The view from the loft was nothing spectacular, an orchard of apple trees and a couple of fields. Quaint, but hardly breathtaking. With the right company however, it was still an enjoyable sight.
Applebloom had gone up here thinking it was a nice quiet place to hide after the mess she made in the kitchen. With a little luck, she'd miss the worst part of Granny Smith's anger and only get a minor scolding. However, it turned out that the loft wasn't as empty as she first thought. An earthbound Pegasus was perched on top of a few bales of hay, looking wistful.
“Oh, hi Rainbowshine,” Applebloom said. “What are you doin' up here.
“Oh, just gatherin’ my thoughts, she said. “And how about you?”
“About the same,” Applebloom replied innocently.
The Apple family had recently warmed up more to the idea of hiring farmhoofs to help out with the harvest, and Rainbowshine was one of them. This didn't use to be the case. Normally, the Apple Family was proud of their capability of running the farm all by themselves. But after Applejack's friends had to step in several times to help out, it became obvious that they were understaffed and that a few extra hooves helping out wouldn't be entirely unwelcome.
Applebloom sat down next to Rainboweshine in the corner of the loft where they could both look out of the window. It was an overcast day, with a chilly wind playing through the trees. Had it not been for the slight rustling of the leaf, the view could be replaced by a photograph. They were both quiet for a moment, looking at the blank scenery. Then Applebloom dared to speak.
“Say, “ she began carefully. “I don't think you've told me what happened to your wings.” Rainbowshine sighed.
“I suppose you'd like me to tell you,” she said.
“Only if it's a good story.”
Rainbowshine considered this for a second. It was a story alright, but she wasn't sure how much she should reveal.
“Well... she began,” back in Cloudsdale. “I used to work in the weather factory. I made snowflakes, it's as boring as it sounds, after a while you get quite tired of the cold. Anyway, we where supposed to create a tornado to funnel rainwater up to the factory. But something happened, the tornado dissolved and I was hurled right into the giant fan.”
“And that's all that happened? Really?” Applebloom asked. “I thought there would be more of a story to it.”
Rainbowshine hesitated, but her past bubbled up inside her, unable to stop.
“No, not really,” she said. “It wasn't the fan who did this, somepony took my wings, had them destroyed while I was out. Because...” she struggled to explain so Applebloom would understand.
“He was planning something bad in Cloudsdale, and I had something that could potentially reveal his plan. So she wanted to make sure I could never get back to Cloudsdale, she explained.”
“Oh my stars, Applebloom exclaimed. “What happened to him?”
“He's dead,” she said bluntly.
“why?”
Rainbowshine fell silent. She smiled this wretchedly friendly smile at Applebloom, the sort of smile Applebloom recognized as something grown ups only did when they wanted to avoid talking about something they thought she was too small or too innocent to know about.
“All right then” Applebloom said, ignoring the silence.
Dear Princess Celestia
I just wanted to thank you for this generous gift, as you can see, I m currently using it. This “Typing Machine” is a bit tricky to use so I m boundd to make some errors, apologies in advance. Like you, I am exzcited for the World's Fair in Manehattan, and I gladly accept the invitation to join you at the fair as royal guests.s
As for your worries, I don t share them. While it's true that technology can have a broader cultural impact, I do not fear a social upheaval. Yws, some of these new advancements are going to make Earth Ponies more capable, but not to the point where it s genuinely a threat to our social srtructure.
I have seen some of those sketches you've mentioned, blueprints to mechanical “war-machines”, and they strike me as nothing but a pipe-dream, pulp-fantasy fiction in the guise of scientific speculation, I don t put too much stock in them. I apprechiate that you're ever vigilant,however, and whatever decision yuo make, I will support it.
P.S, I have dabbled with technology a few times myself, and I may bring some of my own humble contraptions, if you d allow me.e
Twilight looked at the letter in front of her and the spelling errors stung her eyes. She was about to freak out over them, but her stomach distracted her. It felt uncomfortably empty. With a burst of magic, she fetched a stale sandwich from the kitchen and forced it down.
Thankfully, I don't have to worry about feeding Spike, she thought to herself, he can quite literary live on dirt. She was just about ready to try eating dirt herself, but she ignored the remaining hunger.
Should I mention the food shortage in the letter? She thought. She weighted the options. The princess would surely send enough food for her and her friends, but what about the other ponies? They were starving too and this famine wasn’t isolated to Ponyville. According to the Equestrian Inquirer, there was a food shortage all across the land.
It would simply be too much to ask for Celestia to provide supplies and impossible for Celestia to do without getting into political hot water. If Ponyville got subsidized, how long before the other villages demanded the same?
No, Celestia was most likely well aware of her predicament, she was just diplomatic enough not to mention it. It was times like these that it became very obvious that the princess weren't just a regular pony with a title. She didn't react to these situations the way a mortal pony would, she had a very different perspective.
Twilight turned her mind back towards more important matters: correcting spelling errors. Looking through the document again, she found TWICE as many errors as before. A nerve at the top of her left eye started to twitch involuntarily.
With the typewriter, she had gotten a small bottle of white paint and a strange tiny brush. She had no idea how to use it, but decided to try anyway. Carefully, she levitated the brush up and put it against the paper. Then her door burst open and an army of frightened rodents swarmed into the room. She lost control of her magic and the brush swept merrily across the paper, guided only by the random flux of background magic. Soon after, Fluttershy came running through the door, shouting desperately after them.
“Calm down, little ratties!” she yelled. “Please calm down!”
“What the hay is going on?” Twilight exclaimed and jumped up onto a table to escape a frightful armada of rats. “Fluttershy!Can you please tell me what's going on here?” Some confused mice were starting to invade her research notes and she hurriedly removed the critters from it with her magic.
“It's Applejack, “ Fluttershy explained. “They are testing out some... contraption down at the farm.”
Trying to protect the notes was becoming futile, she removed one rodent and ten more swarmed around them. Maybe she was mistaken, but her hears picked up what sounded unnervingly like a nibbling sound.
“No,” she mouthed. “I need my notes!”
“Enough!” The rats froze up and looked towards Fluttershy who gazed back onto them. Her eyes had a spark in them like ten lighting strikes at once and her voice boomed like thunder, or as close as her frail vocal chords could manage.
“You will get down from the table, stop bothering Twilight and CALM DOWN. I promise we will take care of this if you just behave, is that clear?”
The rats nodded hastily and scurried down on the table. The armada of rats gathered itself and marched obediently out of the door.
“Wow,” was all Twilight could utter.
From a distance, Twilight could already see that something was wrong. A thick black cloud of smoke was billowing up from one of the fields behind the barn, too thin to come from a fire. As they got closer, Twilight could feel the ground tremble slightly in short bursts.
They found Applejack cursing and kicking a large, crudely built machine with wheels the height of a tall stallion. After each kick, a cloud of smoke puffed out from somewhere inside it.
“Applejack!” Twilight said. “What the hay is that thing?”
Applejack stopped abusing the engine and turned to Twilight.
“This 'ere contraption is called a 'tractor',” she said with a somewhat smug tone, cleaning engine grease out of her mane. “We got it from our second cousin, Apple Ale.
