The Scroll of Exalted Ponies

That night almost all of the east side of Chung Do, aside from the castle protected by its moat and stone walls, burned to the ground. Speaker could do nothing but look on in despair, as the fall from the tower roof would without a doubt kill him, all the while Shimmer in her beast-pony form equally never at any point let him stray further than to the edge of the nest before snatching up and pulling him in to nestle him in her feathers.

Speaker wasn’t sure what was worse. The forcefeeding and vomiting, having been forcibly mated to Shimmer in her beast-pony form against his will, or looking down at almost half of Chung Do being but a blanked of ashes. There were small plumes of smoke still rising, but it was clear that the morning dew had killed most of the remaining embers.

As Shimmer began to wake up from the dawning sun and shrank down into her usual pony self Speaker quickly found a greater horror: Three head-sized eggs that Shimmer had apparently laid during the night. The fact that her beast-form’s gestation was so rapid intrigued Speaker, he wouldn’t deny that, but on the other hoof whatever abominations might come of such an unholy coupling… no, such things could not be allowed exist.

With quick but quiet movements taught to him during his time in the Lookshyan special forces, Speaker carefully floated up one egg at a time and dropped them over the edge of the nest. While whatever had been inside might have been half his, then Speaker had in his days serving Lookshy assisted several Lookshyan mares-at-arms who had been taking captives by various enemy forces and raped, giving them abortifacts and later counseling to help them recover from the trauma. For himself he reasoned that as a stallion the experience probably hadn’t been as traumatizing, but having it happen with a seemingly feral beast-pony who had just made him vomit half a dozen times? Sure, Shimmer had licked all of his sick up – which really wasn’t that appetizing either – but… why… Speaker couldn’t imagine what had gone through Shimmer’s head as she had done all of those things to him.

A stray thought occurred to Speaker: Maybe he should just kill her and hope that her reincarnation wouldn’t go mad? Speaker couldn’t determine if he should be feeling angry, or sad, or vengeful – he’d never heard of old stallions getting raped, even less so by mares and not even in his first age memories did he recall hearing of monster-mares raping stallions. To say that Speaker was confused about how to feel would be an understatement.

Speaker knew for certain that he was a lot of things, a healer, a thinker and an officer – but ultimately not a murderer – although… with the eggs… No, those things weren’t ponies. You’re not a murderer if what you’re killing isn’t sapient. Animal abuse at worst perhaps. Maybe Sullen Hoof would scold him for wasting such a strange and exotic food source? It felt weird trying to rationalize what he had done, but Speaker would rather do that than focus on the horrors of the previous night.

On second thought, the idea of being fed his own eggs back to him – even with Sullen Hoof’s masterful cooking in mind – sickened Speaker, so he quickly banished it from his mind by starting to think of how to undo the damages of the fire. Yes, thinking about constructive and useful things were good.

“Hey… whoa… where are we?” Shimmer groggily muttered.

Speaker turned to face Shimmer. At first Shimmer was confused, seeing the mix of rage, fear and confusion on Speaker’s face: “What’s wrong sweetie?”

That Shimmer didn’t seem to understand why Speaker was feeling upset struck Speaker with all kinds of concern: Couldn’t she remember? Or was she completely ok with what she had done?

“Do you remember what happened last night?” Speaker tentatively inquired.

Shimmer looked around in the nest, trying to survey her surroundings: “Well… we were testing the cure, I left for a short while, a riot broke out, I rescued you, brought you back here?”

“You also inadvertently started a fire that has razed half the city, refused to fly me down to the ground so I could help stop the fire spread…” Speaker began, simmering with rage at Shimmer’s apparent lack of empathy for her actions now that it was clear that she remembered what she had done.

Looking like a foal caught with a hoof in the cookie jar, Shimmer gulped: “Which half?”

“The half that most of the ponies of Chung Do lived in. I have no idea how many ponies have died because of you Shimmer, or if there even is a city left to save down there anymore…” Speaker continued, increasingly in doubt as to whether he should be angry or worried.

Shimmer suddenly looked very much as if she realized at least part of the devastation she had caused: “Anything else?”
Speaker wished that Cash was present, for his knowledge of subtle social cues would have been nice here: “Well… do you remember any more of what you did?”

