You did what you had to do. And it’s not as if things would have been better if you hadn’t.”
“The two of you provided me sanctuary, and in return I have led you both past the Mooken safely. A good bargain for all involved.”
“We were lucky,” she says. “We only got out because of the confusion caused by Peridot’s disappearance. I suppose we’ll never know what happened to her now.”
“Do you not have your answer?” I ask.
“What are you talking about?”
“Your military chief forced the Myinn into a hopeless battle against my people because he was certain that the culprit was a Mooken. I am the natural suspect.”
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
“Say you did it. No evasions, say the words 'I killed Peridot'.”
My silence is the only answer she needs.
Littlemoth stares me firmly in the eye. “That theory might be enough for Sunspot or Andi Quote. But I won't suspect you just because you're an outsider. I know how that feels and I won’t do the same to you.”
“Besides,” she says with a small chuckle. “It’s Zebra voodoo doctors who use sympathetic magic to kill innocent ponies. Sunspot can’t even keep his stereotypes straight.”
I nod in concession. “Then I must apologize Littlemoth, for attempting to deceive you. I had only hoped to prevent you from having to suspect your kin.”
She sighs. “I appreciate the thought. I realize that I haven’t exactly been emotionally stable. You don’t need to coddle me though. If you have a theory, I would like to know.”
“Nothing set in stone. But I can think of possibilities. A few probabilities.”
“Even still, anything would help,” she says, motioning for me to continue.
“Then it seems best to start with a clear point of confusion. Peridot was seen with another unicorn, presumably her murderer, at half past midnight on the night she disappeared. Shooting Star, as the only unicorn on the island whose dreams I could not witness, is the obvious suspect. It would be Peridot and him, alone at an isolated dock in the dead of night. But in her last moments, she could see the sun.”
“So Peridot must have died in the morning, before we started looking for her.”
“Hence the confusion. How could Peridot have survived for hours after her supposed murder?”
“Stressful situations make ponies get careless. I should know.”
“A trained Guard, talented enough to be hired despite the prejudice of his superiors? No, there is another explanation that better fits the facts. I think it likely that Peridot was not murdered at all.”
Her eyes widen. “If she wasn’t murdered, then what happened?”
“Cabotage’s dream bothered me as soon as I witnessed it. He was strangely confident that he knew the truth of that night. I had thought that it was only speculation, but what if it were a direct accounting?”
“So it was Cabotage who was with her at the docks?”
“They both had reason to be at the docks that late at night.”
“The scheduled trade boat you mean,” she answers.
“Yes. They had both resolved to meet the next boat as soon as it arrived in order to swiftly regain the lost income from the first disappearance.
“They waited together for a good while. Time passed, and it became clear the second boat had disappeared. Inevitably, the two being who they were, a heated argument would have broken out.
“At the peak of her rage, Peridot stumbled on the dock and fell. Unfortunately, the tide would not come in until morning that night, and her fall was severe.
“As soon as she was able, she immediately accused Cabotage of attempted murder, screaming at him in blind fury to stay away from her. Cabotage left in disgust, assuming that if she could still berate him that she must be alright.
“Peridot eventually attempted to escape from underneath the docks and discovered that her injuries from the fall were too great to do so. Unable to leave under her own power, she was trapped there until the tide came in with the day. Exhausted, she drowned while watching the morning sun.”
Littlemoth shakes her head. “Your theory has a massive problem. Peridot would have been calling for help as loudly as she could.”
“It is as you say,” I reply softly.
“Don’t you get it? Nocturne are nocturnal! At least one Nocturne would have passed within earshot before morning, there’s no way that no one heard her-”
She stops, and her face contorts with growing terror at her realization.
“We cannot know what truly happened,” I say. “It is possible that no Nocturne passed by her at all, or that Cabotage is right and she really did commit suicide-”
“Where are we going in the morning?” she says suddenly.
