FaceDock ™

There was a certain question as to whether Pipp was actually sick and Zipp, standing near what might be the patient's bedside, was still trying to decide whether it was worth voicing the possibility aloud. She wasn't sure it was strictly necessary. There could potentially be some satisfaction to be found in solving even the most minor of mysteries, but getting an evidence-confronted suspect to actually confess their guilt was a lot harder than the media made it seem. And when it came to Pipp...

"I really don't feel well," said the younger sibling, or at least her snout did. "It's just one favor, Zipp. Only one, when I'm so sick."

"You don't feel up to attending the party," didn't represent Zipp agreeing with her sister, nor was it a direct attempt to extract more information. She was mainly trying to (poorly) use a word lure as a means of extracting more sister. The snout was most of what was visible. The bulk of Pipp's body (which really didn't mean much) had vanished under layers of blankets. Zipp was essentially trying to have a discussion with lips, nostrils, a tiny bit of tail hair which was peeking out from the far end of the bed, and some fluffy white down which had been shed onto the floor.

The down was going to stay there until somepony swept up, and that somepony would absolutely not be Pipp. The junior royal claimed to have swept up at the stylist shop so many times as to preemptively disqualify herself from Brighthouse duties and according to her employees, the future labor lockstop total had locked in at zero.

"I'm obviously the world's foremost authority on my own body," Pipp's snout triumphantly declared. "How could anypony else ever qualify? When I say I'm sick, I'm sick." Much more brightly, which mostly meant with somewhat more in the way of tooth display, "But I'm going to attend! That's what this is about! I'm going to attend even when I'm --"

"So stick your head out," Zipp said. "Enough for me to put my chin against your forehead and check your temperature."

"I just got rid of the shivers," Pipp immediately replied. "I'm not coming out."

Zipp, who couldn't actually be seen by covered leaf-green eyes, carefully looked at the warm spring day which lurked outside the Brighthouse windows, just waiting for its chance at making anypony feel better. Inspected the careful layering of decidedly thin blankets, which came across as not quite sufficient for deflecting the social impact of a cold shoulder.

Maybe her sister was sick. But Pipp lied a lot, and almost never admitted to any of it. Technically, it was possible to say that the open denials had been flowing for slightly less than the whole of Zephyrina's lifetime. She had been a lone foal for a short time, after all. And even once that had officially ended, her baby sister had needed at least a post-birth hour before attempting her first quivering-lipped fake pout.

To some degree, this could be blamed on each sibling's respective royal training. Zipp, as the firstborn, had been given lessons of rulership. The duties of a future queen towards her eventual subjects, which very much meant looking after them. Also looking over them and as far as Zipp was concerned, if you were going to be looking over something, then the further back you pulled away from it, the more you were going to see. Something which might come across as counterlogic, but it absolutely worked out, every time! And therefore, the very best place to be looking over those whom an accident of birth order said you were meant to protect was from a truly great distance away. Say, the gap between the Bay and the Heights, or a little beyond. Yes, there were some trees and other stuff in the way, but the point was that the sheer amount of distance offered a great perspective and if somepony really wanted her attention, then phones existed and they didn't even have to shout.

She attends the parties. Not me, unless it's absolutely necessary. Which usually means Mom said so, but -- not me. Her. That's the deal. I get my alone time for as long as I can still have it.

Until the true call comes in.

...Zipp liked to turn her phone off. It was safe enough, especially since her mother kept sneaking in a few crucial lines of code which flipped it back on at random. Or whenever the palace called.

Every one of Pipp's endless parade of Bestie models was counted as part of the royal network. The phone always rang when it was Pipp. The tablet would even pretend it was a phone for a few seconds, and the manufacturer had fought against that until Queen Haven's Personal Law had been laid down: after all, if the only exception was for the royals, then the company could just keep on selling two mostly-redundant product lines while claiming that the single withheld differing feature still somehow meant something.

Zipp would always answer, when it was her sister. But there were times when Pipp didn't seem to understand the need for solitude in a life where an entire nation could come calling for Zipp at any minute. And once the true call came in, the one which bore a crown upon the carrier wave and said she could never, ever disconnect again --

-- Zipp, because of the cruel luck associated with a birthday, had been taught about law, and leadership, and very much about Responsibility. The future Queen couldn't exactly step away from her duties, after all.

"You're staying quiet to make me talk," Pipp spontaneously decided, and the tiny visible bit of tail twitched. "It won't work. I'm sick and I'm going to attend the party anyway. If you help me." Suspiciously, "You didn't say you would yet. When I'm sick."

"I'm not trying to make you do anything." It was decidedly hard to make Pipp do anything. She would keep her given word, because she saw doing otherwise as behavior unworthy of a royal. But when it came to simply fulfilling expectations... well, there was an entire Bay's worth of ponies still waiting for Pipp to reliably turn up at the stylist shop on time. Several seasons of experiencing her tonic mixes was quickly changing this over to a fervent wish that Rocky and Jazz would completely take over.

"It's a basic interrogation technique. Trying to make the other party fill the silence," the younger pouted. "I got that much from all the times you tried reading short stories to me. Midnight Murderclock Presents. You're being quiet because you don't believe me about being sick, when I'm sick --"

"I'm not." Not that it wasn't an actual technique. Zipp had just temporarily run out of things to say.

There were so many differences between them as to make each occasionally question whether they shared both parents. Zipp's social battery didn't hold a lot of charge. It drained quickly and, if asked to direct scant power in multiple directions, would be doing well to get through a few minutes: sadly, when it came to the interactions needed for parties, her tutors had seldom been willing to say the same thing about Zipp. Pipp could at least pretend to be having fun with just about anypony, making talk so small as to hide all significance from the strongest of microscopes. Because that was how she'd been taught, and lessons had quickly welded themselves to a bulwark of natural talent.

Zipp had been trained as the leader, and very little of that had been about public speaking. (There had been an early attempt, and then it had smoothly transmuted to Privately Writing Out Things Which Somepony Else Can Say.) Pipp, as the secondborn, had been asked to become the face of the palace. The talking, singing, and now-occasionally-swooping-for-real media presence incarnation for what pegasi pictured when they thought about the royal family. It was a job which came with its own strains and stresses, none of which Zipp particularly wanted to deal with because they were social stresses and when it came to defining the term, she translated it directly into Redundant/See 'Redundant'. Pipp was the far better choice there.

