Cogs

Iridescence sat awkwardly in his parlour. His mother had decided to visit, and was scrutinising the décor with vivacity. She held herself aloof comfortable in the knowledge that she looked amazing; a deep midnight blue coat with a vibrant gold mane. The clock ticked loudly, each second being sliced away with abandon.

"You are living above your station son." Mother said as if standing a great distance from him.

"I do not understand how you came to that conclusion." Iridescence said curiously. The clock had become aggravating and Iridescence was contemplating throwing it out of the window; each relentless tick forcing the notion of time passing.

"Your living standard is too high. Others will judge you, they will not approve, you will remind them of their shortcomings." She said coldly. Iridescence looked out of the window, the ledge seeming higher and more daunting than before. The sky outside was a wintry grey, the sun blocked out by a layer of cloud. The clock had started to cloud his thoughts, its tick driving deep into his conscious.

"Why cannot others enjoy my prowess and prosperity with me? Why must I hide it?" Iridescence said feeling numb. The chair he was sitting on was becoming uncomfortable; Golden Jubilee, while Iridescence's mother, wasn't his favourite pony to be around by himself.

"For the same reason I did not allow you to perform. Your talents are notwithstanding, and that is their problem. Without modesty ponies will ridicule and judge. Ponies will use and shame you. I only care for your livelihood." Iridescence noticed she had become very close to him.

"Which is why I must do this, for your own good." Magic flared as blue flames rose around the chair; Iridescence stood shocked, but was unable to leave the fiery circle. The floorboards beneath him began to creak threateningly, their groans adding to the noise of the clock; the clock, how Iridescence longed to destroy it. The floor collapsed, falling into an impossible void, Iridescence sat up and gasped.

Four thirty-seven. He hung his head. The dream had felt so real, so terrifying, and to fear his mother like that shook Iridescence. He turned the lamp on and fell back onto his pillow. After a pause he turned his attention to the bookshelf. 'Equestrian Manifesto: Division of the Classes' lay unattended from his last visit to the collection. He brought the book to his attention again, and decided to turn to the section on pegasi.

"The pegasus is the only pony with the inherrent ability to fly, for this reason, pegasi will take secondary priority in any post collapse society. Their flight while not surpassing the advantages of magic, give the pegasi a significant physical advantage, their history being militaristic, and their culture based around physical prowess, see the pegasi as likely guards, soldiers, and peacekeepers, more akin to mercenary classes than true working class." Iridescence paused to think of what he knew of pegasi history. He realised very little.

"Pegasi also seem to have direct influence over the weather, to greater avail than unicorns possess, so, most likely, those that do not act in a mercenary fashion will continue to form the weather patterns required, for the governing bodies of their respective community. This duality of role will most likely create a rift between superior and inferior pegasi, forming a microcosm of a power struggle. This will go un-noticed by the governing bodies however, who will view them as pegasi, equal down to the last feather." Iridescence smiled at the thought of feathers. He began to wonder if the pegasi really did divide; whether Wildfire, being a guard, saw himself as more valued than the weather teams working in the skies.

The thought of burying his muzzle into the soft, plush wings counteracted any interest in pegasi politics however. He yawned expansively and remembered how tired he was. Turning off the lamp he laid his head back onto the pillow and closed his eyes.

* * *

The sound of birdsong roused Autumn Lily. This was novel, for the past three days, she had been awoken quite forcefully by Spirit Flame. She sat up slowly and gazed around the room. This wasn't the luxuriant settings of his bedchambers, but rather a more modest town house servant's quarters.

A bath had been drawn for her, and a simple, but comfortable work dress had been laid out beside it. She steadied herself on her hooves and shuffled over to the lukewarm water. It was just a simple tin bath with a foot of water in it, but was the most relaxing enjoyable moment she had had since coming to Ponyville.

Drying herself, she looked in the simple mirror on her dressing table. Her mane had become tangled and matted, her coat dull and without sheen. She sighed and put on the dress. It didn't quite fit, but that didn't matter so much. She felt around her neck and flinched. There was a thick bruise circling around it, her tender flesh not used to such treatment. The collar was gone though, and with that a marked improvement.