“He's not allowed to have it anymore, since he drove it through the Mane Street of Appleoosa, high as a kite, tryin' to race down a carriage. Somethin' about a bet and alcohol, it didn't end well from what I heard.”
“I thought you didn’t like using modern technology to harvest,” Twilight said.
“We don't,” Applejack said and gave Twilight a look filled with daggers. “But in case you haven't noticed, there's a drought goin' on right now. We're having trouble growing enough food for Ponyville, not to mention ourselves. If it means we won't have to starve, I'll be harvestin' with dark magic if that's what's needed.”
“But you're not a unicorn!” Twilight said, instinctively analyzing this statement. “Also, there's no dark magic spells for farming, well, not for farming anything you could EAT anyway...”
“Ahem,” Fluttershy said from somewhere in the background. Applejack groaned as she addressed her.
“What is it now?” she asked.
“Your 'tractor' disturbs the animals,” she said. “The poor dears don't know what to think, and the smoke is making them cough!”
A couple of rats and mice had already noticed Fluttershy and was hiding behind her hooves. One of them coughed theatrically at this statement, but he quickly went back behind Fltutershy when he noticed Applejack's cold stare.
“Oh don't you try to trick me with that fake coughing!” she said. “This 'ere machine is perfectly safe, its only water vapor and coal-”
She was interrupted by a thunderous cough from the other side of the barn as Big Macintosh sneezed up a storm.
“How about Big Mac?” Fluttershy said. “Does HE fake his cough?” There wasn't a hint of smugness in her voice, but there would have been, had it been coming from any other pony.
“Oh, don't you start miss,” Applejack said. “Big Macinotsh has had that cough for a week now, ain't that right Big Mac?”
“Eeyup,” Big Macintosh said. With her point made, Applejack's attention shifted back to the machine, but it was still a hopeless cause.
“Say, Twilight...” she said. “couldn’t you use your fancy magic to repair this here contraption? it ain’t workin' like it should.”
“I'm sorry,” Twilight said. “I can't. Magic work in broad strokes and machines are complex and delicate, its like asking me to crack an egg with a sledgehammer.”
“Well, ain't that something,” Applejack said smugly as she attacked the chassis once again. “Unicorns may be better building these wretched gizmos, but it takes an earth pony to handle them, ain’t that right, big Mac?”
“Eee-cough-yup,” Big Macintosh said.
Twilight looked at the tractor, still broken and with several new dents lining the chassis. If this is how Earth Ponies “handle” machinery, it's a wonder that anything works around here, she thought to herself, but she was too diplomatic to say anything.
“Pinkie Pie is surprisingly good with machinery,” she suggested instead. “She started to learn a while back by taking apart toys.”
“Well, but this thing 'ere is not a toy!” Applejack said. “Ya really think Pinkie could handle it?”
Twilight smiled. “I saw a flying machine she made a while back, she said. “It was eccentric, to say the least, but it worked wonderfully, I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”
“Well, I ain't lettin' her anywhere near my second cousins baby!” Applejack said. “She needs loving and tender care.” She gave the chassis another strong kick.
“Could she plausibly make it worse?” Twilight asked. The lid over the engine fell down onto the grass with a disheartening “thump”.
Applejack studied the dented lid on the ground while she reconsidered. “I guess you're right,” she said. “I'll talk to her next time she comes around.”
A few straws of hay fell down on Twilight and when she looked up in confusion she saw a young mare sticking her head out from inside the loft.
“What's goin' on on down there?” the filly asked.
“Rainbowshine! Twilight exclaimed. She was about to ask her what the she was doing up there, but a realization struck her. “Could you repeat that?” she asked.
“Ah said, what's goin' on?” Rainbowshine said and Twilight looked very amused.
“You're starting to sound just like the Apple family,” Twilight shouted. “Could you come down here so we could talk like normal ponies.”
“Sure,” Rainbowshine said and Twilight suddenly noticed how she was starting to lean through the window, ready to jump.
“No, don't...” she began but Rainbowshine had already landed in a cloud of dust before she could finish.
“Ever heard of using the stairs?” Twilight asked sarcastically as Rainbowshine shook off the sand and hay.
“Yes!” Rainbowshine said. “How else did you think I got up there in the first place.”
She flapped her ruined wings demonstratively. It was easy to forget that she, after all, was a Pegasus, albeit one that gravity had held a firm grip on for a number of years.
“Anyway,” Rainbowshine continued. “Like I said, what's goin' on down there?”
“This here machine won't start,” Applejack explained. “Doesn't matter what I do, it's dead as a doornail.”
“Can't Twilight fix it?” she asked. “She's pretty good with this science-stuff.”
“This is a very different thing from what I do,” Twilight explained. “I build machines, sure, but they are powered by magic. They don't actually ‘work’ in the sense that each cog and wheel connect and manipulate the mechanical forces to accomplish a task. My machines work because a part of me rests in it and TELLS it to work.”
She thought about this for a bit and turned to Applejack.
“I guess I could modify it to run on magic if you want to,” she said. Applejack looked mortally offended.
“Oh hay no!” she shouted. “I guess I can accept machines if we have to, but I aint lettin' no magitek run wild on my farm. At least real machines work properly, with raw power and grease not like... however magic works.”
“but didn't you say-” Twilight began to remind her.
“I was being whatchamacallit, hyperbolic!” she exclaimed. “No, we're gonna get this dang thing to start if I have to die to do it!
“well, kicking it isn't going to fix things,” Twilgiht reminded her.
“Oh yeah?” maybe I just didn't kick hard enough.”
Before Applejack could completely ruin the tractor, Twilight wen to fetch Pinkie Pie. Last year she had moved away from the Cakes to start her own business.
Nopony thought she could manage, but Pinkie seemed to have a special providence guiding her. She had simply set up shop in an abandoned building and she spent her free time renovating it. Each and every corner of her new home got the “Pinkie treatment”, with bright colors in often clashing combinations gracing the walls and support structures that didn't quite make sense in the world most ponies could agree they live in.
The building had the unmistakeable air of an establishment that was one thing on the surface, but another thing deep down. The sign on the front advertised it as a toy and prank shop, but in reality it was more of an alchemist's lab.
When Twilight reached the door, she noticed to her confusion that it didn't have a handle on the outside. Instead there was a lever next to the door and a note that told visitors to pull it. She did so, and heard a variety of cranking and clunking sounds from inside.
Through the glass she could see a small tin-pony being lowered down to the floor. Sun behind her created an annoying glare in the window which made it difficult to see what was going on, but judging by what glimpses she could catch and by the sound, the robot was making its way to the door, slowly and methodically, one hoof in front of the other. Then it reached up for the inside handle and promptly fell apart.
Twilight was still standing by the door, snout pressed close to see what was going on. From behind the dust, she could see Pinkie Pie, looking like a pink storm cloud appearing to sweep the pieces up. Her voice was muffled by the door, but Twilight suspected loud curse words.
Twilight knocked on the glass a couple of times until the crazed toymaker inside could notice her. Pinkie looked up from the broken robot parts and let her in.
“I just don't know what went wrong!” she started ranting while Twilight entered the shop. “It all worked so well on paper.”
she pointed with her hoof towards an exact 1:1 replica of the robot made entirely out of papercraft. Twilight felt as tough she's stepped out of reality and into some kind of bizarre dream-world, a common feeling around Pinkie Pie.
