Celestia Sleeps In

by Admiral Biscuit

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Princess Celestia, Human, Twilight Sparkle, Lyra, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Princess Luna, Trixie
Length: 145977

A dispute between Celestia and Luna leads to Celestia accidentally making contact with humans.

After an argument with Luna, Celestia realizes that she is the only creature in Equestria who cannot sleep in. She enlists Twilight to help, and the two of them come up with a spell that will allow her to spend the night on a different world. Unfortunately, all their research failed to reveal that the world they sought was populated. Now, the Princess must decide whether to continue with contact, or destroy the only non-Equestrian witness to their existence.

Cover art is called "Sleeping Celestia" by Briskby

Published 2013-01-12 12:10:02 UTC
Last updated 2013-09-20 02:36:42 UTC

Prologue

Celestia Sleeps In
Prologue
1-11-13
Admiral Biscuit

Towering over the organized chaos of a city coming to life, the golden spires of the Royal Castle gleamed in the new day's sun. One by one, ponies who were in the streets cast their eyes towards a balcony, high above the streets, on the easternmost tower of the castle. There, faintly visible, a single pearl-white alicorn stood sentry, her benevolent visage shining upon them. Some went about their business after a quick look; others simply basked in her glory. To a unicorn in a crisp suit, she was simply a reminder that he was almost due at a bank meeting; to a baker who stepped out of his store for a few minutes of meditation each morning, she was a symbol of all that Equestria stood for; to a night editor on the top floor of the newspaper building, she was a token of possibilities—both good and bad—for the news the coming day.

Princess Celestia watched as the rays of the morning sun cut across the city, illuminating it from the top down. She could see those ponies who stopped to view her, and those who simply gave her a glance and continued on their ways. She was hardly focused on her task; millennia of raising the sun each morning had made it second-nature to her. Instead, she observed the city slowly coming awake.

Like the mind of a dreamer, tradesponies had been working all night long. Policeponies and sewerponies and rubbishponies had been patrolling the streets, while fireponies and nurses and doctors had been sitting in their rooms, trading stories and jokes, both bored of the tedium and glad for it. Later, as Luna’s moon was high in the sky, the delieveryponies and bakers had trudged through the darkened streets, making their way to shops and offices, beginning the new day with fresh bread, fresh vegetables, and fresh news, all to be enjoyed at restaurants and cafes that were even now filling.

She enjoyed watching the city, how it had grown and transformed over the years. The ponies had changed, but the heart of the city had not—would not—as long as it remained her seat of power.

The sun firmly on its track, and her empire safe for another day, she finally stepped back from the balcony into her giant bedroom. As always, two senior Pegasus Guards were waiting there, and fell in line behind her, while her secretary stood off to the side, waiting for instructions. Celestia moved into the hall, her small entourage trailing her, and made her way to the dining hall.

As she sat, serving ponies buzzed around her, and she frowned a little, as she did every morning. It seemed unnecessary to have five of them to fetch a bowl of oatmeal, a small salad, and a tall glass of coffee, but the look of adoration on their faces kept her from saying anything.

With soft hooffalls, Luna moved up beside Celestia. “We have finished with our nightly routine,” she said softly. “As usual, we have no news of interest for thee. Lunar Court was deserted.” She sighed. “We spent the hours examining Cloudsdale’s budget. Didst thou know if they moved the weather factory but a thousand feet higher, they might cut their energy usage by a twelfth?”

Celesta turned to face Luna, setting her spoon back in her oatmeal. “Would they be able to collect the water they needed from reservoirs? Most villages are near maximum wingpower already to get the water high enough.”

Luna frowned, a tender carrot floating inches from her muzzle. “We do not know. We suppose they could descend when they needed more water. We are uncertain why they doth not. Perchance we may peruse the matter more tonight, should there be no pressing matters we must attend in the Lunar Court.”

Celestia nodded absently. While the sisters ate in a silence only occasionally interrupted by the serving-ponies, she wondered if she could create some kind of situation that could only be handled by the night court. She worried that perhaps Luna was becoming depressed by the lack of contact with other ponies, many whom still feared her. Her nocturnal lifestyle, of course, complicated matters.

“Go to bed, sister.” Celestia nuzzled her neck. “I will report to you at supper.”

Luna nodded and walked out of the dining room.

As she left, Celestia wondered if the ponies would get more accustomed to Luna if they were on the balcony together when the sun rose. She resolved to mention it at dinner.

Sitting through Solar Court, Celestia found her mind wandering. Most of the petitioners she heard every day were the same nobles, voicing the same complaints. After all these years, she was tired of it. She idly wondered if she could pass a law stating that nopony could visit the Solar Court more than a dozen times annually. Perhaps some kind of system whereby the more times one visited, the farther back one would have to be in line . . . she smiled, a little, thinking how the nobility would have a fit over such an edict.

It would never work, she decided. Ponies would never change. Ever since she became the alpha mare of her first herd, she had been pressed day after day with requests, questions, and permissions. As their society had advanced, the requests had become more complicated than ‘can we graze by the river today,’ but otherwise nothing had changed. Perhaps nothing ever would.

As she bade farewell to the last petitioner, she wondered if Equestrian society would collapse if she took a vacation. It probably would. A dark part of her mind imagined taking a weekend off and returning to find Canterlot in smoldering ruins, a new unicorn council ruling over the ashes.

The next morning, the sisters stood together on the balcony. Celestia noted with amusement that there were far more stares than usual. As she watched the streets fill up, she looked over at her sister who had a wistful look in her eye.

“We think we were not entirely wrong, a thousand years ago,” Luna commented.

“About the everlasting night?”

Luna nodded. Seeing the look on Celestia’s face, she raised a hoof. “Not about the eternal darkness, of course. We know thy ponies need your sun for thy crops to grow. We know that were we to prevent the sun from rising, starvation and eternal winter would destroy all Equestria.” She paused, considering her next words carefully. “But, so few of thy ponies enjoy our night, sister. We toil so maintaining our beautiful tapestry overhead, and shifting the shape of our moon, while it seems that all you do is set the sun on the same track every morn. The only variance is how many clouds the pegasi hath put in the sky. Yet, everypony would rather be out in the day.”

Celestia pondered her answer. There was no point in lying to Luna, for she would know the lie and brood on it. Instead, she said simply, “The sun is more important to their survival, Luna. You know that. There is little I can do with it without causing crops to wither or freeze. Imagine the panic in the streets if I were to raise the sun closer than usual one day, or send it on a different course across the sky. Perhaps if I had introduced some variation in the early years, ponies might have grown to expect it, but now it is too late.”

“We know, Tia,” Luna pouted. “It just seems unfair.” She looked down at the rapidly filling streets. “All thy ponies, sleeping through our night, arising as thy sunlight touchst thy beds.”

Celestia looked over at her sister. “Luna, as powerful as I am, there is only one thing that I alone in all of Equestria cannot do.”

Luna looked at Celestia thoughtfully for a few minutes. “We confess, we can think of naught.”

Celestia looked at Luna with a touch of sadness in her eyes. “I can never wake to the sun.”

For months, that thought gnawed at Celestia. Luna, if she wanted, could take a night off—that she wouldn’t was beside the point: she could. Celestia was easily able to send the moon through its track; a thousand years of practice and she was pretty good at it. Luna, however, was simply not powerful enough to control the sun, and likely wouldn’t be for centuries. The more she thought about it, the more it irked her. Very nearly all-powerful, yet there was just one little thing she could not do.

She noticed that after their conversation, Luna had moved her bed directly in line with a west-facing window, and arranged the drapes so that the sunlight hit her bed just about the time she usually woke, and while it annoyed Celestia, she let her little sister have that victory. Luna was unusually subtle about it; she never mentioned it, but she knew that Celestia knew, and that Celestia was bothered.

“There must be something I can do,” Celestia muttered out loud, startling the Guardponies. She looked at them, and simply stated, “I am going to the restricted section of the Archives. Direct anything urgent to my attention there.”

They nodded as she walked down the hall.

Days turned to weeks, and weeks to months. The simplest solution would have been to let somepony else raise the sun, as the Unicorn Council did in the days before Celestia ascended. However, given the chaos of the times, nopony had bothered to write down a very accurate account of how, exactly, one took control of the sun, and Celestia’s memories of the event were fragmented images of her sister lying half-dead, of her own coat stained gray with dried blood, sweat, and mud she thought was never going to come out. She had been maintaining nearly a dozen spells to keep her and her sister alive, and to keep the High Unicorn King at bay. As he had forced her to her knees, she had seen the now-or-never look in Luna’s eyes, and had dropped every spell, seized hold of her sister’s power, somehow, and blasted the unicorn into dust. That had been the last thing she remembered until her ponies had pulled her loose from the rubble. It wasn’t until hours later that anypony noticed that the sun wasn’t moving, and even longer still before she discovered that she could control it. Even now, she shivered at the memory.

In all their years together, the only time that the sisters had mentioned it since was when Celestia had asked Luna one afternoon how she got control of the moon.

“Is it not obvious?” Luna said bitterly, waiving a hoof at her coat. “Thou art light, we are dark; thou hast the sun, we the night.” And it was not long after that she had been forced to either kill Luna or banish her to the moon, and after a thousand years she still had not decided if she had made the correct decision, or been swayed by emotion. Clearly, it was not a subject she was planning to ever bring up with her sister again.

It was unfortunate, though, she thought, as she waded through tomes and scrolls. Luna had always been the theoretician. Celestia never really understand the fine points of how her magic worked, she just relied on her instincts and emotions, while Luna was colder and more calculating. While it was true that thousands of years of practice had left Celestia the most skilled unicorn in Equestria, at heart she was a pegasus, decisive but impatient. Had it not been for her sister’s subtle jabs, she surely would have let the matter rest; as it was, every time she felt like quitting the project, she simply went to her sister’s chambers, took one look at the bed, and renewed her research, even though her hopes were falling like the leaves on the trees.

My Faithful Student Twilight Sparkle:

I am writing this letter at the behest of my sister, who wishes you to come to Canterlot for Hearth’s Warming Eve. She feels that the weeks afterward would provide a good time to teach you some of the magic which you experienced firsthoof in the Crystal Empire, as many of them are especially potent during the cold winter days and long winter nights. I feel that Spike should be able to attend the library himself for several weeks; should he need assistance, the kind Ms. Fluttershy would undoubtedly be willing, especially as many of her animal friends are hibernating or have flown south for the winter. Should you have time, there is a small research project which you may be able to help me with, as well.
Princess Celestia

Twilight read the letter for the tenth time since Spike had belched it forth. Each time it seemed it had revealed some new bit of information, if the growing pile of books was any indication. Spike had a sudden, probably not entirely inaccurate vision of every shelf in the library being empty, and an increasingly frustrated purple unicorn attempting to stuff them all in her saddlebags, and decided he had to put a stop to this before it got out of control.

“Sure is a lot of books,” he mused, lifting a thin lavender book titled Theoretical Research in Neuroponynomic Decision-Making. “Probably be a challenge to carry them all.”

“Mm-hmm,” she muttered, not really listening.

He tossed it back on the pile. “Bet they have a newer copy at the Canterlot Library.” He traced a claw over the crossed-out Royal Library stamp on the book, looking at her deliberately as he did so. “Might wonder when you got there why you’d bothered to bring it at all.” He hooked a claw into the spine of another book—also a Royal Library discard—and pulled it towards himself. “Of course, that’s Future Twilight’s problem.”

She stopped in her tracks, and looked at him thoughtfully. “I guess Past Twilight could still learn a thing or two from Future Twilight.” Chuckling, she began to levitate books back to the shelf. Eventually, the two of them managed to reduce the pile to three books, plus her journal and a notebook, which left her ample room for quills, ink, hat, scarf, boots, and the simple dress Rarity had made for her birthday, in case she was invited to any formal events. With a promise from both Fluttershy and Rarity to keep an eye on the library and on Spike, she set off on the train to Canterlot.

As the railway carriage swayed through the gently-falling snow, she pondered what Princess Celestia might need help with. She could think of nothing that she had firsthoof experience with except, perhaps, the Elements of Harmony, which had lain unused for centuries before she and her friends had defeated Nightmare Moon. Normally she would have been a nervous wreck by the time the train arrived in Canterlot—especially since none of her friends were traveling with her, so she had only her own council to keep—but her worry was tempered by an eagerness to learn more of the magic she had felt in the Crystal Empire. She knew it was dangerous, but as a good student of magic, knew that it also had potential power for good, if used properly. It was not unlike the mixed nature of protective spells: she had used a force-bubble to keep the Cutie Mark Crusaders out of the library during their brief stint as yellow journalists—which was, in retrospect, rather selfish—while her brother had used the same spell in his failed attempt to protect Canterlot from the changelings.

Twilight chuckled as she looked down at her journal. Already, she had written several pages of notes in black ink on ways in which the spells King Sombra had used might benefit ponies, while other pages, filled out in red ink, listed potential research projects that the Princess might have in mind, along with best ways to approach them. Since in neither case did she have any salient facts, it was pure idle speculation, no more useful than Pinkie Pie’s crystal ball.

She frowned as the note of the locomotive’s exhaust changed, and then was plunged into darkness. She flattened her ears and slapped her hoof down on her journal, unaware of having done so, as she looked around the dim railcar quickly in the pulsing aura which surrounded the dancing quill in front of her face, then let out a relieved snort as the train emerged from the tunnel a moment later.

No need to get all worked up, Twilight, she reminded herself. If the train was passing through tunnels, then it was closer to Canterlot than she thought. She carefully capped the ink bottle and slid it back into her saddlebags, blotted her journal and folded it shut, putting it in the opposite side from the ink. She wrapped a small piece of stained cotton around the tip of her quill, and put it away, as well, then went to the small bathroom in the car. Thankful that she had remembered to put a brush on her packing-for-a-trip-to-Canterlot checklist, she got her mane and tail in order, finishing as the train began to slow for the outer guardpost. She remembered when she was a filly, the train hadn’t slowed here, but several attempts on the throne over the last few years—even if all had failed—had caused the guards to become a lot more serious than they had been when she was young, helped along by Shining’s demand for perfection.

Regardless of the brevity of the stop and detached professionalism of the Royal Guard, Twilight felt violated as the train continued its journey onward—personal student of the Princess or not, Twilight had to submit to the same scrutiny as anypony else who traveled into Canterlot by rail these days. Her resentment was offset by the memory of dozens of doppelganger Twilights confronting Rainbow Dash; the Guard certainly had reason to believe that even a familiar face could be a changeling.

The train finally squealed into Canterlot station and sighed a long hiss of escaping steam. As soon as the conductor opened the door, Twilight trotted out, passing the booths selling snacks and trinkets without a glance, her eyes fixed on the ivory towers of the castle.

In what seemed like no time at all, she had been poked and prodded with both unicorn magic and plain old hoof, and was finally inside the castle, being trailed by two Unicorn Guards, both of whom normally lead dignitaries around and were unused to having to quickly trot to keep up with a single-minded pony who ignored every decorative tapestry, stained glass window, and marble statue in her quest to reach Princess Celestia’s chambers with as little wasted time as possible.

With a familiarity of the castle that the guards envied, she skipped the normal route, preferring service hallways for their directness whenever possible, and occasionally going up a flight of stairs to one hallway, then back down at the other end, to avoid some obstacle that she expected would slow her. The group eventually arrived at the doors outside Celestia’s private office, where she was going over end-of-year paperwork with the Royal Castellan and Royal Bailiff, ponies both well-known to Twilight.

When she entered, Celestia looked up and beamed at Twilight, then got back to her discussion. As impatient as Twilight was, she couldn’t help but listen to the complicated workings of the castle. It directly employed hundreds of service ponies, three companies of the Royal Guard, and had its own post office; the Castellan and Bailiff were responsible for keeping them all in order and performing their tasks. She had once drawn out a chart of who was responsible for what, after listening in on a similar briefing. It had taken her days, and two trips to the library for additional research, and she had been chagrined when the Castellan had, with just a casual glance at her chart, corrected dozens of mistakes, and written in an entire branch, under the watchful eye of the High Marshal, of which she had been completely unaware.

As the meeting went on, clerks came and went, placing papers gently on the table beside Twilight, bowing respectfully as they entered and exited. The Princess smiled at each one, hardly breaking the thread of her conversation. Twilight knew that the Celestia knew the names of each one of the ponies in her employ, and their mates and children’s names as well, and she wondered how she kept it all straight in her head.

Eventually, the two finished going through the books, and closed them carefully, the Castellan helpfully levitating one into the Bailiff’s saddlebag. With deep bows, they were gone.

The Princess came around the desk, and, dropping all formality, nuzzled Twilight gently on the neck. “My faithful student. How is Ponyville? Did you have a pleasant Hearth’s Warming?”

“It was wonderful,” she smiled. “The girls and I got together at Rarity’s this year. At first we thought Rainbow Dash wasn’t going to show up, because Fluttershy said there was a pageant in Cloudsdale, but she did, and she brought Scootaloo with her, too.” She paused. “Did you see the pageant in Canterlot this year?”

Celestia shook her head. “I never go to those. I find them—“ she paused, realizing she had said a little too much. “Uncomfortable.” She scraped a hoof awkwardly across the polished granite floor. “I feel that my presence might detract from the performance,. Everypony would be more interested in me than the actors.”

Twilight opened her mouth, about to ask how, exactly, the pagents made Celestia feel uncomfortable, but the look on the Princess’ face stopped her. Her expression was as impassive as always, but there was a faraway look in her eyes, a brief flicker of terrible loss, perhaps, and then she brightened, waiting for Twilight to say whatever it was she was about to say. For a moment that felt like forever, both were at a loss.

“Sooo . . . you mentioned in your letter that Princess Luna wishes to teach me some of King Sombra’s magic?”

“Yes!” Celestia’s eager response didn’t go unnoticed by Twilight. “King Sombra…Luna is, well, rather good at understanding the magical theories behind his powers. I must confess, I had broached the subject with her quite some time ago, shortly after we suspected that the Crystal Empire was about to reappear, but she was concerned that some of its corrupting nature might cause you problems. Of course, I do not mean to offend you by saying this, I am just stating what her concerns were.”

Twilight nodded. “If I may ask, what made her change her mind?”

“She and I were pleased with the way you dealt with King Sombra and the Crystal Empire, utilizing your friend’s abilities to help locate the Crystal Heart and distract the crystal ponies from their fears, your loyalty to Spike, and especially your willingness to turn aside personal glory in favor of the larger goal of preventing his return to power. Spike, Princess Cadence, and your brother all spoke highly of your integrity, and we both felt that it was time to see what else your mind might have to offer Equestrian society.” The Princess looked at the two unicorn guards, who had remained in the room. “If you two will escort Ms. Sparkle to her quarters, and allow her to prepare for dinner, we will meet in the dining hall.” She turned back to Twilight. “Princess Luna will be there as well, and I am hoping you would grace us with your presence at the High Table. I am afraid that you will have to wait to begin your studies until later, but we do have other ponies with whom we must converse.”

Twilight nodded. “I brought my favorite dress.” She felt like shouting it out, she was so thankful she had included it on her list.

The unicorn fumed as the mare-in-waiting fussed over her dress. She began shifting her weight from hoof to hoof, until a smoldering look from the servant made her stop guiltily. When she was a foal, she hadn’t dealt with any of the boring formality of being a Very Important Pony, she had just whiled away the hours in the library or the garden or the observatory or wherever else her curiosity had taken her. As she had not been, at the time, a member of a significant noble house, nopony had taken notice of her unless she was underhoof. Much of that had changed the moment Shining Armor had married Princess Cadance and become Prince Mi Amore Cadenza, Captain of the Royal Guard and Protector of the Crystal Empire. She was now very much in the spotlight whenever she came to Canterlot, although fortunately nopony had been willing to follow her home to Ponyville, where the locals—with the exception of Rarity—had little interest in the events of Canterlot. She was not used to being waited on horn and hoof, or having to conform to boring rules of etiquette.

She finally found her way to the dining hall, and was utterly mortified to discover that she was to be announced by a herald, and led to her place by a page. She hoped that her blush was hidden by her lavender coat. However, she forgot her misery when she was seated next to Fancypants, a unicorn who was everything everypony wished Blueblood was. Twilight smiled, knowing that Princess Celestia had deliberately had her put there, since his presence would instantly erase any social faux-pas she should happen to make.

He smiled warmly as she was seated. “I remember that dress,” he whispered. “One of Miss Rarity’s finer creations, I do believe.”

She chuckled. “She must have made dozens of similar dresses before she got sick of them and sold the design to a tailor in Canterlot.”

“And now he’s competing with another fashion house that’s selling knockoffs.” Fancypants smiled brightly. “I bought one of her first dresses for Fleur, although I must say that yours looks the best of them all. It’s nice to see that you still wear it. It is no longer ‘the thing’ for the up-and-coming, I’m afraid.” He looked critically at the overly lacy dress that his marefriend was currently wearing. “I must say, there is so much more honesty in that dress, and it looks as if you have such freedom of movement.”

“It isn’t inappropriate for such an occasion?” Twilight cast a worried look at all the ponies seated at their tables, staring at the High Table while pretending not to.

He waved a hoof dismissively. “Of course not. The Princesses have been wearing the same thing for as long as anypony can remember, and nopony criticizes them for lack of fashion.” He took a sip of his wine. “Well, perhaps Hoity-Toity, but really, he would complain about anypony’s clothes.”

The dinner flew by, Twilight fully engrossed in dialogue with Fancypants and Fleur de Lis, to the point that she hardly noticed what she was eating. She was amused to discover that, unlike nasty rumors to the contrary, Fleur was a fascinating conversationalist who had a mind like a steel trap, often gently reminding Fancypants of details or facts he had forgotten. When the meal was finally over, the Head Table was escorted out first, and led to a separate chamber where everypony bade their goodbyes, until nopony was left but Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.

It was with surprising quickness that Celestia turned Twilight over to Luna, and then headed out the door, but to be fair, she still had some other matters that required her personal attention.

Luna led Twilight towards the aptly named lunar wing of the castle. Here was where the balconies with their telescopes ringed the central tower, pointed heavenward, where the stellar charts were stored and studied, and where Twilight had spent many a night observing the night sky and learning the names of the stars and galaxies that were so far from their own, as well as the nearer stellar objects which fell under Princess Luna’s control.

At the very top of a rarely-visited corridor, a pair of giant doors stood open, with two Lunar Guards flanking the entrance. Twilight paused—their bat-like wings had always made her uncomfortable—before following the Princess into her outer chambers.

They were not unlike Princess Celestia’s, although rather than the simple formality of her office, there were charts and papers tacked up to the walls, covered with Princess Luna’s immaculate copperplate printing. Half of the documents were concerned with thaumaturgical theory—a subject very near and dear to Twilight’s heart—while the other half concerned the running of Equestria.

“Be seated,” the Princess instructed, pointing at a low bench. As soon as Twilight sat, Luna moved beside her, although she remained standing, looking at her cluttered desk rather than Twilight. “What we are about to teach thee will be very difficult for a pony of thy nature to learn—mayst, perchance, turn out to be impossible. We are sorry to say that although thou canst learn theory from this tome, thou art quite unlikely to be able to successfully cast any of the spells with just book knowledge.

“Princess, please. Could you drop the formality here? Remember, I told you that the other ponies weren’t used to it. Even if it makes you comfortable, it’s just us two here.”

“Twilight Sparkle, thou hast become too comfortable with thy station. Despite the fact that our sister believes that thou art her prize student, we fear that she hath grown too close to thyself, perchance thinking of thee as her own foal. We believe that she hath forgotten the sacrifices that we hath made—ours and hers—to bring forth Equestria from Discord, and we wish thou wouldst at least converse with us in the manner which we deserve, especially here in our House.”

Twilight’s ears flattened, and she hung her head. Luna moved her head close, her breath hot on the unicorn’s neck. “We do not wish to be harsh to thee, Twilight Sparkle. Thou hast Celestia’s favor, and we believe she is a good judge of a pony’s character. We know her every thought is for the betterment of Equestrian society, even though it sometimes hurts those whom she holds the closest.”

Taking a step back, the Princess continued. “We have arranged for a tutor to run thee through orasurgy, but first, we would like to show thee an example. Art thou familiar with oneirourgy?”

“Don’t you mean oramancy and oneiromancy? The Modern Unicorn’s Guide to Magic says—“

Luna stomped the floor, eyes flashing in anger. “We rue and lament the butchering of the Royal Canterlot language that was allowed whilst we were languishing on the moon. Had we been present, we would have torn the fur from those ignorant professors one hair at a time. We did not rise up in rebellion to have every ignorant jackanape befoul our glorious speech into the garbled rubbish it has become.” As Twilight’s eyes widened, Luna took a deep breath. “Very well, we suppose we must adapt to the times. Art thou familiar with—“ she made face “—oneiromancy?”

Twilight smiled. “The manipulation of dreams. Naturally, a magic in which you would be skilled, Princess.”

“Quite so,” she said dryly. “It doth cover a much larger field than that, as thou shalt see. In a sense, tis a very specific field of the branch of . . . oramancy, although it draws on a few other related fields. Now, we would like thee to imagine a specific object that thou wouldst very much desire to possess.” She paused for a moment. “Is it clear in thy mind?”

Twilight nodded.

“Tell me, what is it?”

“The Everfree Forest and why every bloody thing turns up there by Glint Eastwither.”

Princess Luna rolled her eyes. “Very well. If thou wouldst be so kind as to carefully observe.” She turned towards her crowded desk. In her horn’s aura, papers began moving about, until a thick tome floated across the room, landing in front of Twilight, who eagerly grabbed it with her own magic. She flipped the book open, then frowned.
“Princess, this isn’t Eastwither’s book. The title page’s all wrong.” She flipped a few more pages. “The introduction is missing. Plus, it should be written in simplified Unicorn, rather than R.C. Unicorn script.” She looked up at the alicorn. “Is this some kind of a trick?”

Luna chuckled, and the book vanished. “Twas but a simple illusion. More tactile than most unicorns could manage, but we do have the advantage of centuries of practice. Thou didst readily see the flaws in our illusion—we have never seen the book, so we had to take our best guess at what it might look like.

“Now, we ask thee to think of another thing that thou wishst to possess, but this time do not speak it out loud, just concentrate on it.” Again, she gave the purple unicorn a moment to think.

Twilight opened her eyes, and looked at the desk expectantly, but it was unchanged. She looked up at the Princess.

“We think thou shalt find it over there,” Luna said, pointing vaguely behind Twilight with a hoof.

The unicorn turned. Eyes widening, she leapt off the bench, running over to a small desk. A tiny part of her mind was insisting that the desk hadn’t been there before, but the rest of her brain said it must have been; it was here now.

Sitting in the center of the desk was Clover the Clever’s original diary, the title clearly recognizable to Twilight, although it was written in Old Equestrian, a language with which she was not particularly familiar. She eagerly sat in front of the desk, and began to page through the book, running her eyes across the cramped writing. Even if she couldn’t understand it, she would study until she did. She was certain that this book held the secrets she needed to know to advance her studies.

“Twilight Sparkle.”

“Busy reading.”

Luna smiled a slightly wicked smile that would have sent shivers up Twilight’s spine, if she had seen it. Luna watched the unicorn crouch hunched over, facing the wall, her horn a glowing aura around nothing at all, staring fixedly into the center of it, her pupils tracing back and forth.

“Twilight Sparkle, look at us.”

Unwillingly, she looked up. She gasped; for a moment, she was looking into the face of Nightmare Moon, and then she blinked, and it was just Luna. She looked back down, but the journal was gone. Puzzled, she looked back at the Princess.

“That book would have given thee no knowledge, no matter how long thou studied,” Luna said softly. “Twas no more real than thy vision of our sister dismissing thee for thy failure to succeed in the north, or thy friend Rarity dragging around a boulder she believed to be a gigantic diamond.

“Unlike our illusion of the first book, this time we left the spell far less specific. Twas more a mental illusion than tactile, and thou seest what thou desired.”

“But I could have learned from it,” Twilight whined. “Bring it back!”

“There is naught in that book that twere not already in thy mind.” She looked at the unicorn sternly. “How should there be? If anypony else saw the book, twould be uninteresting. Were thee to grant it to anypony at the Royal College, they would be unable to make anything of it, although thy mind might suggest that they had.”

“If I fixated on it long enough, it could drive me mad,” Twilight mused. Luna nodded. “Yes, I can see how such magic could be quite dangerous. Why are you teaching it to me? I want to learn, I do, but shouldn’t it be locked away, where nopony can study it?”

Luna sat down and looked Twilight in the eye. “Twilight, we wish it could. Perhaps our sister believes that it is possible to lock one’s problems away, but we believe thou knowst it is not. Discord and our . . . King Sombra were both able to use mental magic against thee, and we just did as well. In all three cases, thou wert deceived, at least briefly. We and our sister hope that if thou knowst how the magic works, thou shalt be able to resist.”

Luna stood, and levitated the book on magical theory over to Twilight. “Now, we must take our leave. Our duties must be performed. Read through the first chapter of the book, but then we must insist that sleep take thee.” She looked at the unicorn threateningly. “We shall know if thou hast not. On the morrow thou shall meet thy tutor, and we desire that thou shall be alert and rested.”

Twilight bowed, and walked toward the door. “Who is my tutor? Is it somepony I know?”

Luna smiled broadly. “Tis one of the realm’s finest practitioners of orasurgy—oramancy—a unicorn who hast learned to meld epithymurgy and oneirophobia.

“Beatrix Lulamoon.”

Author's Note

My Little Pony, and all characters contained therein, are the property of Hasbro and the glorious Lauren Faust.
Proofread and edited by Woonsocket Wrench,who read it and didn't murder me. (thanks!)
The unworthy author takes full responsibility for any and all errors in this work.
This work may be shared in any format, so long as the author is creditied.

Notes and references for this chapter can be found in my blog, HERE.

Chapter 1 : What Could Go Wrong?

Celestia Sleeps In
Chapter 1: What Could Go Wrong?
Admiral Biscuit

“Trixie?”

Luna nodded, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Beatrix art most skilled at those magics, Twilight Sparkle.” She paused, considering whether or not to continue. When a second outburst from the purple unicorn was not forthcoming, she did. “We understand thou dost not have the best . . . relationship. However, we are certain she and thee can work past thine differences to further thy studies.” She tossed her head. “Goodnight, Twilight Sparkle.”

Fuming, Twilight stomped back towards her quarters, the tome Luna had given her now weighing like a lead ingot in her telekinetic field. She almost tossed it into the wall in her anger, but her respect for both books and the Lunar Princess stopped her.

Finally, she made it back to her room. It was the same small suite she had occupied before she moved to Ponyville, as tidy as ever. She frowned, thinking of Amberlocks, the servant pony who had kept it up, for no real purpose—the practical part of her thought it should have been reclaimed for Royal guests, although it was nice to have a familiar place to stay while she was in Canterlot.

She dropped the tome on the desk, smiling at the title. Practical Use of Illusion: A Primer. She'd never really done much with illusions in school, since they seemed impractical. She carefully took off her dress and hung it up in the nearly vacant closet, then went into her small attached bathroom. When she came back out, she looked around her room; satisfied that everything was in order, she flipped the book open and began carefully reading.

The first chapter was predictably long in promise and short on detail. Three unicorns had co-written the book; Lilly Lightly, an illusionist; Star Song, an oneiromancer; and a convicted con artist, whose name was only given as ‘Cinnamon.’ As tempted as she was to continue reading, she remembered Princess Luna’s warning about getting plenty of sleep, and knew that the diarch was no doubt going to keep a close eye on her. It was somewhat uncomfortable to be the object of such interest—especially as she now suspected that she could not keep her mind completely free from the Princess’—but she knew that they were right to not trust her completely.

She sighed, and closed the book. As she lay down in the familiar bed, she found herself imagining conjuring up illusions for an amazed audience, and wondered if Trixie had felt the same thrill of promise as she was reading through the very same book. And where had she practiced? Twilight knew that Trixie had not attended Celestia’s School for Talented Unicorns, and there were no other prestigious schools for unicorns that she knew of.

Pulling the covers up to her chin, she sighed, knowing sleep would be difficult tonight. She stared at the hoof-hewn rafters above her bed, wondering once again if the earth ponies who had carved them had expected their work to be seen by somepony dozens of generations later. What had their dreams been, as they went to the unfinished castle every day, knowing that it would not be completed in their lifetimes?

She rolled on her side, curling up tightly. Her forelegs felt empty without her doll. Every night when she went to sleep, she wondered what had become of it, but she had been too embarrassed about the whole situation in Ponyville to ask anypony about its whereabouts, and she had never gotten a replacement. Her parents had given it to her when she was just a year old—not that she remembered—and Miss Smarty Pants had been her constant companion.

Her parents. She remembered very well how happy they had been after she had been accepted to Celestia’s School. Her mother had been fussing over her, and her father had been—had been—is yelling at her.

“You’re just like your mother!” His angry amber eyes bore into her heart. “Always dreaming of being the greatest unicorn in all of Equestira. I suppose you’ll want to supplant the Princess, next?”

“But…but I—“

“Shut up!” He kicks a book at her. “Look where her dreams got her!”

She groans, a strange memory of sitting before a Judicial Council playing through her mind. Her mother is sitting at a table in front of them, a lead cone over her horn so she can’t use her magic. Her brick-colored pelt is neater than Twilight remembered it ever having been, and her platinum mane is neatly combed and her tail is braided. Twilight looks down, and she is holding her mother’s book in her hooves, clutching it like a security blanket. Her mother is sobbing into her hooves as the magistrate reads out the sentence.

“I have a foal!” she cries out, her voice breaking. “Who will care for her?”

“I want you out of my house, forever! The wheels of justice have crushed my wife, and my home, and they will crush you, too.” He punctuates his words by slamming the door in her face. Sobbing, she runs into the crowded Manehatten streets, her possessions reduced to the contents of her saddlebags.

Away from her angry father, she pulls her few belongings from her saddlebags. She has her blanket, her mother’s book, a few bits, and a bruised apple. Tears form in her eyes, she’s parentless and homeless, driven out of herd and home.

“Cheer up,” her mother’s voice is in her head. “As long as your horn works and you’ve got your wits about you, a unicorn can always make her way in the world. Remember what I’ve taught you."

Heart pounding, Twilight jerked awake. She was lying in her darkened bedroom. Groaning, she turned her head towards the window. It was still the middle of the night, but she suddenly didn’t feel tired at all. Her heart was racing, and she felt frightened, although of what she did not know. Resigned, she got out of bed and walked across the room, her hoofsteps echoing in the quiet chamber.

The book was where she had left it, the door was still closed, and the dress was still hung neatly in the closet. It didn’t feel like anypony had been in her room, and she knew that the guards were patrolling the corridor; she could faintly hear their hoofsteps.

She opened her window and looked outside, inviting in a frigid blast. She could see a few castle lights lit, and when she squinted, she could see that the guards at the main gate were still at their positions. She was sure nothing was amiss—it had just been a bad dream—but something felt more real about it than most of her dreams.

She was not a big believer in dream analysis—that was something that fell more in line with Pinkie Pie’s philosophy—but she knew that oneiromancy could be used to manipulate a dream. Was that it? Was somepony trying to affect her dreams? And if so, why? Was it Trixie, trying to reach out for a friendly hoof? Or was it Luna? And what was it that Princess Celestia needed research help with? She hadn’t had time to ask yesterday.

Frustrated, she went back to the desk. She flipped open the book and began scanning chapter titles, but nothing seemed as if it would help her.

She began dragging books over from the well-stocked shelves, quickly abandoning the desk in favor of the floor as the pile grew. Each of them brought back memories of the first time she’d read them, but none of them helped her now. She flattened her ears and pulled another dozen books from the shelf, when she suddenly saw the angry visage of Luna, her eyes blazing. Twilight's horn flickered, darkened, and the books fell to the floor with a soft thump. She lay her head down on her forelegs, closed her eyes, and promptly fell asleep.

She found herself standing in a forest glen, next to Princess Luna. She looked around at the thick firs, silently standing sentry around a moonlit pond. “Be thou wary, Twilight Sparkle. More is ahoof than you can imagine.”

“Princess?”

“Even now, strange events are occurring of which we have no sight.” The Princess turned towards the gardens. “We are blocked from the mind of the showmare. We see her in the realm of the dreaming, but she is out of our focus. We believe something is foiling us.”

“It isn’t Princess Celestia, is it?”

Luna shook her head, and looked at Twilight sadly. “When we dream, we dream of our father. “

Twilight frowned. “Have you asked Celestia about that?”

“Twould be most unwise.” She sank down to her haunches and gazed into the reflecting pond, pushing her silver-shod hoof back and forth in the water.

“We are not like other ponies, Twilight Sparkle. Who watches our dreams? Who?”

She woke up a couple of hours later, confused and disoriented. Her belly was cold and her neck ached. When she opened her eyes, she couldn’t understand how she’d fallen asleep on the floor, surrounded by a pile of books.

“Usually I’m at my desk when that happens,” she muttered. She wiped a bit of drool off the corner of her mouth, and chuckled. She hastily re-shelved the books, each one going to its own place on the shelf. As soon as she had finished, she took a long shower, holding her sore neck under the hot water until her muscles finally relaxed.

She dried herself off with a thick terrycloth towel, and left it draped across her back while she brushed her mane into order. Finally deciding she was presentable, she hung the towel neatly on the towel rack—perfectly centered, with each half the exact same length—gave herself a last critical look in the mirror, and trotted downstairs to the dining hall.

The alicorn diarchs were there, Celestia with a plate of cinnamon rolls, and Luna with a more sensible bowl of oatmeal.

Celestia looked up and spotted Twilight. “Ah, my faithful student. So good of you to join us for breakfast. Please, have a seat.”

Twilight nodded, and trotted over to Princess Celestia. Sitting down, she looked accusingly at Luna. “You were in my dreams last night—you made me fall asleep.”

“We told thee thou wert to sleep. We told thee we would know.”

Celestia nodded. “She had my permission, Twilight. I want you to be in top shape. The spells you are going to learn are very difficult, and I know you do not get along with Trixie. I was a bit reluctant to have her serve as your instructor, but my sister assured me that there was nopony more qualified. Nevertheless, there will always be two Unicorn Guards within earshot of you when you are with Trixie, and they shall accompany you to and from her chambers.” She ate another cinnamon roll and looked at Luna. “Is there anything you wish to add?”

Luna nodded. “First, Twilight Sparkle, Beatrix art thy teacher. Thou wilt do as she instructs. We have her bond she will do naught to cause thee harm. Dost thou accede?

“Yes.”

“Second—thou wilt practice oneirourgy solely with Beatrix, and thou art never to utilize those spells on anypony, especially thineself.”

“You can cast those spells on yourself?” Twilight looked at Luna curiously. “But—how would you do that? And why? You couldn’t fool yourself with your own dream, could you?”

Luna sighed. “Regrettably, thou canst deceive thyself with thine own desires. Such an event usually endith quite badly.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “Insanity is not unknown. Thou hath a capable instructor. Follow her lead, and thou shalt be unharmed.”

As Twilight left, Celestia turned to her sister. “I hope she can find whatever’s wrong with that unicorn. I have had no luck.”

“Thou hast placed great faith in your student.” Luna twirled her spoon around absently. “We think that thou hast used her as thine own stalking pony, but to what end?”

“She is probably the smartest pony since Clover the Clever,” Celestia continued, as if she had not heard.

Luna frowned, remembering Clover gasping for breath, lifeblood flowing across the filthy flagstones at the foot of the Unicorn stronghold. “And we remember full well where that got Clover. Sister, I believe that thou art—“

“Your Highness.” The page bowed. “Forgive me, but Prince Blueblood has requested your presence immediately. He declined to give me any further information, stating that his concern was only to be heard by your ears.”

Celestia sighed. “Again?” She set the last cinnamon roll back on her plate. “I’m sorry, Luna. But I need to dissuade him of whatever foolish notion has got his mind this time.”

“Perhaps we shall talk more at dinner?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Twilight frowned as the Unicorn Guards lead her deeper into the bowels of the castle. This was not where she had spent time as a filly—while it was true that her tastes ran more towards windowless rooms filled with books than wide open spaces, she never liked thinking of the darker side of government—where secret deals were reached, where political prisoners were kept, where questioning and possibly even torture took place.

The two Guards led her down a long hallway, lined with rough-cut wooden doors with a eye-level grilles. Finally reaching the end of the hallway, they paused in front of an oaken door, with a bas-relief of Trixie’s cutie mark in the center. With his younger partner a ponylength behind Twilight, the senior stallion advanced and knocked politely.

“Trixie is coming.” The door was enveloped in a pale lavender glow, and swung open.

Trixie’s beautiful platinum mane hung limply around her horn, and there were bags under her eyes. Her everpresent smirk was gone, and her fur was matted as if she hadn’t been grooming herself. Twilight took a half-step back, and Trixie lowered her head. “Trixie apologizes for her appearance. She has been working hard at making lessons for Twilight Sparkle.” She waved a hoof. “Please, come inside.”

Twilight stepped into a small chamber. It looked to have been freshly whitewashed, and the furnishings appeared to be very expensive. A huge mahogany desk took up the center of the room. Its rich varnished top held but a single teacup with a small chip out of its rim, sitting on a china saucer.

The walls were decorated with hanging tapestries, and centered behind the desk was a framed poster advertising Trixie’s show, which hung slightly askew. Twilight unconsciously focused her magic on it, nudging it straight, not seeing the bright gleam in the blue unicorn’s eye as she did so.

“Sit down,” Trixie offered, waving a hoof at the fancy velvet couch. “Make yourself comfortable.”

Get your dirty hooves off the rug! Twilight shuddered, remembering her mother’s angry shout. She unwillingly looked down at her hooves—not a speck of dirt to be seen, but still…. “I’d rather stand,” she muttered.

“Suit yourself,” Trixie said with an unusually large smile. “Trixie apologizes that her office is no doubt not as nice as those to which you are accustomed.”

“Hmm?” Twilight looked around. “Oh, no, it’s very nice.” She waved a hoof absently. “It, um, the furniture is very well-made.”

“Quite,” she said bitterly. “There apparently weren’t any rooms open upstairs for a unicorn of Trixie’s . . . station.” She cleared her throat absently. “Now, Princess Luna tells me Trixie is to teach you all she knows of illusion. Very well. We shall begin by having you produce a duplicate of this teacup.” She grabbed it in her telekinetic field and lowered it to the floor. “Twilight should focus her mind on the teacup, and simply produce a duplicate next to it.”

Twilight looked at the cup, a confused expression on her face. “This—this isn’t any more challenging than magic kindergarten. You just want me to make an illusion of the cup?”

“No.” Trixie glared at Twilight. “No, you must make an exact duplicate of the cup, not simply an image of it. Trixie must be unable to discern your cup and her cup.” She angled her head upwards. “Now, go to it.”

Twilight opened her saddlebag, and pulled out the book Luna had given her. She began flipping through the book, not seeing Trixie’s pupils shrink. The showmare moved back a few steps, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes. “You will not need that book, Twilight Sparkle. Trixie does not know how to teach out of a book. Trixie will teach you those lessons the way Trixie learned them, by example, and by—” she sighed heavily “—sharing magical fields.”

The day seemed to last forever. Each cup that Twilight produced failed to meet Trixie’s demanding standards. Sometimes the illusion fell apart when Trixie grabbed at the cup with her telekinesis, or it failed to produce a satisfactory sound when nudged with her hoof. She even spit in it once, frowning as the floor darkened under the cup.

Finally, stomach growling with hunger, Twilight managed to produce what she felt was the perfect replica. She had managed to get the smell right, give it the proper weight and texture, added a handle that could be gripped by magic, weaved a small field to close the bottom, and added an aural component to her spell. Trixie examined it carefully, running it through her usual battery of tests, finally levitating it and her own cup to eye height, the two of them slowly spinning in her magical aura.

“Trixie is impressed, Twilight Sparkle. You are, indeed, a powerful unicorn, and a quick study.” Suddenly, unexpectedly, she dropped the cups, smiling as hers shattered, while Twilight’s duplicate bounced unharmed. “But you are not as good as the Great and Powerful Trixie. She is—“ A knock at the door interrupted her.

“Dinnertime,” came the muffled voice from outside.

“We shall try again tomorrow,” the showmare stated. “Now Trixie must dine, and she supposes Twilight must as well.”

Twilight nodded, and left, accompanied by her two now-familiar Unicorn Guards.

Dinner was mercifully brief; it was an informal affair, and Twilight was allowed to sit at one of the common tables. Of course, that didn’t stop other ponies from staring at her, but since she had her muzzle buried in a book, she didn’t notice.

As soon as it was over, she made her way to the Princess’ office, to avoid accidentally striking up a conversation with anypony. She felt she deserved the time to unwind, after a full day of dealing with Trixie’s enormous ego.

Twilight closed the book when a Royal Guard opened the doors for Celestia. Spotting Twilight, she immediately began explaining her dilemma.

“I told Luna that the one thing I could not do is sleep in until the sun wakes me,” the Princess said, a wistful look in her eye. “And, naturally, she moved her bed so that the setting sun strikes her when it is time to rise.”

Twilight smiled. It was no different than she would have done to her brother.

“So, I decided that perhaps there was some way that I could sleep in, but in months of study, I have come up with no answers. I do not believe Luna is strong enough to control the sun, except perhaps by opposition with the moon, as she did when she returned as Nightmare Moon. She might not even have that much power when she is not corrupted by the Nightmare Regalia, and I certainly would not want to experiment with that.

“Although it is possible for a group of powerful unicorns to raise the sun, I can think of none who would do it, nor do I know how I could give them control of the sun, or get it back again, so that option is out.”

“In my astromomy class, Professor Clopernicus taught me that many of the stars have planets of their own,” Twilight mused. “Might it be possible to visit one of them?”

“If a suitable planet were found, yes.” Princess Celestia looked thoughtful. “My thoughts did wander in that direction. Starswirl the Bearded came up with a way to hold a teleport spell open, so that it acts more like a channel than a point-to-point spell, and he designed it with a safeguard so that when the field collapses, it returns the caster, and anypony who is marked with the caster, to their point of origin.” She sighed. “I used a slightly modified version of the spell myself, once, a long time ago, and it worked well enough.”

“Can it stack with other spells? Could a force-bubble be added to it?”

Celestia nodded. “I believe so. Starswirl’s spells were typically designed that way. He considered them to be more of building blocks, rather than a finished product. ‘With this basic tome of spells, a skillful unicorn can do anything her mind desires.’ That was the introduction to his second book. Equestrian society certainly owes much to his research.”

“So you have the how, just not the where.” Twilight danced around on her hooves. “Oh, this is exciting. Do you have a copy of the spell that I could study?”

Celestia floated over a scroll. Twilight examined it eagerly, before rolling it back up. “I will need more time to study the spell tonight, and maybe do a little research in the library.”

“The archives are open to you, as always,” Celestia said. “I am sure you would rather spend your time there than at another formal dinner.”

Twilight nodded.

“Hereafter, I will have dinner sent up to your room, then.” She paused. “How did your studies with Trixie go?”

Twilight concentrated, and a teacup—unsurprisingly, exactly like the teacup she had seen in Trixie’s chambers—appeared in front of Celestia’s gold-shod hoof. The princess looked at it, then leaned down and sniffed it carefully. She picked it up with her horn, and floated it right in front of her face, turning it around slowly, studying it from all angles. Finally, she stuck out her tongue and licked it, then dropped it, where it struck the ground with a quiet thunk.

“That was very good,” she said. “It almost appeared real. I doubt there are many ponies who would have seen the slight magical aura it had.”

Twilight’s ears drooped. “I didn’t see the slight magical aura.”

“I have had much more experience.” Celestia’s horn flashed, and the cup vanished. “Now, I must prepare to meet a delegation from Baltimare. Feel free to tell your guards if you need anything.”

Twilight nodded absently, her mind already on the scroll.

The week dragged on. Twilight had finally graduated from the teacup and moved on to the desk, which barely fit in Trixie’s cramped quarters, and then to a potted plant, which had mysteriously appeared one morning. Twilight smiled as she imagined Trixie tugging it down the hallway. If the showmare was impressed with Twilight’s progress, she gave no sign.

While her failure to please her instructor normally would have gnawed at Twilight, her every free hour was spent helping research Princess Celestia’s spell. She fell into a routine, working from breakfast to supper without a break, eating a quick dinner in her room, studying until the Archivist kicked her out of the library. She would return to her room and take notes on what she’d learned, both from Trixie and from the Royal Archives, until she felt sleep overtake her, at which point she’d collapse into bed for a few hours, resuming her work long before sunrise.

For once, Trixie’s office was clear. There were no stray objects on the desk, no potted plants shoved into a corner. Trixie’s fur was combed, although her mane was still unstyled. She seemed suspiciously cheerful.

“Today we are going outside, to the conservatory,” Trixie announced.

Twilight sighed. In her sleep-deprived state, she couldn’t muster the enthusiasm for anything. At least they could get there without venturing onto the frigid castle grounds.

“Twilight’s illusions have progressed satisfactorily, and now it is time for Trixie to begin to teach her to combine it with a light form of onieromancy. Trixie is certain you will get the hang of it eventually.

As the trotted through the hallways of the castle, Twilight moved next to Trixie. “What did the Princess mean about fooling yourself with onieromancy?”

The showpony sighed. “Trixie would rather not talk about that right now. Trixie is trying to get her mind clear so that she can teach you about illusion magic as it relates to other creatures.”

As they stepped out of the castle proper and into the conservatory, she waved a hoof. “Watch and be amazed as the Great and Powerful Trixie shows you how to fool a squirrel.”

Twilight looked at her. “Seriously?”

Trixie shrugged. “Hay, you have to start with something. Squirrels aren’t too smart, and there isn’t much they desire.” She sat down on the grass. “All right. First, we are going to just do traditional illusions. I want you to lure squirrels over here with illusiory acorns.”

Twilight sighed, and started concentrating.

It was much more difficult than Twilight had imagined. To her mind, the acorn she created was perfect—perhaps slightly oversized, but that might be more enticing—yet it attracted no squirrels. As the minutes wore on, Twilight began to wonder if there were any in the trees at all. After an hour, she voiced her opinion.

“There are tree rats, Twilight Sparkle.” The blue unicorn looked disdainfully at a tree. “Trixie can see them.” She began to point her hoof at various trees, indicating where the squirrels were. “Twilight Sparkle’s acorn is not attractive enough to bring them down, Trixie supposes.”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “Not attractive enough?” She tapped the acorn with a hoof, then looked up at a tree. “If there are squirrels in the trees, how come I haven’t seen any?”

Trixie’s head snapped around. “You—you can’t see them?” She looked back at the tree thoughtfully. “There’s one right there.” A beam of light lanced out from her horn.

“Are you right on it?” Trixie looked at Twilight curiously, and then nodded.

Fluttershy, forgive me. Twilight reached out with her magic, and yanked a chittering squirrel out of his nest. She brought him right in front of her face, turning him slowly in her field, as he gave up on making angry noises and fixed her with a burning stare. She ignored it.

A part of her mind was suggesting that this was simply an illusion by Trixie, and she intended to experiment. She hit it for a moment with a sleep spell, followed immediately with Spike’s favorite spell, Number 25. Nudging it back awake, she watched as it grabbed the ends of its new moustache in its tiny paws and began chattering at her again.

While Trixie was looking at the spectacle, Twilight discretely cast a very much reduced Want It Need It spell on her illusory acorn, and turned the squirrel so it could see the acorn. She was unsurprised as the squirrel suddenly tensed in her horn’s aura. Dropping it, she watched it grab the acorn and scamper up the tree.

She dispelled the acorn, figuring that without a target, the Want It Need It spell would fizzle. A sudden flurry of activity from the trees proved her wrong.

“What are those squirrels doing?” Trixie stared intently at the tree. “They all seem to be mobbing the one you were just holding.”

Apparently, the spell transferred onto the squirrel. I wish him luck. At least I only put a two minute duration on the spell this time. “Umm, I don’t know.” Twilight looked at Trixie with her best innocent look.

“Are they presenting?” Trixie tore her eyes away from the tree. “Ugh, it’s not even the right season. Stupid tree rats.”

“How did you know the squirrel was there?” Twilight was satisfied that it had not been an illusion; as good as Trixie might have been, there was no way she could have guessed what spells Twilight was going to cast, especially since she used the Want It Need It without Trixie even seeing.

Trixie shrugged. “They’re brighter than the tree. Kind of a reddish-brown. They really stand out.” She frowned, seeing the look of bewilderment on Twilight’s face. “They stand out from the weave?” Suddenly, she smiled, a familiar spark glinting in her light lavender eyes. “I never thought—Twilight, you don’t have any earth ponies in your bloodline, do you?”

“If they are, they’re a long way back.” Twilight looked at her. “Why, what has that got to do with anything?”

“There’s a certain aura that all living things give off,” she explained. “Earth ponies can see it, and feel it. That’s why they’re so good at growing things, and taking care of animals.

“I’m surprised you can’t see it, though, with the talent you have in magic.” She chuckled again. “And so studious, too. I bet you must be really frustrated by some of the things earth ponies can do that you can’t explain. You’ve got quite the blind spot, Twilight.”

“I can do it!” Twilight furrowed her brow. “Now that I know it’s there, I know I can find it. Just give me a second—“ She lowered her head and squinted as her horn lit up with a bright glow. She began grunting, until Trixie put a foreleg on her back.

“Stop. You won’t accomplish anything like that.”

Twilight looked back up, desperation etched on her face.

“Follow Trixie. Trixie will show you.”

Twilight was seated on a bench, while Trixie stood on the cobblestone path next to her. “Close your eyes,” she orderd. “And take long, deep breaths.”

“I don’t see what this will accomplish.”

“Trust me, Twilight. Trixie knows what she is doing. She may not be a scholar, but she knows about pony psychology.”

“Fine.” Twilight closed her eyes, and began taking deep breaths.

“Imagine a pond,” Trixie said softly, her voice low and melodious. “It is a small, shallow pond. It is perfectly calm. There is no wind blowing. The sky is clear. The pond is calm. There are no waves on the pond. It is smooth, like glass. It is a mirror. The sky is perfectly reflected in the pond.

“You are standing next to the pond. The grass is thick, and you can feel it touch your fetlocks. It is bright green, and very thick. It smells nice.

“You toss a pebble into the pond. You see ripples spread outward, and touch the shore. They make little wavelets, and then bounce back, crossing over other ripples. They make small, shifting geometric patterns. You can see the sun reflect off them, off every one of them.

“You watch as the water calms again. Now it is just flat glass. Now it is just a mirror. You see nothing but the pond. The pond is the sky. The sky is the pond.”

Trixie paused for a moment. Twilight’s breathing was shallow, almost imperceptible. Her horn was faintly glowing with magical energy, although it had no focus and was simply drifting off in small sparks. Her eyes were half-open, but unfocused.

“You can feel a slight breeze on your fur. You can hear a soft rustling of leaves. It makes you calm. The sun is shining on your back. It is warm. You feel warm.” Trixie paused again, and very quietly shifted her weight, until her shoulder was just touching Twilight’s. “You can feel a friend right next to you, just touching your right shoulder.” As she spoke, she began to lean a little closer, until they were fully in contact. “You are very relaxed. You can feel your own heartbeat, and your friend’s. You can feel her breathe.” She began to slowly match her breathing to Twilight’s. “You can feel her breaths, and your own together. You are her, and she is you.”

Trixie concentrated for a moment, mingling her magic with Twilight’s, slightly augmenting it, and giving it direction. They had been doing this a little, when Twilight was struggling, since Trixie was much better at demonstrations than scholarly instruction, so it was not too difficult for Trixie to latch onto Twilight’s magic and add a little focus to it. The trick, of course, was to do so without startling Twilight, who was hypersensitive to her own magical field, given her propensity for magic.

While continuing to talk, Trixie fully interlocked their two magical fields, effectively joining the two unicorns. When she was certain she was in full control of both auras, she began to slowly draw Twilight out of her trance.

“You begin to lift your eyelids. They are very heavy. Each eyelid is a paving stone. You cannot raise them more than an inch. You can make out vague shapes of trees around you. You lift your eyelid another half inch. You can see the tree more clearly. It has very thick, wrinkled bark. You can see the high spots of the bark very easily. They have a faint yellow-green highlight to them. You lift your head slowly. It is very heavy. You have paving stones for eyelids. You follow the highlights up. You can see them branch into the tree’s limbs. You lift your head a little more. The highlights lead into the leaves. You can see them in the leaves like veins. You open your eyes a little bit more. You can see a very faint yellow-green aura coming off the leaves. You know that is the tree breathing.

“You open your eyes a little bit more. You can see a bird in the branches of the tree. The bird has a bright blue glow. You can see it more brightly than the sky. It stands out from the branches. You open your eyes further, and you can see more birds. They are all different shades of blue. You watch as one of them takes off. He leaves a slight blue trail, like smoke. You see it slowly drift through the air, until it breaks apart.

“Your eyelids feel light, now, and you can open them fully.” Trixie began to pull back her magic. Twilight’s eyes opened wide, and she began to look around in wonder. For a moment, her jaw hung open, but when she focused on a tree branch Trixie could see by her expression that she had just lost sight of the auras.

“You kind of have to look without really focusing,” Trixie said. “At least, that’s what my father told me. But you saw it, you know it’s there.”

“That wasn’t just me,” Twilight said. “I felt a little bit of your magic, right at the beginning.”

“I did help,” Trixie confessed. “I don’t think you could have done it on your own, not knowing what you were looking for. Now that you know, you should be able to practice. Suddenly, Trixie remembered she was shoulder-to-shoulder with Twilight. She took a guilty step to the side, face reddening.

“You have to do it without forcing it.” She looked at Twilight thoughtfully. “Trixie knows if you force it, you might just make an illusion of what you think you should see. The more you practice, though, the easier it will get.”

“And you can identify creatures this way, too?”

“It’s not exact,” Trixie admitted. “Yes, each one has a unique aura, but sometimes it’s a little difficult to separate it from the background clutter, unless it’s a fairly magical creature. Ponies stand out really well; they’re much easier to spot, and some magical predators, like dragons and manticores do, too.”

“Does it work through objects?”

Trixie looked at the castle for a minute in silence. “I can tell you that Princess Luna appears to be moving through the hallway from her room, and Princess Celestia is in the throne room. The other ponies don’t have enough of an aura to easily spot, besides the Guards that are on the perimeter.” She chuckled. “Their armor makes them a lot easier to see.”

“How far away does it work?”

“As far as I can see.”

“But it’s cluttered, the farther out you go?”

Trixie nodded. “From a distance, the Everfree forest’s features are indistinguishable, just as with eyesight. It’s just a faint aura over everything.”

“Can you see it at night?”

“Of course. The trees and animals keep on living all night long, don’t they?” Her stomach rumbled, and she looked at Twilight impatiently. “It is almost Trixie’s dinnertime.” She started trotting towards the castle proper.

“My friend Applejack doesn’t seem to be able to see any better in the dark than I can,” Twilight commented as they walked through the hallway.

“I don’t think earth ponies can see it like a unicorn can,” Trixie mused. “Trixie can’t see what anypony else sees, of course. But my father said it’s more like a feeling to him. If you blindfolded Applejack, Trixie wagers she could go slowly through a forest without any difficulty, if the path was smooth. How should Trixie know? She didn’t graduate from a fancy unicorn school.” Trixie turned and walked down the hallway toward her room, while Twilight just stood in the hall, lost in thought. A germ of an idea was coming to her, and she wanted to wait until it was fully formed before she moved.

Back in her room, eating a daisy sandwich and bowl of hothouse clover, she kept thinking of Pinkie Pie shouting “Twitchy tail! Twitchy tail!” and diving for cover. There wasn’t anything about to fall, of course, so why did that stick in her head?

She remembered when she’d tried to test Pinkie’s so-called ‘Pinkie Sense,’ and hadn’t gotten anywhere with any of her instruments. But what if Pinkie was just hypersensitive to the background fields of Equestria, the interference that her own instruments were so carefully calibrated to ignore? Perhaps this had been staring her in the face all along, and she just hadn’t seen it. She certainly couldn’t rely on Pinkie for an explanation; it seemed half the time Pinkie didn’t know why she did what she did.

Clearly, what was called for was a test. Even if Twilight couldn’t reliably see these so-called magical fields that every living creature gave off, if Trixie really could, then she would be able to identify, say, an object in a box.

Inspiration striking her, Twilight galloped to her room. She had a plan,and it was time to prepare a test.

“Luna will make certain there is no chicanery,” Princess Celestia said. “Despite her objections, she agreed to go forward with this test.” She and Twilight were standing on one of the many castle balconies, looking over the north side of the castle. Just barely in eyeshot, three paper boxes were set on the frozen river, hardly perceptible unless one knew where to look.

“I need to watch what she’s doing,” Twilight commented, going over to a telescope aimed at the large patio off the dining hall. “I won’t say that I don’t trust her—since you and Luna seem to—but in my experience, she has a history of being, um, overly boastful, and I know she’s good enough at illusion to make me believe I’m seeing what she wants me to see. You should stay back from the edge of the balcony; I don’t want her to spot you.” As soon as she spoke, she grimaced, remembering that if Trixie really could easily spot magical auras, she’d know the Princess was there, even through the stone.

“I want you to explain this all again,” Celestia muttered. “I have an uncomfortable feeling about this spying going on in the castle, especially directed at one of my guests.”

“Of course. I think that—wait a minute, here she comes.” Twilight watched as Trixie stepped on the patio with a slightly annoyed look, and made her way over to the telescope set up there. A Unicorn Guard was right behind her, saying something, although of course Twilight couldn’t tell what, given the distance.

Trixie looked through the telescope for a minute, adjusted the focus, causally swept it through a very small arc, and then said something to the Guard and walked back inside.

Twilight stepped back from the telescope, but kept watching the balcony until there was a soft knock at the door. A moment later, Celestia handed over a folded piece of paper.

“I want you to watch those three boxes,” Twilight said. “I am going to open this note, and see which box she has indicated. Then, I am going to teleport there, but leave the note behind. I will open the box that she has identified, and you will verify after I have opened the box that I went to the correct one, as described in the note. Then, we will ask the commander of the Pegasus Guard if the plant I bring back—if it is in the box—is the same plant he put in the box.”

Seeing Celestia’s skeptical look, Twilight said, “I have a bit of a wager riding on this, so I want to make sure it’s fair. When I get back, I will explain to you exactly what the point of all this is.”

“Very well, Twilight.” Celestia stepped to the telescope. “You may read the note.” She watched as Twilight appeared in a magenta flash next to the three boxes, opened the westernmost box, and then disappeared, holding a small fern in her telekinetic field.

She flashed back into the room a moment later. Celestia lifted the note off the floor, and read it. “It says west box, fern.”

Twilight clapped her hooves together. “So far, so good. Summon the Pegasus commander, to be sure, but I’ll tell you what I am thinking. Trixie can, somehow, see the aura of living things, possibly because of her ancestry, although of course further study would be required to prove or disprove that theory. Apparently, she can see them while obscured, through a telescope. I had the commander put a plant in one of the boxes, but he was not to tell me which box, nor what kind of plant. He was to mark it so that he would know it. I arranged for a note to be given to Trixie, to see if she could identify which box and what kind of plant.

“If my theory is correct, Princess, Trixie could look through a telescope and, with Luna’s guidance and my own, quickly identify which planets might have simple life on them. That would narrow our search very quickly, then we could just send an exploratory team out to that planet, using Starswirl’s spell, to verify that it is suitable.”

Celestia brightened. “Trixie’s father is an earth pony. . . . Twilight Sparkle, you may just be a genius.”

“I can’t see the auras reliably, yet, but I bet Trixie can teach me.”

Celestia raised a hoof. “I believe I will let Trixie locate a suitable planet.”

Twilight flattened her ears, and shuffled backwards a step, lowering her head. “I—Princess, I don’t think—I mean, are you sure that is wise? What if she somehow sabotages the spell? What if you open a portal to—to space?”

The Princess chuckled. “My faithful student, surely you don’t propose to suggest that I would be foolish enough to just teleport anywhere on the word of a single pony? If a suitable place is found, then it would be explored, first, before I would travel. And I certainly wouldn’t travel alone.”

“Oh.” She looked up. “I mean, of course you wouldn’t. But Trixie—she’s not to be trusted. There’s something about her that—“

“Twilight, I assure you, I have the situation with Trixie well in hoof. She is . . . well-looked-after in the castle. I can assure you of that. Nonetheless, do not tell her or anypony else of this plan. I will make sure she is aware when other preparations are taken care of.

“Now, I suspect that you forgot breakfast in your excitement?”

“Sorry, Princess.”

“A good breakfast is the foundation of a good day, or so my chefs tell me.” Celestia smiled. “Come, let us get to the dining hall. My secretary tells me that they have prepared éclairs this morning, and I would regret if my sister ate them all.”

Her second week at the castle flew by, even though as a condition of her wager with the showmare, Twilight had to refer to her as ‘The Great and Powerful.’ Trixie had begun to teach Twilight how to craft illusions that worked on the mind of a creature, and while they were still limited to squirrels, she was making very good progress.

In the evening, she would spend a couple of hours with Princess Celestia, practicing Starswirl’s gate spell, as well as weaving other spells with it, to be sure of its stability. Celestia occasionally threw offensive spells at the shield, to see if they would affect the underlying matrix, and when that produced no unexpected results, began throwing physical objects at it. With the help of the Unicorn Guards, they also tested the fail-safe mechanism of the spell, collapsing it when somepony was at the destination, as well as when somepony was partway through. In all cases, the traveler was returned unharmed to the starting point. Twilight felt like a foal again, practicing spells alongside Princess Celestia.

A detachment of Unicorn Guards watched them patiently; on the last night of Twilight’s stay in Canterlot, two of them also successfully managed to cast the spell.

As she packed her bags to go back to Ponyville, Twilight found herself whistling happily. She had learned new magic from Trixie and both of the Princesses, and gotten to spend hours with Princess Celestia. Even Luna’s normally cool demeanor had warmed to Twilight, and although they were not—and probably never would be—as close as she was to Celestia or her friends in Ponyville, they were closer than before.

She went to the train station, belly full of the marvelous banana-nut bran muffins that the kitchen staff prepared, with a feeling of contented certainty that everything was perfect with the world. She’d even thought to bring a couple of extras, carefully wrapped in a napkin, for her persistent mailmare.

As she sat down in the rail carriage, she smiled. Even her last week with Trixie had gone well. Perhaps it was because she was learning the spells so well, or perhaps it was just that she had gotten used to the showmare’s eccentricities. Still, it would be nice to be back in the library, and to spend time with her friends. Pinkie Pie wanted to teach her to ice skate, and Rainbow Dash desperately needed a bit of fair competition in her Rainbow-vs-everypony snowball fights.

The winter passed quickly. Twilight dutifully practiced her illusion spells, and read the book that Princess Luna had given her cover to cover nearly a dozen times. She was surprised to find that Rarity was interested in it, as well. The two unicorns were sat by the fire, the book open on the floor in front of Twilight.

“I still don’t exactly understand the part about aversion,” Rarity muttered. She shifted her weight on her satin cushion as she levitated the book over. “Isn’t the point of an illusion for it to be manipulated?”

Twilight shook her head. “Cinnamon says that a pony can’t always put all six perceptible attributes into an illusion, and when she cannot, it is best to avoid failure of the illusion by putting an aspect of aversion into the spell.”

“I read that, too, darling, and no offense meant, but what does it mean?”

“Well, I suppose when you make an illusion of one of your ensembles on somepony, you are just trying to see how it looks on her. You don’t want her to try and take it off, or bite a ruffle to see how it tastes.”

“Hmm, yes.” Rarity nodded. “But I would hardly use such a spell on a ruffian that would try to bite a dress.”

“But if you were trying to fool somepony into thinking that they were actually wearing the dress? Surely you have a good feel for the weight and movement of the fabric, and the way the colors behave, but it would be simpler to weave the illusion without benefit of smell or taste.”

“Well, I suppose that’s true.” She snorted. “Still, unlike Cinnamon, I am hardly likely to be using my spells like some criminal, deceiving ponies into believing what isn’t real.”

“That’s what it means. Because illusion spells aren’t always used on cooperating ponies. They can be used for a magical defense as well. Did you know that Starswirl first proposed using them thus during the Ponic Wars? When the Princess’ compound was in danger of being overrun, Starswirl made an illusory—” Twilight’s voice trailed off as she noticed that Rarity’s eyes were glazing over.. “Come on, let’s practice. See who can fool Spike with a fake gem.”

Rarity clapped her hooves together. “Oh, you are on.”

A slightly miffed dragon answered the insistent knocking on the library door. “Sheesh, we’re closed, we’ve been closed for hours, and somepony has the gall to be knocking….” His words died in his throat as he stared into the stern eyes of a Unicorn Guard.

“Twilight Sparkle.”

“Heh heh, sure, right away.” He turned slightly. “Twilight! Royal Guards!” Wincing as the unicorn teleported right next to him, Spike gave an awkward smile at the stoic guard, then ran off before he got turned back into an egg or something.

“Ms. Twilight Sparkle, I have been sent by Her Royal Highness Princess Celestia to instruct you to pack your bags for a short trip to Canterlot. Her Royal Highness wishes me to inform you that she is nearly ready to cast her spell. A detachment of Pegasus Guards is waiting with the Royal Chariot for you.”

“Will I be back for Winter Wrap-Up? It’s in two days.”

The Guard shook his head. “Unlikely. Her Royal Highness is aware of the role you play in Winter Wrap-Up, and has asked me to act in your stead. I understand you have a checklist?”

“Just give me a few minutes,” Twilight muttered. “Spike!”

Details attended to, Twilight mused as she was flown towards Canterlot why the Princess would have acted in such haste. She hadn’t even gotten a letter indicating that preparations had been completed. She hoped that she had packed everything she would need—her saddlebags were practically bursting with the books she’d felt would be most useful for a trip to another world. She hated to miss Winter Wrap-Up, but it would be worth it for this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

She blushed, remembering that one of her resources for packing had been the Daring Do series. Still, what kind of books were there that speculated about other worlds besides adventure novels? Oh, it would be so exciting. There would be new plants, and maybe even animals. Why, just what she could fit into her sample tubes would provide her with months of study!

“I am sorry to have summoned you in without due warning.” The Princess paced around her chambers. “It seems that the world we have located is nearly at their Summer Solstice, while we are just shy of our own equinox. I am sure you can see how that works to our benefit. Moreover, as is tradition, all Royal functions are suspended for the duration of the Wrap-Up. Therefore, nopony will be suspicious if I am not seen for a little while.”

“Oh, this is going to be so exciting!” Twilight had to restrain herself from hopping around like a foal. “I just can’t wait to see another world.”

“I fear you will have to.”

“What do you mean?”

The Princess looked at Twilight slightly sadly. “I would love to have you by my side, truly I would. However, Princess Luna was quite insistent that it not be so, and her reasoning is sound. She believes that if the spell were to go awry, you are the only unicorn in Equestria who might be able to mount a rescue. She also believes that if I should somehow lose my connection with the sun—even briefly—that she and you can, in tandem, correct its course, if needed. Of course, neither of us expects that to happen, but it is best to be prepared.”

Seeing the look on Twilight’s face, the Princess leaned down and nuzzled her. “I know this comes as quite a blow, especially after all the work we did together.”

Twilight sniffled. “I—of course, Princess. I must do as you say.”

The alicorn reached a wing across Twilight’s back. “There will be future trips after your return. But for now, I would rather have you near my sister. I worry about her. You two are getting close; I think you would do well to wait together.”

“I hope it was not an easy decision to make,” Twilight whispered. “But I do see the logic, as much as I wish I did not.” She looked up into Celestia’s placid eyes. “It would have been easier if I had my friends with me.”

The Princess chuckled. “I believe that Mayor Mare would have mounted a challenge, if I had summoned your friends as well. With nopony to lead any of the teams, she probably would have seceded from the Equestria and joined the buffalo or something.” Her face turned serious. “I can assure you that there are detachments of Unicorn and Pegasus Guards, ready to bring your friends here at a moment’s notice, by any means necessary. As selfish as this expedition seems to my sister, I have taken every precaution. We will leave tomorrow night, just after moonrise.”

The next afternoon, the Princess gathered together her traveling companions, Twilight, and Princess Luna in her office. Twilight was surprised to see that besides a dozen stern-looking Royal Guards—half of them unicorns, and half pegasi—was a familiar unicorn.

“What’s Lyra doing here?” she whispered to Luna.

“Dost thou know not Lyra Heartstrings art the youngest competing unicorn grandmaster duellist ever, as well as an auxillary member of the Royal Guard?”

Twilight shook her head.

“Did thou wonder not why Lyra Heartstrings often follows thee about?”

Twilight looked at the Princess, a confused expression on her face.

“Certes, thou thinkst not that our sister would let as powerful a unicorn as thee go about unattended? She hath learned many bitter lessons in her years. She did send Lyra Heartstrings to Ponyville a full year before her faithful student.

As the briefing continued, Luna suddenly leaned over to Twilight. “We wish our sister could have waited but a little. This project seems over hasty. We worry—”

Luna was cut off as Celestia began to address the group. She briefed the Unicorn and Pegasus Guards—six of each—on their positions and responsibilities, and explained that when she was asleep, or if she were somehow incapacitated, Lyra was to act as their commander. That statement caused a little grumbling among the stallions, until Lyra reminded them that she was a member of the Auxillary Guard.