Joy overwhelmed her and she began to cry heavy tears of gratitude and happiness. She ran down the stairs, and embraced the unicorn at the table in a thankful hug, causing him to spill his coffee. Iridescence dried himself off, and adjusted his cravat.

"I'm glad to see you so lively." Iridescence said smiling kindly, peeling her off him. Autumn Lily returned the smile. "I took the liberty of hiring you, as a maid, and dogsbody, this should relieve Wildfire from some of the strains he has been having." He continued to smile warmly.

"I do however; expect you to have the next couple of days resting. I can only imagine how your ordeal has affected you. Wildfire will take you to a hairdresser and a tailor today, so that you look suitable as my servant, and he should explain to you your role at some point, along with how you are to be responsible for your own appearance." Iridescence put down the cup and looked curiously at Autumn Lily. He realised where he had been remiss and gave a slight laugh.

"Oh I forgot to tell you my name. Iridescence, but sir should do in public." Autumn Lily nodded thankfully. "You can make your way with Wildfire in a few hours, as I will be out attending to some business." He glanced at Wildfire meaningfully.

"I am instructed to show you around." Wildfire said softly.

Sitting in his office, Rouge patiently went through the ledgers for the dinner. Roselyn's rage had caused quite some damage, and several items of furniture needed replacement. There was also the matter of the members of staff that had been dismissed. Cotton Flower had been informed, and tomorrow, the new arrivals would undergo scrutiny, with minimal animosity between the two mares. The young maid knocked on the open door. Rouge looked up and beckoned her in.

"Make it quick, I have to walk with his lordship soon, he enjoys... talking with me apparently." Rouge said bluntly, but with kindness.

"I wouldn't have disturbed you sir, only I wanted to thank you for helping Autumn Lily." The maid said, giving a slight curtsey.

"I'm afraid I did nothing. But it may interest you to know that two days ago I was given a choice; a painfully difficult one. Lord Blossomfall told me he would, if I so desired, replace Autumn Lily with yourself." He looked impassively at the mare. She responded with an aghast expression.

"This would save her, but at the cost of putting another in that situation. I couldn't make that decision, so I changed the game. I waited for a pony of significant influence and interest to arrive, and notice her. By doing nothing I did more good than if I had done something. That, young lady, is why I told you that the best course of action was nothing." Rouge said in a finalising manner. She took the hint and left to go about her duties. Rouge signed off the expenditure sheet before him, then collected his coat and made his way to Blossomfall's study.

Cotton Flower sighed wearily. She had spent all night picking porcelain out of her mane, and had had difficulty hiring out the remaining ponies this morning. Now though, she was keen to meet the next batch; every four days, a new trainload, a new finder's fee, a new chance to win Roselyn's respect.

The train arrived, and Cotton Flower consulted the list she had received last night. Holding her clipboard before her, she could see no notable ponies immediately. No upper class to pander to. A shame, but oh well, can't be helped. The train pulled into the station and Lightning Charm took to his post, with his new partner, a well-built pegasi mare. The pair glared threateningly at the passengers.

"Good afternoon my little ponies, and what a glorious afternoon it is at that," the unicorn projected above the noise of the bustle, "we should all be grateful to our fine weather stewards for this."

Internal, over used script: check, labour worthy mass: check, and glowering guards: check. Today was going to be a standard day. The usual low level mumbling ensued as the crowd of ponies was shifted off the platform, and into the half-way house. Cotton Flower sneezed and a fork fell out of her mane. Cotton Flower now hated Iridescence with a passion.

"Wildfire, I am going out. You are to assist Autumn Lily in her hair dressing and tailoring appointments." Iridescence called out standing by the door. He took a quick glance at his reflection, and satisfied he stepped out onto the street. Only a short distance to walk, the building was instantly recognisable anyway.

