Esquestria: The House of the Sun - A pony cultist experience

Starry Dancer doesn't seem to be the kind of mare that likes being subtle. You have been tempted to believe that she doesn't even know how to be subtle to begin with, but she has been hanging on to her position as Mayor Mare's assistant without any problems, so you discarded that thought some time ago.

Unless… she has been so honest and earnest about actually doing her town-hall related tasks that she really believes her job is being the Mayor's assistant. That is highly possible, now that you think about it, and that reversal of roles between "means" and "ends" seems to suit the mare down to a "t".

Well, regardless of Starry being capable of any sort of subtlety or not, you have decided to answer her in kind, and not be roundabout in your intentions. Starry Dancer has been clearly affected by what you saw in Princess Luna's dreams and you are worried about her, so you will check on her to see if everything is all right.

You don a dress which you believe will be sufficiently good at not drawing attention, and you head out of your room towards the stair.

When you hear a somewhat heated exchange coming from the main hall.

"Miss, for the last time," you hear Ponpon, her usually calm voice very much not calm right now, talking to somepony else, "I cannot let you in unannounced like that. And we have walls for a reason, so please fly your way out of the front door and wait by the gate!"

She seems to be… discussing with someone by the door?

"But I got a letter from her, she told me she would meet me in a few minutes!"

You also recognize that second voice, and you rush your way down the long staircase to get a better look at what is happening.

"Then where is that letter?" Ponpon answers, the annoyance in her voice making it clear that she has repeated this question at least five times.

"I told you, I forgot it and-"

"Starry Dancer? Is that you?" you finally arrive at the main hall, and you can see the pink hoofs of somepony who is almost trying to force their way in, while Ponpon struggles to keep the door shut.

"Velvet!" the pony in question, who you can see is definitely Starry Dancer, lets out a happy yelp. Coupled with that, the last push she did, probably motivated by her surprise, caused Ponpon to give in on holding the door, and the pink pegasus nearly barged through it as it was suddenly opened, falling face first on the floor right after.

"Ma'am, do you know this…?" Ponpon looks at you quizzically, and then at the pink pegasus on the ground.

"Velvet! I got your letter!" but the mare jumps back up with a flap of her wings before your maid can even finish her sentence. "Did I get here too soon? I was worried I'd miss the hour like last time, so I made sure to get here extra soon!"

You nod to Ponpon, and wave a hoof at her to indicate that you would take it from here. Ponpon, for her part, merely shoots another strange look at the pegasus, and makes her way out of the hall while shaking her head.

"So, what do you wanna talk about?" she asks.

To which you answer by almost biting your lips, but years of etiquette stop you at the last moment. Instead, you merely give her a… smile, which you hope doesn't look as uncomfortable as you actually feel.

"Starry… well, you are here then," you quickly regroup your wits, "but did you even read the letter I sent you?"

"I did, of course."

"And didn't I say I would meet you at the Town Hall, and for you to just make yourself free this afternoon, if possible?"

The mare nods, causing you to forcibly suppress a facehoof.

"And… whatever did you tell Mayor Mare you would be doing this afternoon then, since you are here?"

"Oh, I just told her your letter was asking me to sort something out relating to the earth pony farmers."

Well then, she is at least capable of telling a lie… of sorts. "Of sorts" because you really have been sending some reports to the Town Hall, to have them signed by Starry, but nothing really time consuming.

And at least her visit here "at your behest" will help with the whole narrative that you made up for Mayor Mare…

"Well then… why don't you follow me then?" you look around, seeing the empty main hall, but knowing just how far your voice can reach from here, "why don't we go talk somewhere more private?"

It takes you a few moments to realize what had happened, in the end. But when you think about it in absolute facts, Starry Dancer literally landed on your estate's garden, completely ignoring the common courtesy that pegasi have of using doors and respecting walls, and now…

Well, now she is sitting next to you at your balcony, looking down at your farmlands, after having effectively barged into your house without any previous warning.

Maybe that is her charm after all, her ability to squeeze herself into other ponies' lives like that. Maybe that is the Heart in her.

But as Ponpon leaves the two of you, with a recently laid out set of tea in the small table, you are finally alone with Starry Dancer. Now you can finally lay down some issues that have been bothering you.

"So, Starry," you start, clopping your hoofs together. Indirect approaches definitely don't seem to work on the mare, so maybe…? "How have you been?"

She tilts her head towards you, going for her own cup of tea. You notice idly that she is not picking it with her wings, as you have seen Soft Sweeps do.