It was just that the face of the royal family occasionally decided that being constantly exposed to the public was obviously a really good way to catch a cold, and therefore it was going to need a day off. Or two. Surely a mere week would be enough to do it, and the fact that the entire week would be spend playing around was just demonstrating a more effective form of rest...

Pipp lied a lot and, if offered enough prep time, would have the false evidence to back it up. For starters, the younger knew how to mix liquids in a way which created both the appearance and scent of a light froth: the bubbling white sweat which was among the surest signs of a severe pony illness. However, she'd stopped that after the first truly successful attempt at the age of ten, because a younger Pipp had decided that if Some Froth in her coat meant a week out of flight harness training, then All The Froth was obviously going to double that. Instead, the royal physicians had taken one look at All The Froth and...

Their mother hadn't been much for physical discipline. Queen Haven knew other ways to punish her children, and Making Me Think You Were Going To Die had gotten every one of Pipp's passwords scrambled. It had taken two weeks to recover the bulk, and the younger still bitterly complained about not having recovered all of her SaltBlox credits.

"Just a reminder," Zipp finally said. "When it comes to taking your temperature, using your forehead is sort of the soft option --"

The tiny visible portion of tail immediately retreated.

"-- you don't believe me," Pipp half-sniffed. "I'm sick, and my own sister doesn't believe --"

"-- I could get my books," Zipp casually offered. "The not-short stories. For loaning to you. Standard offer."

"Go ahead." This sniff was deeper. "If you don't mind me sweating all over them."

The older sibling hesitated.

As much as anything, the rolling shelf of Chevalia lore was a double-sided test. There was always a chance that Pipp was sick, and having the younger weakened, stuck in a single place, and desperate for entertainment might finally mean encountering the circumstance which would bring Pipp's media attention span over One Song, Optional Closing Reprise On The Chorus. And if she was faking it, then confronting that much concentrated Story in a small space had occasionally been known to send downy wings beating for the hills. Pipp liked the kind of plots which could twist twice across the three hundred maximum characters allowed for a Nicker post and, in order to really get the most out of her reading, preferred half the words to be swapped out for emojis. Words weren't complex enough and besides, if you used emojis, nopony ever checked your spelling. She had similar beliefs about numbers, which was why Rocky was the final word on Mane Melody's spreadsheets.

But she hadn't tried to gallop away from the gravitic pull of full paragraphs. Or fly, although Zipp would have tried that first and it might have taken Pipp an extra second to think of that option. Or longer.

Each sibling considered the other to have some rather odd priorities.

Maybe she is sick...

"I remember the last time you tried to fake a thermometer reading," Zipp noted.

"So do I," Pipp's snout irritably announced. "Look, I thought I was doing pretty well just to get into the system, when I'm not exactly a coder. And I did get it to say that my body temperature was a lot colder than it was supposed to be. Just like I'd been exposed to something."

"Hard vacuum," Zipp summarized. "For three hours."

"That counts for being sick."

"Also dead," an annoyed elder pointed out. "Pipp, this is a party --"

"-- not really," the snout offered up. "It's an association of tradesponies." The lips thoughtfully paused. "Which, around here, means anypony who owns a business, instead of the ones who know how to do craftwork. Izzy said the unicorns have it the other way around. But it's just this big meeting for a lot of the ponies who have shops. With mingling after. The mingling is the important part."

The mingling is the impossible part.

"So go to the party and mingle," Zipp suggested.

"I'm sick!" Even given the time required for the hidden little body to tuck itself into a tight ball of pout, the pause felt misplaced. "Also, I've met most of them already! Especially the mares. And some spouses. Mostly for the ones who are married to mares."

Because you're the one who's always saying a stylist station is better than a palace ball for hearing gossip, and giving them a way to approach you makes it that much easier to encourage the verbal flow.

There were ways in which Pipp was extremely intelligent and when it came to any attempt at figuring out what the younger might really be up to, that was one of the problems.

But approaching you at an actual party would be a little more exclusive, right? Extra status, or so you keep saying. You bask in that. So why wouldn't you --

"And I am going to go!" Pipp insisted, and then kicked in an artful sniff for extra emphasis.

"If you're sick," Zipp cautiously tried, "but you think you're going to recover in time for --"

"-- no, it's tonight," the snout cut her off. "I just need you to be there for me!"

The somewhat older mare, who had yet to fully solve a single piece of the world's eternally-shifting social puzzle, tried to think about that.

"Does the invitation have one of those 'Plus One' things on it?"

"...yes..."

"I don't think that's what it means."

"Will you go?" the snout asked. "For me? With me? When I can't go at all?"

The contradictions inherent in that quartet of short sentences, however, could be recognized in an instant.

"Pipp, that doesn't make any sense --"

"-- do it for me," the younger broke in, "and I'll do it for you."

Zipp hesitated. Multihued flight feathers, which occasionally demonstrated more social anticipation than their owner, twitched.

"I need more detail on that," felt like a drastic understatement.

"You're going in for me, with me," Pipp stated. "You do that for me, and I'll turn up the same way for you. As long as we're doing it by the same means. You just have to ask. My word, Zipp."

Which Pipp would keep -- and a promise from Pipp to do something was rare enough to justify many things. But you had to listen to the exact conditions.

"The same means --"

"-- we don't have a lot of time, Zipp. I have to get you ready. In or out?"

I know you're dodging.

Her sister was manipulative, and their mother often approved: after all, being a queen was about manipulating the world -- or what they'd thought had been it. And Zipp knew to watch for those attempts. But...

They were so different. One whose first instinct was for speech, the other for action. A single ruler, split across two bodies, with the halves additionally divided by several years and the endless gulf of perspective. Pipp could casually associate with just about anypony, at least for a few minutes on a shallow level -- but that was nearly universal. Zipp couldn't just go up to ponies like that. You watched over them from a great distance. And... maybe you let a few come closer. Carefully. Making the difficult decision on who to trust -- something which wasn't and shouldn't be done easily -- while trying to figure out how closely you could truly allow them to approach.

How much they should be allowed to see.

Or whether there might even be one whom she wanted to grant permission to come closer still, but she didn't know how to tell him and the fact that he hadn't said anything --

-- Zipp didn't understand what he was thinking. If he was thinking about much of anything other than law, societal upheaval, and baby dragons: rarely in that order. She didn't understand ponies, and -- there were times when that hurt.

