Chapter Twenty - Conversations in the Night

All too soon, there came a fairly insistent knock on the cabin door.

Luna and I stepped away from each other and with a couple of well-practiced spells, we groomed ourselves. I shrugged into my coat and dropped the disguise amulet over my head.

"Come in!"

Rarity entered and bowed to Luna. "Your Majesty!"

Luna bowed to Rarity. "Your Majesty!"

"No, you!" Rarity replied, and then they both giggled like school fillies. I tried (and failed) to stop myself from grinning; such behavior shouldn't be encouraged.

Rarity turned to me. "Darling, I've got everything well in hoof for the dinner! If you will allow me…?"

I doubt I could have stopped her. "Of course."

Her horn lit and a veritable parade of cushions, cutlery, candles, and platinum plate streamed into the cabin, all of it landing in precise patterns on a very expensive-looking, golden-brown tablecloth.

I lifted the edge of the cloth and peered at it. "Rarity, is this vicuña? I didn't know we had a vicuña tablecloth."

"Well, it's not for everyday use!"

I didn't directly comment on the foolishness of a soft, fluffy tablecloth. As a sacrifice of utility for the sake of a display of wealth, I'd seen far worse. "What's next? Ivory knife rests?"

She pointed her hoof at an ivory knife rest. "The elephants are much easier to negotiate with than the vicuñas, believe me!"

"We used to have a candelabra made from griffin claws," Luna said.

"Oh?" Rarity glanced up from her arrangements. "I didn't know griffins shed their claws."

"They don't," Luna replied. "That was during the First Griffin War when sensibilities were less refined, and there was a ready supply."

Rarity frowned. "You mean you—"

Luna shrugged. "Back then, the Griffins made a habit of eating 'lesser races,' and pony meat was a particular favorite among them, so we thought it only fair."

Rarity considered it, also shrugged, and floated in a set of beautifully calligraphed place cards. "Isn't it nice that we've all become a little more civilized?"

"I really liked that candelabra," Luna said wistfully.

"I used to enjoy fancy meals," I muttered under my breath.

"What was that, dear?"

"Oh, just wondering what the appetizer is going to be."

"You'll know soon enough! Now, why don't you go dress for dinner while I finish up here. I suggest that lovely green blouse. You know, the silk one with the ruffles at the neck and chest? It matches your current eye color quite well."

Luna and I couldn't both stand in my little sleeping cabin at the same time, so she waited outside while I went through my locker to find the outfit Rarity had recommended. "You know I'm just hanging on by a thread here, right?" I said to her as I shook out the clothing and swept a cleaning and de-wrinkling spell over it.

She reached in and pressed her muzzle against my cheek for a kiss. "You have a way of fiercely concentrating on the task at hoof that means you are struggling to avoid thinking of something else. I know it all too well, my love."

"Just so you know. After dinner I will need to rant and scream and probably break down for a little while."

"I will be there for comfort and counsel, my dearest. I have selected a secluded place where we will have no fear of interruption."

"I love you so much," I said softly.

She kissed my cheek again.

I told her I wanted to go in to dinner first, so that I could be the one to introduce Wepaten Seti to her, and she readily agreed.

"I'm going to put out the lamps here, so that you can shadow-walk into the cabin. Put on a good show for the jackal officer, okay?"

"If you think that best."

Spike came and told us that dinner was ready to be served.

I strode through the companionway door to find everyone else at their places, and was careful to leave the door dogged open behind me.

I greeted the others and made sure they had all been introduced, and then turned to the doorway. The darkness of the companionway flowed out into the cabin, swirling and coalescing into Luna's regal and imposing form. "Your Divine Highness, may I present to you Commander Wepaten of the Empire of the High Song."

Wepaten bowed very low. His tail curled downward as if he really wanted to tuck it between his legs.

"We are delighted to make your acquaintance, Commander," Luna said. "We knew many Anubians in the old times, and are gratified to learn that your race has not vanished from the world."

"It is my utmost pleasure, Your Highness," he replied. "You are legendary[1] among my people."

