Madame Butterfly

Trixie

Coal dust, Trixie had discovered, itched. Both she and Alterixie looked like pitch-black coated blankflanks, like mini Nightmare Moons, except Nightmare Moon's mane had been star-spangled midnight perfection, not a dusty grey ruin, times two.

This was because they were buried upto their horns in coal, as they hid in the coal-truck from the searching guard-dogs. The howls were, in their way, terrifying, but they moved closer and further at random, and at no point seemed less than confused in the manner of their search.

They almost drowned out the feminine whinnying of a pony, as he was beaten.

The sound twisted Trixie’s heart.

Mercifully, the traction-engine's whistle screamed, and with a grinding of tempered steel on tortured earth, the coal-train juddered into motion. That in itself was impressive. The cart they hid in was as large as the largest farmwagons, their chassis larger even that of her own lost caravan. Farmwagons of the kind that were hewn from solid aged oak and required a fourstrong team of the heaviest shireponies to draw when laden with hay or a cargo of vegetables. But this wagon, though it was sided with wood, had underpinnings of iron, and its steel-spoked wheels were rimmed with metal bands wider than she was – they had to be, for the wagon groaned under the weight of a full loading of heavy coal.

Heavy, dirty coal that she was up to her horn in.

And this wagon was only one of four strung behind the traction-engine.

More impressive than the train was the strata. She could see the coal, buried beneath the escarpment, towering over the eastern skyline. Once, there might’ve been a slope here, but where coal had come up to the surface, the ponies had worked down to the limit of their ability to open new faces and dig new tunnels.

Then Flim’s machine had come along and ripped away the surface, directly exposing the coal, like a nail dug into the skin of the world. Then it’d crawled west, drawn inexorably by the attraction of a thinner overburden. More coal for less effort. And the result had been this. The eastern edge of the mine-quarry-workface towered higher than any cliff Trixie’d ever seen.

A tiny track switchbacked its way up its sheer face.

Surely, surely, this great heavy wagon train wasn’t going that way?

It was.

“I see it,” Alterixie whispered, as the train climbed the switchbacks, “but I do not believe it.” Trixie quite agreed with her: It was only from above, looking down, that the devastation wrought by Flim's monstrous machine could truly be understood. A swathe of land had been denuded, stripped of what little vegetation this desert landscape had held, then the very sand itself removed and dumped aside, to reveal the pure strata of coal below. The machine's long neck gave reach to its all-consuming jaw, and despite the almost imperceptible motion of its body, the vast array of hillocks of displaced earth and sand showed the extent of its working. They stretched out for what must've been miles, regular as a checkerboard... and yet, the mine itself stretched further still.

The mind, Trixie realised, was tricked by the scale of the machine and its droppings, for what seemed to be a sameness beyond was in actuality a patchwork of minebuildings, access tracks and small minefaces, such that might be worked by a few ponies with hoof or mouthtools or magics, or groups of ten or so with horse-drawn equipment.

Even from this distance, she could see that they sat dilapidated, deserted for some time. And why should they not, she wondered – Flim's machine could do all their work ten times over, with one pony's labours alone. Well, no, she considered. Flim had surely had a team of ponies to support him, but the thrust of her point was indisputable.

The wagon-train lurched to the left, towards the gaping depth of the mine and away from the cut of the cliff-face. From her position – she couldn't help but think of it as entombed in the wagonload of coal – Trixie couldn't see the packed-earth roadway. She only knew its edge had to be growing closer to the wheels of the wagon in which she was trapped. How much would a bunch of pony-eating gem-greedy Diamond Dogs care about industrial accidents, like, say, a wagon-train load of coal sliding off the road and bouncing its way into crumpled wreckage at the base of the mine?

Not much, she suspected, and no more if they knew that wreckage contained the pounded, tangled bodies of a pair of Trixies.

Of course, the diamond dog driver and firepony of the traction-engine had a great deal invested in not tumbling over the cliff, and – presumably - they knew their jobs. Were experienced at their jobs.

But everypony has bad days, her mind supplied treacherously, and everypony has to have a first day. Besides, the traction-engine's hoofplate had been open-sided. They could probably just step off to the safety of the roadway in the instant before disaster.

Unlike she and Alterixie.

Still the cliff-face drew further, and the edge – presumably – drew closer.