Unlike Speaker, Shimmer quickly got the feeling that she had done something bad – her greatest problem was that while she recalled quite well what she had done, then none of it seemed to be that bad: “I saved you, we got here, I fed you, we had sex?”
“You forcefed me until I puked, repeatedly, then you did… something… I don’t even want to know what, and you raped me! Shimmer, what happened to you?!” Speaker said, despairing at how Shimmer seemed to think her actions reprehensible.

Shimmer’s facial expression soured. Sighing deeply, Shimmer gave Speaker a pair of sorrowful eyes: “I… I didn’t want to lose you. I’ve waited far too long to let anything take you away, I just… Luna damnit, I happened again, didn’t it?”
“What happened?” Speaker wondered, sounding at the same time curious and concerned.

Shimmer explained that every fullmoon all lunars communed with Luna, whether they wanted to or not, for at fullmoon the light of the argent mare was undeniable. The Silver Pact had a long time ago agreed that it was this which occasionally caused Lunars to have their animal overtake them – usually not more than once every year or so, but depending on the circumstances then the results could be quite disastrous.

“I guess the immaculates aren’t entirely wrong in calling Lunars for ‘Moon mad’ ponies after all” Speaker mused.
Nodding ever so slightly, Shimmer added that the animal nature of their exaltation was something that some – but not all - Lunars actually cherished, and tried to make into a dominant part of their personality: “I try to avoid it, the seagul part of me is a very selfish, inconsiderate and ‘simple’ part of me… I… gods, it overtook me when I could see that you were trapped in the hostel! Gods, I’m so sorry… it just overwhelms me sometimes”

Closing his eyes and sighing deeply as he rubbed his forehead, Speaker took a single tentative step towards Shimmer: “Just get me down from here… I can’t deal with this right now. I need to know if we still have a city left to save”

Shimmer swallowed audibly and turned into her monsterpony form, letting Speaker climb up on her back before flying down. As she set off from the tower roof Shimmer instantly noticed the unusual amount of motion down in front of the castle.

Landing in the courtyard, Speaker and Shimmer quickly ran out to the twin fountain square. It was a sea of browns, blacks, white and cream, as most of the city’s ponies seemed to be camping out on the large square.

The pleasant realization that the city’s population hadn’t burnt to death quickly dawned on both Shimmer and Speaker, and when they saw the always hooded Sunrise Glow on a makeshift podium surrounded by hundreds of attentive ponies and approached, they heard her preaching calming words to the masses: “…reduced most of this city ash, I say take hearth and seek comfort in hope, for from these ashes Chung Do shall rise to the heavens as a more glorious and prosperous city! I bid you all to join me at noon for prayers to Celestia that the most high may hasten this coming of these shining times, but now I only require that each of do your utmost to help one another and tend those ill or injured, for a cure for the plague will be in reach of us all soon”

Spotting Shimmer and Speaker standing among the crowd of ponies sitting down around her, Sunrise bowed her head to the morning sun and then quickly leapt to the lunar and solar, and sternly shouted at them: “Where have you two been? Half the city burned down while you two were missing, explain yourselves”

Shimmer was about to speak as Speaker interrupted her: “That doesn’t matter now, does it? What matters is making the current situation better, and before that I need to know what’s going on. Where did all these ponies come from? What’s going on here?”

Sunrise explained that after the castle was alerted of the fire and the circle, minus Speaker and Shimmer, found out that they had no hopes of stopping the flames from spreading, even after Red tried to demolish a ring of buildings around the burning docks, Cash organized and helmed a brilliant evacuation of every home in the city, using his charms and remarkably accurate records over the ponies of Chung Do to direct Red, Sunrise and Sullen Hoof around to call all ponies out of their homes.

Looking around, Speaker nodded as this explained why so many of the ponies in the square had sacks, chests and bags with their most precious belongings with them – they had clearly had time to evacuate, even the ponies too sick to move had been hauled to safety, saving them from a most miserable death by fire. This also made it painfully clear that with almost the entire city’s population of ponies crammed into the twin fountain square, that half of them were sick and the other half would be infected in no time.

Around the square the city seemed positively surreal. There was no city, at least not on the half that was on the east side of the brown river. Long sooty scorch marks ran slick up the eastern stone pylons of the grand bridge spanning the river, while the piles of ruble that had once been half the city now gave way to a bleak view all the way to the city walls at the other side of the city.

