Not Eavesdropping on Purpose
You know what really bothers me? Grinds my gears? Ruffles my feathers? All those ponies whining about how modern progress is ruining things in the world. I think if our kind really thought that preserving hydra habitat was more important than new residential areas, we would have those, instead of new neighborhoods. If modern combustion engines were really that evil, not everypony would have one. The fact that they do probably says that they improve quality of life, but I digress. Those hippies do have a point now and again, even if they’re failing to think logically. I wouldn’t trade the city of Denspur and all it’s productivity, those happy lives, and beautiful mountain scenery for a cleaner view of the night sky above. It would be nice though…
I lay on my back with my wings spread wide, legs down against the ground, gazing up at the darkness above. Little specks of light hung suspended, a reminder of just how great of powers lived in this world. Celestia may control the sun, but Luna controls the vast reaches of space beyond. I could have spent hours just staring, running over what little I knew of the heavens. There one star twinkled. It was probably a pulsar. The concept of a star the size of our planet rotating thirty times a second was mind boggling. Over there was one that was red. The red was coming from a concentration of iron in the core, when the fusion process got far enough down the chain to fuse together that many hydrogen atoms. To have that much ionized metal it its middle, that star had to be very old indeed. Billions of years is an incomprehensible time to a pony who has only lived for twenty, and I really didn’t want to understand it.
As the minutes passed, my eyes adjusted to the darkness and the void above with just a few specks of light gradually began to fill with a multitude of bright motes. It almost reminded me of when I lived out in the country, years ago. I could get home in the evening, and my closest neighbor was a quarter-mile away, with one porchlight; nothing to stop me from gazing up into the sky to see that it was brilliantly lit. A sea of stars, thousands at least, covered the sky from horizon to horizon, bright enough that I could walk through the pasture without stumbling. I once read several of those ‘stars’ were actually galaxies far enough away to appear as one star, and I had to wonder just what Luna was capable of.
For now though, I struggled to piece together what few constellations I could see. I never spent a lot of time reading star charts or anything like that, so I only knew a few. Starswirl’s hat was clearly visible off to the east, though I avoided looking too far, didn’t want to get the city lights in my eyes. Over to the north was the Big Horseshoe. I knew the Little one better, but couldn’t find it tonight. Maybe it’s just the wrong time of year. It didn’t matter too much anyways. Ponies in this part of Equestria don’t need stars to find their way. Our sense of direction is ‘to the mountains’ and ‘from the mountains.'
It was then that I noticed my left wing was going numb. I’d be needing it sooner or later, and flying with a numb wing is one of the best ways I knew to introduce my muzzle to the dirt. There was exactly one cure: sitting up. As I did, my view shifted from the sky to the top of the mesa. I was sitting on a raised island of darkness in between two voids of light. South Rocky Mesa was the barrier between the massive city of Denspur, and the small town of Aurum where I lived. Beyond Aurum lay the foothills, and beyond that the mountains, a sight I was going to miss dearly.
My gaze wandered over the path about ten lengths below. Still nothing, all the way down to the town. It would have been foal’s play to hear anypony coming up, unless they were wearing cloth hoof-covers like I was, and trained in stealth. And even if they were, it wasn’t as if they’d see me. I was hiding in a shadow cast by the starlight from one of the rocky outcroppings, rendering me invisible to anypony walking along in that faint light, let alone to anyone still letting his eyes adjust. The old Royal Guard camouflage fatigues I was wearing certainly weren’t hurting and my gray plumage blended right in. Ponies have told me before that I’m really good at hiding, but that’s about all there is to it. Hold still, in the shadows, hold still, be quiet, and hold still.
I’d watched several ponies go by, just taking a late night hike. They never noticed me. It was almost terrifying to think of; I could have just crawled a little further forward, jumped off the outcropping, and swooped down on them. That was exactly what I was waiting for, if those darn trainees were ever going to get here. I’d been waiting for the better part of an hour, stargazing out of boredom, waiting for anything interesting to happen. Right now it seemed the most interesting thing to do was hold my wing as still as possible to avoid letting the pins and needles feeling bite me.