Maybe the roadway widens here, she thought, increasingly panicked. Maybe we're almost at the top and drawing out to turn in – but she could easily look up, and see that they weren't nearly at the top, barely three-quarters of the way up; or ahead, and see that even if the road widened here it narrowed before the next switchback, which was just right there, and it was rapidly approaching.

Why? She wondered. Why why why are they doing this to me! What've I done to deserve-

The oncoming wagon-train swung wide round the corner ahead, huffing and puffing as it held its own string of wagons back, and curled round to nuzzle up against the cliff-face so the two trains could pass.

You've got to be kidding me thought Trixie.

It was all too easy to imagine tightly-packed – but not tightly enough packed – earth crumbling under the weight of all this coal. The traction-engines wouldn't even have to collide to get her killed, Trixie realised – and why's our heavily-laden train taking the outside route she screamed silently.

Seeing the tightly-packed barrels loaded onto the descending wagons as they passed gave her the answer. Of course Flim's steam-driven mining-engine would have a prodigious thirst. Where did all that water come from in the middle of the bucking desert? The question distracted her for the few thunderous, perilous seconds it took the road-trains to pass, and she forgot to be afraid.

The climb to the lip of the cliff-face was almost anti-climatic, after that – till they crested the peak.

Whether by design, by the decades-long tread of ponies' horseshoes, or the years of serrated-grip traction-engine wheels, the road ran through a gully deep enough to swallow even the great driving wheels. Along its lip, where the upward-tilted angle of her view left her no choice but to look at them – not that she could tear her eyes away – were the bodies of the ponies. But not alone, she realised. There was the corpse of a diamond dog, 'pilferer' tattooed across his desiccated flesh, mummified by the hot desert air; and there that of a griffon, a sign reading 'pirates, ye be warned', dangling from it's beak; and there the body of some black, chitinous creature she did not even recognise, widely travelled though she was. “Attendant of the Exile,” Alterixie whispered. “Somepony will pay for this.” The line of bodies drew Trixie's eyes onward, down the length of the road till they blurred into the distance.

Ahead, she could make out the low-slung-shapes and more distant black dots of traction-engines and wagons: The coal-trains preceding theirs, and, oncoming, fresh wagon-trains laden with water and other mining supplies. Beyond them lay Gemstowne, its buildings sprayed across the ground like a foal's scattered building blocks. Thousands of them. Above them rose vast structures buttressed by beams, supported by entangling spiderwebs of gossamer steel strands - but for her to see them at all, those cables must be thicker than the barrel of a pony’s chest. Hidden fires, steam-driving who-knew-what, heating iron till it flowed like water, sparked like magic, dancing to the tune ponies called... the diffuse glow of those fires lit the horizon like the instant of sunrise.

“One hundred-thousand dogs and ponies,” Alterixie breathed. “I'm going to flay Fido's skin off and feed it to him.”

“A-buh, a-buh, eheheheheh-heh,” Trixie giggled, snuggling down into her warm, safe blanket of coat so she didn't have to look at it. “We're so, so bucked,” she said. Thought about it. “Do we risk the desert?”

“Certain death,” Alterixie replied. “Plan's the same. Cut the head off the snake, the body dies. It's just a little harder now,” she continued. “Risk commensurate with the reward, though.” She paused. “You thought it was a good idea to come here?” Pause. “What were you thinking?”

“'That it's a town full of lonely, rich, unsophisticated mineponies,” Trixie answered. “Not that Trixie's that kind of pony, you understand,” she blurted, and coloured. “I was right though. Except there's an order of magnitude – several orders of magnitude – more of them than Trixie'd expected. Plus some of them are vicious, slaving, miserly Diamond Dogs. It certainly is... big,” she gulped, casting her eyes over the long, low roofs of Gemstowne's buildings and their surrounding slumtown, broken by the blocky metal-framed towers that she presumed to be clancastles – why were they surmounted by those huge, spoked wheels, anyway, and-“what the hell is that!?” She blurted, her head bursting out in a spray of coal.

Alterixie joined her, as the shadow swept over and past them. “It's just an airship,” she explained, “Griffin-made, from the looks of it.” Indeed, Trixie saw as she looked up, the vessel had something of the great raptors about it, the balloon stylised into a sharp-beaked prow, spreading aft through a bulging midsection to a spray of tailfeather control-vanes aft. A pair of golden talons struck down, grasping a cats-cradle of rope and cabling that stretched up to the balloon both fore and aft, small platforms and unidentifiable machinery suspended in it like flies in a spider's web.