But she knew her sister. Zipp also wasn't bad with mysteries, and was an absolute expert regarding the fictions of Chevalia. In this case, the diagram had a three-way intersection point.

"This isn't going to keep me up for too many hours, right?" she checked. "I've got to host a flying class in the morning." Something Pipp was no good at. She received instruction surprisingly well and would always try to learn from experts, but had real difficulty with passing lessons on.

Zipp still wasn't sure how she felt about the flying class. Teaching pegasi the finer points of airborne movement felt as if it made her responsible for their screwups. Zipp had enough responsibilities already.

Pipp, of course, didn't attend. She wasn't interested. Most of what Pipp used flying for was getting better projection on notes and, for the shortest residence of the Brighthouse, making sure eye-level contact came with its own share of wind backblast. And a lot of sore necks, because repetitive bobbing movements started to hurt after a while and Pipp was still working on hovering.

"It won't," Pipp's snout half-swore.

The elder sighed.

"So what am I doing?"

There was a common center between the three interests. And it said that if you really wanted the solution, then there were times when the only way to find out what a trap did was through springing it.

"You," the beaming snout happily declared, "are going to wear my FaceDock!"

"...your what?"

Nothing in that philosophy promised that the spring-delivered answer would make any sense.

Pipp was the superior with words. It didn't matter whether those syllables were being spoken or sung: words would be there. So Zipp was all too aware that if her little sister had been asked to describe the thing which was now resting on the bed, then Pipp would have been able to do a lot better than 'helmet'.

Whoever had started development work on the -- thing -- had definitely begun from a base of 'helmet'. It was roughly the right shape to go over a pony head and was clearly meant to be worn: therefore, it was a helmet. It was just that they had made a few alterations to the basic design. Like the one which said that you needed to allow a certain amount of room for ears. And if you were going to extend the protection down over the eyes, then maybe it should be possible to see out of it. Instead, the unit covered the entire skull from crown to the base of the neck, along with projecting far enough forward to hide snout, nostrils, mouth -- if it was a facial feature, it had been placed by fully-opaque thick black plastic and if it was on the back of the head, then it had been distorted by a rather odd rear bulge.

"FaceDock," Zipp tried.

"Isn't it great?" Pipp's snout enthused.

Of course, the alterations hadn't stopped there. A helmet was meant to be protective. The material composition of the FaceDock had the rough visible solidity of lake ice in mid-spring. It looked as if it would shatter from the weight of hard inspection, but this was clearly a false impression: if that had been the case, Zipp would have broken it within the first ten seconds. Twice.

There were no visible places where it let in light. An equal void permitted the passage of sound. Zipp was still trying to locate anything which might allow for the possibility of breathing.

"So put it on," the younger sibling encouraged. "We need to make sure the link is working before you get there."

Zipp considered that the prospect of putting on the helmet had nearly the exact appeal of sticking her head in an oven, only with none of the charisma and, unless she could spot the vents in a hurry, a chance for about six times the heat.

"What link?"

The pegasus-shaped lump under the blanket sighed.

"It's new tech," Pipp groaned. "I expect this from Bay ponies or in Bridlewood. Since when do you not mesh with new tech? Even I'm not doing the visor. Think of it as a visor, okay? One which covers your whole head."

Mostly in an attempt to draw out Actual Explanation, "And it lets me go with you, and for you..."

The blankets shifted. The outline of a new Bestie pushed outwards against cloth.

"Take a look," Pipp said. "I started it up when I got it. But I haven't checked for range yet. We definitely need to at least see how the transmission quality is between the Brighthouse and Lunging Hall."

"Look at what --"

-- the forward panels of the plastic briefly seemed to lighten from within. And then her sister's features were on the helmet.

...more or less.

It was just barely possible to make out hints of blanket around the edges of the image: Pipp was clearly using a forward camera lens on the phone to film herself, and hadn't quite trained the program to remove anything which wasn't face. But when it came to those fine royal features...

Pipp's face featured soft, subtle curves, some of which had yet to lose the last of their filly weight. The helmet was flat planes and, where it had to move forward to make room for a snout, some rather awkward bends. It meant the graphics display was trying to map a 3D surface into a group of 2D representations and when combined with some slightly dubious processing, mostly made for a situation where it was theoretically possible to look at Pipp's pupils through her nostrils.

The pegasus under the blankets blinked. The graphics thought about that for a second, then created an accidental tribute to the CGI shows of their mother's fillyhood: Any Two Objects In A Scene May Try To Move Or Your Lack Of Money Back. A few extra seconds had the coding fail to work out what the left-side eyelashes were, which it resolved by temporarily blinking them out of existence.

Zipp stared.

"I can see you staring," her blanket-buried sister said. "Or I can see your chin trying to stare on its own. You set your chin a lot. Imperiously. Like Mom. Lower your head a little?"

"How can you see --"

"-- it's got a camera, obviously. And sound pickups, but I haven't flicked those on yet. We don't need stereo." Enthusiasm began to climb, and the lump under the blankets wriggled. "So this is how you're going to help me, Zipp!"

"FaceDock," the elder tried.

"Yes! And don't worry if you haven't heard of them. It's very new. Nothing's been released to the public. You know how it goes for alpha builds: taking orders, but they haven't shipped yet. Really, they've barely got a website up --"

"-- how did you get this?" felt important.

A reproduced image tried to smile and found joy collapsing into a black hole of flattened pixels. "They sent me one, of course! As a present! Because they thought that of all the ponies in the world, I could use a FaceDock most of all!"

Of course. It was a hazard of royal existence, although Pipp tended to see it as one of the perks. Ponies sent you things. Birthday cards. Gifts. Poems, which tended to arrive in bulk because the entire second grade would have gotten the same assignment. And if you were Pipp, you tended to receive packages filled with fashion, jewelry, and the newest of technology because having a princess seen with any of it was just as good as a formal endorsement.

Except that Pipp was extremely aware of that. And since a proper princess didn't put a royal stamp of approval on something for free --

"It's just a startup company," Pipp said. "In Zephyr Heights. And there's no broadcast out of this party. Just one into it, and that'll be us. Just don't wear the helmet in front of any cameras and we'll be fine."