Soon enough the tingling wore off, and I spread the wing out and back to kill the rest of it. It felt better, so I ever so slowly got back down, on my stomach this time. This way when the trainees finally got here, I could just glide on down. As I settled back in, the sound of voices drifted over to me. At least one mare, and at least one buck, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. A light appeared in the distance, not on the trail up, but level with me out on the mesa top. As it drew closer, two ponies came into view; an earth pony mare, and a unicorn stallion holding a flashlight in a blue nimbus of magic. I couldn’t really see their colors, as the flashlight was pointed down at the trail so they could find their steps.
“Why couldn’t we have gone during the day? I can barely stand on something that isn’t slipping!” Typical unicorn. Guess the great outdoors was something he’d never had to cope with before coming out here. The earth pony was doing just fine of course. Never slipped once.
“Oh come on Gearbox, it’s so hard to get a little quiet time in the dorms.” Ugh, freshmares. “Out here it’s just you and me, isn’t it nice?”
The unicorn was about to respond before his hoof caught a loose rock, and he began to tumble down the slope. Right before he would have crashed into her, the earth pony turned around and caught him with ease, holding up his shaking form. Before he could say anything, she kissed him, and they remained locked like that for a lot longer than I really cared to see. When they finally broke apart, gasps for breath rent the air, and she set him back down. The two lovers continued down the trail, passing almost directly below where I was hiding.
“So Gearbox, did you like that?”
He sounded ashamed. “I...I did.”
She reached over and pulled him over until their sides were pressed together. The magic grip on the flashlight flickered for a moment. “Well then, do you want to do it?”
“Oh, uhm...I’m not really sure I’m ready yet.” They reached the bench further down the trail. Even after sitting in the dark for an hour, I couldn’t see too much further than that.
With a twirl she pulled him close again, and for all the world, it looked like she was eating his face. Judging by how the flashlight dipped, he might have been changing his mind. Oh please Celestia, don’t let them do this. I really don’t want to watch this. I reached for a rock, and tried to decide between throwing it at them, or finding out just how quietly I could fly away.
“Alright, yes. Lets go back to your place,” he gasped. She giggled and hurried on down the trail out of sight. I set the rock back down. As their voices faded away, I was left to wait again. Checking my watch, the display told me it was 21:13, and I was sick of waiting. They should be here by now.
Two figures clad in the same camo tore down the path from further up the mesa, making little sound as they did. Even they didn’t see me, so I bit open the front pocket on my fatigues and pulled out my phone. One tap on it ensured the backlight came on, and I held it up. Immediately the pegasus in front stopped, though the unicorn behind kept running.
“Hey Silver! Stop!”
“What is it West?”
“Well look and see, dumbass.” Westwind raised a foreleg to point at my phone, and Silvertongue stopped too. Satisfied, I put the device away and glided down to meet them.
“Hey boys, any luck?”
“No sir, I don’t even know if they made it to the top. I’ve been so bored playing ‘patrol’ for the last hour.” Westwind grinned at me. “But on the upside of playing the clueless guard on his phone, I got to spend an hour talking to my marefriend.”
“Well good on you.” I punched him lightly in the foreleg. Westwind and Silvertongue were two of the toughest Royal Guard cadets I knew, and I’d had the pleasure of training them myself the year before. “Head on back to the storm-ball fields, and I’ll catch up with you in fifteen. Make sure you have plenty of PT planned. They messed this up badly, and I want them going home with tired legs, wings and horns.”
“Oh you bet,” answered Silvertongue. They took off running quietly down the path, and I chuckled as they went. It was amazing to see how my brother had changed in the last few years. From a unicorn who wanted nothing more out of life than chess to a determined warrior, hell-bent on becoming a doctor. If I wasn’t careful, I might lose my rightful place as the most beloved son.
The wait would not be long. They had fifteen more minutes to finish the mission and those darn trainees hadn’t bothered to make it up this far yet, so I wouldn’t be seeing them until I got back. If that was true though, why was I hearing voices behind me? Slowly, I stood up and looked back up the trail. Three ponies clad in black were picking their way down the trail, escorting a fourth, dressed like me. Pale Whisper was acting as a downed recon pegasus, and they had to ‘rescue’ him. I could only guess they had gone up the harder trail to avoid me. That at least had done that much, so it was time to cut them a break.
Standing as tall as I could, I faced away from them and casually began to stroll down the trail. They’ll notice me soon and run like hell. But the hoof-falls kept getting closer...and closer…I had to deal with this. They were still walking closer, though the one in front had just spotting me and stopped.