With slight haste Iridescence walked towards the spire of Carousel Boutique. The shrubbery outside it was wild, but respectable, the paint on the façade in good condition. He pulled open the door and entered the studio. Adorning the walls, and easles placed about the room, were masterful portraits of nobility, sketches, inks, oils, and all with a huge, if unsaid, price tag.

Miss Spicyheart commissioned the rich and powerful, and in return they received family heirlooms. Iridescence rang the desk bell politely. A young pegasi mare responded after a brief period. She stood expectant, a dark mare with vibrant pink mane, wings unfurled dramatically. She looked at Iridescence and her face lit up.

"Do excuse me a moment." She said delicately. In the back room, the sound of a pony jumping excitedly could be heard. Starfall came to the counter instead.

"You have a little..." Iridescence began.

"I know."

"From the dinner last night."

"I know."

"And it's caught in your mane."

"Yes, I know. What do I owe this pleasure?" Starfall said abruptly.

"Just a social call, you know me, I do love seeing my favourite niece." Iridescence said sweetly.

"I'm three years older than you."

"You're still my great-great..." Iridescence took a dramatic pause for breath, "great-great niece." Iridescence finished in a sing-song voice. Starfall rolled her eyes.

"Come in do." She said lifting the counter. "I'm sure your reputation can survive talking to a licentious harlot like me." Starfall finished sharply.

"It survived the gateau. Anything beyond that is just a bonus." Iridescence said calmly.

"Business is slow today. I'll put the kettle on." Relenting Starfall led him through to the living portion of Carousel Boutique. Passing through the corridors, Iridescence noticed the colour and majesty of the adornments. This shop housed somepony wealthy.

"Until last night I didn't even know your name, let alone why I would bother spending time with you. Why are you really here?" Starfall said bluntly. Iridescence took a seat. The pegasi ran in and smiled with excitement, before languishing atop Starfall.

"I was intrigued by the disowned family member so outspoken for the non-unicorns." Iridescence said carefully.

"I told Dusk of you, and of how you acted. She seems quite taken with you. I personally have less care than that. What of it if you save a pony from a life of degradation. She is still a slave, but now she's your slave. Yes you treat her better, but a life with you is not as good as a life."

"I know Dusk Sorrows is the famed portrait artist that keeps this place afloat. Not you. So I'm curious about that." Iridescence said diplomatically.

"I love her, I treat her with respect, I gave her the support she needed to become an independent pony." Starfall said softening. "I suppose you could say I sacrificed myself so that she may have a life."

"Dusk works, and you profit from that work. In return she gets bed and board in your property. Explain to me what is different between your relationship, and the thousands of other work arrangements." Iridescence said bluntly, but warmly. Dusk looked at him curiously.

"If Dusk were to stop working, I would do everything in my power to not diminish her quality of life. If Dusk were to leave me, I would allow her to go, and not lay any claim on her work. That is the difference." Starfall said softly.

"Exactly. The ponies in my employ earn a wage. If they are incapable, I support them, if they leave, I allow it. If they earn enough to be independent ponies, I would support them in that. That is why I do not have slaves." Iridescence looked unhappy, but continued speaking. "I know Autumn Lily is too damaged psychologically to be in my employ. I am going to help her. Society will see an employment. In reality she is going to be doing the bare minimum she needs to survive; cooking her own food, cleaning her own clothes. I am giving her a bed, food, and a quality of life; for nothing."

"And if one day she chooses to leave?" Starfall asked, warming to Iridescence.

"I will help her however I can."

Rouge was walking through the old town with Blossomfall, they came to a large statue of Twilight Sparkle. Blossomfall turned to Rouge and looked pensive.

"That Iridescence fellow got me thinking about the world before the unicorns took over." Blossomfall stated. "Tell me of it." Rouge looked taken aback, but rallied.

"What would you like to know?" Rouge asked confidently.

"Tell me... Tell me how this all started." Blossomfall eventually replied.