Despite her eagerness to learn, Twilight found herself distracted. She was still disappointed that she would not be going. Logically, of course, she accepted it, but emotionally was a different matter. She was also worried about the lunar diarch—by the rigid set of her jaw and unblinking eyes, the alicorn seemed to be holding back something, but Twilight wasn’t sure what.

Eventually, the group moved into the great hall, about midway between the dias with the throne, and the large doors which led into the room. After one last check of equipment, Celestia’s horn began to glow. Bright rays of light shot from her horn to Lyra and the Guards, and then she closed her eyes, concentrating. A moment later, the entire hall lit up like noontime. Twilight squinted her eyes, while Luna took a step backwards, dropping to her haunches at the base of the throne. In a flash, nothing but the afterimages of the group remained. A faint shimmering showed where the group had been.

Twilight turned an ear as she heard a faint pop of collapsing air, and spun her head just in time to see the flare of energy from Luna teleporting away fade out.

She remained in the hall for nearly an hour, watching the shifting magical energies cast their light onto the walls. Finally noticing the harsh shadows of the moonlight, she stepped towards a window—carefully skirting the enchanted carpet—and looked out. The moon seemed brighter than usual.

Frowning at Luna’s mercurial nature, she began to try to puzzle out the enigma of the younger diarch. As the moon slowly rose out of her sight, she came to no conclusions. Celestia had never mentioned her sister until Twilight and her friends had freed the alicorn from her curse. Thinking about that made her grumble; she still felt betrayed by the way Celestia had seemed to dismiss her concerns, even if it had been for a good purpose in the end.

It felt as if there was something more here, though. Her relationship with Luna seemed to have gone downhill since her brother and Princess Cadance had gotten married, and only recently was beginning to rise. The more she thought about it, the more she wondered. It was convenient—perhaps too convenient—that Luna had somehow entirely missed the changeling invasion, failing to arrive on the palace grounds until after the second attempt at the wedding. And her attitude towards Twilight had been a little bit frostier than normal, especially when Princess Celestia had sent Twilight and her friends to the Crystal Empire….

In fact, she was acting much like the changeling Princess Cadance had.

And Princess Celestia had just willingly left Equestria.

What if she wanted to teach me onieromancy so that I would provide Celestia with the solution to interplanetary travel? Maybe she knew that the Princess would be suspicious if the suggestion came from her. Maybe she deliberately chose Trixie as my teacher because she knew we would have such a difficult time getting along that I wouldn’t think of this until it was too late. Suddenly snapping out of her reverie, Twilight looked around the darkening hall. Deal with Trixie first, then Luna. She charged her horn, and teleported to Trixie’s room.

Or tried to. Her spell failed, somehow blocked. It might be too late already.

She galloped out of the great hall, sparks flying from her shoes. Ponies in the halls jumped out of her way as she charged past, teleporting to the bottom of flights of stairs to save time.

As she reached the long hallway which contained Trixie’s room, a pair of Unicorn Guards stepped out, spears crossed. “You can’t go down—“ one of them began, but she just teleported past him. Hardly thinking about it, she tossed a deflection hemisphere behind her, in case they tried to stop her magically, while counting the doors.

Reaching Trixie’s, she stopped, utterly flummoxed. No longer the carved oaken edifice it had been, it was a simple wooden door, a thick grille of iron bars at muzzle height, exactly like all the others. She looked inside, risking a brief flare of light. There were no chairs, no desk, just rough stone walls and a straw-covered floor. In the far corner of the room, a huddled shape lay covered with a blanket.

I may already be too late. Twilight, hearing the Guards get closer, teleported herself back towards the dining hall, then began to run up the stairs towards the lunar wing. She knew that most of her magic wouldn’t work near the Princess’ chambers.

As she passed the throne room, she heard a faint noise, and skidded to a stop. Stepping back, she looked in and saw Luna prostrated at the base of the dais, facing the empty space that Celestia had last occupied. Spotting Twilight, her head snapped up.

“Get thee gone! We did not summon thee to our presence!”

“Princess?”

Luna slowly got to her hooves, and began to move towards Twilight. Her eyes flashed white, and Twilight was horrified to see she was wearing her barding.

“BEGONE!”

Lyra looked over at the sleeping Celestia, then back at the Guards. They were arranged in a tight ring, eyes facing outwards, ears up, fully alert. She smiled. She enjoyed living in Ponyville and her long conversations with Bon Bon, oftentimes about nothing at all. On the other hoof, sometimes it was nice to enjoy a bit of peace, and it was certainly enjoyable to be among professionals. None of the Guards had said a single word since they had left.

She turned to look over the water, the sand underhoof being the only annoyance of this otherwise perfect night. She had seen a few things during the night which had been inexplicable, but had perceived none of them as a threat. She knew that there were going to be events happening here on this foreign world that she was unused to. Now the sky was lightening, and soon the sun would rise.

Suddenly, her ears perked up. She heard some noise from the woods, and whatever it was, it sounded large. She could tell by the way that the Guards were shifting their weight that they heard it too.

A calm descended upon her. This was no different than a magical duel, really. She felt the energies flowing through her, centered on her horn, and in an instant had prepared herself for whatever might come.

As she watched, a shadowy form, much taller than herself, slowly came over the rise. It hadn’t spotted them yet, but it would at any moment.

Three years ago, Twilight would have either frozen where she stood, or run in terror. But after having defeated Nightmare Moon once, the familiar sight did not frighten her, but instead brought sadness. She stepped forward, and widened her stance. A magenta beam shot from her horn, striking Luna square in the chest. For a moment, her barding lit, before fading to its normal onyx. More importantly, she did not revert to the form of a changeling, which was a great relief to the unicorn.

Much to her surprise, the alicorn suddenly collapsed. Her eyes returned to their normal blue, and tears began to flow. Concerned and confused, Twilight ran over to her.

“Always, we have felt the presence of our father and our sister,” she muttered between sobs. Twilight began nuzzling her neck, one part of her mind filled with wonder that she was actually comforting a Princess. “We had great difficulty adjusting to his absence.” It was not a time for questions, nor false assurances. Twilight kept touching the Princess, reassuring her with her presence. She absently wondered if it would calm Luna if she were to try and groom her mane, but that thought lead to wondering if she even could groom Luna’s mane.

“Our sister stayed close, and that helped us a great deal. But now even she is gone.”

“She will return in time for sunrise.” Twilight looked into Luna’s eyes.

“Will she? Or is it too late for that which has been done to be undone?” The princess lowered her head. “What if she does not return? What if we had secretly desired that she would never return?”

Author's Note

Thanks to my parents for pre-reading
Also, thanks to Woonsocket Wrench for the same

Notes and references for this chapter can be found in my blog, HERE.

Chapter 2: An Unexpected Surprise

Celestia Sleeps In
Chapter 2: An Unexpected Surprise
Admiral Biscuit

Dale grumbled as he folded his cot. The first day of vacation seemed the longest. He had arrived at the Leelanau State Park at four the prior afternoon, spent the entire evening setting up his campsite, and now he was taking most of it back down. The tent would stay, although it was empty inside, save for the spare tire from his car which would keep it in place if the groundstakes failed.

In his early sixties and comfortably retired, Dale spent as many weeks as he could in Northern Michigan. A career beginning as an apprentice in a machine shop had ended with him running a tool-and-die business, which he had fortuitously sold just before the economy went into a death spiral. He wasn’t exactly wealthy, but he had enough put aside to get along for many more years, and he had fairly simple tastes—his car was proof enough of that. Long past its prime, he had no desire to replace it with something newer.

His rusty white Honda wagon was backed up next to a tree, leaving the bulk of the campsite open, and the park permit was carefully tucked into the wooden post, the expiration date clearly visible from the road. Park rangers tended to mind their own business as long as the site stayed quiet, but they’d be looking if he stayed a day late. He figured that the empty roof rack on his car would provide enough of a clue that he’d left in a boat; if he hadn’t made it back by the end of the week, he’d be happy for the Coasties to come to his rescue. To narrow their search, he had written his itinerary on a sheet of paper, which he’d left on the driver’s seat.

Sitting next to the car, his former livery canoe sat on a set of ingenious detachable wheels. He was carefully loading his supplies in, checking and double checking to make sure that everything was watertight. Even if he didn’t capsize, he knew that everything in a canoe got a little wet on it, and although Dale enjoyed roughing it, he did not enjoy a soggy sleeping bag. A spare paddle was lashed to the thwarts, as past experience had taught him that when a canoe capsizes in a river, loose paddles will never be found again.

With the last cooler loaded, he dragged his canoe towards Lake Michigan, a task that was greatly eased by the wheels. Setting the bow of the canoe down on the sand, he leaned back and gazed out over the brilliant azure waters. Tiny wavelets splashed up on the sand, no more than one would see on a small lake. Even this early, dozens of sailboats could already be seen, little white triangles slowly moving across the placid surface.

He unhooked the wheels and tossed them into the bow of the canoe, slipped off his shoes and socks, and dragged the canoe down the sandy beach into the water. As soon as he began paddling, the worries of his cranky dryer and the leaking power steering hose on his beat-up Accord fell away. The weather forecast for this week had been nothing but sunny skies all day long.

As the canoe sliced through Lake Michigan, he thought back to one of his co-workers referring to it as an aluminum coffin. Watching the smooth blue water of the lake, and the freedom it offered, he smiled. So what if it was? He’d rather be out here on the lake than watching TV in his living room. It may have been a bit presumptive of him, but navigating across Lake Michigan using nothing but his arm strength and a compass reminded him of the great explorers of the past. The solitude didn’t bother him at all; he was a man who was very comfortable in his own mind. The only contact he had with the human race at this moment was his handheld marine radio, and he only intended to use that for emergencies.

The hours passed slowly. He kept up a rhythm of paddling for about twenty-five minutes, then resting for five. Out of habit, Dale turned often during the first couple of hours, as the shoreline of Michigan faded behind him. At first, he had seen lots of sailboats and powerboats, but as he went farther, fewer could be seen; like the shore, they were lost in the distance.

He rubbed his hand thoughtfully over his chin. He was, by his best estimate, about halfway—he could hardly see any features on land. A small backpack by his feet contained his essentials, and he reached inside and took out a sandwich. The bread was a little soggy, and the cheese had slightly melted from the heat, but it was still filling. He washed it down with a bottle of Gatorade, carefully stowing the rubbish. He might be in the middle of nowhere, but that was no reason to litter.

Dale looked over the side of the canoe. He wasn’t sure how deep the water was here, but wouldn’t be surprised to find it was a few hundred feet deep. It was hard to imagine what might be down there. There weren’t any big predatory fish that lived in the Great Lakes, as far as he knew, but he still felt a slight thrill of fear as he imagined slowly sinking to the bottom.

` With a last look around him, to make sure there were no freighters or pleasure boats headed in his direction, he picked his paddle back up, and fell back into his groove, constantly keeping an eye on the compass zip-tied to the aft thwart.

Eventually, South Fox Island came into view. It wasn’t much to see; a small hump of green with an iron light tower. Now that he had a good fix on his location, he altered his course northward. His paddle strokes were long and even; he was in a nearly hypnotic state. This was a familiar route for him. He had been going out to the island a couple of times a year since 2000, when it was sold back to the state. Even though he didn’t have permission to camp, he knew that no one was likely to know.

A few more hours of paddling, and he was finally nearing the shore of North Fox Island. He kept paddling until the canoe gently ran around on the sandy bottom of the southeast end of the island. He turned the stern until the boat was parallel to the shore and aground nearly its whole length, then stowed the paddle, rolled up his pantlegs, and carefully stepped out, wincing at the cold water. He tied the bowline of the canoe to his wrist and proceeded to fit the wheels back on the canoe, a much simpler process when it was still in the water.

In fairly short order, he had dragged the canoe onto the beach and towed it up into the treeline. He had been amazed when he’d found this spot—with the slight curve of the southern tip of the island, one couldn’t see South Fox Island over the trees. The shoreline of the mainland was too far away to make out anything more than a slight greenish rise in the water. The south end of Beaver Island was fairly unpopulated, and invisible until one was halfway down the beach. The water was too deep for any fishermen to make their way out here. In short, it was a day’s travel to the middle of nowhere.

His first order of business was setting up his campsite. It didn’t take him too long to find the spot he’d been using, a small clearing in the trees large enough for his tent and a small campfire. A few trips and he had all his camping supplies set up. It was wonderful how much camping technology had advanced in his lifetime. When he was a kid, a heavy canvas tent was a bear to pitch and always reeked of mildew, no matter how dry it was when folded, but his current Eureka tent practically set itself up.

He quickly filled the tent with the comforts of home, threw a line over a tree to hold most of his food supply—even though there weren’t any bears on the island, as far as he knew, old habits died hard—moved the scattered rocks around the campsite to form a firepit, and began chopping wood. It was kind of funny, he thought, how much work it was to get away from it all.

But in a few hours, it was worth it. He was set up for a few days of solitude. The fire was burning low, and he looked up at the stars—far more than could be seen in Grand Rapids—and listened to the soft pops and crackles of the fire and the gentle splash of tiny waves on the shore of his island.

He boiled a pot of water over the fire, pouring most of it in his thermos with a few spoonfuls of Maxwell House instant. Sufficiently prepared for the next morning, he poured the rest into a dirty enamel mug, tossed in a teabag, and leaned back in his chair, contemplating the heavens. As he sipped his tea, he identified the constellations he knew, smiling as a satellite moved slowly overhead. Hard to imagine that when he was born, there hadn’t been any up there. When he had finally finished his tea, he banked the fire, and crawled into his tent. In minutes, he was asleep.

He woke up a few hours later, momentarily confused and disoriented. The air was a little chilly, as it often got even on June nights, but it wasn’t terribly uncomfortable. He could hear nothing out of the ordinary, so he finally closed his eyes and tried to get back to sleep.

Dale tossed and turned in his sleeping bag. He was in that strange state of being half-awake and half-asleep, and part of his mind knew it, and it frustrated him. Even in a tent, he was normally a good sleeper, but he just couldn’t manage to drift off. Every position he sought turned against him, with rocks and roots under his Thermarest, or the zipper on his sleeping bag pressing against his side uncomfortably, or his pillow strangely eluding him.

What little sleep he got was filled with very strange dreams. He dreamed that a magician had stolen his hands and feet in some sort of odd magic trick, and forgotten to give them back, then, unaccountably, he was flying, perfectly whole again.

He soared above the lake, experiencing a strange disassociative vertigo as he passed over himself in his canoe. As he watched, a dark shadow appeared under the canoe. Dale tried to scream out a warning to himself, but tentacles wrapped around the boat and yanked it under, leaving only a bobbing orange cooler behind.

He struggled deeper into his sleeping bag, and soon found himself trapped in a giant pool of mud, his shouts unheard by all his friends, who were walking around aimlessly, ignoring him. Suddenly, his old foreman walked up to the edge, and, laughing, tossed in a bundle of dynamite, wired to a digital timer. He began struggling frantically as the digits crept towards zero, wincing when the clock began beeping. Any second now, the dynamite would explode, and he would die. He opened his cooler, which was floating next to him, recoiling as bees flew out.

Dale silenced the beeping of his travel alarm. For a moment, he was disoriented. The tent was illuminated by bright moonlight, but it seemed to have an unusual pulsing quality. It was five am, a time when no sane person would be up, especially when they were on vacation; yet, the one thing he most enjoyed on his vacations was watching the sun rise over the lake. When he had been working, he only saw sunrises in the rearview mirror of his car.

He pulled on his pants and his field jacket, patting the pockets to make sure he had his digital camera and binoculars. Out of habit, he grabbed his pistol and tucked it into his belt before he unzipped the tent flap and pushed it open.

As soon as he looked up, his jaw dropped. The sky was alive with shifting colors, red and green, blue and violet—the Aurora Borealis. It was rare to see it this far south, and he didn’t remember hearing anything about solar storms. Still, that wasn’t something that the weather channel mentioned, and he hadn’t been paying attention to the solar forecast.

The full moon was setting, and he decided that there was plenty of light to see without his flashlight, but he took it along, just the same. It was better to have it and not need it than the other way around.

On his way out of camp, he grabbed his tripod and a thermos full of coffee. Dale felt that if he were actively photographing the sunrise, it would take away his enjoyment of actually watching it; but the advent of digital cameras had been a boon, since he could set it to take a shot every few seconds, and hope he got that one perfect shot. If he didn’t, it wasn’t like he was wasting money in film and development costs.

He trudged down to the beach, finally coming over the small dune that trailed down to the water. He had kept his eyes towards the path as he ascended, since he had learned from experience that there were roots and loose rocks which seemed to be purposely placed to catch the unwary. Finally, at the crest, he cast his gaze towards the calm, moonlit lake, then over to the beach where a circle of armored creatures were surrounding a pure white unicorn and—

What?

Dale froze, all his muscles temporarily paralyzed as his tired brain tried to sort out what it was seeing. He began to make a low moaning sound, although he was entirely unaware that he was doing so. Meanwhile, his brain had finally decided that he was hallucinating or still dreaming; regardless, if he were to close his eyes, everything would be back to normal when he opened them again. This was a very comforting thought. While he could get as excited as the next person watching a good movie with inexplicable happenings, it was certainly not something he had ever wanted to personally experience, and his sure and certain belief that this was simply some sort of waking dream, perhaps a carryover of his very vivid nightmares of the night before, seemed a perfectly rational explanation for what otherwise was a mystery worthy of the Twilight Zone.

Unfortunately, when he looked again, the scene had not changed. Half of his mind was suggesting, quite loudly, that running away might be a good idea. Screaming while doing so would probably be even better. He involuntarily dropped the tripod and thermos in preparation for flight. His heart began racing; if there had been so much as a gust of wind at that moment, he likely would have been gone fast enough to leave a cloud of sand behind him. As it was, his hindbrain still hadn’t figured out what to do, so it was just preparing to do something, eventually settling on wait and see what develops.

There were twelve small, but very serious looking creatures, wearing golden Romanesque armor, complete with brush helmets and spears somehow grasped in their forelimbs. They were all a brilliant white, with blue eyes, practically identical, except it appeared that six of them had an ivory horn mounted on the front of their helmet, while the other six had some kind of white feathers over their armor. Lying on its side in the center of the group was a brilliant, almost pearlescent unicorn. It was wearing a golden tiara with a purple gem set in the center, golden horseshoes which covered the entire hoof, ending on the front of the leg in golden fleur-de-lis, and an enormous breastplate which also sported a purple gem. Like some of the spear-holding creatures, it also appeared to have feathers along its sides. The entire get-up seemed a little bit ridiculous, much like the costumes his neighbor put on his yappy mopwater dog. What caught Dale’s eye, though, was that this creature’s mane seemed to be ethereal. Colored almost exactly like the aurora, it shifted and flowed in the nonexistent breeze. Unwittingly, he looked into the sky, watching it mirror the unicorn’s mane, before returning his gaze to the spectacle before him.

Dale noticed another creature he had somehow missed before, perhaps because it was the most normal of the lot. Shorter and more slender than the rest, it was a seafoam green unicorn, with a light blue mane and tail, each of which had a white stripe that he assumed was bleached or dyed—in fact, the entire creature appeared to be dyed. There was nothing in nature that he knew of that was those colors.

She was watching him with large golden eyes, which reminded him uncomfortably of an eagle’s eyes. Her ears and tail were twitching quickly,.in what was clearly irritation.

One part of his brain told him that he should get his camera, since if the tableaux before him showed up on the camera, than he wasn’t hallucinating. At the same time, Dale wondered if that was wise. A primitive instinct suggested to him that if he were to reach for his camera, something bad might happen. Besides, even if he did take pictures, no one would ever believe them.

Instead, he sat down, and began to watch them carefully.

The mint unicorn, he decided, was behaving much like a well-trained guard dog. After he had approached no closer, she had returned to scanning the area around her, but every time she turned in his direction, she fixed him with a steady gaze, reminding him that she was keeping track of his presence, and while she would tolerate him as long as he stayed out of her territory, she would not let him approach without facing consequences. Closer observation showed that she always kept one ear cocked in his direction, even when she looked away, and he noticed that the other creatures were often keeping their ears pointed at her. He idly wondered what they would do if he moved closer, but reminded himself that the soldiers were wearing armor and carrying weapons, so he supposed that they were probably capable of dealing with him.

Dale had gotten over his initial shock, and began to speculate on their origin. It was possible they were some kind of genetically altered pet, although who would have such a thing was beyond him, and why they would be here of all places was even more confusing. The fact that most of them were carrying weapons also bothered him—while it was true that some people dressed their pets, he’d never heard of giving them spears to hold, and he couldn’t imagine animals that would behave this way.

He wondered what they would do if he were to take out his gun. Would they throw their spears at him? Could they throw their spears at him, or were they just a strange decoration? If he hadn’t seen the green unicorn move, he might have thought that they were just animatronic creations, but he’d never heard of ones that could walk and look so natural doing it, or blink for that matter. He also observed that the soldiers shifted their weight every now and then, and he could see the rise and fall of the chest of the large unicorn.

As the sky lightened, he could see that the soldiers facing him were frequently holding his gaze for a few seconds before their eyes shifted, but they were clearly professional enough to maintain a watch for anything else that might be a threat.

When the sun broke the horizon, he finally shifted his focus to the lake. He might not have gotten his camera set up, but there would be other sunrises, he supposed. Silently thanking whoever had invented light-sensitive glasses, he watched as the sun slowly tracked above the lake. Even with the bizarre scene on the beach, watching the sunrise was an ingrained habit.

As it finally cleared the horizon, he glanced back over at the creatures. The soldiers seemed uncomfortable for some reason he couldn’t fathom, frequently looking at the sleeping unicorn. Nothing had changed but the light in the sky, as far as he could tell. Before, he had only heard a few short noises from them—the soft nickering that one often heard amongst horses—but now they were much more vocal.

At first, he thought that the soft melodic noises they were making were no more complex than birdcalls, but he soon realized that one would speak, then another, and so on. They were clearly conversing, and he supposed that if their culture was advanced enough to make armor, it stood to reason that they had some means of communication as well. That went on for a minute or so, when a sharp command from the aqua unicorn silenced them all.

He continued to watch them, noticing that the pearl unicorn was beginning to shift. She opened her eyes, and lifting her head off the sand, smiled. She looked at the sun, now well above the horizon, and rose with a regal grace. She glanced at the soldiers, who had begun to chatter excitedly among themselves, and then at the mint unicorn, who rather softly spoke for a minute or so. Dale noted to his fascination that larger unicorn was nodding every now and then.

Suddenly she looked in his direction, and flared her wings. If the effect was intended to intimidate, it worked perfectly: Dale would have stepped back if he had been on his feet. Unfortunately, he was sitting with his back to a rock, and couldn’t move. For one awful moment, he thought she was going to come at him—her posture seemed very aggressive—but then she lowered her wings, and gave him a more thoughtful look. For his part, Dale was confounded by the wings—up until now he had assumed that these creatures were some sort of mammal, but feathered wings argued strongly against that theory. She spoke with the mint unicorn, and her lilting voice was quite soothing. As strange as it seemed, he felt all the tension leaving his body just from hearing her speak.

The mint unicorn nodded, and looked up at the winged unicorn towering over her. Dale noted with surprise a glowing spark at the end of the white horn, with a color that he could only describe as reminiscent of a summer sunbeam. Then she tilted her head down and touched the horn of the mint unicorn, who was suddenly surrounded in a golden nimbus which faded and fell in glittering sparkles.

The mint unicorn stepped to the perimeter of soldiers, then two body lengths beyond, and paused for a moment, then stepped forward again, tentatively. There was a brief golden ripple in the air, and then the unicorn moved forward across the beach with more confidence, although in a slow, non-threatening manner. Dale could see sparkling golden hoofprints in the sand behind her.

She halved the distance between them, then stopped expectantly, looking at him carefully.

He looked at her thoughtfully, and looked over at the others. The soldiers were stoic as always, but the winged unicorn seemed to have an inviting look on its face. He sat, indecisive, a moment longer, then came to the conclusion that dying on this beach at the hooves or horn of a unicorn might not be all that bad a way to go after all, and stepped towards her.

He moved slowly, constantly shifting his focus between her and the rest. As he closed the distance, he noticed that she had gone from twitching her tail to tucking it between her legs, much like a frightened dog. One of her ears was flat against her skull, while the other was pointed backwards, as if she was expecting instructions from the others. He could see that she was breathing quickly, and she kept cocking her right foreleg, as if she wanted to paw at the sand. She seemed uncomfortable with their size difference, and it was not hard for him to imagine why. He tried to keep a neutral expression, and keep his hands away from his sides. Dale noticed, to his slight discomfort, that one of the guards, which he had now decided was also a unicorn, had widened its stance and lowered its head, so that its horn was pointed right at him.

He stopped just short of arm’s length away. He felt that it would be prudent to maintain that distance, so that neither of them would feel threatened. They both stood in place for a time, until she slowly turned in a circle to allow him a chance to get a good look at her. She stood maybe four feet tall to the tip of her horn—her eyes seemed to be centered about on his navel. Her body was thicker than a normal horse’s would have been, and her legs widened towards her hooves. Her head was rounder, and had a much shorter muzzle than an ordinary horse; in fact, the only horse-like attributes were the mane and tail; otherwise, she bore more resemblance to a St. Bernard. He supposed that he could consider the horn to be a horse-like attribute—he’d never heard of a unicorn dog—but that was really a stretch.

He looked back at the tall white winged unicorn. Aside from the shifting mane and wings, it looked much more equine, although it was still shorter than the horses he was familiar with. If he got on its back, his feet would just barely be off the ground.

Drawing his attention back to the figure in front of him, he noticed that it had a golden image on its hindquarters. It looked like a closed U with vertical lines drawn into it. Dale wondered if it was some kind of a brand, or an identifying mark. Given that the guards all looked identical—except some had horns and some apparently had wings—maybe this was how they could tell each other apart. Perhaps it was some kind of a tribal mark, although if that were the case, it was odd that it did not match what was clearly a sun on the flank of the white winged unicorn. It was difficult to speculate on how their culture might be arranged. Maybe they got these tattoos, or whatever they were, when they reached maturity.

Her fur seemed neatly groomed, and her mane and tail appeared to have been brushed. She was much cleaner than he would have expected an animal, but upon reflection, he decided that if their society could make armor, surely they had discovered basic hygene.

Of course, as useful as these up-close observations were, they still left the biggest question open—namely, how had they gotten here? Assuming he wasn’t hallucinating, which he still considered a very real possibility, they must have come from a spaceship, or something like that.

Dale was on the middle ground when it came to aliens. He believed that with the vastness of space, there must be some out there, somewhere, but he didn’t believe that they were visiting earth, nor that they would. Currently, that second belief was being thrown into question.

A short series of lyrical chirps brought him out of his reverie, and he looked down at the unicorn that was watching him intently. She made a tossing motion with her head, while he stared into her eyes dumbly. When she did it a second time, he suddenly understood, and slowly turned in a circle, feeling slightly ridiculous.

After they were both done, the winged unicorn spoke for a moment, and, never taking her eyes off him, the mint unicorn responded. She looked at him and said something in her language, which of course he didn’t understand.

She trotted over to the wet sand where the waves washed, and began to trace into the sand with her hoof. It looked like a series of lines, and after she’d worked at it a little bit, he realized it must be writing. She looked at him expectantly, but he shook his head and shrugged, holding his arms open.

She considered that for a time, then moved to a new spot, and began writing again, this time using a different series of characters. While the first had reminded him of runes, or maybe Cyrillic, this looked more like the alphabet he knew. Of course, he still couldn’t recognize it at all—there were a few symbols that looked familiar, but it was totally meaningless to him. She looked at him, and he made the same gesture.

Looking at the two messages—both of which he assumed were the same, and were probably something along the lines of can you read this—it was curious to see how the first message had been much shorter, and used fewer letters. The words—if that is what they were—seemed to be shorter, but there were marks between the characters. Dale had no doubt a linguist would find this fascinating, but his skills went more towards reading adventure novels and machine drawings. This might as well be Greek—for all he knew, this might be Greek.

Finally, picking another clear section of beach, the unicorn began tracing in the sand with her hoof again.

When she had finished, she stepped back from what she had drawn, to give him a chance to look at it. It was a fairly simple series of pictograms, showing the sun rising above the water. Next to it, she had drawn a sketch of a closed stylized U, which clearly matched the golden mark on her flank. Next to that, she had drawn twenty-eight marks in the sand, much like the hash marks he was familiar with, although they were grouped in sixes instead of fives. He interpreted this as meaning that she would be coming back at sunrise in twenty-eight days.

He thought about how he might communicate that he understood this to her, then he got a flash of inspiration. Until now, they had not heard him speak. Even though their language was different, he suspected that they had figured out that he, too, was an intelligent creature, and therefore would be expecting a response. He looked her in the eyes, and spoke.

“At sunrise,” he pantomimed the sun coming over the horizon, “in twenty-eight days,” he counted on his fingers, a process which she seemed fascinated by, “you,” he pointed at her, “will return here.” He motioned around the general area with his arms.

She smiled and nodded at him, repeating something back in her language, which he assumed was essentially what he had just said, making similar gestures with her hoof. Then she turned and walked back to the others. The air around them shimmered again as she crossed the invisible barrier between them, and then, without any fanfare, there was a bright golden flash, and they were all gone as if they were a dream.

He stood there, alone on the beach, for a very long time. He kept mentally replaying the scene. Finally, he got out his camera and took pictures of all the messages in the sand. That should prove I didn’t imagine it. Looking back at the previews on his camera, he satisfied himself that the pictures were indeed there.

He went back to where he had been standing, and began looking on the beach for clues. The soft sand left no clear impressions of hoofprints—a pity, since he had been curious whether the unicorn wore shoes or not. Admittedly, given all the questions that were pressing in his mind, that was mostly irrelevant, but it seemed like a clue that he could hang his hat on.

There was no question that something had been here. He could clearly follow the unicorn’s footprints to and from the area where they had all been gathered, and he could see the sand was churned up by the feet of something. He took a few more photographs, then got down on his hands and knees and began searching through the sand. He wanted to find something tangible, something he could show to someone else—or not—that would be an actual, physical reminder that this was not a hallucination.

He moved carefully and methodically. While it would have been nice to find a dropped spear, a loose piece of armor, one of the jewels from the large winged unicorn’s tiara, or a stellar map with directions to their home, he would settle for anything. He crawled in a spiral, moving a few inches and then scanning the area to either side of his hands.

He lost all track of time, but his knees and back were aching. He could feel sweat running down his arms and dripping off his nose, and guessed he probably was going to have quite a sunburn when this was done, but he dared not leave the scene to put on some sunblock. Not until he had determined that there was nothing to find.

He had almost given up all hope of finding anything. Whatever means they had used to get here had removed all evidence of their presence except their footprints, and he would have expected nothing less. But then, nestled down in the sand between two small craters, he found something. It nearly escaped his eye, it was so fine. He oh so gently reached out a finger, and hooked it, pulling it forth from its sandy prison a millimeter at a time, hardly daring to breath. It was the finest gossamer, shifting colors in front of his awed eyes. It was a single hair from the pearl winged unicorn.

Heart pounding, he stared at it. It felt almost like ordinary hair, both thicker and smoother than his own. But as he watched, its color shifted, from cerulean to turquoise to cobalt to heliotrope. Careful examination revealed that the colors slowly fell down the hair, through a process he could not even fathom. Every now and then, there would be a little spark. The first time, he nearly dropped it.

He finished his survey of the area, and got back to his feet, knees popping loudly. Dale stood stationary for a moment—he always got dizzy when he stood up quickly—and then began walking back to his campsite. He picked up his thermos, wincing at the hot metal, then his tripod. As he reached the shade of the trees, his neck began to throb, and he knew he was going to pay for spending so much time on the beach, but it was probably worth it. The pain might help him focus, and might help remind him that he hadn’t imagined the scene at sunrise.

Finally reaching his camp, he absently tossed the thermos and tripod on his folding picnic table, and sat down in his camp chair to resume examination of this magical hair.

As he watched it shift and change before his eyes, he came to the uncomfortable conclusion that he was likely verging on insanity. The rational part of his brain insisted that he had not seen anything real on the beach, and he was just prolonging the hallucination by staring at this hair which clearly couldn’t exist. Every law of nature that he had understood since he was a boy said it wasn’t real. Extraterrestial beings visiting earth were the creation of science fiction authors and wackos.

But what if it did exist? One of his guilty pleasures had been a good science fiction novel, and it was hard to argue that the worlds that Asimov, Niven and Wells had imagined hadn’t, in a large part, come to pass. While it was true that he didn’t have a jetpack or a flying car, he did have a smartphone and internet access at home. Mankind may not have colonized Mars, yet men had walked the surface of the moon and sent probes into the deepest reaches of the solar system, and even now were soaring over the earth in a space station.

Looking around the island, he thought it might be the perfect place for a group of aliens to observe humanity. What if there was a spaceship, somehow cloaked so that earthly technology couldn’t see it, and they’d sent an away team to a location that was both remote, yet near enough to civilization that they could monitor it? Maybe they had some kind of scanners that were measuring background radiation—maybe that was why they had put their eyes on earth. Maybe all these radio waves had attracted them.

It wasn’t that long ago, relatively speaking, that the electromagnetic spectrum had been largely silent. There were no TVs, no cell phones, no radios. It had hardly been a hundred years, and now civilization had advanced to the point that there were even satellites beaming down episodes of Jersey Shore to the masses. Truly, it boggled the mind just thinking about it. What if they had a spaceship, flying through the vast reaches of space, and they suddenly began to receive radio signals from an insignificant planet on a lonely branch of the Milky Way galaxy? Perhaps they had come to investigate.

Suddenly, he felt very small. All he had wanted was to spend a few days away from it all, and now he may very well have been the first human to make contact with an alien species. It wasn’t fair. He imagined the media circus that would ensue. Dozens of different celebrities, interviewing him.

Or would there be? Maybe the government would just disappear him. Until today, he hadn’t really though that was a possibility—it wasn’t something that the government would do. But maybe it was. Maybe he wasn’t the first one to make contact with aliens. Maybe all those people who he had assumed were nuts were on to something. Maybe they weren’t really nutty, after all.

He looked at the hair again. It moved in the slight breeze, just as a real hair would, but the shifting colors were so unnatural. For that matter, the fur color of the unicorn was unnatural. No mammal—if it even was a mammal—had fur that color. Or wings, or eyes that big.

Dale sighed. The only logical explanation was that he was out of his mind. That this whole thing was a strange mental fugue, maybe brought about by his exertion the day before. Wasn’t humankind supposed to be a social species? Maybe this is what happened when one turned his back on his own fellows.

Well, if that was the case, perhaps it was time to get some contact with humanity. He carefully put the hair into a Ziploc bag, which he placed in his cooler. It might not be what it deserved, but it was a safe enough place.

He walked back to his canoe, and unclipped the marine radio from its bracket. Flipping the switch on, the familiar robotic voice of the NOAA weather station crackled in his ears. While not actual human contact, it was the next best thing.

He listened to it for a few minutes—not really paying attention to what it was saying—and was suddenly surprised to find himself back in camp. Realizing he was in worse mental shape than he’d imagined, he sat down heavily in his camp chair.

He switched over to channel 16, hearing nothing but the soft hiss of static. He wanted to call out, but who would he call? What would he say? Dale was, by his own choice, on a remote, uninhabited island. Would he radio the Coast Guard? Would he tell them that he had just been visited by aliens? If he did, would they believe him?

Maybe he could just tell them that he was having a medical emergency. They’d fly a helicopter out from Traverse City and take him away. He frowned at the thought. Most likely, they’d take him to a rubber room, somewhere. If they believed his story—which was extremely unlikely—he’d probably get a visit from representatives of some governmental agency that he’d never heard of before.

Finally, he heard a bulk freighter transmitting on 16, calling for a different channel. Hands shaking, he switched his radio, and listened to one side of a conversation between the freighter and someone else. The conversation was irrelevant, loaded with static, and barely comprehensible, but it was another human, and by golly, that was good enough.

His stomach growled, and he realized he hadn’t eaten all day. He looked at the firepit, thought about cooking, and decided it was too much effort. Grabbing a can opener, he reached into his cooler for a can of anything.

He opened the can without really seeing it—his eyes were locked on the plastic bag that contained the shifting hair—and just tipped it up to his mouth, more to shut up his stomach than any real desire to eat. It seemed to be Spaghetti-O’s, judging by the artificial pasta and sauce taste.

He absently tossed the can aside, picking up the Ziploc. The hair still changed colors. Mesmerized, he was unable to tear his eyes away. He brought over to the table, continuing his careful examination.

Looking at the glowing LED on the silent radio, he switched it back to the weather channel. Maybe the continuous voice would help remind him that he was still real.

The radio gave off nothing but static.

He swore, tossing the radio at a tree. Technology, apparently, was against him. He was shocked when, mid-flight, the radio began talking again. Luckily for Dale, his aim was off, and the radio bounced harmlessly off the soft dirt, landing in a patch of ferns. He picked it back up and brought it back to the table. As soon as he got close, the radio stubbornly turned staticy again. Frowning, he moved away, and the NOAA-bot returned.

A little experimentation revealed that the hair was, somehow, messing up the radio signals. When it was within a few feet of the radio, the signal was inexplicably lost. The only reason he could come up with was that the hair gave off some sort of electromagnetic interference, although how it could do that was beyond him. Still, it seemed to shift his thoughts from the losing-his-mind category into the maybe-this-is-real area, as it was an awfully specific detail for a hallucination.

He set the radio up by his tent, its constant noise a companion in the solitude. Dale took a notebook out of his backpack, and began to write down everything he remembered from the morning. If it turned out that he had imagined the entire thing, it would be an interesting window into his madness. On the other hand, if it turned out to be real, the notebook would undoubtedly prove a priceless resource.

He began by writing down everything he could remember about their physical appearance, then their behavior. Dale assumed that they must have some sort of social structure. It appeared that the unicorn who had come out to meet him had been in command, at least until the white one woke up. He also assumed that since the white one was wearing a crown, she was some kind of an important leader, although he could not imagine why she had been asleep on the beach.

Although he couldn’t be sure that they hadn’t been on the island the day before, they weren’t on the beach, and their manner of departure implied that they could just beam themselves back and forth. He made a special note that there was no shimmering translucence as they vanished—unlike Star Trek’s transporters—they were just there one moment and gone the next. Furthermore, their departure had caused the sand to blow around, as if the atmosphere was rushing back into the space where they had been.

The problem with assuming that they were aliens, in Dale’s mind, was the fact that the guards were wearing what appeared to be medieval barding, and carrying spears. One would imagine that an advanced enough society to have spacecraft and some kind of matter transmission would have discovered better weapons than spears.

Upon reflection, he decided that the guards were ceremonial, a conclusion which fit with the assumption that the white winged unicorn was an important creature to them. It might also explain why they let her sleep on the beach, rather than carry her off to a more secure location. The guards had seemed very uncomfortable with the arrangement.

He also wondered if the horns that many of them were sporting were not actually some kind of mind-controlled weapon. He had seen a golden spark from the horn of the big one, which seemed to have been a way of protecting the smaller unicorn. There were already thought-controlled prosthetics, so there was no reason to believe that the technology couldn’t be pushed further. Perhaps the soldiers with horns could shoot rays out of them or something; that would explain why the one had pointed its horn at him.

He looked at the hair again, thoughtfully. What if it were some kind of nanotechnology? He’d heard of all sorts of things that could be done on a near-atomic level, so why not make a color-changing hair that sparkled occasionally? Perhaps, to these creatures, it was the latest thing in fashion. Maybe, as a space-faring race, they liked the look of magnetic storms. It could even be tuned to solar emissions, which would explain how the colors so closely mirrored the aurora he had seen in the morning. If it somehow gave off magnetic interference, it could have blocked his radio signals.

Dale sighed and closed his notebook. His hand hurt from all the writing. Once he got back home, he’d probably organize it more sensibly, and maybe he’d be able to come up with some more ideas. The light was fading, and he was starving. If he wanted hot food, he had better start a fire.

Sleep came to him quickly that night. He had expected to be up the whole night, but the stress he had been under all day long had tired him out. He had forgotten to set his alarm, yet he woke while it was still dark out.

Dale listened to the susurration of the wind caressing the trees, and suddenly felt very alone. The memories of the previous morning came rushing back, and he momentarily thought about not going down to the beach. What if there were more of those creatures?

No. If he understood what they had written, they were not going to come back for nearly a month. He sighed, and climbed out of his sleeping bag. He might as well go.

He opened the tent flap and peered out. The stars were gone, washed out by the increasing light. Dale absently stuffed his camera into his shirt pocket, pulled on a pair of pants and his hiking boots. He unconsciously grabbed his radio and flipped it on, just loud enough to hear the weather report.

As he came across the rise, he paused. What if they had meant he shouldn’t come back for twenty-eight days? Might they be there again? He shook his head. If they were, they were.

The beach was empty.

As he watched the sun break over the surface of the water, he felt the last of his tension fall away. There was something cathartic about a sunrise. Maybe it was a primitive instinct, a reminder that one had survived yet another day on the planet, or maybe it was just an irrational fear that the sun would fail to rise one day, but this day dawned perfectly ordinarily.

He looked around at the beach. For a dozen years, this had been one of his sanctuaries. It had seemed unchanging, and had offered no real surprises. Oh, sure, he’d seen a few unexpected things, and had more than a few memories of this trip or that, but now they were all eclipsed by his inexplicable encounter.

Dale looked over the lake. He imagined that in the heyday of the schooner, the island had been more of a hazard than anything—clearly if they had built two lighthouses on South Fox, it had been a menace—but perhaps there were a few shipwrecked sailors who had found their way to its shores. While it was hardly a tourist destination, his feet had not been the first to walk its shores, and they would not be the last. Was the island a haven of solitude, or a danger to humanity? Or, in the grand scheme of things, did the island even care? It was a neutral player.

He had meant to stay longer, but suddenly he craved human contact—any kind of human contact. He had never felt so small and alone, and the worst thing about the experience was that he doubted he could share it with anyone. He wanted to shout from the rooftops that we are not alone, but if he did, everyone would believe he was insane.

As he walked back to camp and began packing his gear, his mind began churning over a new problem. Assuming that he had not imagined the whole thing, how should he proceed? At some point, he owed it to humanity to share his discovery. If he acted without proof, he would be viewed as just another nutcase, but what would happen if he somehow captured one of the visitors?

Would they willingly come along? The mint unicorn seemed to be intimidated by him, but still approached first. Could he somehow tell her to come with him? Would she be willing to get in the canoe, and ride across the lake in it? If she did, what next? Drive to the nearest television studio, alien in tow? Might they view such an act with hostility? And how soon would the government get involved? If they did, what would they do?

He pushed the canoe into the water mechanically, and began to paddle. Why were they waiting twenty-eight days to return? Was there some sort of significance to the date? Or was it to buy them more time? If so, why? Did they need time to learn his language? To build a universal translator? Or to arrange a special cell to hold him for further study?

He shivered and stopped paddling. He looked around at the vast emptiness of the lake, his canoe the only manmade object within the range of his vision. If they wanted to take him, this was the perfect spot. No one would ever know what had happened.

Author's Note

A big thanks to my parents, for pre-reading and doing a lot of research, and
Woonsocket Wrench, for pre-reading.

Check out my blog, HERE, for notes for this chapter!

Chapter 3: Deliberations

Celestia Sleeps In

Deliberations

Admiral Biscuit

“Sometimes we wish we were the dominant mare,” Luna sobbed.

Twilight froze. While she had often had similar thoughts about her older sibling—everypony did, she was sure—she had never acted on them. She had checked and double-checked that the spell was safe and couldn’t be tampered with, but if anypony could find a way to misguide this spell, it would be Luna.

No. Looking at Luna, whimpering into her hooves, Twilight realized that this was not the face of a remorseless creature who would have sent fourteen ponies—including her own sister—to their doom. She nuzzled Luna’s neck again. Something was happening, and she felt that events were spinning out of control, but whatever it was, the alicorn wasn’t behind it.

She would solve nothing by rushing to judgment. While it was possible that these were crocodile tears that Luna was shedding, she could feel the racing heartbeat of the Princess throbbing in her neck, and the scent of fear hung heavy in the still air.

This was like one of those dreams where she was galloping but not getting anywhere. Twilight swallowed a lump in her throat, still whispering soft reassurances to the lunar diarch. It’s exactly like when I was trapped in the Crystal Empire. Even the memory was enough to make her shudder. She had never felt so impotent. Ok. Celestia’s a big pony, she can take care of herself. Right now, I need to help pull Luna together, for the good of Equestria. Nothing else matters. If we have to, Luna and I can raise the sun, but only if I can keep her calm.

It was that easy. Three years ago, before she was sent to Ponyville, if anypony had asked if Twilight had what it took to be a leader, the answer would have been a resounding no. Even Twilight herself wouldn’t have thought so. Friendless, armed only with vast untapped magical potential and a thirst for knowledge, Princess Celestia had thrown her at the unsuspecting denizens of Ponyville. Left to her own devices, she had managed to make five friends loyal enough to follow her to the ruins of the ancient Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters and activate the Elements of Harmony, and as the weeks and months passed by, she had strengthened her bond both with her friends and with the citizens of Ponyville. In three short years, ponies looked to her for answers before the mayor. While that had not been Celestia’s intention, she was not disappointed.

Twilight lay down next to Luna, pushing her body close despite the cold metal of the regal barding. There were a million thoughts rushing through her head, but there was nothing she could do about any one of them. She looked at the dimly glimmering circle on the floor of the great hall, so close that she could almost reach out a hoof and touch it.

She flared her nostrils, and took a deep breath, hoping for just a slight trace of her mentor’s scent in the air, but there was none. Sighing, she laid her chin against the ground and closed her eyes.

The last thing Twilight would have expected was to fall asleep, yet that is exactly what she did.

As Twilight drifted off, Luna’s tears finally dried. She reached out her magic and pushed the moon gently, feeling the slight resistance of Solar magic against her. It was a hopeful sign—Celestia still had hold over the sun, wherever she was.

She closed her eyes, and began seeing with her horn. It took a moment, but presently she could clearly perceive the golden ring in the great hall, extending outwards and upwards in a vast tunnel far into the sky, well past the orbit of the moon. A thicker golden tendril pulsed through the channel, bending sharply where it entered Equestria.

This was the connection between Celestia and the sun; it would join the two as long as they lived, or until it was freely surrendered. It was not unlike the silvery connection she had to the moon, a comforting companion to her for many years.

Luna looked over at the unicorn snoring softly beside her. It was a shame she couldn’t see it. Apparently, the professors were teaching that each type of pony had its own special connections with the magic of Equestria, and that one couldn’t use another pony’s talents. She wondered why. In her day, everypony knew that the magic of Equestria lifted all ponies equally. The Unicorn Council had tried to suppress that knowledge, of course, but Celestia’s herd had put paid to them.

Perhaps it was Celestia’s misunderstanding of Equestrian magic. Luna knew earth ponies who could perform unicorn spells, despite the lack of a horn. They couldn’t understand how they did it, and the few spells they knew were self-taught. Nopony ever enrolled their unhorned offspring in magic kindergarten, after all.

Luna snorted. Celestia had enthusiastically come into her chambers after Twilight had performed her experiment with Trixie. One would have thought she had just discovered fire. She put a wing over Twilight. Such a brilliant mind, yet there is so much you have to discover.

I have been living in my sister’s shadow too long, Luna thought. It seemed it was much easier to have these thoughts when Celestia wasn’t nearby. Perhaps that is why ponies don’t trust me. They see me as a darker side of Celestia, not as a separate pony. Perhaps they misunderstand what half-sister really means. She sighed. If anypony was to take her seriously, she had to take a greater leadership role, she had to be seen during the day, and her sister and Twilight Sparkle would insist she had to speak like everypony else. Unless....

“Our first commandment shall be the return of our glorious language to its full flower. Henceforth, anypony who doth misuse the Royal Canterlot Unicorn language shall be sentenced to three cycles of forced labor in the scullery.” Her voice was hardly more than a whisper, but she chuckled as Twilight’s ears perked up, and the Royal Guard stationed outside the door turned his head inward.

“Milady?” At least her night guards still spoke properly.

“We simply amused ourselves with a harmless jape,” she whispered. “Continue thy duty.”

He turned his head, face returning to its detached stoicism. Luna idly wondered if he would still be stoic if she snatched his armor off. Perhaps she could cast a spell to heat the metal—that would be an interesting experiment. She frowned. No doubt the guards would be displeased to see a lighter side of Luna, and Celestia would fix her with an angry stare….

As much as she felt that Celestia’s vacation was a mistake, she had not put her hoof down, since she, too, sometimes wished that she could spend some time enjoying herself, like anypony else. Her Nightmare Night foray to Ponyville had been little better than complete disaster. The only place she seemed to get any enjoyment was in other pony’s dreams, and even that was fleeting.

Still, if Celestia’s experiment was successful, she could take her own vacations. She smiled, imagining herself frolicking on a beach, splashing her hooves in the water—she could strip off her regalia, and dance around au natural.

She would know, soon enough. The moon was nearing the horizon. Morning had nearly arrived.

Twilight looks around. She is standing in her parents' living room, surrounded by the wreckage of a vase. She believes it is their favorite vase; she does not know that to every foal, everything that gets broken is their parent’s favorite, even when it isn’t.

She knows they will be back soon. They went to a concert with her brother, and she persuaded them that she was a big enough filly to take care of herself, and then she went and broke a vase. Tears begin welling in her eyes.

They will never let her alone again. How can they trust her? Who’s to say that next time, she might not burn down the house? If Cadance were here, she would nuzzle Twilight, and give her some hot chocolate, and they would have a good laugh, and her foalsitter would explain it to her parents in the way big ponies do. But Cadance isn’t here.

Maybe she can fix it. She knows what it used to look like, when it was perched upon a clearly unstable end-table. She has already cleaned and dried the water on the rug.

She concentrates. A magenta glow begins to surround all the pieces. She can sense where they have skidded across the floor, because they feel different to her telekinesis than wood or carpet. She begins to float the pieces of the vase in front of her, turning them this way and that, forming them back into the shape of the vase.

She doesn’t know that her task is impossible. She will not learn for several years that glass flexes before it breaks, hopelessly deforming the vase as it struck the floor, microseconds before fractures began rushing from the origin point. She has her tongue stuck out in concentration, trying and failing to reassemble the shattered glass.

There are, of course, complicated mending spells which can overcome this difficulty, but young Twilight does not know them. She can mend simple breaks, but that is all she has learned. She has done the best she can. The vase has become a Daliesque parody of itself.

Now she lies on the floor, exhausted and worried. She will tell her parents that it was an accident, that she tried to fix it, that she couldn’t find all the pieces. Her mother will scold her; her father will look at the vase admiringly. Her simple spell has knitted it back together well enough. Later that night, her parents will talk about it in low tones, chuckling to themselves about the precociousness of foals. The vase will be removed from the table, never to be seen again. Twilight, of course, will assume that her parents have thrown it away, but they have kept it, a proud trophy of foalhood, not dissimilar to the mouth-drawn stickpony crayon art tacked on the kitchen cupboards, or the splintery impractical napkin holder that graces the dining room table.

She lies awake half the night. Not because of her parents' displeasure—the anticipation was much worse than the actual event—but because she still cannot explain her inability to find all the pieces. She had scoured the living room for them, checked her fur, her mane, between her tiny hand-me-down horseshoes and hooves, everywhere else she could imagine that they might have flown.

She does not take defeat lightly. But in the end, it is not her failure to properly mend that vase that gnaws at her, it is her lack of understanding of what went wrong. Eventually, of course, the incident with the vase fades from prominence, and she nearly forgets it, but the lesson of the vase will stay with her forever.

Twilight opened her eyes. It was nearly sunrise, and she was completely disoriented. She often had vivid dreams, dreams which made her chuckle upon waking—but this was a memory. The sight of her full-grown foreleg stretched just in front of her muzzle had been briefly disorienting. Still, it awoke more recent memories. The conundrum of Trixie is still weighing heavily on her mind, and she is sure that there are pieces of the puzzle that are just beyond her grasp—maybe they aren’t missing, maybe their shape was just unclear.

Even more confounding was the warm body to her right and the warm feeling across her back. She turned her head, and found herself looking into the brilliant blue eyes of the lunar princess.

The next few seconds were an awkward mix of fur and feathers as the two disentangled, neither daring to meet the other’s eyes. The princess looked guilty, Twilight looked sheepish, and they both found interesting spots on the floor to admire.

The silence had drawn on for so long that it had nearly achieved sapience. The unicorn scratched her hoof against the marble and shifted her weight absently, while Luna’s wings remained erect, her focus shifting from not-Twilight stained-glass window to not-Twilight carpeted throned dais to not-Twilight bias-relief carved stone pillar. Finally, Luna cleared her throat, and dispelled the silence regally.

“We thank thee for providing us comfort during our period of distress,” she decreed, still trying not to meet the blushing unicorn’s visage. “We are gladdened that somepony cares about us,” the princess continued. “We shall enter thy name into the Book of Deeds, so everypony shall know thou hast provided us with a needful service. We…um…owe thee a boon for providing ourselves with such service.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. Had the princess actually been looking at her, she no doubt would have been chastised. “I’m sorry I fell asleep,” she muttered. She looked up at Luna. “If you want to provide a boon, I want to know what happened to Trixie!” She flicked her ears. “I was led to believe that she had taken up a permanent office here, yet when I went down to check on her last evening, her office was gone. Why?”

Luna was surprised at the question. “Did our sister not tell thee?” She half-snorted, half-laughed. “Beatrix shall remain in her chambers until—“

Princess Celestia and her entourage flashed back into the great hall, rudely interrupting Luna. For a moment, the fourteen ponies seemed but a ghostly mirage, obscured by swirling sand.

As the field collapsed completely, everypony breathed a sigh of relief. One of the pegasi fell to his knees, kissing the cold flagstones. Lyra had a pensive look, while Celestia seemed unusually distracted. It reminded Twilight of the look she had had in Sombra’s vision. It passed quickly enough, as she glanced at the guards.

“You twelve are dismissed from your duties with pay for the next week. You shall maintain silence about what you have witnessed. If I hear any one of you has broken silence, all twelve of you will be stripped of your rank and armor and assigned to patrol cesspools for the rest of your lives.”

The guards saluted respectfully before trotting out of the throne room. Celestia began walking towards the door. “Luna, please follow me to the balcony. It is nearly time for me to raise the sun. Twilight, Lyra, please wait in my chambers.”

The two unicorns shared a surprised look, their ears perking up as Celestia ordered the guard at the entrance to have the Royal Commander at her door in five minutes. Shrugging, they followed the alicorn sisters.

Inspired by the tone in her voice, the guard at the door cantered down the hallway towards the guard barracks, where a frustrated Shining Armor was spending a week on rotation with his soldiers, rather than home with his new wife. He shot through the door like his tail was on fire, skidding to a halt in front of a bemused soldier.

He paused to catch his breath, then exclaimed loudly enough to wake the dead. “Shining Armor is to report to Princess Celestia’s chambers immediately.”

Among the guards, the word immediately had such special connotations that it was rarely used. Ordinarily, Shining would have put on his armor, run a brush through his mane, and maybe tried to drink a cup of coffee as he went to his post. Had the guard said ‘as soon as possible,’ he would have run a brush through his mane, thrown on his croupiere, and fitted his criniere as he went. But the guard said ‘immediately.’ Shining exploded out of his bunk in a full gallop, clearing the door to his room before his blanket even hit the floor.

He nearly bowled over the dozen guards who had accompanied Celestia as he charged into the hallway, the senior night barracks commander shouting orders amidst the sudden chaos.

The Princesses quickly walked through the castle to Celestia’s room, Twilight and Lyra trotting to keep up. They had never seen her this agitated before, and while Lyra knew the reason, Twilight and Luna were clueless.

When she had arrived at her door, Celestia paused to give the guard orders. “Once your relief gets here, go to the kitchens and tell the staff to bring breakfast for four up to my chambers. They are to leave it in the hallway.” Celestia looked at the stallion sternly. “Nopony else is to enter these chambers.”

The guard nodded, and held open the door. The alicorns went through, followed by the two unicorns. While Twilight and Lyra waited, the diarchs stepped through the antechambers to the hallway that led to the balcony.

“We are concerned about your demeanor,” Luna commented, as the door swung shut behind them. “Thou lookest ill at ease.”

“Sun first, then I will explain,” Celestia muttered, as she turned to the balcony. Luna’s ears flattened. Celestia was almost never that short, unless something were happening that threatened her herd. With a worried expression, Luna followed Celestia onto the balcony. She was not as good at hiding her expressions as Celestia, and hoped that nopony saw her concerned face as the sun broke the horizon.

When it was done, Celestia turned to her younger sister. “I’m sorry. I have a lot on my mind. There was an . . . unexpected event, and I’m not sure exactly how to handle it. It could put Equestria at risk, and needs to be dealt with as soon as possible. I shall discuss it with you and Lyra. I don’t know if Twilight should sit in on deliberations.

Luna frowned. “What manner of secret wouldst thou keep from thine student after the actions of her hoof struck down my—“

“This has nothing to do with Sombra,” Celestia chided. “I just wonder if she is ready to understand what leadership is really about?”

“We again restate our previous objection.” Luna looked at her sister thoughtfully. “Thou wert not so hesitant when thou commanded us to strike down the Unicorn Council. Clover certainly experienced thine leadership skills first-hoof. We wonder if she was cursing thy name as she—“

“ENOUGH!”

“Luna,” Celestia continued in a dangerously low tone, “you are trying my patience. While it is no doubt edifying to dig up the long-buried bones of the past, and rub my muzzle in the mistakes I’ve made, it will do nothing to solve the problem which now presents itself.” She advanced on Luna. “I should like your advice, but if you have nothing to offer other than thinly-veiled insults, I will throw you out of my chambers, and rely on my own judgment, flawed though you believe it.”

The two alicorns stood in silence for a moment, heads lowered, wings flared. Finally, Luna lowered her wings, and ran over to Celestia. She began nuzzling her sister’s neck.

“We were frightened,” she whispered. “We have always felt thy presence, but we could not when thou wert absent. We were afraid we had lost thee and our thoughts turned dark. We took what solace we could in our old armor, and Twilight Sparkle stayed by our side.

“We will cease our wrath until we and thee have solved thy dilemma, but we shall not forget it, sister. We shall not forget. We demand an audience when this crisis has passed.”

Celestia sighed. Only her sister would make a formal request for an audience. On one hoof, she would be happy if the events of the past stayed comfortably buried, but it was apparent Luna would not. Perhaps this was a peace offering; perhaps this would go a long way towards healing the wounds between them. “I accede.”

Luna nodded. “Very well. Tell us what hath transpired, and we shall honestly advise thee.”

“The spell worked perfectly. After I cast the spell, I had a difficult time getting to sleep. The sand was uncomfortable, and I felt like a foal on Hearth’s Warming Eve. Eventually, though, I did sleep, and I woke after the sun’s rays were warming my fur. But the beach which we supposed was deserted was not. There was a creature who was observing us. Lyra said it had been there since just before sunrise. It kept a close watch on us, although it did nothing.

“When I saw it, my first instinct was to scare it off, and I took an aggressive pose—more on reflex than thought, I would say. I was perfectly safe. It seemed to frighten the creature, but it was backed against a rock, and did not get to its hooves. When I relaxed my posture, it also seemed to relax, so it seems that the creature understood my gesture.

“Lyra persuaded me to allow her to approach the creature, so I gave her a simple protective cantrip which would also allow her to cross the barrier that the initial spell had created. She met it halfway, and although it seemed reluctant, it approached her. It stayed out of reach of its forelegs, perhaps as a peaceful gesture.

“The two of them allowed themselves to be examined by the other, still maintaining their distance. When they had finished, I asked Lyra if she would be willing to meet with the creature again in one cycle and she said she would. She wrote out her request in common, then Unicorn, although it understandably did not comprehend either. Finally, she drew out on the sand a simple pictogram representing the sunrise and the number of days, and the creature seemed to indicate that it would return.”

Luna looked thoughtfully at Celestia. “An interesting conundrum. We see why thou art indecisive. It has been long since ponies have treated with another race.”

“And the first time we have met one where we have no idea of its civilization,” Celestia reminded her. “We do not know how it lives, nor what it is capable of.”

“We believe that Twilight Sparkle should sit on deliberation. Thou knowst she is a true polymath, and if anypony is likely to offer useful insight, twould be her.” She paused for a moment. “Furthermore, dear sister, shouldst thou truly desire to continue her training, she must witness the difficult decisions thou makest. The guards have the reality of their vocation explained before they are granted their armor; why should she be any different?”

“She is like my daughter,” Celestia protested. “I had hoped to protect her from these harsh realities for longer. How do I know if she’s ready?”

“And yet thou had no qualms about—“ Luna snapped her jaw shut. “Forgive us, sister. We did not mean to be argumentative. Thou must trust her to fly on her own, now.”

Celestia sighed. “Very well. I hope breakfast is waiting. I am not looking forward to this meeting.”

Twilight’s ears perked up as a gentle knock sounded. A moment later, her brother opened the door. He was half-dressed—he was wearing his criniere, croupiere, flanchard, and pastern guards—while his squire stood by, surrounded by the rest of Shining’s armor.

A night guard pushed in a cart full of food while Twilight and her brother exchanged a look. Do you know what’s going on? No? Neither do I. Then the door closed as quietly as it had opened.

Twilight had asked Lyra what had happened, but she had just shook her head. A thousand scenarios were playing through Twilight’s head, each one worse than the last, and she was bordering on full-panic mode. Her restless pacing of the office had not gone unnoticed by Lyra. With the arrival of the food cart, Twilight finally had something to do.

She carefully levitated all the books and papers off the Princess’ worktable. The tablecloth was gently laid across the table, folds smoothed out, and each side examined to make certain it draped correctly.

Lyra watched impassively as the lavender mare laid out four place settings, frequently checking to determined if they were equidistant. Forks, spoons, knives, napkins, plates, and cups were placed, adjusted, inspected, re-located. The serving-trays came next; Twilight arranged them a dozen different ways before appearing satisfied. She began to move around the table, critically analyzing her work, a process she might have continued indefinitely if the chamber doors had not opened to admit the diarchs.

Celestia seated herself, absently lifting the covers off the serving platters and setting them aside. Emergency orders or no, the castle staff had outdone itself. There were thick slices of whole-grain bread, a tureen of oatmeal, trays of éclairs, cinnamon rolls, crepes, fruit salad, garden salad, and a selection of a dozen different teas. She absently waved a hoof, whereupon the other three sat down.

After Celestia had loaded her plate, filled a mug with tea, and submerged her crepes in maple syrup, the others loaded their plates and began eating. Twilight suddenly noticed the Princess hadn’t touched her food yet.

“I wonder if I shouldn’t just kill it?”

Luna and Lyra looked at her in surprise. Twilight, wondering whether she had committed a grave social faux-pas by eating before the Princess, just looked confused.

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Sister, do not be over hasty. We feel that would be a rash decision.”

“Kill what?”

Celestia looked at them. “Suppose it does pose a grave threat to Equestrian society? Every moment we let it live is another moment that it might use to contact its rulers, who might decide to strike against us.”

“Yet, they could be allies. By what right dost thou discard that chance so quickly?”

“It didn’t look dangerous.”

“Will somepony tell me what’s going on?” Twilight looked at the other three. “Anypony?”

Celestia coughed politely. “Pardon us, my dear student. Of course you should know.” She summarized her prior conversation with Luna, and sighed. “We are caught between a river and a mountain, I fear.”

“There’s no need to get our tails knotted,” Twilight commented. “Before we rush to any hasty decisions we might regret later, we should have a nice, civil discussion. I, for one, would like to hear what Lyra has to say about the creature. After all, she interacted with it directly, and there is nothing better than a close, first-hoof account of the situation, as my brother would say.”

Celestia and Luna nodded together. Three sets of eyes turned to face Lyra, who suddenly felt very uncomfortable. She dabbed a bit of syrup off her muzzle, took a sip of tea, and when it became apparent she could delay no longer, began to talk.

To Twilight’s surprise, she did not speak with the usual lyrical rhythm of Ponyville, but with a clipped, precise speech, much like Shining Armor had adopted after his first year at West Hoof.

“It stands about as tall as you,” Lyra began, pointing a hoof at Celestia. “It never went to all fours, which leads me to conclude that it primarily moves on its hind legs. Its gait was clumsy, seeming like a stumbling fall countered by its forelegs.

“Its forelegs ended in flexible digits, much like a dragon’s, which do not appear to have claws. It was wearing clothing which covered most of its body, except for its head and hands. It had fur on its cheeks and chin, as well as a short-cropped mane. What little I could see of its forelegs had sparse fur. It may not tolerate cold well.

“Its skin color varied from a pinkish to a reddish color. I did not observe a tail, although it could have been concealed underneath its clothing. If it has one, it clearly does not use it for balance.

“What about its clothing?” Twilight interrupted.

“It was very well-made, although plain in color. It covered its upper body with a khaki shirt much like Daring Do’s, over which it wore a vest with pockets, arranged so as to be in reach of its hands. Its flanks and hind limbs were covered with a light-blue canvas which had brown stitching. It also had pockets. A brown belt was cinched around its waist, and it wore similarly-colored brown corsets over its hind pasterns, which extended almost to the fetlocks. When it fell backwards, I observed it had black horseshoes attached to its hoof-corsets, which had a yellow rectangle in the middle.

“It smelled fairly clean.” She paused, as if debating whether to continue. “To me, its scent seemed to be similar to a stallion’s. Like Big McIntosh, after he’s been the field all day.” Lyra blushed.

“It was carrying things,” Celestia reminded her. “Did you get a closer look at them?”

“Yes, but I am uncertain of their purpose. It had a green cylinder with a handle in one hand, which seemed to be made out of metal, and a folded tripod in the other. The green cylinder did not appear to fit the tripod. Perhaps it was carrying something in its pockets which was meant to be used with the tripod.”

“A telescope or an astrolabe? Maybe it was intending to observe the stars.”

Lyra looked at Twilight. “It could also have been an easel, a camera, or Celestia-knows-what.” Her eyes widened, and she looked at the Princess fearfully.

“I have heard worse,” Celestia commented dryly. “Whatever object was meant to go onto the tripod could have been in the woods, where the creature came from. A small telescope might have fit in the green tube, which might have been meant to protect the instrument.”

“We believe that is the most likely explanation. Everypony likes looking at the stars.” Luna got a wistful look in her eyes. “Was their night sky as beautiful as ours?”

“It was obscured by the shield,” Lyra said carefully. “I did not view it properly. I did see some shooting stars, but they moved very slowly. Some of them blinked red and green.”

“Getting back to the topic at hoof.” Celestia looked at Lyra. “What of its demeanor? I watched it recoil when I postured, but how did it react when you were close?”

“Its expressions were difficult to read. It had small eyes, and its ears appeared fixed, and its mouth was set back from its narrow muzzle. It was far less animated than ponies. Nevertheless, its body language suggested confusion or fear. As nervous as I was to approach it, it seemed to be even more afraid of me. It does not seem to be a bold creature, although its facial structure implies that it is not a prey animal. Our ears, eyes, and noses seem far better formed than its anatomy. I would place its facial structure somewhere between a juvenile dragon and a Diamond Dog.”

“Didst thou sense any auras or weave to it?”

“I did not, nor did I see anything that appeared to be an attempt to utilize magic. It never tried to pick up its dropped items with telekinesis. It seemed to primarily use its hands, although it appeared it could also use its mouth for gripping, if it so chose.”

Celestia nodded. “Do you have any more direct observations of the creature?”

“It attempted to puzzle out what I had written in the sand. In retrospect, I should not be surprised that it failed to recognize either common or Unicorn script, although it studied both carefully. It quickly understood the pictogram I drew. I feel it is likely at least as intelligent as a griffon.” She took a sip of her tea.

“I don’t think it’s a threat,” Twilight mused, looking at Celestia. “It was alone on the beach, and fearful of you. To me, it seems a sign it was either ill, or had been banished from its herd.”

“We do not know what type of society it has,” the Princess reminded her. “Dragons prefer to remain alone, except during their migrations and their mating. They are no less of a threat.”

“It clearly has some sort of society.” Lyra set her teacup back down. “It was wearing clothing which fit its form quite well, it had its corseted shoes, it was wearing glasses, and it was carrying manufactured objects.”

“All the things it had may not have been its to begin with,” Celestia objected. “Maybe it stole them. Dragons have their hordes, after all.”

“Tis true dragons be fearsome creatures. Yet, their treasures are oft unfit for their size, as a dragon hath wisdom enough to not prey upon its own kin, rather seeking after those who be smaller and weaker.”

“For as cowed as it was, it did seem more predatory than not. The creature might hunt by crouching in bushes and springing upon its prey.”

“My scouts reported no structures of any type on the island,” Celestia commented. “There were a large variety of creatures, most smaller than a pony, but none of them were sapient, nor did they in any way resemble the strange creature we met on the beach. The only thing we observed which seemed artifice was a long rectangular clearing in the forest. Its borders were not even, although it seemed more regular than one would expect a natural feature to be.”

“If there were no structures, and the creature did not use magic, how did it get there?” Twilight looked at Lyra sharply. “This is an island, correct? Were there low enough tides that it could have simply walked from elsewhere?”

“My scouts reported that they did not observe any tides whatsoever. There were two other islands located within eyesight, one to the south of it, and one to the north. Each was more than ten miles away.”

“Perhaps it flew,” Lyra commented. “Its wings could have been hidden beneath its clothing.”

“We know of no winged creature which would wish to bind its wings in any manner. We ask thee, Lyra Heartstrings, how thou wouldst endure having thine legs bound, or thine horn sealed?”

“Point taken.” Lyra shivered. “It could have swum from one of the other islands, or it could have even taken a small boat. We didn’t see it, but it might have walked from the other side of the island. It also could have teleported itself to the island, although I feel the beach would have been a smarter choice, unless it visited the island often enough.”

“It must have had some kind of stable on the island,” Celestia said. “It did not look to me as if it had enough equipment to stay for very long. Of course, we do not know the survival requirements of the creature.”

“Didst thine scouts report anything unusual about the night sky?”

“Well, let me see. They did report that the moon did not keep a good schedule. They observed a few easily-recognizable constellations—slightly changed because of the planet’s different location—and while their pattern remained consistent, they moved across the sky. They also reported slow-moving shooting stars, most of which were red and green, some of them flashing.”

“Whomever tends to their night sky is not careful, unless those meteors are meant to guide. We know that certain stars and constellations must remain in their proper places to serve as an aid to navigators.”

“What if there was some reason why the night sky had gone off-kilter?” Twilight looked at the others excitedly. “Maybe the creature went to the island to get observations! It might be a student or a scientist. I bet it was sent by its mentor to study!” Her eyes sparkled. “Ooh, I can’t wait to meet it! I bet it knows so many things!”

“I think the topic is veering off-course,” Celestia stated. “While it might be worthwhile to speculate why the creature was on the island, the fact is, it was. I am not interested if it is an astronomer; I am more concerned with determining if it or its kin are a threat to ponykind. Should we return to the island, capture it, and interview it at length?”

“Depends on how important a creature it is. To use Ponyville as an example, one could capture any of dozens of different ponies, and nopony would particularly notice,” Lyra said coldly. “Cherry Berry, Sunny Rays, Zecora, Vera, Shoeshine, Allie Way, Raindrops, Boxxy Joe—nopony would take particular note if they went missing. Cherry might have had a ballooning mishap, Zecora could have been killed by any number of things in the Everfree, Raindrops might have flown into a mountain, Allie may have moved out of town. Nopony would be suspicious. Yet, if the Mayor disappeared, or any of the Elements of Harmony, Twilight, myself, or any foal, we’d tear the town apart looking for them. We’d search the Everfree, Froggy Bottom Bog, Ghastly Gulch, and anywhere else they might have gone.

“If this creature is a loner, or if it is insignificant in whatever sort of society it has, nothing will come looking. If that is the case, the safest choice is to neutralize it quickly, before it has a chance to report what it has found. But if it has powerful friends, or is somepony’s special pet, we would have to answer for what we have done.”

“Tis not so,” Luna interjected. “Our sister might send a sunbeam down the channel. Twould put an end to the island and the creature, and would so completely destroy the weave that nopony could reverse the spell.”

Twilight looked at Celestia sharply. “You can do that?”

The Princess nodded.

“But—that’s murder. It would kill the creature, and everything else on the island!”

“Twilight Sparkle.” Celestia was calm; she used the same even voice she had used when Twilight was a filly. “With the fate of Equestria on one hoof, and the life of but a single sapient creature on the other, how could I make any other choice?”

Twilight flattened her ears and moved back on the bench, as far from the Princess as she could. “But—“

“It is not a decision I would make lightly,” she continued softly, “nor is it a decision I might not later regret.” She sighed. “You are young. You have not seen what I have seen, and I pray that you never will. Nopony should have to make the decision whether one lives or dies, yet sometimes we have no say in the matter. Sometimes circumstances are what they are; sometimes negotiations fail. Perhaps you should ask Rainbow Dash about the true meaning of loyalty. Better yet, ask Applejack if she had to choose between you or her sister whom she would pick.” The diarch chuckled darkly. “She can’t easily lie, after all.”