There was neither gondola nor cabin nor hull, as familiarity with pony-manufactured airships had led her to expect. “It's nothing to worry about anyway,” Alterixie continued, and Trixie had to agree with that assessment. “That, on the other hoof-”

Trixie turned, looking right into the eyes of a very surprised traction-engine driver, a diamond dog who'd thought he'd been pulling a load no more dangerous than coal. “Who in the deeps are you?” He said.

“-is a dragon,” Alterixie finished.

CHANGELINGCHANGELINGCHANGELING

Sinisteed

“Oh!” Twilight exclaimed, “but I already failed to fix everything using the fix-everything-fail-safe spell during the Discord incident. I don’t get to have a retest,” she said, beginning to trot in circles, “this was my retest.” She paused, staring right into Sinisteed’s face, her hooves clutching at his shoulders. “Do you think Princess Celestia will let me take a re-retest?” She asked. The last time Sinisteed had seen that expression of naked hope had been during a proposition of marriage, from a bedraggled stallion to a supermodel mare - who he’d been imponysonating, but the stallion hadn’t known that.

“Of course not!” Twilight continued, breaking away from him and into a pointless, circling canter.

“Dude,” a voice breathed, right in his ear, and Sinisteed nearly jumped out of his skin. Only an effort of will maintained the illusion of the generic guardspony he was imponysonating. “Remember what PrinCelly said about this, yeah?” The stallion continued, bumping his hip. Sinisteed didn’t need to look in his eyes to see Royal Jelly had wasted him. “On three? One-”

-Sinisteed realised what he was expected to do-

“-two-”

“Whoever heard of a re-retest? The whole idea’s ridiculous.” Twilight’s chattering continued. “Celestia doesn’t set re-retests, she sends her students back to-”

“-three-” they shouted together, and a combined featherweight of guardspegasi and changeling tackled Twilight Sparkle to the marble floor, who squished nicely beneath him.

“Let me go!” Sparkle screamed, a howl torn from the deep terror of the soul, and the last time Sinisteed had heard it, he’d ripped the pony’s throat out a heartbeat later. “I’ll be tardy!!!”

Energy glittered from Twilight’s horn, and Sinisteed’s life flashed before his eyes. She wouldn’t slay her own mentor’s loyal guardsponies, he reassured himself. Surely!?

Then it engulfed her, and with a whipcord crack and a flash of pink-purple light, she vanished-

-and reappeared half a dozen hoofsteps away.

“Twilight,” Fluttershy murmured, resting her forehooves on the destraught unicorn’s shoulders, “It’s okay, okay?” She said. “You didn’t fail a test. There was no test. So feel better.”

Just then, Sinisteed would not have traded places with Sparkle, not for all the world, not even to have his beloved’s forehooves - ow - around him. Sparkle didn’t even seem to realise she’d been made to feel better. And with nopony to tell her, his Fluttershy didn’t even know what she’d done. Was doing. She hadn’t known when she’d done it to him, to make him love her. Or so she’d claimed when he’d told her, and he couldn’t disbelieve his - ow - beloved. “Just... be calm,” Fluttershy continued. “Um, if that’s alright with you, that is.”

Naturally, Twilight Sparkle subsided instantly.

“We do need to go and make sure Rainbow Dash and Princess Celestia are all right though,” Fluttershy continued. “That was a very nasty fall. And everypony’s left me behind,” she said. “Again.”

Sinisteed wilted like chopped, forgotten flowers left out of life-giving water - ow.

“Oh,” Twilight said, “yes,” her horn already beginning to glow once more. “Of course they’re all right, but, no problem,” she continued, turning to look out the window as the the glow engulfed her and his Fluttershy both, “teleportation’s a breeze. They’re fine, though. I’m sure of it.”

It occurred to Sinisteed that a pony only said that if they weren’t really sure of it.

Fluttershy and Twilight were gone before the whipcrack of their passing reached his ears.

Half a second later, the recently-repaired window shattered for the second time in as many minutes, and, protected by the sickly green mageglow of his own siegebrood powers, he shot through the lethal rain of shards, following his beloved - ow - by the direct route.