Staring into the ground, Speaker stomped angrily: “Damnit… I could have stopped all this, contained and put out the fire”

Sounding equal parts curious and annoyed that Speaker hadn’t simply stopped the fire, Sunrise inquired just how Speaker would have done so.

“My singing staff. I could have raised earth-walls around the fire, stopping the fire before it spread from the docks. I could then have used the staff to make the twin fountains into ground level aqueducts, channeling the water down to the fire at the docks. Did the rest of you try anything beyond knocking buildings down?” Speaker explained, looking back up at Sunrise.

While Sunrise’s eyes were hidden under the hood of her robes, the frown on her face was clearly visible – indeed it looked so bitter that one might fear it would turn in on itself: “Oh we tried a different approach before resorting to demolition – my idea, a perfect idea, one that would have worked even faster than your earthen walls and water channels”

Speaker raised an eyebrow at Sunrise and listened. Apparently Sunrise had prayed to Gudaa, the goddess of the brown river, requesting that the goddess douse the fire with the waters of the river in exchange for no ill will for her actions in connection with the water walkers. What the circle received in response, for with the power of Sunrise’s essence her prayers couldn’t really go unheard, was a minor fish spirit that took a shit before the circle, then leaving the city to burn: “That was Gudaa’s answer to our prayers”

Suddenly Shimmer’s actions didn’t seem that bad. Speaker had seen unicorns getting seized by their elemental nature before, instincts awoken through their dragonblooded exaltations – so a celestial exaltation that carried an animal totem would understandably carry powerful emotions with it as well… but a willful disregard for such an offer of peace and goodwill? Speaker felt his jimmies rustle - and not in the good way like Shimmer could do.

“She just blew you off like that?” Speaker said, finding it difficult to reconcile why Gudaa would do such a thing. All gods desire worship, so why let ponies who regularly gave you offerings burn? Was Gudaa that petty over the death of her offspring at the hoof of the circle?

Cash and Sullen Hoof showed up moments later, both of them quite happy to see Shimmer and Speaker both alive and unharmed. Sullen Hoof in particular seemed quite relieved that Speaker had survived, for he had important news to tell him.
“Ok, I have good news and bad news, what do you want first?” Sullen Hoof asked, looking almost giddy with excitement.

Looking around at the ashen ruins, Speaker failed to imagine what might constitute as good news beyond all the ponies around them not having burned to death.

Smiling from ear to ear, something that really didn’t look that uplifting due to the massive burn scars that covered Sullen Hoof’s face, the culinarian and novice apothecarian said that several dozen ponies had approached the castle over the last few hours since dawn, complaining that they had been poisoned.

Speaker was now sure of it: The fire had addled Sullen Hoof’s mind.

“They said that some old stallion claiming to have been from the castle had come down to the docks and fed them some tasteless watery gruel… and now they can’t shit” Sullen Hoof said. Suddenly Sully’s smile spread to Speaker’s face.

“They didn’t happen to still be sick?” Speaker inquired, not sure if he dared hope for a recovery that swift – but as Sullen Hoof quickly began nodding fervently Speaker realized that the cure not only worked, but it worked surprisingly fast!

Sullen Hoof added that he’d given some powerful laxatives to a few of the constipated ponies and found that what came out didn’t really look normal – the stool produced had been strangely black and almost obsidian-like, but then again what had infected them hadn’t really been a real disease considering the source of it all. Sullen hoof also added that he’d gone ahead and dumped a bucket-full of the cure into each of the two fountains right after discovering this, the ‘sickness’ in the water having almost instantly crystallized into perfectly spherical obsidian beads.

“Oh so that’s why the fountains are full of obsidian pebbles?” Cash said, suddenly not that sure about selling them to jewelers… or having his pockets full of them. At least this meant that the fountains were now both safe to drink from.

“This is amazing, we should start distributing the cure right away!” Speaker suggested, Cash quickly pointing out that they had started that as soon as Sullen Hoof had discovered that the cure worked, although he’d also taken the liberty of distributed concentrated prune juice along with the cure – to be taken after the cure had worked.