Twilight looked around at the other two ponies frantically. To her, this was a major shift in her thinking. She could not imagine any caring creature causing deliberate harm to another, or even worse, killing another. Yet—were her hooves not stained with Sombra’s blood? While she had not directly caused his death, she had found the crystal heart, and had ordered Spike to take it back down to its plinth.

At the time, she had been so concerned with not disappointing the Princess that she had not really given the matter any thought. Her brother was safe, Cadance was recovering her health, the crystal ponies were free from Sombra’s rule, and she had been more worried about failing the Princess’ test, anyway.

But she’d had nightmares afterwards. Frightful dreams of Sombra chasing her, of being trapped forever in a crystal prison, of hearing Sombra’s screams in the throes of death. She’d rationalized it, but now she wondered how the others felt. Applejack, she was sure, would have just accepted it and moved on. Perhaps Fluttershy would have mourned, but her experience with animals had no doubt inured her to the harsh realities of life. Twilight knew that Fluttershy often caught fish for injured carnivores without any regret whatsoever.

Rainbow Dash probably didn’t spend much time thinking about it at all. She wasn’t very introspective. Pinkie Pie wore her heart on her hoof; she was as bubbly and cheerful as ever, so no harm done there. It had probably seemed a game to her. Rarity—who knew what Rarity thought? Twilight was fairly certain that Rarity had a different face for every occasion. As dramatic as she was, there was a core of steel inside that unicorn, an unbending integrity only Rainbow Dash could match. She would fuss over the small things all day long, but never say a word about anything major. Despite her aversion to dirt, she had run an entire race with Sweetie Belle while covered from head to hoof in mud, while wearing Applejack’s sweaty hat.

But what about Spike? Was he still too young to know what he had done? Or did dreams of Sombra haunt his sleep? She realized that she knew too little about what went on inside the dragon’s head, and vowed to speak with him when she got back to Ponyville—if, that is, she could come up with a resolution to her own problem.

It wasn’t the fact that Sombra was dead. That thought hardly troubled her at all, and that was what bothered her. Was she a bad pony for not caring? Shouldn’t all life—even Sombra’s—be sacrosanct? If Discord could be reformed, why not Sombra? This was a subject she felt deserved some more examination, yet there were no books in the library which would provide an answer.

Celestia and Luna showed no concern for the discussion at hoof, and that worried Twilight. They were no more emotional than if they had been deciding whether to order hay fries or a salad. After a few thousand years of leadership, that was to be expected, Twilight decided. As much as her view of the diarchs was favorable, was it reasonable to believe that neither had killed before, or at least ordered a killing? Was it rational to think that the Royal Guards just stood around in their polished golden barding, holding spears and looking handsome? Surely they had been used before. Surely, as a herd, their spears were stained with blood.

But what of Lyra? As much of a flake as the citizens of Ponyville believed her to be, she, too, had no emotion. Was she hiding it? Was she disgusted on the inside that the conversation had taken this turn? Or was this nothing new? There was a side to Ponyville’s busking musician that Twilight had never imagined. Did anypony know more about her? She was often in the company of Bon Bon. Did the two of them sit around speaking of murder?

Lyra, I hear Mayor Mare has just decided to enact a new tax on confectioners.

Well, that isn’t a problem, we’ll just have her killed.

But Lyra! Are you sure that’s wise?

Nopony can stop me! I will just tell the Princess it was self-defense. I am a member of the Royal Guard. Who will tell me no? Can I have another candy?

Oh, Lyra, you’re so powerful and decisive! You’re so sociopathic! Oh, hold me! Kiss me! Make sweet, sweet—

Twilight blinked. That had been weird. The other three ponies were still sitting around the table, an ordinary breakfast table, discussing murder. Lyra was eating another crepe while pondering justifiable equicide. Luna was watching her intently, while mulling over murder. Celestia was nibbling a strawberry, scenes of solar strikes playing through her mind.

No.

This was all wrong.

There was a better answer. Surely there was.

Is there? Who killed Sombra? You killed Sombra!

Twilight began to sound a keening wail. Her whole reality had just shifted, and she was not satisfied with her new perception. It felt like she had been peacefully sitting on a sheet of ice, blissfully unaware of her peril, and a malevolent mare had tipped the ice, and now she was sliding towards the icy water, her hooves scrabbling fruitlessly at the smooth surface.

This was worse than when she had imagined being sent back to Magic Kindergarten. For the second time in her life, she began to wonder if the Princess was always right.

She was unaware of the concerned look on Lyra’s face, nor the glances the two alicorns shared. She vaguely heard Celestia mouth a concerned phrase, and Luna’s quiet ‘wait.’

And then, miraculously, the ice was level again. Her hooves had found purchase. Her internal debate had been settled. A small part of her brain still rebelled, but it was drowned out by mental doors slamming shut, by the inevitability of paths not taken.

This was what it really meant to lead. Decisions were made for the benefit of the herd, not of the individual. When it came down to it, there had not been a single second that she thought of Sombra until after he had died. Her brother, her sister-in-law, and everypony in the Crystal Empire had been more important than the corrupted unicorn. Maybe she had known the moment she touched the crystal heart, maybe not, but she did not second-guess her decision until long afterward, and she had already concluded that she had made the right choice.

She felt the same rightness in this decision. This was for the good of all the citizens of Equestria.

“I think there is much we could discover from this creature,” she began. “I believe it would be best to learn, inasmuch as is possible, its language and customs. Now that it is aware we exist, it may have already informed its rulers of our existence, and it is possible that they might find a way to come here. If we have already established a dialogue, we will no doubt find ourselves in a stronger position than if we ignore this opportunity, and they discover us anyway.

“More importantly, I believe that by understanding it, we will understand ourselves better. From speaking with dragons, we have learned how we appear to them; the same goes with griffons, and, to a lesser extent, Diamond Dogs. Every creature has a different culture, and different outlook on life; how much different must this alien’s perspective be? We might be able to use lessons we learn from dialogue with this creature next time we need to negotiate with another race.

“Finally, we might learn technological skills which we have not developed, or are not aware even exist. Everypony knows that we learned the craft of metallurgy from the dragons. Who knows what we might learn from this creature? If they have magic, they may have discovered spells we have not. If they do not have magic, they might have devised technology which could be beneficial to earth ponies, for example, or even to simpler creatures.

“We have learned, as a society, the bitter lessons of mistrust and disharmony, of not working together, and of ignoring opportunities which present themselves, even unexpectedly, and we have learned that when we work together, as a unified herd, we can accomplish great things. Oftentimes, those whom we do not understand, those who remain isolated from the herd, can be a source of wisdom and knowledge, and we should not fear them unless we have reason to do so. In my own experience, I, along with the other citizens of Ponyville, feared and shunned Zecora because she was different than the rest of us, and it took the courage of a filly to seek her out, and bless us with her knowledge. Can we not be braver than Applebloom?

“But whatever choice you make, whatever decision you feel is best for Equestria, make it now. If you believe it to be a threat, every moment that creature remains at large is a moment more our society is at risk, a moment in which it may begin to find its way here, alone or with an army following it. I have heard it said that in wartime any decision is better than no decision at all. Princess, your leadership has turned Equestria into the paradise it deserved; now I defer to your judgement.”

The alicorn looked at Lyra.

“I agree with Twilight. I have my thoughts, my reasons for wanting to continue contact. I believe that this creature wishes us no ill. But you have the benefit of centuries of leadership; you have more wisdom that I will ever possess. You may make whatever decision you choose without my opposition.”

“We do not see eye-to-eye with thee on all occasions, dear sister. Yet, in this matter, our voice too must fall silent. We know that thou wishest no more than the peaceful existence of our society, and that thy choices must be made to that end. We vow upon pain of banishment that we shall not publicly question or contradict thy decision, but shall support thee in full.”

Celestia nodded. “I had not expected to reach a consensus by default. I feel that the choice of inaction does not leave oneself free from blame, were that on anypony’s mind.” She looked at the other three. “Do you make this decision from cowardice? Know that if it is a poor decision, all four will share in the blame, yet if it is wise, only I shall receive the credit.”

When no objections were forthcoming, she stepped from the table. “Very well. My decision has been made.”

Author's Note

As always, a big thanks to my prereaders
For specific chapter information, be sure to check out my blog, HERE!

Chapter 4: Repercussions

Celestia Sleeps In
Chapter 4--Repercussions
Admiral Biscuit

The sun was just above the horizon, yet the mood in the room was black as midnight. Ordinarily, Twilight would have enjoyed watching the dance of light and shadow as the morning sun played through the windows, caressing ancient oaken rafters with gold. Not today; today the sun rose a vengeful weapon. Instead, she watched the pendulum on the clock swing slowly back and forth, each arc ending in a loud tick. The second hand lurched forward. Perhaps it would have been more apropos had it been an hourglass, but the Princess had modernized her chambers.

The three ponies sat around the table in stunned silence, half-eaten breakfast cooling in the chill morning air. Twilight stared at her plate, thinking about a thousand things she could have said to her mentor. She could have even wrapped herself around Celestia’s legs like a begging filly. But was it her place to do so?

She wanted to study the creature. She knew the spell—she’d practiced it with Celestia, after all. She might not know exactly where the Princess had gone, but she could find out. Luna or Lyra would know. Even Trixie probably knew how to find the distant planet, although that would mean she’d have to find Trixie. Who had probably been turned into a newt, or something.

She looked up at Lyra. The unicorn had a placid expression, but Twilight could tell by her flattened ears that Lyra was no more pleased with the end of discussion than she was. Her golden eyes were unfocused, looking beyond the door to the beach, perhaps.

She wanted so badly to study the creature. It was taking every ounce of willpower that she possessed to sit at the table. Twilight’s heart was hollow, her muscles limp. To have had a chance such as this, snatched away from her—from all of ponykind—it just wasn’t fair. The end of the discussion hadn’t just taken the wind out of her sails; it had taken the rigging and the rudder, too.

She would have had to learn its language, of course. That would have been fun. She’d never learned a foreign language. Then they could have all kinds of conversations about its culture, its community, its technology—oh, the possibilities were endless. She’d always been envious of scientists who had discovered new chemicals, of anthropologists who studied different cultures, of archaeologists who found that which had been lost. She had felt some of that adventure herself in the Crystal Empire, when she was looking for the Crystal Heart.

Her ears fell again. Thinking about the Crystal Heart made her think about Sombra, and thinking about Sombra made her think of the opportunity that was slipping through their hooves. But she couldn’t challenge Celestia. It was her Equestria, not Twilight Sparkle’s. Even if she was sure Celestia was wrong.

Or—could she? Not a challenge, no, but perhaps a careful comment. Even the Princess had her failings. She had admitted that her harsh words to Twilight before the wedding had been wrong. She hadn’t punished Fluttershy for foalnapping Philomena. Perhaps it was time to mare up, to tell Celestia what she really thought.

But what if she won’t listen? What if she sends me away? Twilight shifted uncomfortably on her bench. She could vividly remember the moment her heart had broken after Discord had turned all her friends against her. Could she risk that again? Could she chance the loss of her mentor, of her home, of her assistant? Was it worth it to risk everything?

She looked at Luna. The diarch was calmly sitting on her bench, eyes half-closed, lost in some private thought.

Well, if she banishes me, at least I will have a clear conscience. She pushed her bench back, the legs screaming across the floor of the silent room. Tail twitching, she stood on shaking knees, and took one step towards the hallway. Then another. She could hear her pulse roaring in her ears as she took a third step.

“Hold.” Luna held up a hoof, her voice hardly above a whisper. “Tis better that we go.”

“No.” Twilight lowered her head and snorted. “I wish for my opinion to be heard, no matter what the cost.”

“Twilight Sparkle.” Luna leaned close. “We gave our bond that we would not speak against our sister’s decision under pain of banishment. Should we speak in thy presence, we have broken our oath.”

“Then stay.” Twilight looked Luna in the eye with a serious glare. “After she throws me off the balcony, you can have a try.”

“Our sister would not throw thee off her balcony.”

“I hope you’re right.” Twilight was surprised to discover she was standing in front of the towering balcony doors. “At least I remember my gravity spells.” With a magenta burst, she flung them open.

Princess Celestia stood at the edge of her balcony, rays of her sun glimmering off her regalia. She looked at the bustling city below, watching the ponies going about their daily business. She enjoyed watching the city, how it had grown and transformed over the years. The ponies had changed, but the heart of the city had not—would not—as long as it remained her seat of power.

She sighed, looking at the sun wistfully. They had been together for most of her life, and while it was no more aware than the floor of the castle she now stood upon, she still felt as if she had betrayed it.

I wish I had never left, but what is done cannot be undone. When had she gone from the idyllic filly to the cynical mare? She didn’t know how it had happened. Probably it had happened slowly, one small decision after another, slowly building, until she found herself here, trapped alone in her stone prison. Or maybe it had been all at once: even after a thousand years, the memory of the look of fear and betrayal on Luna’s face hurt, a deep scar on her heart that would never heal.

She sighed. On the street below, she watched a unicorn colt trot into a restaurant, a bouquet of roses gripped tightly in his telekinesis. Did she have any right to gamble with his future, and his children’s? No.

Inscribed around the jewel on her tiara was a simple phrase, written in common that all might know: Protector of Equestria, bringer of the sun. Her duty was to Equestria above all else.

“I wish I had not done it,” she whispered to Canterlot. “I could have waited.”

Hooffalls on the balcony drew her from her reverie. Even with the gentle wind blowing the scent from her, she knew it was Twilight.

“My faithful student,” she began.

“You can’t just kill it! You can’t!”

The princess didn’t even move. “Come to the edge of the balcony, Twilight.”

Nervously, tail clamped tightly between her legs, Twilight approached.

It seemed to take forever.

“Look over the edge, and tell me what you see.”

Twilight complied, afraid to look at the Princess. She had been joking about being thrown off the balcony—she could never believe that Celestia would do that—but now she was beginning to wonder. The past day had seen her view of the world turned on its head. Was the diarch even sane?

“I see Canterlot,” she said simply.

“Would you like a closer view?” was what she expected Celestia to say next, followed by a tug of telekinesis. She had already squinted her eyes shut. This was just like a scene in a Daring Do book.

Of course, that is not what Celestia said.

“Twilight, what if I told you that there was a spell in the Starswirl wing that would allow you to travel back through time, and stop Sombra before he enslaved the Crystal Ponies. Would you take such an opportunity?”

“Um, when you put it that way, with no further qualifications, yes. Of course, I have already learned that one cannot change the future with a simple time spell—“

Celestia held up a hoof. “What if the only way to stop him was to kill him? Knowing what you know, would you kill him?”

“I would try to reform him. I would try to talk sense into him. I would do everything I could to prevent him from taking over the Crystal Empire.”

“If that failed?”

Twilight hung her head. “I would have no choice,” she whispered. “But there is no way to know the future.” She looked at the Princess. “Were I there then, not knowing what was to come, I wouldn’t kill him. I would do everything to save him.”

The alicorn smiled sadly. “Of course you would. Anypony would. Luna tried, and failed. ‘He will listen to me, Tia,’ she said. Instead of saving Sombra, he corrupted her, and dragged her down with him. Oh, it was subtle. I should have seen the signs, but I did not. I failed my sister, and lost that which was most important to me. I finally found myself with but two choices—preserve everything I had worked for at the small cost of my sister’s life, or risk it all by tricking her into releasing her hold on the Elements of Harmony, so that I could banish her.

“My advisers told me this gamble was the greatest lunacy in the history of ponykind, but I ignored their advice. I went to the tallest tower of our castle, and gazed upon the starscape. I watched the moon dance in the moat, and I enjoyed the serenity of the dark one last time. An hour before dawn, I went to her chambers, deceived her, banished her, destroyed her tower, and lied to my advisers, telling them I had struck her down in combat.”

Twilight stood, stunned. “I was unsurprised to feel control of the Elements leave me, as I had betrayed everything they stood for. I paid dearly for my sister’s salvation.

“I do not regret it.” Celestia looked at Twilight, lowering herself down until they were face-to-face. A tear was trembling at the corner of Celestia’s eye. “I knew she was about to make her move. Her ponies were already in position, waiting for their orders. Our fragile new empire would never have survived the strife, even if we split it evenly—as she had proposed—before it came to combat.” She paused, drawing strength to continue. “She knew what I was about to do. Some part of her was still aware, was still uncorrupted. My last sight of her for a thousand years was the look in her eyes. It was not a look of anger, nor sadness, nor fear. It was a look of resignation.” Celestia looked back over the balcony and fell silent. Twilight let out a shaky breath.

“I remember the first time we befriended a griffon,” Celestia said wistfully. “Genevieve. She was particularly close to Luna. Oh, my poor ponies scattered when the griffon landed.” She turned and looked at Twilight. “None of them ever forgot their fear. They learned to be civil, but they never really got along with griffons.

“But the foals did. The fillies and colts ran up to her, played with her tail, sniffed her paws—they saw no danger there. Peace accords were signed, eventually, and as the younger generations replaced their elders, nopony had issues with the griffons any more, nor they with us.

“We took a risk, and we gained useful allies. I wish all the risks I had taken over the years had paid such dividends.” She looked down at the streets of Canterlot again. “I wish that there had not been such a high cost to some of the others, and I wish that every problem had a peaceful solution.”

“Does that mean—“

“How could I harm a creature which has caused no harm to my ponies or myself?” Celestia turned to face Twilight. “What manner of monster would do otherwise?”

“But I thought that you meant to strike it down. The way you were talking—the way we all were talking….”

“My faithful student.” The Princess leaned close to Twilight. “Of course I wish nothing more than the survival and prosperity of my citizens. It would be easy to justify the creature’s death in that light. But where would it stop? Should I exterminate the dragons? Would we be happier if there were no diamond dogs? Would Ponyville be safer if it did not share a border with the Everfree? The creature has so much to offer us that it is worth the risk of continued contact. I had felt that the moment I allowed Lyra to approach it—do you think I would have if I believed that it posed a threat?

“Let me offer you a lesson, Twilight. Cornered ponies make bad decisions, decisions they regret.” She tapped a hoof to her peytral. “In the end, the only pony we need to please is the one who is in here. If we can’t live with that pony. . .you cannot imagine how relieved I was that all three of you unanimously agreed that it was better to accept a risk which the creature might pose, rather than to jump to the easy solution of killing it.

“Of course, we must take precautions. I am not ready to let any such creatures roam free throughout Equestria. Regrettably, its intentions may not be peaceful, and we must be prepared for that, but we have plenty of time. There are spells that could be used to shield us, and to slow it; there are areas where we could anchor the spell with far less risk than the throne room. We must be cautious to not reveal too much about ourselves, yet should also not be seen to be deliberately withholding information. It has been so many years since our ponies have undergone an initial diplomatic meeting, as well as the study of a new culture. In another generation, perhaps we will be seeing novel cutie marks.”

Twilight sank to the ground, all the strength gone from her legs. “I was so worried. Who knows what we might have lost?”

Celestia opened the doors to her antechambers. It was like looking into a funeral parlor. Lyra seemed deep in her own thoughts, staring at her teacup without actually seeing it. Luna looked up in surprise, her eyes narrowing as her sister stepped into the room alone.

“Sister, we cannot believe thou wouldst—“ her voice trailed off as Twilight walked through the door, a cheerful look on her face. “—um, not have clearly informed us of thy decision before thou went to thy balcony.”

Celestia nodded absently. “I apologize. Yet, I cannot believe that all of you were so quick to assume that I had reached the decision to kill the creature, despite your entreaties to spare it. Do you really not understand the difference between pragmatism and sociopathy?”

Twilight raised a hoof. “I know!” Celestia looked at her with an amused smile.

“Lyra and Twilight, we have much to do in the next month. I would have you both try to determine the best way to communicate with the creature. As always, the full resources of the Royal Archive are at your disposal. Meanwhile, I have a matter I must discuss with my sister.”

Twilight and Lyra sat across a large table in the archives, surrounded by a mountain of books, their dark mood of earlier dismissed like a pegasus-kicked cloud. While Lyra had been collecting her thoughts, Twilight had been frantically levitating over every book she thought might bear some relevance to their research.

“It tried to puzzle out meaning from my two messages in the sand,” Lyra began. “I think it’s safe to assume that the creature has some manner of writing.”

“Every civilized creature does, I think,” Twilight added. “Dragons don’t write much, but they certainly can read well enough. Griffon fledgelings attend essentially the same kind of school as foals, and they certainly learn to read at a young enough age. I’m not so sure about diamond dogs, though.” She started leafing through Alphabets from Buffalo to Zebra.

“They use a pictogram language,” Lyra said, unconsciously tracing a few symbols on the table with her hoof. “There isn’t a lot they communicate in writing. However, they are capable of learning. A few kits have been taught common, and raised as ambassadors.”

“It might be easiest to start it with books, if it understands reading. I think schoolbooks, the kind the youngest foals read. Simple. We’d also need to teach it the alphabet.”

“The common alphabet would be best, since it would only need to learn fourteen letters. Whomever is meeting with the creature would have to be using a lot of magical energy keeping a shield up, and that pretty much means mouth writing. Plus, if the creature ever comes to Equestria, that would allow it to communicate in writing with nearly everypony.”

“Royal Unicorn is more flexible, though,” Twilight countered. “With forty-six characters, it unambiguously covers every single sound ponies use. What if it thinks we aren’t civilized because we have a simple alphabet?” She started flipping through a dusty tome of historical orthography. “Earth ponies started with pictograms, before the pegasi adopted them to ideographs. Unicorns changed it to a syllabic alphabet, then the earth ponies took that and simplified it further, while the unicorns added more symbols to more clearly share spells.” She looked at Lyra as if that would settle the argument.

“But we don’t know if the creature can make sounds like a pony. It made low grunting and growling noises—it sounded almost like a dragon—when it was gesturing after having read my pictogram. Assuming that is its language, then it’s below the normal vocal range of most ponies.” She sighed and blew a lock of white hair out of her eyes. “We can’t assume that it doesn’t also use scent or body language in its communications. What if body position makes a difference in the meaning of its words? It would be like teaching in common without using vowel points. Speaking of which, I think if we’re just teaching it to read—if it can’t mimic our speech—it might be better to leave the vowel points out, since what it will be reading won’t have them.”

Twilight scratched her chin. “There are spells that can lower a pony’s voice. They were invented to communicate with dragons. When I talked to a dragon, I had trouble understanding him, his voice was so low.” She brightened. “Poison Joke made Fluttershy speak with a deep voice. That might be easier to get.”

“And I suppose you could guarantee that result?”

“No, but maybe Zecora knows of a potion that would have the same effect. If Poison Joke can do it, there must be a spell or potion that could do the same thing.” She wrote a note on her parchment. “Ok, written language is common, books for writing, spell or potion to lower the voice.”

“I would think some objects would be handy, to demonstrate verbs,” Lyra said. “Maybe a doll or two. The creature’s face wasn’t very expressive, but it did use its forelegs to make gestures. I bet it uses its hands like a juvenile dragon, for gripping and holding—maybe even for writing. Spike makes a lot of hand and arm gestures. Perhaps the creature does, too.” She paused. “If it’s bipedal, I suppose that would stand to reason. It would be difficult to mimic that—I can stand on my hind hooves, but I certainly couldn’t keep it up for too long.”

Twilight giggled. Most adult ponies only stood on their hind legs to make a point, or to make themselves look bigger, and even then, it was more of an earth pony trait. On the other hoof, foals often stood up. Some psychologists though it was because of an inferiority complex; Twilight thought it was so they could reach things that were taller than them, which would explain why the habit fell off as unicorns developed their magic and pegasi their flight skills, while it remained in earth ponies. “Do you think it’s larger than most creatures on its world?”

“Why would that matter?”

“We’re smaller than griffons, diamond dogs, and minotaurs, and a lot smaller than dragons. It’s affected our view on the world—made us a little more cautious, and more likely to prefer the company of herds. I wonder if a taller creature—taller among its peers, that is—would be more likely to be solitary?”

“Maybe. Dragons and minotaurs are solitary.” Lyra looked over at the parchment. “We should probably talk to an ambassador or two. We might be able to get a better idea of how different species view themselves. This creature might not be the dominant species on its planet, anyway. Perhaps it’s a quasi-sapient species, like cows and sheep. It might be kept around because it produces something helpful for its keepers.”

“You said it had hardly any fur.”

“Perhaps it had just been shorn.” Lyra rubbed a hoof through her mane. “Gah, talk about a Sisyphean task. I almost wonder if the Princess is punishing us?”

“She’s not punishing us, she’s happy we didn’t want to murder the creature.”

“It might be for something else. Maybe she’s just amusing herself at our expense.” At the sharp look from Twilight, Lyra continued. “I mean, when I spent my first day with my maestro, she took me to her rock garden. Have you ever seen a Neighponese rock garden?” Twilight shook her head. “Many of them are quite beautiful. Hers had a single dark rock in the center—looked like obsidian—with the pattern extending outward in a widening spiral, almost as if they were ripples caused by the large rock falling. She asked me to spend an afternoon studying the obsidian.

“That evening, after dinner, she asked me about it. I described it exactly as it appeared.” Lyra smiled. “I thought she would be proud of me. I had done everything but weigh that dumb rock. Instead, she looked at me critically, and the first question out of her mouth was, ‘What does the stone desire?’”

Twilight furrowed her brow. “’What does the stone desire? What kind of question is that?”

“Unanswerable, and the rest of her questions were along the same vein. Her point was that depending on the context, a physical description means nothing at all. When I was dueling, being able to describe my opponent physically was of no use whatsoever. It was entirely a mental game—the winner was not the unicorn who knew the best spells, it was the unicorn who best got into the head of her opponent.” Lyra looked at Twilight.

“Well, there’s no harm in being prepared.” Twilight wrote down a few more notes. “Even if we don’t know what this creature desires.”

“If it’s primarily visually oriented,” Lyra continued, “perhaps a book of pictures would help it. Like a foal’s primer, but it could have pictures of all sorts of different objects, maybe with the word under them.”

“Like a dictionary with pictures?”

Lyra nodded. “Exactly like that. Or maybe we’re just overthinking this; maybe we could just use a language spell to understand its language.”

“There aren’t any that would work.” Twilight looked at her surprised expression. “In order to make a language spell work, the caster needs to know what language is being spoken, or else she needs to adapt a close spell in the field.” She rolled her eyes upwards in thought. “Let’s see, we covered this the year before I moved to Ponyville. Language spells work by facilitating a limited connection from left inferior frontal gyrus of one pony to another and modeling the neural commands to the mouth, lips, throat, tongue, and larynx.” Seeing the blank look in Lyra’s eyes, Twilight hastily simplified. “If it’s a spell to allow speaking in a foreign language, it interrupts and changes the caster’s speech patterns, whereas for hearing it’s almost a telepathic work-around, although the more complicated spells do involve an aural aspect.” She shrugged. “It’s exceedingly complicated, and needs a very skilled caster to shift the spell to account for differences in regional accent, physiology, and neurological development. It really requires a pair of creatures working together for some time to get it to function properly. I’ve practiced a little with Spike, but he hasn’t really got the patience for it, and becomes embarrassed that his voice comes out sounding like a mare’s.”

“Alright, so translation spells are out.”

“How old do you think it is?”

Lyra shrugged. “No way to tell.”

“Did it seem mature?”

“Really, Twilight? How in Tartarus would I know?”

“Everypony knows that foals learn languages and magic better than adults: their brains are better organized for it. So, if it’s a foal—or immature, I guess—it would probably learn language more quickly.”

Lyra laughed. “I wasn’t able to ask it its age. It wasn’t very colorful, what I could see of it. That could be normal—maybe they’re all like that. Or, it could be a sign of immaturity—some species don’t adapt a colorful coat until they have reached sexual maturity. It could also be a sign of advanced age, since some species lose their color as they become old. It could even be seasonal. Maybe it’s brightly colored sometimes, and dull others. I suppose one of the things we should learn is its basic biology. We don’t know what it eats, if it even does.”

“Do changelings eat?” Twilight looked at Lyra thoughtfully. “I mean, they feed off love, if what Queen Chrysalis said is true. But if that’s all they feed off, why do they even have teeth?” She looked over towards the bookshelf where the zoology section began.

Lyra blinked. “Perhaps you should ask the Princess. Aside from shapeshifting and being able to brainwash a pony, I don’t really know that much about them.”

“Oh! How does it feel to be controlled by a changeling?”

Lyra turned greener. “Ugh, I’d rather not relieve that memory. I can’t believe you’d even ask.”

“Sorry.” Twilight scratched her hoof against the ground. “Ok, getting back on subject. Books for foals in common. Would be useful to know more about the sociology of larger creatures, such as griffons. Perhaps a book on magic? Simple spells?”

“That’s putting the cart before the stallion. It can’t even read unicorn, and we don’t know if it can do magic,” Lyra countered.

“Just because you didn’t see it use magic doesn’t mean it can’t.” Twilight looked at Lyra thoughtfully. “It might have been using magic, and you didn’t see it. I wonder if there’s a foal’s book with easily understood illustrations of magic?”

“Given its initial reaction to us, I would expect it to have at least put up a defensive shield.”

“Oh, right. But it did have a horn?”

“No. Not that I observed, anyway.” Lyra lifted her ears. “Of course, we’re thinking of it from the pony perspective. If it has limited abilities to interact with the leylines, it might not need a horn.” Both of the unicorns nodded simultaneously—like most unicorns, they tended to forget that pegasi interacted with the weave using their wings and hooves, earth ponies with their whole bodies, and non-ponies sometimes used different parts of their bodies, such as a cockatrice’s eyes.

“Well, if it hasn’t got a horn, it can’t cast.” Twilight said that with the definitive tone of a filly, a certainty based on no factual information whatsoever.

“Where do you get that idea?” Lyra looked at her curiously. “Zebras can cast spells, and they don’t have horns.”

“Wait—what? Zebras can cast spells?”

“You didn’t know that? But, you told Trixie before your second duel—“

“I made that all up.” Twilight stared at Lyra as if she had grown wings. “I figured that she would—but—Zecora makes potions! Zecora doesn’t cast spells.”

“And one zebra is the same as all the rest.”

“Yes? No? Wait.” Twilight scrunched up her muzzle in thought. “I’ve never seen her cast a spell. I’ve never seen another zebra.”

“Exactly.” Lyra looked at Twilight. “So, you don’t know that you don’t need a horn to cast spells. You probably didn’t know that earth ponies can cast spells.”

“No they can’t.” Twilight spoke with much less confidence than previously.

“Daisy can do telekinesis, I’ve seen it.”

“She cannot!”

Lyra shook her head. “She was doing it before the storm that sent a tree into your library.” She began chuckling.

“What’s so funny?”

“A tree fell in your library.”

“So?”

“Your library is a tree. And a tree fell in it.”

Twilight started chuckling. Soon, both unicorns were laughing.

“I still have my worries about this creature,” Celestia stated flatly to Luna. The two of them were on her balcony.

Luna looked over the edge. Even though she preferred the night sky, she still enjoyed the daytime view of Canterlot from above. “We would be concerned if thou didst not.”

“How do we know this creature is peaceful? Remember our first dealings with the dragons.”

Luna nodded. “We feared we might not live to see another day.”

“I thought the entire cave was going to erupt in fire.”

“If thou dost establish the meeting site, thou hast control.” Luna looked at her sister thoughtfully. “Were we to choose, we should place our stepping point somewhere where the creature could not easily land, nor where it could escape notice if it did.”

“Away from the castle.”

“A castle is only useful if nopony can breech its outer perimeter.” Luna gestured at the stone walls around her. “As risky as it was to have built our old castle in the Everfree, it did mitigate many threats.”

“As did Sombra’s empire in the north.” Celestia grimaced at the look on Luna’s face. “Forgive me, sister.”

“Dost thou deliberately rub salt into our wounds?”

“No.” Celestia nuzzled her. “You know I speak without thinking often enough.”

“We would think a thousand years of introspection might have caused some small improvement in thy demeanor.”

Celestia chuckled. “I have learned to not take my station too seriously. Does that count?”

“No.” Luna looked at her flatly. “We wish that thou hadst considered the repercussions before thou didst send thy student to the Crystal Empire.”

“Did you know that the Crystal Heart would destroy Sombra?”

Luna lowered her head. “We knew not. However, we did warn thee to use caution before thou sent thy student north.”

“I suppose it’s a little late for sorry?”

“A thousand years on the moon, when we instead could have ruled at our father’s side.”

“How would that have ended?”

“We likely would have died with him.” Luna looked her sister in the eye. “We rue and lament the choices we made, and our harsh proclamations. We regret our folly in driving apart those tribes whom thou hadst so recently shown the strength of unity. We regret the choice we left thee.” She lowered her ears. “We suppose that we and thou have learned a thing or two over our years of separation.”

“I have learned that ‘having a sister is just about the bestest thing in the whole world.’”

“Bestest?” Luna gritted her teeth. “We thought that our ponies’ lack of admiration for our night was offensive. We have found that their utter disregard for the nuances of language is grating to our ears, and now thou art speaking similarly? We should banish ourselves back to the moon to escape the noise.”

“I am simply quoting a friendship report from Rarity and Sweetie Belle,” Celestia said defensively. “Apparently, the two got into quite a tiff, and both agreed that they would be better off without a sister.”

“A problem not unlike our own,” Luna muttered darkly.

“Indeed. Yet, they resolved their differences well enough.”

“And thou believest that we and thee should do the same?” She looked at Celestia, amusement on her face. “Perhaps we should run a race together.”

“I wish I could forget that night.” Celestia looked at her sister. “If there is one thing I have done in my life that I truly regret….”

“Thou canst take it back. Thou knowest that we see the dreamers. Oft, we go into the dreams of those who we feel need us the most. We were but a shadow when we were imprisoned on the moon; now we are in our full splendor.” She looked at Celestia. “Many of those who are troubled wish for nothing more than to take back words spoken in haste, yet too often we see that they are too proud to bend, unwilling to admit fault. Too often, we believe that a sincere apology or a helping hoof would solve their problems, yet they are unwilling to yield.”

“I cannot undo what has been done, yet I can try to be better for the future.” Celestia looked at her younger sibling. “I regret having banished you to the moon, but you left me with no options.” She sighed. “Over the next thousand years, every night when I lifted your moon, I wished I could bring you back somehow.”

“Yet you did not.”

“I could not.”

“Really?” Luna waved a hoof. “With all the resources thou hast at thy disposal, thou couldst find no manner to undo the spell?”

Celestia flattened her ears. “No.” Seeing the look of disbelief on her sister’s face, she frowned. “You know I am not as good at spellcraft as you are. I might have had the power, but I don’t understand how to craft my own spells. I never have.”

“At least thou art capable of seeing thy faults. Now if only thou wert to eat a healthier diet. Our mother would cry, did she know thy weakness for cake.”

“Everypony loves cake,” Celestia said defensively. “Perhaps we should give the creature a cake.”

“It would be our luck that it has a cake allergy.”

The two sisters chuckled.

“Hast thou decided upon an emissary?”

“I think Twilight would understand the creature the best.” Celestia stepped back, already anticipating her sister’s angry rebuttal.

Luna nodded. “We agree. Despite our differences, we concede that thy protégé is brilliant, and refuses to give up even when the odds are against her. Yet, we wonder what the creature might think, should you send her.”

“I don’t understand.” Celestia narrowed her eyes. “I assume you are not trying to be deliberately obtuse.”

“Put thyself in its hooves. The only pony with whom it hath had any close contact art Lyra Heartstrings. What might it think if another takes her place?”

“I had assumed it would send an ambassador in its stead.”

“What if it doth not? Thou sayst Lyra Heartstrings left her sigil in the sand on the beach. We know unicorns often sign their work in such a manner, yet how art this creature to know? If it believes that symbol means that she is to return, how might it feel if she doth not? Would it not feel betrayed?” Luna looked at Celestia thoughtfully. “Thou hast armies at thy command. Dost thou not remember the courage it takes to approach a stranger alone?”

Celestia blinked. As the most powerful creature in Equestria, she had forgotten that feeling—but she remembered The Night, where each step to her sister’s eyrie seemed a thousand feet tall. “I think it would be insulted if we were to send her rather than a diplomat.”

“Yet we know naught of its customs. We feel twould be best to send her.” Luna tossed her head. “Thou mayst order her. Art she not under your command?”

“Technically, yes. She is an auxiliary guard, seconded to the Royal Guard, who fall under my command.” Celestia snorted. “Would you believe she won that honor at a duel in Manehatten?”

“Tis her misfortune, but a solution to the problem, art it not?”

“I cannot order her.” Celestia looked at her sister seriously. “I will ask her, but I will not have the sole emissary of Equestria be a pony under duress.”

Their list was finally as complete as they could make it. Twilight felt she had explored every avenue of contact with an alien creature. Naturally, there were dozens more left unexplored. They knew so little, it was impossible to fill in all the blanks just yet. They hoped that it would bring something to its meeting, something that they could use to understand it better.

Lyra looked at the parchment, completely covered in Twilight’s horn-writing. “It looks like you’ll have a lot of studying to do,” she commented. They had both agreed that Princess Celestia wanted to keep this quiet, so Twilight was going to do all the hoofwork, without explaining anything. Her curiosity was legendary around Canterlot, so nopony would be surprised that she was asking all manner of strange questions.

“At least I won’t have to memorize it all,” Twilight muttered.

Lyra looked at her in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“You are going to be the one meeting it again.”

Lyra’s eyes widened in surprise. “Me? Why me?”

“Do you think it would want to meet with anypony else?”

“I’m not qualified!” She waved a hoof at the books and parchments scattered around the table. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin!”

“You have a month to prepare,” Twilight said grimly. “I wish it were me. I wish it had been me with Celestia, but it wasn’t. It was you. And who will the creature expect to return?”

Lyra hung her head. “Me.”

“You.” Twilight began levitating books back to their places on the shelves. “If you want, I will tell the Princess of our decision. I know she would have expected me to go.”

Lyra looked at the clock. “She’s probably at dinner right now. That will give me time to prepare.” She looked back at Twilight. “I suppose I should be the one to tell her.”

Applejack sat on the dusty floor of the attic while Apple Bloom rummaged through old trunks. Winter Wrap-Up had gone well—the guard who was going over the checklist had done his best, and they had only finished slightly behind schedule. Mayor Mare had pronounced all the tasks complete at midnight.

Even though it was only scheduled for one day, it was an unwritten rule to plan nothing for the next day. Before Twilight had applied her organizational skills, they had always run over. With school canceled, Apple Bloom had spent the entire morning with Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. She had come home two hours ago, muttering that she hadn’t gotten a cutie mark in falconry; looking at her filthy pelt, Applejack wondered if they hadn’t been trying to mud-wrestle the birds.

Unsurprisingly, an hour of being scrubbed by her big sister in the tub had done nothing to lift her spirits, so Applejack had suggested that they go up to the attic and look through Pappy’s trunk. An Apple heirloom of sorts, the trunk had become a repository of old things that nopony wanted to throw out, but could find no real use for. It was just the sort of thing a filly would love to spend a chilly spring evening with.

She smiled as Apple Bloom carefully unwrapped a chipped plate wrapped in an old newspaper. One of the Oranges had painted it—it was supposed to be the orchard, but it looked like lichen that had measles instead. For a few years, it had been proudly displayed on the mantle before each family reunion, to be re-wrapped after all the guests had left, but nopony had bothered after Apple Bloom was born—it had gone from a conversation piece to the punchline of an overtold joke.

“What’s ind—indik—indiktided?” Apple Bloom motioned a hoof at the yellowed newspaper.

Applejack frowned and stood, her knees popping. “Cinnamon Lulamoon Indicted in Manehatten Bank Fraud,” she read aloud. “It’s a fancy way a sayin’ accused,” she said.

“Accused? Is that like excused?”

“Nope.” Applejack put a leg around her sister’s withers. “Sometimes, a pony’ll do somethin’ bad, an’ the courts have ta punish her fer what she done.” Seeing the concerned look on Apple Bloom’s face, Applejack ruffled her mane. “Honey, we’re Apples, an’ that’s somethin’ ta be proud of. We don’t cheat, an’ we don’t steal. Ain’t nopony who’d say otherwise.”

Apple Bloom nuzzled her sister. “That’s an ugly plate.”

“Best ta wrap it back up. If’n that mare ever becomes a famous painter, it’d be worth a lotta bits.”

Apple Bloom frowned. “Not with paintin’ like this. Ah kin do better ‘n that.”

Applejack rubbed her forehead. “There’s a lot about art ah don’t understan’. Mebbe Rares kin tell ya what makes art art.”

“Sweetie don’t know.” She laid the plate gently back in the chest, then pulled out a musty cardboard box. “Ah wonder what’s in this?”

Lyra sat patiently on a bench outside the great hall. Although the Princess would have understood if she had gone in—especially since there was no formal dinner tonight—she instead had decided, given the nature of her request, to wait outside. It was traditional for the Princess to speak with a few petitioners after her evening meal. There were layers of protocol involved that Lyra didn’t understand, but since the castle was officially closed, there were no other ponies in the room, with the exception of a surprised herald, who had dutifully notified the Princess between courses.

The rumbling of her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. She and Twilight had gotten so involved in planning that they’d both forgotten.

She shifted around on the bench, trying to find a comfortable position. It should have been easy; as they were designed for upper-class ponies, the benches had velvet cushions, but no matter how she sat, she seemed to sink into the padding.

She sighed. No doubt the discomfort was psychological, having more to do with her nervousness with her upcoming request than the blameless velvet. Her ears perked up as the herald came into the room.

“All rise for Her Royal Majesty, Princess Celestia.” Lyra stifled a giggle as she got to her hooves; the solemnity was lost on the nearly empty room.

“Lyra,” the Princess said warmly. “How has your research with Twilight gone?”

“We have more unanswerable questions than we did when we began,” she said, smoothly genuflecting. “I imagine you are unsurprised by that answer.”

“Such is the nature of the task.” Celestia looked at her thoughtfully. “I am given to understand you have a question?”

“Twilight and I have decided that I should be the one to go,” she said bluntly. Lyra was surprised when the Princess chuckled.

“Pray tell, how did you come to that conclusion?”

“Since the creature has only seen me, it seemed that it might scare it should somepony else come in my stead. Twilight suggested it, and I agreed.”

“You ponies never cease to amaze me,” Celestia replied. “Luna said the very same thing. Of course, you know that I would rather send Twilight.”

“I would rather she went,” Lyra admitted. “But if we wish to befriend the creature, we must do all within our power to make it comfortable.”

Celestia nodded at the bench. “Please, take a seat. I must explain something about a diplomatic mission of this nature.” She looked intently at Lyra. “Although we have never made contact with an extra-Equestrian species before, the principles of diplomacy remain the same. In all that you do, you will be the sole representative of our entire nation, of all the ponies and other creatures. You must maintain your composure no matter what.

“We know naught of its habits, of its culture. Whatever the creature does, you must react calmly. You must not injure or offend the creature, even if it injures or offends you. If need be, you may retreat, but that is the extent of what you are allowed to do. Your purpose is to attempt to learn its language and customs, while teaching it ours.” She frowned. “You cannot imagine how difficult it is to maintain composure while watching a griffon devour a rabbit. I will request that one of my ambassadors train you as best she knows how, although I would prefer not to enlighten her of the true purpose of the training.”

“You can trust me to keep silent.”

“Mm-hmm. Now, there is one more thing.” Celestia fixed Lyra with a serious stare. “If I have any reason to believe Equestria is in danger, I will collapse the spell without a moment’s hesitation. If you are not within the hemisphere of its reach, it may not bring you back. Alternately, you may be captured by the creature, or its kin. Should that happen, for the good of Equestria, you must dispel the portal on your own. In either case, there is very little possibility of your rescue.”

Lyra swallowed a lump in her throat. “I understand.”

“It would be best if you were able to meet it on a schedule it determined,” Celestia continued. “My sister and I would like a debriefing after each session. To that end, I will make a room available for you in the castle. I have no doubt we are going to have dozens more meetings as the time draws near.”

“Thank you, Princess.” Lyra bowed again. “I will not disappoint you.”

“I know you won’t.” The alicorn leaned down and nuzzled Lyra’s neck, then walked out of the room, leaving the stunned unicorn behind.

Author's Note

Thanks to my pre-readers!
As always, check out my blog HERE for references and behind-the-scenes information! And a lost section from this chapter!

Chapter 5: Preparations

Celestia Sleeps In
Chapter 5—Preparations
Admiral Biscuit

Dale stood in his kitchen, deeply confused. The clock on the stove told him it was 4:17, while the one on the microwave helpfully flashed 12:00. He wasn’t sure why he was in the kitchen.

A look around him suggested that since the refrigerator door was open, and he was holding an empty glass in his hand, he had probably been planning to get something to drink. A brief perusal of the gleaming white appliance located a half-gallon of orange juice, right next to the newspaper.

He poured himself a glass, put the now mostly-empty carton back in the fridge, and kicked the door shut. Scratching the stubble on his face, he looked out in his driveway, where his Accord sat with a canoe still on its roof.

The neighbors probably wonder if I’m losing my mind. Hell, I wonder if I’m losing my mind. For as long as he could remember, he’d been obsessed with neatness—a place for everything, and everything in its place—but the car was still mostly packed from his short trip up north. It was anybody’s guess what was in the cooler, now. Probably best to just throw the whole thing in the trash. Of course, he wouldn’t do that. It’d served him well for over a decade; a little bleach and it would be good as new.

For an entire week, Dale had wandered around his house in a daze. He had suffered memory lapses every day. Sometimes, he found the evidence quite by accident—he’d discovered that he had made breakfast and put the Cheerios back in the oven two days later when he’d gone to bake potatoes. Fortunately, the fire had burned itself out in the oven. More often, it was episodes like this, where he would find himself somewhere in the house with no idea why he’d gone there in the first place.

In his moments of lucidity, he assumed that he was probably going insane, and as strange as it seemed, that thought was oddly comforting. In fact, he would happily have checked himself into the nearest mental institution for a few months of basket-weaving or whatever it was they did these days, if it wasn’t for one little thing: a single prismatic hair.

He had pored over the photos on his camera, loaded them onto his computer, and examined them in every single detail. He had copied the messages in the sand into a notebook. He couldn’t make any sense of it, but as he drew out the shapes he became absolutely convinced that they were, in fact, some sort of language. Despite the difference in the two messages, some of the symbols looked kind of the same, as if they could have been a natural progression.

A Wikipedia article on the origins of the Roman alphabet had shown a similar progression—while some of the letters had changed dramatically, others had stayed quite similar through the ages.

The other thing which persuaded him this was a language was that all the letters looked right together. He’d seen a few movies with alien languages written in them, and the lower-budget ones didn’t look convincing on second glance—they weren’t letters that anyone would actually use. More though was given to the artistry of the set than to the logic of the letters. At least Star Trek had gotten it right with Klingon; an alphabet that seemed sensible. As he wrote them out, unfamiliar as they were, the motion of writing them seemed almost natural. On a whim, he’d tried Google Goggles on the writing, and on the strange ‘U’ that matched the one on the creature’s coat. Unsurprisingly, there had been no results found, although Google was pretty sure the barred U was either a shirt, light bulb, or handbag.

All of that could have been a figment of his imagination. It was possible to believe that he had suffered some sort of mental breakdown on the island. He knew it wasn’t a hallucination, since his camera had seen it, but it was surely possible that he had drawn the messages by scratching them with his shoe, then taken a photograph. Unlikely—he wasn’t given to flights of fancy—but possible. It wasn’t something that he could take to court, so to speak.

The hair was a different matter.

The trip back home had not registered in his memory at all. The last clear memory he had of his vacation was sitting in his canoe in the middle of the lake, frightened that the aliens were going to beam him up or something, and then he was home. Clearly, his conscious mind had completely tuned out by the time he got back to the state park, and the first couple of days at home were pretty much lost to memory as well.

He had been recovering, however. He still felt numb, what his grandfather would have called shell-shocked, but he could remember what he had done the day before. He had gone to the mall with his Ziploc that contained an alien hair.

He had discovered that when he set it on the dashboard of his car all but the closest radio stations were nothing but static. Inspired, after he had filled his car with outrageously expensive gasoline, he had spent the rest of the day at the mall, experimenting. Judging by the puzzled and angry expressions on the cell-phone wielding populace, the hair tended to cause a signal loss at two to three feet. He hoped that none of the dozens of conversations he had interrupted had been important.

He had also discovered, through fortunate chance, that it also interfered with the mall rent-a-cop’s two-way radio at a range of four feet. He could only assume that either the frequency or the power of the transmitter was the cause of the difference. As Adam from the Mythbusters would say, this was a result.

Of course, he could still be imagining it. He could be imagining the trip to the mall, he could be imagining that the hair was affecting radio transmissions, he could be imagining the letters in the sand, but if he was, it was a damned good hallucination. The persistence and the repeatability were powerful arguments for it being real, as unlikely as it seemed. He’d had a few vivid dreams before: once, when he’d fallen asleep in front of the TV he had a dream where all his friends were playing football. Their conversation—which had seemed completely natural at the time—was completely incomprehensible, involving words that he barely recognized, although in his dreaming state, made perfect sense. Upon awakening, he discovered that the show on TV was about innovations in AIDS treatment, and concluded that that was where his mental dialogue had been coming from. After all, Interferon wasn’t a drug he spent much time thinking about.

He put the empty glass in the sink, which was piled full of dirty dishes. Apparently, he’d been forgetting to wash them. He sighed, and began to fill the basin, before remembering that it was four in the morning, and that he should probably go back to bed.

The days had passed in the blink of an eye. Lyra was completely exhausted from hours of studying. While Twilight did much of the legwork in the Royal Archives, she had been run around Canterlot, meeting with ambassadors. All the meetings were cloaked in secrecy, with the questions posed as hypothetical. Any self-respecting ambassador had probably known that there was a real crisis going on, but they were wise enough to keep their speculations to themselves.

Collectively, they had been a friendly bunch, although she supposed she should have expected nothing less. Their advice, however, had been much less useful. Each one of them could expound in depth about the particular culture with which they interacted, but none of them had the slightest clue about how to approach a previously unknown race. The closest she came was with Sheriff Silverstar, who happened to be visiting Canterlot personally to make an appeal for a second Appleoosan deputy. The town had been growing since the accord with the Buffalo.

“Treat ‘em like you would any other pony,” he advised, taking a sip of salted apple juice at the hotel bar. “We made the mistake of underestimating their smarts and organization. Figured jest ‘cause they lived out in the plains, like, they weren’t worthy of our attention.” He frowned. “I think Little Strongheart made a few appeals to us to move the orchard, but we didn’t listen.”

“What if we can’t speak the same language, and it can’t read our writing,” Lyra protested. “If there isn’t easy possibility of communications, how do I make our intentions clear?”

He absently touched a hoof to his hat. “Well, that’s a real stumper.” He silently nursed his drink for a bit, finally looking her square in the eye. “I reckon the first thing I’d do is get it through my skull that they was there first. If they want you to leave, best to do so. Second, ain’t much that beats a friendly hoof.

“I just bet there’s a traditional way of showing peace, something that any creature would understand. Do that, then hope fer the best.” He drained his drink, set a few bits on the counter, tipped his hat, and walked out of the bar.

She sighed. She’d hoped for more, but the sheriff had had nothing more to offer, and it was just like him to cut right to the heart of an issue, and move on without debate once he’d said his piece. She’d heard that he had faced down Chief Thunderhooves unarmed—if it was true, he was fantastically brave for a stallion. Nevertheless, it wasn’t a wasted conversation; she had yet another bit of information for Twilight to track down.

The next morning—technically, later the same morning—Dale woke up feeling more like himself. He washed the dishes, took the newspaper out of the fridge, organized the cupboards, took out the trash, and began cleaning out the car. All the while, his mind was churning over the problem of the aliens on the beach. Apparently, it had finally decided that he wasn’t crazy.

The easiest thing to do, of course, was nothing. He could go on with his life. He could wait until some breathless news reporter mentioned them. Everybody would be shocked, but he’d just have a small smile on his face. He wouldn’t admit he’d seen them before, just act surprised along with everyone else.

Another option was to blow their cover completely. He could lure a second-rate news reporter to the island on some convincing premise, and just watch the story unfold from there. There had been some story in the island’s past that had been major news—sometime back in the seventies or eighties—although he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Still, it had the potential to be a hook for a reporter, if he worded it just right. But what if these aliens didn’t want to be exposed—what if there was a group of guards, like the serious-looking ones with spears, waiting for him to mess up? How would they treat a news reporter and camera crew?

Dismissing possibilities of a return trip, he returned to thoughts of the aliens. Why, of all the places they could have gone, did they come to Earth? Did they hear radio broadcasts? Did they find Voyager? Unlikely, since it was still transmitting, as far as he knew. NASA probably wouldn’t keep clear images of an alien spacecraft under their hat. Well, they might, but someone would leak it in fairly short order.

Maybe they had stopped at one of the outer planets, and heard Earth from there. It was even possible—very unlikely, but possible—that they had landed on Mars, seen the Opportunity rover and wondered where it had come from.

What if it was just coincidence? What if they were a race of galactic circumnavigators, and had just stopped to re-supply? That might explain how they had seemed so surprised to see him on the beach. No doubt tall ships had occasionally been surprised by the natives when they’d sent their boats ashore to re-provision.

The thing to do, he thought as he bleached his moldy cooler, was to start by writing down everything he’d seen, and to begin speculating from that. It was, after all, what scientists did. Well, he’d get right on that, as soon as he finished cleaning out his car.

Two hours later, Dale sat in his study. He had dusted off his desk, neatly arranged a dozen sheets of blank printer paper in front of him, and had two pens ready. I should really buy a notebook. No one will ever believe anything that’s written on computer printer paper. There was some famous mathematical equation that had been written on a napkin, though, so there was a bit of precedent.

They are not from earth, he wrote. Good, in no time at all he’d have something he could sink his teeth into. He took a sip of coffee.

Ten minutes later, staring at the mostly blank paper, he threw the pen in frustration. How did writers do it? Here he was, trying to describe something he’d actually seen, and the best he could come up with was one sentence. He took another sip of coffee.

The problem, he decided, was that he was trying to write something profound. Something for posterity. The kind of thing that would be quoted in textbooks forevermore, and he couldn’t come up with anything. A five-year-old could do better. Maybe it would be easiest to just write down things as they came to him, and sort it out all later. He crumpled up the paper and tossed it into the wastebasket, then took another pull at his coffee.

He looked at the wastebasket, and scratched his chin again. It was a shame to waste a piece of paper like that.

They have four legs, he wrote on the wrinkled paper. There were fourteen of them. The biggest one seemed to be asleep when I arrived, but it woke up later and seemed to be in charge. Good, this was starting to come along. All but one of them had white coats; the last one was a funny blue-green color. Was it fur, or were they wearing fur-covered suits? He hadn’t seen any fasteners on the one that had come up to him, but they could be suits made of some kind of stretchy material, like spandex. They could even have been applied by a sprayer of some sort. He’d seen a video by some inventor that had designed a spray-on fabric. Of course, just because it was on the internet didn’t mean it was true. Still, it was pretty unlikely an advanced space-faring race would just show up to a beach on an island in Lake Michigan nude. Frowning, he continued to write.

Two of them clearly had hair—manes—while the other dozen did not, unless it was under their helmets. He leaned back, thoughtful. The big white winged unicorn had a mysterious flowing mane and tail, but he could discount them as some sort of vanity, since it was clearly in charge. He absently looked over at the Ziploc bag, where the hair was still shifting colors as it always had. It might be nothing more than a particularly clever wig. He’d seen shirts with LEDs in them, so why not a few more decades or centuries of innovation to produce color-changing self-powered wigs? Yes, it was completely unnecessary, but then that was the fashion industry in a nutshell.

` What bothered him the most about the ones that he assumed were guards was their uniformity. Despite promotional photographs, one could line up a dozen marines in uniforms, and they wouldn’t look the same. One might be a blonde, another a redhead; there would probably be differing ethnicities, and even genders these days. Six of the guards appeared to have wings, while the other six had horns, but they were otherwise completely identical in appearance, from their tails to their eyes. This led credence to the theory that they were wearing uniforms. The armor might not be a separate thing, it could be built right into the outfit, and the reason it looked old-fashioned was for traditional reasons.

More worrisome was that if they were military uniforms, they were hardly subtle. In modern human history, the uniforms that one wore into a potential conflict zone were designed to camouflage. It was hard to imagine a circumstance where a brilliant white and gold uniform would be subtle. This suggested that either the aliens had put no thought whatsoever towards disguising themselves, or were so confident in their abilities that they didn’t care. In either case, it led him towards the conclusion that they had little fear of attack, and the shielding bubble they had been encased in probably gave them good reason to be unafraid.

Eventually, he’d filled all the pages, and raided his printer tray for more. He finally had to stop; his hand had completely seized around the barrel of the pen. Judging by the tingling numbness in his wrist, he was going to pay for this in the morning, but he now had around thirty pages of details of the creatures, as well as a lot of speculation.

The biggest problem is that I don’t know anything, and I don’t know who to ask. He could put questions on the internet—it wouldn’t be too much trouble to find a forum of alleged UFO witnesses and abductees, and start asking questions. The problem was that the ones who would take him seriously were, in all likelihood, nuts. It was the most frustrating problem he had ever come across.

Assuming that he desired to meet with them again—and he was unconsciously leaning in that direction—he had not the slightest idea how to go about it. It was obvious that they didn’t speak his language.

But there was a definite possibility of them having a language translator. It was the kind of thing that any worthwhile sci-fi movie had. Admittedly, it was usually a plot convenience, but so were faster-than-light travel and teleporters. While he couldn’t prove that the aliens had FTL technology, they certainly had teleporters, because they’d been there one moment and gone the next.

Dale had managed a machine shop for years, and it had taught him one valuable lesson—never assume anything. A drawing that was crystal-clear would be misinterpreted. A foolproof machine wasn’t. Engineers just made costlier mistakes than his janitor. While it was likely that the aliens had just decided to wait a month to come back in order to study earth and calibrate their translator, assume they hadn’t. In that case, the first order of business would be establishing communications. This would be a simple prospect, since anthropologists did it all the time. A few gestures of friendliness, a smile, hands held open, and boom! Peaceful intent demonstrated. Trade a few words back and forth, pretty soon we’re in business. Dale smiled. This was going to be tricky, but no problem.

Lying in bed, the magnitude of the task finally hit him. The problem that had been nagging him since he had first subconsciously decided to meet with the aliens again. It was so obvious, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it already.

They were aliens.

The single advantage that an anthropologist had was that he was dealing with humans. While cultures differed, basic biology did not. There had been a study years ago showing that different cultures correctly identified facial expressions—humans were hard-wired to know these things. Any anthropologist could be sure that the culture he was studying held things with their hands—be they weapons or toys—walked upright, used audible language, and had a biologically programmed range of facial expressions. All of that was completely out the window with an alien race. He didn’t know if their visual range was the same as his, if they had a mental communication aspect, how they would signal peaceful intentions, or anything at all, really. In fact, the only conclusion he could come up with was that they were not overtly hostile, since he was still alive.

In his lifetime, war had gone from something that was a part of human nature to something that was best avoided. While it was true that America was currently engaged in two futile conflicts in the Middle East, the population of the country in general no longer seemed to favor war as a reasonable way to settle differences. He hoped—oh, how desperately he hoped—that this was the case with these aliens. After all, it was possible that they were taking the month to draw up papers for Earth’s unconditional surrender. Maybe it took time to get them through the democratic order of planets, or whatever kind of organization it was that the spacefaring races had. What if they were just an early survey team, getting an idea of the value of the planet? He’d certainly dealt with the human equivalent—even though he hated thinking of lawyers as human—when he’d sold his machine shop.

Well, if that’s what it was, there was little he could do about it except to put the best case forward for humanity. The question was, how?

His biggest fear was that they had just accidentally stumbled on the planet. If the mothership was a ways out, they might have just beamed down from far enough away that they hadn’t noticed the satellites and all the other clearly unnatural junk that orbited the earth. It could be that they hadn’t expected to find an occupied planet, so they’d left their scanners off. If that was the case, then everything they discovered about the planet was news to them, and that was a problem.

Dale didn’t know what kind of broadcasts were going out in the rest of the world, but he knew for a fact that the majority of the American news media was obsessed with everything that was wrong with Earthly society. Imagine that they were calibrating their translator to Fox news broadcasts. By the end of the month, he’d have to put a pretty good case forward for the continuance of humanity as an independent society, because the news anchors assumed humans were bastards.

He’d have to prove that humanity was a worthy species. Given America’s current obsession with celebrities, sporting events, and politics, it was a hard argument to make. He would have to give these aliens an idea of what humanity had discovered—even if it wasn’t new to them—of the progress it had made over the centuries.

Even that was a double-edged sword. If he gave them everything, they might see it as a sign that Earth was ripe for the picking, or they might think it pathetic that it took so long to make those discoveries. But there was nothing else he could think of—after all, they had discovered Earth; it was too late to put the genie back into the bottle.

Since they were a spacefaring race, the first thing to do was get a good book on astronomy, one with a lot of pictures. The more detail, the better—his parent’s house had always had a vividly illustrated Time-Life book or two about ships or ancient humanity, or something. Surely there was a similar book about astronomy and space exploration. If he was really lucky, they’d point to where they came from, but if nothing else, it would be a sign that homo sapiens was reaching for the stars, too.

Mathematics was universal. Presuming their numbering system and mathematical notation was as different as their alphabet, calculus and trigonometry were non-starters. If he got a book of geometry, though, they’d instantly understand. They probably didn’t use the same symbols for constants—it was hard to imagine that the symbol for pi was universal, but the concept was. He couldn’t remember most of the math he’d learned in high school, but that didn’t matter. Most of it would come back to him when he had a textbook in front of him, and he figured that they probably weren’t expecting him to be a mathematical prodigy, anyway. It wasn’t like he could teach them anything they didn’t know about math.

Chemistry would probably be useful, as well as physics. If they used a periodic table, they could probably figure out the elements. Books on biology. Show them everything we’d discovered. Show them that we were a curious race. A book on the wonders of the world—maybe not the traditional seven wonders, but more modern ones. Tall buildings, inspiring bridges—what about art? Would these aliens appreciate the detail of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? Would they understand the magnitude of Mount Rushmore?

The more he considered, the more likely it seemed he’d be taking a computer with him. After all, a library’s worth of books would sink his canoe. If only there were some way he could get internet access on the island. Finally, mentally debating whether Audubon guides would be a useful resource, he drifted off to sleep.

Lyra tossed and turned in her luxurious apartment in the castle. Naturally, everything was perfect; she even had staff ready to wait on her every need. A bell-pull hung right over the bed, with which she could summon an attendant in an instant. In short, she wanted for nothing.

Except sleep. She would have been comfortable in her own bed, in her own room, soothed to sleep by Bon Bon’s quiet snoring. Even her meditation exercises were doing little to help her. She imagined the calm rock garden her maestro had, but sitting on the rock was the strange alien creature, giving her a look she could only describe as hostile.

Twilight had come up with nothing yet—even the Princesses had been woefully unprepared when they had first met with dragons. She had informed Lyra that there was still some hope in one of Commander Hurricane’s treatises, but she had to have it translated, and that would take a couple of days. The pegasus had done something to start up a dialogue with the griffons—had, in fact, started the peace process—but although the outcome was something every schoolfilly knew, the actual technique was apparently lost to history.

One thing she was absolutely certain of was that this time, she would be in the minority. They had given the creature a lunar cycle to prepare, and unless it was a complete outcast, it had surely informed its alphas that there would be another meeting, and they were sure to send others.

She wondered if she should suggest having more ponies come along, a question which had been plaguing her since the first night after contact. She hadn’t suggested it because to her mind it seemed like cowardice. Lyra could come up with a dozen reasons why it was a good idea, but she could never convince herself that it wasn’t really because she was scared, and she was sure the Princess would see that in an instant.

I should have asked Sheriff Silverstar where courage comes from. She sighed. She had never felt this kind of nervousness while she was dueling. He had just stood up for what he believed in, completely willing to sacrifice himself for his cause. Such a foolishly noble thing.

The next morning, Dale had forgotten most of what he’d been thinking about the night before, as a new idea had come into his mind. It would be good for humanity if he were to take a video of these aliens. That would prove he wasn’t crazy to everybody’s satisfaction. He knew that experts could tell if a video was faked somehow. He could also take lots of still photographs—probably with a film camera, since that was much, much harder to fake.

Without much more preparation than pulling on shirt, shoes, and pants, he hopped into his car and headed towards Best Buy. He was halfway there when he remembered that the hair somehow interfered with radio broadcasts, so who knew what it would do to a digital device? It fortunately had had no effect on the photos he’d taken with his digital camera, but that was a sort of after-the-fact kind of thing. If a single hair could mess up his marine radio and cell phones, what might a creature covered with them do? If they were defending themselves against some type of beam weapon, like a phaser, it made sense that their outfits might somehow deflect or absorb energy; maybe the electromagnetic interference was a side-effect.

Still, that wasn’t an insurmountable challenge. He could build a Faraday cage which would probably shield the equipment. If he bought disposable film cameras, they had no electronics to damage, and it was hard to believe that their forcefields would damage the film on a chemical level, unless they were radiating gamma rays, in which case he had much bigger problems. These days, one probably couldn’t buy a Geiger counter without filling out a lot of paperwork, so there was no way to know unless his film was foggy when it was developed, or all his hair suddenly fell out.

He looked around Best Buy anyway. There were a few small digital movie cameras that were quite affordable and had a respectably long run-time. If he wanted VHS, he was going to have to go to Goodwill, apparently. The clerk in the photo section didn’t even know what a VHS camera was. As he was walking out, he took a brief trip through the computer section. An iPad would be the perfect thing to load up with every kind of example of human innovation possible.

Or would it? He wasn’t exactly tech-savvy himself, and he wondered what kind of effect their EMI might have on a tablet. What would they think if he proudly showed them a blank device that he couldn’t even power up? He could put it in the Faraday cage, but then how would they interact with it? All it would show was how unprepared he was to meet an alien race—not that he needed to be reminded.

Books it was, then. At least those wouldn’t be damaged by any sort of radiation. Furthermore, they didn’t have batteries to run down, and they would be relatively unaffected by the damp. He could give them to the aliens, and they could take them back to their ship, to study at their leisure. It might even be a more tempting prize than him, since they would be able to learn far more information from a book than he could ever provide.

Dale staggered out of the bookstore with a commandeered shopping cart that was carrying at least his weight in books. Judging by the quizzical look on the clerk’s face, there weren’t very many people who bought a thousand dollars worth of books in one go. Still, he’d managed to get a nice selection, from educational books on counting and spelling—in case they didn’t have a universal translator—to anatomy, astronomy, geometry, and most every other scientific subject imaginable. He’d even found a visual dictionary, which would probably be a great help when it came to translations. He bought two copies, one for himself, and one for them. The clerk had asked him why he wanted two; he’d said one was meant to be a gift.

Lyra was finally managing to get some sleep, thanks to a wonderful herbal tea that Zecora made. Twilight had seen the bags under her eyes, and correctly surmised that she needed some help. Celestia had sent a letter to Spike, and a day later, a familiar grey pegasus had cheerfully dropped a large box on the balcony outside her apartment before departing with a friendly wave.

The translation of Commander Hurricane’s diary had proved to be a boon, and Twilight was frantically teaching Lyra everything she had learned from the book. Aside from the wings, the physical structure of the griffons seemed kind of close to the creature’s, Twilight thought, and it might behave in a similar manner. After all, it had talons which Lyra had seen being used to grip things, it had a fairly flat face with a central beak, and if its hoof-coverings were tightly-fitted, it probably had paws on its hind legs. Naturally, they didn’t know for sure, so it was best to leave the interpretations a little vague.

What was clear was that the early pegasus tribes and the griffon flocks used broken weapons to symbolize peace. It was a message anypony would understand. Lyra was in favor of going to the armory immediately to get some, but Twilight held up a hoof. “They have to be deliberately broken,” she said. “The text made that quite clear. Edges have to be blunted, tips broken off, straps removed and the holes re-riveted.”

“Why?”

“Imagine this scene: a pegasus and a griffon confront each other on a cloud. The griffon pulls a broken sword from its scabbard. The pony has no way of knowing if the sword just broke in combat, and the griffon is preparing to defend itself with the half-weapon it has left—which could still be quite lethal—or if it is a message of surrender. Only if the edges are entirely blunted does it reveal a non-hostile intention.”

“So we have to get the blacksmith to break some weapons.”

Twilight nodded. “I got thrown out of the smithy the first time I asked, so I’ll have to have the Princess give an order.” She brightened. “I wonder if a pony learns all those words after becoming a blacksmith, or if it’s part of the qualifications for the job? That would make for an interesting paper. . . .”

Lyra rolled her eyes. If it hadn’t been for her being the Princess’ personal student, and saving Ponyville a time or two, there was little doubt that the townsponies would have labeled Twilight as a complete eccentric within six months of her taking up residence in the library.

“I do have this,” she said, levitating a slim volume out of her saddlebags. “It’s a sort of primer for visitors of Equestria. They have one at the train station, but I had to get this one from the library. Apparently, there’s a storeroom full of them somewhere, but somepony seems to have lost track of exactly where. Celestia had them printed in every language she could find.” Lyra began flipping through the pages as Twilight continued speaking. “The first page is in common Equestrian, the second in simplified Unicorn, the third in Royal Unicorn, the forth page is in Zebra, and so on.”

“It gave no indication it understood the meanings of the messages I wrote on the beach,” Lyra said.

“I know.” Twilight waved a hoof dismissively. “It probably won’t understand any of these either. It may, however, help us understand what type of writing system it uses, though. The first thing to do is give it the book, and see if it pays more attention to any one page than another. They all have a drawing of the race that uses the language, so it shouldn’t be hard to figure out which page it’s on, even though you can’t read the text.” She pointed to a woodcut of a griffon. “There are more kinds of writing systems than I first thought. I talked to an orthographic expert, and she said that there are logographic, syllabic, alphabetic, abugidas, abjads, and featural sytems. Some of the systems use parts of others, and apparently orthographers argue about classification all the time.”

“I still don’t see how helpful that would be, if it can’t read it.”

“It might not be,” Twilight admitted. “If it responds in kind, though, with a scroll or book, it might be a helpful hint to translation if we know what kind of alphabet it uses.” She sighed. “If it can even read or write at all.”

Over the next two weeks, Dale kept on thinking and planning. Something that seemed a brilliant idea one moment seemed idiotic the next. Sober reflection caused the elimination of most of the books. Should there be subsequent meetings, he could bring more, but the thought of loading all those books into the canoe, unloading them at the island, dragging them to his campsite, and then back to the beach was a little much. Not to mention the raised eyebrows as he loaded book after book into his canoe. The park rangers might be easygoing, but they weren’t idiots—people sometimes took along a book or two to pass the time, but not a whole library of hardbound books. He snickered—even if he honestly told them why he had so many, they’d never believe it.

He built the Faraday cage, bought a Camcorder for $15, eventually managed to find a store that still sold VHS tapes, ordered a ‘wedding pack’ of single-use cameras, made lists of things to bring, and emptied two store displays of one-subject notebooks. A week before he was due to head back to the island, he looked around his living room and realized he had enough material to start his own school.

It was then that the fears and doubts began creeping in. He’d made all the preparations he could think of, but he knew it wasn’t enough. He knew that when he got there, he was going to be blindsided. There would be something that he had that offended them, or something he failed to bring that insulted them. There would be while-coated technicians there to vivisect him, right on the beach, to avoid the risk of contaminating their spaceship. Or maybe he would get there and there would be nothing at all, because there weren’t any aliens, and there never had been.

He’d narrowed down his book selection nicely. He had decided on a basic book on counting which prominently featured Elmo, a somewhat more scholarly book on the alphabet that featured cartoony animals, a basic reading primer covering the exploits of Dick and Jane, the visual dictionary, and a book of geometry. He also had managed to find a beautifully-illustrated book of astronomy, which covered both the solar system and the rest of the universe very well, and a book on anatomy which would hopefully answer all their questions about the human body without his becoming an unwilling test subject. He also tossed in a calender, so that they might have a more convenient way to mark days until the next meeting.

Dale had also decided against taking any recording equipment whatsoever: if they wanted to reveal themselves, they would, on their own schedule. If he were to surreptitiously take photos of them, and they found out—well, he’d seen enough movies where one of the bad guys pronounced “He’s wearing a wire,” and knew full well what followed. It would probably be neater, though; rayguns tended to either leave an unharmed-looking corpse or a pile of ash, depending on the movie.

The night before his departure, he sat back in his recliner and nursed a beer. He was completely emotionally and mentally drained. The car was loaded, and everything had been double-checked. He’d left a brief letter on the kitchen table just in case, along with a key to a newly-rented safety-deposit box: as hackneyed as that gambit was, he couldn’t think of a safer way to tell his story if he did disappear on this expedition. Dale chuckled; given the History Channel’s relaxed standards as to what was history, he could just imagine Giorgio Tsoukalos holding out his hands—as if he held an imaginary globe in them—and whispering “aliens.” Of course, these aliens weren’t ancient, and they hadn’t engineered the pyramids.

Probably.

Well, if he actually went and met with them, he supposed he could ask them. He cracked open another beer and clicked on the TV.