“Contact front!” she yelled out. Good job Quickwing, now what comes next?
I started to walk toward them. “Well? What do you do now? Do you just stand there?” They waited, staring at me. Those poor fools. “When you see an obvious threat, you should probably…” I trotted right up to Quickwing. “RUN!” I bellowed at them.
They tried to scatter backwards, but I leapt forward and tagged her foreleg. “You’re captured,” I spat. “Pushups, now.” She fell to the ground and started heaving. “This is ridiculous! There is no way you could have not seen me! I am disappointed in you.” Leaving them to figure out what to do next is probably the best thing to do...it can’t be that hard to figure out...I mused as I galloped on down the trail.
Author's Note
All a true story, by the way. Part two will be up tomorrow, or as soon as I get to finishing it off.
“Seriously! How hard was it to figure out what the buck to do?” moaned Westwind as he paced back and forth. I watched as he slowly wound a rut into the grass. Tall, and strongly built, Westwind was a paragon of the word stallion. A regulation cropped black mane covered the top of his head and a little bit of his neck, which was a chestnut brown. “All they had to do was find the path, and come on down. I’m getting seriously bored.”
“Me too. And when I get bored, pushups sound like great fun.” The second voice came from down by my hooves. Silvertongue was lying on his back in the grass, the dew soaking his fatigues and coat. I looked down at my little brother with a smile. Ok, little is probably a misnomer. He is taller than me, by maybe a quarter-hoof, and weighs exactly what I do. I consider that an accomplishment on my part; pegasi are always lighter than their earth pony and unicorn counterparts. And more dignified. I’d told him time and time again that rolling around in the grass was for little colts, not stallions going into the military, but he’d insisted. Something about how his big brother and roommate wouldn’t give a buck, and it didn’t change how he behaved in public.
His pale gray coat was getting dirty, and his long blue tail was getting grass and leaves mixed up in it. No such trouble for his mane though; he’d buzzed it all off, leaving his horn jutting out all alone.
“Well Silver, that’s exactly why I brought you along. And you might want to get up, they’re here now.”
The frenzied clopping of hooves on the running trail echoed over the storm-ball field, and Silvertongue hurriedly stood up. For my part, I nabbed a bit of the turf, and flew it a few dozen lengths up into the night sky. Nestling into the cloud, I got ready to watch.
“On your faces!” Pale Whisper got loud when he was pissed. I couldn’t really blame him. He had been playing ‘wounded soldier’ the whole time, and had to sit and wait in the cold for three hours alone. By the time the trainees had found him, the training op was over, and they all had to hoof it back to the field. The turf had been enchanted so ponies of species could walk on it, or in this case, plant their sorry muzzles in it. Pale Withers dropped into a pushup spread, and lowered himself down in front of the trainees. “We’re gonna stay right here until I figure out what the hell happened tonight. Don’t keep me waiting!”
“We didn’t work well as a team!” The scratchy, hissing voice came from Husk, the one changeling in the group. Some ponies got all antsy about changelings, but I didn’t have any problems with them. After all, our nations were at peace. And if a changeling wanted to get tougher and more disciplined, I was happy to oblige.
“Damn right you didn’t. I heard you arguing with your team the entire time before I decided to catch you,” spat Silvertongue. He walked over until he was standing right over Husk. “Perhaps you can explain to me how teamwork is supposed to go?”
The prodding went on for a while. It was meant to hurt, but it was also to make them think. Teamwork. Chain of Command. Three-sixty degree security. Though, like me, they’re probably gonna take a darn long time to learn such things. Still being smoked, the trainees hadn’t even noticed that I wasn’t there screaming at them too. The old regulation issue EBU’s came in several patterns, including cloud. Problem was, I was wearing the woodland pattern, and they stuck out sorely against my background. If they hadn’t noticed where I was yet, there was no chance they would without a little help.
A small whumph sounded as I landed just behind Husk. There was an almost perceptible droop in his back as the sound reached his ears. One step at a time, I slowly paced around them until I stood next to Pale Whisper, waiting.
“Well?!” demanded Whisper. “What the hell did you just forget to do? Your commander just walked up and I didn’t hear a thing!”