[1] A good choice of words, there. By "legendary," he could have meant either "well-renowned" or "considered fictional." Diplomacy often relies on deliberate vagaries like that.

As a living goddess slightly outranked an airship captain of dubious quality, Luna sat at the head of the table, while I took my seat at the foot with the riff-raff. That suited me fine, because diplomacy was not Captain Blackmane's strong suit, as I had proven time and time again. Ao, Zashira, and I replied when we were spoken to, and otherwise we kept our mouths shut and observed.

The meal was excellent, and there were no surprises. Ralf had given up some of his ration stores to provide the Seti with a couple of meat courses. The conversation, on the other hoof, was full of surprises. As awed as he had been by her on introduction, by the time dessert was served, Wepaten was laughing and joking with Luna in a relaxed and companionable way. They were telling each other war stories.

"...and when the hawk captain asked if there were jackals in the ravine, his scout replied, 'I don't know, but there are arrows down there,' and fell dead with two in his back!"

Luna roared with laughter and pounded the table with her forehooves. Rarity demurely covered her mouth with a silk napkin and gave a lady-like titter. I have to admit that the rest of us laughed, too. I guess sudden death is funny if it involves a good punchline.

When I judged that Wepaten had been lubricated with a sufficient amount of metheglin and comradery, I brought up the subject of the wind chart.

"Ah yes," he said. "Great secrets openly hanging on your bulkhead. Wepaten regrets that he did not know before now what a fascinating and capable race you ponies are."

"What makes a simple wind chart so important?" I asked.

Wepaten moved glasses and cutlery around the table to form an improvised map. "Klugetown is here, and around it, dozens of leagues of open desert. No way to approach or leave without being seen. No way to avoid pursuit or capture by a faster vessel, you see?"

I nodded my understanding. "I imagine that many pirate ships haunt the sahel,[2] waiting for a rich prize to take."

[2] The edge of the desert. Literally, "shore" in Saddle Arabic.

Wepaten nodded. "No secret route for merchants or smugglers—except one." He plunked down a saucer to his left. "Conundrum is here." He placed a knife, handle touching the saucer and blade pointing at the tumbler that represented Klugetown. "The Katabatic Reef. Everyone knows it is there; a canyon more than deep enough to hide a craft such as Nebula, but also a maze of violent, shifting winds that can tear an airship from the sky and smash it against the towering rocks of the badlands without warning. It is useless, except as a curiosity."

"Unless someone has a chart that lets them avoid the worst of the winds," I said.

"Precisely! With that map—"

I floated it in from the chart room and placed it before him on the table.

"Ah, yes. You see? Here is Conundrum and the High Song." He pointed at a cluster of beads. "Here is Klugetown at this side." He traced a winding path from one side of the chart to the other. "Invaluable to certain people… Or at least it was, before the Storm King came. Now, there are no more pirates, smugglers, or merchants that do not belong to him." He sounded distinctly regretful about the local lack of extra-legal commerce for some reason.

Luna spoke up. "I imagine the Stormguard ships keep close watch on all the air routes?"

Wepaten looked like he was going to spit. "Not a sparrow could get by them! No cargo passes without heavy bribes or the surrendering of a large portion to their monstrous king! Each ship is searched or sunk at their whim. Wrecks surround Klugetown like barrows."

Luna leaned close to him and spoke in a low, conspiratorial voice. "You do know that Captain Blackmane has taken a vow to put an end to the Storm King, do you not?"

He nodded and flicked an uneasy glance in my direction. "Wepaten fully believes she is capable of doing so."

"That is wise," Luna said, and turned to me. "Captain, would you find full knowledge of how to read this chart useful? Perhaps you could settle the matter quietly and discreetly if you could come upon the Storm King unexpectedly?"

It was like she had read my mind. "Yes. In fact I would prefer that approach, Your Highness."

Luna leaned back on her cushion and smiled. "Well then, Captain, Commander, it seems you two have a mutual interest here."

Wepaten's hopeful expression held for a moment and then faded away and he absently spun the knife on the table. "There are many of the High Song who fear Equestria. We have held our independence for a long time, and refused to yield to the Storm King even when the rest of the south had fallen to him."