Breathing an immense sigh of relief, Speaker looked to the sky at the sun and felt that maybe everything wasn’t that bad, before looking at Cash and Sully again: “So… anything at all I can help with?”

While Shimmer seemed to have disappeared, for reasons that Speaker tried and failed to impress upon the circle weren’t of any major importance, Speaker spent the rest of the day walking among the ponies on the twin fountain square, giving medical aid to ponies in need – which mostly meant draining bubo and otherwise helping the sickest plague victims as they slowly recover with the aid of the magical cure, all the while Sunrise continued her preaching, using her charms to maintain order and keeping the healthy ponies in the square from trying to isolate the visibly sick ponies, since any attempts at quarantine at this point really wouldn’t matter.

The next morning, after the collective consumption of every laxative in town, would forever be remembered by the ponies of Chung Do as the morning of the black poo. What followed was quite a lot of revelry and celebration, as it dawned on the ponies of Chung Do that they were all more or less cured. There were still those weakened by the plague who would probably need several days if not several weeks of bedrest and aid to recover, while the rest of the ponies – having endured a second night out in the open, now without the ‘benefit’ of the warmth of the burning city, were faced with the realization that they really didn’t have any place to live anymore. Some had tried to make shacks or dens in the chared ruins, but such attempts only revealed how brittle the contents of the ruined piles of buildings were.

While many of the ponies in the square called for the west side warehouses to be opened up and converted into dormitories, then on Speaker’s orders Sunrise and Cash talked the ponies in the square to remain there – for Speaker, having lived up the name of his caste, had burnt the midnight oils of the twilight and stayed up quite late, working on a solution to the city’s now quite critical housing problem.

Cash had been positively ecstatic when a very drowsy Speaker had presented his solution.

Shimmer, who had appeared again after having done some soul searching, also reappeared as the circle had breakfast in the castle, displaying a rather moist hunting trophy: “After what I heard from Sunrise yesterday about how you all had tried to stop the fire I couldn’t help but feel that I had to do something, so…”

The head of Gudaa, leaking divine ichors on the floor, was floated out of a sack and displayed before the circle. Red, Cash, Sunrise and Sullen Hoof all applauded Shimmer, while Speaker… he didn’t take to well to what he felt was a very rash decision on Shimmer’s part:

“Are you crazy!? Now the river is without oversight? Who’ll manage the elementals that control its waters?” Speaker shouted, deliberately stomping off in anger before could say anything else.

Shimmer stood in the banquet hall, the head of the dead god dripping, floating in the air beside her. As Speaker left in a huff she cried out: “I… I thought you’d be happy…”

Later Cash found Speaker brooding over a pile of scrolls and architectural plans. Speaker had designed a whole new city to be built within the walls of Chung Do – indeed the city walls would be subsumed in some parts of the design, to make way for the new buildings – and the brilliant part was that with the singing staff Speaker could just have the ground beneath the city swallow up the rubble of the fire, yielding open ground to build on, plus the staff would make building the entire city up again take maybe a week… provided that enough stone could be supplied. It was all made so Speaker could distract himself from the quite uncomfortable thoughts regarding what to do with Shimmer. Should he ask her to leave? Punish her? Did anyone in the circle even have the power to subdue an elder lunar? Would she leave voluntarily? Would she come back and seek revenge like some spurned lover?

First carefully regarding Speaker’s brilliant structural designs, Cash compliment Speaker on his fine work. Of course, Cash wasn’t there to just talk city-planning and construction. Cash informed Speaker that Shimmer had run out of the banquet hall crying after Speaker had left, to which Cash asked – quite insistently – about what had really happened when that fire had broken out.

Turning to face Cash, Speaker gave the young merchant pony a face that only old ponies who had both seen more than enough of the world and more than enough of death in their lives could give. It was a tired and sorrowful face, or more a grimace, full of wrinkles and furrows that spoke volumes without Speaker even uttering a word.

“I see…” Cash surmised, his social and linguistic charms reading Speaker so perfectly that it was actually quite a bit uncomfortable for Cash.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with her. I want be happy, for the plague is now finally over, but with what Shimmer did… and now killing a god and showing us the head, like a cat that gives you a dead mouse in the morning?” Speaker said, despairing.

Cash took a deep breath: “So what if she raped the shit out of you. You said we’re going to live for thousands of years because of our exaltations – you think this’ll be the only time something really bad happens to you? To us? You have to learn how to handle stuff like this better!”