“THAT'S your blueprint?” Twilight asked.
“Yes, of course it is. “Pinkie Pie said. “How else would I do it?”
“Maybe... draw on the paper?” Twilight suggested.
“That wouldn't work, silly!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. “My inventions aren't two-dimensional. Anyway, what can I do for you? We got buzzers, invisible ink, reappearing ink, springs in a jar...”
“It's just that Applejack needs some help on the farm,” Twilight explained. They have just gotten a tractor...”
Pinkie Pie's eyes grew to twice their size and her pupils widened even further.
“Oooh! she said.” They have a TRACTOR, and AJ's letting ME play with it?”
“Well, if you can repair it...”
“Well, OF COURSE I can repair it, “Pinkie Pie said. “its a tractor, I can do it in my sleep. I can't believe it! A tractor in Ponyville!” She smiled gleefully as she collected her tools and put them in a saddle back.
Twilight led the way towards the farm and Pinkie Pie skipped happily along afterward. When she saw the tractor from a distance, she rushed up to it. Applejack was mighty confused when Pinkie Pie stared at the machine with adoring eyes.
“It's a Fairgun 1899!” she cooed while examining it. “4 cylinder turbo with intercooler, oooh, and it's a jet-stream design!”
She stroked the chassis tenderly as she talked and her gaze was partly admiring, partly analytical when she tried to determine exactly what was wrong with the broken farming machine.
“Is that... good?” Applejack asked.
“Well... no,” Pinkie Pie answered bluntly. “The engine has a mean temper, especially in the mornings. Sometimes, it's like it has a mind of its own, it can be very stubborn and uncooperative. But it's such a workhorse! This baby can last a lifetime without even slowing down, isn't it great?”
“Well, it sounds just like a member o' the Apple family, at least,” Applejack remarked.
“Eeyup,” Big Macintosh filled in.
“But enough talking, let's get down to business!” Pinkie Pie said once she finished her analysis. She dove into the machinery and caused a cacophony of sounds.
Every now and then she'd reemerge and fetch something out of of her saddle back. She loudly announced the next tool every time.
“Gears!”
“More gears!”
“Party rattler!”
“Left-hinged framwinkle!”
“Pickaxe!”
When she returned from inside the engine, she was covered in oil and sweat, but she had an accomplished smile beaming through the grease. She shook the oil off like a dog, then picked up the hatch from the ground and put it in place.
“There!” she said. “Now it should be as good as new. Also, I took the liberty of making a few improvements if that's all right. Tractors are great and all, but they are so grave and serious....”
Panic was boiling in Applejack's eyes. Somehow, she managed to grab a hold of Pinkie Pie with her hooves and she shook her madly back and forth like a ragdoll.
“What did you do to it?!” Applejack shouted, gazing into Pinkie Pie's soul. Pinkie Pie entangled herself from the rude embrace .
“Oh, I just made it lighten up a little, it's no biggie!” she replied with a reassuring smile.
“We'll see about that, Big Mac! Fire her up!”
“Eeyup!”
Big Macintosh climbed on board and as he pulled a large lever, the machine twitched and came to life. First it emitted a puff of smoke, this time with a healthy white color, then the engine started up with a rough rising growl.
So far so good, but then it made a sound like air being let out of a balloon and the motor kicked into gear with a polka-like collection of funny noises.
Party horns, kazoos and rattles could be heard from inside the once proud machine. Big Macintosh simply stared at the machine in bewilderment. Applejack shook her head.
“What do you think?” Pinkie Pie said with pride in her voice. “Doesn't it sound much better now?”
Applejack buried her head in her hooves, but there were no arguing with Pinkie Pie, and at least the tractor was working.
“It can sound like the rear end of a mangled cat for all I care!” Applejack exclaimed. “As long as it gets the work done.”
“I'm glad I could help!” Pinkie Pie said and disappeared.
The tractor kept plowing through the field, disturbing bunnies and rats as it went. Fluttershy did her best to try and herd them together, but not even her soft voice could calm them. Applejack wasn't sure, but for a moment there she could've sworn Fluttershy shot her a look filled with contempt. But if she did, she was back to her old self within a blink.
As this was going on, Rainbowshine went up to Twilight.
“Speaking of contraptions,” she said. “How's your... project going?”
Twilight looked around. The odd honks and horns from the tractor had awoken Granny Smith and Applejack was busy tending to the old mare. Nopony seemed to pay attention to her and Rainbowshine.
“Follow me,” she said. “But look casual.”
They both went to the library, careful to look as if they just happened to be two ponies going in the same direction. Twilight had to remind herself to slow her trot down, her excitement was almost taking over. He had the same kind of nervous energy as an artist preparing for her first big show. Even tough she tried to keep an even phase, she arrived at the library first and had to wait a few minutes for Rainbowshine to catch up.
“What took you so long?” Twilight asked her as she appeared in the door frame.
Rainbowshine spat the brochure she was carrying onto the floor.
“I was cornered by a pony in the town square,” she explained. “And he gave me this.”
Twilight looked at the paper on the ground. The brochure was made out of a yellowed wooden pulp, as opposed to the more traditional parchment Twilight was still using. The wild choices of typeface and the crude placement of the letters suggested. Her eyes scanned the content and it made her pride disappear somewhat.
“one of those anti-magitek ponies, huh?” Twilight remarked.
“Yes,” Rainbowshine replied. “I don't see what the big deal is, ah mean, unicorns have enchanted tools ever since there's been tools to enchant, haven't they? So why is it suddenly a problem now?”
Twilight sighed from deep within.
“There's... a lot of confusion,” she replied. “When those ponies talk about magitek, they only have a vague idea what they are talking about. For them, it's any type of technology that frightens them.” She closed the door behind them ad started talking in a slightly lower voice.
“Real magitek doesn't exist, or rather, it's a hypothetical state where technology and magic work together to the point where the line between them is blurred. Some machines come closer to this than others, but so far, none has reached that state yet.”
“To be perfectly frank,” Twilight concluded. “That's something even highly educated ponies worry about, since it is something entirely new. We don't know what its boudnaries are, or indeed, if it even HAVE boundaries.” Her voice was calm and collected, but Rainbowshine noticed how a pencil on the table next to them started to rotate. Twilight was fiddling nervously with it using her magic.
“Is this something that bothers you?” Rainbowshine asked.
“Well... you sometimes conceal your wings, right?” Twilight said.
“Yes,” Raibowshine said. “Applejack keeps telling me not to, but I don't like how they make other ponies stare at me.”
“Have you ever overheard somepony making an off-color remark about pegasi, not realizing you where one?”
“Yes.”
“That's a bit like how I feel whenever ponies talk about the evils of magitek, and you'll soon understand why.”
Twilight went up to one of the bookshelves and tapped an Innocent-looking book. A clicking sound was heard, and a segment of the bookshelf flew open like a vault.
She took out the object inside and placed it on the ground. It was a brass harness, roughly the size of a rucksack. On top of it, it had a bifurcated guard decorated by jewels. Using her hooves, Twilight separated it to show the interior.