A quick perusal of the approximately ten thousand channels on Comcast unsurprisingly revealed nothing of real interest, so he surfed over to the Discovery Channel, where Mythbusters was in progress. Since they’d inspired him to build a Faraday cage—even if it was going to sit in his garage and gather dust—he figured he owed it to Adam and Jamie to watch an episode.

“…But act now, and we’ll double your order!” Dale sighed. He didn’t need one magic blueberry bush, much less two. Did people actually buy these things? Did people really believe that they could have a blueberry bush on the kitchen table that grew fruit by the pound? Did the aliens watch three-dimensional TV that was just as inane?

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things—not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” The slightly off-color image of JFK filled the screen unexpectedly, snapping Dale back to awareness. He didn’t remember the speech, nor could he imagine why a clip of it was playing on Mythbusters, but Adam explained it during a grainy shot of a Saturn V rocket lifting off. He didn’t remember the speech, but he remembered the moon landing.

He had been working as a machinist for a few years—in those days, it wasn’t something that you went to trade school for, you just got a job at a machine shop, swept up shavings, and if you seemed remotely competent, you eventually got to try your hand at the lathe. He’d gone home, a dingy one-room apartment that smelled of mildew despite his constant cleaning, and flipped on his second-hand Zenith console. He knew that the moon landing was probably a forgone conclusion. NASA had been practicing for it for nearly a decade, and aside from the three astronauts dying in a fire on the ground, everything had worked.

It was a refreshing change. From the glory days of Camelot, in a few short years the country had become mired in a seemingly endless quagmire in Asia, with no clear concept of what it was trying to accomplish, or why. Race riots had become so commonplace that they were hardly news, and in Chicago even the police had rioted, assaulting the so-called hippies that were working for the McCarthy campaign. After JFK, political figures had been assassinated with an almost depressing regularity, to the point where the increasingly grim news had faded into background noise.

The image on the screen was slightly blurry, which he supposed was to be expected. It was coming from the moon, after all. There was a camera focused on the lunar module, which was as lifeless as everything else in its view. For what seemed like an eternity, nothing happened, then ladder came down, and Neil Armstrong began to descend the ladder slowly.

He backed down the ladder carefully—it was a steep ladder, like those on ships—and when he got to the bottom step, he reached a foot down and touched the surface of the moon, then picked it back up again.

There had been a fear, Dale remembered, that the lunar surface would be too soft to support anything. Clearly, NASA had been fairly confident it would, but they didn’t know for sure. Armstrong seemed to be testing the surface, making sure it would hold his weight. Finally, he stepped down, and spoke his famous line.

He had felt his heart swell with pride as the second astronaut came out of the lander, and they planted the flag. There was the flag of his country flying proudly on the surface of the moon. Sure, it was a bit passé—planting flags seemed more of a climbing-a-mountain or reaching-the-south-pole kind of event—but there it was. If aliens ever found it, they would know it was us, not those filthy communists who had landed on the moon first, and claimed it as our own.

He flipped off the TV. If three men could get into a tiny aluminum capsule and be shot into space, he could get into his canoe and paddle out to North Fox Island. He sometimes fancied himself following in the footsteps of explorers, now it was time to lead. The only difference between visionaries and crazies was whether or not they succeeded—or, in some cases, failed nobly. Either way, he was going to try.

Dale walked outside. He couldn’t see many stars, but the gibbous moon hung low in the sky. Eagle 1 was still sitting there, somewhere in the Sea of Tranquility, quite possibly the most apt place for mankind’s first extraplanetary expedition to have landed. He’d be sure to bring that up when he talked to the aliens again. They were up there, too, and he wondered if they weren’t a little nervous about this meeting.

That night, he slept better than he had in a month. He was up before the sun, and it was a testament to his planning that he pulled out of his driveway fifteen minutes after getting out of bed.

It would be a lie to say that the trip to the Leelanau State Park or to North Fox passed without him having second thoughts, because he did, quite frequently. However, he brought himself out of them by naming famous explorers. Big Rapids had flown by in a mental debate about whether or not Pizarro counted as an explorer.

“You’ve been gone for over month, and you just come back and say everything’s going to be okay, but you’re leaving again tomorrow morning?” Bon Bon glared at her. “Do you expect me to even let you in?”

“It’s my house, too, Bons.” Lyra pushed past the sputtering pony and walked to the living room. It looked the same as ever, although her side of the couch looked forlorn. At least she could remedy that.

She flopped down on the couch, smiling as the cushion seemed to conform exactly to her body, but the smile was fleeting. Bon Bon stood in the doorway, anger in her blue eyes.

“It was guard business,” she said defensively. “I would have told you what—I really wish I could. But Celestia swore me to secrecy. It could change the whole fate of Equestria.”

“I’m sure.” She shook her head. “You’re always going off on one adventure or another, and you never tell me anything about it, you just do your own thing.”

“I told you all about dueling!”

“How was I supposed to understand it? You’re a unicorn, and I’m not!” Tears began welling in her eyes. “What am I supposed to believe?”

Lyra sighed. When Princess Celestia had told her that the jumping-off point was the Ponyville reservoir, she had been excited at the prospect of spending one day at home before she left again. Clearly, she was wrong; it would have been less stressful to have taken up Twilight’s offer of a room. “I’m sorry I came back,” she muttered, getting to her hooves. “It wasn’t a good idea.”

“No!” Bon Bon sniffed. “Don’t go! I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please—I was scared. I was scared you were gone, that you weren’t coming back.” She collapsed on the couch, her muzzle an inch from Lyra’s.

“I’m scared, too,” Lyra confessed. She closed her eyes, letting the familiar scents and sounds of their house fill her mind. She could almost—almost—forget what she was about to do. For all the guards and hoofmaidens and everything else in Canterlot, she felt less alone here.

“I am going somewhere very few ponies have ever visited,” she said softly. “I wish I wasn’t, but what’s done is done, and we can’t change the past.” She touched a hoof to Bon Bon’s withers. “I will do everything in my power to return, and I know that Celestia will try her very best if I fail. Even changelings could only keep me for so long.” She laughed bitterly. “Promise me if you see three red lights rise over the dam, you’ll run as far and as fast as you can. I can’t do this if I’m worried about you, too.”

Bon Bon nodded solemnly. “Will you ever tell me what’s going on?”

“Pinkie Pie promise.” She touched her free hoof to her eye.

Dale looked around his camp. His tent was set up, his firepit cleared. A folding table was secured under his dining fly, and any food which might have a scent was suspended from a tree limb in a bag—more out of a force of habit than anything else; there were no creatures other than raccoons and squirrels on the island which might take advantage of his food if he left it on the table, but he had been camping where there were bears, and old habits died hard.

Most of the day had been spent, but he decided that he would take a walk around the beach and get a feel for the lay of the land. He wanted to take special care to scout out any ambush spots. Naturally, in a forested wilderness, they abounded.

When the sun dropped below the treeline, he decided it was time to head back. He zipped his dining fly shut, and placed a fresh notebook out on the table. This one wasn’t going to be shown to the unicorn, if he could help it. He drew a quick sketch of the area surrounding the beach, with the most obvious potential ambush spots marked. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to give them more than a cursory glance before he made his way to the beach, and, if the creatures could teleport in separate groups—which they seemed to be able to do on Star Trek—he was hardly going to be able to prevent an ambush. He could, however, occasionally cast an eye towards the most obvious spots, and if someone were to appear in them he could—

Well, he didn’t know what he could do. A few hours of thought didn’t give him any ideas at all. In the case of an ambush, the best possible outcome was that he would make it to the canoe before they got to him, and they would have an unnatural fear of the water, and no ranged weapons, and he would paddle to freedom while they stood powerless on the shore. It sounded like a ridiculous plan, and one part of his mind was wishing he’d brought his gun.

When he slid into his sleeping bag and closed his eyes, sleep eluded him. The ground felt lumpier than usual, and the air colder, and he just couldn’t get comfortable. He would drift off, and then suddenly jerk awake again, imagining an angry horse holding a ray-gun in its hoof, somehow, and jabbering at him to get up. He envisioned his tent burning as he was led away in chains. He woke up trembling, sure that he was being vivisected on a lab table, bright lights shining in his eyes. Every time he pulled his travel alarm out of his pillowcase, it would seem as if only moments had passed. Finally, grumbling, he got out of his sleeping bag and walked over to the firepit.

As stressed as he was, his wilderness skills had not left him, and in a few minutes, he had started a new fire on the banked coals of the old one. He opened his cooler and pulled out a beer, popped the cap and idly flicked it into the fire, and then took a long drink. Sighing, he grabbed a stick and began poking at the fire, watching the sparks drift upwards. He followed them into the sky, watching the stars twinkling above, and wondered if there was a spaceship there, slowly floating above his head, somehow cloaked so that the government didn’t know it was there, filled with aliens watching his every move. Quadrupeds in lab coats, holding clipboards, jotting down notes. ‘Here we see the subject poking a stick in a fire. Possibly aggressive. Recommend immediate termination of subject.’ He sighed. He couldn’t decide if he was getting worked up over nothing, or if the next day would bring the moment that would change everything. Did John Paul stay up all night, tossing and turning, before the day he ascended to the papal throne? Or did he sleep a contented night’s sleep, knowing that all his hard work and sacrifice had paid off? Such thoughts were too deep for a retired machinist, he decided. Whatever happened tomorrow happened.

He didn’t sleep, but he drifted in a trance, completely oblivious to the moon tracking its path across the starry sky. The fire burned low, and he occasionally threw more wood on it, although he was unaware of having done so. If he had been asked, he would have denied it. He finally came back to awareness as the sky was beginning to lighten, believing that he had fallen asleep in front of the fire.

He boiled some water for oatmeal and coffee, deciding that he should at least eat breakfast. As soon as it was finished, he filled his thermos, then poured water on the fire until it was cool to the touch. He wasn’t sure when he would be back, and felt it was better to be safe than sorry. It would be just his luck that the meeting was going well, and then he accidentally burned down the island.

With a meal inside him, he went to the tent and changed into clean clothes, checking his pockets several times to make sure that he had nothing which might be misinterpreted in them, and grabbed the backpack that was full of the books he’d brought, as well as a stack of notebooks and a box of pens. He walked down to the beach, taking long steps, trying to get there before he changed his mind.

Lyra stood uncomfortably on a wooden raft floating in the center of Ponyville’s reservoir. Princess Celestia had chosen this location because there was nothing for several miles around that any substantial force could hide behind. She had made certain that the weatherponies had cleared the sky, save for some cloud observations posts. The weather patrol had set up a flight and ground exclusion zone around the entire area. In effect, Lyra was currently the only pony in a three-mile radius, a thought which made her distinctly uncomfortable. She had never been that far from everypony else before, as far as she knew. In the hills around her, a company of elite guards watched and waited, and the Wonderbolts were standing by to relay messages if needed. Princess Celestia was back in Canterlot, but could teleport in to collapse the spell instantly. Twilight was undoubtedly watching closely. Unicorns were standing by to shoot up three red lights, the signal that something had gone wrong. It would also most likely be Lyra’s death warrant if they made that signal, which was a thought she found particularly unsettling.

She could, she was sure, still back out without the princess thinking any less of her, and it would not be a lie to say that some part of her wanted to very badly. She didn’t know what she would encounter on the other side, and she couldn’t shake the knowledge that if it were bad enough, not only would Celestia not rescue her, but would, in fact, make rescue impossible. It was not a pleasant thought, especially when one had skipped breakfast.

She resisted the urge to check her saddlebags again to make certain she had packed everything she thought she would need. In fact, they had been gone over by both diarchs, Twilight Sparkle, and three ambassadors.

The only thing that was keeping her from shaking in her horseshoes was the slightly warm feel of the celestial magic that was wrapping around her own magic field, magic which had been given by the princess to ensure she had the strength to maintain the spell for several days, if necessary. They had agreed she should leave the other world after a full Equestrian day, but wanted to make sure that there was some reserve capacity just in case. She knew that there was likely a monitoring spell mixed in, but didn’t insult Princess Celestia by asking.

Taking one last look around the serene plains, she focused her thoughts, and closed her eyes. She visualized the spell flowing through the aether, the magical energies flowing along the leylines, and channeled the energy through her horn, braiding the three-part spell together as it wound up her horn. An observer would have been shocked to see her eyes flash a brilliant solar white for a moment before she stretched out into a glowing golden aqua tunnel which had just appeared in reality, and then she was gone.

In an instant, she was standing on the beach again, the comforting presence of the dome glowing around her. Lyra looked around carefully, to see if anything seemed out of place. It was still dark here; they knew that the solar cycle on this planet was not aligned with their own. Celestia had been able to come up with what they hoped was a workable calculation for the variation in solar time between the new world and their own after her brief stay on the new planet; unsurprisingly, she was quite adept at celestial mechanics.

The world was just as she remembered. Unfortunately, the dome blocked out scents and muffled sound, so she had to rely on vision alone to see if there were any traps waiting for her. A brief examination suggested that there were not, so she cast the second spell which would allow her to leave the bubble—in essence, this spell put a smaller, fur-tight bubble around her, and could pass through the main shield. The down side was that she was breathing artificial bubble-air, and would go through her magical reserves much faster.

She passed through the large dome, feeling the slippery tension of the spell as she crossed out of it. As soon as she was completely free, she relaxed the small shield around her nose and took a deep breath. The air smelled all right, but it was little thin, like the air around the Cloudeseum but she was patient, and waited several minutes before dispelling the shield altogether. She had no way of knowing if there were any long-term effects to exposure to the air, but at least there was enough oxygen to breathe without being uncomfortable.

She hadn’t smelled anything that seemed out of place, nor did she hear any unexpected sounds. She was slightly annoyed that the wind was coming off the water, since that made anything on the island behind her unsmellable, but there were a good thirty body lengths of sand between her and the small bluff that marked the end of the beach, which she hoped would give her enough time to put up a defensive spell if needed.

With time to kill before the creature and its kin arrived, she began to scratch out the alphabet on the beach. She had a small chalkboard with chalk in a mouth-holder, as well as parchment, quills, and ink, but she couldn’t fit the whole alphabet on the chalkboard, and didn’t want to use up the paper for such a mundane purpose. It would give them a starting point. Perhaps the creature would recognize it for what it was, which would mean it used a similar type. As she did, she was glad they had decided to go with the common alphabet, since it only had fourteen characters.

Author's Note

Big thanks to my pre-readers!
Line breaks aren't showing up consistently on my laptop, but they're in the text. I just don't know what went wrong.

Blog entry about this chapter: Chapter 5 notes and thanks

Chapter 7: Further Revelations

Celestia Sleeps In
Chapter 7—Further Revelations
Admiral Biscuit

Once again, Dale reached for his book; once again he stopped. He wasn’t sure how long the alien would want to stay on the beach with him. Assuming she wanted to sleep in the comfort of her own bed aboard the spaceship, it would be important to know when she was going to come back. Was there some reason why they waited 28 days the first time? Would the next delay be the same?

Instead, he withdrew the calendar. He wanted to get this taken care of right away so he could plan.

He had already marked the date of ‘first contact’ by drawing its pictogram on the beach. Each day that had passed he had marked in the same way as they had—one tick on the first day, two on the second, and so forth, grouping in sixes. He was convinced that they would not recognize the numbers, but that was okay; they were sure to get the concept.

Dale laid it out on the beach in front of the alien, pointing first to Wednesday June 20, and waiting. Surely she would grasp the meaning.

Lyra looked bewilderment. She had never seen anything that was half-photograph and half words. Newspapers and magazines were common enough, but their paper and printing was much lower-quality. There were probably unicorn spells that could create an book like this, but it would be reserved for the nobility.

The top half had a glossy image of something. The background was simple enough to understand: it was a wooded hill. The picture had been taken around sunrise or sunset. In the foreground, on a grey stone path, was a shiny red thing. It had big white letters across one end of it, which made her think it probably wasn’t a creature. She tried to separate out the elements of the photograph, and suddenly realized that it had wheels. They didn’t have spokes like proper wheels, but they had shiny hubs. It was obviously a wagon.

She couldn’t see a harness, so it was a picture of the back of the wagon. It looked like it had a big open area, and in front of that was a taller enclosure, which was clearly meant to seat the teamster. In front of that was another enclosed area, whose purpose was less clear. Now that she had figured it out, she could clearly see that it had a hinged tailboard—that is what the letters were on—and doors, to get into the cabin. And, she could read the big letters. “See-aitch-ee-vee-ar-oh—“ The creature had a disappointed look on its face, and Lyra’s ears fell. Maybe this wasn’t what she was supposed to be looking at.

The bottom half had a four-letter word centered, like it was important. “Jay-ewe-en-e,” she tried, and he brightened. Below that, it was arranged in a matrix, with groups of letters at the top of each column, and other symbols she hadn’t seen before in each box. It began with light red groups of two symbols, then started in red with one symbol, carried on like that until the third row where it became two again, with the sixth row finally having light red single symbols again.

What was more important, though, was column four, row four had a simple drawing of what she’d made on the beach last time. After that, there were marks on each different day. This is its calendar. She tapped her hoof on the first marked day, then circled her forehoof, indicating the whole of the beach. She began tapping each day that passed, counting them off. When she reached the end of the page, she flipped it over to the next.

There was a picture of a different wagon—this one silver and maroon—sitting in front of a lake; below that was more of the same, although this time the printing was in green. Nevertheless, she continued the count through all the squares he’d marked, finally arriving at the final square. She again motioned around the beach. Judging by his enthusiasm, she’d gotten the right idea.

She thought for a moment. He clearly wanted to know when she was coming again, and this was a far more convenient method than writing in the beach. The Princess had given her a lot of latitude in making decisions: if they spent too much time apart, they would start to forget lessons they had learned, but if they pushed too hard, they’d make mistakes. She knew that everypony involved would want to go over everything she’d already learned. She hardly could be expected to stay up all night and answer questions, and then come back here again. So, one day off, then back again?

She tapped the space two spots over, and made her ‘on the beach’ motion again. The creature nodded—a motion which she had learned meant that he was pleased—and pushed the calendar back towards her.

Lyra frowned. Did it mean for her to keep it? Did it want her to mark more days? Maybe it meant for her to take it back home, so that they could coordinate schedules. She grabbed it in her mouth and tucked it into her saddlebag, watching his expression carefully. He nodded again, so that must be what he wanted.

She sat back in front of him on her rump, waiting to see what else he would offer.

Slanting beams of the afternoon sun played across the crystal array that surrounded Trixie. She had begun in the corner, and then something had come over her. Her mind had drifted off into the blank space it seemed to occupy more and more often, and when she came back to herself, she discovered that she was surrounded.

She was lying on the cold ground, muzzle practically touching one. It was dark, yet pulsed with a deep red aura, like arterial blood. She turned her head, glumly noting that they blocked her in on all sides, with not even any open spaces to tread her hooves carefully through.

She could feel more of them under her. They wanted to grow. They would not—not as long as she held them at bay—but a mare had to sleep sometime. They whispered to her to set them free—to set herself free.

Trixie carefully extended a hoof. She poked at a tall crystal with her shoe, testing its resilience. It did not flex at all. It was hard to judge, but as she experimentally slid her shoe across it, feeling the grating resistance of metal to stone.

She twisted her shoe around to get a look. In her position, it was a difficult maneuver to manage, but she was talented at more than just illusions. She expected to see bits of stone stuck to the steel shoe, but instead saw a small line of polished—no, cut—metal.

She looked back at the crystal. She couldn’t kick them over, and they would cut her hooves to pieces if she tried to walk on them.

An idea was beginning to form in her mind. The blocking ring on her horn was held on by magically-enhanced straps which could not be cut. She knew all about them—hadn’t her mother had to wear one? But the ring itself was a different matter. It might not be enchanted at all. After all, nopony would allow anypony to swing a chisel at their horn to cut it off—horns were sensitive. A light, sawing motion might do the trick.

The challenge would be to cut it off without hurting herself. She wouldn’t be able to see what she was doing. She didn’t trust the crystals, and would have to move very slowly and very carefully to avoid injuring herself.

With a soft sigh, she twisted her head towards a likely crystal.

Dale pulled Fun With Dick and Jane out of his backpack. The book brought back memories. He remembered coming across the whole series when he had emptied his parent’s house after they had passed away, and he just couldn’t bear to get rid of them. Maybe one day, when he had grandchildren of his own, he would give the books to them. It sure beat a book featuring Dora or Spongebob Squarepants. Or Elmo.

“See Dick,” he began, almost instantly running into a wall. The words would mean nothing to her. He could just as easily have picked up a cookbook for a reading primer. When I read this, I knew what the words meant, he realized with a sinking feeling. I just didn’t know how they were written. How am I going to get past this little hurdle?

“Wing it,” he muttered under his breath. It was the American way. There was even a technical term for it—satisficing—which he would be sure to use if he ever got interviewed about this particular event.

“See Dick,” he began again. This time, he visored his hand over his eyes, then pointed to the book. He repeated it again and again, making binocular gestures, pointing to his eyes, and back to the page. Then he tried “see Dale,” pointing to himself.

She eventually responded with ‘see’ and her name, while pointing a hoof to her eyes, then tapping her breast. Much to his chagrin, she repeated it with his name, and with Dick’s. She finally made a note, and nodded, then tapped the next page.

“See Dick run,” Dale said. He repeated his first two motions, then started to jog up the beach, shouting run! A moment later, she was trotting beside him, repeating run and her name, still speaking in the strange lower voice she had begun to use while she was teaching him the alphabet.

A part of Dale’s mind was dimly aware that this was probably not the way that language should be learned. He was demonstrating the word jump, leaping back and forth across an imaginary hurdle. Much to his amazement, she got up on her hind legs and tried to mimic him.

He saw it coming too late to stop it. Her jump was off-balance, either from poor footing or the difficulty of standing on two legs. She half-fell, and his instinct was to try and catch her. Dale managed to take one step forward before a flailing hoof came in contact with his shoulder, twisting him around. She fell forward, driving the two of them down to the beach. He didn’t have time to brace himself, but he managed to wrap his left arm around her and yank her close to him, trying to avoid having her collapse on top of him as they hit.

It seemed to take an eternity to fall. Her fur was amazingly soft, not at all like a wild animal. Do they condition it? And then he hit the ground.

He lay there, getting his breath back, conscious of the creature on top of him. He could feel her heartbeat, her hot breath on his face, a tickling on his cheek where her mane had fallen. Her eyes were closed, which struck him as a little odd, although she opened them again when he took his hand off her back.

As the two disentangled themselves, he realized that he had made two discoveries: she certainly lacked the grace of a cat—which could probably have completed the move successfully—and she was heavier than she looked. He was blushing furiously, but she seemed unperturbed by the entire situation. She shook herself off, then tried jumping again, this time from all four legs.

He realized she was watching him for conformation, and he nodded absently.

By the time they reached the second book, she could identify the characters on the cover, naming each while touching it with a hoof. She brightened when Spot was introduced, pointing and saying a word in her own language.

“Spot is a dog,” Dale explained. He barked and panted, then repeated dog She nodded. “See Spot run,” Dale read. She repeated it back, then ran down the beach making barking noises while wagging her tail.

Were they related to dogs? He’d entertained that thought when he first saw them. The equine theory had won, because their manes and tails and hooves seemed more like that of a horse, but that was before he’d considered that they were wearing suits. Still, discounting the hair, would a creature with flexible digits cover them? It would be like him wearing a spacesuit with boxing gloves. What would be the advantage?

He snapped back out of his reverie when she plopped down beside him, flipping the page with her muzzle. “See Spot roll over,” Dale muttered. She seemed to have discovered the ability to puzzle out meanings from the pictures, flopping over on her back and rolling away from him. She kept her legs tucked close, foiling his chance to see if she wore shoes yet again. He glanced down at his shirt, but she hadn’t left a hoofprint there. She stood and repeated the sentence with her own name again, clearly perplexed by his silence.

Inspiration struck him like a freight train. He hadn’t been trying to say her name since he’d butchered it so badly the first time, but now that her voice was lower—he could! He repeated back exactly what she had said. “See Lyra roll over.” She looked at him with her big golden eyes, and he just began repeating her name while pointing, the unfamiliar syllables rolling off his tongue. She began oddly moving her legs—as if she was trotting in place—and he wondered if that how she showed excitement.

When he had finished the book, he thought it was time to introduce yes and no. This would be a bit tricky. He tapped himself. “Yes Dale.” Pointing to her, he said, “Yes Lyra.” Back at himself: “No Lyra.” He repeated the exercise with Dick and Jane, then started with actions. Each time, he would also nod or shake his head.

Lyra’s brain felt like it was going to melt. The book he had shown her had used both the strong letters and the weak letters. It appeared that the strong letters were used at the beginning of each line, and to give the names of the characters. Clearly they indicated something of importance. However, the wagon had been labeled in all strong letters—which probably meant it was very important—and the names of the months had been, too. Four strong letters. Did they value wagons and their calendars that highly?

Even worse, the letters hardly seemed to ever be pronounced in words like they were pronounced on their own. The first word of the book, see, had the same pronunciation as the third letter of the alphabet, yet instead of only being one symbol, it was three, and clearly should have been pronounced essee. She was not sure if the he was unable to correctly pronounce the words, or if it wasn’t more like Earth pony language, with an insufficient number of letters to represent—as best as they could—the sounds of speech. On the other hoof, the words were all short, so that was something.

It had been clever of the creature to demonstrate the verbs. She and Twilight had been discussing how to teach verbs, and they hadn’t come up with anything. She wished she’d had time to ask Cherilee. It was quite an omission on their part, especially since they’d had an entire month to come up with a solution.

At least she had the marbles and the box. They’d do for counting and for some parts of speech. She mentally kicked herself again. She could have been giving him her words for things from his book. Why hadn’t she done that?

There was no time like the present. “Dick and Jane,” she said, tapping a hoof on the beach where the book had lain. He set the book back on the sand.

“No,” she said, using his word. “Dick and Jane.” She pointed a hoof at his backpack. “Yes Dick and Jane.” After a moment, he seemed to understand that she wanted to start with the first book, and switched them out.

She flipped it back open to the first page carefully, then brought over the chalkboard. “See Dick,” she began, before repeating the word see in Equine. She said it several times, until he began to repeat it. Then she wrote the word on the chalkboard.

They went through both books that way. Dale carefully copied her words into his notebook. When she had finished teaching him the books in Equine, she decided it was time to move on to counting.

She tapped one marble, named it, and wrote the word on the chalkboard. She then traced a circle around all the marbles with her hoof, and wrote the plural on the chalkboard. It wasn’t really necessary for her purposes that he know the word for marble, but sooner or later he’d want to learn it.

Pushing one forward with a hoof, she said “One,” and wrote both 1 on the chalkboard, and below it, one. She repeated the exercise as he took notes, individually pushing marbles over, until the entire dozen were across the line. Eventually, he’d have to learn how to count two-digit numbers, but that was a lesson which could wait for later.

The creature got another book out of his bag, and pushed towards her. There was a bright red furry creature—which bore little resemblance to Dale—right on the cover, with bold letters next to it. He flipped the book open. The furry thing was on each page, next to a symbol and word. On the first page was a single chocolate-chip cookie; on the second, a pair of birds. Everything was simple and brightly-colored, like books for foals.

He tapped the first page, said a word, and pushed a single marble back towards Lyra. On the second page, he tapped a symbol, said another word, and pushed a second marble.

Clearly, this was a book for counting. As clever as the concept was, it seemed kind of wasteful. Didn’t their mares have time to teach their foals on their own? While the other book had had drawings of creatures which looked—at least superficially—like Dale, this one was nothing like him. It could be a teacher. The first two books had led her to believe that all these creatures had similar coloration, but that was silly. Only the Royal Guards looked so uniform, and that was because of the magical armor they wore.

When Dale had finished with the book, he slid it over to her. Her saddlebags were going to be quite full for the return trip, but that was okay. It would give them time to study in more depth back in Equestria. It was strange that the book only went up to ten—maybe that was as high as the creature could count. Some of the more primitive herds didn’t even have words for numbers past three.

Then he did something unexpected. He pushed the eleventh marble over, speaking a word. He wrote two vertical lines in his notebook—which looked like two weak els or a strong I, with a word next to it. He pushed the final marble over, saying another word, and writing another two symbols in his notebook. When he began writing his second word, she suddenly realized that these were numbers. Apparently, these creatures were either so sloppy in their penmanship that they didn’t care that some strong and weak letters could be confused with each other or with numbers, or else they weren’t clever enough to have come up with more distinct symbols. What was obvious was Dale’s kind added their second digit at ten.

He was still writing, apparently making marks for thirteen, fourteen, and so on. She took an extra piece of parchment and wrote down more of her numbers, too. They were fairly predictable, so she just incremented the dozens column, then the grosses column, finally sliding the paper over to him. Running a quick mental calculation, she saw that he had done the same thing, although his numbers went to twenty before they became regular. Looking at his talons, she thought she knew why. If the pattern of digits was repeated on his hind paws, then he would have twenty to count before he had to increment. Maybe they were unique because each digit represented a talon or claw?

She could discuss this when she got back to Ponyville. Surely, there was a professor who specialized in the history of numbers. It was a little too in-depth for their foal-steps of conversation here on the beach, though.

She looked over at the marbles and the box. Now it was time to teach prepositions and adverbs the same way her parents had taught her. She’d put the marbles in the box, and then teach him the word for in.

Lyra pointed at the box, said the word, and wrote it on the slate, while Dale obediently took notes. She looked back at the marbles, and suddenly realized the difficulty of manipulating them by mouth. If they’d thought this through better, they would have had jacks, or something easily gripped.

Well, going by the sun’s position, it was late enough in the day that she could probably use some magic and not have to worry. Dale hadn’t done anything remotely aggressive, and it stood to reason he would not.

“In,” she said, repeating it several times until he understood. She wrote the word while levitating the marbles into the box. Strangely, instead of taking notes, he was watching the marbles float with a look she couldn’t quite figure out. It seemed almost like amazed terror. His mouth was hanging open, and his eyes were darting around towards the woods and the water. Frowning, she pulled the marbles back out of the box and set them on the sand again. Was this a gesture that had some other meaning to his culture?

“Piper forty seven niner six lima cleared to cross runway two eight.”

Finally. Jennifer keyed the mic. “Affirmitive. Niner six lima crossing runway two eight.” She checked both ways, just to make sure, then throttled up and released the brakes.

“Contact tower on one two four decimal two when you’re ready to go,” ground control helpfully informed her.

Yeah, yeah. She switched the radio, and made a final sweep of the gauges. Everything looked good. “Niner six lima ready at three six, waiting for clearance.”

“Good afternoon,” the tower controller replied. “Niner six lima, cleared takeoff three six, left turn on course, climb to four thousand five hundred, maintain VFR.”

She read back the clearance, pushed the throttles to takeoff power, and gently let off the wheel brakes. “Rolling,” she commented into her mic.

The Piper quickly gained speed—with only her and a hundred pounds of groceries, it behaved like a race horse. As she pitched the nose up, Jennifer felt a jolt of energy run through her body. Takeoffs never grew old. The twin Continental sixes were purring happily. The airspeed needle finally passed the blue line as she retracted the gear, turning the Piper into a creature of the air once again. “Here we go,” she muttered to the sky, breaking out in a smile.

Her call sign jerked her out of her reverie. “Piper niner six lima, be advised a Coast Guard helicopter is performing training near your flight path, um, over Lake Michigan, under two thousand feet.”

“Roger.” She began to bank slightly west. “Thank you, tower.”

Dale barely kept sitting as the creature’s horn lit up and the marbles floated off the beach. He could see a golden nimbus around its horn, and there was a matching golden aura pulsing around the marbles. She showed no sign of manipulating anything with her hooves, which suggested that the ability was entirely mental. This worried him greatly. He had watched Firestarter and Carrie, as well as the X-Men movies, and had a healthy respect for what superpowers could do, at least cinematically; what was even more concerning was the fact that Lyra hardly seemed to be concentrating on the marbles. It was as if the motion was second nature to her. She was writing while she did it, although her eyes were flickering over to the marbles, as if she wanted to make sure they remained on course.

Earlier, he had seen her light up her throat with a glowing light—was that also the same sort of thing? Was the barrier behind her—the giant magenta bubble—formed in the same manner? Might this appendage be a way to focus mental energy into carrying out an action? If it was, what powered it? Was there a small atomic pellet in its base? Was it possible that she had been maintaining the barrier behind her all morning, with so little effort that she had been able to interact with him? If so, what did it mean for him? If he annoyed her, could she lift him as easily as the marbles?

Try as he might, he could come up with no scenarios where that would end to his benefit. His earlier thought of running to his canoe and paddling away now seemed absolutely doomed to failure. He had been wasting his time checking for ambush locations in the woods; what was the point when she could probably fling him a couple of hundred feet in the air?

Was this how they had built their spacecraft? Earlier, he had wondered how they had managed to craft anything, since they appeared to lack flexible digits—with access to horns like this, they wouldn’t need digits. She had been holding up three marbles—could she hold up more? Could she send them in opposing directions? Magneto had been limited to manipulating ferrous objects; Lyra apparently was not.

The first time he had come across them on the beach, one of the armored ones had been pointing its horn at him. Now he knew why. Obviously, the spears were ceremonial. The armor was probably reflective, so that the beams or whatever shot from their horns would bounce off. His mind began struggling back to everything he’d learned about physics. Gravity was a weak force, if he remembered right. Electromagnetism was a strong force, and could counter gravity. There was something about entanglement, too.

He looked back at the field. In one of Asimov’s short stories, an engineer had created an antigravity field which was surrounded by a glowing magenta field, caused by the air molecules accelerating to lightspeed in the field and then slowing once they encountered normal atmosphere again. Was that what the bubble was? That story had ended when the engineer had been killed by a billiard ball traveling at light speed which went through his heart. What would happen to him if she flung the marbles at the bubble? How did she get in and out of it without injury? The first time, the big one had put something on her. Maybe that was the key.

There was some way that the scientist in the Asimov story had used the anti-gravity field as a perpetual-motion type of energy generator. Was that actually possible? The laws of thermodynamics might not apply when reality itself was being bent. If that was so—disregarding the first-contact—this single construct might change the course of humanity. What fuel was their spaceship using that they could afford the energy cost to just keep this running on the beach?

Dale snapped back to focus, to see Lyra giving him an odd look. There was no way he could explain the mind-bending that she had just caused, so he took a couple of deep breaths, and pointed to the marbles again. “Yes.”

After another hour was spent, Lyra had covered most of the motions which could be indicated by marbles and a box. While she had written pages of notes, it was clear that their vocabulary was still severely limited. They were barely at the point where they could create complete sentences. She flattened her ears, thinking of all the work they still had to do. It’ll be easier once I can ask him if I can bring along others, she thought. Until then, I guess we’ll just have to make due.

She lifted the marbles back into their sack, put them in the box, and then lifted the whole lot into her saddlebags. She was starting to get hungry again, and wished she’d thought to bring dinner along, too.

Dale seemed to be at a bit of a loss. He had put the tube in his mouth again, and appeared to be swallowing. Lyra’s throat was a bit raw, so she walked back down to the water to get another drink.

She sat back across from him, and waited for him to make his move. Sometime after lunch, the two of them had unconsciously decided to take turns presenting things.

He picked up a thick book and began flipping through the pages, clearly looking for something specific. He passed by drawings of plants and trees and bugs and birds. It had not struck her earlier, but the printing and binding quality of the books was pretty amazing. There were clearly a number of these creatures whose special talent was book-making. The paper was brilliant white, and the line weights were perfectly even. Whoever had colored in the drawings had had the patience of a saint—she could not see a single color that strayed over its line.

When he had finally found what he was looking for, he laid the book back down on the sand, turning it so she could easily see. For some reason, his face was pinker than usual, like it was when they’d fallen.

He tapped the pictures. “Yes Dale.”

She looked down at the book. There was a fairly simple drawing of a creature like him, although it was wearing no clothing or coverings. Small words were written next to its parts. Lyra looked up at him thoughtfully. This would be very helpful. She moved her paper right next to the book and began to copy down the words as he pronounced them..

He acted oddly hesitant when she reached one small central area, and his face reddened again. Could it be he didn’t know what those parts were called? Maybe he didn’t have them. Many equine gross anatomy drawings included wings and horn, to save on printing. Some foals—especially in primarily unicorn cities—often were embarrassed if they lacked horns. It was less of a problem with pegasi foals, since by their nature, cities like Cloudsdale had no non-pegasi residents.

When she had finished writing down all the words on the two pages, she looked at him expectantly. Sighing, he turned the page, his face reddening again.

They finally made it through the names of the body parts, as well as the next illustrations of muscle groups and skeletal structure. Dale hoped it was enough to keep her going for a while. He could hardly be expected go through an entire visual dictionary here on the beach. He explained to her that she should take the book with her and bring it back next time, by drawing a series of pictures in his notebook. She seemed to understand. She could barely fit her mouth around the book, and finally lifted it in her aura, carefully settling it into her bag. She produced a book of her own, and brought it over.

It was a fairly slim volume. On the cover was a picture of a house, with a table, book, and bathtub below it. She opened it to the first page. As with the previous book she had produced, the printing quality was a few hundred years out-of-date. Once again, the images reminded him of a woodcut.

The first drawing was of a group of these creatures standing in front of a house. There were five big creatures, two small ones, and a tiny one. The one on the right had a square face and a short-cropped tail. The other four looked similar to her, except that two did not have horns, and one had wings, which were clearly visible as they were extended away from its sides. The two smaller ones were similar to the larger ones, one with a horn and one without. The tiniest, which appeared to be wearing a diaper and holding a bottle, had a very small set of wings. All of the big ones had a mark on its hindquarters, each one of them unique.

Lyra began naming them off, despite there being no text accompanying the drawing. She would point to one of the creatures and give its name, writing it on the chalkboard. Each name had two parts, and he noticed that aside from the short-tailed one, the names of all the big creatures ended the same way.

Given the simplicity of the drawings, Dale assumed that this was a book meant for children. Specific details of items were not marked. As they went through the book, there were a few items which stood out to him. They apparently had normal-looking shovels and brooms, although how they used them was a mystery. Horse-drawn carriages gave him a bit of a laugh, but he supposed rickshaws were roughly analogous. Some chairs and benches had backs, which seemed a particularly useless design, unless they preferred to sit upright.

Aside from her attempt at a jump, he had never seen Lyra sit fully upright. She was currently sitting with her rump on the ground, hind legs in front of her, and forelegs supporting her between them. It seemed a fairly natural position, but not one in which a chair back would be of any use whatsoever. Maybe she had to sit that way because she couldn’t lean back.

At the very end of the book, there were two facing drawings. One of them had a big creature like the one he’d seen on the beach, looking up at what was unmistakably a sun. On the other side, a darker night sky, complete with moon, had a darker rendition of a similar creature. If he hadn’t been watching her carefully, he might have missed the way she unconsciously bowed her head when she pointed to the day-alien.

If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would have assumed that it was revered as a god. The style of the drawing seemed to indicate godhood. Still, even now there were countries where the rulers still had some mystique and respect. Certainly not in the US, though. There was nothing that the American public enjoyed more than lifting somebody up onto a pedestal and then knocking them back off again.

But, it couldn’t be their overall ruler, could it? No one would send their leader on a mission to uncharted space. When Colombus came over to the New World, Isabelle may have given him her blessing, but she didn’t offer to come with him. So maybe it was the captain of the mission?

On the other hand, what if they were a ruling caste? Maybe there was a supreme emperor or something, and its offspring led the littler ones on missions or whatever. As much as he hated to admit it, dictatorships got things accomplished in a way democracies often couldn’t. It was a lot easier to get something done when you had no opposition, after all.

He really didn’t know enough to ask, but he might as well give it a shot. He tapped the picture of the day-alien, and shrugged.

She seemed to get the message. She tapped the picture, then the sun. She pointed her head over the water and slowly lifted it, then pointed to the sun again.

Curious, he pointed to the night-alien. She repeated the same motions, this time pointing to the picture of the crescent moon. So, it appeared that one was in charge during the day, and another at night. That might explain why the one he saw didn’t get up and start giving orders until after the sun had risen.

She pushed the book over towards him, indicating he should keep it. He was about to turn and put it in his saddlebags when he saw her ears suddenly shift towards the water.

She turned her head, following the motion of her ears, which were now at full attention, not unlike a cat. A minute passed, then he heard the distant noise of an airplane engine.

Dale looked up in alarm. The last thing he wanted to show up here right now was an airplane. It would probably be high enough to not see them, but the glowing hemisphere on the beach was a hard thing to overlook. If the pilot was paying the slightest bit of attention to the ground, there was no way that he would fail to report it.

There wasn’t anything he could do about it, either. He could hardly tell her that she had to go—he didn’t even know how he could possibly explain it to her without making it seem like he was trying to send her away.

She’d gotten close to the island a lot sooner than she thought she would, Jennifer reflected. The foul-up with the caterer had put her in a bad mood, and it had seemed like ground control was asleep at the radio. As soon as she’d cleared Traverse City, though, her bad mood had evaporated.

The co-pilot on the Coast Guard helicopter had been friendly, too. She’d called when she was close to their operating area, and he’d seemed surprised by her professionalism. Well, as far as she could tell over the radio. Maybe she’d try to see if she could catch up with him at the Air Station sometime.

Focus, Jennifer! Time to prepare for your landing! “Piper niner six lima South Fox Island airport in sight, request frequency change.”

“Say . . . receiving . . . .” Her radio dissolved into static. She tried again, with no better response. Stupid radio.

“Coast Guard, do you copy?” She waited for a response, but none was coming. Radio two produced the same results. The static got louder and she turned down the volume a little. It was almost continuous now. Did I lose the antenna?

Jennifer briefly debated whether to turn around or continue. She was nearly there, and hated to go back. She didn’t want to lose the contract, after all. On the other hand, if something else was wrong with the airplane, she might lose more than the contract.

But, it still seemed to be flying well. All the instruments indicated things were boringly normal. The island’s runway wasn’t controlled, and it was private anyway. She didn’t have to radio for landing clearance. It would probably be safer—and be less paperwork to fill out after the fact—to just land normally, rather than fly back to Traverse City radio-less, and pop up in the traffic pattern as a total surprise to everyone. They’d have to use light signals, and she’d be damned if she could remember any of them. Maybe they were somewhere in the Jeppesen’s book, which was in her flight bag, which was . . . in the back. Why on earth did you toss it back there with all the groceries? She could turn on the autopilot and get it, if she wanted to turn into a cautionary tale for other pilots, that was. Better to land at South Fox.

With that thought in mind, she flicked on her landing lights to reveal her intentions and began her approach checklist. The runway was clear, winds negligible, and she could diagnose what had gone wrong when the wheels were chocked outside the maintenance shed.

Dale tucked her book away, breathing a sigh of relief as the bearing to the airplane shifted. If it wasn’t headed this way, than there was a chance the pilot hadn’t noticed the bubble on the beach.

He would have to figure out if there was a way to tell them to move their bubble. Maybe they could make it completely transparent, or something. He was isolated enough that he had a little warning before anyone showed up, but they might want to re-think their location in the future. He’d have to bring a map, maybe show them better coordinates. A familiar dread began creeping in. At some point—maybe the next time they met—he would have to teach her the word for danger. He glanced back at the weapons. Maybe they would do for teaching purposes, if she left them here.

Dale quickly put on a false smile, hoping she didn’t notice his concern. It wouldn’t do to have her—or her companions—think of him as anything less than a willing participant in this endeavor.

He had two books left in his bag, and couldn’t decide which one to present first. On one hand, he wanted to be sure they got the book on anatomy, since he was certain that would reduce the chance of himself—or anyone else—becoming an unwilling test subject. The down side was that he didn’t know half the words in the book, and he could hardly explain it to her here on the beach. Her companions might know what to make of it, though. Since their outer appearance was roughly similar to earthly beings, perhaps their insides were, too. They must have doctors aboard their ship.

The other option was the book on astronomy. While there was a lot in it that he also couldn’t explain, he was sure it would be something she would instantly recognize. He knew that she probably wouldn’t be able to point out where she lived right away, since the view of stars from earth was surely much different than theirs. Maybe she’d bring it back, though, with a single star circled. That would really be something.

It wasn’t the most detailed book he could find, but it did offer one advantage over all the others—it was filled with glossy photos of the Solar System and stars and comets—but only had one single photo of a manned spacecraft, the iconic image of the first Lunar landing. He hoped that they would see this book and assume that humanity had traveled to all those planets. Once they knew enough to communicate on a more sophisticated level, he could admit that they had not yet accomplished long-distance manned space missions yet.

He chuckled, imagining when all of this was revealed the sudden boost in funding NASA was likely to get. Long-shelved ideas were likely to get dusted off and re-imagined.

Dale flipped past the introductory section—they probably didn’t need to discuss what the Universe was, after all—and jumped right in to the Solar System. Some of it was what they would have seen as they came in.

While only a day of close-up contact had familiarized neither with the other’s body language, Dale could still tell that she was completely puzzled by the pictures. He pointed to the sun, then the picture of it in the book.

She followed his motion, but seemed to be utterly flummoxed, and he didn’t have the slightest idea how to explain it to her. Since it was a book on stars and planets, there weren’t any daytime pictures of a normal sky with the sun in it to use as a visual aid. He tried mimicking her sun-rising motion with his head, following the sun through its track, but she still looked confused. Finally, skipping ahead a few pages, he came to the moon, and watched her eyes brighten.

He patiently—using some of his newly learned vocabulary—indicated that the craters and other lunar features were on the moon, pointing to a picture, than back to the full image of the moon. She eventually seemed to understand, occasionally looking at the sky curiously.

Of course, it was his luck that it was a new moon, so there wasn’t one to see in the sky. Twenty-eight days ago, there hadn’t been one, either. Who was to say that their planet had a moon at all? Or that it was limited to one?

He started to flip to pictures of the planets, but again, she gave no indication that she understood the significance of them at all. He tried pointing to their orbits, but that was of little help, either.

He had assumed that any crew member aboard a spaceship would have some knowledge of the space they traveled in, but maybe not. If it were big enough, maybe everyone had their own special roles to fill. He wondered if the boiler crew of an ocean liner had the slightest idea where the ship was at any given moment.

But that thought was ridiculous. Even if the normal crew didn’t pay much attention to the navigation, they would hardly send some entirely clueless crewmember to a planet’s surface, would they? And if—by some oversight—they had, they wouldn’t send the same crewmember back again, they would send someone competent.

Unless there were good reason. Dale sat thoughtfully for a moment. What if this was a specialist in alien contact? Maybe she suffered from nutty-professor syndrome, and never paid much attention to where they were going or how they got there? There were human parallels: Newton and Einstein came to mind immediately.

It would explain how she was such a quick learner. There was probably a whole gang waiting for whatever she brought back.

With that thought in mind, he reached into his backpack for his final gift—a brand new copy of Gray’s Anatomy. Using words that he remembered them exchanging, he flipped it open to a random page, pointed to the illustration, and said, “In Dale.” He repeated this several times, but she didn’t really seem to understand until he pointed to series of photographs illustrating hand posture, then turned the page to a cutaway left hand. Her eyes brightened as she looked at his hands thoughtfully, then back at the book.

He carried it over and set it beside her saddlebags; a clearer gesture that it was a gift than any other than he had made thus far. He couldn’t see how she was going to fit it in, but he didn’t want to offend her by re-arranging her saddlebags himself.

The tower controller was worried. He looked up at the clock. It had been well over an hour since Jennifer had left. With some pilots, that wouldn’t bother him at all. She was—well, prudent—and was hardly one to forget to close a flight plan. If she had landed. He’d heard her call the Coast Guard helicopter—which earned her a silent thumbs-up—but nothing since.

It never hurt to be overly careful, he decided. He picked up the phone and punched in a familiar series of digits.

“United States Coast Guard Air Station Traverse City, how may I direct your call?”

“Hey, it’s Pat in the control tower. Listen, I’ve got a Piper twin that was headed out to South Fox, and I haven’t heard from her in a while. Your boys still playing out in the water?”

The ensign chuckled. “State secrets, Pat.”

“I’ll buy you a beer.”

“Roger that. I’ll let flight ops know. No transponder or rescue beacon?”

“Nope.” Pat paused. “No reason to think anything’s gone wrong. Probably have your boys check the runway first, then work their way around.”

“You got it.”

Within minutes, the message had gone up through the usual channels. Lt. Calley—who desperately wished for a promotion—acknowledged the radio call from base, and within moments, the Dauphin was racing northwest.

The sky was still cloudless, and the sun still up, so it was no great effort on their part to discern that there was a twin-engined plane sitting on the ramp, but nevertheless, they flew closer.

“That’s the plane that flew by us earlier,” Calley confirmed, lowering his binoculars. He looked down at his kneeboard to make sure the N-number matched.

“Ah, okay, that’s it. Should notify base that she’s landed.”

“Shouldn’t we land? I mean, what if she’s hurt or something?”

The pilot looked over at Calley, then back at the other two ensigns in the helicopter. They both shrugged.

“All right, Calley. I’d rather not land, but let’s move in closer. If she’s okay, there’s no way she won’t hear us coming.” He pushed the cyclic forward, and cautiously approached the runway. “See if you can get her on Unicom.”

“Unicom, right.” Calley made the adjustment to his radio, while the pilot radioed their intentions back to the air station. “I’ve got—“

“There she is,” the pilot interrupted.

Jennifer looked up at the helicopter. Calley leaned against the window and tapped his helmet by his ears. She looked at him blankly for a moment, before suddenly reaching inside her plane.

“—you read?”

“Yeah,” She stepped back outside with the handheld. “Sorry, Coast Guard. I lost my radio on the way in, and the portable crapped out on me, too.” She paused. “I guess it’s working again now.”

“Do you need any assistance?”

“No, negative.” It would be nice to have them escort her back—just in case the radios quit again—but she still had to finish unloading. It probably would take more than an hour, and then she’d be getting back around nightfall—not really the best time to have to worry about problems with the airplane. Even if the Coast Guard was flying behind her. “I’ll fly back tomorrow morning. If the radio’s still giving me trouble, I’ll land at Torchport and call from the ground.”

“Affirmative. Good luck.” Calley signed off, and nodded to the pilot. He rolled the Dauphin to its side in a climbing turn.

She sighed as it flew off. She hoped she didn’t come off as a fool, but she’d checked the radios repeatedly after landing, and they hadn’t worked. Now they did. Odd.

Even though there were still a few hours of light left, they’d learned themselves out for one day. Dale’s hand was cramping again, and Lyra’s head was drooping with fatigue. His voice was hoarse, and her stomach had grumbled a few times already.

Lyra rolled up her scrolls neatly, and managed to jam them in her over-filled saddlebags. The quills were worn out, so she just left them on the beach. It was nice to not have to worry about them staining her parchment. Since she was about to go home, she felt no need to conserve her magic anymore, and took the easy course of levitating her saddlebags onto her back. A quick spell cinched the girth strap tightly, and she was ready to go.

As she walked towards the bubble—giant tome of anatomy floating on front of her—she glanced back once. Dale was still sitting on the beach, watching her leave. She realized she hadn’t remembered to pick up the peace-weapons, but it didn’t matter.

Lyra sighed. She was going to have to spend all day tomorrow going over things with Twilight, the princesses, and Celestia knew who else, and then another day here—she would have to make time to get some of Zecora’s throat lozenges if she expected to have any voice left.

She moved to the center of the bubble and relaxed her mind. She could feel the fine thread maintaining the spell slip loose, and in a flash, she was back on the barge.

She hadn’t realized how tense she’d been all day until the familiar sounds and smells of Ponyville washed over her. The air seemed brighter and thicker than it had on Dale’s world, and she didn’t feel as alone as she had there. She remembered this morning when she had been nervous on the barge, but right now it was almost as comfortable as her couch.

She shot up three green sparks, which was the all-clear signal. Within moments, two pegasi were gliding down from the clouds, ready to tow her back to shore. Lyra could have helped by pulling up the anchor ropes, but she really didn’t feel like it. Instead, she lay down on the smooth deck, taking deep breaths to wash away the day’s tensions.

She would have to go to the library first, to drop off everything she’d gotten from Dale. No doubt Twilight would want to start discussing it right away, but she was going to get a tall hay smoothie, the chocolaty-est cupcake she could find, and go to the spa, and she wasn’t going to leave until Aloe and Lotus had gotten every grain of sand out of her mane, fur, and tail. Then—and only then—would she be ready to talk.

Author's Note

Thanks to my pre-readers: Humanist, my parents, Woonsocket Wrench, and my brother

More info can be found here, in my blog.

Chapter 8: Analysis

Celestia Sleeps In
Chapter Eight—Analysis
Admiral Biscuit

Freshly bathed and groomed, Lyra sat in the central room of the library. Unsurprisingly, Twilight and Luna had been unable to keep their hooves off the materials she’d brought back, and were currently discussing the book with numbers. True to form, the Princess and the unicorn both had notepapers out, and quills floated in their auras.

“Have you come to any conclusions?” Lyra asked sarcastically, tilting her head towards the pile of paper.

“The object—or objects—on each page change. Presumably, the letter written on the page is its label for the object. So, this is a symbol it uses to represent a cookie. This represents birds—“

Lyra sighed. “No, it’s a book for counting. See, there’s one cookie, two birds, and so on.”

“Why doth it have a book for counting?”

Armed with this new information, Twilight quickly flipped through the book and closed it. “It uses this book to count to ten?”

“It can count higher than that,” Lyra countered, shuffling through her own notes. “It—um, hold on—counted to—let’s see, seventeen sixty-eight minus two times one forty-four—fourteen eighty, I think. It doesn’t count right. It adds a second digit at ten.”

“Prithee, why doth it do so?”

“Well, I think that since he has ten digits on its talons, and—“

Twilight interrupted her. “One thousand. You did your math wrong.”

Lyra rolled her eyes. “All right, one thousand. Anyway, he has ten digits on his talons, and ten more on his hind paws. I think his kind probably counted on their foretalons. The words for the numbers reach a semi-regular pattern after twelve, and a fully-regular pattern at twenty. It probably counted each big paw digit individually, and grouped the rest together.”

“But ten isn’t a very logical stopping point. It must be terrible at math. It can’t divide evenly by three or four. Its foals must have a terrible time learning fractions.” Twilight shuddered. “A third would be endlessly repeating. At least with our number system, only sevenths have that property.” She scribbled for a moment on a scrap of parchment. “It does with ten, too. Oh, that’s interesting! I wonder if my math professor knows?”

She looked back at the other two ponies staring at her in bewilderment and blushed. “Er, but that’s not important right now.”

“Our ancestors used to count in fours,” Luna proclaimed. “This was the primary hoof, this the second, this the third, and this the fourth.” She lifted each hoof in turn. “Unicorns found this unsatisfactory, and came up with a tripartite hoof model—the interior heel, exterior heel, and the toe. We and our sister mandated that system be used exclusively forthwith, although some more rustic enclaves of Earth Pony society still insist on using the quarter system, despite its obvious limitations. Some evidence of it lingers yet, such as the four cardinal points.”

“This creature only has four digits on its talons, and three on its hind paws,” Twilight stated, tapping the book. “But you said it had ten digits—five per talon.”

“He doesn’t look anything like that.” Lyra pointed at the black book Dale had identified gross anatomy from. “A drawing of his type is in here.” She started flipping through the book.

Luna held up a hoof. “Hold, please. Canst thou give us a summary of thy meeting?”

Lyra sighed. She really just wanted to go to bed, but of course Luna and Twilight just had to know—right now—how her meeting with Dale had gone.

“He had difficulty with the peace symbols,” she began. “He looked at them for a long time. I’m not sure he even understood what they were, at first. He eventually pantomimed re-breaking the spear, to illustrate his peaceful intentions.”

“When he came over, I showed him the first book—the one that’s in all the languages. He didn’t understand any of them.”

“We expected that,” Twilight interrupted.

“But he did spend a lot of time studying it. We exchanged names, too. I didn’t understand what he was getting at right away, although I should have expected it. After all, it’s the civilized thing to do.

“After that, we went through the alphabet. He started with his own. It has fifty-two letters, although there are apparently only twenty-six distinct letters, each with two forms. I had to use a voice-lowering spell to make myself understood. Then we ate lunch.”

“What doth the creature eat?”

“He had a sandwich with some kind of flesh on it.”

“Is it a predator?” Twilight looked concerned.

“No, I think it eats carrion.” She thought for a moment. “I gave him a carrot, which he kept. After lunch, he showed me his calendar, and we decided to meet again in two days. Then he revealed a book which is apparently a reading primer for his foals, and we went through that.

“He demonstrated verbs, and I mimicked them, to show that I understood. At one point, he was demonstrating the verb for jump, and I tried to jump like he did—off his hind legs—and fell forward. Instead of moving back, he stepped forward.”

She had felt her balance go, just as her hind hooves had come up off the sand. Reacting instinctively, she leaned forward so that she would land on all four hooves, and cast a slowing spell. Suddenly, he had darted towards her. Before she could even react, she had accidentally struck him with a hoof, and knocked him off-balance, too. Instead of trying to roll, and land with his legs under him, he grabbed for her, pulling her into a tight embrace. She felt her heart racing—it might only be a fraction of a second before she felt teeth on her throat—as the two of them fell. Every instinct was telling her to defend herself, but she remembered Princess Celestia’s words, and did nothing but close her eyes, waiting for the inevitable. Maybe it isn’t a carrion eater. Maybe it prefers fresh meat—fresh ponies. Even with him pinning her against his chest, she could feel that her slowing spell was working. His talons were digging into her fur—something she had never felt before. She could still smell his meal on his breath.

“He grabbed me—I thought he was going to hurt me. My hooves were pinned—but he didn’t. We finished the books, then moved on to counting. Next, I used the marbles. I had to use my magic—I couldn’t move the marbles with my muzzle. At first, he cowered away. He seemed afraid of the marbles.

“After we had finished, he brought out a large book which has a drawing of his anatomy, and named all the parts. He let me take the book, but I think he wants me to bring it back. We were only able to go over a few pages, because it was getting late.

“He brought out another book, which has pictures of the moon and stars, and other things that I couldn’t identify. We looked through that. He seemed to be expecting it to look familiar to me, but it didn’t. Then, he gave me a giant book which he seemed to indicate revealed what was inside of him. A—I don’t know what it would be called.”

“Luna and I looked through that while you were at the spa,” Twilight admitted. “We can make nothing of many of the pictures.”

“I’m sure he is having the same difficulty. I gave him a copy of Your Home, and he seemed confused by the first page.”

“What’s not to understand?” Twilight waved a hoof around. “There’s a lead mare, organizer, guardian, scout, stallion, filly, colt, and foal. A typical, traditional herd.” She rolled her eyes in thought. “Well, at least as Kinstrong described it. The older Tripartite herd model would simply group the—“

“There we are,” Lyra interrupted. “This is a drawing of his—of Dale’s anatomy. Let me get my notes.

“This is called hair,” she began. “Roughly the same as our manes. He had a beard, although the drawing does not have one.” She moved a piece of straw around to show the area it covered.

Finally reaching the bottom of the drawing, Lyra yawned. “His hind paws are called feet. He covered them from here to here with its fetlock corsets.” She turned an ear, hearing the town clock chime twelve times. “I’m exhausted. I’m going to bed.”

“We shall stay up organizing thy notes,” Luna stated.

“I’ll help you,” Twilight said brightly.

“Nay, Twilight Sparkle, thou must rest. We and our sister know how thou dost behave when thou dost miss thy rest.” The princess turned towards Lyra. Unseen, Twilight stuck out her tongue and blew a very quiet raspberry. “Lyra Heartstrings, thou hath done thy realm proud this day. We grant thee a most pleasant night.”

“Thank you, Princess.” Lyra nodded, covering another yawn. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Dale sat in his camp chair, notebooks strewn across a folding table—one of the odder things he’d ever transported in his canoe. Nothing about this trip is normal, he reminded himself.

He was repeating the pronunciation of the words he had learned over and over again. It was hard not to cheat, since the English was written right next to each word. He wished he’d thought to bring flash cards with him. Or a tape recorder. But that wouldn’t work, because of the field.

His mind started turning. What if he built a small Faraday cage, just big enough to hold a tape recorder? The microphone could be placed outside the cage, and the wire could be shielded right to the cage itself. In fact, the microphone could also be kept in the cage. The sound waves would pass right through, but the interference probably wouldn’t.

If she brought the visual dictionary back, he could show her a picture of a tape recorder, and ask if she would mind. He could have brought it with him to the island, and left it at his campsite until he got permission. Dale sighed. This was too big a thing for one man to handle alone. Sooner or later, he was going to have to ask for help.

They were going to have to start meeting on the mainland, too. While this was a good beginning solution, he could hardly be expected to live out here, canoeing back and forth for supplies every now and then. When winter came, there was no way he could safely get to the island. If he’d thought to bring a map, he could have showed her where he lived, and shown her that they were on a remote island.

Looking at his pages of notes, he frowned. He’d been wishing that they’d have a universal translator. Or a tricorder, or something suitably sci-fi. He still held out a faint hope that they’d needed a day of contact with him to pin down what language he spoke, but for that he would have thought they would want to bring down a recording device.

How do I know they didn’t bring a recorder? It could have been concealed in her bags, or even on her body. He had hardly looked over her for hidden wires, after all. He smiled, imagining a team of lab-coated scientists going over the recording, analyzing every frame.

Dale sighed, pushing the notebook away from him. He wanted to keep working on the words, but he simply couldn’t. His vision was blurring, and the Coleman lantern wasn’t the best thing to read by.

He put all his notebooks in Ziploc bags, then closed them in a metal Craftsman toolbox—the former home of his combination wrenches. A couple of rocks he’d found and thrown in the box made certain that it wasn’t going to get snatched up by some curious creature on the island—and if anything happened to him, it would probably be found, eventually. Granted, it would probably appear to be the rantings of a madman, but that couldn’t be helped. Eventually, they’d surely reveal themselves to someone else, and then the notes would be quite useful.

The two books she’d brought also fit nicely. If she kept bringing books this size, he’d do all right. If she brought some the size of Gray’s Anatomy—well, he’d worry about that if it happened.

The carrot—now labeled “Do Not Eat” in Sharpie—reposed in his cooler. Hopefully there was nothing on it that could get through a plastic bag and contaminate the rest of his food.

The three weapons were stacked neatly in his tent. He intended to bring them back to the beach before her next visit. His tent was unusually crowded. Dale tended to only bring what he actually needed on a camping trip, but this time he’d packed enough supplies for a month. If he left early, he planned to cache the extras around the island, to keep things simpler for future visits.

He sat with his feet outside the tent and took off his boots and socks. The boots he set by the flap, then zipped it closed. The socks went in his dirty laundry bag. Pants and shirt came off next; those he folded and placed on top of his duffel bag. They were clean enough to wear for another few days.

Now clad in just a t-shirt and boxers, he slid into his sleeping bag. He had thought the adrenaline high would have worn off, but it hadn’t. Dale tossed and turned half the night, before he finally fell into a deep sleep.

Twilight had become well-known throughout Ponyville for her ability—when a project of sufficient interest was involved—to awaken well before anypony else, and to be fully-alert, groomed, breakfasted, and out the door of the library, ready to go at a ludicrously early hour. It was, in fact, an ability in which Twilight took a great deal of pride.

However, early is a relative term; unfortunately, Twilight’s houseguest was the Princess of the Night. Thus it was at five a.m. a hoof began mercilessly prodding Twilight.

“Mmm, just five more minutes, mom,” Twilight muttered, rolling away from the offending limb.

Luna, unwilling to brook any resistance, simply levitated Twilight out of bed and unceremoniously dropped her on the floor—admittedly, only from a height of six inches.

“Make haste, Twilight Sparkle, for we hath much to discuss with thee.” The alicorn began shoving Twilight across the floor of her bedroom, but quickly grew impatient, lifted her over the balcony and deposited her on the main floor of the library.

“We have prepared thee breakfast.” Luna floated a bowl of carrots in front of the woozy unicorn.

Twilight—barely awake—noticed Luna dancing back and forth on her hooves impatiently and suddenly had a horrible vision of being force-fed carrots if she failed to eat them on her own. Despite them not being her ideal breakfast fare, she choked them down as quickly as possible. At least Luna has the patience to let me finish eating. I’d better not ask her to give me five minutes to comb my mane, though. “What’s the hurry?” Twilight muttered around a mouthful of half-chewed carrot. The sun isn’t even up.”

“Certes, we are aware.” Luna looked down at the neatly-stacked books. “However, we feel that some additional expertise would not go amiss with the volume of information we have received. It would do us well to explore it as thoroughly as possible before Lyra Heartstrings returns to meet with the creature on the morrow. ‘Twould be an insult to ourselves and the creature did we not.

“We have made notes on the materials, and we have decided whom we should have provide assistance.” Luna began rummaging through her notes. “We feel that Rarity Belle should be able to provide the most information on the clothing.” She pronounced Belle as if it were a question.

“I think it’s simply Rarity,” Twilight commented. “I’ve never heard her use a second name before.”

“We had thought—her sister.” Luna furrowed her brow. “Perhaps unicorns do things differently these days. We confess, we are more accustomed to nobles giving their names as doth your brother.”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “How, exactly, does my brother give his name?”

“Prince Mi Amore Cadenza son of Twilight Velvet, Captain of the Royal Guard.”

Twilight looked at her flatly.

“’Tis how the heralds announce him. Surely, thou dost not suggest that we should fail to state his full title.”

“I just call him ‘Shiny,’” Twilight muttered. The look of horror on Luna’s face was its own reward.

“Thou hast ruined our language and maketh light of pony’s titles. Thou doth celebrate a holiday designed to mock us. Art nothing sacred to thee?”

“Cheesecake?” Twilight offered. “We still really, really respect a good cheesecake.”

Luna rolled her eyes. “Cheesecake. We rue the passing of our formerly civilized society.” She looked Twilight in the eyes. “How could we expect them to appreciate our night, when they only appreciate cheesecake?”

“We do appreciate the night. All the girls came out to watch the meteor shower, and there there were a bunch of other ponies there, too.”

“Do they often come by thy observatory?” Luna tilted her head towards the balcony where Twilight’s telescope currently resided.

“Well . . . Pinkie Pie has.”

A silence grew between the two, until Twilight finally cleared her throat. “So, Rarity’s going to look at the clothing. Who else were you thinking?”

“We believe thy town hath a pony who art extremely qualified with small animals, and we would have her study the drawings in this book which are clearly creatures.” She looked at her notes. “Doctor Mane Goodall—she did receive very high marks at Manehatten University. For drawings of buildings—Mister Bucky Fuller art the most qualified architect of whom we are aware, and he art very discrete. He shall arrive on the morning train. Finally—canst thou trust thy friend Pinkemena Pie to keep a secret?”

“If she Pinkie-promises,” Twilight muttered, still trying to get her head into the conversation.

“Than we shall have her do so, and she shall puzzle out cooking implements.” The princess marked a line on her notes. “There are many other items drawn in this book of which we hath no knowledge: creations which are unique to the world the creature occupies, and for which we hath no words. At a later date, we must attempt to understand their function and come up with descriptive words.” Her eyes lit at the prospect.

“This tome, we are given to understand, contains complete information of the biology of the creature.” She lifted it carefully. “We intend to take it back to Canterlot with us, where the most experienced professors might go through it, that we should gain an understanding of the creature’s fundamental make-up.”

“This book, in its second half, is filled with images of the night sky. We know that thou takest a greater interest in our sky than most ponies.” She sighed regretfully. “Wouldst thou take it as thy personal task, to explore this book?”

“I would be glad to,” Twilight said eagerly. “Will you help me?”

“We regret we cannot. We must return to Canterlot ere long. Our sister is unaware we stayed abroad throughout our night.”

Twilight’s face fell.

“Be sure to report to our sister all that thou hast learned, in the usual way.” The alicorn began walking up the stairs towards the balcony. “We have arranged our notes in a readily-understood fashion. Thou wilt have no difficulty, we are sure. We wish to return after the gloaming, that we and thee may study the astronomical charts together.”

The princess stood on the balcony, wings spread. Unexpectedly, she turned back towards Twilight. “Oh, we forgot to tell thee—as Lyra Heartstrings used musical notation throughout, we felt we ought to find a suitable interpreter. Thus, Octavia Van Clef shall also be on the morning train. Good day!” She leapt off the balcony, teleporting away as soon as she was clear.

Why don’t the princesses teleport from a standing spot? Twilight stared out the open doors in bemusement, before remembering the last words from the princess. A moment later, she was in the bathroom, frantically trying to coax her tangled mane to lie flat.

Lyra pushed her blankets off, squinting against the early morning sun streaming through the curtains. Much to her surprise, the smell of coffee was wafting up from downstairs. She sniffed the air thoughtfully, picking out the more subtle smells of biscuits and oatmeal.

Using a hoof-mirror, she brushed her mane—a simpler task than usual. Apparently, the spa ponies had some way of making it mostly stay in order, even after a night’s sleep. Smiling, she made her way downstairs. Bon Bon never made breakfast.

“Morning,” Bon Bon muttered blearily. “I made coffee.” She was sipping her own cup out of a hoof-friendly mug, struggling to keep awake. Her mane was a tangled mess, and dough was splattered on her fur.

“You didn’t have to,” Lyra commented, pouring her own glass.

“I wanted—you’re going to be gone all day, aren’t you?”

“Probably.” Lyra blew on the cup before taking a sip. “Twilight and I have a lot of material to cover. Princess Luna is even helping.”

“I just wish—“ Bon Bon set her mug down. “I know it’s selfish of me, and I know you have a strong sense of duty. But, I liked it better before all this. It was simpler. We had a routine.” She looked sadly at the filthy countertops. “Now look—the kitchen’s a mess, and you’re not going to have time to clean it up. I’ve got baking to do, but I put my last dram of vanilla in the oatmeal, so I’ll have to go get more when the market opens.”

“I’m sure they’ll have some at Sugarcube Corner,” Lyra muttered. “I can get some before I go to the library. Twilight won’t be up yet.” She took another sip of coffee. “Who am I kidding. Twilight’s probably been up for hours. How much vanilla do you need?”

Bon Bon tapped her hoof on the table. “Well, a couple of dozen drams. If they’ve got an extra fifth, that would be ideal. I can get some at the market later, to pay them back.”

“Princess Celestia can’t want me to stop everything in my life,” Lyra declared. “If I’m a little late to meet with Twilight, so be it. I’m doing all the hard work and taking all the risks.” She pointed a hoof at Bon Bon. “You should wash up. I’ll clean up, and ask the Cakes if they’ve got any extra vanilla before I go to the library.”

“Coming!” Rarity quickly ran a brush through her mane. The sun was hardly up, and it was way too early for customers. That’s the peril of living at your place of business. She’d just finished making lunch for Sweetie Belle—her parents were in Canterlot—and was halfway finished with their breakfast.

“Welcome to Carousal Boutique! Where—oh, good morning, Twilight.”

“I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“Of course not.” Rarity gestured with her hoof. “Please, come right in. Sweetie Belle is still asleep, but she should be up before too long. It is a school day.”

“Thank you.” Twilight stepped into the store, wiping her hooves carefully on the rug. “I hate imposing this early in the morning, but I’ve got a long list of tasks to accomplish, and only a single day. You know, of course, about the mysterious creature who Lyra has been meeting. I told you yesterday to remain close—just in case. Well, it turns out that the creature has given Lyra several books, and one of them includes a section on clothing. Luna naturally suggested that I should consult you.”

“I am quite flattered. Please—set the book on my workroom table. I need to finish Sweetie Belle’s breakfast and get my glasses, and I shall be happy to assist you. Oh—and do be sure to look at my new collection of hats. There’s one—it’s on the third ponykin—which would suit you perfectly. I could just put a small amethyst on the band.”

Rarity quickly set out breakfast, before walking upstairs to wake her sister. A few minutes later, Twilight heard water running upstairs, and Rarity came back down, a bejeweled glasses case floating in front of her. Twilight opened the book to one of the marked pages. “There’s over a dozen pages of clothing. Let me know what you think.”

Rarity frowned, adjusting her pince-nez. She flipped a few pages, cleared her throat, and looked Twilight in the eye. “I can make very little of these.”

“But—but you’re the best fashion designer in Equestria!”

Rarity tsked. “Oh, that’s kind of you to say, Twilight. Even if we both know it’s not true.” She tapped a hoof to the page. “These drawings are flat. I could work with that. I do work with that. But—you are asking me to identify clothing when I don’t even know what sort of creature wears it?”

“It’s—well, it’s hard to describe. There are a couple of different types, I think. There’s one that’s got red fur, and a pinkish one. The pink one is the type that Lyra’s been meeting with.” Twilight slid the book back towards herself. “There’s a drawing of it in here somewhere.” She began shuffling through pages.

“Really, this seems quite inefficient. Wouldn’t it be easier to unbind the book, give the relevant sections to each individual pony, and mend it tonight?”

“I can’t,” Twilight commented, still turning pages. “It’s got some kind of magic on it that makes the pages white and the drawings clear. It’s non-Equestrian magic, so I have no idea what sort of disruption I would cause by taking it apart.”

“Mm-hm.” Rarity looked at the book thoughtfully. “How about your copying spell?”

“It’s too many pages. It would take weeks of doing nothing else to—aha! Here we go.” She turned the book so Rarity could see the drawings.

“Presumably, the drawing is of the creature in a restful position. So, it normally stands on its hind legs, like a juvenile dragon.”