Luna placed a gentle hoof over his paw. "I give you my oath that Equestria will honor the High Song's sovereignty for as long as the moon graces our skies."

"Wepaten believes you, Your Highness. But many jackals will not. We have watched ponies move south and displace the buffalo tribes. Then into the north as far as the kingdom of the yaks. Even into lands we were unaware of to the west. Ambassador Silver Mask has explained much of the reasons for that to us and if Wepaten could speak for all jackals…" He grimaced and shook his head. He looked down at the tabletop and his voice was nearly inaudible when he said, "Atenar Sidi is old and fearful."

"Atenar Sidi is not here," Luna said, and though her voice was low and soft, there was steel in it. "The future of your empire may hinge upon this matter, and now is not the time for timidity."

I could see the muscles in Wepaten's cheeks jump as he clenched his teeth. Nobody said anything for a long moment while he thought about the matter. "Yes," he finally said. "Yes, you are right, Highness. I will aid Captain Blackmane in this, but her alone. Both you and the ambassador have convinced me that the nations you represent may be great allies to the High Song, but the Captain has already made an agreement with my Empire, and she has demonstrated a—bizarrely fervent devotion to the letter of that agreement. Atenar Sidi has signed the document that outlines our alliance and I am only aiding an ally by revealing the secrets of this chart in accordance with our mutual understanding."[3] He gestured to the map on the table.

[3] I do so love a well-reasoned rationalization.

Luna smiled and stood, and the rest of us followed. "That is a decision that pleases us well, Commander! We will give you leave and privacy to consult with the captain. We hope to meet with you again soon. Perhaps you will introduce your sidi to me[4] someday?"

"It would be my honor, Princess."

[4] This may be a trivial note, but I feel I should point out that, by this particular phrasing, Luna was making it clear that she considered herself superior to the ruler of the High Song. Monarchs are not introduced, they are announced. Everypony is assumed to know exactly who they are prior to any meeting. Ponies of lesser rank are introduced to the monarch. The fact that Luna left the cabin in a magnificent swirl of star-scattered darkness only served to reinforce the presumption of her status in the world. I love her to death, but she is an extremely prideful mare. More than reasonably, of course, in my impartial and dispassionate opinion.

When everyone else had left the cabin, I went to the speaking tube, removed the whistle, and pushed the privacy stopper into place. Then I sat down next to Wepaten.

He lifted a paw over the chart and hesitated. "Is it true? Does she alone really move the moon in the sky?"

"Yes," I said. "It is a more complex matter than is usually understood, but that is essentially true. That mare you just had dinner with makes the moon rise."

He nodded. "Wepaten's people understand the great cycles of the world's magic and are able to draw upon it to our benefit in some slight ways. That the firmament also involves such magic is known to us, and our histories say that our people once wielded that power. But that a single being can command it is astounding."

Well, well, well. If his tone of voice was anything to go by, it seemed my Luna had made a conquest. I shrugged. "It's a matter of affinity and subtle influence in addition to raw strength, but Luna is an astounding pony in many ways."

"She is, indeed." He paused for a moment, giving me a long, evaluating look, and then moved his attention back to the woven wind map. "If this is followed according to the common understanding of such charts, disaster will be the result. The route has been set down, not only in this archaic form, but with some features inverted from their traditional meanings."

For the next half hour, he explained to me how to read the map, how it had been (for lack of a better phrase) booby-trapped, and went over the route in detail several times.

The knowledge of how to pop up in Klugetown before anyone realized I was coming was incredibly useful, but there was still the matter of exactly how to deal with the remnants of the Stormguard fleet.

After seeing the Commander to his cabin, I returned to my own to find the lamps extinguished and Luna there in the darkness.

"Waiting to ambush me, you fiendish mare?"

"Fiendish? Perhaps." She stepped forward and encircled me with her wings, and we swirled away through the night. When she spread her wings, we were high on a hill overlooking the ocean. "Speak to me my love. Weep or rage or trample the ground as you like. I am here for thee."