Zipp climbed onto the bed, then tried to settle down next to Pipp's blanket-draped form. The simulated face on the helmet was still staring at her, and it didn't feel right. Even with the odd distortions, there was something off --

-- no ears. Not only did the helmet not have gap for ears, it didn't have plastic peaks with which to simulate them. So much of pony expressions came in through the ears. Zipp was fully familiar with the issue, because it gave her one more point of emotional reference to fail at. If you couldn't see somepony's ears...

Jazz manages.

Then again, Jazz had the sort of body language you could read through three walls and two blackouts. Especially when she was flirting.

(How did you flirt? A lot of books described what it was supposed to look like, and most of what trying to replicate that had taught Zipp was that her target apparently didn't read a lot.)

And maybe the fake ears popped up when somepony put the helmet on. Zipp dearly hoped so, because she wasn't sure there was enough space in the helmet for ears. And when it came to her own mane...

"A startup company," Zipp attempted.

"Yeah. Hang on. I'm sending their page to your tablet. Go over their racing form. See what the feature lineup is!"

Zipp did exactly that.

Several minutes passed.

"And... why does this need to exist?"

None of them had stopped to help.

"You can't tell?"was openly offended on the behalf of an entire startup.

"I can see how they think it should work," Zipp carefully stated. "And the use cases where it's supposed to do something. It's just that when I started to really think about it --"

"Look," Pipp imperiously said, "let's say I can't make it to a meeting."

"Because?"

Promptly, "Road was out. Anyway, I can't be at the meeting. So somepony who is at the meeting puts on my FaceDock! I turn on Bestie, boot up the app, and transmit my face to the outer panels. And then I am at the meeting! I have a digital and physical presence! I don't have to go anywhere as long as the FaceDock is in attendance!" With growing excitement. "I could even miss a concert and if somepony just wears the helmet, checks to make sure the sound reproduction is -- no, wait: even if we could train somepony to do my dance moves in a hurry, the sound can't be up to my standards. Not for an alpha release. I'm getting ahead of the tech. But I am absolutely going to send the inventors my notes. It wouldn't be the first time we got a special model for royals --"

"-- the road was out."

Immediately, "Yes."

"It was out so badly," Zipp continued, "that nopony could get through."

"Obviously."

"But the helmet did."

Pipp paused.

"Obviously I had it sent ahead in case something went wrong. The foresight of leadership. Didn't Mom go over that one with you twelve times a year?"

"Also," Zipp added, "we can fly now. Why are we worried about roads --"

"-- reallynastystorm, can'tstayintheair, groundstuffiswashedout, shutup," Pipp's irritation rapidly pronounced. "Zipp, this is obviously an invention for wealthy ponies --"

"-- I looked at the order page," Zipp admitted, because she had. It had taken less than a second to find the price, followed by three minutes of searching for the one departure link which wasn't attached to an agreement to pay it. "Did you notice that all of this is pre-launch? They're not actually going to ship for at least the next several --"

"-- and you just buy as many as you think you'll need, then scatter them everywhere they might be needed! Eventually. So I could have one in the Brighthouse, for when I'm visiting home. And one at home. In my studio. Maybe even the shop! And then we could keep going from there, because there's just so many other kinds of scenarios where I might need a FaceDock --"

"-- what kinds?"

Pipp paused again.

"There's testimonials on the website."

"Testimonials," the detective observed, "for a product with no public release."

This time, the younger hesitated.

"Well, that's why they labeled them as 'imagined stories'," the little princess decided. "They're testimonials given by imaginary ponies in imaginary situations. Because the real ones haven't had the chance to experience FaceDock and really praise it. So the current testimonials are just fill-ins until the real ones show up from the common pony."

"Common ponies," Zipp quickly pointed out, "who are paying -- two thousand per unit. For enough units to be everywhere they might not be able to reach. And until they show up, the company is pretending that customers will like it. in advance."

"It's selling points!"

"They may not have sold any! They gave you one! If they don't know, then how can they claim --"

"-- I say ponies will love my next songs before I release them!"

The neutrality almost had to be forced. "Previous experience. Past performance for some hints of future results. This is new. And at two thousand per unit..."

A quick upward distortion of blanket suggested Pipp had just blown an irritated puff of air through an extended lower lip.

"Commoners have money," she said. "For important things. Like styling. If you can afford a manestyling, you can afford this. Eventually. Besides, did you read those stories? The FaceDock has all sorts of uses!" A little more quickly, "I mean, I didn't finish them all. I didn't have to. Skimming was enough. And there were a lot of imaginary testimonials."

Because if you're going to lavish praise on yourself through false voices, why keep it below an imaginary crowd?

"Like that doctor who couldn't reach her patient!" Pipp semi-gushed. "So she had somepony wear the FaceDock and go into the sickroom. I think you can see how that would really get my attention right now --"

"-- who's providing the treatment?"

The younger mare paused.

"The doctor. Duh. Because FaceDock means the doctor is right there. And can see and hear everything. So obviously --"

"-- not everything about medicine is sight and hearing," Zipp said. "How a wound smells, or if it gives too much when you touch it. And the doctor can only see and hear. What if they have to give an injection?"

"The pony wearing the helmet does that. Duh --"

"-- is that pony a doctor?"

Pipp stopped talking.

"Maybe it's one doctor wearing it for another," Zipp allowed. "That could happen, and the biggest miracle there is that the inventors would have managed to get a signal which can penetrate a hospital. But what if you put it on an intern? Say there's a procedure which the intern hasn't done on their own yet. Can the doctor talk them through it, from so far away? What if the only pony who could wear it is a orderly, or has just the wrong specialty, or they're a parent, Pipp. Now you're potentially getting into legal issues. Asking ponies who aren't doctors to practice medicine. And that's before we get into stuff like writing scrips --"

"-- the real doctor can just e-sign some!" Pipp protested. "And that's not the only use! You can't reach a meeting to sign the contract, so somepony puts on your FaceDock and --"

"-- do they have power of attorney?" asked the sibling whose education had focused on the legal aspects of rulership. "Are they empowered to sign on your behalf? If they aren't, then whose signature is legally on that contract? Does anything hold up?"