"Twilight Sparkle was a great pony, a gifted unicorn, a brilliant mind, and a scientific curiosity. She was however, an arrogant, ignorant and foalish optimist. She simply couldn't see how her spells, her diagrams, her research, and her books could destroy Equestria. The only time she had ever faced a true evil pony, he left her corrupted for the experience, she learnt little, and only that dark magic is something not to be used carelessly. She assumed nopony would ever try to use magic to rule. Even after she had a battle with another twisted unicorn mare, who had used her enhanced abilities to enslave this town, she still refused to believe it possible of a pony. A fact not helped when Trixie repented and gave up her amulet. So she taught everypony, she wrote everything down. Not just the spells she had created, and discovered, but principles that now fuel our industry. Combustion as a source of energy had been thought of, quite recently in her times, with steam powered locomotives, but nothing was wide spread. there were no factories, no devices, no horseless carriages. The concept was nowhere near efficient enough." Rouge paused to gaze up at the statue. Malice was present in his voice, but fading.

"After spending enough time with Celestia, Sociology became the next interest: class struggles, fuelled by war, money and intolerance. They had existed before Twilight, and the history on the topic inspired her to document theories on how such a class struggle would arise, and how it would end. The book didn't sell well, nothing she wrote did, but the ponies who bought it were those who were prepared to read past the dry text. Of those ponies, my grandparents were foremost in creating working real life applications of the theories discussed in the texts. They weaponised innocent spells, spells created to amuse or entertain. They forced economic crisis, political turmoil and distrust by publicly, and successfully assassinating the alicorns. Then, to secure their place as the dominant species, they selected a foal who knew Twilight, and kept her young, naïve and suggestible until she accepted the views of the unicorn's supremacy." Rouge pointed to a filly standing strong in front of Twilight. Her youthful charm radiated through the stone.

"The cry went out. All hail Empress Sweetie Belle, and nopony questioned it. The ponies in charge had a figurehead, power, and control." Rouge dug slightly at the ground. "So then the next step was to destroy those that still challenged this assertion. Major cities underwent siege until spirits broke, minor towns were ethnically cleansed, and unicorns that sympathised with other races imprisoned and labelled traitors. Twilight's only saving grace is that she suffered this fate." Despite the air being balmy and pleasant, Blossomfall felt the atmosphere was oddly chilled.

"Rarity, kind, beautiful Rarity sold her business, her livelihood, her life's achievement, to spare her Earth Pony father from persecution. I doubt Sweetie Belle even knew. Then joined Twilight." Rouge looked darkly at Blossomfall. "When they destroyed towns they spared nopony. Stallions, mares, foals, unicorns, pegasi and earth pony; if you were in a condemned town you were destroyed." Some of the local foals had gathered to listen to the old earth pony speak.

"The towns that surrendered, the unicorns went through them, ripping families apart, shipping ponies to whatever factory town was being built, requisitioning property, taking land, and cataloguing all. The pegasi escaped for a few months, with towns and cities built above the cloudline they held out, they fought, they struggled. Then they fell. At first it was just the small towns, practice towns, unicorns preparing to siege Cloudsdale. Once they knew they could, they ascended to Cloudsdale, and erected a great magical wall around it, my grandmother leading them. They were assaulted, resistance from those who were outside of the city when the wall was built, but without their aerial advantage, had nothing but physical strength to fall back on. They were sapped of their energy, or worse, were obliterated into fine magical vapours. It was there where Rainbow Dash fell, when she did, Cloudsdale lost hope." Rouge stared at the crowd he had attracted.

"There was little left to resist the unicorns: only the great beasts of the Everfree Forest, the dragons and the unusual race of changelings. At that stage though, the unicorn movement had grown in such strength that not even an army of alicorns could have had a chance. It only took six months to change the face of Equestria."

"Why are you really here?" Starfall said after another short pause. Iridescence unburied his head from Dusk's wings and looked surprised.

"I thought I had already told you. I was curious about a unicorn so outspoken." Iridescence said patiently, before returning to caressing the dark grey feathers.