The guard slipped open and a pair of mechanical wings spread themselves out from underneath it. They had the same skeletal structure as that of a bird's but were otherwise insectoid in nature; rods of brass interrupting a pattern of thin jewel scales, arranged forming a rough mosaic resembling the pattern of a monarch butterfly. A system of tubes lined each side like muscles.
Outwardly, this was very different from the utilitarian design found in the Apple family's new tractor, with seemingly unnecessary flourishes of design and a fractured pattern of runes and knots covering every avaiable surface.
From an engineering standpoint, however, they were one and the same. It was, just like the the Fairgun 1899, a collection of cheap, barely functional parts made to fulfill the minimum requirement for its intended purpose and not much else. But while the tractor engine was made according to the constraints set by physics, this contraption was made according to the much more elusive constraints of magic.
Rainbowshine looked at the device with stars in her eyes. Simply seeing the device made a few nerves awaken in her unusable wings. There was just something about the smooth curves and the light, fragile design that reminded her of the sky.
“Is this magitek?” she asked.
“As close as you're likely to get with no formal training and limited tools,” Twilight replied.
“It's beautiful.”
“Thanks, I'm flattered, but this is just a crude prototype,” Twilight said and fiddled with the adjustments on the device a bit. “I admit, I thought I'd just need to make a pair of wings and then slap some magic on them, but then I did the math.”
A parchment flew towards them, guided by Twilight's magic. She held it up in front of her and let a soft glow highlight the numbers as she spoke.
“Consider this, imagine a brick. To support it in flight, let's say it needs wings the size of two dinner plates each to fly. Make that brick twice the size, and it's weight increases eightfold. In now requires wings four times longer and twice as wide.
“Double it in size again, so the flying brick is now only 8x8 bricks in size, but now it requires wings of 32x8 dinner plates long. Now imagine that the brick is the size and weight of a pony- it's wings would need to be the length of a street!
“And Magic doesn't fare much better," Twilight said, engrossed in her lecture as the parchment rolled itself back and flew to the desk. "Like I said, magic works in broad strokes, and the kind of bird-like wings a Pegasus have is just too complex. The best that magic can muster is a fragile pair of butterfly wings that really isn't worth the effort...” She continued the lecture while she strapped the harness onto Rainbowshine.
“Pegasus wings has its own powers,” Twilight concluded. “Powers that can't be duplicated by either magic or science, but perhaps it can with a combination of the two.” She fiddled with some of the more obtuse parts of the harness, trying to adjust it to her friend's build.
“Now, let's hook up the master-slave system and... there, how do they feel?” Twilight asked.
Rainbowshine wiggled her ruined stumps and the mechanical wings started to move. She felt a tinge of excitement has the air underneath it got shuffled about like under a fan.
The wings ratcheted and clanked, hissed and buzzed, and the controls weren't perfect. Maneuvering them felt a bit like swimming through syrup, but it still followed her movements well and almost instantly felt like a natural extension of herself.
“They work great!” she concluded. “But I don't see why you feel the need to keep this a secret. Like Spike said, it's pretty much just a wheelchair to Pegasi. Are you really that intimidated by the anti-magitek peonies?”
“No!” Twilight said, a bit unconvincingly forceful. “I'll explain later, but right now I just feel more comfortable having this be a secret, at least until the World's fair, alright?”
“Sure, whatever,” Rainbowshine said. “Don't wanna ruin the surprise I guess.”
The familiar silhouette of Canterlot's royal palace had changed drastically. A new tower was reaching for the sky, taller than anything else. The tip of the tower held a large red crystal surrounded by lenses and the area underneath the crystal was a curious mix of a common room and a command center, a workspace for the six unicorns that staffed the tower.
A prominent feature of the room was a huge control panel with a brass transmitter key. Another prominent feature was the system of wires connected to five devices that looked disturbingly like a milking machine.
The six unicorns passed their time playing leisurely card games, but they made sure to keep a careful eye to the clock positioned near the center of the room. It had no numbers on its face, instead a series of predetermined times marked with red lines.
The hand was rapidly approaching one of those set times. At the dot, the five unicorns placed themselves out at station evenly across the room, put the wired device on top of their horns and put one hoof ready on the large button placed on the side of each station. The fifth unicorn positioned himself at the control panel, and spied out towards the horizon with a telescope.
With it he could barely see the contour of another tower with a similar large crystal at the top. It blinked three times and the unicorn hurriedly adjusted the giant lenses surrounding the crystal using a series of switches and levers. Each adjustment echoed through the tower in a series of clunky mechanical sounds.
Once in place, he made a signal to the five unicorns who began transmitting magic through the system of wires. Once done, he responded by tapping the key five times and the Crystal flashed in unison. Then he made one final adjustment using a large brass lever next to the seat.
The other tower in the horizon started flashing, a quick complex pattern, amplified by the lenses and transmitted through the crystal and the series of wires, down to the unicorns. There was no telling which unicorn would get the message, and occasionally it would bounce, hence why all five were connected to the same machine that interpreted the clicks of the unicorn into a pattern of holes on a ticker tape. One of the unicorns perked up and started tapping incessantly on his button.
The message lasted for nearly half an hour, and once it was done, the unicorn looked quite flushed. The pony at the control panel made the tower flash three times once again and returned it to its normal restful state. The gears clanked heartily as they were released from their bounds. Once again the unicorns returned to their card games, but not before rolling the tape up and tossing it down a tube.
Once again, Celestia studied the letter she had received. She tilted her head but it still refused to make sense.
“What do you think, Philomeena ?” she asked the phoenix perched on her shoulder. The bird made a questioning cooing sound in response.
“I already wrote to Spike about it,” Celestia said. “He told me he found the letter on her desk, where she usually put her letters and assumed she was going to send it but forgot to ask him.”
Philomeena cooed again, this time with a curious tone.
“Yes, it's strange, Twilight isn't usually forgetful...” In light of this, Celestia tried deciphering the message and the conclusions she drew made her blush noticeably.
“A “bit trick” is that what I think is...?” she said to herself, “and she mentions something about joints and pipes and fantasy guys, what is she on about? She does have interesting fantasies I'll give her that...”
The phoenix made a complex sound, a sort of raspy squeak with a burp at the end. Celestia responded by taking another glance at the letter.
“Yes, I suppose it does look like that,” she said. “But what are the odds that she spilled ink-vanish all over the letter and forgot about it? She's one of the most analytical ponies I know!” Her eyes once again swepy across the letter.
“Oh Myself,” she exclaimed. “It sounds even worse reading it a secon time. Whatever she's pp to, I certainly didn't send her to Ponyville to teach her THAT. What do you say Philomeena, does she need a stern talking to?”
The bird nodded her head resolutely.
“I thought so.”
She looked towards the contraption on the table. It was a typewriter, but a different model from the one she had given Twilight. That one was a fairly basic unicorn model, with each character on the end of a type-bar that struck down when manipulated by magic. The mechanics was there not to substitute magic as much as aid it, the gears allowed for a light burst of magic to translate into a strong resolute tap by the type-bar, transferring ink to paper.
Her model on the other hand was more complex and was designed for non-unicorns, with elongated keys arranged in two perfect circles and tilted slightly inwards. The inside of each circle had spells written with magic runes that helped amplify even a light touch on the keys until it was strong enough to power the intricate clockwork mechanism that made a brass typing ball dance across the paper.