"It can be everywhere in the world!" was starting to approach a shout, and the blankets weren't doing much to block the low underwail of the C notes. "When the pony can't be! In a classroom, if you're sick! At a sporting event, if somepony got closed out of the invitations for the Royal Box --"

"-- somepony still has to buy a ticket and then they're broadcasting from inside the stadium," Zipp pointed out. "Some venues wouldn't be happy about an extra feed. Pipp, this can go anywhere in the world for somepony -- for those parts of the world which have modern standards for electrical power and enough network coverage to allow livestream speed."

"The important parts," Pipp happily said, apparently under the impression that Zipp was now coming around.

"And right now," the older sister disproved, "under those standards, 'the world' would be Zephyr Heights, those parts of the Bay where we've got the repeaters set up, and Izzy's old house in Bridlewood because I know Mom hid a router there. Nowhere else!"

"So," Pipp re-reasoned, "the important parts -- why did you just poke me?"

Zipp took a deep breath, then forced her wings back into the rest position. "This is an invention in search of a reason for ponies to use it, and half of the ones they've got here are going to remain imagined stories because you'll never find anypony stupid enough to risk the real thing. Look at this one, at the wedding! Where the groom has the thing on! Who's getting legally married, Pipp? Who nuzzles the bride -- no, I can answer that. Since the stallion who's present has that thing over his whole head? Nopony! I know I don't want to be nuzzled by a block of cold plastic --"

-- he's not very warm.

There had been a few opportunities for contact. Pegasi were decidedly more hot-blooded than earth ponies. It was something else to think about --

"-- okay," Pipp slowly allowed. "The wedding one is a little dumb."

"The actors must have thought so," Zipp tightly decided.

"There's no actors," Pipp noted. "I think every picture here is artificially composited."

"That's what I meant. They couldn't even get real actors to show up. Pipp, does this have any benefit over somepony balancing a tray on their back and walking around with a slightly-older Bestie which has a video call going? You'd still be able to see and hear anywhere the screen was aimed --"

"-- hooves," Pipp firmly said. "Ribs moving in and out. Presence. Sometimes ponies need to be reminded that there's a person there. Not just an image. Because they'll do and say things with an image that they wouldn't with another pony." Darkly, "Or at least, some of them have a lot more trouble saying it unless they can get a good glare down while they --"

She stopped. The blanket lump abruptly shivered.

"...Pipp?"

"Nothing," her sister very probably lied, and Zipp was just in the middle of filing that mental note away when the smaller pegasus added "Zipp, we don't have a lot of time. Go get dressed. I picked something out for you earlier."

Of course you did. Every performer wanted full control over the presentation of the venue...

But it was also a sign of caring. Pipp was better with clothing than Zipp. Simple fact. They tried to cover for each other's weaknesses and, because they were sisters, also remembered every possible avenue of future exploitation. It was usually just a question of figuring out which one was happening at any given moment, or what the exact ratio was on the mix.

Pipp was loving. She was capable of true caring. They loved and cared for each other.

"Then fly down to Lunging, find a hidden corner, and we'll check the signal strength. Then put the FaceDock on -- once you make sure no one's filming you with it, because neither of us needs to deal with an implied endorsement right now, Mom wouldn't like it -- and go right in!"

Pipp was also manipulative.
Training added to natural talent.
You had to watch for that.
(It was absolutely disgusting, some of the things Pipp tried to do. And the most disgusting aspect was that the heir couldn't do any of it.)
Except that Zipp had something on her mind.

"The invitation does say 'Plus One'?"

"Yes," the younger sibling readily agreed, and did so with a half-laugh.

I should be able to swoop by police headquarters.
He doesn't even have to come in with me, if his shift doesn't end on time. I can always tell ponies I'm meeting somepony during the party.
It'll be like -- pretending.
...practice?
...what if I tried to tell him that I'm just looking for somepony who'll go with me as a frie --

"But you don't have to worry about that, Zipp!" Pipp giggled. "I made sure you'd be okay, because I know how hard this is going to be for you! -- and I appreciate it, I really do, I am completely going to pay you back as long as we're doing it by the same means. So why stress you out with a fake date? I checked with the Hall, and when you're wearing the helmet? I am your Plus One! No other ponies required -- Zipp? Would you wipe the camera lenses on the FaceDock? Can you see the lens? Just check for a smudged spot. Maybe once it's cleaned up, the distortions won't make you look weirdly annoyed any more -- oh, come on, Zipp! Think of it as being like that stupid thing Sunny's father wrote down!"

"Don't call his writing stupid," Zipp automatically said. "Or him. Ever."

"I know he had some things right," Pipp countered, "and I've told Sunny that. But it's not as if we've seen any ugly necklaces, or crowns which aren't ours --"

"-- it's early yet," said a mare who wasn't quite sure. "And you'll hurt Sunny. She's heard it enough. From the entire Bay, for years. She doesn't need it from us."

"...okay," Pipp eventually said. Followed by, with open respect, "And he did learn some big secrets, I know. Stuff everypony else lost. But this one part of his notebook always bothered me."

"Which one part?" Zipp really needed to have that defined: not for the sake of narrowing down the location of botherance, but because she was sure some of the notebook's contents had yet to be seen or read aloud. Izzy had described it as the lore equivalent to Bridlewood's tax code: there was always one more thing you hadn't gone through, and it was the bit which would have kept you out of trouble ten minutes ago.

"That in addition to the elements/virtues stuff, there was some hidden one which didn't even get jewelry. The dumb one where you pretend to be somepony else so you can sort of think like they do and get to understand them, although why anypony would ever -- empathy! That's it! The really stupid thing was empathy! That's you tonight, Zipp! You're going to be at Lunging, while wearing my face! You're finally going to find out a little about what it's like to be me!"

Blinders.

Zipp understood the general principle. She was the firstborn, after all. It was a responsibility which had included training in leadership and -- raising children. After all, there would clearly have to be another firstborn at some point. Succession sort of insisted on it.

What happens if a pegasus tries to have foals with an earth pony?
Can we?
Can anypony?
Mom would almost have to accept it, especially with what she's doing. But the populace...
...if we tried to adopt...

...she could feel the dress (which had been a good pick) rippling against her forelegs. Somepony had just stepped up to her.

"Hi!" said the helmet. "It's Constance, of course. It's so nice to see you again!"

...well, stepped up to somepony.

"You can see me," said what audio evidence suggested to be a middle-aged Bay native.