Speaker shot Cash a glare that, if Speaker had known the proper charms, wouldn’t just have killed – but would have slain every blood relative Cash had tracing back three generations. Cash ignored Speaker’s glare completely with an unimpressed smile.

“Speaker – bad things happen. Nine of ten brothels in Great Forks are staffed with slave ponies – do you think they enjoy their work, or sought such work voluntarily? Bad things happen quite a lot these days in creation. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve had to debase myself as a mortal merchant to sweeten a deal, how many times I’ve whored myself to ugly smelly old rich ponies to secure an investment from them? You said to me that we’ll live for thousands of years. We haven’t even lived a year as solars, how many horrible things don’t you think we’ll experience or learn of over the next hundred? Does that prospect mean that none of the hundreds of thousand pony lives we’ll save, the countless heroic deeds we’d do, shouldn’t be done – that we should just burry ourselves in a hole so we can sit and wait as time passes, happy that nothing bad happens to us?” Cash admonished.

Speaker was by no means pleased that Cash was, as Speaker felt it, belittling the horrible experience that Speaker had undergone. Having been bereft control of his body and ‘mated’ with against his will, while Shimmer was in her monsterpony form – it still made him sic to his stomach even to think of it – and worse yet he had tossed the giant eggs that Shimmer had laid out of the nest, killing three unborn foals… or mutants, or whatever they might have grown into.

“What happened to you has stressed and traumatized you, I don’t doubt that and I do not think that you should try to ignore it. However, I will not stand idly by if you just sit and mope. You’re a brilliant doctor, so why not try to heal yourself if you’re feeling so wounded? I’m sure you can come up with something, plus; There are a few thousand ponies outside the castle waiting for homes to move back into” Cash said.

Speaker sighed as Cash up and left. He knew that Cash was right, especially the part about their enhanced lifespan: If one horrible experience like this made him want to shut down – how would he cope with everything to come? There were Deathlords to be thwarted, deathknights to be fought, a heavenly bureaucracy that needed a swift buck in the groin and a city that still needed his help. It was food for thought, if nothing else…
Hold on, food?

Quickly getting up and running after Cash, Speaker quickly asked: “What about the food? Did the city’s rice supply survive the fire?”

Cash smiled and laughed: “The granaries are on the west side. We only lost what food the ponies left behind in their homes – and they brought most of it with them during the evacuation”

Closing his eyes for a moment, Speaker groaned: “Alright, time to rebuild”

Starting around the twin fountain square, Speaker began leveling the ashen ruins of the city. With his singing staff and a smidge of essence Speaker had the ground swallow up the charred remains of collapsed buildings, slag, and ruble with ease. During this, as Speaker attempted to sort all the stone used in the buildings so that wouldn’t get swallowed up, Speaker found a nasty flaw in his plan. He quickly reported it to Cash, who had set up a somewhat temporary city administration in a tent on the edge between the castle and the twin fountain square.

“There’s hardly any stone in the underground here. I can’t rebuild the city with no materials” Speaker digressed.
Feeling a hoof on his shoulder, Speaker turned to find suddenly Shimmer standing next to him: “Uhm… I think I can help?”
Walking from Cash’s tent, Speaker and Shimmer discussed how to solve the stone shortage. Shimmer had a simple but effective solution: She could summon elementals – not like Sunrise could pray for gods to send minions, but directly sorcerous elemental summoning, which also bound the summoned being to magical servitude.

Specifically Shimmer said that she knew how to summon Jokun, earth elementals well known for naturally being able to manipulate rock to make their own underground dwellings.

“Very well – summon up a Jokun, but before you do that… before we do anything else… I need you to promise me one thing Shimmer” Speaker said, looking the lunar straight in the eyes.

Shimmer nodded for Speaker to continue.

“I don’t want to see you kill another pony. Gods regenerate and reform in time, but ponies don’t – so for as long as you want to be in this circle you will not kill another pony, do I make myself clear?” Speaker said, knowing full well that if Shimmer refused he would have to ask her to leave the circle.