It was hard to see unless you had an eye for it, but each tooth of the gears had a shard from a different semi-precious stone grafted to it, and the moments of the typing ball was less guided by the mechanical motion of gears and levers, but rather by the magically significant patterns formed by the charged stones.
Learning how to operate the keys using magic was no easy matter. In theory, it was easier than controlling the motions of a pen, but it was so radically different that you had to rethink the way you used magic. You had to use short, gentle bursts instead of long serpentine motions. For Celestia, it was a habit that had been allowed to develop for over a thousand years, so naturally, she had a harder time re-learning how to write than most.
She nearly bit her tongue forcing her full attention to every keystroke. It was a tedious process, she had to go through each sentence twice in her head before she could even attempt to type it, like a young filly in her first few days of school. Once she was nearly done typing up her letter, an elderly unicorn burst into her chamber.
“Princess!” he shouted. “your majesty...” he added slightly more calmly.
Celestia abandoned her struggles at the typewriter and turned towards the unicorn.
“Yes, what is it, Ampersand?” she asked.
“Telegram from the neighborhood islands, your majesty,” Ampersand said. “It's very urgent.”
“Oh, really?” Celestia said, failing to mask her annoyance at the interruption.
“Yes,” Ampersand continued, ignoring the sarcastic tone o her voice. “The newly elected mayor is aligned with the isolationist movement, and they are demanding sovereignty.”
Ampersand studied Celestias features, but could read nothing from them.
“Princess?” he said. “They are close enough to Canterlot that they could actually cause some real damage to us if they decided to rise up...”
“Not that any violent uprising isn't a tragedy,” he added once he noticed how Celestias blank looked turned to a steely glance. “So what are we gonna do about it?”
Celestia considered this for a while.
“We'll give sovereignty to them,” she said. “Have my associates schedule a meeting for next week and we can discuss the terms.”
This had the same effect on Amperand's thought process as a splinter have on clockwork and his face betrayed his confusion with an almost exaggerated grimace.
“But princess... your majesty,” he said. “They simply aren't self-sustaining, espescially not with this drought, they depend on their trade with Canterlot.”
“I know,” she said. “But it seems that they need to figure this out on their own. It'll be a learning opportunity for them. And for her citizens sake, I do hope the mayor is a fast learner. Was there anything else, Ampersand?”
“Yes princess,” he said. “Today's public schedule...”
“IS there a problem with it?”
“Well, we haven't actually booked any of the meetings that you have on there.”
“Yes, today I'm doing something else.” Celestia said. “And I don't want to be disturbed until this evening, at the earliest. Understood?”
“Yes, princess.” Ampersand said humbly and left the chamber.
Celestia abandoned the typewriter and went up to the mirror at the opposite end of the chamber. She was thinking about her publicly released schedule, which she had filled with things that she knew her subjects would want her to do, but that she didn't see any reason in doing.
Take the first item for example, “Meeting with the weather coordinator”. She knew exactly how that conversation would play out. She'd ask him for a rainstorm and he'd reply that there simply wasn't enough water around to funnel up to the weather factory. She'd leave with nothing resolved whatsoever except for the illusion that she had accomplished something.
The same went for the last item on the schedule “Conference on the prospect of ice-mining.” She canceled that on behind the scenes because all the factions involved needed time to cool off, so to speak. The adventuring guild resented having to drag the scientists along, and the scientists complained that the adventurers kept bullying them. And to top it all off, there was an interest group called “Friends of the ice” that objected to the whole plan in order to protect the glaciers.
The tedium of meetings only increase with age, when you realize how in large part you say the same thing over and over again, and afterward everypony goes on to do what they were going to do anyway. She wasn't planning on being idle the whole day, tough. There was another conference in town that intrigued her, and in order to hear as many unbiased opinions as possible, she had decided to go incognito.
First she shrank down to the size of a normal Pony. It was a tricky magic, every many internal organs that had to be scaled just right or it'd be extremely painful, but she had centuries of experience. By contrast, changing the color of her mane and her coat was easy.
Most magic-users still used commercially available mane- and coat-dye, because magic dye had a somewhat dull tone to it, but mane-dye didn't work on Celestia's hair, even if she found a way to buy it without looking suspicious and her objective was to create a disguise, not give herself a stylish makeover.
With her size reduced and her hair dyed, she released a burst of magic that engulfed her completely in a green liquid smoke. Inside the protective cocoon of magic, her wings started to shrivel like dying leaves. She couldn't get rid off them completely, her magic allowed for radical transformation, but she was no changeling. The best she could do was reduce them to a pair of nondescript bumps the size of pegasus-wings. Nothing you couldn’t conceal with a saddle, tough.
The horn was a mite trickier. She couldn’t retract it, magic didn't have mass per se, but it still need to be “stored” in a vague sense of the word. Instead, she made the tip of it invisible and made it appear like a normal unicorn horn.
The invisibility spell wasn't perfect and left an unclear distortion above her head. It gave her sort of a stressed-out look, since the slight distortion around the horn was reminiscent of the magical sparks that can appear whenever a unicorn is over-tired or anxious.
The cutie mark was a problem, she had no power to change it, but she could simply conceal it. She chose the most frumpy skirt she could find, and as a final touch she let her long mane curl up into something resembling a clowns wig.
Looking back into her mirror was a neurotic engineering student, no different than a thousand other young ponies around Canterlots newly founded university. Her acting stunned even herself, the traits she could not conceal by magical means such as her narrow face and cat-like eyes was all but invisible underneath this neatly crafted persona. She would be willing to bet that not even her sister would recognize her, but she wasn't gonna risk it.
Celestia made her way trough the streets of Canterlot. She managed to blend in well, even tough some passer-byes seemed to wonder why this particular student trotted with such heavy steps and why she gazed at every display of famine as tough she felt personally responsible. The deperate way a pair of colts gathered the corn that fell of a wagon that passed her by and the unnaturally thin waistline of some of the ponies did not go unnoticed.
Normally the class difference in Canterlot was no big deal, it was kinda quaint to have a noble class and a working class, equally convinced that their way of life, be it sophisticated or folksy, made them instantly superior to the other, It amused her. In times like these however, it became painfully obvious who got to eat and who had to work.
Her natural humbleness served her well, it was a change of phase to be almost completely invisible, and to a degree it was quite liberating. The things that would be scandalous for her to do as a princess could only help to perfect her disguise. After the conference was done, she planned on finding the best bakery she could still visit without suspicion and buy a large, tasty cake...
“Watch it, ruffian!” a voice sounded from behind her. She noticed the vague outlines of a wagon and had about 3.14 seconds less to react than she needed. The wagon had to swerve and nearly tipped as it came to an all too sudden stop.
“Hey, I'm walking here!” Celestia exclaimed before she could stop herself. The draft horse looked at her with eyes that would've obliterated a weak engineering student of the kind Celestia was supposed to portrait.
“Missy, do you have any idea who you are talking to?” he growled to her.
“Somepony who ought to know the traffic rules,” Celestia snapped back with all the force of an ancient alicorn, and it ended up sounding painfully out of place coming from the body of a frumpy grease-pony.
“Could you please get moving, Pulley?” the voice from inside the wagon said. “I do have an appointment to keep.” The draft horse grunted and started to trot towards Celestia. When she refused to move, she simply pushed her aside and she fell onto the dirt and dust.