“Lyra said it’s about this tall, compared to an adult unicorn.” Twilight drew a line with her hoof on the page.

“About the same height as a tall Diamond Dog.” Rarity flipped to the next set of drawings. “This one is different. It has more curves. I wonder if it’s a mare?” Seeing the look on Twilight’s face, she continued, “Oh, please, Twilight, do tell me you know the difference between mares and stallions.”

“I—well, of course I do. What kind of question is that?”

Rarity half-closed her eyes. “Mares tend to have more rounded faces, softer muzzles, and slightly wider and rounder flanks, while stallions have sharper faces and are broader at the withers. It’s currently in fashion for stallions to have cropped tails, although these creatures apparently don’t have tails at all. Plus—“ she flipped the page back and pointed with her hoof. “Well, imagine if Big McIntosh were to stand on his hind hooves—what do you suppose this would be?”

Rarity didn’t notice Twilight’s reddening face, since she was poring over the drawing. Mistaking the silence for uncertainty, Rarity spoke again. “Oh, really, Twilight, I know you stay in and read a lot, but with all the time we spend at Sweet Apple Acres, surely you’ve seen him unshea—“

“Don’t say it!” Twilight looked up at her, cheeks burning. “Not—Big Mac—I just—not—just don’t.”

Rarity opened her mouth, but no words came out. On one hoof, she wanted to taunt Twilight like a schoolfilly. A few lines of Twilight and Big Mac laying by a tree would do it. On the other hoof, it was hardly something a lady would do, and Twilight was a close friend, which meant she probably shouldn’t even gossip. Maybe to Fluttershy at the spa would be all right, but nopony else.

She sighed, closed her mouth, and began thoughtfully examining the drawings of the skeletal system. “Not too different from our own,” she muttered. She stood on her hind hooves—she was one of the few unicorns in Ponyville who could make the maneuver look graceful—and experimentally moved her forelegs around. Satisfied, she happily flipped through the book until she returned to the section on clothing.

“Hmm, this looks like a peplos. Similar to ancient pegasus wear. It fastens here, with—um, if I remember right, it was called a tibula. Or was it a fibula? It’s named after a leg-bone. See how the forelimbs can pass through the wrap? It often draped all the way to the hind fetlocks, since upper-class pegasi did so little walking in those days.”

Twilight looked at her suspiciously. “Why is it you were unable to identify a single article of clothing five minutes ago, and you can now suddenly say with confidence what each article of clothing is called, and how it’s used?”

“My dear Twilight Sparkle.” Rarity looked at her critically. “Do you even understand what clothing is for?”

“Yes?”

“Simply, clothing is used to protect one from the elements, to accentuate beauty and conceal ugliness, to express the personality of the wearer, and as a status symbol. All clothing—at some level—performs these five functions.

“To be practical, clothing must be comfortable, and must not inhibit free movement. If you were cold, you could simply drape a quilt across yourself—and it would be an effective way to keep warm—but it would cause you to be unable to move with any grace whatsoever. Only the wealthiest and poorest of ponies wear clothing that does not fit them correctly.” Seeing the confused look on Twilight’s face, she elaborated. “Poor ponies have to wear hand-me-downs, you know that. Many of the wealthy ponies in Canterlot dress in designer clothing which was never meant for them, simply to impress.” Rarity shuddered. “Why, I remember seeing a mare at the Gala who was wearing a dress saddle that chafed her wings—one could see she was losing feathers.” She tapped the illustration of the peplos. “Now that I have seen the creature’s form, I can accurately describe this garment. I know the its proportions, so I know how long the garment is, and what it is.”

Whistling happily, she began to take notes, occasionally looking up to comment. She took a brief break to feed Sweetie Belle and send her out the door.

“I cannot properly name all these garments,” she finally declared, setting her quill down. “I doubt I have identified more than half—and I am likely wrong about many of those.

“I have, however, come to some determinations on the purpose of some of its clothing. Some of the clothes are obviously meant for mares, while others are meant for stallions. I can see a difference in the way they are cut.” She began motioning at her body. “They frequently separate top and bottom halves of their garb, around here. Much of their clothing appears to be designed to cover the bottom half of their bodies completely, nearly all the way to the ground.

“Their clothing also seems to generally cover to the withers, and some portion of the forelegs—most, all the way to their talons, it appears. Some of it is clearly meant to be worn in layers. They apparently pay great attention to the collar—there are three pages of sketches of different types of collar.

“They cover their hind paws with single-piece fabric coverings which range from fetlock-length to rising as high as the flanks. They are much like our socks. On the other hoof, almost all of their talon-covers leave the toes free to move. I can conclude that they primarily use their forelimbs, and hardly ever use their paws to grasp things. Much like Spike, really.

“Finally, it appears that their—presumable—mares often emphasize the curves at their flank and their brisket. Much of their clothing seems to be specifically cut to emphasize—even exaggerate—those areas.” She pushed her pile of notes towards Twilight.

“Here, take these with you. Most of this clothing looks decorative, without being overly ornate. To me, it suggests that these creatures prefer to wear clothing most of the time—perhaps all the time. If the drawings are an accurate representation, they have dozens of different materials that they normally use for their clothing. They appear to prefer brightly colored clothes, which tells me that they use them primarily to enhance their appearance, rather than for protection.”

Dale woke up after only four hours of sleep. He was still surprisingly alert and felt better than he had for years, except for his bruised shoulder. For a second, he forgot how it had happened, but then he remembered Lyra hitting him with a hoof.

He started to get dressed while cursing the confinement of tents. Suddenly, he remembered that he was alone on the island, and had no real reason to be overly modest. He stepped out of the tent in nothing but his underwear and proceeded to dress in comfort.

He hadn’t bothered with a fire the day before, and he didn’t feel like building one this morning, either. Instead, he switched the propane cylinder from his lamp to a single-burner stove and started warming water for his morning coffee.

Glancing overhead for a passing spaceship had now become a routine. However, the starry sky was devoid of mysterious objects. For a moment, he wished he still had the astronomy book—he could have tried to identify some of the more obscure constellations. If wishes were horses, beggars—did these creatures have riders? If you led them to water, would they drink? He snickered, thinking of her drinking out of the lake. He could hardly claim to have led her there, though.

Lyra was completely unsurprised to see Twilight waiting patiently in the library. The books—save the thick anatomy book—were neatly stacked on the table, and Lyra’s notes were arranged on one side. On the other, a pile of notes in Luna’s writing sat next to another sheaf written in a neat cursive. Twilight was scribbling on her own scroll.

“Morning,” Lyra chirped, “how long have you been up?”

“Since Luna force-fed me carrots,” she muttered, not pausing in her writing. “Already went to see Rarity, and had her work out what kind of clothing these creatures wear.” She waved a hoof at the notes in cursive. “I’m sort of consolidating the salient points right now, for a letter to the Princess. Luna said that we should have some help, and suggested a few ponies. I need you to go and get Dr. Goodall.”

“The vet?”

“Yeah.” She looked up from her writing. “No, on second thought, I’ll send Spike after he gets up. I think she liked him.”

“Is that all?”

“Nope. She also said that Pinkie Pie could help, and recruited a couple of ponies from Canterlot.” She frowned. “Bucky Fuller and—“

“Bucky Fuller? Isn’t he, like, the most sought-after architect in all of Canterlot? Maybe Equestria?”

Twilight shrugged. “I guess—that’s what she said. I’ve never had anypony build anything for me.” Twilight finished her scroll, blotted it, rolled it, sealed it, and floated it over to a basket, then looked back towards Lyra. “How much of this book did you go through?”

“Just where he named parts of his anatomy,” she said. “I wanted to go through more, but the day was getting late. He wants me to bring it back.”

“If we were to go through it right now, how much do you think you’d be able to recognize?”

Lyra frowned. “Probably nothing significant. If it’s something common, sure, I could name it. But I haven’t seen anything on his world other than the beach, yet.”

“Ok, we’ll let the ‘experts’ handle this book.” She pushed it aside and pulled up the calendar. “What about this?”

“It’s a calendar.” Lyra opened it to the first page. “It faces like this. See, here, on the bottom half of the page are days.”

Twilight flipped through it, studying the pages. “What are these pictures of?”

“Some kind of wagon, I think.” Lyra pointed. “Here’s the bed, and here’s a cab, where the teamster can sit. This front thing looks like a closed-in compartment. I can’t tell where a harness would go, though.”

“Strange thing to put on a calendar. It looks more like an art book to me,” Twilight muttered, continuing to turn pages. When she got midway through, she looked up in shock, left eyelid twitching. “It drew in it? Who does that?”

“I guess he wanted to make sure I knew what day we came last time. Don’t you write on your calender?”

“First, it’s a planner, not a calender. It’s meant to be written in. Secondly, if it were this carefully crafted, I wouldn’t write in it at all. I would hang this calender on the wall from this little hole, and look at it.” Twilight let out a shaking breath. “Perhaps they—or that creature—have no respect for books. It. Is. Not. Allowed. In. My. Library.” She shook her head. “How come it starts off on the first day of the first month, but then it gets irregular? This month has thirty-one days, then twenty-nine, then thirty-one again, then thirty . . . divided into seven-day sections . . . can’t these creatures even keep track of weeks and months properly? They’re not smart enough to figure out how to count to twelve, they have irregular months. If it weren’t for the quality of their printing, I’d think they lived in caves or something.”

“You’re being unfair.” Lyra looked critically at Twilight. “I didn’t even think of it until this morning, when Bon Bon had me get some vanilla.”

“Think of what?”

“You’re assuming that he’s not clever enough to increment at twelve, yet his words for the numbers do increment at twelve. How many different numbering systems do we use?”

“Only one, which goes from one to twelve.”

“Are you sure?” Lyra pointed a hoof at Twilight. “Because I got more vanilla for Bon Bon this morning from Sugarcube Corner. I’d never thought of it before, but she measures it out in drams, and it comes in fifths and half-fifths. She also measures out in cups and quarts—which, when you think about it, is eighths. So—she measures liquids in eighths and tenths, uses a different measurement system for dry ingredients, and if I bought her a necklace, it would be measured in grains. Suppose this creature also has a bunch of different numbering systems?

“I don’t do much cooking,” Twilight muttered. “But you’re right. I think those systems are Pegos in origin. Dry weights are Equuis, and grains is a unicorn adaptation of the Draconic system. I seem to remember the Griffons used a different system—Rainbow Dash would know—a lot of the weather notation comes from Griffon. I think they use ropes or cables or something for distance. But those are just units; they still use the same base.”

“What about thaums?”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Fine. The unicorn system of measuring magical energy is a base four logarithmic scale. But that shouldn’t count: it’s preunification. Luna said ponies hadn’t even invented base twelve yet.”

“But remember when we were deciding what language to teach him, if he didn’t know any in the books?” Lyra countered. “We chose Earth Pony, because it was the most commonly used, and because it was the simplest. Perhaps he uses different base systems for different purposes.

“Or—what’s important to us may not be to them.” Lyra scratched her head. “What if—when I noticed the night sky, it wasn’t done very well. Stars shifted about; there were flashing lights that moved. Perhaps we’re taking our civilization for granted.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well—you remember the stories of Hearth’s Warming Eve, and what preunification Equestria was like. We—everypony knows that the unicorns used to raise the sun, before Celestia graciously took the responsibility. But, how hard was it to control? Was it a few strong unicorns, or hundreds? Thousands? All of them? How good at it were they?

“What if these creatures don’t have a princess to take care of their sun and moon, but they have to do it themselves? Maybe it takes so much energy that they can’t keep it properly in order. Maybe this is the best they can do.”

Twilight began frantically scribbling on a piece of paper, occasionally consulting the calendar. After a minute, she looked up. “With three hundred sixty-six days, the only even lunar cycle they could have that makes any sense at all is sixty-one days.” She frowned. “It almost works—the months tend to be paired in thirty-one and thirty day groups. But the second month should have one more day, and the seventh should have one fewer. If that were the case, it would work. Although the pattern would go from long/short to short/long at the halfway point.”

“What if they took a day away from the second month because they didn’t like it?”

Twilight gave her a withering look. “The second month of spring? What’s not to like about it?”

“Ok, it’s not likely.”

“If it were two days shorter, it would match up with our lunar cycles perfectly. Then, they could have thirteen months with twenty-eight days each, like we do. It’s perfectly logical, and it would only take two days change. How difficult could that be for them to manage?”

Lyra threw up her hooves. “I don’t know, Twilight, I just don’t know. I know it’s frustrating and stupid, but maybe there’s a good reason why they have their calendar arranged in such an illogical manner. Maybe he keeps a different calendar than the others. I can’t say. When we have more successfully bridged the language gap, then I might ask him. What does it matter, anyway? They can keep track of days in whatever manner they wish.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” Twilight motioned at the books. “It’s so frustrating, to have all this information, yet to be entirely unable to understand most of it.”

Luna carefully nudged her tiara until it sat in its proper spot on her dresser. Her ornamental hoof-covers were already neatly arranged, and her peytral hung on a padded hook. She knew that somepony would be in to polish them—not that they needed to be polished—shortly after she fell asleep.

She joyfully leapt into her bed, belly-flopping in the center of the cloud. As much as she disliked all the supposed modern conveniences that had been placed in the castle, she had no complaints whatsoever about her bed. The cloud was the perfect thickness, kept perpetually warm. The sheets were silky-smooth, and the vast quantity of pillows could be arranged in any manner she desired. The thick velvet drapes kept light and sound out.

She didn’t really need to sleep. She could sustain herself simply with excess magical energy nearly indefinitely. However, she had found that it helped her memory to sleep, and it was something that ponies did. Her research had indicated that sleep also correlated to growth as well—both physical and magical.

She yawned, stretching her wings out. As her left wing brushed against the sheet, she gave a brief yelp. There was an annoyingly loose secondary feather which she’d completely forgotten about.

Luna tilted her head back, until she could spot the offending feather. She carefully grabbed it with her mouth, gently working it back and forth until it pulled lose. It was something that could be done with magic, but it somehow wasn’t as satisfying.

She twisted it back and forth in her magical field, studying it closely. It wasn’t something most pegasi bothered with, but she was always curious when she had a damaged feather.

Close examination revealed no obvious defects. The vane was damaged, no doubt from use. It probably was just the feather’s time to go—they didn’t last forever.

She set it on her dresser. The calamus was undamaged, so it would make a useful quill after she trimmed the end. There was no sense in letting it go to waste. She could even give it to Twilight. Old mare’s tales said that alicorn feathers gave magical properties to writing. That was just what they needed, some sort of magical understanding of the books that Lyra had gotten from the creature.

Luna rubbed her head. Of all the books, the only one which had made any sense whatsoever was the book of the night sky. The creature obviously had a great appreciation for it. While all the constellations were different—which was to be expected—there were a vast number of star charts. It was quite obvious that his planet moved much more than Equestria—the quantity of charts revealed that.

More importantly, the book was obviously very valuable. Every single page had photographs on it, and even the paper was as white as freshly-fallen snow. It had probably taken a craftspony months to make—yet he freely gave it to Lyra.

She smiled as she pulled the hanging drapes closed. Any creature which has that much love for its night sky is my friend. She could hardly wait to go through the book with Twilight. The unicorn’s well-intentioned professors had doubtless taught her all they knew about the night sky, but they only knew it from books and a few telescope observations. They’d never felt the gentle pull of the moon, or performed the complicated spells to tug asteroids into orbit. She could teach Twilight so much. . . .

“He seemed to hold this book in high regard,” Lyra said. “He certainly expected recognition from me.”

“Luna and I looked through it. She wanted me to study the stellar charts,” Twilight said proudly.

“He showed me those, too. But that’s not what he showed me first.” She flipped past the opening, finally pointing to a picture. “The first thing he pointed to was this.”

Twilight squinted at the image, studying it closely. “It looks like a patchy orange ball,” she finally said. “It’s cut away and has different layers. Obviously, it’s a cross-sectional drawing which matches the photographs on these pages. I just don’t know what it is supposed to represent.”

She flipped a couple of pages. “Those are telescopes. It looks like—these creatures have talons like Spike, so it looks like it is putting a cover, or maybe a filter on the telescope, although I can’t imagine why it would. Distant objects are hard enough to see, and a filter would just cut the light that came through the eyepiece.” She kept turning pages. “Well, that’s the moon; there’s no mystery there. Those look like craters and such on the moon. They seem to have named them. Odd. And—wait.”

Twilight looked carefully at one of the pictures, before looking excitedly up at Lyra. “They’ve visited their moon! They’ve been on it! They must have a spell like the one we’re using.” She looked wistfully out the window. “I’ll have to ask the Princess if I can visit our moon. I don’t think anypony ever has.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve never read any account of any of the great unicorns having done so,” Twilight said. “I’m surprised Clopurnicus didn’t try it. He and Starswirl the Bearded were contemporaries, and—well, clearly Starswirl’s spell allows travel to distant planets. The moon should have been comparatively easy.”

“No, I mean how do you know that they have?”

Twilight began pointing to photographs. “These are not significantly different than what I can see through a telescope.” She paused. “Ok. Remember when you were at the Cloudaseum. When you looked over the edge, you saw Equestria below you, and you saw everything from above—the tops of trees, the tops of lakes, and so on. If you looked out at an angle, you’d see some definition to things—you can see that a tree is taller than a rock, maybe, but it’s skewed, because you’re looking from above.

“Now, that’s what everything on the moon looks like through a telescope. Since it’s spherical, it provides some perspective for you, but you’re still looking from above. Well, technically below, but the analogy is still apt.” She tapped on a picture. “You can see that these are craters, and you can see the shadows and highlights show the high and low spots, but there really isn’t much definition. The distance alone causes some distortion.

“But this picture here—this is a side shot. It looks like a picture taken from the surface—like a picture of a rock on the beach, taken from the beach. You can see the surface and the sky.” She looked at it thoughtfully. “But the sky is dark. There should be stars visible. I don’t know why there aren’t.”

She turned a few more pages. “I can make nothing of this. At first, I thought they were all moons—one like our own, and seven more that are different. Why they would have eight moons is beyond me. Maybe that’s why their calendar is so confusing. But each one has a drawing of it circling the orange ball that started the chapter. There’s something more here. There’s another one with surface pictures—a reddish one. It looks like a desert”

“For all we know, it could be rules for a game they play,” Lyra muttered. “I suppose I’ll have to ask him, once we get over the language barrier.”

“It’s not rules for a game.” Twilight stamped her hoof down. “This whole book is concerned solely with objects in their night sky. I don’t understand all of them, but they’re there for a reason.

“The back of the book is star charts. That’s obvious. There are very many of them, which makes sense. Luna’s sky looks different from different places. She usually makes constellations to be viewed from Canterlot, but she’s done others for special occasions. I think she did a whole tableaux for Zebrican independence, although it couldn’t properly be viewed from here.”

“Why not? Don’t the stars look the same wherever you are?”

“Of course not! Most of the stars are really far away. Dozens of millions of miles, or maybe more. We don’t really know. Clopernicus thought that all the stars were like our sun, but a long ways away. Apparently, he convinced Princess Celestia to experiment, and she could tell they were the same. She couldn’t do anything with them—since they were so far—but she apparently flared one while he was observing it with his telescope. It took days before he saw a glimmer.

“Luna arranges asteroids, but they’re much closer. Like from here to Las Pegasus, but up in the sky. From the ground, they look the same, but they aren’t.”

“Why wouldn’t they look the same?”

“Because . . . wait, I think I figured it out.” Twilight flipped the book back a few pages. “Princess Celestia told me once that the sun wasn’t solid at all. It was burning liquid, I think she said. Like an oil lamp. So, this is a sun—they’re its sun. This picture shows the layers of it. And next is the moon, of course. Very logically arranged.

“So, the next pages are . . . other planets? They show a sun in the drawing. I’m not sure what the ellipse the planet is on is supposed to represent, though. It could be some kind of coordinate system, or represent magical fields or leylines. I’ll want to be sure to discuss this with Luna, too.” She nestled a bookmark between the pages.

“The red planet is one they’ve visited, too. There are a bunch of pictures taken from its surface. They’ve been close to some of the other ones, too.” She kept turning pages. “I don’t see any other surface photographs, but they’ve been close to them, unless they have really powerful telescopes.” She looked at Lyra, eyes sparkling. “The only planet I’ve ever seen—besides our own, of course—appears as little more than a black dot, and can only clearly be seen when its sun is behind it. With the most powerful telescope I have, it’s smaller than a flea. Of course, there are much more powerful telescopes in Canterlot, but they won’t let just anypony use them. I’ve seen a few drawings of other planets. Even then, they are hardly larger than—than one of your marbles. Unless they’re very tiny, they are far, far away.”

“What about the asteroids? I’m still confused about that.”

“They’re just little rocks that fly around,” Twilight explained. “Sometimes, they fall to earth, but they’re called meteors then. Didn’t you watch the shower a couple of years ago? I remember I saw Bon Bon there. Before Luna started collecting them, some of the bigger ones crashed into the ground and caused all sorts of problems. In fact, there’s an old mare’s tale that says that the eternal winter wasn’t caused by Windigos, but a big meteor that crashed out in the desert.”

“Um, ok.” Lyra scratched her head. “I meant—well, you said something about Luna’s stars not looking the same from different places on the ground? I don’t understand that.”

“Oh! It’s because of changing perspective.”

Lyra looked at her blankly.

“You’ve been by Sweet Apple Acres. All the trees are planted in neat rows. But, when you’re walking up the road, they only line up when you’re parallel to the rows. As you move, they seem to form diagonal lines, then no pattern, than straight lines again. Just like Luna’s stars.”

“She puts them in straight lines?”

“No, she . . . are your marbles still in your saddlebags? I can show you.”

Dale sat on his cooler, poring over the book Lyra had given him. He had already made several attempts at pronouncing the words, and tried to remember their meaning. He had finally written them in Sharpie on one side of a notebook page, with the translations on the back. It was difficult going—he had to keep reminding himself to be precise. Clearly, the accents made all the difference between many of the words.

What had been even more frustrating was that the words looked short, but they were pronounced as if they were longer. He couldn’t figure out why that would be. It was like they had hidden letters in them.

He had finally called it quits for a while, and was trying to determine what other details he could make out in the pictures. Only the largest objects were named, of course, but that didn’t mean that the smaller objects were of no interest.

The kitchen was a good example. There were clearly cupboards, with plates and bowls in them. The sink faced a window, and there were a couple of frying pans hanging above a stove. All these things were labeled.

But it was other details Dale was interested in. The doors all seemed to have a diagonal division, with a raised X. They looked to be Dutch doors, and they had knobs. It was obvious that the creatures could manipulate things with their energy fields, but was it really so commonplace that they used doorknobs? Why even bother? Why not just have swinging doors with a push-plate?

The stove appeared to have a bellows attached, which implied it was a wood or a coal stove. Either it was a particularly inefficient design, or they needed their stoves to be capable of melting metals.

In fact, after looking through the entire book, he had come to the nearly inescapable conclusion that they had failed to invent electricity. But that was ridiculous. They had RF-emitting nanotechnology, they had the capability to move things with some kind of mentally-activated tractor beam, and they’d gotten here—how could they not have invented electricity?

His ruminations were interrupted by the sound of a distant airplane engine. He listened carefully until it had passed, clearly headed for the mainland. He wrote, in big block letters, Find a way to get them to move or hide their landing site. Then he went back to the problem at hand.

Ok, he thought. Back to square one. He couldn’t assume that just because outlets and extension cords weren’t drawn meant they didn’t exist. From all appearances, this appeared to be a book geared towards children, not a how-it-works guide. In fact, now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure that electrical cords were shown in his much-larger visual dictionary, either.

Furthermore, Tesla had been working on some device which he claimed could beam electricity free to the masses, and while Tesla’s idea didn’t pan out, there were chargers that worked by just putting an object on a receiver, with no connecting cords—even his toothbrush worked that way. Dale was also pretty sure he’d read an article about the military attempting to recharge drones in flight with lasers or something.

Maybe those weren’t doorknobs as he knew them, either. Maybe they were receivers which responded to verbal commands, or something. It seemed like everything on earth was getting linked with smartphones. Maybe they’d taken it one step further.

He sighed. There wasn’t really going to be much he could learn from these drawings. Once again, he wished that they would have included drawings or pictures or something of really futuristic technology. He probably would have had no better luck understanding it, but it would have been interesting to study.

“None of these stars match,” Twilight muttered in frustration. “At least, none of the constellations do. There’s three stars here, in a line, like Orion’s belt. But they’re in the wrong quadrant, and none of the stars around it are the same.”

“This planet is a long ways off, though, isn’t it?”

“As far as I know.” Twilight rubbed her face. “I—you know, the Princess never told me. That would change the perspective.” She looked at the star charts. “If we knew where it was—maybe I could make adjustments.” She brightened. “And, if I can match stars from its sky and our own, I bet I could figure out how far some of them are, using trigonometry. I’m glad Luna’s letting me go though this book—I bet I can answer some questions nopony’s been able to before.”

“Send a letter with Spike,” Lyra suggested.

Twilight looked over at the outgoing mail basket—it already contained a half-dozen scrolls. “Oh, he’ll hate me—especially if she writes a response to each one separately.” Suddenly, her ears perked up. “Do I hear a train whistle?”

“I think it’s about time.” Lyra looked around for a clock. “It’s—“

“Gotta go! Ponies to meet!” Twilight ran out the door, stopped, and came right back in. “Could you wake up Spike? Have him put on some coffee? And tea? And then have him talk to Dr. Goodall? Or you could do that. Thanks!”

Lyra blinked. Where did Spike even sleep? She looked around the library. There weren’t a whole lot of rooms. In desperation, she finally fixed her eyes on Twilight’s owl, who was sitting on his perch, staring at her unblinkingly. She couldn’t remember the owl’s name, but surely it knew when it was being addressed.

“Do you know where Spike is?”

“Who.”

“Spike. Dragon? Little guy, about this tall?”

“Who.”

“Spike.” She sighed. “If you—you know, never mind. I was going to have you find him, but you clearly don’t even know who he is.” She turned and pushed open a door, not noticing as the owl flew off its perch.

A cursory examination of the kitchen revealed no dragons, and she went back into the main room, finding—quite to her surprise—Spike standing there, rubbing sleep out of his eyes, while a smug owl looked triumphantly down at her.

“Hey, Lyra. What’s all this stuff?” Spike picked the visual dictionary off the table with some effort. She’d never really noticed before the clever way he used his hands to accomplish the task, but it was very much like Dale.

“Twilight and I are studying a strange creature,” she said, wondering if she should even have admitted to that much. “She went to get a couple of guests from the train station. She wanted you to go get Dr. Goodall, when you have a chance.”

“Guests?” Spike looked around frantically. “But—the library isn’t clean at all. And I should make drinks! For the guests!” He ran into the kitchen.

“It’s so good to see you again,” Octavia remarked, kissing Twilight on the cheek. Despite her doubtlessly early departure from Canterlot, she was perfectly composed, her mane and tail neatly groomed, and her fur brushed to a shine. Her pink bowtie was perfectly straight. Unusually, rather than carrying her cello, she had a simple pair of designer saddlebags draped across her back.

“I’m waiting for Bucky Fuller,” Twilight replied. “He’s supposed to be on the train, too.”

“He actually sat across from me. He brought—rather more supplies than seems necessary.”

A moment later, the conductor emerged, carrying a heavy suitcase in his mouth. He set it reverently on the platform in front of the mares, then stood aside as a pegasus wearing a strange tubular backpack arrangement struggled out of the train.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Decided since I was coming to Ponyville I ought to get these blueprints to the town hall. Bucky Fuller.” He held out a hoof, which Twilight shook.

“Twilight Sparkle. I assume you know Ms. Van Clef?”

“I designed her house,” he said simply, reaching for his suitcase.

“Please—let me.” Twilight lifted it with her horn. “We can stop by the mayor’s on the way to the library. You’ll be more comfortable without those drawings.”

“Quite true.” He looked around him. “The town hasn’t changed much since I designed Mr. Rich’s house.”

“They were going to build some apartments over there.” Twilight pointed with her hoof. “But they fell down during construction, and nopony wanted to try again.”

Bucky Fuller shook his head. “No doubt somepony thought she knew how to design a building, but failed to take structural engineering into account. How tall was it to be?”

“Five stories.” Twilight and Bucky Fuller kept discussing the apartment building while they walked; Octavia brought up the rear.

When they finally arrived at the library, Twilight followed her guests in. Spike brought out tea for the four ponies. As they drank, Twilight divided up the labor. She and Bucky Fuller would go through the visual dictionary, paying specific attention to anything involving architecture, while the two musicians would go over the language. The architect had been planning to leave again on the afternoon train, while Octavia was going to stay for the duration.

Lyra and Octavia occupied one corner of the main room of the library, the unicorn’s notes scattered across a table that Twilight had moved over. She also had a chalkboard set up on an easel, borrowed from Cherilee.

“This is his alphabet,” Lyra explained, showing Octavia the first page of notes. “At first, I thought that it distinguished the big letters and the small letters to represent strong and weak sounds, but it apparently does not.”

“What are they for?”

“I don’t know.” Lyra looked at her thoughtfully. “Of all his writing I’ve seen—and you will see, too—there is no discernable pattern. He writes the names of its months in all strong letters, as well as the names of its wagons. In his books, they seem to be used indiscriminately, although strong letters are either used at the beginning of a word, or throughout the entire word, so they are clearly for some sort of emphasis.”

“This was quite clever of you.” Octavia tapped the page. “I presume you figured it out as you were taking notes?”

“The first few strong letters are pronounced the same as their weak counterparts, but it hadn’t occurred to me to use musical notation right away.”

“Hmm.” Octavia scanned the page, moving her mouth as she read, forming the sounds silently. “Is that it, then?”

“Well, no.” Lyra looked at her fellow musician. “The first difficulty is that I had to transpose. His range is almost exactly two octaves below my own—yours, too, I suppose. In fact, I used a voice spell to communicate with him. The second difficulty is that the letters of his alphabet all have names which have nothing whatsoever to do with their pronounciation.”

Octavia looked at her wide-eyed. “Well, then, how are we to make any sense of its language at all?”

“There must be rules.” Lyra tapped her hoof down on her notes. “I just got back last night from our first meeting. I haven’t had any time to go over my notes, but we covered a lot.

“Now, you and I both know that at first glance, musical notation reveals nothing. If we didn’t know what ledger lines represent, or the clef markings, or flats and sharps, we certainly couldn’t attempt to sing or perform anything from sheet music. But we do know. Let’s look at his language that way. Each letter, or group of letters, has a specific meaning to it, and should be pronounced a specific way. We can start breaking the language down, and then see where we get.”

Octavia nodded. “The letters together act as chords. Each one preceding and following reveals what type of chord it is.” She reached into her saddlebag and pulled out a small strap with a hook on it.

“What’s that?” Lyra looked at her curiously.

“It is called a dexterity enhancer.” Octavia slid it onto her left foreleg, then affixed a quill to the hook. “For composition—all the fiddly bits in sheet music are hard to get correct with mouth-writing. I have discovered that it is also useful for taking notes.”

“I could have used one of those with Dale. I was trying to save my magic.”

“I could give you this one,” Octavia offered. “Although it does take some practice to write legibly by hoof.”

“I don’t really have time to practice, unfortunately. Maybe later. I wonder if they sell them at Quills and Sofas?”

“Really, I would be honored to give you this one,” Octavia muttered. She dipped her quill in the inkpot. “I am ready where you are.”

“I want you to read cold from my notes. We’ll see how good they are.”

“Hmm.” Octavia cleared her throat. “Well, I suppose I shall start with its alphabet.”

“Although I am honored to perform a service for Princess Luna, I fail to see how I can be of any assistance,” Bucky Fuller announced, looking at a page of drawings of homes. “I can offer nothing from these drawings.”

“Why not?”

“Each of these is, no doubt, culturally significant, and so named. Perhaps after its region, or its designer, or the culture which built it.” He tapped the first drawing. “That appears to be a hemispherical home, made of some sort of cut block. It could be cloud, it could be ice, it could be glass, it could even be soap. The designer of such a building is aware of the strength and simplicity of the shape, but perhaps nothing else. It may have been made because only the material from which it is constructed was available, or it may be a temporary shelter. If that arched opening is the door, it may be only slightly taller than the occupants, or it could be an oversized entrance, like the ones at the palace.”

“What would you call it, if you had to guess at a name?”

“A domehouse.” He tapped the next two drawings. “These seem smilar, although the drawing suggests they are made out of cloths. The walls on this may be woven. This one here, at the bottom, has its floor supported off the ground, although it is lacking any means of getting up to the house. Either the creatures fly in, or they have to jump. It may be constructed in water; if so, it is constructed so that rising and falling tides do not get it wet. Or even changes in river level, if it is built in a river.”

Twilight turned the page, revealing several white columns with their parts labeled.

“Now, this is similar to classic Pegos architecture. There’s a lot more detail, since this material clearly holds its shape better than clouds. I can name these pieces. And, in fact, you can clearly see that all three of these columns are related to each other.” He began pointing at details. “Here, the volute and abacus are separate, while in the second, they’ve been combined into one part, while the third brings back a complex volute. On the other hoof, the dentil becomes lengthened in the second design, while it’s shortened in the final.”

Twilight quickly discerned that he was either unable or unwilling to attempt to identify entire buildings, although he had no difficulty naming construction details, frequently giving her a long explanation of the reason for their design. He lectured her at great length on arches, after naming each type. He was much less helpful in his description of parquet designs, simply stating that they were typically named after the region that popularized them.

He finally left around two, making his own way back to the train station.

“Well, that was less helpful than I’d hoped,” Twilight muttered. She went over to see how Lyra and Octavia were doing, while Spike ran off to fetch Dr. Goodall.

The veterinarian was everything that the architect hadn’t been. She breezed through the drawings, identifying anatomy with ease. Twilight hadn’t spent much time with animals at all, and knew little more than gross anatomy, but Dr. Goodall was naming parts that weren’t even labeled in the drawing. Finally, she got to a two-page drawing which caused both ponies to look at each other in shock.

“Lyra? Come look at this, please.”

Puzzled by the slight quaver in Twilight’s voice, the unicorn came over, trailed by a curious Octavia.

“It looks like—it looks like our ancestors,” Lyra whispered. “I can’t even imagine. . . .”

“The creatures before were remarkably similar to Equestrian species,” Dr. Goodall said. “This equine is obviously an earth pony—well, very similar, anyways. The long muzzle and barrel is similar to Middle Eastern ponies—like the Saddle Arabians. The only other major difference I see is the feet angle forward at the proximal sesamoid, where ours go straight downwards.” She turned to the next page, confirming her judgment with a skeleton drawing. “Clearly, these creatures know of our species.”

“Maybe that’s why he approached,” Lyra offered. “He was scared, but maybe he saw the resemblance. Maybe he knew that ponies existed, and his hesitation was solely due to our unexpected appearance on the beach.”

“I wonder if our ancestors went there, too?” Dr. Goodall looked at the drawing. “This stallion is quite plain, like a wild animal. They have to be, to avoid predators, you know.”

“I guess I have another thing to ask Dale when I return,” Lyra commented. “Make sure you mark the page. I want to discuss this with him tomorrow. Maybe I can have him bring a pony next time—I wonder why he hasn’t thought of it yet?”

Celestia nibbled at her dinner without really tasting it. She’d gotten Twilight’s scrolls just before another budget meeting had started, and only now had a chance to go over them.

Aside from the volume of correspondence, they were as clear and concise as Twilight’s friendship reports. Each was carefully organized into observations and conclusions, and Twilight had taken pains to mention that the conclusions were only preliminary. The only note which required a response involved the location of the distant planet.

Pen hovering over the note, Celestia realized that she didn’t know the answer. She would have to ask Luna before she went to bed. Surely the star that orbited that planet had a name. Luna had named every single star when she was a filly—and she’d remembered all the names. Well, when Luna got up, she’d have her identify the star. Then she’d send a reply to Twilight.

“Pinkie, this is very important. I need you to Pinkie-promise that you won’t tell anypony.”

“Okie-Dokie.” The hyperactive pony stopped bouncing for a minute. “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” Satisfied, she happily stotted over to the table, continuing to bounce slightly as Twilight came over at a more sedate pace.

“We’re trying to identify the names of kitchen implements in this book. Princess Luna said that you would be the pony best able to help us.”

“Sounds fun!”

“Erm, yes, I’m sure it will be fun.” Twilight opened the book to the page she’d marked. “Okay, go ahead slowly, when you’re ready.” She lifted a quill and poised it over a piece of paper.

“Hmmm.” Pinkie looked thoughtfully at the drawings of knives for a moment. “I know. That’s stabby, that’s choppy, that’s sawie, that’s peely—“

Twilight stopped writing and looked at her suspiciously. “Are those their real names, Pinkie? Is that what other ponies would call them? Or are those just your names for them?”

Pinkie’s mane deflated slightly, and she stopped bouncing. Her expression as she looked at the page was slightly sad. “Fine.” She took a deep breath. “That’s a filleting knife, a boning knife, cleaver, bread knife, don’t know, cook’s knife, don’t know, fork, sharpener, grapefruit knife, butter curler, peeler, paring knife, zester.” She barely paused between words, and Twilight scrambled to keep up. As soon as the quill had stopped moving, Pinkie took a deep breath, focused on the next page and began again.

“A funnel, a colander or sieve, a strainer, a salad spinner, a mortar and pestel, a nutcracker, garlic press, juicer, don’t know, grater, and pasta maker. You can also flatten marzipan or other dough in it—you don’t have to limit yourself to pasta. You can squish marzipan through a garlic press, too!” She licked her lips. “Ooh, I could make cupcakes topped with marzipan!” Pinkie began slowly bouncing in place.

“Focus, Pinkie.”

“Okie-Dokie! Ladle, potato masher, spatula, turner, draining spoon, skimmer, icing syringe, whisk, beater, muffin pan, cookie cutters, cake pan, pie pan, removable-bottom pan, cookie sheet, rolling pin.”

She began to run into trouble on the next page. “That’s also a mixer, but there’s no way to mix with it. There’s nothing to turn. Unless—“ she looked up at Twilight with the same face she used to declare that Zecora was an evil enchantress. “Unless it runs on magic.” She backed up slowly, then stood on her hind hooves. “It’s an evil mixer, it makes an evil elixir, and when it does, you’ll—um—you’ll be quite sick, sir, so watch out!”

Twilight face hoofed. “Pinkie, can you be serious?”

Pinkie Pie pronked right up to Twilight, stopping with her muzzle an inch from Twilight’s. Her icy blue eyes seemed devoid of any emotion whatsoever. She was still panting a little from her improvised dance routine, and each time she exhaled, Twilight could smell a whiff of mint. Finally, after what seemed like forever, she stepped back, and tilted her muzzle loftily in the air, as Rarity often did.

“Everypony knows that a mnemonic is an easy way to remember information, and what is a song but a musical mnemonic?” She poked Twilight lightly in the muzzle with her right forehoof, then began singing. “Pinkie Pie had a kitchen, e-i-e-i-o. With choppy here and a sawie there, e-i-e-i-o.”

Twilight sighed. She was could already tell she was going to have Pinkie’s new song stuck in her head. Forever.

Dale shut his notebook. The light was fading, and he’d probably reached the end of what he could learn in one day. This was more intense than being in school, and tomorrow there was going to be a test that really mattered.

This wasn’t how he’d learned Spanish. The words that he knew in Lyra’s language were random. He could piece together some of a sentence with them, but that was it. He hadn’t learned any tenses yet, if they even had them.

On the other hand, they’d started the prior day with no words at all, and now he knew—as long as he could remember them—over a hundred. It wasn’t a bad beginning, really.

Dale yawned. He probably should make his lunch now, but he just didn’t feel like it. Instead, he twisted the top off a Budweiser.

I wonder if they have beer. He took a drink, contemplating. If it’s even possible for them to get drunk, they’ve got it. Unless they’re way more civilized than humans, they’ve probably invented drugs we haven’t even thought of yet.

He looked in the cooler. There were only three beers missing from the case. He could share one with her tomorrow—if it was something she could drink.

` Why didn’t I think to give her some food yesterday? She could have taken it back and analyzed it. Then they’d know if it was okay to share food. Well, that was a problem which could be resolved. He’d just pack extra food.

The library seemed deathly silent without Pinkie Pie bouncing around and making a nuisance of herself. When Lyra and Octavia paused in their work, the only sound to be heard was the scratching of Twilight’s quill, as she penned yet another letter to the Princess.

“I don’t think I can do any more today,” Lyra muttered. “I still have to meet with him again tomorrow.”

“You should get rest,” Octavia suggested. “It is quite unseemly to be yawning during an important meeting.”

Lyra looked around at all the scattered papers. “I should pick these up.”

“No need. I shall make certain Twilight puts them all in your saddlebags before we go to bed. You can just pick them up first thing in the morning, before you leave. I should like to spend a little more time studying the materials. Perhaps I could make some guesses at how some of the words which he has not used are to be pronounced.”

“Thank you—for everything. I’ll be by first thing in the morning.”

“Take care.”

After Lyra had left, Octavia moved next to Twilight, looking at the scattered notes covering the table.

“May I be of some assistance?”

“Oh, I’m just collating my notes. Things I didn’t have time to do before.” She opened the visual dictionary. “I have a few more notes to write about their architecture.”

“Would you like something to eat? I could go to the Oatfield Cafe and pick up something.”

“Don’t get sandwiches,” Twilight muttered. “I’ve got some bits in my desk.”

“I would be honored to pay.” Octavia looked at the open page. “Why are you looking at pictures of igloos and huts? Is that the creature’s home?”

“You know what these are?”

Octavia looked at her in surprise. “Some of them, yes. The igloo, tepee, yurt, and pile home I recognize.”

“Really.” Twilight’s eyes gleamed. “Do go on.” She flipped the page.

“I would call that a manor house,” Octavia ventured.

“I wonder why Bucky wouldn’t identify them?”

“Twilight, only academics like ourselves freely offer our wisdom and knowledge. Have you ever tried to get a legal opinion from a barrister? Unless you are paying her, or she is a close personal friend, she will tell you nothing, and I have found this to be true of most professionals.” She sighed. “Princess Luna should have asked a professor.”

“She’s coming back tonight. We can ask her then why she didn’t.”

Author's Note

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Click right here!

Chapter 9: Mistakes

Celestia Sleeps In
Chapter 9—Mistakes
Admiral Biscuit

After Lyra left for the night, Octavia and Twilight finished the architecture section of the book. They moved on to the next section, which showed items that would be found in a typical house.

They hit the wall fairly quickly. Octavia finally went out and got dinner, while Twilight struggled to understand the drawings of transparent globes. There was a bulb-shaped one which had a coiled filament drawn on two supporting posts, as well as a similar short cylindrical device. Each of the two had a threaded base. There was also a drawing of a long white tube, which was cut away to show what went inside. However, since she was unable to read the text, she could come to no conclusions.

The next page was clearly illustrations of lamps and wall sconces, but instead of having a glass chimney, they had the same mysterious spheres in them. It was possible that the creatures had invented some sort of flameless light-producing magic, and kept it inside the glass sphere.

Her mind flashed back to Rainbow’s hospital room. There had been a lamp on the bedside which turned on and off at the push of a button. She remembered that there had been similar lamps in some of the high-class homes in Canterlot. She’d found them fascinating—one could push a hoof-friendly button on the base, and the lamp would go on or off.

“I was prepared for this,” she muttered, smiling unconsciously. Studying the lamps, she had learned they contained a pair of carefully-aligned copper wires which picked up energy from the leylines and transferred it to a precisely-shaped crystal—usually milk quartz—which then glowed. The button broke the circuit, leaving no path for the energy to take.

Could these globes work on the same principle? Each of them had two wires, supporting a thin spring. Even the cut-away tube had a spring in it. Might these creatures have discovered a way to use leylines to produce a glow from metal? Or, were they able to shape darker crystals in a spiral pattern somehow? She scribbled a note to consult with Pinkie Pie on the different methods of petriculture.

She was interrupted by Spike, who was bearing a letter from the Princess.

My dear Twilight Sparkle,

First, I wish to thank you for the magnitude of work you have performed for Equestria. Already, your letters have been copied and forwarded to professors at Canterlot University, who will begin speculating on what kind of culture this creature has. I am intrigued by the quality of its printing—Luna showed me the vast tome of its anatomy, and I believe such a thing to be beyond pony technology. It would take the best unicorns years to produce such a volume—and this creature freely gave it to Lyra. Such books—and other complex artifacts—may be a commonplace item for these creatures. Therefore, I am afraid I must issue a minor rebuke. Your letters seem to imply that you believe the creature—and its civilization—is inferior to ours. I do not believe this to be true, and will not, unless it is clearly demonstrated. I am given to understand that this Dale has shown great restraint and patience during the exchanges with Lyra. We are likely as alien to its experience as it is to ours. I understand that a logical scholar’s mind such as your own may cause you difficulties, but I wish to remind you of your experience with Zecora. I would be happy to send your friendship report back, if you need a reminder. While your theories are quite enlightening, if you cannot withhold judgment of the creature’s civilization, I am afraid I will have little choice but to find a cultural anthropologist from Canterlot University to take the lead position.

Finally, my sister has informed me that the star which orbits the planet is called Eratosthenes. When I asked her what that meant, she just smiled, and said it was a little joke. It may have been at my expense—she often did that when she named stars, I fear. However, I cannot remember any ponies named Eratosthenes. For what it’s worth, the name sounds Pegos.

Princess Celestia

P.S. I did decide to include a copy of your friendship report.

“Dear Princess Celestia: My friends and I all learned an important lesson this week. Never judge a book by its cover. Somepony may look unusual, or funny, or scary, but you have to look past that and learn who they are on the inside. Real friends don’t care what your cover is; it’s the contents of a pony that count. And a good friend, like a good book, is something that will last forever. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight laid her muzzle down on her desk. She felt like she’d been bucked in the stomach. She was trying her best—she really was—but it wasn’t good enough. She’d never seen the creature, she’d never seen the world it inhabited; all she had to go on were its fantastic books and Lyra’s impressions of it.

A tiny part of her mind suggested that she should write a scathing letter back to the Princess, telling her that if she thought she could do a better job, she ought to just come out here and try. Of course, she never would—if she did, she’d no doubt find herself banished to the moon. She’d just have to try harder. She could start by going to lunch with Zecora tomorrow. Twilight had promised herself to spend more time with the zebra, yet other things always were coming up. In this case, perhaps Zecora could offer a different cultural perspective. Maybe even Gilda, if Rainbow knew how to get in contact with her.

She heard the front door opening, and hastily rolled up the letter from the Princess. She managed to levitate it into her desk just before Octavia walked into the main room, a sack of food gently gripped in her teeth.

“I fear I forgot my coin purse,” she explained, after placing the food on the table. “The waitress at the café was kind enough to let me take the meal on credit. Gossip gets around your town quickly—she knew that I was staying with you, although not why.”

“It does,” Twilight muttered, opening the bag. “If you saw any of the flower trio, you’d understand. Those three can overreact to anything. I think they’re more skittish than Fluttershy.”

“Fluttershy?” Octavia looked at her quizzically. “Do you mean the fashion model, Fluttershy?”

Twilight let out a long breath. She felt as if the foundations of her world were shaking loose again. “Yes, I do.” She held up a hoof before Octavia could speak. “I assure you, she’s not normally as confident as she may have appeared on stage. She’s a sweetheart—she really is—but she is normally quite introverted.”

“Are you certain? Because I seem to remember at the Grand Galloping Gala, she—“

“Quite sure.”

Octavia looked at her dubiously, before turning her attention to the food. “Please, take what you wish. I shall have whatever is left, and then I must return to the Oatfield Café to pay the waiter.”

The two ate their meal in silence.

The sky was fully dark before Luna finally arrived at the library. This time, she simply teleported herself above Twilight’s balcony—pointedly avoiding her bird feeder—and walked through the Prench doors.

Octavia bowed deeply, dropping her quill in the process, while Twilight gave a briefer bow.

“Twilight Sparkle, Octavia Van Clef. We are well-met this eve.” The alicorn quickly got to the point. “We found ourselves unable to sleep this day, thinking of the book on astronomy that thou hast received. We would have thee give us thy conculsions.”

Twilight’s eyes glimmered at the prospect. She levitated the book and her notes over, while Octavia patiently watched. The unicorn began with pages of calculations explaining the star charts—information which went over the musician’s head, but Luna was nodding thoughtfully. Her expression turned more neutral as Twilight explained Clopurnicus’ theory of stars, and became a distinct frown as she proposed that the creatures had explored their moon and other planets.

Luna gave Octavia a meaningful look. “We should like to speak to Twilight Sparkle alone for a turn of the glass, if thou wouldst be so kind.”

“I do have an errand,” Octavia said quietly. “I shall attend to it.”

As she walked out the library door, Twilight’s heart sank. It felt as if she was about to be rebuked again, and she had no idea why. She felt that her theories on the book were correct—in fact, brilliant. Nevertheless, she could hardly have expected to outshine Luna, who actually controlled some of the night sky, and who had probably personally known Clopurnicus.

“Thy professors, as well-intentioned as they may have been, have done thee a disservice, Twilight Sparkle,” the princess began. “We should have expected no less. We were aware that the astronomers at Canterlot University have only been practicing for but a single generation, but we are saddened that they know so little.

“We know not if our sister started the astronomy program as a means to keep us imprisoned in the moon, or if she intended to placate us upon our return by showing us that ponies were still interested in the night sky. Whatever she intended, she has failed.

“Twilight Sparkle, what we are about to tell thee must be kept in the strictest confidence. Thou shalt not repeat it, not even to our sister. If thou art unable to make such a promise, we shall hold thee in no contempt.”

Twilight shifted in her chair uncomfortably. On one hoof, she really, really wanted to know what Luna was about to tell her. On the other, she couldn’t go behind her mentor’s back, especially not with Luna. As a filly, she had often been warned that if she went astray, Nightmare Moon would gobble her up; a lifetime’s worth of cautionary tales weren’t so easily dismissed. Celestia may have forgiven her sister, but Twilight felt it was still best to be wary.

Eyes narrowed, she looked at Princess Luna. She tried to remember the words of her brother’s oath, and make them fit what she was about to say. “Do you, Princess Luna, guardian of the night, give your bond that no harm shall come to myself or Princess Celestia as a result of this information?”

The alicorn stepped back. She had never been formally addressed by Twilight before. While it wasn’t quite what a noblepony would say, it was close enough.

“Twilight Sparkle, we give thee our bond that no harm shall come to thee.”

“Very well. I promise to not share your information with anypony.”

Luna looked at the bench opposite Twilight, as if she were considering sitting. However, she remained on her hooves.

“Thou dost remember the tales told around Hearth’s Warming Eve. We regret to tell thee such tales are mostly a fabrication. A heart-warming tale for the winter, promoting unity.” She waved a hoof dismissively. “Although there certainly are such creatures as Windigos, ‘twas not as simple a matter as members of the three tribes coming together in a cave and defeating them, bringing forth a new spring for a new land. ‘Twas instead years of war. The unicorn tribe, in particular, was convinced of its superiority. They had magic, and they controlled the sun. It was not until we and our sister wrested control of the sun from them that peace treaties were even possible.”

“Wait,” Twilight interrupted, eyes wide. “You’re telling me that you and Princess Celestia fought a war? Against unicorns? Why would anypony fight a war against their own kin?”

“We are gladdened that the lessons of peace and harmony have sat well with thee. The act of war art a terrible thing, but those were more barbaric times. We and our sister fought unicorns, griffons, and, sadly, each other. Thou art familiar with the tales of Nightmare Moon,” she said bitterly. “We only mention it at all because it factors into the history of astronomy we wish to share with thee.

“We knew Clopurnicus quite well, Twilight Sparkle. He was our protégé—much like thy role with our sister. He came to us just after the Unicorn Council had fallen. He had surrendered, rather than face the certain death that his defiance would have earned him. We were pleased to accept him as a student—our sister was very close to Starswirl the Bearded, and we had nopony of our own.

“We now know that some of his early interest was a ploy to allow us to accept him as an ally—and later as a consort—but he did eventually develop a real love for the night sky.” She sighed. “He had a friend—the glass-blower—who crafted the most cunning lenses. Clopurnicus and he made primitive telescopes, and utilized them to study our sky and our moon.

“At the time, we had no knowledge of distant stars. We could not control them; we could not even feel them with our magic. We studied the amillary spheres that the unicorns had left behind in their compound, and Clopurnicus made a startling discovery—one of the stars marked on the sphere was actually visible during the day, if one knew where to look.

“He then proposed a bold theory. What if, he said, the stars were made of the same thing that Equestria’s sun was? We knew, of course, that moonlight is but the sun’s reflection off our moon, but we knew not from whence starlight came, only that our magic could not influence it.

“We brought the idea to our sister, and she agreed to try and see if she could control the star. However, her magic just slipped away.

“Clopurnicus was undaunted. He proposed that she simply lacked enough magical energy to reach that star. He did not tell her that, for she would have been wroth. Instead, he began to commission better telescopes. He drew a map of the moon, and began identifying craters. At that time, we knew not what they were, nor how they had appeared.

“It was around this time that his mania should have become apparent, although we did not know until much later what he had been up to. One of his assistants was blinded in one eye attempting to study the sun through a telescope. He sent her away, rather than explain to us what had happened, and developed the filters which would allow him to study the surface of the sun.

“He also commissioned a larger telescope. Armed with his new knowledge of our sister’s sun—which he believed to be an eternally-glowing ember—he trained his telescope on the star which was visible during the day, the star which we had named for him. Rather than discover glowing embers, which he expected, he observed a small spot in front of the star.

“Months of observation led him to believe that this was a distant planet, with its star revolving around it, much like our own. He spoke with Starswirl the Bearded, who agreed to craft a spell which would allow somepony to teleport the vast distance to the planet.

“Clopurnicus was an impatient unicorn, we regret to say. He often experimented, and then adjusted his research to account for his failures, as he had done with his telescope filters. Before Starswirl finished his spell, Clopurnicus convinced another one of his assistants to teleport to the moon, just to see if such a thing was possible.

“She never returned. Clopurnicus stayed at his telescope for days, searching the moon for any sign of her, but none was ever seen. He thought she might have become stranded, and would arrange lunar rocks to reveal her location, or even send up sparks, but she did not. Starswirl finished his spell—the very same spell that our sister and Lyra have been using—wisely including a provision to return the caster to her place of origin if she does not consciously keep the field open. A second unicorn attempted the spell, and returned unconscious less than a minute later. She was cold to the touch, and we feared that she had died, but after a few minutes, she recovered. She claimed that the breath had been stolen from her body the moment she landed.

“He commissioned Starswirl to invent a spell which would provide a protective bubble around a pony. It was crudely done, but it worked. After months of exploration, we discovered that the moon was a dusty rocky place, where nopony would want to visit. The unicorn who had gone said that the view of Equestria was hauntingly beautiful. She was totally moonstruck, and when her explorations were done, she quit the small team of lunar explorers and became an artist.” Luna waved a hoof in the direction of Canterlot. “She crafted one of the windows in the palace—it was one of the few things our sister moved from the old castle.”

“So ponies have been to the moon?”

Luna nodded. “’Tis not all, we are sad to say. Years had passed since unification, and Celestia’s strength had grown. Our sister could carefully change the course of the sun, while still having energy remaining to perform other tasks. Thus, Clopurnicus convinced her to try and control the star again. She had—in the brief war with the griffons—managed to control a solar flare. It did not directly hurt them, but it did somehow affect their sense of flight, and they became disorganized. Some of the pegasi had a similar complaint, but they had grown accustomed to wearing metal armor—which apparently also confused their sense of flight—and they were easily able to defeat a contingent of griffons.

“He—we discovered this much later—had thought that he could impress Celestia by bringing something back from the sun. A brave, foalish volunteer cast Starswirl’s spell aimed at the sun. We later found out—from one of Clopurnicus’ assistants—that she returned mere moments later burned to death. He buried her in an unmarked grave outside the observatory, disguised as a flower garden.

“He convinced our sister to make a small solar flare on that distant star, and he and his assistants stared through their telescopes at that star for weeks, waiting to see a result, but they never did. We knew that there was an atmospheric delay that affected light, and Clopurnicus thought that distance might have an effect on this delay.

He became bitter—we should have seen the signs sooner—believing that Celestia had not cast the spell at all. He began to convince us that our sister held our night in no regard whatsoever, and sadly, we listened. We now know that we were already being subtly corrupted by evil, but we were unaware at the time. He was always by our side, and it seemed natural that we would choose him to lead our ponies into battle.

“After we fell, Clopurnicus fled to Zebrica, believing that his machinations in the Lunar Rebellion would forfeit his life, and to the best of our knowledge, he lived out the rest of his days there. If he made any new discoveries—or if he convinced any zebra volunteers to experiment—we have never learned aught of it.

“Upon our return, we searched the archives to discover what progress had been made in the field of astronomy during our long absence. Celestia had discovered Clopurnicus’ misdeeds—and appointed Tycho Bray to lead the Royal Observatory. To our sorrow, we learned that he ordered many of Clopurnicus’ notes and books burned, and had himself made no new discoveries, although he took credit for many of his predecessor’s. Over time, ponies grew disinterested in the night sky. They had already mapped it, and it remained unchanging. It had no effect on their lives, as far as they knew, and the distant planet which we had observed, the sun, and the moon were all uninhabitable and uninteresting. Tycho Bray came to the unfortunate conclusion that there were no other inhabitable planets, save our own.

“More recently, our studies into the nature of Equestrian magic have lead us to the conclusion the only certain types of pony are gifted with the sight which allows them to see magical fields, while also maintaining the range of long-sight vision necessary to augment the lenses in a telescope. It is our understanding that only the unicorn offspring of a unicorn and earth pony are able. Clopurnicus must have made this discovery as well—we know that his sire was an earth pony, much to his mother’s shame.

“Clopurnicus made great discoveries,” she concluded, “but he was a bad pony. We caution thee to not let thy emotions sway what thou knowest in they heart to be a wrong path to follow.”

A polite knock at the door drew the attention of both ponies. Luna nodded at Twilight. Octavia was standing outside the door, patiently waiting.

“How long have you been here?” Twilight asked.

“Only a few minutes,” she lied. “I spent rather more time than I had expected at the restaurant. Your charming town has so many interesting ponies.” She cleared her throat gently. “Is it acceptable to come in now?”

“Yes, we had just finished our private discussion.” Octavia was glad to see that Twilight’s expression looked cheerful. When she had brought the dinner, she could clearly see that something had upset the unicorn, but whatever it was had passed. “We were about to go out on the balcony and look at the stars.”

“Indeed we are,” Luna confirmed. “If thou wishest, thou art more than welcome to join us.”

“I would like that.” Octavia shook her coin-purse from around her neck and set it on the table. She looked over at the stack of language notes that she should have been transcribing, but she was hardly going to miss the opportunity to have the Princess of the Night lecture on stars.

“Follow us,” Luna said brightly. “We have so much information that we can share.”

Octavia meant to politely take her leave earlier, but Luna’s knowledge of the night sky was understandably encyclopedic, and the alicorn was enthralled by the prospect of her semi-captive audience. Twilight unsurprisingly absorbed the new knowledge with a passion.

Finally, after Luna had moved around a small constellation of her stars for them, she suggested that they go inside and finish with preparations for tomorrow. She and Twilight began discussing what lessons Lyra and Dale should learn the next day—debating spiritedly—while Octavia dragged Lyra’s saddlebags over to pack them for the next day.

She began by neatly stacking the books and notepapers, sorting them into two piles which both weighed nearly the same amount, and occupied the same volume. She knew that an unbalanced load was uncomfortable; it was something she dealt with every time she carried her cello.

When she had finished sorting the materials—leaving room for the pages of notes that Twilight and Luna were currently busily writing—she suddenly remembered that she should probably make a lunch, too.

A few minutes in the kitchen yielded a sandwich and celery, along with a couple of apples. Even though they were months past harvest, an earth pony’s inherent magic continued to imbue the fruit long after they were plucked from the tree, keeping them fresh as long as minimal care was taken in storage. Sweet Apple Acres’ new hoof-made storage cellar had even made the news in Canterlot, since it meant their marvelous apples would be available year-long. The ones in Twilight’s kitchen were probably the apples which didn’t meet the quality standards for export to Canterlot, but they were still far superior to anything that a unicorn or pegasus could hope to grow.

She reached into Lyra’s saddlebags to get out her lunchbag—most ponies carried a small cloth bag for food—and was mildly surprised to find that there was already something in it.

Octavia frowned at the carefully-wrapped cupcake. In and of itself, such a thing was too gaudy—something that no ‘proper’ pony would admit to eating—although that was hardly any of her business. What was more disturbing was the note pinned to it—written in a shockingly pink crayon. Sharing food is the bestest way to make new friends, it boldly proclaimed. It looked like the kind of thing a foal would write, and it was clearly something that shouldn’t be sent to an auspicious meeting.

Octavia shifted her weight uneasily. It could have been written by a foal. She didn’t think Lyra had any, but she wasn’t sure, and it was hardly her place to ask Twilight. In a rural town like Ponyville, bastard foals weren’t uncommon, and they were often enough raised by rump herds—usually a pair or trio of unattached mares—a practice which had fallen out of favor in Canterlot, where lineage mattered. If Lyra had a foal—and if it had written the note—it would not be her place to remove it. On the other hoof, if somepony else had written the note—somepony like the hyperactive baker—it could only shed a poor light on their society.

It wouldn’t hurt to re-write it, she decided. I’ll ask her in the morning if she has any foals who might have written such a thing. She scribbled out a brief note on a piece of scrap paper, and fastened it to the cupcake. Satisfied, she began loading the saddlebags.

When she had finished, she hefted them, making sure they felt balanced. As she set them back on the table, the buckle caught her eye. The rivets were loose on one side, and she could see loose hairs trapped in the joint. It was the kind of thing that would only take a tinker a few minutes to fix, and it seemed odd that Lyra hadn’t bothered. It had to be uncomfortable—it was clearly pulling her fur out. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the kind of thing which could be fixed at this time of night.

By now it was almost routine. Dale got up, stretched, unzipped his tent, and stood up outside, the chill pre-dawn air motivating him to dress quickly. He pulled on clean clothes, laced up his boots, and staggered to his camp table.

This time, he’d switched to the burner before he went to bed for the night, so it only took a moment before a propane flame was warming his kettle. He started himself off with a cup of yesterday’s coffee—which, thanks to the magic of a thermos, was still a little warm—while he waited for the water to boil.

A granola bar provided all the energy he needed for the morning, but he wanted to make sure that he had plenty of food for the rest of the day. Working in the half-dark, he made his last roast beef sandwich, before switching over to peanut butter and jelly. He threw in a handful of blueberries, a bag of trail mix, and a tube of Oreos.

When the water boiled, he dumped in a generous measure of instant coffee and stirred up the brew, before pouring it in his thermos. He shut off the burner, but didn’t worry about emptying out the rest of the kettle. He could re-heat it tonight, and have it with dinner.

Dale rummaged around inside the tent, finally finding the book on geometry and the book of speeches. He was also planning on going through more of the visual dictionary. Hopefully, they had managed to translate some of it on their own.

He finished by stuffing his notebooks and pens in the backpack, then tucked the weapons in. They stuck out the top, but that couldn’t be helped. He grabbed his camelback, checked his pocket to make sure he had his water-purification tablets, took a last glance over his camp, and headed down towards the beach.

Dale was surprised to find it unoccupied. The last time, Lyra had beaten him here. Perhaps she wasn’t on as tight a schedule this time.

He took the opportunity to arrange the weapons, then sat down to wait.

Lyra finally made it out of her house. Bon Bon had been sound asleep. Lyra hoped the earth pony wouldn’t be upset she hadn’t said goodbye, but she looked so peaceful Lyra hadn’t wanted to wake her. She’d eaten a bowl of leftover hay fries—probably not the best choice for breakfast—before heading to the library.

Twilight had also been asleep, but Lyra’s insistent pounding had at least rousted Octavia. Bleary-eyed, she had still had the presence of mind to come downstairs and open the door. Lyra had to stifle a laugh at the sight of the normally perfectly composed Octavia with bedmane and no bowtie.

“You just missed Luna,” she muttered, as she struggled to help Lyra put on the saddlebags. “She left barely an hour ago.”

Now Lyra stood alongside the reservoir. Two pegasus guards—probably the same ones as before—helped her onto the barge, then took the anchor ropes in their mouths and dragged her about to the midway point.

They both flew off at a forty-five degree angle, anchors weighing them down. They went to the full length of the rope before dropping it in the water, then flew back and repeated the process with the stern anchors.

This time, Lyra remembered to cast the voice-altering spell before she even left.

It was still fairly dark out, but she could clearly see where the pegasi had stacked surplus clouds off to the side, where they wouldn’t interfere with their sightlines. As she watched, a guard dragged a roaming cloud over to the pile, where he neatly arranged it with all the others. It must have been the last, because when he was finished, he flew up to the top of the cloudpile and then walked away from the edge.

She saw a few flashes of light signals from the forest, answered back by light signals from the clouds. One of her escort pegasi had landed on the barge, and was watching the clouds intently, while the other kept hovering a few feet back from the bow.

Finally, the standing guard nodded. “They’re all ready, Ms. Heartstrings. Give us five minutes to be gone, and good luck.”

She felt the raft dip as he launched himself, then was all alone.

She counted slowly, to make sure she’d allowed plenty of time. One last check for red signals, and then she cast the spell.

Dale had never seen her arrival until this morning. The sky was quite light now, although the sun still hadn’t risen. He was sitting on the bluff—he had decided to return there after he had placed the weapons.

A flicker of movement caught his eye, and he turned towards the beach. A faint white glimmering will-o-wisp was dancing around about three feet above the beach, and while he watched, it suddenly stabilized, then instantly expanded into a glowing purple hemisphere with a loud pop. He actually felt a small pressure wave, but noticed that the few leaves which were lying on the sand inside the bubble didn’t move at all.

A glowing white shape materialized inside the bubble, which quickly darkened into the familiar form of Lyra. She looked around, saw him, and moved toward the side of the bubble.

He watched her lean her head down for a second, as if in concentration, before she passed through the bubble. She walked towards the area where he had placed the weapons.

When she got there, she stopped and tilted her head under her belly. He couldn’t tell what she was doing, until her saddlebags slid off sideways. Paying him no attention, she rubbed a spot on her stomach—which seemed a very human gesture. Dogs and cats usually scratched with their back legs. It took him a moment to realize why: she had far more flexibility in her forelegs than a normal quadruped.

He watched her nose open her bag and remove a rolled paper, followed by the visual dictionary, her chalkboard, and a large cloth sack.

He figured that they had reached the point where they were friends—or at least, not unknowns—and casually walked down the beach towards her.

When he got close, she looked up at him, and said—well, he wasn’t quite sure what she said, but it ended in ‘Dale,’ and her manner of speaking suggested it was their version of ‘good morning.’

“Good morning, Lyra,” he replied, taking a seat.

She laid the visual dictionary in front of him, and began carefully flipping through the pages. He noted, with some surprise, that there were several bookmarks in it. They must have translated it, but want clarification on a couple of points.

Finally getting to the page with the bookmark, she shoved it towards him, clearly making sure that he saw the picture.

He saw it clearly. He had seen it the instant she opened the book, in fact, and felt his heart sink. It was a drawing of a horse. And the look on her face was almost the same expression as his mother had worn when he’d ‘had some explaining’ to do.

Celestia stood on the balcony, focusing her horn on the sun. She delicately adjusted it, carefully setting it on the day’s track.

“For once, our night held some excitement,” Luna said quietly, walking behind her.

“Really?”

“Quite. A misbehaving pegasus was brought before us. She had been causing a disturbance—apparently, addled by drink—and broke a merchant’s window. Our thestrals apprehended her.”

“Isn’t that supposed to be the duty of the Canterlot patrol ponies?” Celestia tilted her head slightly, making the minute adjustments required before the sun broke the horizon.

“She flew towards our tower,” Luna replied, her voice defensive. “Thus, she fell under our purview. ‘Twas most challenging, as we had not reviewed the laws in many years. However, we did reach a fair judgment. We ordered our guards to strip her primary feathers and toss her off our balcony.”

Celestia’s head snapped around so quickly, she almost lost control of the sunrise. As it was, ponies in Baltimare were treated to the rare sight of the sun jerking above the horizon before it stabilized.

“You did WHAT!” Celestia’s eyes were wide. “Luna! That’s barbaric!”

“The laws art still on the books,” she lied.

“That was a unicorn punishment, back in the days of the Unicorn Council. Luna, how could you do such a thing?”

“She may still glide without them, and they shall grow back, eventually. It will be a reminder not to drink spirits.” Luna turned, jerking back as the balcony doors slammed in her face.

“We do not torture ponies anymore, Luna. We do not pull their feathers out, we do not strip their shoes or bind their pasterns.”

“Really?” Luna looked her sister in the eye. “But you still put blocking rings on unicorns.”

“So they don’t use their magic to escape!”

“Dost thou suppose that is all a unicorn’s horn is for, casting spells? Dost thou not know the natures of the three magics?

“An earth pony broadcasts and receives energy from the leylines primarily through her hooves. A pegasus, through her wings. A unicorn, through her horn. Broadcasts and receives, Celestia. If thou art worried about escape, use a sink. Blocking a unicorn’s horn is just a very slow, cruel way of killing her.” She blasted the doors open with her horn and stormed through Celestia’s room, paying no attention to the crash as one of the doors fell off its hinges.

When an answer wasn’t forthcoming, Lyra tapped the drawing of the horse again. Maybe Dale didn’t understand. She had assumed that he would instantly make the connection, but perhaps she was giving him too much credit. The drawing didn’t really resemble her—it certainly didn’t have a horn—and there was always the challenge of trying to extrapolate three-dimensional details from a flat drawing. Had he not spent time trying to explain the giant anatomy tome to her, she probably would still have no grasp of its meaning.

He finally touched the drawing, and pointed to her. “Lyra is horse?”

It sounded almost like what she and Octavia had decided that the word printed in the book should sound like. She was about to nod, but the fact is—she wasn’t exactly a horse. She was a pony. She hated to give him the wrong impression. Her ancient ancestors had been horses. But how to express this?

She rummaged through her notes, while he watched with interest. Finally, she wrote two lines on her chalkboard, representing his number 1, and put her addition sign between them. Next to it, she wrote his number 2.

To make sure he got it, she tried again with 2 + 2. She left the answer blank, looking at him. He held up four fingers.

Next, she sketched two stickponies, with the addition sign between them, and drew a small stickpony in the results column. Then she drew an arrow from the small stickpony over to a second large one, and repeated the math, implying the passage of generations.

She wasn’t sure if she was being entirely clear, but she was hardly going to fill the board with drawings of stickponies, either. Hopefully, he got the idea. She tapped the first drawing, and said, “Horse.” Then the last. “Lyra.” After a minute, he nodded.

“Dale horse here?” she asked. They had worked on here and there last time. It was a vague understanding—it might be more proper to say that they had discussed here and not-here, since anything that wasn’t on the beach within reach was—for their purposes—considered there.

He seemed to be contemplating the idea. Finally, he shook his head. “Dale no horse here.” He pointed towards the water. “There, no come here.”

She considered this carefully. Given the very limited vocabulary they shared, it was impossible to be absolutely certain what he meant, but it seemed that either a horse couldn’t get across the water, or he didn’t know any.

Well, they had hoped that he might bring a horse. Once their communications had improved, they could probably try to arrange a meeting. They would have to use Dale as an interpreter, unless horses spoke the same language as Dale’s species. Even if they didn’t, he would probably have the sense to find a bilingual horse.

She looked at the visual dictionary again. There were a lot more words that she wanted to know, and a lot of items which were begging to be described, but they could all wait. Their limited number of verbs was one of their biggest obstacles, and one she hoped to address. Adjectives were also going to be a focus for her today.

Both Twilight and Luna had prepared a list of verbs and adjectives which were goals for the day. It would not have surprised Lyra to know that after Luna finished her astronomy lesson, she and Twilight had stayed up almost until the first light of dawn, preparing lists of useful words and the best way to teach them. Unsurprisingly, many of the suggestions revolved around magic. While it would be interesting to get in a discussion of magic with Dale, there were a lot more pressing issues to deal with.

As she wiped her slate clean, she wondered why Dale hadn’t thought to bring a chalkboard of his own. Its utility was obvious. She could understand him having overlooked it the first time, but why hadn’t he found one for the second meeting? Could it be that his kin hadn’t invented them? She would have to leave hers—she could always get another before their next meeting.

Lyra had just glanced at Twilight’s notes when the first raindrops fell on her back. She looked up in surprise. She hadn’t been paying all that much attention, but still—how could she have missed the clouds being moved into place?

The sky had turned a dull grey, and she could see the leading edge of the cloud formation was almost directly overhead. She watched over the lake, but saw no signs of pegasi—or anything else—moving the clouds.

She looked at Dale accusingly. Everypony knew when weather was coming—the schedule was published months in advance. Occasionally, there were corrections, of course. Weatherponies tried their best, but the clouds wouldn’t always cooperate. Most often, the rainfall came up short, because the clouds ran out early or blew away, but shipments had been known to be delayed.

This had all the feel of a scheduled rain, though. There was no reason that he couldn’t have warned her. She could have waited a second day. Looking at his face, though, he seemed just as surprised as she was.