The power of Shimmer’s bond to Speaker was mighty, and it tugged at her relentlessly to agree. Adding to that was her own despair over having lost control of herself again, of vividly remembering how she had clawed and slashed her way through dozens of ponies who’s only crime was that they so desperately wanted a cure to a sickness that would otherwise kill them… for in that respect she had failed not just to respect Speaker’s love of life, but as a steward of creation who’s charge was to protect it.

The western mare with the purple dreadlocks gave Speaker a single solemn nod as tears welled in her eyes. She had genuinely feared that Speaker would only agree to her helping with the reconstruction of Chung Do on the condition that she left afterwards – but this second chance? Oh how she cherished it.

Speaker had to hold back his urge to comfort Shimmer as he saw her tearing up – but he felt that he had to remain focused on the matter at hoof. If he showed weakness or mercy he feared that Shimmer might not take his demands seriously, and he didn’t want to think of what that might lead to. Shimmer galloped off, shouting a multitude thanks back at Speaker.
The summoning Shimmer handled alone outside the city, a ritual that would last from dusk to dawn, while Speaker spent the rest of the day leveling the rest of the east side of the city, leaving only the twin fountain square and the roads behind.
It was during the leveling of the city ruin that Cash approached Speaker with a very ambitious suggestion: Level the other half of the city as well.

“Are you serious? What will the ponies say when we demolish the rest of the city?” Speaker wondered, not sure if the overall mental wellbeing of the city, already scared and strained from the massive fire, could handle such a shock.

Cash seemed certain that there would be no problems with his plan: “You’re right, the ponies of Chung Do are in shock – which only makes it easier for us to pull something like this off. Besides, with the plans you’re making for the east side you’ll reduce the west side to a slum. We need to uplift the entire city or we’ll be leaving half of it behin. With your brilliant designs we’ll be able to double or even triple the storage capacity of the warehouse district, which would mean that we could zone for more residential and commercial buildings, allowing the city to grow while still having the same if not more mercantile activity and business coming through”

Speaker hadn’t been able to keep up with the flood of words that Cash had thrown at him – but he got the distinct impression that Cash honestly believed that demolishing and rebuilding the western half of the city would be a good idea as well.
“Glad to see that you agree with me – by the way, how did Shimmer offer to help with the reconstruction?” Cash seemingly innocently asked.

Speaker took a deep breath and shook his head, his long beard swinging all over. Straightening out his beard, Speaker said: “Well, before we talked earlier I thought my only option was to send her away… but after talking to you I guess it was easier to let her stay”

Then it hit Speaker: “Cash, what did you do to me when we spoke earlier?”

Cash smiled, glad to see himself caught in his machinations for once: “I talked to you – that’s it really. Oh sure, I used a charm or two so I wouldn’t have to spend all day talking you out of resenting Shimmer for what she did, plus making my argument seem too good for you to dismiss outright. Your experience last night shattered your love for Shimmer, that I chose not to fiddle with out of respect for you. I just talked you out of developing an outright grudge against Shimmer so we could all still work together as peers if nothing else. She will still have to earn your affection again if she wants it, which I’m sure she does. I just did what I thought necessary to keep the circle from breaking”

Opening his mouth as if to speak, then closing it again as Speaker tried to process exactly what Cash had done to him, he ultimately came to the strange but eerily comforting conclusion that Cash’s actions were probably for the good of all. It was weird, and he was sure that Cash was using charms to influence him into coming to this very conclusion, but he could see the logic – it was for the best that the circle stayed together, for without Shimmer summoning the elemental the proper reconstruction of the city would be pretty much impossible.

As the sun set Speaker surveyed the now flattened eastern half of Chung Do. Foals played tag on the seemingly vast stretches of wide open dirt lots, while Cash was walking among the thousands of citizens explaining that reconstruction would begin the next day.

One thing Speaker noticed about the thousands of ponies in twin fountain square was that at this point they all had tents or similar makeshift shelters set up. He also recognized that most of the fabric used to make them had come from the castle, it looking as if everything from drapes to bed-linens had been cut up and made into simple tent-coverings, although it also looked as if the linens and whatnot had been treated with something to make it all water-proof. Speaker couldn’t identify what had been used to waterproof the linens, but he figured that it was Sullen Hoof who’d cooked that up. Speaker retired to his chambers and hoped that when dawn came Shimmer would be back so they could start over fresh… sort of.