“You need to learn your place, missy!” he shouted to her as the wagon disappeared around a corner.
Celestia brushed herself off and tried to ignore the wall of eyes that was fixed on her from each side of the road. Once it became clear that she wasn't going to pick a fight with anypony else, the spectators got tired of gawking. Her wounded pride refused to heal easily, and she looked around for something to distract her mind with.
She listened to the rambling conversations between friends strolling down the street. She could only catch snippets, and her mind struggled to put all the pieces together into a coherent whole. One word kept popping up more often than it should: “revolution.”
She tasted the word in her mouth, and it repulsed her. She's heard it several times before, as regular as clockwork. Every time the country went through tough times , the poor and downtrodden ponies would shout about overthrowing the system, and so far the only thing it's ever accomplished was to create an even bigger mess for her to clean up.
She had been through droughts before, through floods and through fires, trough cold wars and trough actual wars. There was something cold about her dismissal of the fear she felt in the air, but there was nothing cruel about it. She would at least like to think she just saw a bigger picture than anypony else.
Celestia found herself staring for longer than she intended at an apple cart parked on the side of the road. The skin of the fruits had the shine that had been missing from Canterlot in the last few years.
There was nothing that required her to eat, but she had become quite addicted to flavours. There was something magical about how a few basic tastes, along with texture, temperature and aroma could combine into a unique experience.
The old mare who owned the car must’ve noticed the hungry but inscure look in Celestias eyes and she smiled reassuringly at her.
“See anything you like, dear?” she said to her.
“Uhm... yes actually...” Celestia said, trying to navigate trough the conversation. “I'd really like an apple, uhm, how much do they cost?”
“How much do you have?” she said and laughed. She stopped herself when Celestia responded with only silence and a blink.
“It was just a joke, dear,” the old mare said to her. “But I can't but a fixed prize on them. Some of the apples are better than others. Some of the ponies too.” She added the last part in a lower voice as she glared at a couple of young Modernist ponies that passed by, young ponies with their eyes outlined and their cutie marks concealed under cosmetics.
“I don’t have a problem with that style,” Celestia said to her. “I think it’s cute.” The old mare just snortled at this. “But five bits for the apples, is that enough?” The apple vendor suddenly got very wide eyes.
“Five bits!” she exclaimed. “Sweeite, wouldn't you rather use your money to buy a nice dinner for yourself?”
Celestia ended up paying two bits for the apple, and that was still too much. She couldn't see it, but behind her back, half a dozen street vendors looked towards her with looks like that of a bloodhound who had just caught a new scent.
The apple was just as delicious as she hoped, each bite released a moist explosion of sugar and esters that tickled her tounge. The slighty sour but pleasant taste of the apple distracted her from the fact that she had a trail of oppertunistic vendors talking her all the way to the university.
The lecture hall were slowly filling up with ponies. Celestia was relived to see many bright-eyed young ponies with faces mirroring her own disguise. The stage was taken up by a long draped table. The area in front of each space on the table was glowing faintly with magic and Celestia could recognize the unmisakeable shimmer of a sound amplification spell. The college still stuck to the tradition of using pure magic rather than magitek microphones, even tough amplification spells were notoriously unreliable.
The amplification worked on the level of thoughts rather than sound, and desynchronisation was inevitable during more rambling speeches. The amplification spell had been all but banned from political rallies due to its tendency to transmit what ponies mean rather than what they said.
The stage was more suited for theatrical performances than panel discussion. It was twice the size it needed to be and the pony in charge of the mise-en-scene had apparently decided to make the most out of it. Not only did it have four colourful banners reaching from floor to ceiling re resenting the earth ponies, the pegasi, the unicorns and finally the unity of all three, it also had the letters EqU, each carved in what appeared to be a block of marble the size of an alicorn and comically enlarged prop versions of an alchemy set, a chrystal ball, a crocodile skin and other assorted items you'd find in a magicians laboratory.
Celestia was early to the show, only one of the five professors attending was present: a black-maned unicorn engaged in a lively debate with a stage-hoof about the height of his pillow. She put herself in the kind of passive pre-meeting trance any royal was well familiar with. She reduced herself to an observer, took in the sense of the hall and its people without analyzing any of it. She let everything around her just happen until around fifteen minutes after the scheduled time, were finally all professors were in place and the debate could begin.
“Perhaps it might be useful to explain some of the difficulties the study of magitek faces,” a black-maned unicorn said from behind his beard and moon-shaped glasses. He had a sign in front of him with the name “liquorice Wand” written in thick gothic letters.
“Picture this, you have a large concrete wall and you want to paint a picture on the side of it that is so realistic that a pony could sprint towards it, thinking it is a real tunnel right to the point where their snout slams into the wall.
“Now imagine you do that, and then you hide in the bushes waiting for an unsuspecting victim to come along, a pegasus on a training run, let's say, and the pegasus fly right towards the tunnel... and then fly right trough it, as if the painting was real. Confused, you emerge from the bush and you study your mural.
“As you do so, you hear a whistle from the other side of the wall and a train comes out of your painted tunnel, crushing you instantly. Magitek is somewhat like that, you understand?”
A confused mumble emitted from the crowd.
“Well, neither do I,” said the unicorn. “And that's kind of the point. We know what magic can accomplish when it is performed by a fallible unicorn as opposed to a reliable machine and we know what machines can accomplish within the three dimensions, five fundamental forces and three laws of motion that make up the natural world as opposed to a hypothetical machine free of such restrictions.
Getting rid of either of these restrictions would be revolutionary on its own, but magitek offers us a way to do both, and that goes beyond revolutionary. Once magitek becomes reliable enough to integrate with ponies, we approach a point where it is literally impossible to predict what will happen beyond that. Even time-travel fails us, the few brave ponies who have tried have just gotten lost in a labyrinth of pararell universes and pararell sub-universes.”
“Y'know, Liquorice,” the unicorn next to him said. It was a gray and purple mare with the demeanour of somepony who may have looked a little too deep down a pint of cider or two before the debate. Her sign said Caramel Fudge, written in a way that made it look like the text was made out of one long continuous black rope.
“They say that a politican is somepone that can talk for hours without saying anything, and if that's the case, then you could probably become emperor of the universe at this point. What my colleague is trying to say is that we have no idea whatsoever if magitek will even work, but that won't stop the neckbeards from speculating, isn't that right, dr. Wand?”
Her smile was wide and nasty, but Liqourice Wand just growled to himself and said something, but it was muffled by his beard.
“My friend mr. Wand is right,” A honey-colored unicorn with a horn that was slightly crooked said. The sign in front of him spelled out “Agape” in a messy hoofwriting, each letter placed slightly above the next. “All elements of magitek ARE possible in isolation, it is just that, so far, nopony has put them all together in one device yet.”
“...and it's not for lack of trying,” said a brown earth pony, the only non-unicorn of the panelists, or indeed in the entire hall. The sign said simply “Mike” in letters indistinguishable from that of a typewriter. “The boys down at the lab have tried to make enhanced gears to work for months now, but even the tiniest differences in magic flux and the whole thing blows sky-high! Frankly, I think you need to send me some better unicorns, all I get are those zit-infested grad-students...”