"Now that you have met me, and know of my thoughts?" Starfall said getting impatient. Watching Dusk have her wings fondled by another was making her testy.

"Darling, cannot things be just for curiosity? I met you, that was satisfying. Sure I could offer to help you liberate ponies everywhere, but that would be an exercise in futility. Yes I could turn you over to the enforcers, for several counts of fraud, and one count of being a traitor, but that would benefit nopony, so I had hoped we could use this time to get to know each other, as it were."

"Why should I trust you? For that matter, why should I care what you think of me?"

"Because right now you are challenging society, and you need friends in high places if you plan on carrying on as you are. I'm a filthy fetishist with a taste for pegasi too, though I prefer mine to have something between their legs, yet, I haven't been branded a class traitor, ridiculed, shunned, and disowned. If you want to make a difference to the ponies you care about, you need the power to do so." Iridescence said in the manner of one who already knew exactly what to say if the question came up, and wasn't surprised it had.

"I thought you said you weren't going to offer to help liberate ponies." Starfall said triumphantly.

"That's right, I did, and I'm not offering to help you liberate ponies, dear Celestia no. I'm offering to help you get social and political standing. What you do with it is up to you. Though I think liberation is too far a step, at least for the current time, set your sights for making their plight bearable, then work towards pleasant, then, if you still desire it, work for liberation. I personally think you will do more harm than good liberating anypony, society will collapse again, and unless earth ponies have grown magical abilities, we will have another six month war, and things will be like this again, but with tougher sanctions on non-unicorns." Iridescence said brusquely. "Now if you will excuse me I do need to head home. Seeing Dusk has reminded me of somepony I have been neglecting to spend time with."

"Once Equestria had been conquered, it needed to be held." Rouge continued, his monologue now attracting passing adult ponies. "Great prisons were constructed, law enforcement unicorns trained and unleashed, and everypony catalogued and recorded, the largest, most probing census ever." Rouge gazed about the assembled mass. Primarily unicorns, but some pegasi and earth ponies, in their master's employ, were standing nonchalantly towards the back. "And as luck would have it, my grandparents had the solution again. They created the notion of fear. Instead of respect and reverence, ponies feared the enforcers. The unicorns in black that only ever visit you once. Those are fine for serious matters, but for local matters, the pegasi were forcibly conscripted to form martial visible law enforcement. All of them, everypony everywhere was just another cog in the giant machine the unicorns created, and under them, peace returned. Peace born from fear and death, but still peace. Now ponies can walk streets safely at night, leave doors unlocked, trust their neighbours and above all tolerate each other. So long as they are the same race. The races were divided, and with it the magic of friendship, the magic of companionship, the magic of love. Peace has come with the terrible price of desolation." Rouge turned to face Blossomfall.

"That is how it all started." He gave a cursory glance about the audience and saw Iridescence had joined the crowd. The ponies started heading away from Rouge now. Making the remaining ponies flinch with shock, a bright flash emanated from around Rouge, from the light stepped a trio of black clad unicorns. They prepared to grab him. In a golden yellow flash Iridescene appeared next to Rouge, holding his family card before the unicorn enforcers.

"Leave him. He's with me." He said breathless. The lead mare approached and bowed slightly.

"Are you sure sir? He..." She began before being cut off.

"Yes I'm sure. Go about your business elsewhere." The mare nodded at this request. The trio disappeared as quickly as they had arrived. Iridescence looked at Rouge.

"Are you brain-dead? Has living two-hundred years rotted the organ in your head? I thought you were more intelligent than that. Do you realise how much of a rebellious traitor you sounded? I only heard your closing remarks and I heard plenty of grounds to have you arrested." Iridescence spoke loudly. He sighed.

"Look, I'll file a report with my offices, claim you're a scholar and out of your mind. Try to make you untouchable. No promises, so please be careful." Rouge looked dumbfounded.

"Blossomfall, I can't order you to do anything, but I respectfully request you do not repeat what you heard, especially in public." Iridescence sighed again, and walked slowly away.