She couldn’t stay here, of course. A wet chalkboard was of no use to anypony, and she didn’t want the books to get damaged, either. Dale seemed to have the same idea, because he was hastily stuffing his notebooks back into his backpack.

“Ground power?”

Calley looked out his window. “Disconnected.”

“Exterior lights?”

“On.”

“Windshield wipers?”

“Off.”

“Pitot 1 and 2 heat?”

Calley reached up and flicked the switches. “On.”

The captain continued the checklist, while Calley verified each item. It was, undoubtedly, the most boring part of any flight. They were sitting on the ramp, everybody was ready to go, and here they were burning daylight running through pre-flight checks.

Not that there was anything wrong with that, he reminded himself. A prudent airman always did a thorough pre-flight check, because it avoided nasty surprises later in flight. Especially in the kind of weather conditions that they flew in.

Finally, the pilot announced that they were clear to taxi. Which meant another checklist. Sighing, Calley pulled out another card. He hoped the CVR didn’t pick up the sigh. If something went wrong, he’d hate to have that show up on the transcript.

Dale moved to the edge of the trees, and Lyra followed. He should have listened to the weather report. He wasn’t going to tell her to go home. She would probably stay dry in her bubble, but he probably couldn’t go in there—scratch that—even if he could go in there, he wouldn’t. He wasn’t that trusting—not yet.

They would probably be reasonably sheltered by the trees, as long as it was a brief rain. She probably wouldn’t really be bothered by the rain, anyway. Horses stayed out in the rain all the time, and she was apparently half-horse. Did that make her a mule?

But they couldn’t go through the books. They’d get wet—even though they’d dry, eventually, it seemed kind of risky. He could hardly take notes in the rain. If he had felt-tipped pens, he could have, but ballpoint pen would just rip the paper where it was wet.

And what would she think? He would be an awfully poor host if he just let her stand out in the rain. There was nothing in his camp that she shouldn’t see. He’d made certain to leave anything which might be construed as dangerous at home. He wasn’t planning to invite her into his tent, anyway. That would be a new level of awkward.

The dining fly would keep the rain off. He’d stacked plenty of firewood inside, so if the weather got really unpleasant, he could always start a fire.

For a moment more, he hesitated. Was it dangerous to leave the bubble behind on the beach like that? But it was raining—nobody would head out to the island in the rain. Nobody ever went out to the island.

He motioned for her to follow him. She picked her saddlebags up by the backstrap with her mouth.

“We’re going to fly out towards the Fox Islands today,” the captain informed them over the intercom. “There’s a rainstorm moving in. Calley, I want you to get a feel for the controls in the rain.”

“Ok.”

“We’ll fly around for a bit, then we’re going to radio back to base, and they’re going to send a rescue boat out. We’re going to try and find it. If the weather’s calm enough, we’ll use the basket, but I don’t want to do anything risky. It’s just practice.”

Calley nodded. If they were headed out on a rescue, they’d try to use the rescue basket if they thought they had the slimmest chance of success. On a practice mission, the only lives at stake would be their own—and the crew of the rescue boat—and then only if they made a mistake. “Got it.”

“You have the controls,” the captain said, turning to Calley. “Take her up.”

“I have the controls,” Calley repeated. “Tower, this is Coast Guard chopper sixty five sixty two, taking off.”

“You are clear, sixty-two.”

“Roger, cleared for take-off.” Calley glanced at his rotor speed, quickly checked over all the other gauges—just to make sure nothing had changed while they were taxiing—then slowly moved the collective lever, adjusting the throttle to keep the helicopter’s rotor speed optimal. He felt a slight bump as the wheels left the pavement, and then they were in flight.

Lyra shuddered as they entered the forest. It felt wild and untamed—much like the Everfree, and the leaden sky gave it a gloomy cast. Still, Dale was moving confidently enough, so he wasn’t worried about predators, and the early scouts hadn’t reported any large creatures, so it was probably safe. On the other hoof, the early scouts also hadn’t reported creatures like Dale, so she did wonder how thorough their scouting had actually been.

The path wasn’t very wide, and it wasn’t much of a path, either. No attempt had been made to clear the stones and roots which crossed it. More than once, wet foliage skidded across her barrel, and she watched Dale occasionally duck under low-hanging branches. Fortunately, her shorter stature kept her from having to do the same.

He finally reached a small clearing, where she could see several structures. He moved deliberately to a pavilion, while she stayed at the end of the path for a moment, examining the compound carefully. She mostly trusted him, but it was still wise to take precautions.

There was a hemispherical blue structure at one end of the compound, and a pavilion nearby. A table sat under the pavilion, with a very odd chair next to it. Like all the structures in the camp, it seemed to be made of cloth, and of flimsy construction. Each of the buildings had ropes pulled tight to the ground, obviously to stabilize them. However—even to Lyra’s untrained eye—it was apparent that if he had simply used larger supports, he wouldn’t have needed the guy lines. There were certainly enough trees around to build a real house, so why had he settled on these?

As she moved into camp, she became even more confused. The blue structure looked almost identical to what Bucky Fuller had called a domehouse, but it was made out of fabric, with a second layer pulled taut overtop of the whole thing. She looked at it closely, but it was like no fabric she had ever seen. The weave was incredibly tight, and what rain was getting through the trees just beaded up and rolled off of it. She sniffed at it. It smelled like Dale, with a few other scents she couldn’t place.

He was waiting inside the pavilion. Lyra was thankful for that—it had four open sides, and in a strange environment, she felt more secure if there was an easy escape route.

She took her time examining the pavilion, too. The spindly supports seemed to be made of metal, although it was a type she had never seen before. She knew that unpainted metal rusted, yet he seemed entirely unconcerned that it was sitting out in the rain. Of the metals she knew, only gold and aluminum stayed untarnished in water, and both of those were far too expensive to have been used as a construction material. There might be some alloys that had similar properties—it was just another question to ask when she got back home. Alternately, it could be a strange new material that ponies hadn’t discovered yet, or could be made up of an element that didn’t exist in Equestria. She wondered if there might be some way she could get a piece to take back to an alchemist.

She put her saddlebags on the table—very awkwardly, since it was almost at muzzle-height. Even the table was strange—instead of being made out of wood, like a proper table, it was a slippery white material. There was a slight gloss to it, although it wasn’t wet at all, and didn’t appear to have been varnished. It reminded her a little of cream cheese. A green bottle stood in the center, with a kettle on top of it.

Puzzling over the strange buildings in his camp, she stepped back outside the pavilion to shake off whatever water she could.

Dale watched in amusement as she shook herself off like a dog, before he sobered. Judging by her close scrutiny of camp, she was confused by his living conditions—and why wouldn’t she be? They had gone through the visual dictionary, and they must have examined the section on architecture. There weren’t any pictures of Eureka tents there, though. He sighed. Here, he’d been trying to convince them that he was part of an advanced civilization, and the first view of what they’d take to be his home was a primitive camp. If she looked inside his tent, she’d see no running water, no electricity, no heat—and he simply lacked enough vocabulary to explain it to her.

I’m bringing a computer or tablet next time, he decided. I can show them pictures of my house, of my car, of everything. I can show videos. I can play sound clips. I’ll just have to figure out a way to get around the RF field.

She came back into the dining fly, and looked around curiously. He noticed that her face was barely above the surface of the table—certainly not the best position for learning. He considered offering her his camp chair for a moment, but there was no way she could sit in it, unless she sat on her rump, human-style. Such a posture was probably anatomically impossible, although humorous to imagine. I could fold the legs of the table in and we could work on the ground, he thought, before he noticed the cooler. A relic of years past, it was a steel Coleman that probably could have supported one end of his car; it would have no trouble with her weight.

He dragged it over next to her, noticing as he did that she side-stepped away from him. Not far—certainly not far enough to be insulting—but she clearly wanted to keep a small buffer between them.

He placed it opposite his own camp chair, and—to make sure she got the idea—sat on it. Then he got up and moved away, to let her try.

She paced around the cooler, carefully. He watched her sniff at the seam between the lid and the body of the cooler. Can she smell the food inside? Finally, she put a hoof up on the lid, and slid it back and forth experimentally, perhaps to see what the top was made out of, and if it would support her weight.

She carefully climbed up on the lid, watching the placement of her hooves. Dale suddenly realized that he’d put the cooler the wrong way—the hinge was parallel to the table, when it should have been perpendicular. He’d forgotten to account for the difference in her anatomy.

She seemed to have come to the same conclusion, because she got back off the cooler. She grabbed a handle in her teeth and rotated it ninety degrees. She nudged it with a hoof, to make sure it was stable, before trying to mount it again. This time, she climbed up onto the lid with much more confidence, settling herself down in the unnatural-looking half-rising stance she’d used on the beach. It looked kind of like some yoga pose, no doubt with a mystical name like ‘Breath of Fire.’

It was interesting just watching her move. While her walk and trot were very equine, she also appeared to have adopted a few dog mannerisms—such as the way she shook her fur off and the way she sniffed at things—and everything she touched with her forehooves reminded him of a cat, for some reason. Even her sitting position looked more cat-like than anything. Despite the obvious physical impossibility of getting there, he wouldn’t have been surprised to find her draped across a tree limb, dozing in the afternoon sun.

She was already pulling materials out of her saddlebags, so he began taking things out of his backpack. Apparently, she was quite task-oriented.

“What is that?” Calley pointed out the windscreen. Off in the distance, a faint magenta glimmer could occasionally be seen through the sheeting rain.

“I . . . don’t know.” The captain looked at the flight instruments, as if they would provide any clue. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.” He considered it carefully. “It’s probably nothing,” he concluded. “Maybe it’s a light on a ship that just looks funny through the rain.”

“Do you really believe that?” Calley squinted towards the west again. “I’ve never seen anything quite that color before.”

“No.” He turned his head—an instinctive, although completely unnecessary gesture—and instructed the crew in the back to raise the basket. “Once the rescue basket’s secured, let’s fly over and take a look.”

“Fires sometimes burn funny colors, if there are chemicals involved,” Calley offered. “Could that be what we’re seeing?”

“Doubt it.” The captain had picked up a set of binoculars and was training them towards the glimmer. “It’s either on North Fox, or just offshore. Only a small boat would get that close, and it sure wouldn’t burn with a magenta flame. There’s nothing on the island that would, either. Not unless Al-Qaeda’s using it as a terrorist training ground, or Dow’s got a chemical dump there nobody’s bothered telling us about.”

“You’re thinking farther north,” Calley reminded him. “The water stays deep right up to the island—no shoals at all until you’re on top of it. And the shipping channel runs between the island and the shore—what if it’s a ship that had a fire and lost the radios? It could have drifted to the island—might even have been grounded on purpose, if they still had steering way.”

“Basket is secured and door is closed,” the rear crew reported.

“All right.” The captain sat silent for a moment. “Calley, take us in slowly. If anything looks hinkey, I want to back off.” He switched to his radio. “Coast Guard, this is Dauphin sixty five sixty two. I’ve got a—well, we don’t know what it is, but it’s on or near the southeast shore of North Fox Island. Have you got any indicators of a ship in distress?”

“No, negative.”

“We’re going to go investigate.” He let up on the transmit button. “I’ve got a funny feeling about this.”

“Pardon?” He hadn’t hit the intercom switch, so Calley could barely hear him over the steady thump of the rotor.

The captain shook his head, and transmitted again. “Tower, sixty two, tell Charlevoix to stand by with rescue boats. We will be off the southeast shore of North Fox Island.”

“Understood sixty two, stand by with rescue boats.”

The strange beep caused Lyra to look up in surprise. She’d heard the noise occasionally, but had never been able to pin down what it was. It must have been a signal to Dale, since he raised his left arm and looked at the bracelet on his wrist.

He began to move the writing materials aside, before taking a bag out of his backpack. A strong fruity smell immediately drifted across the table, and Lyra’s stomach grumbled.

It must be lunchtime. She pushed her own notes clear, and pulled her own lunch out of her bag. Somepony at Twilight’s had made it—she wasn’t sure who.

Emptying her lunchbag revealed a cucumber and chrysanthemum sandwich with the crusts cut off, a bag of celery, two shining apples, and a garishly bright pink-frosted cupcake, with gem sprinkles.

Delicately pinned to the cupcake with a toothpick was a note. It is always good manners to share good food with acquaintances. The writing on the note was smooth and elegant unicorn. She had suspected that Pinkie had somehow sneaked the cupcake in, but if she had, the note would have been scribbled in crayon, and probably would have exploded in streamers when opened. This note looked official.

Lyra regarded it thoughtfully. She vaguely remembered that she and Twilight had discussed sharing food with Dale quite early in the planning process, and Twilight had been concerned it would be risky. She had suggested that Dale might not be able to eat pony food at all. To Lyra, the idea had seemed kind of silly. Dragons, griffons, zebras, mules, and even diamond dogs could eat pony food with no trouble; even the less-sapient species such as cows and sheep did. The only food that a pony couldn’t eat was a gem, and that was just because it wasn’t in their nature to be able to chew them, but they did no harm when they were ground up finely like the sprinkles on the cupcake, and they added a little bit of zest.

This note must be from Luna, she concluded. The anatomy book had been whisked to Canterlot, and the smart ponies at the university had looked through it, and deduced from the drawings that Dale could eat pony food. She had no doubt gotten the cupcake from Sugarcube Corner, and included the note because she hadn’t had a chance to mention it before Lyra left for the night.

While she was thinking, Dale had placed his food on the table, too. There were two sandwiches—one which appeared identical to the one he had eaten the day before, and a second, which smelled strongly of fruit. He also had a bag of mixed nuts, raisins and brightly-colored circles, and blueberries. Once again, all of his food was contained in the strange clear bags.

He put the tube in his mouth again—a behavior she still couldn’t understand—and swallowed a few times. Suddenly, he stopped, midway through whatever it was he was doing, and pulled it loose. She saw a few drips fall on the table.

He carries around his water! He had some kind of a water jug on his back, and a straw that he could sip from whenever he was thirsty. It was brilliant—it was just the kind of thing she needed. It would be so much more convenient than a cup with a straw, especially for a remote location like this.

He got out of his chair—leaving his food on the table. He walked around beside his domehouse, and came back with a blue container and a small metal cup, which looked like it was made out of the same material as the pavilion poles. There was a wire handle on one side—a convenient holding point for him, not so much for her hooves.

He poured water out of the blue jug and placed it next to her. Without thinking, she grabbed the handle of the cup with her horn, and lifted it up to her muzzle, intending to take a drink. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him take a few quick steps backward, holding the jug in front of his chest, as if to ward off evil.

She frowned, setting the cup back down on the table. He had reacted the same way when she had started to move the marbles. At the time, she’d thought that she had inadvertently made an offensive or threatening gesture with the marbles, but his reaction had been almost exactly the same this time. It couldn’t be that he hadn’t intended her to drink the water—he had clearly provided it for that purpose.

He maintained his position, although he had relaxed his grip on the water jug slightly. Watching him carefully, she lifted the cup slightly above the table. He tensed again, although this time he didn’t move away.

She set the cup back down, and floated a celery stalk free from her lunch. As it slowly drifted towards her mouth, she could see his eyes were following it very carefully indeed. Lyra set it back on the table.

Twilight says that the books are magical, she thought. We don’t know if Dale—or his kin—made the books or if he traded for them or stole them. However, since all the books appear to be relevant to our learning, at the very least, he knows what they are and what they’re for. If he meant to impress us with a stack of books that he didn’t understand, they wouldn’t be on any particular topic. And just because we can’t understand some of them doesn’t mean he can’t.

He might not know how they’re made, but he must know that spells go into their construction. The only spells more basic than telekinesis are light spells. I haven’t seen him use either, but he surely must know what they are.

In Ponyville, it’s not considered a social faux-pas to stick your muzzle right into your food or drink. Unicorns don’t, but the more rustic earth ponies—like the Apples—often do, since they can’t comfortably use silverware. They don’t always use mugs for drinks, either. I’ve seen Berry Punch drink right out of the communal bowl before. Since these creatures have useful talons—or as they call them, hands—like Spike, maybe it’s rude to use magic. She resolved to be more careful—it was something the Princess had warned her about, and it appeared it offended Dale, too.

She leaned down and lapped up some of the water. It had a very faint chemical taste to it, although she couldn’t place it. It reminded her of the doctor’s office, though. It was some kind of—disinfectant? Does he purify his water with potions?

Now that she thought about it, she had never heard of a zebra caster—they were exclusively potion-makers. Maybe the reason Dale seemed uncomfortable with overt displays of magic was because his kin were potion-makers, too.

We assumed that they used spells to make the pages of the book white, but what if they instead used potions? What if they don’t even know about spellcasting? It was a frightening thought. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be unable to use magic. Everything would be so difficult.

She finished her drink, and he refilled her cup. She didn’t drink from it right away; instead she tilted her head towards his chair. He seemed to get the idea. He put the water jug near her, before walking over to his chair and taking a seat.

She had gotten used to the different ways he sat at the beach, but his chair was a novel piece of furniture. He rested his arms on two strips of fabric that had obviously been designed for that purpose—when she first saw them, she had wondered if they were to keep him from falling out of the chair. They seemed to help him keep his back straight—when she’d sat like that, it was difficult to avoid slipping off the bench.

He took a sandwich out of its bag, but before he could take a bite, she decided to push the cupcake over to him. While it wasn’t the best etiquette to start a meal with dessert, in this case it would probably be acceptable. It was better to make the offer early, before he was full.

Dale was surprised when she pushed the cupcake over to him. He had seen her studying a note attached to it earlier—it had been pinned to the side of the cupcake with a short toothpick. He had cringed when she pulled it out with her teeth, although it was certainly better than using her tractor beam on it.

It looked like an ordinary cupcake. It was piled high with frosting, and covered with colored sugar. Oddly, there wasn’t a paper wrapper on the bottom, but he remembered that his mother used to make them that way.

“Dale food?” he asked, looking for confirmation. He wasn’t sure if they had taken differences in biology into account or not. There might have been a picture of a cupcake in the visual dictionary, but if they thought it should be made out of plaster—or poison—he would be in real trouble. It seemed unlikely—but it was best to be careful.

“Lyra give Dale eat food,” she confirmed, nodding. Then she made motions with her front hooves which were obviously meant to mimic the way he ate, in case he didn’t understand.

Still he hesitated. Was it plausible that they could have figured out his digestive system so quickly? As far as he knew, they hadn’t taken any tissue samples—or anything else—from him. What tipped the scale was his memory of fixing a German lathe—using the German instructions—in the machine shop. It didn’t really matter what language it was in; a schematic was a schematic. There was surely enough information in Grey’s Anatomy for them to know what he should eat, and there were surely enough experts studying it. He took a bite of the cupcake.

Dale was not a cook. He did well enough—he knew his way around the kitchen—and if it came in a box with instructions printed on the side, he usually managed to make something palatable. He rarely made any desserts, though; his ignorance of the intricacies of baked goods was profound. Frozen dough came out of the oven with a rubbery consistency, and his one and only attempt at brownies resembled hardtack. To be fair, he was usually missing one or more vital ingredients, and his attempts at creative substitutions usually fell far short of the mark.

That having been said, he certainly knew a proper dessert. His mother and grandmother had handled stress by baking, and they did it the traditional way—there were no artificial ingredients in his mother’s cookies.

The cupcake fell into that category. The dough was exactly the perfect consistency, and the icing was the buttery-sugary goodness that he remembered from his youth. It was flavored of mint and something else sweet, although he couldn’t quite place it. It wasn’t something he had ever eaten before—he was sure of that—but it was something he had smelled before. The powerful odor of the mint covered it up completely, unfortunately. The only downside was the sandy consistency of the sprinkles—despite their appearance, they weren’t granulated sugar; instead, they were much harder, like nonpareils.

He finished the whole cupcake before wondering if he was supposed to have shared it. However, Lyra didn’t look displeased, so she probably had meant for it to be for him.

Obviously, he should reciprocate. He looked at his two sandwiches thoughtfully. He could offer her either. Of course, terrestrial horses were herbivores, so the roast beef was probably not an option. He looked at it guiltily—was he offending her by having it? But what if she was insulted if he chose? And how could he assume that they weren’t omnivores? He’d never seen a terrestrial horse eat a sandwich of any type. He didn’t even know if they would eat a sandwich, if offered one.

Maybe it was customary to only exchange desserts. He had Oreos; he could give her some. He could give her the whole tube—his waistline would thank him. Again, he ran the risk of insulting her by only offering some of his food.

The best solution is to offer her everything, he decided. He would cut his sandwiches in half, offer her half of his blueberries, half his gorp, and half a tube of Oreos. She could decide what she wanted to eat.

As he began cutting—with a plastic butter knife—he watched her carefully. She seemed to get the idea, because she started separating her food, too. Dale decided he was fortunate that her sandwich was already halved—he had a brief, terrifying vision of her lasering it in twain with a beam from her horn.

He pushed half his food towards her, and she did the same. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any plates, but the surface of the table was clean enough.

Dale looked at the food in front of him. He hoped that one of the celery stalks wasn’t the one she’d floated in the air, but there was no way to tell.

He picked up the sandwich, examining it over carefully. The bread seemed home-made out of whole grains. It reminded him of the artisan breads that the local deli carried—the ones where a loaf weighed as much as a brick. The filling appeared to be cucumbers and flowers. A thick white sauce kept the sandwich together.

He took a bite. It was—odd. The dressing was too salty for his taste, and had some kind of weird spice in it. The bread was good, though. It was a little yeasty, but very filling. Much to his surprise, the flowers were hardly noticeable, either as a flavor or a texture. They seemed to be overpowered by the herbs that were mixed into the dressing.

He finished the sandwich, and moved on to the celery. It tasted exactly the same as regular celery. It was odd that the leaves were still on it, though, but he decided to eat them, too. When in Rome, do as the Romans. Technically, she was in Rome, but maybe the saying didn’t hold true in alien-encounter situations.

The apple was another matter. It was as big as the biggest GMO apples he’d ever seen. It lacked the waxy-fake probably painted-on shine of store-bought apples, but the color was almost perfectly even. He got the impression from looking at it that it was freshly-picked.

On earth, of course, apples weren’t in season. The freshest ones he’d be getting would have been harvested a few months ago in the southern hemisphere. In the hydroponic gardens on a spaceship, though—every day was probably in season. He’d never heard of anyone growing a hydroponic tree, but there was really no reason why it couldn’t be done that he could think of. In low-G, fruit might even grow larger than normal.

The apple was unbelievably good. He couldn’t remember ever having tasted an apple this good. If someone had told him that the apple had mystical properties, he would have believed them. Every quality of apples was there, and it was perfectly proportioned. If they wanted to sell these on Earth, they’d make a fortune.

Midway through the apple, he suddenly remembered that Lyra was eating his food. He looked up at her, curious what her reaction to his food was.

Celestia sat at a table in the small room behind her throne, a thick book of legal precedent open in front of her. Her face was as impassive as ever, but her mind was racing. So far, today had been an absolute disaster; problems had been piling up faster than she could deal with them, and not a single one could be delegated.

Take Twilight Sparkle. As her mentor, Celestia felt it was her duty to personally correspond with the unicorn—especially since she was being carefully groomed. Fortunately, the unicorn was almost completely oblivious to Celestia’s grand plan—strangely, for all her curiosity, she had never once wondered why her personal foal-sitter was a princess. Moreover, it had never occurred to her that Celestia could easily have gotten the dragon to move on, nor had she wondered how it was even conceivable that Celestia didn’t know what parasprites were.

Naturally, she made mistakes, and Celestia fixed them with gentle nudges in the right direction. She always tried to steer her on the correct path—Twilight had great potential, but if not carefully guided, she could easily go rogue. It wasn’t unheard of, even among Celestia’s personal students. There had been a few occasions where Celestia had questioned the sanity of her protégé—especially after the incident with her Smarty Pants doll. The good news was she seemed to be learning from her mistakes. Cadance had taught her some stress-relief techniques which also seemed to help, and her friends had done wonders at keeping her in line.

But she worried about leaving Twilight in charge of the whole alien encounter operation. She had jumped at the chance to send Octavia to Ponyville, since the earth pony seemed to have a calming effect on Twilight. She would have sent Luna, but she was worried about her sister—especially after this morning’s display on the balcony.

That was her second problem. Not the broken balcony doors—craftsponies were already fixing them. She needed to discover if it was true that blocking rings tortured unicorns. If so, she was going to have to ban them. Over a millennia of precedent, and just now she learned that they were cruel. Why nopony had brought it to her attention before was unfathomable.

She was going to have to find the poor pegasus that Luna had captured the night before. Oddly, she hadn’t been able to find any record in the guard’s logs—or the patrol ponies’—of such an incident, and her sister hadn’t even written down anything about it, either. There was no record whatsoever of her nocturnal activities, and none of the palace staff could remember seeing her anywhere. It was as if she hadn’t even been in the castle. That was another thing she was going to have to investigate personally—she couldn’t just ask the commander of the Royal Guard to find out if her sister was torturing ponies. You mean if your sister is also torturing ponies, since you apparently are, her traitorous brain corrected. That would start all sorts of rumors, whether it was true or not.

She sighed deeply, wondering if Cadance’s breathing exercises would help her, too. Her thoughts were interrupted by a page showing in the dean of Canterlot University.

“Dean Bright Star, how pleasant to meet you in my antechambers.” Her troubled thoughts faded as if they had never been, as the princess smiled broadly at the dean.

In response, she bowed deeply—too deeply. It was overly formal for such an informal meeting; such displays of supplication usually meant that bad news was coming.

“What progress have you made on the anatomy book which Princess Luna presented to the college?”

“None whatsoever, your highness.” The earth pony looked at her with pleading eyes, and Celestia thought she could see tears forming. “The department heads—they argue about where we should begin.”

Celestia silently sighed. She could imagine the scene—a dozen pompous heads of department, with no more sense than any of the nobleponies, arguing passionately about who had the greatest entitlement to the book, and accomplishing nothing as a result. It was a wonder they got anything done at all, and a marvel that their students could even find their way across a street without asking for directions and permission to continue.

“Perhaps you should start at the beginning. When you reach the end, stop.”

“Is that an official decree?” The dean looked at her hopefully. Celestia had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. This was the kind of thing she had intended to get away from on her brief overnight vacation; instead, it had spawned a whole league of new problems.

“I would imagine such a book might be organized systematically, and different department heads might be able to focus on only one section. I will authorize you to hire however many unicorns you need to make copies, which shall be distributed to the various professors as you see fit.” Celestia nodded to her ever-present scribe, who began writing a royal order.

“Thank you, your highness.” The dean bowed, and turned to take her leave.

She made exactly one step of forward progress before crashing into the servingpony who was bearing Celestia’s lunch.

For the barest fraction of a second, Celestia envisioned banishing them both—and it was possible that her thoughts had somehow been obvious to them. Both ponies were groveling on the floor, covered in salad, tea, and cake. It was the most pitiful display of obsequiousness that she had ever seen—it was difficult to say whether they were more sorrowful for the sad state of her lunch, or their own welfare. The servingpony’s lamentations were moving, and the dean waxed lyrical while describing the qualities of the ruined cake. Finally, she could take no more and ordered them to go to the baths and clean themselves off.

As she rushed back to her throne, stomach grumbling from her missed lunch, she wondered if the day could get any worse.

Lyra looked at the two sandwich halves thoughtfully. One of them smelled like fruit, while the other clearly had some kind of carrion on it.

She had no desire to eat the carrion-sandwich. She wasn’t totally against the concept—there were any number of small animals which lived around Ponyville that happily subsisted on meat—and she was certainly aware of the griffon’s preferred diet. Since they were sharing food—it seemed to be important to Dale—she had to eat it. She would insult him if she didn’t.

The question was, should she eat it first, or second? If she ate it first, he might come to the conclusion that it was a food she preferred, and he would offer it to her the next time they met, as well. On the other hoof, the strong fruit smell wafting off the second sandwich might clear her palate after she ate the carrion sandwich, which would be more comfortable for her.

Fortunately, there was a tried-and-true method of solving such a dilemma. She closed her eyes and placed her hoof on the table, then began chanting to herself. Eeenie meenie miney moe. Catch a griffon by the toe. If she squawks, let her go. Cautiously, she opened her left eye and sighted down her foreleg. Fate, it seemed, had chosen the carrion sandwich.

She took a small bite, and chewed it slowly. She tried not to think of what kind of creature it might have come from, instead focusing her mind of the smooth flow of her maestro’s rock garden. Some sort of stringy bits got caught in her teeth—much like the celery was prone to do—but she ignored them.

The meat was tender, which was surprising. She had always imagined that it would be tough and stringy. Hadn’t they been taught that predators had sharp, ripping teeth? It was chewy, but no more than a dandelion salad. It seemed drier than she would have expected, too.

The sandwich also had a stale piece of flavorless lettuce, the worst piece of cheese she had ever tasted, and an oily dressing which did very little to enhance the flavor. She wondered if Dale had any sense of taste at all. A moment later, she chided herself. It was unfair to assume that—judging by the face he was making as he ate a stick of celery, her food wasn’t all appealing to him, either.

She polished off the second sandwich half more quickly than the first, although it had the unfortunate property of sticking everywhere in her mouth. The sweet bean-like butter on the sandwich acted more like glue than anything else she’d ever eaten. It seemed vaguely familiar, but the oiliness of the butter and the potent jelly prevented her from identifying it. Lyra finally had to take a couple of sips of water to swallow it.

A sniff of the loose mix that he’d put on the table confused her even more. The nuts smelled almost the same as the mysterious spread on the sandwich. She knew that the properties of a food could be changed by processing—did they mash up these nuts and mix them with butter? Perhaps he could even bake with them—as smooth as the spread was, they would have to be ground as fine as flour.

The raisins were no mystery, and the little chocolates reminded her of home. The weak letter on each one would be the sigil of the maker. Bon Bon often put blue and yellow stripes on her candies, matching the colors of her cutie mark.

She finally got to the round cookies. Each one had a name written in strong letters. The pattern of the cookie was quite complicated—clearly, a craftspony spend a lot of time making these. They all looked the same, which meant she had a mold, but that still added an extra step to the baking process. The creamy filling was pretty good, but—like everything else Dale had brought—it tasted a little too oily.

Her lunch complete, Lyra looked up at Dale. She felt a pang of guilt—she should have been watching his reaction to her food—but his food was so novel, she couldn’t help but try and analyze it. She had to admit, the carrion wasn’t what she’d been expecting at all, and she wondered if the sushi that her maestro had once offered her would have tasted as good.

If it weren’t for all this rain, this would be quite pleasant, she thought. Like a camping trip in the woods.

Author's Note

As always, check out my blog entry for this chapter, which can be found here!

Chapter 10: Redemption

Celestia Sleeps In
Chapter 10—Redemption
Admiral Biscuit

Luna stretched out on her bed, rolling from side-to-side to make a small depression. The castle staff always managed to get her bed perfectly flat every night, and every morning she felt a slight rebellious joy at undoing their work. She kicked a few small bits of cloud into a lump with her hind hooves, relishing the slight feeling of her magic—unencumbered by her decorative shoes—as it moved the cloudstuff around.

Finally satisfied, she rolled on her back, and entertained herself for a few minutes tossing a pillow into the air with her horn, then kicking it back with her hind hooves. She’d once pretended to be asleep, only to assault her staff with a barrage of pillows when they entered, but they had not been amused. Even Celestia had yelled at her for it.

She sighed. Sometimes being a princess wasn’t fun at all. Everypony thought she should be serious all the time, but she occasionally just wanted to unwind.

The day hadn’t been a total waste, though. She had seriously rattled Celestia with her lie about de-feathering a pegasus, and she had no doubt that her sister was frantically searching for the imaginary victim. She would figure out before too long that Luna hadn’t been in the castle all night, and then she would move on to researching blocking rings.

If it hadn’t been fraught with danger, Luna would have simply slipped one over Celestia’s horn. It was difficult to imagine what might come of that, though. She certainly didn’t want to illustrate her point by having the sun fly out of control.

Luna had been sympathetic to the showmare from the moment she’d arrived at the castle in chains. She had surrendered on her own, once the full realization of what she’d done in Ponyville had sunk in, and the courts had been merciful as a result. Luna had intervened, manipulating the magistrate to sentence her to the dungeons under Canterlot castle. She’d wanted to keep a close eye on Beatrix.

From the very beginning, she’d been trying to get into Trixie’s dreams. Something was blocking her, and she’d been unable to find out what. She’d spent months, skulking through the archives after hours, researching very obscure branches of magic. She could see the taint of corruption—she could see the subtle changes around Trixie’s cutie mark, one of the surest signs. They were not visible to the naked eye yet, but they would be, and they would never fade. It was a condition Luna was quite familiar with.

When Celestia had brought up the subject of teaching Twilight different magics, Luna had jumped at the chance to have the showmare teach her. She knew that Beatrix had powerful magic, and she wanted to observe for herself if there was any dark influence in her magic, or if the effects of the amulet were finally wearing off. Sadly, they were not, but they did not seem to have been progressing, either, although the fringe of fur just above her hooves had begun to darken.

That was when Luna began to become really curious. She had dug up all the books on the nature of Equestrian magic that she could find. The final piece of the puzzle was provide by a treatise written by no other than Lyra’s Neighponese maestro, who taught hybrid ponies how to use their secondary abilities to duel. Since the showmare was an earth pony and unicorn hybrid, she was influenced by the leylines both through her horn and her hooves.

She had been appalled to discover that Beatrix was wearing a blocking ring—she remembered that sinks had been used before unification, and wasn’t sure what had changed in the intervening years.

Luna flung a pillow at the canopy in frustration. She wanted to help Beatrix, but she wasn’t sure how. Despite her high station, she could hardly countermand a legal order—Equestrian law was quite clear on that point. There were only certain rare instances where she could intervene at all, and so far none of the legal requirements had been met. She could try and invoke a mercy clause, but there was no case law on her side. Unless something changed, Luna’s hooves were hobbled.

Once again, Lyra mentally kicked herself. She’d been so distracted by sampling Dale’s food, she’d let another learning opportunity slip through her hooves. Both of them could have been naming their foods as they ate them—but that opportunity was long past.

She slid her chalkboard back over, wiping the earlier notes clean. She began by writing the name of the sandwich cookie on the board. Learning from the books was useful, but maybe it was time to start with things he actually had here.

“Oreo?” Dale looked at her curiously. He got out of his chair and walked over to a bag tied from a tree. A few moment of work, and he had lowered the bag and was rummaging around inside. Before long, he had returned with a blue tube. “Lyra wants Oreos?”

She shook her head, making a waving-away motion with her hoof. “Lyra no Oreo.” She thought for a second. How to tell him that she wanted him to name things? There was a section like that in one of his Dick and Jane books.

Lyra tapped a hoof to her breast. “It is Lyra.” She pointed to Dale. “It is not Lyra, it is Dale.” Pointing to the cookies, she stated, “It is not Lyra, it is not Dale, it is Oreo.” Finally, she pointed to her empty cup. “It is not Lyra, it is not Dale, it is not Oreo. It is?”

Dale seemed to get the idea. “Cup,” he said.

“Cup,” she repeated back carefully. Dale wrote the word in his notebook, and she copied it down in her own, before telling him the Equus word.

They repeated the process for all the rest of the items under the pavilion. Finally, Lyra pointed to her improvised seat.

“Cooler,” Dale said.

“See-oh-el-ee-em-eh-en,” she sounded out, tracing her hoof along the printing along the side. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t spelled anything like it sounded.

“It’s not called a Coleman,” Dale said, struggling not to laugh. “No Coleman. Cooler. See-oh-oh-el-ee-ar.” He showed her the spelling in his notebook.

“What Coleman?” Lyra was honestly confused. As if the disparity between the sound of the letters and the pronunciation wasn’t bad enough, objects had words printed on them which weren’t what they actually were. Unless, of course, its name was Coleman. It seemed an odd thing, to name an inanimate object—well, she’d named her plushies, but that was different; those were supposed to represent an animate object. She didn’t know Dale’s word for name, so she’d have to ask in a roundabout fashion. “Pony Lyra, human Dale, cooler Coleman?”

Dale nodded, then made writing motions. He’d noticed that she hadn’t given him a word yet. I don’t even know what it is, she thought. “Lyra not know,” she confessed.

Dale moved over to Coleman and twisted a latch, before lifting the lid. As soon as he did, its purpose became clear. “Icebox,” she told him.

Terrain ahead!Pull up!

Calley instinctively pitched the nose of the Dauphin, twisting the throttle to keep the rotor speed up. He looked at the radio altimeter in bewilderment—just a moment ago, he’d been at two thousand feet, and now it was reading four hundred. It was easy to get disoriented in overcast weather, but there was no way he could have lost sixteen hundred feet of altitude in a few seconds.

Plus, the helicopter seemed to be quickly gaining altitude. Cally was almost immediately pushed down in his seat by the climb, although the altimeter continued to register descent, before it suddenly spiked to twenty-thousand feet.

The captain was also studying the gauges intently. He pointed to the weather radar, which appeared to have gone nuts. Random red blotches were appearing and disappearing from the screen.

The two ensigns were wide-eyed in the back of the helicopter. Calley’s sudden maneuver had been entirely unexpected, and they were lucky they were strapped in. But when the robot said pull up, you didn’t ignore it.

“Hold it here,” the captain muttered in the intercom. His voice came through oddly staticy.

“Yes, sir.” He didn’t need to be told—while it was possible that there had been some sort of malfunction of the TAWS, there was also the very remote possibility that there actually had been something unseen in front of them.

“Tower, chopper sixty-two. We are about three miles off the shore of North Fox and our helicopter seems to have malfunctioned, do you copy?”

The radio hissed petulantly in his ear. After a moment, the captain tried again, but there was still no response.

“Calley, take her back towards the mainland.”

“Back the way we came,” he said cheerfully, working the anti-torque pedals.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” the captain muttered. “Weather radar’s on the fritz, radio’s out. I don’t believe the altimeter. I don’t know if you noticed, but the VOR’s twitchy, too. It shouldn’t be.”

“Static? Maybe the rain’s doing something?”

“It almost seems like jamming,” the captain said. “Remember that Piper we were looking for? She said she lost her radios, but then they started working again.”

“I wonder if it’s connected to that weird purple light on the island?”

“I don’t know.” The captain scratched his chin. “And, I don’t want to be the one to find out. What if we lose flight controls next? Or the engine quits? Maybe there’s nothing there at all, and we have a serious problem with the helicopter. I don’t want to be the one to find out which it is. Let’s head back towards base. Keep it slow. Let’s see if we can get under the clouds, too. Just in case the instruments flake out again.” He looked up towards the rotor. “Might not be a bad idea to run through the ditching checklist, just in case.”

Dale put the geometry book on the table. He paused before opening it. He’d meant to review the book, since it had been quite a few years since he’d taken a geometry class, and he wasn’t sure he could remember any of the equations. True, they were spelled out in the book, but he still felt woefully unprepared. He couldn’t remember when he’d last used a geometric formula more complicated than calculating the area of a rectangle, but it probably wasn’t since high school. Even then, he’d privately wondered at the utility of it. Homeowner Bob has a lawn with dimensions x by y. What is the most efficient pattern to mow this lawn? Well, Homeowner Bob will probably just get on his lawnmower, crack open a beer, and mow until he’s done. He sure as heck isn’t going to calculate out the most efficient pattern on his kitchen table.

I think I need to fortify myself with a little coffee before I get started. Dale grabbed his thermos and poured himself a cup of coffee. He noticed Lyra had a strangely amused look.

He pointed to her cup, then the thermos. She nodded, so he filled her cup, too.

They both took a moment to themselves, Dale slowly sipping from his cup, while Lyra lapped at her coffee, wiping her muzzle with a foreleg when she was finished.

Here we go, he thought. “Geometry.” She copied the word, although she gave him no word in response. Remembering the cooler, he began to turn the pages—just long enough so that she could get an idea what the book was about.

Seeing her blank look, his heart sank. Didn’t she know geometry? What kind of astronaut didn’t? But that wasn’t really fair; he hardly knew it himself, and here he was trying to teach it. Fortunately, when he reached the Pythagorean theorem, her ears flicked, and she smiled.

She wrote a word on the chalkboard and pronounced it for him, drawing under it a right triangle, bisected circle, and a cylinder.

Dale nodded absently, copying her word down. His original intention had been to just give her the book—she could pass it on to an engineer or whomever they had on the ship that would know these things—and it would be another sign of just how advanced human civilization was. Now he was having regrets—first, because she would no doubt want him to go through it like they had with every other book; second, because a distant part of his mind was reminding him that there was some speculation that there were more than just three dimensions. A lot of the geometric rules were discovered a long time ago—the Pythagorean theorem dated to ancient Greece, after all—and they might think that humanity hadn’t progressed past that point. There was a scene in one of the Star Trek movies where Scottie had called a keyboard ‘quaint,’—was it possible that they would be chuckling amongst themselves about humanity being stuck on only three dimensions?

Upon reflection, he decided that they probably wouldn’t. Lyra had seemed fascinated by every book he’d shown her so far, and her books had also been—as far as he could tell—simplistic. She, or whoever was giving her supplies, had decided on easy books to begin with, given the difficulty of communication. Therefore, he could assume that they would imagine this was another simple book, just for the purposes of getting communications started.

Turning back to the first page with a drawing, he began. “Square.” He traced his finger around the edge of the figure, just to be certain she knew what he was naming.

There was nothing in the case law. It wasn’t surprising. Celestia had just skimmed it—to really review a millennia of cases would have taken her months—but none of the summaries mentioned blocking rings at all. It was so rare to even have a unicorn prisoner—she could count on one hoof the number of powerful unicorns they’d had to imprison in the last century. Each one of them had been powerful, and each one of them had done terrible things. One had nearly managed to start a war with the buffalo; she was part of the reason why the buffalo and Appleoosans didn’t quite see eye-to-eye. Celestia filed a quick mental note to make another attempt to set up an embassy: the last few attempts had been rebuffed, but perhaps Little Strongheart could talk her father around.

Still, that didn’t solve her immediate problem. She really wanted a definitive answer before Luna woke. She had come to the conclusion that there had been no pegasus thrown off the balcony; it was just Luna’s in-your-muzzle way of presenting ideas. Methods learned in a bygone age. Celestia remembered when pegasi mothers pushed their foals off clouds to teach them to fly. Luna’s direct approach had worked, too: if she had simply said that blocking rings could be fatal to unicorns, Celestia probably would have nodded and not given the matter any thought for a few days; as it was, she had spent almost every moment of her free time doing research, and she hated research. She often felt guilty whenever she assigned research projects to her students. Twilight thrived on them, though—Cadance had had to drag the young unicorn out of libraries more than once.

Celestia sighed. She was going to have to go to the restricted pre-unification wing of the archives. The wizened librarian that kept the records was suspicious of everypony—even Celestia. She had given the unicorn the job as an honorary retirement—since she seemed loath to accept any kind of pension—and instead of sleeping at her desk, as anypony else would have done, she ran the archives with a frightening presence, with no respect for authority whatsoever. There were whispered bets among the palace guards that she would eventually be found slumped over her desk, but Celestia doubted it—that mare would never do something as disorderly as die at her post.

Lyra was embarrassed by how long it had taken her to realize that Dale’s book was about geometry. He had hardly stopped long enough on any page for her to figure out what the theme was, and his kind appeared to use both numbers and the alphabet to describe mathematical relationships, which was odd. It was the right triangle which had finally clued her in: the ponagorean theorem’s diagram was unmistakable for anything else.

Right now, he was showing her a drawing of a circle. There was a line from the center to the edge, labeled with a tipped weak r. He seemed more interested in her name for the symbols, rather than the formula, but that made sense: the formulas she knew would probably be the same as the formulas Dale knew, since math was believed to be universal. Three rocks were three rocks, whether a pony had them or a griffon.

“Archamare’s constant,” Lyra translated, pointing to the odd symbol. It looked like an aitch, but the crossbar had been raised and bowed. Advanced Equestrian math generally used the old Pegos symbols, since the Oceanic tribe had been the first to produce real scientific observation—something that still grated at unicorns almost two millennia hence. There was a long debate amongst unicorn mathematicians if the number ever ended or repeated. Neighton had spent months calculating out digits, and managed a gross with no obvious pattern.

Dale scribbled her words—and her symbol—in his notebook, while Lyra shifted uncomfortably on the cooler. She shouldn’t have had that coffee. It had helped her focus, but now it was causing other problems. The sky was still overcast—although the rain had tapered off to a misty drizzle—so she didn’t know what time it was. Still, there was no way she was going to make it to the end of the day, and she didn’t know how to ask a somewhat vital question.

He noticed her body language, and set his pen down. “Lyra?” He held his hands in a an open gesture—one she’d come to recognize as expressing a lack of understanding.

She could demonstrate her need, but that might be rude. Finally, she looked at her empty cup and had an inspiration. “Lyra make water where?”

Dale looked at her curiously. It wasn’t something he’d even considered, which was kind of stupid of him. He could only imagine what kind of facility she was used to—so much would depend on whether their spaceship had artificial gravity or not. Naturally, he was imagining it from a human perspective, but the technological hurdles in microgravity had to be similar. The astronauts had special training just to use the toilet on the space shuttle, since it didn’t work like a normal toilet. He’d read descriptions of the process, although it was probably one of those things that had to be experienced first-hand to really get an idea how challenging it actually was.

That thought led him off on a tangent—he wondered how they had dealt with the long-term effects of microgravity. NASA would be very interested, especially if they were seriously considering a mission to Mars. If he remembered right, spending long amounts of time in space caused a loss of bone density and muscle tone, and he thought he could remember that there were problems with the circulatory system, too, since the human body was evolved to work in earth-gravity. He hadn’t given it much thought, but she seemed to be moving around well enough—they had undoubtedly come up with a solution to the problem, either with an gravitational field on the entire ship, or a gravity wheel that the crew could exercise in. They could also have solved the problem with fast travel: if they had some sort of warp drive or could control wormholes or something they wouldn’t be in microgravity long enough for it to be a problem. Maybe everyone aboard the ship was deep-frozen, and only thawed if the ship’s computers found something of note. Cryogenics was—at best—a fringe science on Earth, but maybe the problems of cell damage weren’t insurmountable.

Of course, he’d been thinking that they had a large proportion of water in them, like a human. Water was one of the few chemicals that expanded when it froze. Maybe they were made up of something else—something that could be frozen and thawed without any damage. But she ate his food and drank his water, so they couldn’t be that dissimilar, probably. Which reminded him, she needed an answer from him.

He had just been going out into the woods. Bears did it, as the saying went, and if it was good enough for a bear it was fine for him. That led to another communication problem, of course. How to tell her that any tree was good enough? There was no way he was going to demonstrate; that went well beyond what should be expected of anyone.

This was the kind of thing that was played for comic value in movies, yet there was no humor here. She’d said ‘make water,’ so at least he had that much information—she wasn’t going to expel dark matter like Nibbler.

He looked at the forest which surrounded his camp. As long as she got the idea across that she could go in the woods, he was going to be spared the difficult explanation of how a toilet worked, or what the proverbial three shells were for.

“There,” he finally said, pointing to the treeline. “In the trees.”

She looked at him curiously.

”Outside,” he said, finally remembering the words they’d covered.

“Altimeter’s back on line.” Calley looked over at the captain, who appeared deep in thought. He waited patiently for a response, scanning over the gauges. They all seemed normal now—the weather radar had returned to its normal display, and the VOR needle was sitting rock-solid.

“I just don’t like it. How can we trust the altimeter now?” The captain rubbed his jaw. “Why don’t you spin around, so we can see North Fox?”

Calley complied, but it was quickly obvious that they weren’t going to see anything through the mist. Visibility was a mile, maybe two—it was hard to judge over the featureless surface of the lake just how far away things were.

“There’s something there,” the captain finally stated. “It might be messing with our electronics. It might be natural, or it might be man-made, but there’s no way we should fly back into it. If the weather were clear, we could work our way up, kind of get a feel for the boundaries of the thing. I don’t think it would affect the flight controls, but I can’t be sure, and I don’t want to risk it. If it’s some kind of weird electrical discharge—well, I don’t know.”

“We can’t just ignore it,” Calley said. “It has to be something, and it could be a hazard to navigation. What if it pulses, kind of? A ship could run aground.”

The captain nodded in agreement. “We’ve got to do something. Let’s check and see if the radios are working again. If my theory is right, they should be. We can radio back to the Air Station, and tell them what we’ve got. If they dispatch a couple of boats, they could get close enough in to see what’s going on.”

“If their radios quit, they can use the Aldis.” Calley said thoughtfully. “And if the motors stop working, at least the boat will still float. They can send them in a line, a few miles apart, so if the first one gets in trouble, the second will be there to respond.”

“I like it.” The captain toggled the radio. “Tower, chopper sixty-two, do you copy?”

“Sixty-two, go ahead.”

“Tower, we’ve got a bit of a situation on North Fox.” The captain explained what they’d seen, and gave a brief overview of their surmise.

“Ah, understand sixty-two. We’ll contact Manistee and tell them to send out their boats.”

“They’ve only got one RBS, right?”

“Correct, only one.”

“Maybe you should see if you can coordinate with someone else, too. Maybe Grand Haven or Sturgeon Bay, get a couple more RBS’s, so they can go in slow.”

Is anyone in distress?” The tower controller sounded slightly concerned.

“Not that we’re aware of, but it could potentially crash an airplane. Remember that Piper we went looking for a couple days ago? She lost her radios around North Fox, too. It appears to have a broad effect on radio and radar.”

Before coming to Ponyville, Lyra would have undoubtedly been appalled by Dale’s suggestion that she just use the woods, but out on the edge of civilization as it was, indoor plumbing was still a bit of a luxury item for many ponies. It still felt wrong—every time she had to go outdoors she could envision her mother’s disapproving frown—but she wasn’t totally opposed to the idea, unlike many of the fancy Canterlot unicorns.

As she looked for a suitable spot, she took the time to let her mind wander. There was something about Dale’s home that bothered her. She couldn’t quite put her hoof on it, but something seemed out of place. She mentally reviewed everything she’d seen.

Even though she’d never gone through the full training that the Royal Guards got, she was still exposed to quite a few lessons about how to be a good guard. One of the most important was observation. Her instructor had said that sometimes even when they weren’t sure what was out of place, the nagging feeling shouldn’t be ignored, and she’d been having that feeling for the entire day.

She resolved that their next meeting would take place in three days. That would give her enough time to debrief with Twilight and Luna, and go over the new words they’d learned with Octavia without feeling rushed.

As she was heading back towards Dale’s compound, a faint scent teased her nostrils even over the misty rain. Mint! Not only was it tasty, but it was also good for indigestion, and that was something she could use right now. She veered slightly off-course—towards the beach—which seemed to be the source of the scent.

She finally found a fairly sizable patch of mint growing in the shelter of an oak tree. Despite it having been her objective, something else caught her eye—a large silvery structure.

Lyra moved over to examine it. She couldn’t figure out what it was doing in the woods, which piqued her curiosity. As peaceful as it was on the island, she was longing to see something more of Dale’s culture—ideally, it would be something so fantastic even Twilight would have to admit that Dale was civilized.

Her first thought was that it was some kind of metal roof—a few buildings in Ponyville had them instead of the more common thatching. It was too short for anypony to fit under, though, unless some of the smaller creatures which lived on the island had built it. But if it was a roof, what was it meant to cover?

Even more confounding was the construction of the thing. A neat row of rivets ran down the center, and there was a standing seam between them. It had clearly been made in two halves and riveted together. This was far beyond what a pony could do. The largest forges Lyra was aware of couldn’t fit more than a steel hoop for a tire. She couldn’t even imagine the process for working such a giant piece of metal. Maybe a dragon could do it, but the amount of time required to make such a perfectly smooth surface—even if a unicorn skilled in metalwork helped—was unbelievable, and the cost of production was unfathomable.

The scratches along the roof were perplexing, too, especially coupled with the small dents on one end of it. Something had fallen on it or brushed across it, and caused the scratches. But that hadn’t happened here. The only things which could have fallen on it were branches, and they wouldn’t have caused such damage.

Puzzled, she walked around to examine the other side. Much the same as the first, it offered her no clues until she got to the very front, where half of a sticker clung to the metal. At first, she could make nothing of it, either—while it had some kind of characters on it, they weren’t ones that Dale had taught her. She tilted her head, and it suddenly clicked. The sticker was upside-down. Perhaps the roof was upside down, too. Perhaps it wasn’t a roof at all.

She stepped back, to get a look at the whole thing. It was pointy on both ends, fairly flat on the bottom with a slight ridge running down the center where the two halves had been joined. It must have been turned over so it wouldn’t fill with water when it was right-side up.

It was not much wider than Dale, but it was several times longer than he was tall. At least two Dales could fit into it lying down, more if they sat up.

She wondered if it was some kind of bathtub. Like a large pot, a fire could be built under it to heat the water—but there would be soot marks on it, if it was used that way.

As she walked around the dented end of it, she happened to look up and spotted a sort-of trail leading back towards the beach. Lyra frowned. She knew that small boats were usually kept upside down when they weren’t used. After all, if they kept water out, they’d keep it in, too. But nopony would build a boat out of metal; it would sink. Wood floated, metal didn’t.

Or would it? Bon Bon’s metal pots floated in the sink, until she pushed the lip of the pot underwater. Then they filled with water and sank.

She scratched it with her hoof. It was a soft metal—softer than her shoes. It looked like the same kind of metal that the spindly poles supporting the pavilion had been made of. In a way, that made sense. If it were cast iron or steel, it would rust if it were exposed to water, and a boat was meant to be exposed to water. If this was a boat, Dale had reason to be confident that his pavilion poles would be unharmed by the rain.

Did he use the boat to get fish? It could explain where the carrion on the sandwich had come from. Still, she hadn’t smelled anything fishy around his home, and fishing boats usually had a permanent odor; this one did not.

Lyra stuck her cheek against the ground, trying to get a good look inside the thing. There were cross-bars which held the two sides together, along with two seats—one at each end. Some thin black straps held an oar to the cross-bars, which further reinforced her theory that it was some kind of a boat.

She didn’t see any provision for a mast. She’d assumed that the oar was for steering, but it could also be for propulsion--the minotaurs had ships which were propelled by both sails and banks of oars for when the winds were unfavorable. It wasn’t a design that a pony would find of any value at all, but she’d observed enough of Dale’s behavior to have a fairly good idea of how he might use such a boat.

She chuckled. She was sure she was right about this. Maybe fish smelled different in Dale’s world—she hadn’t seen one yet, but there were pictures of them in the book. He might even cook them; she’d seen a firepit with charred logs near his pavilion, and there was a neat pile of freshly-sawn logs right next to—

Sawn logs.

Sawn.

She’d seen nopony else on the island. The scouts hadn’t seen anypony, either. That close to the spell’s landing site, they should have found his home. They should have smelled his fire, or his food. Unless he wasn’t there.

She’d wondered why he hadn’t built a proper house. He must have had the tools—he certainly had a saw. Wood was plentiful, yet he had his domehouse made of its amazing fabric. He had an ice chest with handles—it looked like something he could carry himself. This wasn’t his home; this was a camp.

Lyra grazed on the mint for a while, still thinking. If her hypothesis was correct, she wouldn’t find anything in his camp which couldn’t be carried on or off the island in this boat—unless, like the wood, it grew here naturally.

When she was finished eating, she cheerfully returned to camp with a mouthful of extra mint for Dale. Perhaps her food hadn’t agreed with his stomach, either.

Trixie slowly moved through the field of crystals. She was swaying on her hooves; if it hadn’t been for the boost in energy she’d felt as the blocking ring finally fell off her horn, she would have long since collapsed.

Progress was frustratingly slow. She had discovered that she could weaken the crystals by pressing the strip of lead against their base, which allowed her to carefully push them over by hoof. It was such a laborious process that she would never clear a path to the door; instead, she was settling on only making spots large enough to rest her hooves.

With all her concentration elsewhere, the crystals had begun to grow again. The soft whispers of movement echoed through her head, throbbing and reverberating in time to her pulse. Every time she lowered her head she had to close her left eye—something was oozing into it, and as much as she wanted to believe it was sweat, it probably wasn’t.

She was in a trance—the same trance which had sustained her day after day at the rock farm. The irony of using skills which she had learned on the run in order to escape from her prison was not lost on her; she wondered if she was the butt of some cosmic joke. A lifetime of highs and lows—each peak taller, and each valley lower—lent her the resilience she needed to take one more step, then one more, then one more.

Finally—unexpectedly—her muzzle banged into the cell door. She dropped the blocking ring and bit her tongue, frowning as the salty taste of blood filled her mouth.

Trixie looked at the door carefully. Gently, she rested a hoof on the thick wood, feeling for any subtle enchantments which might be present.

Feeling none, she shifted her vision. The floor and walls pulsed with their enticingly dark magic, but the door was clear.

Still, she hesitated.

Getting out was only the first step. Once she was in the hallway, she’d have to get past the guards. Then, she’d have to get out of the castle. Next, probably escape to the Everfree Forest—it might be an obvious haven, but she’d be quite difficult to find there. But what happened next? Live a life of exile? Commune with the trees and squirrels? She couldn’t do that; it wasn’t in her nature. Besides, she hated squirrels.

Inspiration suddenly came. She needed to find somepony who could get the dark thoughts out of her head, and she knew just the pony to ask. It would be unexpected, too—the guards would never think of looking where she was going.

Fortune favors the bold, Trixie, her mother had said. She put a hoof on the door, gently shifting it to feel for the hinges and latch.

She reared back.

Showtime.

Luna jerked awake, eliciting a whinny of fear from the servant who had been diligently polishing her tiara.

During her long period of banishment, she had learned to tap into the dreams of ponies. It was only natural—her father had taught her oneirourgy, and she had managed—with centuries to do little else—to gain a comprehensive feel for the warp and weave of the fabric of Equestria, and even the dreams of sapient creatures. Why this was possible was beyond even her understanding, but it was.

Normally, it was a constant background noise, although she had learned to isolate certain emotions from dreams, and she could vaguely sense them. Occasionally, she tapped into dreams, often appearing to the dreamer. It was much easier if it was a pony she knew, and if that pony was near her, but she had the potential ability to do it to anypony—more correctly, anyone—anywhere on Equestria.

Now she was feeling another voice in her head—one which had long been dormant. It was faint—the barest whisper above the background—but it was there.

Not daring to move any farther and risk the tenuous connection, she began to move through the dreamscape. Occasional imagined monsters popped up here and there, but she ignored them, following the faint trail of her target.

She gently, carefully, quietly began moving into the mind of her target. It was one thing to grasp onto an idea a pony was vividly imagining, but this pony wasn’t dreaming—she wasn’t even asleep. Rather, her mind was in a trance, a vague half-awake state.

She found a mind in turmoil. Conflicting emotions each vied for attention, each briefly rising to the surface to quickly be replaced by another. The mare was perched on a knife-edge, with doom on one side and salvation on the other.

There was really only one thing Luna could do. It was an act she would pay dearly for, when Celestia found out, but it was also an act of atonement.

Ever so gently, Luna moved farther into Trixie’s mind and gave her a little push.

While Lyra was gone, Dale reflected on how the day had been so far. He had missed most of her meal, although when he had looked up from the apple, she was nose-down to the table, gamely picking up gorp. He’d noticed that both sandwich halves were gone, so apparently she was omnivorous. It was interesting, although it wasn’t particularly useful to know at the moment. The idea did lead him to wonder how they kept animals. Were there farms with cows and pigs and sheep on their homeworld? Or did they normally do all their hunting in the wild? Maybe they were opportunistic omnivores. Maybe their spaceship had an artificial meat laboratory.

He looked at the geometry book—which they’d managed to get halfway through—and frowned. It had seemed like such a good plan while he was sitting at home, yet both of them were struggling with the book, and to what real purpose? Some general had said that no plan survived first contact with the enemy, and he couldn’t agree more—even if Lyra wasn’t the enemy. The book on the solar system had fallen flat; he’d gotten more use out of Dick and Jane.

Dale looked at his watch. She’d only been gone for ten minutes, but that seemed like forever. Aside from the white noise of the rainfall, he heard nothing from the woods. Was she lost? Maybe it just took her a while to take off her suit—if she was wearing one at all. When she’d fallen on him, her fur had felt like—well, it felt like fur. Or hair, or a pelt, or whatever horse fur was called. The skin—if it was skin—underneath had been warm, close to his own body temperature. More importantly, it hadn’t shifted around like clothes would. It felt attached; it felt like it was part of her.

But what kind of explorer would go naked into a new world? Surely, they knew all about germs and such, things in the atmosphere of a strange planet which could be harmful. She was cautious, yes, but she had a child-like exuberance. He had a hard time imagining Neil deGrasse Tyson rolling around on the beach like a dog, even for the benefit of a first-contact experience.

She reminded him of the Eloi. Not because she was vapid and overly-trusting—she was far from that—but she seemed to have an unusual interest his world, even though there wasn’t much of it to see here. He was beginning to wonder if taking her to a science museum would blow her mind.

Of course, it was hard to read her expressions, and he couldn’t assume that he was correct. But she’d looked at his books with wide-eyed wonder, acted like a five-year-old when they were naming actions, and she’d been looking around his camp as if she’d never seen anything as interesting as a tent before. Was she autistic?

Be careful Dale, he reminded himself. He was basing his entire judgement on a few hours of direct contact and the few items she had brought with her. If she wasn’t a veteran at this kind of thing, everything would be new and strange. How would he feel if their positions were reversed? He could only imagine them looking down on him for being intrigued by something as simple as a pneumatic pocket door. There were also a lot of stories in which the space travelers were searching for a new world because they’d ruined their own, in which case the sight of trees growing naturally might be a wondrous thing. Admittedly, she didn’t seem like she was from a post-apocalyptic future world, but how could he be sure?

I wonder if she’s just taking the opportunity to play in the forest? He looked around the camp, and caught sight of her as she bounded back into camp. Her legs were splattered with mud, but more interestingly, she was carrying a mouthful of plants.

She spit them out on the table, and pushed them towards him. He recognized it instantly—she’d grabbed a bunch of mint. Why she’d done so was beyond him.

She looked at him brightly. “Dale eat. Good.”

He looked at the mint dubiously. Sharing food was one thing, but did he really want to eat mint that she’d carried here in her mouth?

The trip over had been uneventful. Although it had begun in miserably drizzly rain, as they got out into the lake, they passed the edge of the storm, and the weather changed to a mist. Ryan stood at the helm, solid as a rock. Anthony manned the radio, and kept a close eye on the patrol boat following them. His only word since they’d left the rendezvous off Beaver Island had been “faster,” and then he had fallen silent.

Cortez kept a lookout for other boats, although the weather pretty much made his job moot—there weren’t many pleasure boaters willing to brave the weather. He kept looking up from the radar to sweep his gaze outside, as if he didn’t believe the information it presented.

Kate sat in the back of the boat, a superfluous crewmember for the moment.

“Radar’s getting a little funny,” Cortez finally commented. “I’m getting static.”

Anthony nodded. “We’re getting close. There’s supposed to be some electrical interference. I’m surprised it’s still here, though.”

“What do you mean? They said that the chopper lost its radios and its radar.”

“Most electrical anomalies would be gone by now.” Anthony gestured out over the water. “Weather like this might make St. Elmo’s fire, which is probably what they saw.”

“Man, that’s in thunderstorms, and it don’t screw up the Doppler.”

Anthony shook his head. “There only has to be a difference in electromagnetic potential; doesn’t have to be lightning.”

“Whatever.” Cortez shook his head, returning his gaze to the radar before giving up and looking out through the windows.

“Kate, why don’t you signal the second boat to slow down a bit? We’re getting close to North Fox.”

“Sir, isn’t that normally Ryan’s duty?”

Anthony looked at her sternly. “He’s piloting. You need the practice anyway. Ryan, once they confirm our signal, I want to slow it down. No need to ram the island—this weather, seems like we could.” He looked thoughtful. “Probably shouldn’t even be going this fast—what’s your speed?”

“Thirty-five knots,” he said.

“Seems fast.”

“Yes, sir.” He notched the throttle back, declining to mention that Anthony had been the one to give the order for speed in the first place. Countermanding a superior officer was never a wise career move.

“This is bad, this is very bad.” Twilight paced around the main room of the library. Floating just in front of her face was a crayon-written note.

She hoped that she had remembered to tell Lyra not to share food with the creature. She was sure she’d said something about that. She knew that Iron Will’s goat assistants could eat things that would make a pony very sick—things which might even kill a pony, if proper medial treatment wasn’t quickly sought.

She’d been making herself a sandwich, and had seen the note lying on the kitchen counter. It was obviously Pinkie’s doing. The note smelled strongly of frosting; it almost certainly had been attached to a baked good of some sort. Probably a cupcake—Pinkie had a very strange obsession with cupcakes, although she had a surprising inability to actually make them. At least, when she had assistance. Probably she could cook them well on her own, but whenever somepony offered her a helping hoof, her baking was a disaster.

How was that even possible? Twilight stopped her pacing, her earlier worries gone for the moment now that she had a new problem to chew on. Applejack had helped her once, and the resultant muffins had made several ponies quite ill. AJ was no slouch in the kitchen, normally. She’d certainly learned from a master, so how had she been able to misunderstand ingredients so badly?

And what about Apple Bloom? Even if the foal could manage to turn a simple project into a disaster, Pinkie should have known she was making mistakes. So why didn’t she lift a hoof in correction?

She shook her head. This was the kind of thing that only happened to Pinkie Pie, and there would be no coherent explanation from her. If she’d even noticed. Twilight had had the misfortune to eat one of the cupcakes at Diamond Tiara’s cute-ceañera; Pinkie had said that they were good.

Did Pinkie know something that nopony else did? She’d had misses—she was completely off the mark about Zecora—but her hits were more common. She’d solved the problem with the parasprites, and her pinkie-sense tended to work reliably on monsters and falling objects. Even the toxic muffins had motivated everypony to help Applejack despite her protests. Her seemingly disastrous attempt to help Cranky Doodle had reunited him with his long-lost love. Could this be another case where she knew that the cupcake would do no harm, or where its presence would set in motion a chain of events that were beneficial to the citizens of Ponyville?

No. That’s ridiculous. Twilight began pacing again. If only there were something she could do, some way she could get a message to Lyra.

Lyra looked at the camp as if she’d never seen it before. In a way, this was the first view of it—as a camp.

It had all been new to her when she first set hoof into the camp, but now the little details were sticking out, in a way which made her wonder how she’d missed them before. The pavilion poles were segmented. The ground wasn’t cleared at all—detritus and rocks littered the ground. The table had a seam in the center; diagonal supports on the legs were riveted in the center. He had an icebox—but no stove, just a kettle supported on a green cylinder. An oar which was a match to the one she’d seen in his boat leaned up against a tree.

Most significantly, nothing looked like it belonged in these woods. Homes usually had thematic landscaping around them. Practically every home in Ponyville—even those not owned by earth ponies—had flowers around them. Here there was nothing but clearing and then untamed woods.

The furnishings appeared to have been selected with function over form. Even allowing for Dale’s tastes to be different than her own, there was a strange, almost illogical mix of hard and soft, of temporary and durable. The table and the ice chest were both made of stronger materials than the domehouse and pavilion, for example, and the bag of food held by a rope in the tree was obviously a short-term storage solution: anything that wanted the food would cut or gnaw through the rope.

Twilight had speculated that he had come to observe the stars. She’d been wrong about that—the tube which Twilight supposed had contained a telescope instead was filled with coffee. Dale had almost spilled it when she started laughing as he poured a cup. Was he an explorer, or could he have just been taking a vacation in the woods, as ponies sometimes did? She hadn’t seen anything on him which could be a cutie mark—if his kind even had them—so there was no clue there. Besides, not every pony had a job which was reflected by their cutie mark.

When she had first seen him, he had not been carrying his backpack, or his blue jug that held water. His boat had been out of sight. It was strange that he would pull it so far from shore, when there weren’t even any tides, but he probably had a good reason. He was up earlier than ponies usually woke, although she couldn’t assume that the same held true of his kind.

It made her appreciate his efforts all the more. He must have gone back to his home to get the books—for there was no reason for him to have brought them to the island before their first contact. It also explained why he had failed to produce a chalkboard for this meeting. Like her, he was leaving his home for these meetings. Unlike her, he probably couldn’t go back for the night. She wished their language had been similar. She could have taught him a teleportation spell that would have saved him a lot of travel time.

Dale was looking at her curiously. He hadn’t eaten any of the mint.

“Dale not house here?” She waved a hoof around the camp. “Dale house there?” This time Lyra pointed in the direction of the water.

Dale nodded.

“Lyra go Dale house there?” Again, she pointed towards the lake.

Dale considered her words thoughtfully. He was impressed that she’d figured out that this wasn’t his home on her own. He couldn’t remember if the visual dictionary had a section on camping in it, and surely they would have enough variety of architectural styles to know that not every kind of dwelling was illustrated in the book.

But how would he get her home—if he choose to take her? Could he just provide map coordinates, or would he have to take her there himself? Would they be able to beam down to his backyard? Was a giant glowing bubble that knocked out electronics a violation of local ordinances? If she brought that with her, his neighbors would be sure to notice it.

Eventually, they’d have to have a discussion about this, but it would have to wait until their vocabulary had improved.

“No Lyra go Dale house there.” He made the sunrise gesture with his hands. “No now. Dale Lyra need words.” He made writing motions with his hand as he spoke, then pointed to his notebook.

She nodded—then climbed back up on the cooler, covering it with muddy streaks. Dale sighed. He couldn’t fault her for it, although she could have stood out in the rain a little longer and washed her legs off.

As if the weather disagreed with him, the late afternoon sun finally broke through the clouds.

Ryan slowed the engines to a crawl as the beach grew closer. They’d already signaled the second boat that their radios were dead, and it was waiting further out for them to relay new discoveries as they made them.

His right hand was locked on the throttle; one motion and the boat would be headed full-speed astern. He was willing himself not to look at the glowing hemisphere that dominated the sandy beach, instead listening for the slightest variation in the noise of the outboards. Not for the first time, he wished that the gun had been mounted before they left. While he doubted it would have any effect on the anomaly, it would be comforting to have, all the same.

The other three crew members were simply staring at the bubble, occasionally surreptitiously taking pictures with their cell phones. The misty rain they’d been travelling through had finally dispersed as they grew close, leaving the forest glittering with diamonds in the late afternoon sun. None of them had noticed.

“It’s some kind of electrical . . . thing,” Anthony stated. “Like ball lightning, maybe.” He looked over at Ryan. “Put her on shore. Hold her with the engines.”

“Are you sure?” Ryan turned to look him in the eye. “It might be dangerous.”

“It’s electrical or atmospheric,” Anthony said confidently. “But if it were powerful enough to charge the sand, somehow, we’d see signs at the water’s edge—little arcs or electricity, or something.”

“Just because you’re studying to be an electrical engineer don’t mean you know anything,” Cortez muttered under his breath.

“What was that, Cortez? Do I detect a hint of insubordination?”

“Sir, no sir.” Cortez said carefully. “I was just commenting that the commander should proceed with due caution into an unfamiliar situation.”

“Ah yes. Of course you were.” He smiled. “When we land, you can be the first ashore. Perhaps we can all learn from your cautious attitude.”

Cortez looked at the glowing bubble again. “It don’t seem to be affecting anything on the beach,” he said. “There’s a seagull about ten feet from it that looks normal. If we keep a safe distance from it, we’ll be all right.”

“That’s the spirit,” Anthony said. “Kate, you’ll come ashore, too. Ryan can signal with the light if he has to—if something goes really wrong, we’ll get off the beach first, and signal later. Ryan, when you see the utility boat getting closer, why don’t you signal the second RBS to run out to it and get the gun?” He looked at the empty mount. “I can’t imagine that we’ll need it, but it sure would be nice to have, just in case.”

“I was thinking the same thing, sir.” He glanced over his shoulder, but all he could see was the RBS from Sturgeon Bay that had rendezvoused with them off Beaver Island. We could have mounted it while we were waiting. “I’ll signal them as soon as I see them.”

“Thank you.” If Anthony heard the sarcasm in Ryan’s voice, he ignored it.

The boat safely beached, the three crew members slowly walked towards the bubble. It sat there, motionless, unchanging, with no observable effects on the beach. Anthony frowned. It was too big to be ball lightning, and too stationary. Even swampgas—an extremely unlikely phenomenon on a beach—would have flickered as it burned but this did nothing. It was like someone had taken a giant magenta punch-bowl and placed it upside-down on the sand.

Despite his orders for Cortez to lead the expedition, Anthony rushed over towards the bubble. He almost wanted to touch it, to see if it was smooth and hard, or if it would depress if touched. He started looking around on the beach for a stick before Cortez’s voice got his attention.

“What’s up?”

“Check this out.” Cortez pointed down at the sand. “You’ve gotta see this.”

“Just a moment.” He looked over at Kate, who was still behind him, looking at the bubble nervously. “Kate, I want you to keep an eye on that thing. Keep anyone from getting too close.”

“Sir?”

“Maybe fifteen, twenty feet away would be safe enough. Just so you can see around it, kind of. You know, give yourself enough space to move.”

“Yes sir.” Privately, Kate felt that ‘enough space’ would be safely aboard the RBS, until someone got out here who had the slightest idea what such a thing was capable of—for all she knew, it shot off arcs of lightning every now and then. But, given Anthony’s already grumpy mood, it would be foolish of her to try and countermand him.