An abrupt subject change, but she clearly does not wish to discuss it further. I oblige, having nothing more to say. “A beach the Mooken used to frequent. Not so long ago, the we were a largely seafaring people. Now that the Myinn control the water, our boats for the most part lay unused on the shore. I will use one of them to make the crossing. The two of you should be able to make your own way to the mainland from there.”
Littlemoth frowns. “But what if the boats are damaged?”
“That is likely. It has been years, and they will have fallen into disrepair. No matter- there will be more than enough time and material to make a seaworthy vessel.”
She hesitates for moment, then pushes forward. “Do you need any help?”
Before I can react, she continues. “I’d just like the last thing that ponies do on this island to be something constructive.”
She looks up at me, hope in her eyes. How can I refuse?
“The assistance of two Myinn would more than offset the time it would take to show you what is to be done. And, truthfully… I would not mind good company.”
Littlemoth smiles at that. “Then I’ll rest until then. I’ll see you in the waking world, Palei Hantu.”
“And I you, Littlemoth.”
Together, we abandon lucidity, and the dream dissolves into mist.
Dawn has yet to break, But I can feel the dreamscape splitting, parting, Spitting me out upon the shores of consciousness-- leaving me bolt-upright in the straw, gasping for air, as though it were saltwater and not sleep lapping softly
at the edges
of my mind.
The air is as raw as my thoughts are cloying, and were it not for the heaviness of my limbs betraying their corporeality, I might have thought myself stumbled into another's dreamings; My thoughts are as fickle-flimsy as my traitorous kin.
Why would they turn upon the Dawnbringer?
I blink-- Staggering to my hooves in the dawn-dark, Struggling to shake the dream-dew from my eyes, Steadying the hoof That trembles so, easing open the tavern door to reveal the moon-washed world beyond-- Now is no time for hesitation.
I lurch through the streets half-asleep, and my thoughts will not clear. Wake up.
The moon watches my unsteady gait with regal disapproval.
The wall is so far away. And I am walking under stars I should still be drowning in, And I would be, were it not for the mare in the castle-topped mountain, waiting in a room scented with sunshine and suspicion for me to assure her Myinnkyun rises not in defiance.
Waiting For me to prove that the night-song in my veins has not tainted my loyalty to the morn-mistress.
I give my head a hard, des
per
ate
shake and then open my eyes, lucid at last. Voices echo from distant streets, and the soft blush rising from the east tells me I have precious little time to escape, to get out of this sunforsaken tartarus before it crashes down around me and I must present the pieces before a Court that will be all too eager to ignore the innocence of my expression.
The voices have grown entirely too loud for comfort, and I ease open the door of a dilapidated warehouse, silencing its reluctant hinges with a spell. Hoofsteps grow louder, pounding a battle-cadence into the cobblestoned streets. I do not need to peek through the crack in the door to know that Sunspot approaches with his regiment.
I should not have peeked through the crack in the door.
I should have looked behind me.
Something moist and hot sweeps across the back of my neck, and then my ears notice the deep heartbeat of Myinnkyun’s other hidden inhabitant, and I smell blood.
I burst out of the warehouse, Palei Hantu behind me, and the resounding clatter is enough to bring the entire regiment running, and before I can move, we are in the eye of a hurricane of steel, the soldiers surrounding us with weapons drawn and eyes narrowed.
I do not need to scry to watch to conclusions write themselves. The soldiers size me up—an unfamiliar nocturne standing with a Mooken inside of the walls (and I suspect Shooting Star can see the dream-magic lingering in the scalloping of my horn)—and then the muttering starts.
How— Foreigner? No boats in weeks— Murderer? Who— spy? traitor Nocturne? enemy friend? Spy. Why— Spy!
Spy! they shout, and before I can tell them no, no that is not who I am, Palei Hantu lunges to escape, and their shouts turn from accusation to surprise and I do not wait for another chance; with a flash of light and a small tumble, I am gone.