You also notice that she very poorly suppresses a grimace as she takes a sip, right before quickly putting her teacup back on the saucer. You eye the bowl of sugar cubes that are right next to her, and wonder if she knows that they aren't there for show.

"I'm fine," she says, still struggling with her grimace, "why do you ask?"

You look at her face while she answers, and you can see that she is… not exactly lying, but she is not telling the truth either. You don't see the smile that you think would usually accompany her words, you don't see the gleam in her eyes that should be there.

But maybe you are facing this whole situation from the wrong perspective, you are still trying to read too much into her.

"Fine fine? Or just fine?" you ask, trying to tone down on your words. Less casting of wide nets, less double purposes. More meaning.

"Just fine…" the mare says, reclining against her cushioned seat.

Ah, there it is. You were starting to think that what you were seeing were the signs that Starry Dancer was lying to herself, some disturbance borne from the attempt of keeping up a false bravado of optimism. Maybe even one that she might have been fostering ever since the end of your last reunion, after the talk the three of you had with her.

But no. It was nothing complicated, and it was nothing even as simple as that. Starry Dancer, you think you finally understand, is a mare who wears her feelings on her sleeves. You definitely won't pity her for that, neither will you look down on her for it, but you surely don't envy her either.

However, you think as you float some sugar cubes into her cup of tea, this doesn't mean that you will simply let her fend for herself after all.

She sees the teacup, now properly sweetened, float towards her with a surprised expression, and you let out a sigh as she seems to realize that the solution to that particular problem was in fact quite simple.

"Why just fine then?" you ask, sipping from your own tea, "that sounds like having a lot going on in your mind."

She seems to ponder for a few moments, but not in a way that she is picking her words. Starry Dancer seems to be thinking more like she is trying to remember everything that is going on in her mind, so as to be able to list them.

Definitely the extreme of straightforward, you think. She doesn't have the mind of a filly, she is a grown and mature mare all right, and she isn't exactly innocent either. But you can tell that she… well, that she has that particular trait for living her life.

"Well, I have no idea why I have been picked for the Inner Circle, for starters," she starts talking, looking towards the horizon without really focusing on it, "everypony else seems so competent. I mean, I would never have gotten half as close to the mayor if it wasn't for you."

You nod at that, although you hope she knows that it is more in an encouraging way than in some sort of presumptuous agreement. But after a few moments you realize she doesn't have anything else to add for now.

"You are being quite competent in keeping your position, though. Mayor Mare doesn't strike me as a pony who would trust just anypony with helping her, and yet here you are," you see her smile a bit at that, maybe in a somewhat shy manner.

"Maybe… but there's all the other things as well and…" she stops for a moment, but not to sip from her tea, "I mean, the things we saw… well, I'm terrified, to be honest. I'm scared that I'm not even having nightmares about it, because I feel that I should, but I'm also scared that having nightmares about it would mean that one of those things managed to…" she doesn't finish the sentence, instead pointing a hoof towards her head, waving it in a wiggly motion of sorts.

And that is more than enough for you to understand what she means.

"And I'm scared of what might come next, on how we might even begin to…" she stops again, this time for a little while.

But you can see that something is still on her mind, so you make sure not to interrupt her thoughts. She sits there quietly for a few more moments before taking a deep breath and asking.

"Say, how was the first time you met the Master?" she asks out of the blue.

You wonder where that came from, but you think you can see where her thoughts took her, so you answer her honestly.

"It was during a cult meeting, the very first one I ever attended, in fact," you try remembering the details about it, but as usual the thing that you now know to be the Woods makes your memories a little bit fuzzy, "I just heard their voice, of course, but I can't really say much about that night apart from that."

She nods at that, and you calmly wait for the answer that you know will soon come.

"Mine was in the Woods, way back when Copper first introduced me into it," she starts talking after what must have been a full minute, "introduced me into the cult, that is, although I still have no idea how I made it past the crossroads by myself…"

She seems to be reminiscing.

You let her.

"But I was lost in the Woods, having arrived there after who knows how many tries… My mane got a lot shorter, mind you. But there I was, wandering, when… well, when a puppet appears in front of me."

"A puppet?" you raise an eyebrow. That was surely not what you were expecting.

"Yes, a pony-sized puppet made of wood, strings attached to it and all," she laughs, both at your reaction and at the memory, "and it started to dance."

"It… started dancing?" you repeat, slightly incredulous.

"Yes. And I don't know if it was the Woods, or if it was because I was on that sleepy-mindlessness, or if it was just on a spur, but I started imitating its dance, and well…" she starts stepping her hoofs against the wooden table, lightly, in a rhythm that seems strangely familiar to you.