“What’ve ya got?”

“I don’t know.” Cortez looked down at the items at his feet. “There’s some kind of a sword, and a spear, and a claw, I think.”

“Don’t touch them,” Anthony said unnecessarily. “They could be part of what makes this thing operate.” He jogged over, finally reahing the items.

“They’re manmade,” he concluded. “Except for the claw, that might be natural.”

“From what? A T. Rex?” Cortez frowned. “Ain’t never seen a sword blade like that, either. It looks kind of like a machete, except there’s no handle.”

Anthony squatted down to take a closer look. “They’re blunt. I don’t think they’re meant to be used as weapons. Maybe some kind of weird props?”

“They’re pretty clean, they can’t have been here all that long.”

“Rain would’ve washed them off,” Anthony reminded him. “Could’ve been here for weeks, maybe months. It’d take longer than that before stainless started to show signs of wear.”

“If they’re props, they could even be polished aluminum or plastic.” Cortez looked at the claw again. “Do you think someone was shooting a movie here, and just forgot these things?”

“Maybe.” Anthony scratched his head. “Why here, though?” He took a few pictures with his phone.

“I dunno.” Cortez looked around. “Doesn’t look too much different than anywhere else in northern Michigan.”

“Mm-hm.” Anthony’s gaze had gone back to the bubble again. It was so out of place—not that there was a place for such a thing, but if there was, it wouldn’t have been here. It reminded him vaguely of something he’d seen in one of the more recent superhero movies. Some kind of last-second save by the hero. Was it the Avengers? There had been a falling bus or car, and just when before it hit, the—

“Do you see it?” Cortez was pointing towards the trees.

“See what?” Anthony snapped his attention back around.

“The trail.”

“No, I—wait, yes, I do.” Once it was pointed out, he wondered how he’d missed it before. “Kate, you doing all right over there?”

“Yes, sir,” she shouted down the beach. It was not entirely true—she’d seen a small bird fly into the bubble. The bubble had flickered for a second, and the bird had slid down to the ground, where it now lay motionless with one wing sticking up awkwardly. It could have just been knocked out: she’d seen that happen when they flew into windows. On the other hand, the bubble could have killed it. Somehow. She resolved not to touch the thing, just to be on the safe side.

“Ok. Cortez and I are going into the woods. There’s a trail; might be a clue as to how this thing got here and what it is.”

“I’ll keep a close watch,” she assured him.

Anthony turned back to Cortez. “Lead on, MacDuff.”

“Ain’t right,” he replied. “Leaving her there like that. In case something does happen. We should wait right here—should pull her back, too.”

“It’s just a short walk, we could be back in a flash.”

“Might not be quick enough.” Cortez looked back down the beach. “I ain’t saying you’re wrong, but I ain’t saying you’re right, either. I don’t know what that thing is, and I don’t think you do, either. How can you say how far away is far enough? I wouldn’t want to see nothing happen to Katie.”

“She’s only a coupla hundred feet down the beach. Could get to her in an instant.” Anthony looked towards the path. “Are you coming?”

“It’s only a coupla hundred feet,” Cortez commented dryly. “I could get to you in a flash. Why don’t you go up to the edge of the woods and get a look for yourself?”

Anthony looked back at Kate, then up towards Cortez. The man was skirting the edge of insubordination, but there was no way he could make it stick—even if he wanted to. Was he right? Was the bubble dangerous?

Taking Anthony’s silence as assent, Cortez grunted and walked back down the beach a little bit, to where he had a clear view of Kate and—if he turned around—the woods.

Author's Note

As always, check out the notes for this story HERE.

Chapter 11: Run Lyra Run

Celestia Sleeps In
Chapter 11—Run Lyra Run
Admiral Biscuit

Dale breathed a sigh of relief as he passed the geometry book over to Lyra. Both of them had struggled through it, and it was only their determination to finish it that carried them through. In retrospect, he would have done better to have just given it to her unopened—there were probably mathematicians aboard her ship who could have breezed right through it, and she could have brought back a translation of the mathematical symbols on her next visit.

After sliding the book into her saddlebags, she pulled out a thin volume with her mouth. It looked very much like the first book she had given him: the one that had shown pictures of what he assumed were ordinary household objects. On the cover of this book were three creatures—a horned one, a winged one, and a plain one.

The first page of the book showed a cutaway view. Unlike the other two books she’d shown him, this page held the most realistic drawing he’d seen yet. It reminded him of a sketch by DaVinci. Muscle groups were clearly highlighted, bones were shaded, and even the fur was realistically done.

He looked back up at her for a moment. The drawing in the book confirmed what he’d begun to suspect—she was, in fact, nude. It was an uncomfortable surprise. He’d sat with her on the beach for hours; he’d even shared a meal with her a few hours ago, and all this time she hadn’t been wearing anything.

Animals don’t wear clothing. There’s no reason to be embarrassed, he thought.

But animals don’t come to earth in a spaceship and sit on the beach and have a conversation and share sandwiches at lunch, he countered. People—and, I suppose, other intelligent species like hers—do that. And civilized species wear clothes. Even the apes in Planet of the Apes wore clothes. She has bags; how hard could it be to figure out how to make pants? And the guards were wearing armor! It didn’t make any sense at all. He sighed and turned his attention back to the book.

The illustration on the first page seemed simple enough, even if there were only three words. Even without her translating, he could guess what they meant: gross anatomy, muscular structure, and skeletal structure.

He dutifully copied down the words as she pointed to them and pronounced them carefully. When he had finished the first page, she turned to the second.

This was the gross anatomy drawing, much like the one he had shown her in the visual dictionary. Interestingly, the whole-body drawing was of a plain pony, with no wings or horn, but on the left side of the page was a wing, and below that, a head with a horn.

Does this mean that all three different types are the same species? The ones with wings, the ones like Lyra with horns, and the ones with both? Do they have three genders, and the wings and horn are the difference between them? Or are they unique, but related somehow, like humans and chimps? Could it be possible that the organs are prosthetic, added somehow to enhance them for a particular purpose, and that the ‘plain’ variety pictured in the center is their normal form? Or is that yet another variation of them which I haven’t seen yet, a fourth different kind?

Lyra began with the wing, since it was at the top left corner of the page. She indicated each word, enunciating it carefully and slowly, to give him a chance to copy down the word exactly. It was a bit confusing, since he wasn’t really familiar with the anatomy of wings at all, so he had difficulty putting an English term next to her word. Did she have the same difficulty with human anatomy? Fingers and toes would be completely foreign to her, although she didn’t show much confusion when I pointed them out—maybe they know of a species which has separate digits on its hands and feet. She seemed to be paying more attention than she had previously, and—although it was difficult to be certain—treating him with a little more respect than she had previously. He wasn't sure what to make of this change of attitude. Maybe the earlier rain had just made her grouchy; she had seemed almost accusatory when it began.

When she moved on to the head, she began tapping the relevant part of the drawing on her own body. The first word she taught him was the name of the horn—first pointing to the book, then touching her own. He was thankful that she had thought of it—some of the illustrated areas were less then clear.

They did seem to name sections of the body in much the same way a human would—each major joint had a name, and each change of feature in the body also had a name. He wrote next to it in English what it would roughly correspond to on a terrestrial mammal; here, at least, he was on fairly familiar ground. He remembered that horses had their own unique names for their parts, but he could fix that later, at his leisure. While it might have made a biologist cringe, he was the one who had to understand his notes.

Most of it seemed pretty straightforward, but when she indicated an area on the side of the hind leg—what he presumed would be roughly analogous to his thigh—he stopped her. The figure in the drawing had a symbol there, in much the same location as she did on her own hips. She said her word for it; Dale wrote down tattoo? Brand?

I saw a similar marking on the large one, he thought. And in the book she gave me, all the big ones had different marks on them, too. As much of their language as I’ve learned is alphagraphic, rather than symbols. Do they identify themselves by these marks? The only ones that didn’t have marks were the little ones, so maybe it’s a coming-of-age ritual for them to get these tattoos—assuming that they grow bigger with age. Would they even be called tattoos if they’re dyed into the fur? And if they are, do they have to be re-applied? Does she paint it on, like the makeup in Blade Runner, or do they have a way to change the pigment color at the roots? I suppose if they can use nano-technology to make color-changing hair like the big white one had, anything’s possible.

He pointed to that spot on the drawing. “What cutie-mark?”

She seemed to be considering. Dale wondered if he should just let it go—it was probably something that would be far too complicated to explain with their limited vocabulary—but he was curious, and Mrs. Hawkins, his fourth-grade teacher, had assured him many years ago that there were no stupid questions, only stupid people. He could attest to the stupid people, so she was probably on to something.

Lyra touched her own mark, but that really wasn’t new information—she’d already pointed to it once, and it was pretty clear from the drawing where it was, too. Realizing this, she sketched out a small pony and a big pony, similar to the ones that were on the cover of the book. She pointed to the first. “No.” Next, she drew an arrow to the second, a star on its hind leg, and said, “Yes. Baby pony no cutie-mark big pony yes cutie-mark.”

They are something they get as a mark of age or size, he thought.

She apparently felt he needed further clarification. She took one of the uneaten mint plants off the table, then jumped off the cooler. She plucked a leaf off it, scratched a hole in the ground, dropped the leaf in, and covered it.

She stepped back from the hole and began tapping her hoof on the ground slowly. Finally, she held the entire mint plant—sans one leaf—up above the disturbed earth.

“Cutie-mark when big?” Dale looked at her curiously. He reached into his plastic trashbag and pulled the apple core out. Digging a small hole, he buried it, repeated the foot-tapping motion, then pointed to a full-grown tree, and back at the small mound of dirt.

She nodded at him. So, he was on the right track. It was a mark of passage for when she got older. He was still curious how it got there, though.

He took his ball-point and drew a star on the back of his hand. “Cutie-mark is tattoo? Pony make Lyra tattoo? Pony . . . um, words—write—Lyra cutie-mark?”

She shook her head and frowned. Lyra stood by the cooler, shifting her weight, looking at him and then back at the ground. It looked to Dale as if she was having a mental argument, although he couldn’t imagine why.

Finally, she walked around to his side of the table. She stopped about a foot from him, looking at the table and the chair, before turning around and backing up to the table. She had twisted her head sharply so that she could see where she was going, although she seemed to be keeping an eye on him, too. Dale sat motionless, hands on his knees. He didn’t know if she could buck like a terrestrial horse, but his shoulder still ached from where she’d hit it on the last visit, and seated in the chair as he was, there was no way he could avoid an attack if one was forthcoming.

She stood still for a moment, then spoke. “Dale can hand cutie-mark.”

Dale blinked. Is she asking me to . . . touch her? He lifted his hand and moved it towards her, pausing halfway.

“Dale hand can cutie-mark.” she repeated, almost insistant.

He felt more awkward than when he’d been in the back seat of his dad’s Buick Special station wagon on his second date with Betty VanPoprin. He slowly moved his hand forward. One part of his mind was telling him that he was a fool to continue, while the other part suggested that great things would happen once he screwed up his courage and took action—again, not at all dissimilar to that night.

She sure seems tense, he thought just as his finger made contact with the golden fur.

Both of them jerked away. Dale felt a slight warm tingle in his finger—not unpleasant, but unexpected.

“Dale stop? Dale can no hand Lyra cutie-mark?”

She shook her head. “Dale hand . . . funny. Dale can hand cutie-mark.”

He touched it again, once again feeling the strange tingle—this time he was prepared for the sensation and, apparently, so was she. It wasn’t a static shock, because it didn’t go away. Besides the tingling, there was a strange warmth to it. It wasn’t just body heat, it was more vital. It was akin to feeling a heartbeat, or perhaps the gentle thrumming of a machine at work. Curious, he slid his finger off the mark, into her seafoam fur.

Lyra stood motionless as he traced the outline of the symbol. He could feel no difference in texture as he crossed the border between the two colors, although the strange tingling sensation consistently recurred whenever he was touching the golden fur. Finally he pulled his hand back.

She turned around to be facing him at a more comfortable angle. He wasn’t sure what to make of her demonstration.

“Lyra make cutie-mark?” He pantomimed drawing the star on the back of his hand again.

“Lyra no make cutie-mark.” She shook her head, reinforcing her statement. “Lyra—Lyra no Dale words now, Lyra Dale words there now.”

Dale reflected on that. If he was understanding her correctly, there was something significant about the mark, but it was something that they didn’t have enough vocabulary to describe yet. Any other part of the body probably would have been straightforward. A leg was a leg, and its purpose was obvious.

She moved back to the cooler and turned to the next page, where there were three more drawings. Had they been engineering drawings, he'd have called them isometric projections. There was an angled front view, an angled hind view, and a belly view. Each of those drawings indicated areas which could not clearly be seen from a straight side view. The last two drawings were different, and surprisingly graphic. Unless I’m completely missing my guess here, I suppose gender is determined the usual way in these creatures, too.

She seemed to be having more difficulty indicating these parts on her own body. He could understand why; she could hardly see where she was pointing. Her sitting position gave her an advantage at pointing towards her belly—although, like the wings, there was an illustrated organ she was lacking—but too much movement would be required to illustrate anything specific on the hindquarters.

It’s just as well, Dale reflected. That whole scene with her . . . tattoo had been really weird; there's no reason I need another close view of her anatomy. Maybe a little later, when we’ve established enough language to set firm boundaries about what each of our species expects in terms of modesty and personal space.

Anthony moved up towards the treeline. He was about to step into the woods when he remembered he should probably report back what they’d seen so far—just in case. None of the other crew would think of it on their own.

He walked back towards Cortez. “Why don’t you see how Kate’s doing?”

“Yes sir.”

Cortez seemed overly eager to comply. “Just find out if she’s seen anything, and then come back to the RBS. I want to send a message to the other boat, so they can relay it to the utility boat. You know, just about what we’ve seen so far.”

“You got it.” Cortez half-jogged down the beach while Anthony shook his head. Like a puppy, eager to please its master.

When he reached their boat, he gracefully pulled himself up the bow and walked back to the tiny enclosed cabin. He was happy to see Ryan appeared to be keeping a good eye on both the beach and the other RBS.

“I already signaled them that we’d sent three ashore,” he told Anthony.

“Good. Let’s tell them what we’ve seen so far. I’ll man the throttles, and tell you what to send.”

“Ok.” Ryan released his harness and moved away from the throttles. Anthony debated strapping himself into the seat, as the regulations prescribed and decided not to. They were beached, so it wasn’t of much use.

“How fast to the bottom are we?”

“I’ve been backing her up a little bit every few minutes. She’s drifting slightly south.”

“Good man. All right, first ask them what the ETA of the utility boat is.”

Ryan nodded and began working the shutter. A minute later, he got his answer. “‘Bout 20 minutes.”

“Ok.” Anthony tapped his fingers on the throttle levers absently. “Send this: Object about fifteen yards in diameter, and seven yards high. Appears perfectly smooth. No unusual odors or sounds. Completely stationary and unchanging. No visible source. Three undetermined objects on beach. Unexplored path into woods south of object. Recommend bring gun for forward mount from UTB and evidence kit. Call to expedite forensic team from Grand Rapids for additional assistance. Intend to have second RBS come ashore to help secure scene.”

The clacking of the shutter was frustratingly slow. It wasn’t something that they used much, so nobody was particularly good at it, and there were practical limits to the speed of transmission, too. Anthony couldn’t remember the exact number, but it was something like twenty words per minute max—when he’d been trained to use it, they’d encouraged keeping messages as short as possible.

The Navy had infra-red automatic signallers, which would have been a boon, but so far their boats had not been equipped with the new system, and it was possible that they never would be. They didn’t set up exclusionary zones around military ships, and they didn’t perform drug interdictions: they just rescued boaters who’d gotten in over their heads, and performed occasional safety inspections.

The base commander was a bear for training, though; otherwise the boat would be tied up at the dock unless it was actually needed. Already, the officers were grumbling among themselves that if Congress couldn’t get its act together, next year they were going to be issued oars for all the boats instead of fuel for the motors.

“Message understood,” Ryan said. “Do we want them to move in now, or wait until the utility boat arrives?”

“Not much more they could do on the beach than we already are,” Anthony said. “I’d like to keep as few people as possible on the beach until we get an evidence kit. I’ll remind Cortez and Kate to try and only walk where they’ve already been.”

“Do you think we should get the FBI in? Or DHS?”

Anthony shook his head. “Let’s keep this local for now. I suppose eventually we might have to call them in, but for now I don’t see any reason to. There’s no evidence of a crime here, just a weird light.”

“But you want the forensic team?”

“Well, there’s something here. They’re more qualified to analyze it than we are—and I’d look a fool if I didn’t call them in, and we missed something obvious because of it.”

“Ok.” Ryan took his hand off the signal lamp and moved back to the helmsman’s station, conscientiously refastening his harness.

“You’re doing a good job, Ryan. Keep it up.” Anthony slapped him on the back and jumped off the bow of the boat.

Trixie focused her newly-recovered magic on the stones holding the hinges, weakening them. She would have liked to just blow the door apart—it certainly would be far more satisfying—but she doubted she had enough magical energy left to do so, and she was sure she’d need to cast a few spells to make good her escape.

She lashed forward with her forehooves, nearly tumbling into the corridor as the door tore out of the wall.

Trixie glanced up and down the hall. As far as she knew, there was only one way to her cell, and there were a pair of guards blocking it. There was no need to be subtle; they’d undoubtedly heard the door crashing to the floor. Her only hope was to catch them by surprise.

She was almost disappointed when there was no immediate hue and cry. As she turned the corner by their post, she was startled to see both of them were asleep. One had his head down on the desk and was drooling on the blotter, while the other was still on his hooves, leaning against the wall for support.

Not one to turn down good fortune when it was presented, Trixie skidded to a halt, looking at the duo. She could take their armor. It would be a nearly foalproof disguise—unless the loss was reported. In that case, she would be in even more trouble than she already was. There were probably additional enchantments on the armor which made it easy to locate, and if the guards had any sense at all, they’d double or triple everypony on the watch, and be immediately suspicious of anypony wearing a guard’s uniform.

Still—they seemed sound asleep; they were practically catatonic. And, she could always take off the armor later.

She began gently stripping the standing pony. Using her magic, she tugged loose the girth strap on his saddle, gently levitating it aside. She had a moment of difficulty figuring out how his helmet was attached to the peytral, but eventually discovered the fasteners.

She struggled getting her tail through the armor—she finally tugged it through with her teeth, wincing as a few stray hairs got stuck in seams in the croupiere. Just as she was about to put on the helmet, she remembered the shoes. Her disguise wouldn’t be complete without them.

The question was, how to get them off the guard? She could probably get two hooves off the ground without him noticing, but most of his weight was on his other two legs; if she lifted them, he’d fall over, and that would wake him up for sure.

She looked at the other guard. His forelegs were sprawled across the desk. She wasn’t sure if the shoes would work right as an unmatched set, but it was worth a try.

She carefully slid her hoof behind the standing guard’s fetlock, and he involuntarily lifted his leg slightly—enough for her to pull the shoe off with her teeth. She repeated the process on his hind leg, before moving to the second guard.

Finally finished, she cast a critical eye on her disguise. As expected, it worked perfectly, although the change in her appearance was alarming. No longer the dirty blue showmare she’d been moments before; now her fur appeared a gleaming white, her formerly beautiful platinum mane was a royal blue, and—although she couldn’t see them—her irises had undoubtedly changed color, too.

She began serenely walking through the hall, acting as if this was her normal patrol route, thinking about the best path to her objective. Once she got out of the basement, it would be easier. It was hard to focus her thoughts, though: her eyes kept crossing as she took in the new shape and color of her muzzle.

Lyra had been grateful to find the foal’s anatomy book in her saddlebags. She had felt guilty that Dale had presented them with a marvelous book on his own anatomy, yet they had not reciprocated.

Admittedly, it wasn’t nearly as nice as the one he had brought to their last meeting, but it would help make up for it, anyway. She was going to leave it with him at the end of the day, but she’d decided that there was no harm in going through it before she did.

She breezed through the introductory pages—there really wasn’t much to see, anyway. The initial drawing was meant to illustrate the different parts of a pony’s anatomy: the skeletal, muscular, and external structures. Octavia had mentioned that Twilight was hoping to get a real medical book to Dale, but it seemed that all the unicorns who specialized in copying books were otherwise occupied at the moment on an important matter for the Princess. It wasn’t too hard to guess what that ‘important matter’ was: she was sitting across from him.

They made it most of the way through the first page without difficulty. She was startled to realize how many structures ponies had in common with humans. He had seemed a little puzzled by the wings, so she had decided to point to the appropriate area on her own body as she named it, just as she would have done for a foal. Of course, she couldn’t do that with the wings, but for everything else it would work.

She had finally reached the cutie mark when he seemed to be having difficulty again. He tried a couple of names, but she could tell by the uncertainty in his voice that he wasn’t quite sure about what it was.

Unfortunately, this was quite a difficult topic to explain, given the limited language they shared.

It wasn’t a simple matter of naming it. It was so much a part of a pony—it was, in fact, what set ponies apart from all the other species. No other Equestrian species had cutie marks at all, except Zebras, and they were practically ponies. Strangely striped ponies that lived in the woods and savanna, but they still shared the same body. They were clever with their hooves—in fact, they were probably related to earth ponies. Just different, because of where their herds lived, just like the Saddle Arabians were taller and more slender.

She couldn’t explain how she had one day been playing her lyre, and her horn began to glow softly, a strange globe of golden light at the very tip. A new song flowed out of her, sounding the strings at its whim. She suddenly felt a one-ness with Equestria as the pure melody—far beyond her prior talents—flowed forth from the wooden instrument. It was only when the song was finished that she discovered the new markings on her flanks, as pure a gold as the delicate leaf on her instrument.

Her mother and father had been elated—her father, especially so, since he felt it proved the purity of his blood to anypony’s satisfaction—even to her mother.

But after her cute-ceñera, she began to have her doubts. She’d really wanted to be a duellist, not a musician. All the fillies in her class were sympathetic—they’d all agreed that a cutie-mark was a symbol of what somepony was good at. There were days in her music class that she wondered if the mark had been a mistake, somehow, especially after she went four bars into a solo before realizing the key signature had changed.

Finally, one night after her duelling class, she confessed how she was feeling to her maestro, and said she’d probably have to quit the class, since it was obvious she was doomed to be a musician for the rest of her life.

Her maestro had been unsympathetic. She had led Lyra to her rock garden and given her a rake.

Five minutes later, the rain started.

Lyra spent the first hour working in a blind rage. It just wasn’t fair; she didn’t get the cutie mark she’d wanted, and now she was moving around stones in the rain with a rake held in her mouth. If anypony had it worse, she wanted to meet them. Finally, she zoned out entirely, and just kept raking until her maestro finally stopped her.

“Look upon your work,” she said.

Lyra looked. As expected, it was a bunch of raked lines in rocks. But then, unexpectedly, she saw it. It was more than the rocks, it was a collection of moments—the first, angry section, where the lines were sharp, followed by a smooth hypnotic section, and then a complex pattern through the middle, briefly interrupted by a sharp transition, before adopting all three patterns as it finally finished.

“I see it,” she said excitedly.

“Martial arts and music share the same principles, Lyra. Both wrestle with complex harmony and elusive melodies.” Her maestro touched her cutie mark briefly. “It may be the instrument, but you make the music, and it can be whatever you desire.”

Lyra’s focus snapped back to the present. Could he feel some of the magic if he touched it himself? It wasn’t something that was normally done—given their magical nature, a cutie mark was only slightly less sensitive than a unicorn’s horn. Yet, there was a certain appeal to the idea: a symmetry, almost. Her initial displeasure at her cutie-mark had caused her maestro to impart a new wisdom on her—one which the fillies in her class certainly wouldn’t have—and she’d gone on to win awards and acclaim as a duelist, and now she was here with Dale; a progression of events which her cutie-mark had not predicted in the slightest.

So, she moved over closer to him, and asked him to touch it.

He moved his arm slowly and cautiously, as if he was afraid. She wondered if he feared close contact—she’d been trying to stay back from him, since it seemed to make him more comfortable. The first time they’d met, she was scared of him—she still was slightly apprehensive—but he’d been so patient and calm, she didn’t think he was much of a threat to her. Still, she’d seen Dale shy away when she moved too near, as if his kind didn’t like close contact.

His touch, when it finally came, was unexpected. He was so tentative it was more of a tickle than a touch, and she involuntarily jerked away.

Real smooth, Lyra. Now he’ll be scared of you again. She grit her teeth and tried a second time.

He kept his hand on her for much longer than she would have expected. Finally, he took his hand away. It was a very strange sensation—not like a hoof at all. His finger was softer—like a tongue, almost—although it was still quite stiff. When he laid his palm on her, it suddenly came back to her just how big his hands were.

She moved back to her side of the table, and they finished the book. He looked up at the sky, then tapped his silver bracelet. Puzzled, she looked up too, finally locating the sun just above the tops of the trees.

His bracelet must be a clock, she realized. The train conductors had pocket watches, but everypony else usually relied on the sun to tell them the time. She’d heard that Appeloosa had built a clock on a tower, so that everypony would know what time it was, but rumor had it that the buffalo had knocked it over. There was some talk about getting a tower for the Ponyville school, although a recent spate of construction disasters had given the anti-progressives more fodder at the monthly town planning meetings, and thus the clock tower was on hold for the foreseeable future.

“Lyra away house there, Dale away house here. Lyra Dale here three?” She made the sunrise motions with her hooves three times.

Dale nodded in agreement.

She pushed the book over to him. “Lyra give Dale.”

He nodded absently, as he put his notebooks back in his pack. He set it in the center of the table while she loaded her saddlebags. Watching her struggle, he moved to help her, taking her notes and carefully putting them into the bag. Finally, he picked them up.

“Dale take there, Lyra take there home.”

Lyra thought that was a fine idea—he’d unknowingly loaded one side heavier than the other, and she didn’t feel like going through the awkward ritual of strapping them on to her back without using her magic. Plus, while she walked to the beach, the buckle would be tearing at her fur the whole distance.

It was hard not to gallop. Her every fiber cried out for speed—she should stretch her legs and enjoy her freedom while it lasted. Her traitorous mind insisted that if she didn’t run, she’d never get the chance again. She’d be locked back away—or worse—in a heartbeat.

But she knew that to run would be to invite suspicion. The Royal Guards were trained to never run when there weren’t lives hanging in the balance. A lot of ponies were reactionary, so when a lead pony was running, others would follow, and nothing said ‘in charge’ quite like the guard’s uniforms, which tradition had kept the same for a thousand years. Even Luna’s thestrals wore the same uniforms as they had a millennia ago.

Trixie passed by a servant levitating a stack of neatly-folded towels. She gave a polite nod, which the servant returned. Down here, the rooms weren’t as grand as they were above. There were no carpets running the length of the hallway, only flagstones polished by the hooves of countless generations of servants, performing the same duties day in and day out. Rather than be depressing, it gave a certain richness to the underchambers that the upper floors lacked.

She continued on her path, trusting her instincts to guide her right. She occasionally risked a slight magical boost to her sight, even though she had very little range through the thick stone walls. She hoped it would keep her from running into a guard.

After going up two flights of stairs she found herself in a pantry. She glanced around, but nopony seemed to be in the room with her. Sighing, she lowered herself to the ground, relaxing her shaking legs. She hadn’t anticipated how stressful escaping from prison would be.

Spotting a bag of carrots on a nearby shelf, she floated them over and began munching on them, trying to chew as quietly as possible. While it was quite likely that guards occasionally hid out in the pantry for an illicit snack, Trixie didn’t want to be the one who was caught.

Lyra first noticed a strange quiet throbbing—similar to the pulsing beat she’d heard during the night with on the beach with Celestia and the guards—and as they got closer, began to hear voices. Her ears were much more sensitive than Dale’s, and she could pick out fragments of conversation, while Dale continued to walk with his head slightly down, acting much like Twilight when she was deep in thought.

Unsurprisingly, she was unable to make any sense of the distant voices. There were occasional words which she recognized, but for the most part, it was pure gibberish. Nevertheless, she was excited—here was her chance to meet more creatures like Dale. There might have also be a red-furred one—like in the counting book. Or—dare she hope—a horse? He’d seemed to indicate that they couldn’t come here, but maybe she’d misunderstood.

If only her stomach didn’t hurt. She probably shouldn’t have eaten so much of his food at once. There was something in it that wasn’t sitting right at all.

He reached the top of the path, and suddenly stopped. She moved up close to him, to get an idea what he was seeing.

The first thing she noticed were the boats. There were three of them—the closest two were small boats surrounded by an orange fabric cover. One of them was sitting with its bow on the sandy shore, while the other was moving inland, and looked like it was also moving in for a beach landing. Each of them had a silver cabin with large windows, which was obviously meant to shelter the occupants. There were strong white letters along the side. How strange—these creatures feel the need to name everything. A banner was flying above the cabin of both.

Farther out—perhaps a couple of miles—a third boat rocked in the waves. She wouldn’t have noticed it at all, but a flickering light was coming from it. It was hard to judge size, given the distance, but it seemed larger than the other two boats. It was painted a brilliant white color—since the sun was behind her, it was reflecting light marvelously. The flickering light was obviously a signal of some kind: it was not unlike the signals the unicorn guard and pegasus guard were exchanging before she left the reservoir.

There were three creatures on the beach, all similar to Dale. They were hard to make out, since the leafy trees partially obscured her view. All three were wearing dark blue uniforms with bright orange vests—almost the same color as the fabric tube which surrounded the boats.

The closest one seemed similar in build to Dale, although his skin was a much darker color. Lyra had wondered about that—aside from the bright red creature in the counting book, all the other creatures Dale had shown her drawings of had been the same peach tone, although their manes had varied in color and style. It—probably a he—had a deeper tone of voice than even Dale.

The second one—who was a halfway-color between Dale and the first—was carrying on a conversation. It occasionally pointed towards the water, and she thought it might be asking the first one for something. She still hadn’t figured out the full range of their motions, but the first one shook its head occasionally, and seemed less excitable than the second.

Much farther away, a third one was standing near the bubble of the spell. It was smaller than the first two, and had different proportions. Lyra moved slightly off the path, in order to get a better line of sight to it. She couldn’t really tell because of the distance, but it looked much like the second creature whose anatomy Dale had identified; the one that they all assumed was female. Still, it was hard to be certain, as their clothes flattened curves which had been fairly obvious on the drawing.

She wanted to run down onto the beach and meet them all, but it seemed best to let Dale go first—this was, after all, his planet, and he knew the local customs. Perhaps—as strange as it seemed—the stallions were in charge here, and the other creatures would be offended if she showed up first.

The one she’d labeled the leader finished his conversation, if the way the second creature sulked off was any indication. The first one shook his head, then turned towards the woods for a moment. His eyes locked on Dale for an instant, before he barked out a swift command. He began walking towards them.

The head of the second one snapped around at the words, and he changed course, also moving towards where she and Dale were standing on the path.

Luna sat on her balcony, looking towards the descending sun. Below her, ponies were getting ready for the night, shuttering their shops and heading inside. Soon, they would be eating their dinners, probably unconsciously thankful that they had made it through another day unharmed. Afterwards, some of them might go outside and play a little longer—especially the fillies and the colts—until they were called inside and tucked in for the night.

She idly spread some marmalade on her toast, letting it float in her aura. A servant stood respectfully on the balcony, waiting for any command. She was no doubt eager to go home, although of course her expression would never show it.

“Dusk Glimmer.” She spoke softly, but the servant’s ears were ever-focused.

“Your majesty.” The servant moved over to Luna, bowing respectfully.

“Dost thou have a family?”

“I—why, yes, your majesty, I do.”

Luna nodded. She ate a few bites, while Dusk stood by patiently, hardly moving even when she breathed. Finally, Luna set her toast on her plate.

“Is her highness finished with her dinner?”

“We are.”

Moving quietly, Dusk gathered the single place-setting off the table. She carried it carefully over to a wheeled cart, gently placing the pots of marmalade and butter on a lower shelf while the dirty dishes were placed on top, finally covered with Luna’s barely-used napkin.

“Does your highness wish for me to prepare the bath?”

“Nay. We shall not have time. We shall be on the eastern balcony, studying Equestrian common law until it it time for us to raise the moon.” Luna walked back into her room, bowing her head as always when she caught sight of her father’s sword. It hung reverently on the wall behind her desk, where she would catch sight of it every time she stepped into her room. Although she had imagined it lost or destroyed centuries ago, shortly after her return it had mysteriously been returned to her by one of her thestrals.

While she’d never completely solved the mystery of where it had been during her time in exile, she suspected that it had been held by descendants of her original followers, who might have been hoping to incite another attempt at rebellion. If that had been their intent, it had failed; rather than being a symbol of victory, it was the tool which had caused her father’s fall, and her own as well. No doubt Celestia would have worried, had she seen it, but she never came into the room.

“Dusk Glimmer, doth thou remember the apologue of the wayward daughter?”

“Yes, your majesty. She left her mother’s side to seek her fortune, but found nothing but failure. She lost all her bits and trudged home, expecting her mother to punish her for her foalishness, but instead was rewarded.”

“Nopony gave unto her,” Luna whispered. “She sought succor, yet none was granted, save from her own mother. Would thou not do the same if ‘twere one of thy foals returned to thee?” Luna glanced back at the sword. “Or would thou punish her for her transgressions?”

“I should be thankful she arrived home safe and sound, yet I probably would punish her for leaving in the first place.” Dusk sighed. “I am a simple pony—not as wise as your majesty.”

Luna snapped her head around. “Think not less of thyself, Dusk. Thou art wise in ways we hath forgotten. We and our sister see the long view oft enough, yet sometimes we doth forget that which is at our muzzles.”

Dale stood motionless. The moment he had seen the Coast Guard boats, his heart sank. How did they find out so quickly? But there was nothing to be done for it, now.

He instantly realized that his freedom would now be measured in minutes, perhaps hours if he was very lucky. Unless he could quickly find a way off the island. They hadn’t seen him yet, but they would. There were no fewer than four crew members on each of the rescue boats, and he wasn’t sure how many were on the forty-one foot utility boat, but it would be enough. There was simply nowhere to run on the island.

He didn’t know if they’d found his canoe yet, but there was no way to get to it without them noticing. If he could hold out until dark, he might be able to get to the canoe, and he could slowly and quietly carry it to the other side of the island. He also might be able to swim to South Fox, but once he was there, where would he go? Beaver Island was another possibility—and he was pretty sure there was a ferry back to the mainland—but he’d need the canoe to make it. Realistically, he doubted he could swim the ten or fifteen miles to the island. That might just postpone the inevitable; they would probably find clues back at his camp.

Dale’s eyes flicked to the left. He could just send Lyra out on the beach, and while they were trying to catch her, make his escape. No doubt her presence would be all the distraction he’d need.

But he couldn’t do it. Before he’d decided to meet with her, just by himself, he’d considered exposing them to the world and letting them take their chances. After all, they’d come here, not the other way around. He would have been surprised if he’d known that they had expected him to do just that.

But after he’d sat with her for two days, she was no longer an unknown alien, she was almost a friend. He enjoyed her company and her playfulness—Lyra was beginning to seem almost human to him. He suddenly had a horrible vision of her strapped to a cold stainless steel lab table, while scientists with sharp knives prepared to vivisect her. It would probably look much like the illustration in her anatomy book, in fact, but in vivid color. Even if the thought weren’t repugnant, he could only imagine the retaliation of her kin. If I sacrificed her for my own freedom, it might be short-lived.It might be very short-lived indeed.

When it came down to it, he was essentially choosing between the continued well-being of two species or his own freedom. It was not a choice he wanted to make, but when he put it in such simple terms, there was really no alternative. Lyra had to escape, and he had to pay the price—whatever that might be.

Would she do the same if our positions were reversed? It didn’t matter. We should have gone over the word for danger. I should have told her to move the bubble—no matter how long it took to get the idea across.

Dale was so lost in thought, he didn’t notice the two Coast Guard men moving towards him until they were almost in front of him. He was about to lead Lyra back to camp and explain the situation to her, when a deep bassoon voice drew him out of his reverie.

“What are you doing here?”

Dale snapped his head up. There were two of them, both right in front of him. Amazingly, neither one of them had noticed Lyra yet, although discovery was only milliseconds away.

Time stopped.

Dale saw everything with perfect clarity. The tall African-American Coastie who had addressed him was wearing a bemused look on his face. Dale could practically read his mind. First a glowing purple bubble, then we find Robinson Crusoe stepping out of the woods—what’s next, the Loch Ness Monster? And would he be shocked when he saw what was next. Clearly, his second did—his eyes were bugging out of his head as he spotted Lyra. Dale saw his mouth beginning to open, as if he were about to scream.

It had been over forty years since he’d played football, but his muscles still remembered what to do. Without ever breaking eye contact with the man who had addressed him, Dale screamed. “Run, Lyra! Run!”

He flung her saddlebags underhand at the tall Coastie, sending him stumbling backwards. At the same moment, he began to charge the second. He didn’t have cleats, but the Vibram soles of his hiking boots were almost as good—two steps, and he pistoned his left arm out, rotating from the hip to throw his full body weight into the straightarm push. He caught the second man in the sternum before he could utter a single sound.

Despite his age, a career in a machine shop left Dale with plenty of strength, and the poor Coastie hadn’t even had time to brace. Dale was amazed to see—as if in an instant replay—his feet come up off the ground as he began to rotate from the force of the impact. His arms were windmilling in an attempt to regain his balance, but it was already too late.

As he raced down the rise to the beach, Dale wondered if she was following his lead—if she wasn’t, this sacrifice was for naught. He needn’t have worried. A pony’s instinctive reaction to danger was to run away, and they were much better at it than he would ever be. He was astonished to see the exact moment that she changed gaits from a canter to a full gallop, before he looked forward again.

Still one more downfield blocker, Dale thought, spotting the third member of the beached boat. There were more on the other boats, but they wouldn’t get there in time. It was just like his senior year when he’d run the ball sixty yards against the Hastings Saxons for the winning touchdown. The strange, immortal feeling he’d had when he played was coming back to him, and he felt more alive than he had in years. His feet must have been digging firmly into the wet sand, yet he could feel no contact with the earth at all, as if his body were being propelled along above the ground by some strange force.

The final member of the trio finally took notice of events. It was an amazing thing to watch—she had been turning her head, and she suddenly froze, for far longer than Dale would have expected as she spotted Lyra charging headlong towards the bubble.

I think I’ll miss my car, he thought, as he continued running. I wonder what will become of it. Maybe if they can’t get their hands on Lyra, they’ll do an autopsy of the car, instead. It was a strange worry: there was no reason why he should be concerned about the fate of his car, but it gnawed at him.

The girl took a single step back, processing the scene. Dale heard shouts—someone else had taken note of what was happening on the beach. He thought he heard someone say “shoot it,” and saw her right arm begin moving towards her hip.

Even without the verbal cue, everyone knew what it meant when someone’s hand went toward their hip. Dale had seen dozens of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood westerns, and had read every Louis L’Amore book. He was moving a hundred miles an hour, but it wasn’t fast enough. She’d have her gun clear before he made it—but she might not fire right away. That was his only hope.

His focus lasered in on her alone. He watched as her stance settled into a comfortable firing position, even as her right arm was coming up. The gun seemed to have a ludicrously short barrel, and he snorted. What were you expecting, Dale, a chrome-plated .357 Magnum?

Her finger tightened on the trigger.

I’m too late.

Trixie moved carefully down a large hallway. She felt horribly exposed—besides the threat of meeting somepony else in the corridor, there were balconies on both sides, which was yet another place where a pony could be lurking, watching her. Ever since she’d finally gotten free of the blocking ring, she’d felt as if she was being watched.

She didn’t dare turn her head to look around—that wasn’t something that guardsponies did. Not unless they were searching for something. Instead, they remained stoic, marching to their beat, observing with her eyes and ears but never with her neck. While the armor might be able to fool the eye, if her behavior was out of place, she might as well not be wearing it.

She finally reached a silver-chased door. On the other side, she hoped, lay her salvation. She looked back down at her pilfered armor. She could no longer risk wearing it—she might have been able to move among the castle staff unnoticed in it, but she would be immediately singled out and questioned if she went any further.

Slightly further down the hall was a small chamber. Trixie retreated to the comforting shadowy dimness and took off the armor, carefully placing it on a pile of fresh linens. It would be found within a few days, and returned to the guards.

She gazed into the polished gold, studying her reflection. She looked like an escaped prisoner on the edge of starvation. A crust of dried blood ran through the fur on the left side of her face, trailing down from a cut on her forehead just below her horn.

Trixie looked around, rummaging through drawers and cabinets until she found a stack of folded linen napkins. She dipped them in a half-empty mop bucket, wincing as the cold soapy water touched the fresh cut.

She scrubbed herself until she was clean, tossing the soiled napkins in a corner when she had finished. A light application of furniture wax had coaxed her mane and tale back into order, and left her smelling slightly lemony. She admired her hoofwork critically in the armor.

It wasn’t great, but it would have to do. She still barely looked presentable, but she only had to get a little farther.

She stuck her muzzle back out into the hallway, intent on seeing if anypony was coming. She looked left and saw nopony; but when she turned right, she was face-to-face with a Royal Guard.

“Hey! You’re—”

She didn’t even let him finish, casting a smoke spell at his hooves. As he coughed and blinked his eyes to get the acrid smoke out, she galloped past him.

Trixie crashed through the doors and charged up the steps before he could stop her. A moment later she heard him begin to call for guards.

Come on, hooves, go faster! She twisted up the spiral staircase, occasionally bouncing off the wall. Behind her, the thunder of the guards roared up the stone staircase. It was only a matter of time before the first pegasi showed up, and when they did she was a goner. She tossed a couple more smoke spells at them, but it didn’t seem to slow their progress much.

I’m too late, she thought. She was a half-flight below the upper landing, but those doors were closed, and pound on them as she might, the guards would get to her before the doors were opened.

Nevertheless, she ran full tilt at the doors, body-checking them hard enough to rattle them in their frames, before she started hammering her hoof on the door loudly enough to wake the dead.

Please, please, please—

The Royal Guards were experts. The first up the stairs tackled Trixie, pinning her to the floor while more of his comrades rushed to assist. She struggled under him, trying to work free, kicking at his face with her hind legs while she continued to pound at the door.

“Would you just quit?” the stallion hissed. “Nopony’s going to help you. You’re going back where you belong.”

The two of them scratched and kicked and bit; neither of them heard the great double doors open, nor the silver-shod hooves storming across the marble.

“Who dares to disturb us?” Luna’s voice boomed out through the tower.

Trixie looked up at the alicorn, tears in her eyes. “Save me.”

Luna stared down at the unicorn, and a brief flicker of emotion crossed her stern face before she turned her gaze upon the unicorn stallion.

“Guard, speak. Why dost thou fight in our tower?”

The guard nodded his head in lieu of a bow. “Princess, she is an escaped prisoner. She—”

“Release her.”

“Your majesty, she is a prisoner of the crown.”

Luna frowned at him. “It matters not. She hath asked for our protection, and we doth grant it. She is no longer thy concern. Thou art dismisssed.” She tugged Trixie beside her and slammed the doors shut before the guard could utter another word in protest.

Kate stood guard twenty feet from the odd bubble. She didn’t like it—but Anthony had told her to, and she was the low man on the pole. Technically, low woman. He’d assured her it was safe, and used comforting terms like ‘magnetic anomaly,’ although he had no more idea what it was than she did. He wanted to be an electrical engineer when he got out of the Coast Guard, and acted like he had a superior knowledge about this—this thing. It seemed like something she’d seen in one of the X-Men movies. Some kind of force field.

She was supposed to make sure that nothing wandered into it—or came out of it. Personally, she’d be a lot happier when the second rescue boat came back with the machine guns, and then they could guard it from a nice, safe distance. Right now, the empty gun mount was as useless as an outboard with no gas. Anything that comes out of that bubble probably won’t be phased by a SIG, even with an extended magazine. The more people and the more guns we have, the better we’ll be.

She tapped her foot impatiently. A quick glance out into the lake revealed that the second rescue boat was making its way to the beach; when it arrived, her mission would end. There was nothing here to protect, anyway. Anthony and Cortez weren’t dumb enough to wander into the bubble, Ryan was safely at the helm of their boat—holding it on the beach with the engines, in case they had to make a hasty retreat—and there was no one else on the island at all.

She heard Cortez’s raised voice, and turned her head to look. He was arguing with Anthony—loud enough for her to hear—about whether or not she should be allowed near the bubble. While it was nice of him to protest on her behalf, the tone of his conversation suggested that he thought she shouldn’t be doing it because she was a woman, and that was not a road this debate should travel down. Not at all.

She half-watched as Anthony shot him down, then walked up towards the treeline. She heard a surprised shout from him; a moment later, Cortez followed him into the woods.

She sighed, turning back towards the bubble. The little girl in her wanted to believe that it was magical. Maybe it led to a fairy-tale land of castles and princesses and knights and such. But this was the real world. Such things didn’t—couldn’t—exist. Eventually, experts would get here, and they’d have their expert theories on what it was, and said theories would be boringly normal. Unusual, perhaps, but normal.

A flicker of movement caught her eye. Halfway between her and the woods, a strange green creature was galloping towards her—no, towards the bubble. As implausible as the creature seemed, Kate figured she was hallucinating it, perhaps inspired by her earlier fantasy of a magical kingdom. When she heard Anthony shouting, though, she realized that it must actually be there, as unlikely as it seemed.

Kate couldn’t help but imagine that if it reached the bubble, its end would be similar to a moth reaching a bug zapper. For just an instant, she remembered the bird hitting the bubble, and it hadn’t been going nearly as fast as this—whatever this thing was.

She was certain that shout as she might, it would not stop. It had a chased look, like the doe running across a soybean field and in front of her car. She’d honked her horn and slammed on the brakes, but the collision was inevitable, and they’d hit with a sickening thud. Neither the car nor the deer had survived.

She could try to tackle it, or she could shoot it. The first option would likely not end well for her, and the second would be counter-productive.

Kate reached for her taser instead. She wasn’t sure it would work on . . . on the creature, but it was her best choice. She was pretty sure stun guns worked on dogs.

She’d never had to use the taser against anything that was moving quickly before, but it was just like a gun. A simple point-and-click interface, she reminded herself, grabbing it from the holster.

Just got to get the lead right. The . . . thing was moving way faster than something its size should be. On the other hand, if she hit it anywhere, the taser would work. She tensed for a moment, before letting out her breath and dropping her stance, carefully following along with its movement. Her finger tensed on the trigger.

Lyra had been excited at the thought of the two creatures on the beach coming to meet her; thus, Dale’s shout had come as a total surprise. She knew the words—they had gone over them; she had even acted them out on the beach. Why he had said such a thing was beyond her, but that was unimportant.

She was still dithering when he threw her saddlebags at the first one, who sort of caught them, stumbling off balance as he did so. A tiny part of her mind wondered if it was some kind of greeting ritual—until he knocked the second one off its feet. There was nothing friendly about it, and it made Lyra’s blood run cold. It seemed Dale had decided that these creatures were a threat, and he had dealt with it in less time than she’d imagined possible for a creature of his size—it was as fast she cast when she’d been dueling, in fact—and he’d done it with no visible magic. It was a frightening change in his normally calm demeanor.

“Run Lyra run,” he’d said. Dale was running down the beach—impressively fast. Even now, she took a moment to appreciate how well he moved for only using two limbs. He had gone from stationary to a gallop in only a few steps, something she probably couldn’t do.

She saw the first creature recover its balance, and realized that it was time to follow Dale’s advice. As she started moving, she tried to grab her saddlebags in passing, but the creature had a deathgrip on them. She did manage to yank him off-balance, but he didn’t relinquish his grip. Ever mindful of Celestia’s advice, she was hardly going to get in a magical battle with him.

Lyra picked up speed on the downhill, switching to a canter the instant her hooves touched the wet sand of the beach. It wasn’t the ideal surface for running on, but she was gaining on Dale, so her four-legged run clearly was faster than his kind’s two-legged gait.

She heard yelling behind her, which was all the inspiration she needed to change to a gallop. She wondered if these creatures were some kind of changeling or monster—the way Dale had reacted, he was clearly frightened of them, and she was proud to think that he was willing to fight two of them to keep her safe.

The third one seemed rooted in place as she grew closer. It apparently was unable to understand what was going on. Dale was screaming something. It was a word that they hadn’t covered, but he was repeating it again and again. If the third creature heard him, it gave no sign.

Suddenly, their eyes locked. Even with the smaller, less-expressive eyes these creatures had, Lyra could see the sudden resolution in the creature’s expression. It reached towards its hip, but Lyra was sure she was clear. Judging by Dale’s speed, there was no way it could cross the distance between them before she reached the bubble. Even a thrown spear—if it had one—would hardly make it. She was nearly home free.

Dale could see Kate’s trigger finger moving, millimeter by millimeter. For an instant, he wondered if he’d managed to achieve a higher state of consciousness—everything on the beach seemed so vivid, from the beams of light lancing off the wavelets in the azure blue water, to the perfectly green trees. He could see every single warp and weave of her life jacket.

I’ll probably break off her strobe when I hit, he thought.

One step away, Dale launched himself off the beach in a diving tackle.

The impact was devastating. Dale easily had a hundred pounds on Kate, and he used every ounce of it, slamming his shoulder into her ribs. He heard a noise like a shotgun in his ear as his shoulder dislocated, but he felt nothing as his arms closed around her chest of their own volition.

He drove her sideways almost a foot before she began to fall. He noticed that she was wearing pale pink nail polish. Isn’t there a regulation against that? I hope I didn’t hurt her too badly. I might have broken some of her ribs.

Lyra never felt the pin-pricks in her withers, but the jolt of electricity knocked her off her hooves. She’d been hit by offensive spells before, but this was in a whole new league. Her heart felt like it was full of angry wasps, and she slammed into the damp sand, sliding uncontrollably. None of her muscles would do anything but twitch.

Lyra suddenly felt the magic slipping away from her. She tried to focus on it, tried to will it back, but it was no good. The tenuous thread of concentration that had been maintaining Starswirl’s spell all day long—such a minor effort, she hadn’t even really been consciously aware of it—finally broke, and she realized that she was about to be the center of a powerful magical backlash. And there was nothing she could do about it.

As they fell, Dale suddenly realized that she hadn’t lost her grip on her weapon. Dale had a moment to reflect that going to prison might now be the least of his worries, and then his world exploded in pain.

I’ll never know if Lyra wore horseshoes, he thought regretfully.

Author's Note

Thanks to my pre-readers!
As always, check out my blog, HERE, for notes and references on this chapter!

Chapter 12: Sunset

Celestia Sleeps In

Chapter 12: Sunset

Admiral Biscuit

Anthony had been halfway up the rise off the beach when he’d noticed the old man standing there, staring across the beach with a look of fright. His face was covered with stubble and his clothes were wrinkled, as if he’d been sleeping in them. Probably another boater that got stuck on the island. Now he sees that weird bubble, and he’s freaking out. He’d motioned for Cortez to come over before moving closer. He’d kept a wary eye on the man, who continued to stare vacantly off in the distance, as if he didn’t see them at all.

As Cortez moved close along his side, Anthony had gotten within arm’s reach of the man. He’d watched his eyes carefully, but they stayed unfocused. Is he having a stroke or an aneurysm or something like that? Anthony had briefly forgotten about the strange bubble on the beach, wondering if this grizzled old man was going to topple over at his feet.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, trying to keep a friendly lilt in his voice. He hoped that his tone would snap the man out of his reverie. If not—if the guy collapsed at his feet or something—at least Cortez was there to help.

He did not expect the man’s reaction. Without any warning whatsoever, the man threw the bag he was holding at Anthony, who instinctively grabbed at it as he took a step back. The bag was heavy enough to have been filled with bricks, and it threw him off balance as he caught it.

Anthony’s reactions were quick, but not nearly quick enough. He’d been entirely blindsided by the instant hostility of a man who’d initially appeared for all the world to be a lost soul. He hardly had time to register the man knocking Cortez off his feet before his eye locked on the second member of the duo—a pastel miniature horse with freakishly large golden eyes.

It glanced at him, back down the beach, and then he felt a yank at the bag he was holding, although there was no physical connection between the horse and himself. Without knowing why, he tightened his grip and pulled back, not really seeing the golden aura twining over the bag. As suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone, and he took an involuntary step to keep his balance, just as the horse took off down the hill, running the same way grandpa had gone.

He looked over at Cortez, who was getting to his feet. A sick feeling of dread settled over Anthony as he began running down the short hill. It felt as if he was running through molasses. Something was going terribly wrong, and he didn’t know what or why.

He saw the horse galloping in a beeline towards the hemisphere, while the old man appeared to have set his sights on Kate.

“Stop him!” He hoped Kate would hear his frantic shouts. She seemed lost in her own little world, unaware of the drama that was unfolding a mere fifty yards from her. His words must have cut through the fog, though, because she suddenly turned. When she saw the horse she reached for her taser. She hesitated before bringing it up, carefully tracking the charging horse, but she didn’t fire.

“Get the guy!” His shout came too late; Kate clearly never saw the old man. He cringed as the two collided—even at his distance the collision was frightfully loud, and he secretly admired the old man for having the guff to pull it off. Kate was well and truly down; he wouldn’t be surprised if she’d moved a few yards from the hit.

It seemed she’d gotten her shot off, though. The strange horse was lying on its side, just barely inside the bubble. That could have gone better, but no one looks too badly hurt. Anthony ran down the beach, mulling over the options for pulling the weird horse back out of the bubble. Could wrap a line around its hind legs and pull it free.

He was ten yards short of Kate when the bubble suddenly darkened. A moment later, the horse glowed a blinding incandescent white and a line of golden fire shot across the taser wires. For the briefest instant, he heard a piercing scream from Kate, but it was cut off before it could properly form, as she and the old man also turned ghostly, and then all three were gone, leaving nothing behind but twin trails of scorched sand and a broken strobe light.

“So you sell insurance?” The incredulous tone was conveyed even in her wingpony’s whisper.

Sunny Rays nodded. “And fill in on the weather team. It’s not a job that really needs me to be in my office all the time. It’s a new thing in a town like Ponyville, anyway. Most ponies don’t even know they can insure their property.” She gazed out over the reservoir. She and Northern Lights were part of the support supply team, each serving their week on duty. Unlike the Royal Guards, the auxiliary was mostly made up of mares. They wore sky-blue vests with a white border, and an image of a cloud with wagon wheels on each side—their squad’s logo. Sunny had an leg band, too, since she was a section leader. They were primarily tasked towards supporting the medical teams, but could also be used for other support functions, if needed.

Technically, they weren’t supposed to be talking, but she figured that if she kept her voice quiet, nopony would know. There wasn’t anything else to do; the day had been completely boring except for when she briefly flew next to Misty. Even without the trademark blue flight suit, she recognized the Wonderbolt.

“I think that you’d find insurance surprisingly affordable, and you can never tell what might happen in a cloudhouse.” Before Northern Lights could reply, a slight thrumming noise caused Sunny to perk her ears up. It wasn’t a sound she’d heard from the spell before, so she glanced towards the raft, which was still sitting where it had been all day. She turned to the mare next to her.

“Did you—” she began, before the spell failed with a sharp report, sending splintered wood and a column of water hundreds of feet high.

That was a signal even the distant unicorns couldn’t miss. Trios of red sparks started shooting into the air—a completely unnecessary measure—while the exploration team launched off their clouds, soaring towards the lake to see what had happened. A dozen unicorns—the land-bound equivalent—teleported to the bank, where they were promptly drenched by the falling spray.

Sunny Rays fought an urge to fly off the cloud in the opposite direction, but she stayed put—along with her wingpony—as they had been trained. The exploratory teams were expendable; the strike and medical teams were not. The mist obscured what was happening, but she heard a shout, followed by a sickening thud.

Two Wonderbolts rocketed off their cloud; Soarin headed in the direction of Ponyville, while Fleetfoot flew towards Canterlot. They were not trailing their signature smoke contrails; that was only for show. Spitfire, Misty, and Blaze stood by, ready to carry new messages, if the situation required it.

Everypony else stayed put. There had been a concern that the creatures that lived where Lyra was going could manage to get through the bubble, and if they did, the pegasi were supposed to stop them before they got off the lake. They had done sand table training and field exercises which were developed with minotaurs and diamond dogs in mind, but since they didn’t know what these creatures were capable of, the best defense was to not be seen, and attack by surprise. Of course, the reconnaissance team had to get there first, to see what the threat was. It was filled with stallions who wanted to prove they had what it took to be promoted to Royal Guard.

“There’s ponies in the water!” The alarmed voice of a pegasus carried over the receding spray. While most ponies could swim, an unconscious pony would quickly drown; pegasi were at a particular disadvantage, as wet feathers further compromised their natural buoyancy.

“She’s not moving, send the rescue teams!”

“Unicorn down on the shore. It looks like he was hit by a falling timber.”

The shore exploded into a flurry of activity. Medical teams—many of them entirely composed of auxiliary guards—galloped out of the trees and dove off clouds, trailed by their armored brethren. Meanwhile, the pegasi support teams sprung into action.

Sunny Rays was responsible for her squad’s supply cloud, and she quickly began shoving it towards the lake. Stacked neatly in a carefully-formed depression were medical supplies, food, blankets, and extra spears. Behind her, another pegasus was pushing a carrying cloud into place—a specially-enchanted platform allowed anypony to stand on it. They had initially been invented for water rescues, but had also proven useful for stranded airship evacuation and for carnival rides which had malfunctioned.

Additional wooden platforms were being levitated out over the reservoir to provide a working space for unicorns. Sunny aimed for a cluster of heads bobbing above the water—two pegasi were struggling to keep somepony afloat. Their wings were soaked; it was amazing that they were still able to hover. As soon as she had her cloud in place, she began looping ropes around bollards on the platform cloud, first securing her fellow pegasi before trying to assist with the victim in the water. All around her, she could hear the terse commands of patrol leaders, trying to quickly organize the chaos in the water.

Luna looked down at the trembling unicorn, stretched prostrate at her hooves. Outside the door, she could still hear the muffled voices of the Royal Guard, but she paid them no heed. To forestall interruption, she had magically barred the door. Nothing short of celestial magic would open it.

“Beatrix Lulamoon.” The unicorn looked up at the mention of her name, but Luna’s face was an unreadable mask. She dared not speak until the younger diarch gave her leave.

“Beatrix Lulamoon,” Luna repeated. “Thou hast come to our House seeking our protection. We grant thee protection from outside agents for as long as thou dost remain in our House.” She knelt, before gently touching her horn to the unicorn’s forehead. “Rest now, for thou art weary.”

Luna’s horn glowed a soft blue, and Trixie’s head sunk to the floor. As Luna got back to her hooves, she frowned. “What is that lemony smell?”

Dusk Glimmer trotted over, sniffing the prone unicorn. “I think . . . it smells like she waxed her mane.”

“We confess we are not always . . . abreast of current trends. But, this doth smell more like furniture polish than a mane treatment. Dusk Glimmer, is this what ponies do now?”

Dusk smiled faintly. “No, highness. I can only conclude that she did it to appear . . . presentable. Perhaps proper grooming supplies were not at hoof. She did just escape her cell.”

Luna let out a long sigh. “We cannot leave her here. Our bedchambers are large enough to fit another pony. Perhaps thou should bring a servant’s bed. We doubt she would find our own bed restful.”

“Where shall I put it?”

“Beside our own. Nopony would dare enter uninvited.” She looked at the sleeping showmare thoughtfully. “Dost thou know what removes furniture wax?”

“I could ask one of the other girls,” Dusk said mostly to herself. “On the other hoof, I’ll have to go to the storeroom to get more bedding. There’s probably a few cans of it down there. There might even be instructions. If not, I suppose I’ll have to track down the night maids.” Dusk shifted on her hooves uncomfortably, while Luna kept looking thoughtfully at the prone unicorn.

“Our sister will not take this lightly.” Luna began pacing around the room. “She may try to return Beatrix to the cells, despite our protection. But she is not hasty. She will take her time interviewing her guards, and will think on the matter over her dinner.” She looked back at her servant. “Dusk Glimmer, we would have you provide a bed for the unicorn, and then discover how to properly clean her mane and tail in case ordinary soaps fail.”

“As you wish.” Dusk bowed, and hastened off to the servant’s chambers to comply.

Luna, meanwhile, sat on her couch and looked towards Trixie. She watched the slow rise and fall of the thick blanket, trying to put herself into the mind of the unicorn. She had deliberately bespelled her in such a way that she would not dream, for if she did, she was sure to have nightmares, and Luna feared that she would not be able to devote the necessary attention to them once her sister arrived. Later, perhaps, she could begin the slow process of working through Trixie’s nightmares, but it was too early now. Anypony could see that the unicorn was physically, mentally, and magically nearly completely drained.

“We should see if the corruption has progressed any further,” she stated to the empty room. She telekinetically grabbed a sheaf of notes and stepped over to the unicorn, pulling the blanket free.

She started by examining the fringe of hair at the fetlocks. There was a distinct blackish line just above the keratin of the hoof, with faint tendrils leading all the way up to the knee, although thankfully they carried no further. Next, she gently lifted the mare’s head, looking carefully at her neck and brisket where the amulet had been worn. Interestingly, it was completely normal. Examination of the base of her horn revealed no change there, but Luna shuddered at the deep cut on her poll and the nicks on her horn.

Finally, she studied Trixie’s cutie mark intently. Here was where she was most concerned with seeing a change. There was a faint, almost imperceptible shadow on her thighs, although at first glance it appeared no darker than when the unicorn had first surrendered.

Luna dutifully recorded what she’d seen, before shifting her vision. Now the dark streaks stood out as faint red lines, so different from the rest of Trixie’s magical aura. Even without really needing to, Luna floated a thick book on pony ki over to her side and began flipping through the pages. The Neighponese were quite interested in the subject, and it was odd that the Equestrians generally weren’t. As far as she knew, this book had never been translated; she’d spent enjoyable months learning enough of the language to read it. The artistry of the diagrams—and the syllabic writing—were glorious to behold, much more elegant that the ordinary Unicorn script. They took such pride in their calligraphy.

Eventually, we shall have this book translated, she decided. We cannot expect everypony to want to learn Neighponese. Still—we lack effective cures for many magical maladies, and there are no classes taught at university which utilize non-Equestrian healing methods, despite their obvious efficacy. Twilight Sparkle has been exposed to Zebrican potions on several occasions, yet to hear Celestia talk she still refuses to entertain the notion of applying anything other than traditional unicorn-inspired magic to a problem. No doubt she would claim this book were naught but baseless superstition were it to find its way into her hooves.

A darker red pulse along the unicorn’s horn snapped her out of her thoughts. Luna set the book carefully aside and gently formed her magic around the source, finally pulling a small grain of shattered crystal loose with her magic. She took an involuntary step back as it tugged on her aura with a familiar dark need.

“No, no, no! Begone! You shall not!” She glared at it, focusing her will on the small grain, draining it of its malevolent power. When it finally fell out of her magic, she rubbed her temple. There were probably more of them stuck to the unicorn, and she would have to pull them all free and neutralize them. If but one were left, it would grow and multiply, and could potentially corrupt anypony who came into contact with it.

Gritting her teeth, she began the laborious task of locating the shards, draining each one as it was found. Even changeling magic can be adapted to useful purpose, she thought as the small burned-out grains fell to the floor one after another.

When she had finally finished, she brushed the now-harmless pile of red sand into a small envelope, in case she felt the need to perform further study on it. She sat back on her couch, regarding the unicorn thoughtfully.

Her chambers weren’t sterile like Celestia’s. Despite her sister’s best efforts at persuasion, Luna prefered an organized clutter, as she called it. When she was in the middle of a project, she hated to set it aside; as a result, her desk and walls were littered with notes and charts. There was no room in this concept for a unicorn lying in the middle of it all.

Luna sighed. She wanted Celestia to see Trixie lying on the floor, covered in dirt and scratches. She wanted her sister to see the trail of dried blood that ran down her forehead. She could envision how Celestia would recoil at such a sight; how her sister would beg her forgiveness. But what if she didn’t come for hours? What if it were a whole day? She could hardly leave the poor unicorn there, splayed out on the cold marble tile.

Soon enough, Dusk Glimmer would be back with a bed. She could easily levitate the showmare over to it, tuck her in, and she would be totally unaware of the improvement in her sleeping conditions. But—they would never say it—but Luna could imagine the glares she would get from her servants if she put such a filthy pony on their clean sheets. Word would eventually get back to Celestia, and it would be the pillow fight incident all over again. There was no excuse any more. The castle had long been equipped with hot and cold plumbing; even if it had not, Luna still remembered the spells to heat bathwater. That had been a fairly early innovation, by a castle servant no less.

She could wait until Dusk Glimmer came back. Bathing the unicorn was something that was, technically, her job. She had foals of her own; she’d said so earlier. It was not unreasonable to expect that she’d had experience.

Surely she’d be back soon.

Luna sat on the couch and regarded the unicorn.

Celestia shifted marginally on her throne as the doors closed behind the last petitioner. Afternoon court was done, and it wasn’t soon enough. Her stomach was grumbling, and for the last hour occasional tantalizing smells had drifted into the throne room.

Barely had the doors shut when they were opened again, this time by a frazzled-looking Royal Guard.

When he had finally reached the base of her throne, he bowed deeply and removed his helmet. Even before he spoke, Celestia knew it was going to be bad news.

“Your Highness, the prisoner has escaped.”

“I see.” A lesser pony would have asked how did she escape?, but while that would be useful information for the future, it was of no significance now. Clearly the guard did not think so, for he felt the need to expand.

“She somehow cut off her blocking ring, your Highness. Then she broke down the door and stole her guards’ uniforms.”

“You do not need me to tell you to find her and bring her back,” Celestia said, gratefully accepting a cup of tea from one of her servants.

“That’s a problem.” The guard shifted uneasily. “We know where she is.”

“Ah.” She took a drink of her tea.

“She fled to Luna’s tower, and demanded sanctuary.”

Celestia gently set the teacup back on its silver salver. The guard took a step back. Ever since Luna had come back, the castle had been abuzz with gossip about the friction between the two. For the most part, the whispered stories were untrue; the gossipy castle staff often took dubious news sources as gospel, and those in the inner sanctums had given up trying to correct the false tales. Still, some were at least based in truth: the most recent incident had been Celestia’s balcony doors, but that was certainly not the most memorable. He half-expected Celestia to leap up off her throne and teleport up to Luna’s tower, and he fully expected to hear the sounds of the battle even here.

She did not. She looked at him calmly. “Thank you for bringing this matter to my attention. I shall speak with my sister after dinner. Tell your commander I expect a full report of the incident by the morning. You are dismissed.”

The guard nodded politely and wasted no time leaving the throne room. Before the doors had even closed behind him, Raven stepped towards the throne, a stack of papers floating in her aura. “Forgive me, Princess. As usual, there are a few urgent entreaties which require your personal attention.” She gently floated a sheaf of papers free from the pile. “First, this is a request to allocate an extra thousand bits a month for the next year for maintenance of fountains in Manehatten. It seems that some of the historical fountains have . . . historical plumbing, and the city cannot afford to replace it at this time.”

“Does it say which ones?” Celestia asked curiously. “Some of them are public water fountains, while others are decorative. I’d hate to set a precedent by fixing the decorative ones.”

“Yes, your highness. The three fountains in Gormane Park, the fountain in Highbridge Park, and the fountain in Trotski Park.”

“I’m not familiar with Trotski Park,” Celestia muttered. “The name sounds vaguely familiar though.”

“It’s the one on—” Raven dropped the notes as Celestia suddenly winced. It was a very slight movement; it would have been imperceptible to anypony who didn’t spend nearly twelve hours a day at the diarch’s side. “Are you all right?”

Celestia ignored her. She had just felt a strong twitch in the weave of magic. Normally, there were frequent fluctuations, which she’d grown to ignore centuries ago. Occasionally, though, something powerful enough happened that it drew her attention. She prided herself on being able to classify what type of magic it was and what sort of creature had caused it, but in this case she was drawing a blank. There was a vaguely familiar feel to the surge, but it was carrying an unidentifiable overtone. She sighed. No doubt the court magicians were already puzzling over the source.

She’d been in their chambers several times; each time was more depressing. Musty spellbooks lined the wall, and the once splendid tables were covered with beakers and retorts and strange crystal-driven sensing apparatuses. It was the sort of room Twilight Sparkle would have dearly loved to spend all her time in, which was why she was entirely unaware of its existence.

“Your majesty?” Raven looked at her nervously, papers forgotten.

“I’m sorry, I had my mind elsewhere.” Celestia levitated the papers over to herself, and rapidly scrawled her signature on the final page of each request. Halfway through, it occurred to her that she had no idea what she was signing, but the voice of experience was telling her that something more important was happening right now. “There we go.” She cheerfully sent the stack of papers back to her secretary, an unreadable expression on her face.

Raven looked at her suspiciously. The question she was about to ask died on her lips as a messenger burst through the doors, a small square of paper gripped in her teeth.

Both the alicorn and unicorn waited as she made her way up to the throne at a brisk trot. She paused at the base of the dias to bow briefly, before ascending the steps. In the griffon kingdom, Celestia knew, the messenger would have handed the message to Raven, rather than touch a single hoof to the sacred dais, but she had managed to get at least that bit of foolishness out of her ponies centuries ago.

The messenger nodded, and Celestia’s magic gently twined around the small rectangle.

Red sparks spotted over Ponyville from west tower.

It was written on an ordinary message form, and had been sent by a junior page—clearly the tower commander hadn’t wanted to alarm anypony with an urgent message, which was quite insightful of him: Celestia vowed to make sure he was considered for promotion.

“I expect I shall receive a few more of these as the night draws close,” Celestia turned to face Raven. “We should retire to my chambers before anypony beings to panic about the volume of urgent messages being sent to the throne room.”

Soarin skidded to a stop outside the library, his landing perfect as always. He took a moment to pose for the crowd that had already gathered before he pushed the door open with a smile which promised he’d be back out for autographs and hoofshakes as soon as he could.

The instant the door closed behind him, the false smile fell from his face. “Twilight Sparkle.” His shout was loud enough to wake the dead, but he had no time for niceties. His mission orders were quite clear.

She came galloping down the stairs, nearly tripping over her own hooves. He thought he saw a brief flash of lavender magic as she caught herself, but it wasn’t his place to comment.

“Something went wrong,” he said. “I don’t know what.”

Twilight’s eyes were wide as saucers. “Is Lyra . . . hurt?”

“I don’t know. I flew here as soon as I saw the sparks.” He lowered his head. “I wish I could tell you more. You are to gather the Element bearers and get to the reservoir as quickly as you can. I have to get to the train station and send a preliminary report to Canterlot.”

“Oh my gosh.” She turned her head up the stairs. “Octavia, gotta go. There’s leftovers in the kitchen, if you’re hungry. Spike, stay inside, where it’s safe. I don’t want you getting underhoof.” Suddenly businesslike, she levitated over her saddlebags, cinching them tightly around her girth. An ornate book was grabbed with her telekinesis, and she started to move towards the door, before Soarin interrupted her.

“Would it be possible to use one of your balconies? There’s a crowd of . . . adoring fans outside. I hate to disappoint, but my mission’s paramount.”

“Um, yeah. Up the stairs, door to your left.” She pointed absently with a hoof, before teleporting out in a burst of magic.

Luna’s thoughts drifted to the past as she watched the sleeping unicorn. Her father had had nopony who loved him. He had legions of servants eager to do his bidding, but that was only due to the threat of violence against them, not love. His kingdom was nothing more than a sham. She hadn’t seen it at the time, but looking back she was appalled at his strong-hooved rule. Dissidents were rounded up and never seen again. His kingdom was orderly, his kingdom was peaceful . . . yet it held no love. No compassion. Such things were beyond his comprehension. Was it possible that he never even loved her? Could it be that he accepted her into his embrace just to increase his power? Did he think he could—with his daughter at his side—cast aside Celestia and wrest control of the sun back from her?

She’d come so close to emulating him. Twice, she’d had her own reign of terror nearly within her hooves. First, her own sister struck her down; when she finally returned, a unicorn—barely even an adult—had seen through her every machination, and had dared to humiliate her in her own throne room. Even stranger, both had forgiven her. It would have been so easy to kill her, when she was lying on the floor weak and helpless. Why hadn’t they?

Confused memories slid into view. The injured griffon cub they’d brought back to the castle. Her sister rescuing Philomena from the clutches of a dragon. A pair of foals draping a flower wreath around her neck, as if she’d just won a race. A tiny pinto colt begging her for just one more Nightmare Night. A failed attempt to befriend a dragon—clearly, that plan had finally come to fruition during her long exile.

Unfelt, a tear rolled down her cheek.

Luna snapped her head around as her chamber doors crashed open. Her sister stood silhouetted by the harsh shadows of the setting moon, and she knew what was about to happen. Too late, she saw her Elements levitate towards Celestia. Luna stepped forward, charging her horn—but she could not strike her own sister down. The light in her eyes faded as she released her final spell to the sky and lowered her head and prepared to die at her sister’s hooves.

But death did not come. She found herself trapped instead. For a thousand years, her corrupted mind mocked her sister’s weakness, even though it was tempered with a slight bit of respect. Not for the act—never for the act. She could not condone it then, and she still could not. Anypony would say it had been the merciful thing to do, but nopony could imagine the agony of a thousand years of exile.