I cannot tell if any follow me.
I can barely hear my own hoofsteps over the ear-splitting sound of Palei Hantu being ripped to pieces.
The gate is before me, and it matters not that my head is swimming and my steps are slowing and the sound of the ocean requests my attention— because the gate is before me; I am leaving.
It is no trouble to step from shadow to shadow from here to there, but with the gate behind me and the sand stretching so silently onward, I can hear the tide singing, and my soul, my soul
wants
to
sing
a l o n g
I turn and, with steady eyes and steadier resolve destroy the gate.
The city is too large; too many streets, too many guards, too many citizens running around screaming as though there is anyone to save them from the Mooken scaling the walls.
The jungle is invading; I almost say— Only the ocean can save you now. But they will hear neither me nor the seasong over the cacophony.
They are slaughtering each other now.
Perhaps the serenade playing so sweetly in my ears is to them a call for blood.
Moonstruck does not seem to think so; in his searching eyes is the same wonder, same entrancement, same song, and briefly I wonder if the nighttide in our veins really makes us so different, and then I hear them and it doesn’t matter.
My hoofsteps echo upon the empty pier, carrying me to not-so-empty waters, and perhaps it is ironic that Princess Celestia sent me away from the velvet-cloaked hostility of her Court, sent me away to investigate a disappearance.
Not necessarily a murder, she had said, with eyes as dark as the shadow upon the moon. Perhaps not even a death, but a mystery all the same.
She did not add that she knows I love mysteries, that I am the only one to be entrusted with courting the truth, that Canterlot is no longer safe for me, and my title of student means nothing, not anymore.
Why did they have to turn against Celestia?
Why did they have to brand us traitors?
The water is inches beneath my hoof, and the music is deafening, for a single kelpie is entrancing but three are all-consuming, and they insist that I join them in the deep.
The water is cold and for a moment everything is crystal clear what am I doing the Princess is counting on me I was supposed to be safe here i haven’t told her yet i need to tell her or they’ll say I deserted her no
The song is gentle in the deep, so gentle it can only be her smile, and I think I might see her, with her hair swirling like a golden sunrise.
Tell me, she says. Tell me and rest.
So I smile and tell her about Cabotage and his clumsy plot for Peridot’s shares, about the ale spiced sweet and heavy, to loosen the tongue and soften the resolve, shared freely but not without a price.
About Littlemoth, who was to sneak in and take the deeds Cabotage desired, in exchange for a cut large enough to make a new life in a new land, and nearly didn’t.
She’s down here too, now.
I wonder if Peridot slipped— as Cabotage is convinced— or if she merely let the tidesong sing her to sea.
The water around me is lightening, brightening, and miles away, a princess is shining with a dawn I wish would warm my face.
I just hope the Princess doesn’t think I’ve betrayed her too.
*Voting is now closed.* (Results will be posted soon!)
I've added a "Reader's Choice" award to the prize pool! This chapter is here to provide a place to submit your ballots. Please only comment in this chapter if you'd like to vote — otherwise, leave your comments on the submission chapters or the final chapter.
Here's how it works:
You may choose up to three submissions that you think are the best contest entries. (Honorable mentions and shout-outs are also encouraged, but won't earn any points.)
To vote, leave a comment here with the entry numbers and/or chapter titles. You may also PM me if you wish to vote privately.
Rank them starting with your favorite. Your first choice is awarded 3 points; your second choice is awarded 2 points; your third choice is awarded 1 point.
The Reader's Choice prize will go to the story with the most points which has not already won an award.
Who can vote?
Voting is open to the public — except for me and the judges, our favorites are winning prizes already
Contestants are ABSOLUTELY encouraged to vote! To keep things fair: 1) You may not vote for your own entry. 2) Every contestant who votes for at least one other entry will get a 3-point bonus on their own submission, as well! That way, you don't hurt your own chances by participating, and you help yourself a little bit by reading through the others and finding your favorites.