But she is not even looking at her hoofs while she does that, to the point where you wonder if she is even doing it consciously.

"I talk to the Master a lot," she continues, her eyes still locked in her memories instead of anywhere physical. "There's this place right outside the Woods where there's this… big temple of sorts, and I always feel better when I wake up, if I visit that place. But sometimes when I go there, I find the Master looking at it from the shadows, and we talk a lot whenever we meet there, about all sorts of things… I always wake up feeling better after…"

She stops talking, but you honestly wish she hadn't. You trust her enough to believe that she is telling you the truth, but it still feels like she is talking about a completely different entity from the one you know, with all this story about puppets and… and talking.

"What I mean is, I know how everypony seems to think that the Master is somewhat spooky, I hear it from the other members after some of the cult meetings. But I really think his intentions are in the right place, and… well, I'm worried that he seems to be worried," she fumbles a bit with her words, as if unsure of how to express herself, "I'm worried that maybe he was also affected by what we saw, or that he also feels bad about the… aftermath of it, in Canterlot… and I haven't found him in the Woods, not ever since our last meeting."

You nod, slowly, part of your mind wanting to go full throttle with everything you just heard from her, as there is a lot of things that you wish you could ask her to be a little more specific about. But you wrestle that part of your mind back down, knowing that your current, and rather simplistic, mindset is required for what you will try to convey next.

"Well Starry, I really had no idea about that, and I'll admit I also sometimes think the Master is… strange. But I hope that he isn't the only one you trust in the cult," you say, struggling for a few moments with the word "one", since the term "pony" tried to jut itself through you lips a few times.

"Of course I trust the rest of you, its just that…"

"And that's what I mean," you cut her off in the middle of her hesitation, "that's what we meant when we told you we are all in this together. I realize that the Master seems a bit… off right now, but we can't just walk in circles while panicking because of it."

She seems to cringe a bit at that. Good, at least she understands that that's exactly what you think she is doing, although you hope you are not being too harsh to her.

"I say you can trust us in the sense that you can fall back to us if anything comes up," you eye her mane inquisitively, seeing several badly cut parts of it that corroborate to your suspicions, "just how often have you been going to that place in the Woods looking for the Master anyways?"

She cringes even more, slightly curling herself in her cushion, and trying to hide part of her mane with a hoof.

"A few…"

You sigh at that, but you mellow down your tone a little bit.

You are indeed being too harsh with her. She did say she was terrified of what she saw in the Princess' dreams, after all, so it was you who should have realized that she really meant it when she used that word.

"Here Starry," you say, floating her empty teacup from her hoofs and filling it again, "I know the Master probably has a better idea of what to do then us, but that doesn't mean we can't help you with the little things."

You make a point of putting the sugar cubes while you talk, and slowly stirring her teacup while at it.

"So you don't need to rely on him for every small thing, or you will just feel lost the day he is not there waiting in the shadows of the Woods," you then float the teacup towards her, which she meekly accepts again, "but hey, we are much easier to find then the Master, don't you think? So try relying on us more often," you finish with a smile.

Starry Dancer looks at the teacup for a few more moments, then at you and your smile, and her fearful expression slowly, slowly, turns into something less scared, and more Starry Dancer-y. Even if only slightly.

And you give yourself a satisfied nod at that. It might not have been exactly what you were hoping for, but you believe this will be as much encouragement you will be able to give the mare today.

"So you mean to tell me that you met the Master for the first time with him giving you a puppet show?" you ask suddenly, causing her to stifle a laughter.

And then she starts telling you about it in more details.

You watch her fly away, a pink dot heading towards the buildings of Ponyville. She did not have the common courtesy of letting you take her to the door, of course, she basically said her goodbyes and jutted upwards with her wings.

Honestly, even Silky knows that's bad manners…

But regardless, you mull over a few things that she talked to you about.

You can see that Starry Dancer left better than she arrived, that's for sure, and from her somewhat relaxed demeanor after your chat you think that she will get over the whole Ritual experience soon enough.

But the parts of the conversation where she talked about the Master… those made little sense to you, and you are not sure how you feel about it.

However, you will have to think about it later. This whole visit took a lot more of your time than you expected, and you would very much like to get your other errands done before your daughter arrives home from school.

[The rhythm of the dancer, breakpoints 30/60/90/120]

[Roll: 49 + 11 (Diplomacy) + 5 (GRAIL bonus) = 65]

Starry Dancer is now feeling better about the Ritual, and understands that the members of the Inner Circle will be there for her if needed, or at least that you will for sure.