"That's what the camera is for," the helmet readily agreed. "Your mane is looking very nice, by the way. Although I can think of a few things I'd like to try with it. No insult meant to your current stylist, of course --"

"-- I wasn't expecting you here tonight," the native softly stated

"I was invited," the helmet pointed out. "As a business owner."

"Yes," the mare tightly countered. "You were invited. I'm not sure anypony expected you to actually show up. Even when you had to make some sort of appearance --"

Brightly, "-- so everypony heard I was sick? Rumors fly, I know! Faster than we do."

Zipp, who had just heard something which could be mistaken for the start of an excuse, immediately began to rear up, forelegs moving to let her hooves adhere to the helmet. (Which was horrible to touch, but would presumably be wonderful to remove.) She could offer a speed flight demonstration. Once around the Hall. Or beyond. Yes, stunts-for-impressing and publicly showing off weren't exactly her thing, but the fresh air was outside...

"I heard that little jump," said the inner speaker, directly into a compressed and aching left ear, somewhere between the hammer and the anvil. "Keep it on, Zipp."

The fuming elder dropped.

"You fly away from a lot of things," the native was irritably saying. "Such as, after the last time I was in your little styling s -- OW!"

"I'm sorry!" Zipp immediately protested. "My hooves -- I can't s --"

"And don't talk," instructed a distant sibling, who had apparently forgotten to sniffle. "I wasn't going to say that. So you shouldn't."

And Zipp, motionless in the -- center? -- of the Hall, surrounded by -- some number of ponies... could only listen as the angry native stomped away.

Blinders. You usually saw them on the youngest of newborns, or those who were having severe problems with sensory overstimulation. Because pony vision went a long way out to the sides and the most recent arrival for a prey species, with no experience of the world, would mostly be seeing a lot of strange stuff which they clearly needed to start running away from as soon as possible.

As chasing down fleet-hooved foals quickly became tiresome, some parents resorted to blinders. Block all view from the sides. Make sure the foal could only see what was in front of them. Help them focus and in doing so, calm them down.

So when it came to empathy, the helmet-channeled experience of 'being' Pipp was a lot like wearing blinders. As long as you allowed for the possibility that the helmet's inventors wouldn't understand what those were.

They didn't seem to understand a lot of things.

This was what it was like to wear the helmet.

It had a scent. Zipp hadn't really registered that until she'd put it on for the first time. It mostly smelled like slow-heating plastic, with a heavy overlay of every other pony who'd worn the thing during the testing phase and failed to swab out the interior after. Most of those ponies didn't seem to know a lot about bathing. And the scent pretty much just went around and around the limited airspace, where it happened to hitch a ride with any oxygen that happened to wander in before going on yet another tour of Zipp's lungs. The scent lived in the helmet and was just happy to have anypony dropping by. But it wasn't interested in more extensive travels, because something about the helmet kept all of the stench inside while blocking most of the fresh air out. Zipp, at any given time, had just enough air for one breath and since the stench liked to come along, 'fresh' didn't apply. She still hadn't found the vents and now suspected most of her limited oxygen supply was courtesy of a less-than-flush fit against the neck.

Which meant there was a chance that she was only breathing due to a design error, because the helmet was being pulled backwards. It could render a digital representation of Pipp's feature along multiple outer panels, doing so via technology because 'illusion magic' was something which mostly existed in Misty's unusable lessons and a few scattered entries in a very battered notebook. That meant it needed a power supply. Which was at the back. And pulled Zipp's head backwards. Constantly. While slowly heating up as it discharged power, thus accounting for the other smell while promising Zipp that if she just kept the thing on long enough, some scents might burn themselves out. All of the available oxygen would go with them.

There were no pop-up ear loft hollow spaces, with or without digital reproduction of Pipp's ears on the other end. You really didn't have room for ears at all. Zipp's ears wanted to flatten against her skull, and couldn't because any degree of movement which could be used at least offered some chance to hear what was coming. Or they would have flattened anyway, if it wasn't for Zipp's mane.

Zipp's manestyle was a personal choice. It wasn't particularly fashionable, although being a princess seemed to encourage viewers into lying about that. There was nothing really aerodynamic about it, and she'd been wondering if that was going to be a problem. It was also extremely vertical, and had recently been asked to exist in a place where verticality didn't. As such, the inner speaker was trying to take over for Zipp's left inner ear. The right was mostly filled with her own hair. It didn't seem to like that.

And then you had the blinders. In reverse.

Zipp had two heavily-tinted narrow windows of visibility -- at the sides of the helmet. The outer front surface was for Pipp's video display. The inner, which clearly didn't feel up to those standards, had settled for a blank display of flat black plastic. Added to some thin lines of uncomfortable warmth, which was presumably where the power flowed.

To the sides, if she squinted (and squinting sideways appeared to be its own art), it was possible to just barely make out thin vertical slices of businessponies. Most of them seemed to be staring at her. Or the helmet, which really warranted its own stare recipient category. Some of the stares had been bad enough to make the plastic start heating up from the outside.

So this is what it's like to be Pipp.
Apparently she spends most of her time staring at walls in the dark.

Zipp pondered that, and then revised her opinion.

Much lower sections of walls.

But the firstborn, almost completely blind in the visual sense, relying on near-constant head turning and some very kind locals to keep from stumbling into anypony (again), who had always had trouble with social blindness on a much more severe level -- was still starting to pick up on something.

"You're here for me," Pipp softly said into the inner speaker. "And I appreciate that, Zipp. I really do. I'll turn up the same way for you, while the means are still there."

Watch her wording...

"But right now, you could probably be over by that one long food table."

"Which is where?" the elder whispered.

"Far right."

"I get to eat?" Zipp softly muttered. Her head began to turn. Seven overlapping degrees of vision tried to suggest a path.

"No," Pipp serenely said.

"Ponies eat at parties."

"Yes. Ponies do. What they don't do is talk to a mare who just took off her head and left it on the table while she was eating. And if they did, the angle would be really weird. Don't remove it, Zipp. You are representing me. And am I the sort of mare who loses her head in a crisis? ...Zipp? You didn't say no. This would be a really good time to say 'no', Zipp. The longer you go without saying 'no', the more I'm going to think you're working up to a really mean way of saying 'yes'..."

Zipp began to stumble in the rough direction of the table. Helpful ponies started to make a path. Non-helpful ones glared, and one set of angry hooves stomped directly up to the vicinity of what wasn't Zipp's face.