“The grad students are not the problem,” Liqourice replied.
“Yes,” Caramel concurred. “It simply isn't possible for a unicorn to concentrate on that many gears at once, and we can't use several unicorns either, because each pony has a different magical frequency.”
“That's why we have to use clones!” a white and cyan unicorn said. His sign said “Salt Flats in a very geometrical font that seemed printed rather than written.
“It is a known fact that identical twins have the same magical frequency, all we need is an army of identical twins, at least...” He made a few calculations in the margins of the debate schedule. “twenty thousand of them.”
“And how do you propose we create twenty thousand identical ponies? That would require an enormous ammount of resourches, not to mention the fact that soul-splitting is ILLEGAL!”
“Hey, this is all hypothetical, right?” Salt Flats replied, leering across the table.
“Speaking of hypothetical arguments,” Vanilla Wand said from his corner. “Consider this, technology works by external forces, whatever you do it can never be part of you. But magic is an internal force.
“This is why every attempt to create true magitek have so far failed, but SHOULD we get it to work, the difference between the external natural forces and the internal force of magic would disappear, consider what consequences this will have for the Soul Theory, we could potentially be able to translate whatever force it is that holds our personality and consciousness into the mind of a machine.
“But, I know that prospect bothers some ponies,” he added and looked towards Caramel Fudge. She grinded her teeth and growled quietly at the glance. The amplification spell picked up on her toughts and broadcasted it as a word that wasn’t terribly. The moment went by too quickly for most ponies to notice, but a few stray giggles could be heard from those who did.
“That is not what bothers me,” Caramel Fudge said, her voice rising into a roar. “What if there IS a force that holds all our personality traits and memories, but not our consciousness. For the rest of the world it'd be like you were still there, but you, personally would be gone.” Caramel Fudge fell silent for a second and the air in the hall felt painfully charged.
“How to explain?” she said, a bit calmer. “There is this fungi that takes over the mind of an ant, and it changes its mind so that it climbs up a blade of grass to be devoured.
“Are you saying that magitek is some kind of mushroom?” Mike asked and scratched his scalp. “What kind of mushrooms are YOU on?”
“All I'm saying,” Caramel said, ”is that we shouldn't trust a force that by its very nature we can't understand...”
Celestia tried to listen, but the discussion turned to very tedious technical details and her notes morphed from messy but marginally useful scribbles into a sketch of her and Luna on the moon in a style that resembled that of a little child.
It was her sister who was the artist of the family, not her. She's seen Luna paint; the way she made hot red run like wildfire across the canvas before cooling it down with blue, then letting the two colors play with each other, like two siblings who could barely get along. And somewhere in this storm of hot and cool, bright and dark, of colors blending and clashing, an image appeared, each square inch with its own somber poetry to it.
As for Celestia, she drew a squiggle, gave it legs and a head and called it a pony. If she felt really fancy, she'd make one hoof slightly shorter than the rest to indicate perspective. Her stick-figure ponies lived in a two-dimensional world with buildings only twice the size of themselves and where everything more complex than ponies and houses had little helpful labels on them, indicating what they where supposed to represent.
Right now, the stick-ponies here all engaged in conflict, little cartoony skirmishes that took place on the streets and rooftops of her fictional village. Only her and Luna remained serene in their hiding place on top of a wobbly narrow moon.
A word jumped out to her in all the tedium, “immortality”. The prospect to live forever, with your soul in a machine (“Trapped” or “released” is a matter of opinion) was a hot topic in the debate.
The panelists all seemed at once fascinated and scared by this prospect, but nothing could match the invisible shiver that travelled trough Celestias spine. When she recovered, she noticed that she was alone in her row of seats.
“I'm glad some younger pony finds this sort of thing interesting....” an elderly professor remarked to her from a few rows behind.
Celestia looked around and noticed that the lecture hall were next to empty. All the bright young students were gone, except for her, leaving only a handful of grayed mares and stallions. By this point the conversation was mostly about esoteric theories and insider bickering, so Celestia saw no point in staying further as well. The professor looked slightly disappointed as she collected her pencil, ink and notebook and hurried towards the door.
It was as if the street vendors had been waiting for Celestia and they swarmed around her as soon as she exited the university. She ignored them expertly, however, even if a bit of her regal attitude shone through in how forcefully she dismissed them. As she made her way back towards the castle, she once again turned her ears towards the banter on the streets. A pair of revolutionaries where shouting from a street corner and Celestia observed them with a sly smile.
“Down with Celestia!” one of them shouted. “Let the ponies rule!” the other filled in.
In spite of herself, Celestia inched closer. One of the revolutionaries noticed her and trotted up to her, brandishing a pamphlet.
“Are you interested in the revolution, friend?” the pony said to her. Celestia was cornered and had no choice but to pick up the conversation.
“Uhm no... actually,” she said, stumbling on her words. “I was just wondering, when you bring down Celestia, what will happen then?” The revolutionary pony blinked a few times.
“What do you mean 'what will happen then?'” he asked. “A democratic rule-” Celestia interrupted him.
“Yes, but the princess isn't the only one with power around,” she explained. “Some of the noble families have more than enough resources for a private army. Enough to make them think they have a shot at the throne, should Celestias power be weakened.
“You could try to take her down, but all you would accomplish is giving some other, more powerful faction a chance to seize the power. So, tell me, which of the noble families would you most want to see as an usurper?”
While speaking, every trace of her dweeby college girl facade disappeared, she was still in her disguise, but the thousand year old flame in her eyes betrayed more than her spells could conceal. When she reached thee end, she had to quickly remind herself of her idenity.
The revolutionary pony didn't seem to notice this, he was too focused with trying to form a rebuttal in his head.
“Well,” he began. “I suppose she may be necessary for the balance of power at the moment, but we still do not like her or the way she rules!”
“You don't have to,” Celestia said coldly and left.
The journey back to the palace would otherwise be a straightforward one, but Celestia really wanted to avoid the revolutionaries after this, and it sent her slightly off course and she found herself looking down into dark alley she hadn't noticed before.
“Dark alley” is a bit of an exagurration, since Canterlot was still a shining city, at least the upper part of it was, but this alley was clearly painted with the invisible tar of poverty and decay.
She felt eyes upon her, and even tough she couldn’t see anypony, she could sense something in the air. It felt like the sort of deep tone that only the largest pipe organ can take that only the most sharp-eared pony can actually hear, but which affects you regardless. Celestia turned around to leave and...
“BOH!”
She darted into the alley, not thinking about the direction. She bumped straight into a stallion that looked like the worst part of the city had taken the form of a pony. He was joined by another stallion, who appeared grinning behind her.
“I got to admit,” he said. “I didn't think that would ever work.”
“You need to have faith, my friend,” said the other pony to him, then turned towards Celestia.
“We happened to notice that you where carrying around an unnecessary load of cash, and that's really bad for your posture, y'know?” he said, still using the same insincere tone as before. “I promise you, your back will thank you once we lighten your bit bag a bit.. .or a lot....”
“Like hay I will!” Celestia yelled, putting herself in a battle-ready position.
“Suit yourself,” the pony said. He gave a signal to the other and they both charged towards her.