I leaned against her chest, enjoying the solid warmth of her. "Funny, but I don't feel much like histrionics at the moment. Is it okay if I just talk?"

Luna put a foreleg around my shoulder and kissed my neck.

"I nearly killed thousands of innocents… I could have been responsible for the extinction of an ancient race and culture, all because it would have been convenient for me to get rid of the Storm King without risk. I… Even if I had succeeded… It was all coldly calculated and correct, but then I saw the yeti aeronauts, dead in their ship… They had no chance to fight or run or surrender." I shuddered against her and she tightened her grip, rubbing her muzzle against my cheek. "I feel like a coward, Luna!"

"Ah, wouldst thou have stood beneath the Storm King's flagship and called for single combat, then?"

I sniffed and then actually laughed. "Oh, probably not. A couple of ponies have mentioned lately that they've noticed I'm not an idiot."

"Yet does the villain who struck at the heart of Celestia's realm deserve mercy?"

"From everything I know about him? No, it sounds like everyone would like him better with a spear through his face. At least Tempest worked for him for an understandable reason. The Storm King just wants power for its own sake."

"Our power, it seems," Luna said.

I nodded. "Yes, and it doesn't look like he's going to give up on trying to get it. If he captures…" I trailed off, staring at the night sky.

"Twilight?"

"That might just work," I said, mostly to myself.

"My love?"

I looked up at Luna and said, "Okay, this is not a hasty decision! I just want that on the record."

Luna gave me that look.

"Oh, it's one of Cady's prophetic things. Completely unhelpful! 'Don't make a decision in haste or dooooooom!'"

Luna grinned. "Ah, yes! The foretelling. I know well that such displeases you. 'Tis why I did not mention my own."

"Yeah, thanks for that… Wait. What?! You had a vision about me?"

"Oh… Ah… Well, a dream of sorts, nothing more!"

I stared at her. She fidgeted. "Luna, you have to tell me now that you've brought it up. Is it horrible?"

"Nay, quite the opposite! I'sooth, I think it may have already been fulfilled. 'Tis of no import."

I turned to face her directly and squared my shoulders. "Okay, either you tell me the prophecy, or you explain to me exactly why you keep calling Equestria 'Celestia's realm.'"

She blinked. "I dreamed of a bard I knew long ago who would sing for me when I was melancholy. We sat upon my balcony at Everfree Castle, and he sang—

"Ic wiht geseah wundorlich,
wæl-hwilum huþe lædan,
lyft-fæt leohtic, cistum gegierwed,
huþe to þam ham of þam here-siþe."

She actually sang it. She has such a beautiful singing voice, and it almost distracted me from the meaning of the words. I thought back. "'I saw a strange—thing?'"

Luna smiled and took pity on my imperfect grasp of Old Equuish. She didn't sing as she translated, which was a pity.

"I saw a creature, a curious thing,
a warrior pony bringing booty,
a shining sky-vessel artfully arrayed,
booty home from that journey of war."

"'Booty'? Really?"

"Huþe is treasure or riches won in battle, what better way for it to be said?"

"Okay… But wæl isn't battle or war, it's more like slaughter, isn't it? Wæl-hwilum should be 'slaughter-pony.'"

Luna shrugged. "A battle decisively won can be truly named so, can it not?"

"You're just trying to make me feel better, aren't you?"

Luna rolled her eyes at me. "Indeed, as thy friends have discovered, thou art not afflicted with idiocy, Twilight Sparkle!"

That made me pause for a moment. I sighed. "You might change your mind when you hear my plan."

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Author's Note

It was a nice dinner.

It really was a very nice candelabra.

Incidentally, according to medieval legend, griffins' favorite meat was horse, and they would attack armored knights to get it.

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Bits were cribbed from the Exeter Book Riddles to cobble together Luna's prophecy. Huþe really is most often translated as "booty." Wæl-hwilum is technically "slaughter-horse", but there isn't a single word in OE for "pony," and I had to avoid using "small" or "little" to avoid breaking the rhythm.