I'm adding this in so that readers can leave general commentary and back-and-forth chat without cluttering up entry #23's comments. If you want to comment on a specific story, make sure you're writing your comment from within that chapter view.
Bonus content: Skywriter's (prose) "final solution"
This entry, clearly of the "Changeling Littlemoth" camp of stories, is predicated on the non-canon (but IMO supportable) idea that while changelings feed and are nourished by love, they react to hate as a noxious, painful force. Readers who have prepared a detailed timeline will doubtless pick this series of events apart as containing temporal incontinuities; hell, Rosetta admits as much in the closer. That said, here is a rough sequence of events as I saw them:
For an unspecified but considerable period of time, a hiveless changeling (archaically referred to as "The Protean" by Rosetta) has been feeding off minotaur bull U Low Kene while wearing the form of his mate, Palei Hantu (whom the changeling personally killed, it seems). "Feeding off love" includes having the sexs with him. Lacking foresight and a clear understanding of social mores, the creature branches out to other bulls, little realizing that this would create in U Low Kene such a toxic atmosphere of betrayal and hatred that she'd simply be forced out, much as you or I would flee a room full of ammonia fumes. Running blindly for a society she hasn't yet poisoned, the changeling scales the wall, disguises herself as a pony, rushes to an empty guard post and throws an abandoned spear (missing the throw) at U Low Kene to try and drive away his noxious presence.
The colony isn't perfect for her; there is a low undercurrent of unpalatable anxiousness and hate, stemming from the general societal disquiet (a pair of hate-eating sirens, Adagio and Sonata, have been sustaining themselves in the harbor for some time). Trying to hold all this mess together is a paragon couple of ponies, a success story for racial intermixing: Littlemoth (a bat pony) and Dawn Patrol (a pegasus). Dawn Patrol particularly sees their mixed unity as something greater even than romance; he sees it as one of the cornerstones of the mixed colony, part of the glue that holds their shaky little society together.
Littlemoth is quietly unhappy at being made into a social construct. Also, her fellow bat pony Moonstruck is *super super hot*. She still puts on a big show of being Dawn Patrol's filly, but something has to be done about this itch. But should anyone find out--especially D.P. or that prejudiced old scow Peridot who would crow to wake the dawn at the failure of mixed relationships--it would practically destroy the colony. But how best to cover the tracks of her infidelity? Littlemoth does not know...
...until, in a darkened alley near the wall, she stumbles across the changeling, and espies her doing incriminatingly changeling-y things, like a casual shapeshift. Wheels turn in Littlemoth's mind. She confronts the bugpony but offers not to rat her out, in exchange for a deal...
"I need an alibi. I need you to be *me*. For one night. While I... fulfil some needs. You can even feed upon my darling D.P. for a bit."
Hiss, hiss, spit. "But what of horrible old trader pony? She hates so strong. We can feel her poison. We hates it! Stupid fat hobbit pony, her hate *burns* us! Just like the bull did!"
"Let me make one thing clear. I know you have a nasty habit of trying to kill creatures that make you feel this way. You are *not* to hurt Peridot. No matter how much she 'burns' you. Do you promise?"
Hiss, hiss, spit. "We promises."
"Good. I can see absolutely nothing wrong with this plan."
Unfortunately, Adagio happens. The changeling can feel her pensively swimming around out in the harbor. This read does not clarify whether our changeling and Adagio came to some kind of agreement or not. Clearly, our changeling hated the hate coming off Peridot and wanted to get rid of her in the most direct way possible, not thinking of consequences; Adagio, who is a bit smarter than our changeling, recognizes that while killing Peridot would deprive her of a little food, it would be a match dropped in a powderkeg of the unstable colony. Sort of how you sacrifice a little edible fish to put on your hook to catch a much bigger fish with it. I frankly do not know if they agreed on this plan. It seems likely--especially because Adagio is functionally double-crossing the much slower changeling, and that is totally her style--but I do not have the scene in my head.