Celestias eyes was glowing slightly, and the veins across her body popped up one after another until she was covered with a spider-web of bulges and grooves. Then it was like her entire body exploded back to her normal size, every organ, bone and nerve rushed to their rightful place.
The shriveled wings perked up as the skeletal structure underneath regenerated itself and the feathers unravelled all at once with a raspy sound that sounded like a weapon. The two robbers froze in their tracks, even before she revealed her horn, there was no mistaking who she was
Foals! Is this the way to treat a princess? Or anypony for that matter!” Celestias voice boomed. She was’t used to using the Royal Canterlot Voice, and if her sister had heard here, she’dve grimached at how badly it sounded. But next to nopony had ever heard it in at least a hundred years, and to untrained ears, even a bad facismile commanded respect.
“w-w—wer didn't know”, the two robbers stuttered, nearly in unison.
“That’s no excuse!” the princess continuied. “What would your mothers think if she knew you where assaulting random ponies? Have you even talked to your mothers, lately?”
“Uhm... no?”
“Then go talk to your mothers!” she demanded. “I’m sure they have some well-chosen words they’d like to say to you...”
“Yes princess!” the two ponies exclaimed and disappeared out of the alley. Celestia trotted the rest of the way to the castle in her true form, entirely unmolested.
Ampersand greeted her outside the palace door. She replied politely, but her greeting had an unusually heavy undertone that the eldery unicorn picked up on. He smiled at her reassuringly.
“Don't feel bad,” he said. “Everypony needs a day off now and then, especially in times like this. Don't worry, we will overcome the drought, we just need time.”
“I suppose so,” Celestia said and trotted past him. Ampersand turned around and sprinted alongside her.
“By the way princess,” he said. “Your magazines have arrived, I put them on the table outside your chamber.”
“Thank you, Ampersand,” she said, and her voice still sounded slightly hollow.
“To be honest, I was surprised to see your choice of reading material, princess... your majesty,” Ampersand said. “I didn't know you had an interest in this whole 'magitek' fad. Really, I don't understand what the big deal is, enhancing technology Is hardly a new thing.”
Celestia stopped in the middle of the corridor and turned around to face the old blue unicorn.
“I'll try to explain to the best of my understanding,” she said. “Some ponies call any magically enhanced technology “Magitek”, but it's the wrong use of the word. True magitek isn't just a magically enhanced machine, but a machine that can cast its own spells, to put it in blunt terms.”
The princess could pinpoint the exact moment where the full extent of this idea hit Ampersand like a horseshoe to the face.
“Wait, did you just say what I think you said?” he said. “And ponies are actually trying to make this?”
“Yes.”
“But, if, and it's a pretty big 'if', they succeed, what will happen?”
“I don't know,” Celestia said. “And that is what bothers me. When you've lived as long as I have done, you start noticing patterns most ponies fail to notice. So, whenever there's a new idea that captures ponies imagination, I can usually predict what will come from it before it's even caught on.
“But this... is different, If the full extent of this is realized, everything we know about magic will stop applying.”
Celestia fell silent and Ampersand didn't know what to respond to this. The silence echoed across the corridor, just long enough to be unbearable.
“But I suppose you're right,” she said. “We just need time. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a letter to finish.” The unicorn looked confused.
“The letter?” he said. “I have already sent it away.” Celestia raised an eyebrow.
“I’m sorry where you not done with that one?” Amperand asked.
“It was a little rough around the edges, but nevermind. I have one final task I need to accomplish, may I speak with Shining Armor?”
“I’ll patch him in on the Wireless, wait just a minute.” Ampersand went to a room at the end of the corridor and Celestia could hear the buzz of magic sparks coming from a loudspeaker. Once the static stopped, he returned.
“There you go,” he said. “He’s on the line.”
The Wireless was to Canterlot what the optical telegraph was to Equestria. A way to send information quickly trough a few important nodes. It worked by creating a wave in the field of background magic that could then be translated into sound by a loudspeaker.
It was clunky, hard to tune and only worked short distances, but Celestia remembered reading that over at the university they had discovered a new kind of wave they had chosen to call “radio waves”, and those was much more reliable and could broadcast things over longer distances.
The Wireless was just barely a year old, the optical telegraph barely three, but already they where becoming obsolete.
“Hello? hello?” Shining armors voice pleaded on the other end of the line, each word punctuated by a burst of static.
“I’m here, Shining.” Celestia said. “Have you done what I asked you to, yet?”
a sharp puff of noise from the other end, Shining was having trouble with the microphone.
“I can’t say I’m terribly fond of the idea, but yes. I’ve selected a group of ponies to monitor the most important magic frequencies, but since you never officially ordered me to do it, I’ll cease all surveillance the moment you use it for anything other than matters of security.”
“Celestia chuckled. “and if I should make it an order?”
“then you’d make it to some other captain of the royal guards.” he said and even the distorting power of the loudspeakers couldn’t mask the steely tone in his voice.
“I’m glad I wasn’t gonna make it an order then” Celestia said goodnaturedly. “Hiring a new captain would be such a pain, I’d have to find somepony as qualified for the job as you, and I’m not convinced there are another pony in Canterlot -or Equestria for that matter- that could match your talents.”
“Please Celestia,” Shining armour said. “Tell me you didn’t call me away just to flatter me?”
“No, I had another matter I wanted to deal with, I trust you had that special line I requested put up?”
“The one to the hotel? Yes, but I honestly don’t-”
“Could you patch me over to it? I assure that this is either very important or highly irrelevant, but I’m not sure which yet.”
There was another burst of static on the line, sounding suspiciously like a sigh.Then a harsh metallic noise that slowly rose until it resembled nothing but a series of clicks. The clicks joined together into a short square-wave tone that dissolved back into static.
As the static faded out, she could her Octavia’s voice, somewhat muffled, talking into what sounded like another speakerphone.
“Does the word ‘Cellist’ mean anything to you?” she asked to somepony Celestia could jsut barely hear.
“Well, in case you didn’t know,” Octavia continued. “It means that I play the Luna-cursed CELLO, do I have to break one over your head before you get it into your skull?”
The voice rasped out a sentence.
“Why yes, I CAN play the violin,” she informed him. “In much the same way as I can play blindfolded. I am able to do it, but I am a musician, not a circus act and... no, that was NOT an invitation to do the concert blindfolded, I don’t care how ‘cool’ that would be... Oh, Celestia ,when I’m done with this bucking contract, I will shove this violin SO FAR up your-”
Celestia took the opportunity to switch back to Shining.
“Well, I hope THAT was informative,” he said with sarcasm that no amount of static could mask.
“Informative? Maybe. Entertaining? Definitely.” Celestia said. “I pity the event organizers tough.”
“Yes, should we tell her that you where the one requesting the violin?”
“Let’s not, at least not until she’s... ahem... calmed down somewhat.”
“Will you ever tell me WHY spying on Octavia is so important?” Shining asked.
“Probably not.” Celestia said. “Besides, I’m old, aren’t I entitled to a little eccentricity?”
there where silence on the other end or a moment.
“Some ponies thought you where eccentric enough when you decided to take my little sister under your wings. He said.
“So I supposed I’ve learned to trust your instincts. I’ll teach Ampersand how to access that line so you won’t have to call on me every time you wish to be eccentric, tough.”