“Good evening, sir!” chorused the trainees. It sounded tired, but it was there. Not wanting to dwell on the formality, I cut to the chase.
“You’ve all listed off a lot of good things, but honestly, you know where you went wrong in my book?” After a moment without any answer forthcoming, I gave it for them. “You split up on the way up, or so you told me. That’s great, but only if you know exactly when and where to meet up again.
“Yes, sir!”
“Hmm...well I’m not convinced. Sergeant? Make sure they get a good workout.”
“You got it.” Whisper grinned at the trainees, and popped his leg joints. “Tonight is going to be just as long as all of you made it on me.”
The struggle after a long evening out running around in the mountains was simple, but never went away. Stay sitting at my desk, still soaked in sweat and in a dirty uniform, or actually get up to take a shower? Eventually, the second would have to happen, but I could put it off for hours, especially if something came up on the comms. When the phone buzzed, I leapt at it, delighted to be avoiding the indecision. It was Page, an old buddy from back when I’d started school.
“Sage, you there?”
“Well, who else would it be?”
“So anyways! I was wondering if you were busy tomorrow?”
“Uh...no. Why?”
“Well I wanted to go on a hike! Does Rocky Mesa sound good?”
The window immediately to the left provided a nice view of the giant rock I’d spent all my night running around. Meh.
“Yeah, sure.”
The sky had long since grown dark by the time my hooves found their way to my front door. One meeting had gone an hour over, then a surprise group project came up, and I still had a paper to write before I could go on that hike I’d promised. As soon as I put my least beat up quill into the inkwell, the door banged open, and Page’s voice climbed the stairs.
“Oh Sa-age!” I got about two seconds before the energetic zony (zebricorn? zonycorn? heck if I know) thundered up the stairs and started tickling my sides.
“Ah! Pa-ah! Page! Page Gemwright! Get your damned hooves off me!”
“Aww, but what’s the fun in that?” Despite his whine, he let go. “You deserved it. I thought we agreed on the afternoon, not almost midnight.”
“Life happened, Page. We can still go hiking if you want.”
“In the dark?”
“Whyever not?”
“Uh...because it’s dark?”
“Oh, stop being a little filly. Give it five minutes and your eyes will adjust, and then everything will be really neat.”
Page cocked one eyebrow, and then grinned and shrugged. “Ah, what the hay. Let’s do this.”
Midnight had come and gone by the time we left the crest of the mesa, but by mutual desire to avoid walking back to town and the realities of life, we decided to follow the trail further back out onto the flat top of its mass. It was like walking through a field of grass, except that there was a several hundred foot drop-off about a mile out in all directions. Everything was covered in the deep gray-blue of starlight, though the yellow and oranges of city lights over the far edge of the mesa seemingly left us on a stage that was dark, and the audience alight.
“...the thing about progress it in this case, it will be inevitable. Sometimes you just have to demand it, like: ‘I’m going to force you to stop holding onto and hoarding all these things that other ponies need and share. Water talismans are more useful saving lives instead of collecting dust in a crate.’”
“But how does that become an item of corruption?”
“Well, when you get fed up enough--”
Something rustled in the grass up and to the left. Stopping in my tracks, I held out one foreleg to stop Page. He bumped into it, stopped, and turned toward me looking confused.
“What is it?”
“Do you hear that?”
Seconds rolled by, and the noise grew louder. Something was definitely walking through the grass. Multiple somethings. Then a doe ran past us, followed by two more. I exhaled a sigh of relief.
“Damn, Sage. How did you hear that?”
“Dunno. Guess I just did.”
“Well...neat!”
That’s one word for it.
For a moment I just let the adrenaline simmer down, as the deer finished galloping out of sight into the dark. Once they were gone, I turned my attention back to the path. Perhaps it was poor form to look right down at my hooves instead of at the path ahead, but honestly, there wasn’t much I could see other than the faint outlines of bushes, and the sheer number of rocks on the trail made for treacherous hoofwork. Page did the same, and in that manner we pressed on.
Another hundred lengths down the trail, a small rise forced us to exert ourselves just a little more, but the view was worth every step. The flat expanse of the mesa proper stretched out before us, cloaked in the vast gray, black, and blue. Slightly darker spots pointed toward large rocks and plants, but save for those little irregularities, it was all one plain until the edge several hundred yards back, or at least a mile to the other end. Stepping down off the ridge, Page continued.