"So this is how you decided to attend?" asked a very angry Bay accent. "Well, even like this, it's clearly enough to work with! I see a head, and I suppose there's ears somewhere on the other end! So now that I've got you pinned, little princess riding the big one, let me just tell you a few things about your supposed mane care services --"

"-- oops!" Pipp's voice merrily told the room. "Didn't get half of that! Maybe just about none of it. Audio's dropping out! And you're stuttering visually. I should go reset the router. And reboot the sending app. Sorry, technical difficulties..."

The musical tones vanished and the native, muttering to herself, stomped by on Zipp's left.

Flaring nostrils.
Furious eyes.
Nasty-looking gap along the neckline of her mane. Brush-patch isn't holding.

Four minutes passed. Zipp managed to cross an additional third of the distance towards the food table. Her stomach growled.

"And I'm back!" Pipp enthused into a sore ear. "Just need the reset. You know. Again. New tech, right? Turn it off, then on again..."

"For the sixth time," Zipp whispered.

"It's the only fix I know."

And you've had to fix it every time somepony's approached me and was mad at you.

Zipp wasn't good with ponies. Worse with the little cues and clues of normal social function, and it would have been nice if somepony had bothered to make a guidebook because in Zipp's opinion, unwritten rules shouldn't be. But she could solve mysteries, now and again. And with this much evidence about...

"Why aren't you at the table yet?"

"I can't see."

"You're a royal! Move faster and ponies will move out of your way. Get over there already!"

"...you're not paying me enough for this."

"I," Pipp regally pointed out, "don't have to pay you at all."

Silence.

"You're being too quiet again."

"Just reviewing Zephyr Heights legal code. Specifically, 18:63."

"...yeah. What was that one again?"

"Anti-slavery statutes."

Merrily, "Didn't hear that."

Zipp had some minor doubts.

"I was thinking," the performer said. "About refinements to FaceDock."

"Why does it even have that name?" Zipp muttered.

"Because my face is docked on your neck. Duh."

The dock is the base of the tail.
Technically, to make this really work, your face should be hanging upside-down over my --

"That's sort of a built-in flaw for you giving me some physical presence," Pipp offhoofedly added. "That it has to be on a body. Yours. It doesn't quite work. The perspective's all wrong."

Perspective which was coming to somepony who could see. If the helmet had, say, been sitting off to the left --

-- Zipp had been thinking about a tray again. Carrying around a digital assistant, instead of wearing the stupid helmet. But she had some idea of how her sister's mind worked. Say anything about moving the view to the side and Pipp just might wind up launching the first royal investigation into genetic engineering. Attempt to create a servant pony with two necks and, ideally, one head. Oh, you could have a skull, but it would probably need to have a backup battery in it. Pipp lived by externals and right now, was essentially living through one.

"So about the refinements," Pipp went on. "Keep them private, of course. If the inventors want some of these, it's going to be a partnership."

With a company which had no true testimonials, which had shipped a single sample of their product (at no cost), and might just be hoping on enough income from pre-launch sales to keep refining the product while earning a decent living. Refining and, in the worst-case, never, ever releasing the final results.

"For example," the younger sibling said, "there's no ear display. I'm a performer, Zipp. I know how much of my look comes up through the ears. How much of what I want the audience to see I'm feeling. So obviously the next model needs ears. We can't all be Jazz, right?"

"And space to keep your ears --" Zipp gratefully began.

"No. They'll need that room for more processing power. Just the simulation of ears will be enough. After all, the viewers need to see what my ears are doing. Not yours. Also, the top can be a display of my mane. Because some ponies can fly now and who wants to look down on black plastic?" Paused. "How long do you think it would take to make the ears holographic? For extra authenticity. I'm just being the idea mare here -- divert to the right."

"Why?" Because Zipp needed to scout that way first...

"Mare coming up on your left. You'll hear the angry hoof stomps in a few seconds. And you don't want to speak with her."

Pipp was the one who was supposed to be doing the speaking. "Why?"

The pause somehow came across as suspicious. "She's boring. Too old."

Zipp briefly marveled at her sister's continued existence in a world populated by three categories: ghosts who were possessing their own decaying corpses, youthful spirits who had yet to gain the experience which would allow actual-if-very-temporary solidity, and -- Pipp.

"...definitely lost some hair on that side..." a scouting Zipp noted out of the side of mouth and eyes.

"Missed that again. Speak up, Zipp. But only so I can hear you." Gently, "Because I'm here at this party, and that means none of the pressure is on you. That's your dream, right? But please step where I'm telling you."

"You were talking about refinements."

Somewhat primly, "Investors should make contributions."

"I can't see. If there was a viewing panel at the front..."

"It would be in the middle of my face. Creating a color mismatch or worse, a gap."

And there's another gap on the one who doesn't look like she can make up her mind on whether to come up to me. Or Pipp. Just stomping her hooves, over and over...

"So what about a digital display for the inside? From the camera you're using, which I can see --"

"And make that outer area all bumpy from the extra parts? Or thicker on the interior? You already said you don't have much room in there and now you want less?" The sigh felt exaggerated. "I'm the one who's here. Therefore, what I see is more important and also, I can obviously see and guide for both of us. Because what's a princess if not somepony whose vision and guidance are for her subjects?"

Oh, good: one history class which Pipp hadn't slept through.

"I'm thirsty."

"You'll be fine."

"If I duck into the restroom --"

"-- and have somepony see you without the helmet? Also, be careful where you look while you're doing -- that. There's stuff I don't want to see." Thoughtfully, "Maybe this would work better with a robot. They don't need bathrooms. And you'd get rid of some of the legal implications with a robot, right?"

"We can't build robots with full pony movement capabilities," Zipp pointed out.

"So put the FaceDock on a statue's neck! Or a wood model. And have somepony drag it around. But..." She hesitated. "Zipp, you're representing me right now. And there's something I've been trying not to say, but -- you're not getting it right. You haven't the whole time. You didn't even try once. So I have to bring it up now."

A hungry, thirsty mare, her nostrils saturated with stench and feeling compressed mane hair working its way towards her brain, listening to the mutters as angry mares glared at a face which wasn't hers, forced herself to say, "What's that?"

"You're supposed to be me. Stand taller."