Anyhow, by hook or crook, Changeling!Littlemoth breaks away from Dawn Patrol and adopts the face of another unicorn (not sure who, but someone Peridot trusts). "Hello!" says the changeling. "We are a totally normal unicorn, yes we are, precious. Come see this totally not-made-up thing we found on the dock! It involves race hate! You like race hate, do you not?"
"Why yes, I *love* race hate!" says Peridot. "Take me there!"
On arriving at the docks (shortly after tripping over the inebriate Tommyrum), Peridot gets sung at by Adagio, who basically coerces the old mare into suicide (Sirens make ponies *want* things, canonically, and while they are never this evil in canon it seems reasonable that she could make Peridot *want* the deep dark quiet of the water; Peridot's entry is grayed out because her mind is not her own at the time).
In the morning, Hotspur barges in to Moonstruck's place and says, "Hey, I think Peridot's dead!"
Whereupon Littlemoth has two thoughts: "Holy horseapples, somepony's witnessing me with Moonstruck!" and "*HOLY HORSEAPPLES THAT FSCKING CHANGELING PROMISED SHE WOULDN'T DO ANYTHING STUPID!*" She rushes out in a panic and confronts "herself," full of rage and bitterness now. The changeling reacts exactly as she always does when presented with a noxious stimulus: she kills the source of it and hides the body. The trail of blood is getting longer, though, and the social order is falling apart. The changeling's only hope right now is to keep pretending to be Littlemoth and escape the island entirely on one of the boats, which are never coming because Dawn Patrol has been helpfully driving them away from the island for fear that news of the Lunar Rebellion will destroy the colony.
On the last night before all hell breaks loose, opium-addicted historian Nostalgia makes one last communication with his estranged off-again-on-again Lunar Secret Agent wifehorse, Rosetta. They dream-write to one another, penning a letter and reading it repeatedly and profoundly over and over again until it cannot help making its way into their dreams. It is how they have always communicated, though they have not done so in many years. He coyly suggests that maybe a Nightmare should look into the situation here, *do you maybe know one (wink wink)*. (Unbeknownst to Nostalgia, Rosetta has been watching for some time.) He knows in his heart of hearts that the colony is doomed. Sunspot, who interprets *literally everything* as an act of war, is preparing a press-gang to take on the minotaurs in what eventually turns out to be a total suicide mission (when all they were actually doing was waiting for Palei Hantu!) and Nostalgia doesn't want any part of it. He makes his last confessions to Rosetta (racism, homosexual indiscretions, etc.) She dream-writes to him one last time, assuring him that yes, she knew it all along. She can't send help, as such; she's half a world away, and right now the Inquisition has a lot of stuff on its plate. Also, um, she secretly supported Nightmare Moon during the rebellion and it would be *awfully awfully problematic* if this fact were to ever come up. So she stamps the whole thing "Case Closed" rather than make a big fuss that would put her in the spotlight. Nostalgia, his last communication complete, overdoses on opium and passes away before the morning comes.
So then, the stupid butthole Sunspot basically rounds up everyone left alive in the colony and sics them on the minotaur camp. It is a Pyrrhic victory for the minotaurs; basicaly all ponies and many minotaurs die, and the colony is destroyed. This is all as Rosetta predicted; what she didn't count on (and does not in fact know) is that Dawn Patrol would evade the press-gang and escape down the coast with his lovely "Littlemoth," little realizing that she's a shapeshifty bug thing. He dies some time thereafter, either remaining ignorant to the end and just plain being sucked dry, or by realizing the horrid betrayal and shortly thereafter getting killed by our changeling, repeating the same cycle over and over and over again.
Survivors: Rosetta (half a world away), Changeling Infiltrator (there really is no justice), and the two sirens (who go on to star in Rainbow Rocks, woo!)