“I don’t know how you hear things like that. That’s just plain strange. All I could think about was what I was going to say next, and I never would have heard it.”
“Well...I just suppose it sounded very different from you talking, and stood out to me. That’s all.”
“Huh. Well, still that’s something I wouldn’t have heard, and when I stop to think about it, I...”
Page kept on talking, and while I heard and noted each word he said, they were no longer my focus. There are times where I’ve wondered if was being watched, and then I’d look around and realize I was alone. But the feeling as if hot water was dripping down the inside of my throat and chest, and chilling toward my hooves made me know I was being watched, and this time I couldn’t see more than a few lengths in front of my face. In that murk, somewhere a dozen lengths ahead and to my right, something inhaled.
Low in pitch, and just long enough to sound deliberate, the sound cause the blood to freeze in my veins. I halted as my adrenaline spiked once again, and this time, Page stopped too.
“Sage…? Did you hear that?
Thoughts raced through my mind, a mile a minute, and I took one deep breath before summing them up to him. The words came out with a sort trembling that at any other time I would have been ashamed for him to hear, but right then, it was too important to wait.
“Y-y-yes. I did. Page, listen to me. Face it, and back away slowly. If you’ve got a light spell handy, now is the time.”
Following my own instructions, I backed up the trail, slowly letting each leg down to avoid falling over the rocks. After two paces, I spread my wings wide, hoping to look a lot bigger than I actually was. My heart was pounding in my chest, and each breath was hard and labored. If that thing was breathing still, I couldn’t hear it.
Light blossomed beside me, and Page strained to keep up the light to a radius larger than just himself. For being so gifted at manipulating metal, it sure took a toll on his other schools of magic. Still, even that faint illumination gave me confidence, and a way to avoid tripping on the random rocks in the trail. There was only one thing missing to really make sure that whatever it was knew that we were not prey animals.
“So, just keep backing up slow, you’re doing good.” Each word was projected loudly, so that while I wasn’t yelling, the words did give just a little echo off the nearby landscape. Catching my drift, Page joined in, just as noisily.
“So, what do you think that was?”
“Honestly? Probably a mountain lion. They normally don’t come this far out of the mountains, but I can’t think of anything else that sounds like that and could manage to hide in the open.”
At that moment, the gradient behind me changed to slope downwards, and I turned tail to begin to walk slowly down the ridge. Still, I couldn’t quite help but look back over my shoulder every two or three seconds. Just keep showing confidence, and keep walking slow, but check to make sure…
“Oh hey, neat!” cheered Page. “If it comes over the hill, it’s gonna be silhouetted nicely for us.”
The ambient light from the city beyond was more than enough to light up the sky beyond the ridge, and sure enough, anything walking over it would appear as a figure of black. “Yeah, no doubt. That’s a blessing.”
As the trail wound around back to the edge of the mesa, the banter bounced back and forth between our lips, to the rocks, to the skies above, the sound making a mess along with the rough noise of our hooves clopping against the rough dirt trail. The faint light of his spell went away as we stepped onto the trail leading down the west face, and felt safe that it hadn’t followed. All the way down though, we still kept talking, and once or twice I felt like I was being watched again, though I didn’t share that feeling with Page. At the bottom, with our hooves safely on the asphalt again, we shared a good laugh over it.
“Well dayum, Sage. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. I’m pretty sure if you weren’t there, I would have turned and ran. You?”
“And that might have been the last thing you did. They only chase if you turn tail and run. And you don’t have the benefit of flying off like I do. If it were just me, I wouldn’t have run,” I answered honestly. “But, I would have been more scared than a little filly in a house full of clowns. You being there was the only reason I wasn’t sweating and shaking the whole time.”
He hoofed me in the foreleg. It was honestly good just to feel that touch of reality. “Yeah, but we made it out ok. Let’s go back to your place and have some beer to celebrate, ok?”
“Yeah. That sounds like a good plan.”
Author's Note
So longer than the next day. Sue me. I graduated and life got busy. But here it is, what most folks call 'Sage x Cougar OTP' (damnit Tavor).
As far as Page and I go though, I doubt either of us will forget that night for the rest of our lives. Bonus points if you guessed the light spell was analogous to his cell phone, and spreading wings was analogous to spreading out my jacket.