The small pegasus crept across the base-level floor of the Brighthouse, carefully avoiding all patches of lesser shadow created by the slow approach of spring sunlight in the last minutes before dawn. There were no wings in use, and hooves silently slid over the floor. Wings made too much noise, especially at high speed. The important thing was to get out the door and get the box on her back into the outside, outgoing mail pickup area before --

-- the lights came on, and did so on the level above hers. Lumens streamed down, and the truly-minimal mass of photons pinned little hooves against the floor.

And then Zipp swooped in.

The elder landed in front of the younger. Turquoise eyes briefly focused on the helmet-sized retaped box in the center of Pipp's back, and then turned their attention towards leaf-green irises. The blush below and around them was mostly being ignored.

"It's funny," Zipp said. "How Mom's training occasionally has us against each other. More than just from being sisters, I mean. You got taught about what words to use -- but I was the one who had all the classes on what to listen for. What ponies accidentally say when they're trying to say something else. The words which hide inside other words. Or trot around in the open, because they think it's too blatant to notice."

And the trained public speaker said "...um..."

"'The same means'," Zipp went on. "You were going to keep your promise, Pipp. When you make one, you always keep it, because that's how I know your word is good. But what you meant was that you'd wear the FaceDock while I broadcast. And I just caught you trying to return it. Probably with a nice royal letter telling the inventors to contact you for refinements -- or the palace attorneys, and I'm glad for that because they can save you from a bad contract -- but the important thing was that the helmet wouldn't be here any more. For weeks, or longer. And when you did have to keep the promise -- because you do, and I love you for that -- you'd use the improved model."

"I was really putting in some more thought about the possibility of an inner display screen," Pipp hastened. "I don't think the next user should be without one any more. Especially after the serving table went over. I don't blame you for the table. Only some really mean mares would blame you for that. I didn't know there were that many really mean mares at the party. Most of that stuff would wash out of their fur --"

A little too casually, "-- and manes and tails?"

Pipp froze.

"We're really different," Zipp half-sighed. "Too different, sometimes. I wish I had more royals to speak with sometimes, just so I'd know if any other sisters ever run into the same problems. But maybe we're alike in a few ways too. I barely have a social battery -- but it's funny how yours works. The way it always seems to run out as soon as you see somepony you don't want to speak with. And a singer always has an excuse for resting her voice, right? Celebrity and royalty, Pipp. Even without the harnesses, when we can make physical contact with ponies without them feeling wire -- celebrity and royalty are two different kinds of armor. You use them as much as I do. Keeping ponies from getting too close. We both maintain some distance --"

She nodded towards the helmet's box.

"-- but that's just sad. Because the way I see it? A lot of ponies come into Mane Melody. Some of them leave with fresh styling, and a lot more go out with stories about how it all went wrong. The tonics, the treatments, and the spell effects which are two accidents away from having the Bay declare shampoo as a controlled substance. Mares with power gained through personal effort or bloodlines came in, some of them raced out screaming while their own tails were trying to bite them, and you couldn't completely get out of that party. I'm not sure what happened there. Maybe a token attendance is some part of keeping your business license --"

Pipp winced. Zipp kept going.

"-- but at the same time, you didn't want to be trapped in a space which you couldn't leave at will. Hearing reminders of the screwups from the ponies who lived through them, and criticism. So you figured... what, Pipp? They might be willing to say it to your face, but not in front of my body? And that if it still got too bad, you'd just cut the feed?"

The little form sank under the weight of the box, and a little more.

"...I was sick," Pipp softly said. "Sick to my stomach from thinking about it. How all of them might just come up at once, as a herd, and... it's scary, Pipp. The shop... all of the incidents... well, Rocky can show you the books. It's mostly visiting Heights residents keeping us going, and even they carry some stories back. I couldn't face it..."

Zipp slowly trotted forward. Pipp didn't move.

And then a mare who didn't really understand social cues gave her little sister the warm nuzzle meant for beloved family.

Pipp waited until the first junior tears had been blinked into her own fur, because there was a certain protocol. And then she nuzzled back.

They were both outside, well away from the mail drop zone and moving through the Bay's mostly-empty streets under a fast-rising Sun. Zipp had a destination in mind. Pipp, neglected box still balanced in the small of her back, was mostly just following.

"...and -- I'm glad you're not mad," the younger said.

"It's actually kind of comforting," replied the elder. "Knowing there's social stuff you don't want to deal with."

"Love you," Pipp said.

"Love you," Zipp countered.

"Somehow?"

"Somehow."

They kept moving. The streets dropped away. Hooves began to push through tall, irregularly-tended grass.

"Where are we going?" Pipp asked. "You just asked me to come with you. And this looks sort of familiar. Even when there's nothing really out here. Just a bunch of open space."

"It's where I host the flying classes," Zipp replied. "Take the helmet out?"

Pipp froze. Zipp waited for two extra steps, then stopped. Waiting.

A decidedly skittish "...why?" finally drifted forward.

"Well, we have to check the signal strength, obviously. First, we make sure the network can find it out here. But if that's good, I'll fly back to the Brighthouse. I already copied the control app to my tablet after I got back last night. And then you're going to stay here, with the Same Yet-Unreturned Means already waiting for you in a place I won't be. Representing me. Which is mostly going to mean being my eyes. And ears. And neck. You'll need to turn your neck a lot because I'll need to see what the students are doing. And there may be a few times when I need you to get an overhead view. Or fly alongside them, while I watch their technique. You can see a little out the sides, remember? I'll worry about the front part. And everything else, because you? Are just serving as my dock." And then the universal aspect of Older Sister thought to add "Which is a mostly-useless portion of spine. With no actual brain. And a useless colorful weight hanging off it."

"...b-b-but...!" Pipp sputtered. "Flying -- it's barely even an alpha build and you want me to fly in this while I can't even look around --"

"-- or talk," Zipp added. "I do the talking. Also, no singing. I sure wouldn't sing. And you're representing me, remember? By being in a place you might not enjoy, doing something you'd rather avoid. Maybe that'll even give you a little experience with empathy. So turn up for me, when you're already here. I'm asking. And then we're even."

With one final burst of desperation, "But you're not even --"

"Lots of ponies at that party," Zipp commented. "Many strangers. Odd lack of saliva guard panels over the food. And no air filters in the FaceDock."

She turned to face her sister. Smiled, just a little. And sneezed.