Yet each night, precisely on schedule, the moon rose over the eastern horizon. Celestia kept the phases properly, even on days when the sunrise had not been correct. Luna’s collection of constellations was added to; as the decades passed and her sister’s power grew, they were even rearranged occasionally.

She knew—even without ever looking—that her lunar schedule was somewhere in Celestia’s office, unchanged through a thousand years, the hopes and dreams of a filly continued in her absence. Was it a tribute to her memory, or a longing for her return? She would never know, because she could never ask.

She looked back at Trixie. Her father would only have saved her if it would have provided him some advantage, else he would not have raised a hoof to help. But she was better than him.

Luna stomped into her bathroom, an unconscious unicorn in tow. She gently set her on the floor as she began filling the tub, emptying her favorite bottle of bubblebath into the steaming water, a faint smile playing across her muzzle as the lilac-scented bubbles multiplied and expanded.

When the water was just up to her knees, she gently levitated the unicorn in, carefully keeping her muzzle above water by resting it on the lip of the tub.

She set her royal slippers and peytral aside, then joined the unicorn in the bath with a tall stack of clean washcloths.

She began by levitating over her showerhead and washing the wax out of Trixie’s mane using the same shampoo she normally used on her own fur. Unconsciously, she began humming the tune her nurse had always sang when she was but a foal. The words were lost to time, but the melody was not.

When she had finally finished lathering and rinsing Trixie’s mane, she moved on to her tail. As she gently tugged out another tangle, she frowned. The newspaper said that a proper mare used conditioner, and it wouldn’t be in the newspaper if it wasn’t true. Conditioner was not something with which she had personal experience; her mane required no attention whatsoever. She dimly remembered that Dusk Glimmer, as head housemaid, had a private bath which was well-stocked with every beauty aid known to pony.

As she worked the conditioner through Trixie’s platinum mane and tail, she glanced down at the mess on the bathroom floor. It had been quite impossible to determine which was the right bottle by telekinetic feel, so she had simply brought them all into her bathroom, sorting them where she could see them. She was gratified to discover that Dusk Glimmer used the brand that eight out of ten mares preferred—if it was that popular, it must be effective.

When she moved on to Trixie’s fur, she took care to keep the harsh lye soap away from her face and any open cuts. Not something that she normally used, it was excellent for cleaning tough-to-remove stains. While for the bulk of her fur, working up a lather and then rinsing it out was a perfectly effective strategy, she needed to exercise more care near sensitive skin. For that, she used a washcloth clamped in her teeth, working carefully around the delicate spots.

After her final rinse, she drained the bathtub and brought the unicorn out, drying her thoroughly with thick terry towels. When she was satisfied, she gently slid her into a bathrobe.

Finally, she stood back and admired her hoofwork. She had never tried to serve somepony else in such a way; she wondered if the pride she felt swelling in her heart was not the same as a skilled craftspony felt admiring her work. The unicorn was so clean she practically squeaked.

She carried the unicorn back to her bedroom, frowning at the continuing lack of a second bed. She’d hoped to place the unicorn on a normal mattress, but it seemed that was not to be. Instead, she threw her comforter across the bed and bespelled it to stick atop her cloud mattress. She gently lifted the unicorn into place, softly setting her head upon a silken pillow, then dragged a sheet across her.

Twilight and Rainbow Dash stood on the bluff, looking at the scene of chaos in front of them. They had gone ahead—Twilight teleported when they were close, and Rainbow had put on an extra burst of speed. The others were climbing the hill in the traditional manner, with the exception of Fluttershy. She was draped across Applejack’s back. Nopony had forgotten the difficulty with which she had ascended the dragon’s mountain, and despite her protests that this time would be different, they had taken precautions.

The scene around the reservoir was truly organized chaos. An overall view would indicate that there was no clear command structure—clouds were spotted seemingly at random over the water and beach, and chariots would occasionally take to the sky, flying either towards Ponyville or Canterlot. A loud roaring noise pervaded the whole scene; it took Twilight almost a minute to realize that the dam’s outflow gates were wide open and the spillway was full to the brim with roiling water.

Examined piecemeal, though, everypony was carrying out a specific task. A group of pegasi flew near the dam, each carrying life preservers, no doubt there to catch anypony trapped by the abnormally strong suction. Further upriver, clusters of ponies were gathered around bodies in the water, dragging them out one at a time. Safety lines were draped from clouds and rescue supplies were being carried over the lake.

A group of medics on the shore was providing quick triage, loading those injured into chariots as quickly as they could assess their injuries and stabilize them. Twilight watched in wonder as a group of burly earth ponies struggled to load a chariot.

One of them yelled something to the lead pegasus, and the team leapt off the ground—but the chariot did not follow. It stayed stubbornly anchored to the ground, despite the straining wings of the pegasi.

More commands were given, and the team was quickly switched out with a team of earth ponies. As they galloped off, Applejack whistled.

“Ah wonder what they’re carryin’ that’s all-fired important enough they ain’t changin’ harnesses?”

“Sorry?” Twilight looked at the farmer in confusion.

“Aerial tack and road tack isn’t the same,” Rainbow explained. “We’ve got wings, and they don’t.”

“It’s about more’n that, an ya know it.” Applejack frowned at her. “Fer starters, there ain’t a breechin’ strap on a flyin’ harness, so they’re gonna have a hard time stoppin’ that there chariot. An they’re really gonna hafta pull together, ‘cause the traces on a pegasi harness are rigid between the wheel team an the lead team.”

“But Rainbow and Fluttershy pulled that wagon when we were chasing you,” Twilight protested.

“Ah didn’t say it couldn’t be done; they’re doin’ it. Jest that they must be in one tartarus of a hurry if’n they ain’t botherin’ to at least switch the load to a different wagon.”

“How come they aren’t wearing armor? They’ve got vests, just like you guys wear during Winter Wrap Up. All the guards in Canterlot wore armor.”

Rainbow glanced over at the cluster of ponies. “They’re the recon and medical teams. They don’t usually wear it; it slows them down.”

“We got the idea of the vests from them,” Applejack added. “Didn’t useta have ta wear ‘em, back in Granny’s day, but the town got big enough that not everypony knew everypony else no more.”

“I still do,” Pinkie chirped.

“It’s so the auxiliary guard can recognize one another,” Rainbow clarified. “Each different team—platoon—has a different insignia on their vests, and group leaders wear foreleg bands, just like we do. That way, anypony can see who’s in charge.”

“Don’t they work together enough to recognize each other without?”

“Pfft, not always. We had to wear uniforms when we trained in Cloudsdale. Not at first, but when we got into advanced weather control, some clouds needed specialists. They’d send out trick clouds, sometimes.” Rainbow leaned back, crossing her forelegs. “Never fooled me, though. I could bust anything the weather factory threw at me. ‘Cause I’m awesome.”

A harried-looking unicorn regular materialized in front of the group. Fluttershy eeped quietly, but stood her ground.

“Thanks for coming out, girls.” He bowed slightly—a brief head nod—before getting down to business.

“I don’t really know if there’s anything you can do to help—at least not right now.” He idly scratched his mane. “We’ve got the situation pretty well in hoof. There’s a few injured, but they’re being taken to the hospital right now. There don’t appear to be any new threats, and the strike teams are still standing by, still fully prepared. Still—I’d rather have you girls stay here, at least for the time being. Just in case. The situation’s still developing, and we’ve had a few . . . unexpected surprises.”

Celestia paced around her anteroom like a caged animal. She wanted to teleport to Ponyville and see just what had happened, but she knew if she did everypony would assume the worst. It was fairly common knowledge around the castle that there were already soldiers there; for her to rush off as well would suggest that she didn’t trust them, or worse, that the situation had spiraled out of control so far that only she could fix it. It didn’t help that gossip of Trixie’s escape was no doubt already circulating through the barracks.

A faint knocking sounded at her chamber doors, and Raven rushed to answer. “It’s Fleetfoot,” she announced.

“Send her in.” Celestia took a couple of deep breaths to compose herself. At last she’d be getting some actual news, so she could make an informed decision.

As soon as she entered the room, the pegasus bowed deeply.

“What happened?” Celestia didn’t have to wait for the Wonderbolt to speak; it was obvious why she was here.

“We don’t know.” She sighed. “Soarin went to get the Element bearers, and I hurried to tell you.”

“What did you see?”

“Your majesty, I left as soon as the initial explosion happened, just as we had arranged. I did not stay to observe. We decided that we should use as many means as possible to send you a message, just in case. I assume that you saw the sparks?”

“Yes, I was informed. Sadly, there were no further communications regarding the situation in Ponyville.”

“Perhaps you could give us your impressions?” Raven interjected diplomatically. “Surely you saw something noteworthy.”

“I wasn’t looking at the water when it happened,” she began. “I heard a loud report, and turned to see a column of water fly into the air, carrying pieces of the raft with it. Since I’m the fastest, we’d already decided to have me report to Canterlot, and Soarin was going to report to the Element bearers.” She paused, stretching her wings. “We both launched at about the same time as the pegasus recon team, figuring that if there were an attack we might be missed in the confusion.”

“Was there?” Raven prompted.

“Oh—no, just the explosion. Not before I left, anyway.”

“That’s encouraging,” Celestia said. “I think I felt the spell fail—it had a backlash to it.”

“I’ll fly back. Me—or one of the other Wonderbolts—will be sure to let you know if there is any more news.” She bowed deeply again, and trotted out the door.

Celestia’s stomach rumbled. First her lunch got ruined, and now it looked like she wasn’t going to get any dinner, either.

Almost the moment the doors had closed, they swung open again. “Telegram for Princess Celestia. It’s—” The stallion’s voice dropped as he saw her standing there—he had not been expecting her to be in her antechambers. He hastily dropped to his knees, the telegram fluttering to the floor. “Forgive me, your majesty.”

“Please rise,” she said serenely. She lifted the dropped telegram and levitated it over, gently pulling it out of the plain envelope.

SPELL MALFUNCTION STOP DETAILS TO FOLLOW STOP COMMANDER IRONHOOF

“Will there be a return message?” the stallion asked curiously.

“Not at this time.” She smiled encouragingly at him. “There will likely be more coming throughout the night. Please be sure to get them to my chambers right away.”

“Thank you, your majesty.” He bowed deeply again before rushing back out the door.

As soon as it had closed, Celestia walked over to her couch and flopped down on the pillows. While this wasn’t—by itself—bad news, it was not good news, either. She wanted to rush to Ponyville herself, just to see what had happened, but knew that she would do better to remain here. If word got out—and it would, probably sooner than she would like—it would help alleviate other ponies’ concerns if she kept to her normal schedule.

She looked back at the telegram. It was the first urgent communication she had received in this manner. Only a year ago, the message would have either come from a Dragonfire spell or been borne on the wings of a pegasus. While it was true that Fleetfoot had beaten the message to the castle, she’d tire out if she had to keep ferrying messages back and forth, and she was one of the fastest pegasi in Equestria. If the message had originated from a more-distant source, it would have easily beaten the Wonderbolt.

If they could figure out a way to get the messages all the way to the castle, this would be a superior communication device. She looked over at the bust of Prince Blueblood that stared haughtily in the corner of her room. He had been one of the ponies who had been strongly against the telegraph machine. She knew that it offended him to think that anypony could use it—even an earth pony. Of course, that hadn’t been his objection in council; instead he had gathered together a convincing collection of equipment failure reports and a few highly-placed quacks who had explained how the signal could derail a train. It was such a ludicrous theory that only a hooffull of nobles had fallen for it.

She stood and walked to her balcony. Off in the distance, she could see the messenger gliding back to the train station. She watched as he banked sharply around a clock tower, before settling in to land on a flat platform on the train station roof. He tugged a trap door open with his teeth and descended into the building and out of her view.

They were going to extend the rails to the castle, she thought. Everypony agreed it would be easier to bring freight directly to the basement. But then the nobles couldn’t decide on a route, and the locomotives are too smelly to use underground. Her eye trailed across the scar up the side of the mountain where the rails were laid. There are tunnels there, though. Why can’t they put them under Canterlot?

She smiled wistfully. No doubt Luna had fully read every report about the proposed rail extension, and would happily share it with her if she asked.

That thought elicited another frown. She was going to have to discuss the matter of Trixie with her sister, but right now events in Ponyville took precedence.

Her doors opened, and Raven stepped through. “I have another telegram for you,” she said, lofting it towards the Alicorn.

RESCUE TEAMS LOCATED LYRA AND TWO ADDITIONAL CREATURES STOP LYRAS CONDITION IS FAIR ADDITIONAL CREATURES CONDITION IS UNKNOWN AS WE KNOW NOTHING OF THEIR ANATOMY STOP WHAT PROGRESS IS BEING MADE ON THIS FRONT STOP ALL THREE TAKEN TO PONYVILLE HOSPITAL FOR MEDICAL CARE AND OBSERVATION IF SUCH CAN BE PROVIDED STOP INITIAL OBSERVATION SUGGESTS THESE CREATURES MAY NOT BE TOLERANT OF CERTAIN MAGICAL EFFECTS ALTHOUGH THIS IS NOT CERTAIN STOP PLEASE ADVISE STOP COMMANDER IRONHOOF

As soon as Celestia looked back up, Raven asked if there was a return message.

“Ask him if they can be sent back. And tell him that he’s doing a good job and I trust his judgement on the matter.”

Raven nodded, and rushed out the door to deliver the reply to the messenger.

Celestia lay back on her couch, deep in thought. A little over a month ago, she’d been concerned that the creatures might find their way here, yet they apparently had not until just now.

Was it because they hadn’t been ready to act? Or was this a diplomatic mission gone wrong? She had a fairly good idea how they had gotten injured, and why the spell had failed—the creatures had somehow managed to breach the protective bubble, and the spell had taken them along with it. Because of the complex nature of teleportation spells—especially when it came to their inertial dampening—they sometimes caused injury when the caster miscalculated the energy requirements. Still, they were typically designed to fail safe; Starswirl had made great strides in that direction. There were few unicorns who had access to enough power to override the matrix—Twilight was one of the few who could, having inadvertently burned Spike by carrying him as an unwitting passenger once. Perhaps these creatures had done a similar thing.

But that seemed unlikely. Everypony knew it was dangerous to jump into another unicorn’s spells. If the creatures knew enough to breach the spell’s shell, surely they’d know that.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the door opening again. Raven came in carrying a tray of food, which she set respectfully on Celestia’s desk. “Maybe you could have a few bites before the next message comes,” she suggested. “I don’t do my best thinking when I’m hungry.” She bowed slightly and stepped out of the room, leaving Celestia alone with her thoughts and the delicious smell of fresh-baked shepherd's pie. Unfortunately, before Celestia could do more than take a single bite, her secretary returned, holding yet another telegram.

UNCERTAIN IF THEY WILL SURVIVE OR IF THEY CAN BE ISOLATED FROM THE SPELL MATRIX STOP ALTHOUGH THEY LANDED IN LAKE CREATURES CLOTHING IS BURNED AND POSSIBLY THEIR FLESH ALTHOUGH WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT CONDITION THEY WERE IN BEFORE THEY ARRIVED STOP IS NOT KNOWN IF LYRA IS ABLE TO ANSWER QUESTIONS YET STOP COULD ANY UNICORN CAST SPELL FROM SCROLL ACCURATELY WITH BOOST IF NEEDED QUERY WOULD SAID UNICORN BE ABLE TO RETURN ALONE QUERY SUGGEST FURTHER STUDY NEEDED STOP COMMANDER IRONHOOF

Celestia pondered this latest missive carefully. If she was right about it being an inertial problem, there were dampening spells which could be placed around the creatures; however, Ironhoof’s vague statement that they seemed ‘intolerant’ of magical effects meant that a well-intentioned spell might prove injurious.

Moreover, the way the spell was designed, the caster could not leave them behind—if they were marked by the spell when it was cast, they would return if they were still alive. A simple teleport would neatly side-step that particular issue, but would take more energy since the second spell couldn’t rely on the kick from the first teleport.

The best solution might be to cast the spell once, returning the two creatures and a unicorn. Then, she or Luna—maybe even Twilight—could rupture the anchor from the Equestrian end, after which they could send back a second unicorn to rescue the first. It was inelegant, but it just might work.

“Tell him that we cannot reverse the spell at this time.” Celestia paused to let Raven write it down. “We will have more experts to assist him in the morning. Doctors should proceed cautiously.” She looked Raven in the eyes. “As soon as you have given the reply, alert the commanders to bring the Royal Guard up to full strength and to move all the soldiers towards Ponyville with all reasonable haste. Also notify Canterlot University that all the professors who are working on the creature’s anatomy are to depart for Ponyville on the next regularly scheduled train for an indefinite stay, and they shall have the anatomy book with them. Finally, attempt to locate any experienced xenobiologists who would enjoy a challenge. I seem to remember that there’s a student who has been studying Griffons.”

“It shall be done.” Raven bowed and went to carry out her duties. Celestia walked to her balcony. It was time to lower the sun. She had traditionally always done it from the same balcony where she raised it in the morning, even though she couldn’t see it slip below the horizon. In her early years, she’d needed to watch her moonrises carefully, to make sure she was doing them as Luna had intended. Although she no longer bore that responsibility—and she could easily control the sun from anywhere in Equestria—tradition demanded she be on her balcony.

Anthony stood dumbfounded on the beach. If sheer force of will could have brought Kate back, she should have reappeared on the beach, but of course she did not. It was as if she had never been. In fact, if it hadn’t been for her strobe light lying accusingly on the beach, he might have believed that she hadn’t been there. There was no other evidence to suggest otherwise. The sand on the beach was undisturbed, save for the slight traces of singed sand which the light wind was slowly covering. Even ships didn’t sink and leave so little evidence behind—there was always flotsam, and likely as not an oil slick on the water. Even the Edmund Fitzgerald, which had probably driven herself under, had left a lifeboat and a half behind. Here, there was nothing at all. Nothing but the strobe light and a charred strip of sand.

There was a strange noise in his ear. He finally turned his head, realizing it was Cortez saying something, although he didn’t understand a word of it. The sad truth was that Anthony was just a little above his comfort zone all the time, although he said the right things to his superiors, and got acceptable performance out of his crew. He didn’t really care about them all that much, so long as they didn’t do anything bad enough to raise his commander’s ire. He’d been hoping that he could somehow explain the magenta bubble, possibly advancing his career. Now that Kate was gone—where, he couldn’t even begin to imagine—he was wondering if he would even have a career tomorrow. A good commander didn’t lose a crewman on the beach, or anywhere else.

He knew it wasn’t really his fault. He hadn’t sent her into anything that seemed dangerous, and obviously Cortez hadn’t been prepared for the old man’s sudden fight. The selfish part of Anthony’s brain insisted that since Cortez had been his second, he should have been ready to restrain the geezer—he never should have been so close that the old man could get a drop on both of them.

His churning mind finally came to the conclusion that he neither knew what was going on, nor was he prepared for it. Therefore, the best course of action would be to get as many other people involved, who could clearly attest that it wasn’t his fault.

He turned to shout at Cortez and was startled to find the man standing right next to him. “We’ll tell Ryan to send everyone.”

“Everyone?”

Anthony narrowed his eyes. “Everyone. DHS. The FBI. CIA. NASA. FFA, if they have some insight.” He waved his hands up the beach. “Whatever happened is so far beyond our pay grade . . . we probably ain’t going to be able to mention North Fox again.”

“What about Katie?” Cortez crossed himself unconsciously. “We can’t abandon her.”

Anthony chuckled disturbingly. “She’s gone, man. Never gonna see her again.”

“Cap, you’re worrying me a little bit.”

“She was too close,” Anthony hissed. “I told her to stay a safe distance away, and she didn’t. She brought it on herself, don’t you forget. If she’d listened to my orders, she’d be fine.”

“She weren’t any closer than you told—”

Anthony’s eyes glittered. “Are you calling me a liar, Cortez? ‘Cause I don’t like that tone. Not one bit. We’re gonna go back to the boat, and we’re gonna be in complete agreement here. We’re gonna get some more people out here, and they’re gonna figure out what happened, you’ll see.” He began jogging down the beach towards the RBS, not bothering to see if Cortez was tagging along.

Lyra forced her eyes open. Her whole body hurt—it felt like she’d been stampeded by a tribe of buffalo. Moreover, she felt drained, as if all her magical energy had been sapped. True, she’d been tired after some of her duels, but she’d known better than to overextend herself; when she was outclassed by an opponent, she didn’t try to force a victory by exhausting her reserves.

She was lying on her back, and it didn’t take much of a leap of intellect to discern where she was—although she had visited the Ponyville Hospital less frequently than some other ponies, the lumpy institutional mattress and one-size-fits-all johnny were dead giveaways. Lyra noticed to her distaste that she was now sporting a cannon-band with her first initial and most of her last name printed on it. To the vast medical bureaucracy, she was now “L Heartstri,” although of course everypony who worked in the hospital knew her actual name.

“Oh, good, you’re awake.”

Lyra turned at the new voice. If she remembered her cheezy serial novels correctly, her next line should be “Give it to me straight doc: am I going to live?” Of course, that was a stupid question, and everypony knew it. Were she in actual danger of perishing, she’d be in the Intensive Care Unit, with the best unicorns in Equestria working on her, and she probably wouldn’t be conscious. Given that there weren’t even any monitors running, it was a fair guess that she was in stable condition.

‘What happened?’ ran a close second. Here, too, it was a silly question. She had been running for her life, when . . . when one of Dale’s kin had pointed a strange wand at her, and then she’d fallen, the spell had failed . . . and here she was.

“How . . . how long have I been here?” Oh Celestia, that sounds like I think I just came out of a coma, or something.

The nurse—Tenderheart—frowned. “A half hour? You were one of the first.”

“First?” Lyra looked at her incredulously. “There’s more? What happened?”

The nurse shrugged. “Spell failure, is what the pegasi who brought you in said. They pulled you out of the reservoir. I just checked in on a unicorn who got hit in the head by a chunk of wood—he’s pretty much ok, but he’s going to have a tartarus of a headache for the next day or so—and I came back in to see if you were conscious yet.” She moved closer to the bedside. “How do you feel?”

“Like . . . I feel battered all over, I guess. Like I just rolled down a hill in a barrel. And it feels like my magic is almost entirely drained. Is that a normal thing, after a major spell failure? I got hit by some kind of disrupting spell.”

“Mmhm.” Tenderheart jotted down a few notes on a clipboard at the base of Lyra’s bed. “Do you remember what happened?”

“I was running.” She reached for a glass of water on the bedside table, wincing as it wobbled in her feeble magical aura.

“Let me, dear.”

“Thank you.”

“I was running. Dale told me to run. He . . . he saved me. There were three others. Blue and orange clothes. Probably some tribe. He knocked two of them down to buy me a little time.

“I should have teleported; maybe this wouldn’t have happened if I did. But I’m not good at teleportation spells—they aren’t very useful in duelling—so I just ran. I wasn’t too worried; I had a shield up, and the third one didn’t react very quickly.

“I thought I was in the clear, but she—I think it was a she—had a wand, and it went right through the shield. I lost control of my legs.” She shuddered at the memory, fleeting though it was. For a brief instant, her brain had sent commands her body could not obey. While at the time it happened it was simply too much to process, thinking back on it was terrifying. Her body had always done what she had told it; the thought that it might not sometime was a frightening prospect.

“A moment later, I lost the spell, too. I could feel it slipping away.” She paused, realizing that while she could explain it drily, an earth pony could never quite understand how it felt.

“And that was it. Then I was here.”

The nurse scribbled down a few more notes. “The doctor says that you’re going to be all right. There doesn’t seem to be any permanent damage; nothing that a little rest won’t fix.” She absently brushed back a stray lock of green mane. “Do you know how you injured your right withers?”

“I did what now?” Lyra ran a hoof over her side, suddenly wincing as she encountered a bandage covering a wound.

“There are two . . . charred spots,” the nurse said. “Your coat and skin are burned. Not too badly,” she added hastily. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

“I have no idea.” Lyra frowned. Do I have amnesia? She knew the wound hadn’t been there when she was running on the beach, and couldn’t imagine how she could have gotten it as a result of the spell collapse.

“Well, that’s okay. I’ll just put a little note on your chart.” She scribbled on the clipboard for almost a full minute, before finally hooking it back at the base of the bed. “You try to get some rest, now. I’ll bring dinner in a little bit.”

Lyra lay back on her pillow. Her thoughts only briefly dwelled on her own injuries before they turned to Dale. What powers must he have possessed that he believed he could defend her against three creatures, each a match for his size, and at least one who probably overmatched his magical prowess?

Maybe she had been too hasty to believe that the stallions were in charge in Dale’s world. The two he had confronted had been little trouble, but the mare was much more effective; perhaps she was the leader and they were simply doing her bidding.

Dale. She hoped he was okay.

Dr. Stable looked thoughtfully at the patient stretched out in the bed. He’d already done a cursory exam of three unicorns and a pegasus. None of them, as far as he could determine, were suffering from anything that a day’s bedrest wouldn’t cure.

He cast his eye over the patient as the unicorn medic who had accompanied it to the hospital began listing off the patient’s initial condition. “It was in the water, not breathing. I administered artificial respiration until it could breath on its own. It vomited a lot of water; it likely still has some in its lungs. Fur and mane is largely burned off; underlying skin looks burned as well. Vital signs are very low, but stable.”

“You should have gotten it here first,” the doctor chided. “It’s clearly in much worse shape than the others.”

The medic hung his head. “Something went wrong, maybe related to the spell failure. The pegasi couldn’t get the wagon aloft. It had to be pulled by earth ponies.” He moved towards the door. “I’ve got faith in you, doc. You can fix it.”

Dr. Stable looked at the stretcher dubiously. Nurse Tenderheart was busily cutting off the patient’s clothing—they didn’t want to risk moving it too much, in case it had internal injuries.

“Let’s remember to set those aside,” the doctor muttered as he set his stethoscope on the patient’s chest. “They’re not like any clothes I’ve seen before. Perhaps Rarity could fix them, or make a new set.”

“I don’t know about fixing them.” Tenderheart slit up the seam of the denim pants, finally folding them aside, exposing the creature’s hind limbs. She sighed, finding another layer of clothing underneath. She began carefully snipping at the fabric while the doctor listened with his stethoscope.

“As soon as we get done with gross, If there’s no other problems, I want to get it to X-rays.”

“Him,” the nurse corrected, pointing a hoof at the prostrate body.

“Let’s see what we’ve got here.” The doctor began tuning the heart monitor to the patient, listening with his stethoscope and adjusting the dials until the trace on the machine exactly matched what he could hear with his own ears. He jotted down the settings on the chart—it never hurt to get an exact idea how a patient interacted with the leylines, since it could later influence treatment. In this case, it suggested that the patient was hardly responsive to them at all. He’d had to turn the reception on the machine up so high that he was getting occasional bits of static from other ponies using magic, himself included. It was a worrying thing.

“Tell the guard—it’s Vigilance today, right?—to get Dr. Goodall for a consult.” The doctor finished scribbling incomprehensible notes on the chart. “I’ll take him down to X-Rays, and we’ll get a look inside of him.”

“Dr. Goodall the vet?”

“Yes, the vet.” He waved his hoof over the body. “She might have some insights on his condition and how best to treat it.”

An hour later, Dr. Stable was back in the hospital room with his patient. He had decided that he was healthy enough to move out of the emergency room, so Tenderheart had moved him to a private room in the recovery wing. His burns had been slathered with a Zebrican cream, he’d been mummified in yards of gauze, and Nurse Tenderheart had gotten him into a hospital gown.

The doctor was looking carefully at the prints. It was obvious that one of his shoulders was damaged, but he wasn’t sure which one. A quick glance of the images showed him that every other structure on him was symmetrical around the axis of the backbone, so the shoulders should be, too. All the same, since he’d never seen one of these creatures before, he didn’t want to jump to conclusions about which was right and which was wrong.

Frowning, he threw the prints down. He still had to make his rounds—there were other patients in the hospital, after all I suppose I could have X-Rays look at the other creature, too. If three out of four shoulders look one way or the other, then I’ll know. At least the injuries don’t appear to be life-threatening. But the worry that he didn’t know still nagged at the back of his mind.

Dr. Goodall gently ran her hoof through the creature’s blonde mane. You poor thing, to have come so far and be so hurt away from your friends and family. She’d been on her way over to the hospital when Vigilance found her—she was no fool, and had suspected right from the moment she saw the sparks over the reservoir that something had gone wrong, and that it might have involved the creatures which were in the book Twilight had shown her. Despite the unicorn’s apparent desire to keep it a secret, there were no secrets in a small town.

She didn’t know if she would be able to help, but she suspected that she knew more about the creatures than Dr. Stable did. After all, she’d seen drawings of them, of their skeletons and muscles. The rest would be a lot of guesswork on their parts.

She grabbed a loose corner of the sheet in her teeth and pulled it back to get a better look at the patient. She decided that this creature corresponded to the second set of drawings, the one that they’d assumed was the female. Its right hand was heavily bandaged, resembling a white boxing shoe, while the other had a thinner wrap. Smaller strips obscured most of its face and neck, although whoever had wrapped it had left the eyes, nostrils, and mouth exposed.

The creature was mostly furless, just like the drawings in the book. She couldn’t imagine what sort of advantage that would convey to the creature—surely it must have difficulty coping with the cold. Perhaps on the planet which it had come from the weather was so rigidly controlled that fur was no longer needed. If that was so, how had the animals coped? Were they, too, all furless? Admittedly, there were few mostly hairless land mammals, who all lived in the more tropical climate of Zebrica—elephants, rhinos, and hippos came to mind quickly. All of those had tougher hides, though. Do they have to wear clothing all the time to protect their skin from underbrush or the sun? She gently poked a hoof on the creature’s barrel, confirming that the skin was as soft as she’d initially thought.

She pulled the sheet back up, covering it. She made a mental note to tell the nurse to get a hospital gown for it—it would probably be cold without one. They had some that were deliberately made long, to keep ponies who were supposed to be getting bedrest in bed—if they tried to walk, it would get tangled in their hind hooves. The foreleg sleeves would be too short, and the tail would barely cover the hips, but at least it would help the creature stay warm, and from what she could see, there was no damage to the skin below the neck, save for whatever had happened to the hands.

On the bedside table, the monitor beeped quietly.

Celestia gratefully sank into the cool embrace of her four-poster bed. The day had been trying, to say the least: it seemed that everything had gone wrong. Still, the impetuous days of her youth were long past, and she was wily enough now to turn perceived problems to her advantage.

She regretted her earlier loss of composure when she’d first gotten the news that sparks had been seen over Ponyville. True, it could have been a worse outcome, but it was to nopony’s benefit to see her upset. Clearly, the lack of lunch had shortened her temper, but that was no excuse—she wasn’t a filly any more; she should have known to eat a proper meal.

At least Luna’s moonrise was right on schedule. She’s been briefly worried that she might have to take up the reins on that duty, but she needn’t have worried—Luna’s love of the night sky overtrumped her new pet unicorn. I bet she’s furious that I never came to her chambers to chide her. She wasn’t sure that she shouldn’t have, but she could hardly spend all her time second-guessing her sister’s decisions. It would serve no purpose, except to demean the younger diarch, and if they were to rule as equals, they should behave in the same manner.

Still, there were risks with the hooves-off approach. She hoped that Luna wasn’t getting involved in something that she couldn’t handle, but there was plenty of time to worry about that later. Celestia clearly remembered the signs she should have seen before the evil took hold of Luna, and this time she’d be especially careful to watch, just in case.

She tucked her muzzle under her right wing, effectively blocking out the mercurial light of the half-moon, and closed her eyes. For one brief moment, she wondered if she should check out the situation in Ponyville for herself, but the thought vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Everypony would over-react if she showed up in the middle of the night; it was better to trust her ponies to do their duty without her barking orders.

“We pulled this out of her hand,” the doctor said, levitating over a twisted metal object with two thin wires trailing out of it. He and the vet were sitting in the lounge, where the table had been commandeered as a place to put the creatures’ belongings.

Goodall looked up from her examination of a mysterious piece of lacy black fabric. The purpose of the straps and hooks was unfathomable, especially since it had been ruthlessly cut apart by a nurse.

“It was nearly . . . fused in. Her hand is extensively damaged. If she was receptive to healing spells, I think we could save it. As it is, I just don’t know.” He sighed heavily. “It might heal on its own, but if it doesn’t—if infection sets in—we might have to amputate.”

Dr. Goodall whistled. Amputation was an almost unheard of remedy. She’d had to do a few, but only in cases where an animal had already had a limb with deep infection. “At least they don’t walk on their forelimbs,” she said, trying to put a positive spin on things.

“Without a proper understanding of their anatomy, or what spells work on them, I don’t know if even that would be successful.” He gestured at a print hanging on the wall. “I can guess what muscle structures might be in there, but I don’t know for sure. And that’s to say nothing of blood vessels, nerves, and Celestia knows what else. She’s stable enough to move; maybe we should send her to Canterlot and let them deal with it.”

“Have you tried any spells on her?”

The doctor shook his head. “Judging by the monitor, both of them are at the very low end of magical potential right now. I don’t know if that’s permanent, or if it’s a result of their injuries. Even getting the images was a challenge.” He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “If I were pressed—and without further experimentation on the matter—I’d say that these creatures are hypersensitive to magic. Perhaps they lack the proper glands.” He sighed deeply. “I should have liked to cautiously experiment with treatment, but they were both in such bad shape . . . I’ve seen injuries like this before, mostly in unicorn foals, from magical mishaps. But not like the hand. “ He shook his head. “Maybe I’ll have a talk with one of the soldiers in the morning. Get an idea what happened. Then I might have an idea how to treat it.”

“Have you tried Zebrican potions?”

“I used some burn cream; I hope that’s harmless enough. They’ve got such a low magical potential, it’s too risky to try anything else unless they’re on the verge of death. The wrong spell or potion could easily kill them, and I don’t want to chance it, especially without being able to consult with the patient.”

“I don’t think we know much of their language. Lyra and Octavia were working on it a couple of days ago.”

“Octavia’s here?” The doctor unconsciously ran a hoof through his mane, pushing a few stray strands back into place.

“Yes.” Dr. Goodall suppressed a laugh.

Dale slowly came awake. His senses seemed to return individually. First, he became aware of a gentle noise, a repetitive signal that his weary brain eventually associated with his heart.

Unfortunately, the next sense to return was pain. He hurt everywhere. His shoulder throbbed agonizingly, and his face felt as if he’d shaved with a cheese grater. He tried to move his arm, to get a feel for what had happened, but his sole attempt sent a lance of agonizing pain up his unresponsive arm directly to his brain stem. His head felt cold, although the rest of his body was burning up.

He slowly, cautiously, opened his eyes. A featureless white expanse greeted him, but provided no clues to his location. Still, it was something that was probably real. He squinted and was rewarded with a vision of cracks, which proved that this was a ceiling and not a figment of his imagination.

He turned his head carefully. To his left was a small table, with what was clearly a heart monitor sitting on it, next to a desk lamp with an oversized red button on the base. The lamp glowed softly.

Dale reached his good arm towards the table, hoping to find his glasses, but they weren’t there. He fought down an uneasy feeling at their loss. He felt helpless without them. In a way, their absence was more disturbing than the fact he was lying in a hospital bed.

After one last fruitless check for his missing glasses, he began looking around the room, trying to get an idea where he was.

For some reason, he was reminded of Wuthering Heights, which was odd, since he’d never read the book. But the wainscoted walls, light green paint, and white ceiling made him think of English country hospitals, which was a really odd place to be. Everything in the room seemed old-fashioned—at least, everything he could see.

While he hadn’t spent a lot of time in hospitals, he’d spent enough to know that pretty much every room had a TV. This one didn’t. Furthermore, there were usually all sorts of outlets for the machines in the rooms—not only electrical, but oxygen and who knew what else. Here, what he could see of the walls were bare. There wasn’t even a clock.

The bed looked more like a hotel bed: there was a headboard and footboard, which his feet banged uncomfortably into whenever he tried to stretch. Instead of stainless steel or plastic, his fingernail confirmed that it was wood, as was the small table by the bed.

He focused back on the table. The lamp was an ugly purple cone, with a big red button on the base and a traditional-looking paper shade. Curious, he pushed the button and the light went out. A second push made it come back on and slid it an inch further away.

Those are usually bolted down in hotels, he thought. He grabbed it by the top intending to pull it off the table for a closer look, but the shade came off in his hands.

Dale pulled it to his chest and began examining it. The shade was supported by three wooden dowels with a ring that slipped over the top of the cone. Aside from the lack of metal, it was the same as any lampshade he’d seen before. He was about to set it back on the lamp when the bulb caught his eye.

With the shade off, the mechanics of the lamp became obvious. The tapered cone terminated in a large chunk of crystal, rather than a bulb. Even through the glow it was giving off he could clearly see that it had been faceted. He tentatively touched it, discovering to his surprise that it was cool. Fascinated, he poked it again and it fell out of the lamp, softly clattering to the table. He grabbed it before it could fall to the floor and stuck it back in the lamp, feeling slightly guilty for breaking things that weren’t his. Although he had expected that it would be broken, as soon as it touched its cup, it re-illuminated.

He plucked it out again, and examined it as closely as he could in the moonlight flooding through the window. It looked much like crystal necklaces he’d seen for sale before, although it was much larger. There were no metal contacts on it. Intrigued, he flipped it over and stuck it back in the lamp upside-down. It promptly began glowing again.

He thought about trying to get a closer look at the rest of the lamp, but if he did he’d lose his only real source of illumination. Instead, he turned his attention to the heart monitor.

There were several dials across the bottom, and a screen which showed a trace of what everyone who watched TV knew was a normal heartbeat. However, instead of a shiny, hygienic plastic case, the monitor appeared to have been made out of varnished wood. He turned it, being careful not to touch the dials. Like the lamp, there were no wires—not to an outlet in the wall, and more importantly, not to him.

Dale frowned, rubbing his left hand across his chest. He’d been in the hospital a few times, and there were always wires that connected him to the machines. He supposed it was possible that the heart monitor was wireless—but he would have expected to find a transmitter on his chest, and there was none.

It could be anywhere, he reminded himself. Might be stuck to my back. He picked up the heart monitor. His fingers closed over the side of the unit, but rather than grasping a smooth bottom—as he had anticipated—they slipped inside the device, causing an alarming tingle. He yanked his hand away, unaware that the trace on the screen had briefly been obscured by static, and dropped it back on the table.

I’m in a hospital, he concluded. I’m not sure why. Dimly, he remembered running across a beach and tackling a Coast Guard woman. I’m probably doped up on all sorts of painkillers, so I’m probably imagining half of what I’m seeing. He lay back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. It certainly makes more sense than a wooden heart monitor and crystal lamp.

Lyra sat in the uncomfortable chair, looking at Dale’s recumbent form guiltily. The doctor had cleared her a couple of hours ago, telling her that she shouldn’t perform any magic for the next couple of days, and to return if her symptoms got any worse. She had been about to leave the hospital when she’d heard two of the nurses talking about the strange creatures that the Royal Guard had brought in, which was an answer to her unasked questions about the doctor’s unkempt appearance and why he was making rounds in the middle of the night. As soon as she’d found out what room he was in, Lyra had rushed to Dale’s bedside.

He looked diminished in the bed, which was odd, since he dwarfed it. His feet were jammed against the footboard. But his lively eyes were closed, and aside from the slow rise and fall of his chest he might as well have been dead. The clean white gauze was almost a match for his pale skin, and the ugly green gown seemed to lend him a further unhealthy pallor. She got up and nuzzled his unbandaged shoulder softly, surprised to feel hot tears rolling down her cheek.

She couldn’t imagine what would be going through his mind when he woke—if he woke, the dark part of her mind suggested. Would he be happy to still be alive? Would he be excited to be in Ponyville? They’d never discussed families; what if he had a family at home? Would they know what had happened to their father?

Lyra thought of Bon Bon. She’d be upset that Lyra hadn’t come right home, but she’d get over it. Maybe she’d come to the hospital when she got word—in fact, it was kind of surprising that she wasn’t here yet. Rumors traveled fast in Ponyville.

There would be no going back now. The princess had undoubtedly heard what had happened, and she would seal the pathway forever. All of her notes were gone, as well as the books she’d taken. Octavia had copied some of her notes, but there was a lot of ground they were going to have to make up if they were to ever have a proper conversation.

Lyra slumped down. Who makes these chairs, somepony who has a cutie mark of spurs?Has she ever seen a pony before? Lyra fidgeted around, trying to find a vaguely comfortable position. She finally settled for lying on her belly across two of the torture chairs—a position where she could relax and still keep an eye on him. Unexpectedly, the soft whisper of Dale’s breath and the incessant gentle beep of the monitor put Lyra to sleep.

Dr. Stable set down his empty mug. He’d lost count of how many cups of strong coffee he’d consumed. Most of his patients were doing well, but he felt he needed to keep checking on his two special cases. The presumed male’s heart monitor had briefly malfunctioned at one point during the night, and he’d trotted to his room, prepared for the worst, but when he arrived everything seemed normal again.

On his last trip, one of the nurses had told him that Lyra had gone to the male’s room, rather than leave the hospital. Normally, he ran a tight ship—visiting hours were there for a reason—but he hadn’t the heart to toss her out. Dr. Goodall had guessed that this was the ‘Dale’ she had been meeting; since most ponies cleared out of the hospital as fast as they could, he figured she was probably right. It wouldn’t hurt to have a second set of eyes in the hospital room, either. Just in case.

They’d been discussing treatment options all night, with the vet taking the lead. Unfortunately, they had no pool of experience to draw on in this particular case. Even Dr. Goodall had never seen a creature with as low of magical energy as these two had. As the night wore on and the caffeine's effects faded, their treatment brainstorming began to reach new lows. When Goodall suggested that they could try and capture a cockatrice and petrify the creatures to prevent further damage, Dr. Stable called an end to the discussion.

Both of them examined their empty coffee cups, then two pairs of eyes roved towards the table piled high with the creature’s personal effects. While the doctor had every intention of repairing them and returning them to the patients—or, if they couldn’t be repaired, replacing them—surely it wouldn’t hurt to examine them.

The vet first went to the clothes. She carefully examined each damaged item, trying to understand what its purpose was. Some of the garments were easy to identify—there were two pairs of cut-open leggings which clearly covered the lower portion of their bodies—while others were more of a mystery. She prodded a garishly orange vest that had been held together with black webbing. Bright white characters covered one side, while the other featured simple white rectangles that caught the light and reflected it back, much like a well-faceted gem. Complex buckles seemed to have been used to hold the thing together, and she could make no sense of how they were supposed to work. A few minutes of poking at them with her hooves yielded no progress and she finally gave up, discarding it in favor of a dark blue hat which had a few loose blonde mane-hairs stuck to it.

Meanwhile, the doctor found himself fascinated by the items which had been removed from the female’s belt. There was a large black rectangle which had been attached by a looped cord to a smaller rectangle clipped on one shoulder of the orange vest. It had initially drawn his attention as it had been constantly giving off a faint hiss. He’d experimented with it, discovering that it had small knobs on the top which could be turned. As he gently floated it in front of his face, he debated whether or not he should be playing with it at all. It could help us understand how to treat the patient, he thought. Therefore, it is my duty to determine its purpose, if I am able. He gently twisted the leftmost knob.

The hissing noise immediately got louder. Curious, he kept rotating the knob until it stopped turning, but all that seemed to accomplish was to increase the volume. He set it back to where it had been and turned his attention to the other knob. This one made the glowing light change to a different pattern, although the hissing noise remained unchanged. Turning the first knob all the way in the quiet direction made the glowing light go out and the hissing stop.

“What if they’re hypersensitive to magical fields? What if they can get hurt by them?” Old mare’s tales told of such mythical creatures—but what if such creatures actually existed? He had trouble imagining how to cure anypony without resorting to magic. “What if . . . maybe where they come from, there aren’t leylines. Maybe just occasional spots of magic. This . . . thing could warn them before they set hoof into such a place.” Eager to prove his theory, he levitated over a spare heart monitor and dialed the sensitivity all the way up.

The soft hissing the rectangle gave off was a near-match for the heart monitor—certainly close enough for a field experiment, in his opinion. There was better equipment for this purpose, of course. Tomorrow, he’d have to ask Twilight if he could borrow her crystal array.

“Who held it?” Goodall asked.

“The blonde-maned one. It was on this belt, on the creature’s right dorsal side.” He motioned with a hoof, indicating how it had been worn with his own body.

“I’d think they’re fairly dexterous with their talons,” Goodall said. “I’ve heard that diamond dogs use them in such a manner, although I’ve not had the pleasure of observing them first-hoof. I’ve seen Spike grip lots of things with his, though, and they are bipedal . . . if they have a dominant talon, this would be in fairly easy reach. If you’re right about its purpose, that would make sense. Was there anything else on that side?”

“There were a few things on that side,” the Doctor muttered, rummaging through the pile. “A small tube of some sort. Oh—and this.” He lifted up a strange-shaped stiff black object. “There’s a strap across the top, and one which attaches to the girth-strap, where all the other things were fastened. Hold on.” He worked it for a moment, finally pulling loose a bent piece of black metal.

Dr Goodall looked at it critically as it floated around in the doctor’s aura. It had a raised pattern on one leg, while the other was smoother. Imagining how the creature must hold it, she decided that the raised pattern was to help it grip, while the open loop might be for a single talon. “I wonder what it does,” she mused.

The warm morning sun finally woke Dale. He stretched his legs out, succeeding only in forcing his head against an immovable object. Where the hell am I?

He snapped his eyes open, reaching out with his left hand for his glasses. He fumbled around for a moment, banging into what he imagined was his alarm clock, but there were no glasses to be found. I had the weirdest dream last night. He turned to get a better look at his bedside table and was confronted with a wooden heart monitor and an ugly conical lamp.

His heart began to race, unnecessarily mirrored by the heart monitor. Reality came crashing back down at him like a vengeful bus. Is it possible to know I’m losing my sanity? Because that seems especially cruel. He grabbed the purple lamp, stopping as he noticed that his arm was wrapped in gauze.

What happened to me? He thought he remembered tackling someone, but was that yesterday, or years ago? He hadn’t played football in decades, but the memory seemed surprisingly vivid. Did I get drunk and black out? Was I in a car crash? Am I dying? He pulled the covers off his body, preparing himself for the worst. Instead, he discovered he was clad in a grossly-undersized pale green shirt, which—even if it had been able to close over his chest—was still too short.

So much for getting up and seeing where I am, he thought. What happened to my clothes?

Thinking that they could be to his right, he tried to roll over, remembering too late that his right shoulder was throbbing painfully. While he managed to avoid a scream, he came to the humiliating conclusion that he was unlikely to be able to dress himself if he did succeed in locating his missing clothes.

Ok, I can figure this out. He gritted his teeth. I’m wearing a shirt that’s too small. I’m in a bed that’s too small. Did I wind up in the seven dwarves’ house? No, I’m too ugly to be Snow White, so that’s probably not it. I’ve got bandages and there’s a heart monitor, so I’m probably in a hospital . . . some sort of weird miniature hospital. Are there special midget hospitals? Probably not. My right arm doesn’t work right, so I must have tackled someone. He rolled his head to the right, away from the strange heart monitor. Even through his blurry vision, the shape stretched out across the chairs was instantly familiar. “Lyra?”

He didn’t realize that he’d spoken aloud, but her ears swiveled around, towards the source of the noise. Suddenly, her head jerked up, and she saw him looking at her curiously.

She practically fell off the bench, before she moved over to his bedside. Before he could even react, she’d wrapped her forelegs around him and was softly nuzzling his injured cheek. He awkwardly wrapped his left arm around her, feeling her trembling under his hand. For a moment he thought she was scared of him, and was about to take his hand away, when he felt the tears begin to fall on his face. She was softly speaking, and even though he knew none of the words, he got the gist of it, and whispered his own reassurances back, even though he knew she wouldn’t understand them.

Author's Note

Thanks to my pre-readers!
Thanks to everypony for your patience!
More stuff HERE

Chapter 13: Hospital

Celestia Sleeps In

Chapter 13—Hospital

Admiral Biscuit

The lights of the Ponyville library had blazed forth defiantly through the night. This was hardly unusual—the library opening at a decent hour, on the other hoof, was quite rare. But something had happened in Ponyville, something which demanded research, and Twilight was up to the task. Sleep was for the weak.

On the main floor, Twilight Sparkle lay surrounded by notes and lists. Early in the night, she’d been forced to move off her small desk after an avalanche of research materials made it untenable. Scattered books were occasionally stacked or reshelved by Owlowiscious. To her left was the small pile of notes which she had compiled after Lyra’s first meeting with the creature. To her right lay the books which she hoped held the answers to the thousands of questions that vied for her attention.

She had not noticed that the books themselves formed a geological model—or if she had, it had been pushed aside in the interest of her current project. The high plains of the floor slowly rose into a broken upslope of books, finally topping out—unsurprisingly—at the weighty peaks of Mt. Agriculture. Passage across the range would be best accomplished through Xenobiology valley: it was only one book tall. Twilight resolved to fix this oversight the next time she put in an order for more books from Canterlot.

Up above her, Spike slept curled in his basket, while Octavia’s demure snores drifted off the balcony. Twilight paid them no heed. Even without a request from Princess Celestia, she felt that this new project was her absolute highest priority. The very fate of Equestria could be riding on her research.

We probably could have unsummoned them with the Elements, if we’d acted quickly, she thought wryly, letting her quill spin idly in her aura. There had been a moment when the thought had been tempting, and she could understand Celestia’s counterpoints during their memorable discussion. In an instant, the creatures had moved from a distant concept to a potentially real threat to Equestria.

Still, seeing the bedraggled bodies being dragged out of the reservoir had elicited more sympathy than fright. It was true that they were large—maybe even as tall as a minotaur—but their slender build reminded her more of the half-starved animals Fluttershy nursed back to health than a potential predator. While she knew that the creatures might be more intimidating when they weren’t half-dead, for now she only had her initial impression to go on. Commander Ironhoof’s final briefing—before he called off the rescue operation—indicated that both creatures were at the hospital, in stable but serious condition.

While it would have been a worthy research project to determine how to cure them, Twilight knew her limitations: when it came to anything beyond basic first aid, she was hopelessly lost. Applejack probably knew more field medicine than she did—after all, there was little enough in the library which posed immediate danger to life and limb, and it was quite honestly a subject which she felt should remain in the hooves of the professionals. Surgery was not an art in which one dabbled, after all.

Nonetheless, she had to assume that the creatures would survive, and therefore she had to discern the best way to transition them into Equestrian life. While Lyra may have held the unfounded belief that all sapient life was pretty much the same, a recent genre of fiction—largely re-telling old mare’s tales with a more speculative scientific basis—had prepared her mind for the concept that creatures from an alien world might have nearly no biological similarities to native Equestrian species. It was probably fortunate that they even breathed the same atmosphere—she had initially scoffed at the idea presented in one of Winter Rye’s novels that some planets might not havea breathable atmosphere, but Luna’s revelations confirmed this—even Equestria’s own moon was not habitable for mortal creatures.

Her ruminations over, she put quill back to parchment. At the very least, she wanted to have a checklist to determine what kind of habitat best suited these creatures before they woke.

Pinkie lay in her bed, her blue eyes fixed on the ceiling. She was in a quandary. She liked quinces and quiches and quills, but not quandaries. They made her slow down and think, and she hated that.

She normally proceeded through life with a boundless exuberance, relying on her instincts to tell her when somepony needed cheering up, or when it was the right time to spring a surprise party on one of her many friends. She was generally great with ponies—but maybe not as good with the many other species who called Equestria home. Her long string of successes had, in fact, only been marred by non-pony visitors to Ponyville.

She was an utter failure with griffons. She’d learned so much from the implosion of Rainbow Dash’s childhood friendship, although she had never had a chance to put any of it into practice. Whether Gilda had poisoned the well—so to speak—or there just weren’t many griffons who were interested in visiting Ponyville, she couldn’t say, although she was more than ready should another appear. She’d read books on griffon culture and tried her hoof at preparing a few of their favorite foods. She’d had to buy a whole new set of utensils—mail-ordered from a supplier in Canterlot—since the Cakes didn’t have the kinds of knives Gustave's cookbook recommended, and were hardly going to let her use their pots and pans for cooking griffon cuisine.

Zecora had been another initial failure. She’d realized too late that she should have been the one rushing out to meet the zebra—if she could giggle at the ghosties, why couldn’t she zoom to the zebra—or at the very least have baked a ‘Welcome-to-Ponyville-on-your-monthly-shopping-trip’ cake? It could have been because of her upbringing: there sure weren’t any zebra rock farmers. Still, that was a poor excuse. No pegasuses rock farmed either, and she’d not had any problem making friends with them once she’d moved to Ponyville. Besides, shunning somepony because of her species or stripes on her fur was silly.

Cranky had been the first recipient—to be honest, victim—of her new resolution to welcome anyone. She’d pulled out all the stops to assure the donkey he’d be welcome; that, too, had failed utterly. He was wound up tighter than her parents, a thought which gave her chills. While it had also worked out in the end, there had been the not-unrealistic fear that she would be the pony who drove him out of Ponyville, and such a thing simply could not be. What kind of party pony scared off the new folks?

She snorted. The hyper Pinkie that ruled most of her actions wanted nothing more than to charge off to the hospital with a couple of cakes, a few streamers, maybe a half-dozen party poppers, and a medium-sized bowl of punch. Nothing too fancy, just a quiet get-together.

However, the melancholy Pinkamena urged caution. Slipping a single cupcake into Lyra’s saddlebags had seemed like such a good idea, but all day she’d had random twitches and pinches that she couldn't make heads nor tails of—it was like something was jerking the strings of probability which made her . . . her. It reminded her of a distant thunderstorm over the Everfree—the kind where she always kept a wary eye to the sky, because it could get out of the Weather Patrol’s hooves and go practically anywhere.

She had to do something. The last time she’d been in a quandary like this, she’d completely redecorated her room—including a new window—in the middle of the night. She couldn't risk doing that now. The Cakes and their foals were sound asleep, and sledgehammers and saws were loud daytime toys.

Pinkie sat bolt upright in bed. She suddenly knew what she needed to do. She silently tip-hoofed out of her bedroom and through the door—opening it slowly to minimize noise from the squeaky hinge—only breaking into a trot once she was clear of the shop. If she hurried, she had enough time to get everything ready for a meaningful—but subdued—welcome to Ponyville gift that nopony else would think of. But she had to hurry; the sun was rising on the new not-pony visitors to Equestria, and if she missed their breakfast time, she would fail!

She galloped through town, only stopping long enough to pin a quick note to Bon Bon’s door—nopony had told the poor mare that Lyra was at the hospital—before she was back on her way.

When Pinkie got to the dock, she pawed around underneath, pulling an eyepatch and two balls out of her cache before finally locating a fishing pole. She pawed at the ground until a worm came out, which she grabbed in her teeth. Sticking her tongue out in concentration, she carefully worked it onto the hook, trying not to grimace at the taste of dirt and the odd sensation of the worm moving between her lips. This was worth a little suffering; this would make the new not-ponies smile.

When she’d finished, she walked out to the end of the dock and sat down like she’d seen Magnum do so many times, and tossed the line out into the water.

Dale broke the embrace with Lyra when he heard the door softly creak open. A white creature—closely resembling Lyra, save its lack of a horn—walked carefully into the room. The main drawing in the anatomy book Lyra had brought had looked much the same. This, then, was a fourth type—the type with neither wings nor horn. It was pushing a wooden cart with a squeaky wheel. Atop the cart sat two silver domes, which looked much like the covers fancy restaurants put over their food. That is, what he supposed fancy restaurants did. He’d seen these covers in movies and TV shows about chefs, but he’d never eaten at a restaurant that actually used the things. The closest he’d come to fancy food lids were the silver tops over the Sterno-fueled warmers at weddings.

The white one spoke briefly to Lyra, and pointed a hoof at the back tray on the cart. Their voices were similarly pitched, so he assumed it was also a she. Lyra nodded, and turned her head. Dale drew a deep breath as the tray was enveloped in a golden glow and floated up off the cart. He watched it slowly glide towards her face. When it was near her left eye, she began walking towards the seat she’d previously occupied, the tray obediently hovering along beside her like a miniature flying saucer.

She set it on one of the seats, but remained standing, her back to him. He watched the lid float off, to be gently deposited on the other chair; then, much to his surprise, he saw her lift a fork—which illuminated with a golden glow—and begin eating her breakfast.

He turned just in time to look the white one right in her big blue eyes. She was wearing a starched white nurse’s cap which had a red heart in the center, although unlike the medical red cross he was familiar with, there were hearts in each corner.

The nurse paid him little mind; save for an ear-twitch he might have wondered if she even noticed he was staring. Instead, she gently reached a hoof up and touched his forehead. The heart monitor suddenly went from its steady beep to a series of static crackles which seemed to alarm the nurse more than it did him.

She turned away and reached for it. She placed one hoof on top of the casing, before leaning in very close and blocking his view of what she was doing. He noticed, with a complete lack of surprise, that one of her ears had swiveled to remain facing him, but he paid it no heed. Instead, he focused on the bright red pattern in her fur which perfectly matched the emblem printed on her cap. He had to suppress an urge to touch it—just in time he remembered how Lyra had reacted the first time he’d touched hers. If the nurse was adjusting mysterious medical devices, it would hardly be in his best interest to interrupt her in her work.

She shook her head, which drew his attention. Suddenly, he became curious about how her mane had been tied back into a tight pink bun—such a style would be completely impossible to replicate on a real horse. He hadn’t really noticed Lyra’s mane being especially different from a terrestrial horse—besides the cyan and white coloration, of course. Based on what he could see, the ridge of hair down the neck was wider than a real horse, and didn’t extend quite as far towards the shoulders. He wondered how she’d styled it. Lyra’s seemed to be washed and brushed, which could have been done by another pony. How they would tie a bun without hands, though . . . maybe the tractor beams that Lyra could utilize were far more precise than he’d imagined.

Satisfied with whatever adjustment she’d made, she turned back to him and touched his bandage again. This time he felt a strange tingling, like ants were running across his scalp. For a moment the room went slightly more blurry, and then she pulled her hoof back away, and everything returned to normal.

Repeating the treatment with his injured shoulder, she touched him right at the tenderest spot. There was a sharp lance of agony when her hoof touched the bandage, followed by a mild relief. It still hurt, but the constant throbbing had been replaced with a duller, more-distant pain. Dale wasn’t sure what to make of it—it seemed like she’d done nothing at all, yet he felt a little bit better. Maybe she was carrying some kind of medical tricorder—like the one Dr. McCoy had—that somehow eased pain. Carrying on the bottom of her hoof. Which she’d walked on to get into the hospital room.

His thoughts were rudely interrupted when she grabbed a corner of the sheet in her teeth and yanked it off the bed with no warning whatsoever. Too late, he remembered that the hospital johnny he was wearing was way too short to preserve his modesty. Even worse, as she turned she swished her tail and he got the kind of view that cost extra in the few gentlemen’s clubs he’d occasionally frequented through the years. If nothing else, it confirmed his gender guess. Face burning, he jerked his eyes upward and focused as best he could on the cracked plaster ceiling, trying to pay no attention to whatever it was that she was doing or examining. It was a skill which he had honed over years of visiting his doctor—Dale could hardly imagine trying to engage in small talk with someone who wanted him to turn his head and cough; and at least his normal doctor had the decency to wear clothes during an examination.

Curiosity got the better of him, though. He was able to ignore the gentle prods on his chest, but when he felt something heavy and warm press against his sternum, he had to look down. She had her head resting on his stomach, one ear laid right over his heart. She stayed there for a few seconds before she lifted her head off him and gently touched his hip with the bottom of her hoof.

Finally, she made her way to the foot of the bed and touched the sole of his right foot with her hoof again. Dale had to restrain himself from wincing at the unexpected contact. He couldn’t tell by her expression if she was surprised by what she’d felt or not, but it was curious that there was no tingling that had accompanied her touches on uninjured parts of his body.

When she finished her examination and pulled the sheet back over him he let out a long breath he hadn’t realized he’d held.

She walked back to the foot of his bed and lifted up a clipboard. He watched in fascination as she gripped it tightly between her hoof and forelimb, revealing an astounding dexterity. He’d already discovered that they could move their shoulder joints through a much greater range than a terrestrial horse. She pulled a pencil loose from the metal clip with her mouth and began scribbling notes, moving at a much quicker pace than Lyra had. Dale wasn’t sure if that meant she was a better writer, or if even here medical notations were indecipherable.

When she’d finished writing, she put the clipboard back. Reaching under her squeaky-wheeled cart, she pulled a small bed-tray out and set it across the his chest, finally setting the tray on top and pulling the cover off with her teeth. Then she slid a leg under his back and pushed up slightly, clearly indicating that he should sit up. As soon as he had, he heard a few clicks behind him and the leg was withdrawn; like most hospital beds, this one had some kind of mechanism to convert it into a sort-of chair.

Dale looked at his breakfast dubiously. He’d been given two pieces of toast, two eggs over easy with a small parsley garnish, a bowl of what appeared to be oatmeal, and three fish fillets. Off to the side, a tall glass of orange juice complete with bendy-straw sat next to a wood-handled spoon and fork, while on the other side of the tray were two small bowls—one with butter and a second with brightly-sparkling grains that looked much like the sprinkles that weren’t sugar that had been on the cupcake which Lyra brought. All in all, it was a confusing sort of combination, but he supposed that their breakfast traditions would be different than his own. He’d have to take note of what they fed him through the day—maybe he could mix and match. Or, if he could find his pants, he might be able to go down to the cafeteria and pick out what he wanted to eat. Dale had a suspicion he could actually wander around the hospital pantsless and no one would care, but he wasn’t comfortable with the idea.

He looked over at Lyra, but she was still enjoying her meal. The nurse had left, so he probably didn’t have to worry too much about table manners. He stuck a finger in the presumed butter; it tasted exactly like he expected. A little saltier than the margarine he usually bought, but otherwise fairly normal. The ‘sugar’ sprinkles, on the other hand—just like before, they didn’t dissolve in his mouth at all, nor were they sweet. It was like eating colored sand. He pushed them aside and began buttering his toast, an extremely difficult process, since he could only use his left hand. Even though the butter had been softened—or else wasn’t refrigerated at all—he still slid the toast all over his plate before finally giving up on neatness and settling for random lumps of butter here and there. As with the sandwich he’d eaten earlier, the bread was very grainy and dense.

The oatmeal was next. He was pleased to discover it had been flavored with real maple, although it was much saltier than Quaker instant oatmeal, and it was considerably thicker than he prepared his: he discovered that the spoon would stand up in the bowl. If he’d had a glass of milk, or even water, he could have thinned it, but unfortunately, the only thing he had to water it down with was the orange juice. Dale grimaced as he imagined how frightful that concoction would be. He settled for eating it slowly, occasionally washing it down with a sip of orange juice.

The fish was a pleasant surprise—it had been prepared perfectly, and all the small bones had been removed. There was the slightest hint of lemon and spices, but they only enhanced the flavor gently, leaving the rest to come through on its own. It took him a moment to place the flavor, but it reminded him of bluegill. This was something he wouldn’t mind having for every lunch, and he began wondering if they might have an equivalent species to trout, or maybe even salmon. If the hospital cafeteria was like mundane Earth hospitals, the food was probably all low-fat. Once he got out, though, he could try and find some nice breaded, deep-fried fish.

The eggs were also cooked to perfection. The whites were light and fluffy, without any burned spots from an overzealous cook turning the heat too high—like he usually did when he prepared them himself—and the yolks weren’t runny, but just slightly soft.

Dale sighed contentedly. It had been a long time since he’d put the effort into preparing himself a proper breakfast; while this was a little weird, it was certainly better than the freeze-dried microwavable institutional fare he had been expecting. Maybe replicator-food tasted better. However they did it, everything tasted so fresh.

Rarity sighed as she pulled the basket full of sodden clothes into her shop. A drop-off basket had seemed such a good idea: ponies were stopping by at all hours to leave torn or damaged clothes, interrupting her beauty sleep. While she disliked mending, it was largely what kept her in business. Most ponies only had a dress or two, and maybe a dozen accessories. She was too expensive to tailor work clothes; those generally came from mills on the Horsatonic River. Mending and alterations brought in a few bits per garment. Once her designs finally took off in the fashion world, she wouldn’t have to stoop to repairs; until then, it covered her overhead.

Unfortunately, damaged clothing dropped off during the night was hardly likely to have been cleaned, and these were no exception. She once again had to resist the urge to simply toss the whole works into her garbage can and claim some ruffian must have stolen it during the night.

She gave a long-suffering moan. It was unfair to have to deal with this . . . mess before even eating a proper breakfast! Not only was it wet, but the colors were horrid. All bundled together were dark blue and khaki and even orange. A seamstress would have to be colorblind to even chose fabrics so obviously unsuited for each other, and the mare—or stallion—who wore it . . . well, it boggled her mind.

Rarity gently lifted the first item, tugging it free from the soggy mass. At first glance, she couldn’t even imagine what it was meant to be. A cape, perhaps, but why did it have four separate tails? And the seams were ragged . . . like they’d been brutally slashed. She moved it closer, spotting the frayed edges. A scissors-wielding maniac had been at this. It served it right.

She tossed it absently on the floor, pulling a second item free. This was different. It was made of a lacy black material, formed into two cups. They could be some kind of strange earmuff—there was a thick strap which might fit around a mare’s head. Intrigued, she looked at it more closely. The fabric, was very high-quality, and the stitchwork was flawless. At the center of the thick strap were several very tiny hooks. Two smaller straps led off the thick one; she eventually discovered that they were supposed to run to the top of the cups. That didn’t make sense, unless the straps were supposed to attach to a hat somehow.

She floated it off to the side with a little more care than the raggedy khaki cape. The next item was a dark blue shirt, also sliced up the sides and along the arms. There were patches sewn on both withers and under the barrel. Unlike the applique she often put on clothing, these were very intricately embroidered. On one side was a red-and-white striped rectangle with a smaller white-dotted blue rectangle in one corner. The other design was far more complicated, having a pair of crossed anchors behind a shield. It reminded her of a coat-of-arms. Around the edges were what looked almost like writing—it wasn’t a geometric pattern, but it was kind of regular. The patches over the barrel had the same kind of pattern, although the order was different. Two gold pins adorned the lapels.

Rarity frowned. Something about this was nagging at her mind. She’d seen garments like these . . . somewhere. Somewhere recently. She closed her eyes and tilted her muzzle up, still keeping the shirt floating in her aura.

Where have I seen this before? Fashion shows, magazines, newspapers, and street scenes played through her mind. Whatever it was she was remembering, it wasn’t quite the same as the poor bedraggled shirt she was holding. It had been more . . . upright.

She twisted it until the neck was pointed towards the ceiling and the waist to the floor, and it hit her like a bolt from the blue. This was just like the clothes she’d seen in the book Twilight had! Why, it must have come from one of the poor unfortunate creatures at the hospital—all these clothes must have!

Rarity eagerly levitated them out of the basket, until they were all floating in her aura. Already her mind was whirling, matching up severed seams. She was so grateful Twilight had shown her the pictures. She would have been puzzling over these for ages, but it really was quite simple. She quickly sorted them into two sets of clothes. Despite her unfamiliarity with the creatures or their clothing, it was fairly easy, since the two were quite different in build.

Admittedly, the mare had no sense of style. Her undergarments were black, her pants and shirt were navy blue, and her padded vest was a glaringly bright orange. She also wore white socks with pink stitching on the toe, and black corseted shoes.

The stallion’s clothes were much larger. His undergarments were all white, while his pants—which she’d initially mistaken for a cape—were khaki. His shirt was more of a tan color, and his vest nearly matched the pants, although it had strange burned marks across it. Some of the fabric of the vest appeared to have melted—which was a type of damage she’d never seen before. It was covered with clever pockets, although they were all empty.

His shoes were also laced, but instead of eyelets all the way up, it ended in metal hooks for the laces to pass around. A dark-blue cap and two belts rounded out the mix.

Rarity stared at the clothes with equal parts enthusiasm and trepidation. She’d never imagined getting an opportunity to work on something so important—why, this was like being asked to mend one of the Princess’ formal dresses! On the other hoof, she’d never had to fix anything that had been so well and truly butchered before. Aside from the hat, every single garment had been cut off. Even the hoof-covers.

To give herself a workplace, she absently cleared her largest table, neatly folding her works-in-progress off to the side. She’d have to start by reverse-engineering the pattern of each garment, then figure out what it was made of. After that, she’d have to decide if she could sew the seam together or if she’d have to put a filler panel in. She’d have to find or make cloth that matched or complimented the palette she already had to work with. If it was a total loss, she’d have to make an exact copy, saving buckles and buttons off the original, and she’d have to do it with no model or ponykin to form it on.

It was going to be one Tartarus of a challenge.

Rarity floated the navy pants in front of her, snapping her measuring tape along seams, writing down each measurement before transferring it by pencil to a large piece of pattern paper. Quietly humming a pavane, she smiled at the dozens of tools dancing in her pale-blue aura.

Lyra slowly plowed through her plate of food. She was never one to rush a meal—that just led to indigestion, and it was rude to the pony who’d prepared it.

It also gave her a chance to consider what to do next. Obviously, she would want to stay close to Dale—there was no reason why they couldn’t continue their cultural exchange here in the hospital, and every reason why they should. Perhaps he could explain why he had followed her despite the risk, and why the mare on the beach had attacked her. If Celestia did want to eventually re-open travel between the worlds, it would be good to know. Had she and Dale run into the spell out of ignorance, desperation, or done it deliberately? Each possibility held different implications for the relationship between Equestria and Dale’s world.

Sooner rather than later, they’d have to find out why the mare tagged along. Was she chasing Dale? It seemed obvious that the safest plan would be to keep the two apart, yet it would probably take forever to learn Dale’s language, which meant that they’d almost have to use Dale as an intermediary—he could ask the questions and then they could work at translating the answers. It would be an arduous process, but there really wasn’t a better option that she could think of. Maybe Twilight would have some idea, or even Cheerilee.

Of course, all of this depended on when—or if—the mare woke up. The nurse had told her that the mare had fairly serious injuries—much worse than Dale’s—and that the doctor was concerned that he might have to amputate one of her hands. She hoped that wasn’t true—but at the same time, it was hard to feel too much sympathy towards a creature that had attacked and briefly paralyzed her.

She chewed on her toast, still deep in thought. They were going to have to find some kind of home for the two creatures. She had a hard time envisioning them staying at one of the local inns, and she could only imagine the look on Bon Bon’s face if she brought Dale home with her like an oversized stray. The most logical solution was to transport the two to Canterlot; there were dozens of apartments and guest rooms around the palace, and enough foreign emissaries came and went that they wouldn’t stand out much more than a minotaur. It would also provide ready access to the professors at Canterlot University, as well as the vast Royal archives.

The only downside was that she probably wouldn’t get to see Dale much if they did that. Clearly, he was seeking out further contact with them, and seemed to have mostly gotten over his nervousness around them. Why had he come? Was he a refugee, alone on his island? Or had he escaped from some awful fate, only to have the mare and stallions come along to try and take him back? Maybe that was why he risked jumping into her spell; maybe he knew that the alternative was probably worse. Of course, she could be completely wrong: that scenario sounded more like a Daring Do story than reality.

She sighed, dipping her spoon in the oatmeal and taking a bite. It had the duller flavor that she’d come to expect from institutional food, since the hospital staff could hardly afford the time to go to the market and purchase fresh ingredients. Instead, the dry goods were brought from Canterlot by train—an idiotically wasteful arrangement, since most of the hospital’s staples were grown in Ponyville. Ever since Filthy Rich had landed the contract for providing food the quality had taken a downhill slide. At least the eggs were still fresh; he hadn’t gotten his grubby hooves into that supply chain yet.

She idly sprinkled some powdered gems on her oatmeal. It did nothing to improve the flavor, but gave her a little more thaumic energy. This whole thing was getting too complex for her. Even with the experts Twilight had been loaned after her first visit, they’d still barely been able to make heads or tails of the books Dale had given her. Maybe it would be easier to get the answers right from the horse’s mouth. Especially since she’d lost all her notes for their last meeting, and the wonderful picture dictionary he’d loaned her. The dark-colored stallion was no doubt gloating over his prize.

She’d miss the saddlebags, too: she’d had them since she was a filly. It was true that they were pretty worn-out, but it was nothing that couldn’t have been fixed. No doubt there were plenty of them available at Rich’s Barnyard Bargains, but she wasn’t feeling particularly charitable towards him or his businesses at the moment. Maybe she’d have Rarity make her a set. It would cost a few more bits, but they’d be sized right, and wouldn’t have a buckle that pulled her fur out.

She licked the dregs of oatmeal out of her bowl and washed it down with the last of the orange juice. Lyra floated her tray out of the room, setting it on the cart which had been left just outside. Her ear turned as she heard the heart monitor pick up pace and she rushed back into the room. Dale’s expression looked pained, and he was staring at the door intently.

“Dale not happy eat Lyra food?”

He shook his head. “Dale . . . Dale not . . . .happy Lyra take . . . not food.” He pointed to his tray and spoke a new word. “Not . . . not not happy, Dale not. . . .” He picked up his fork and waved it around in the air while making a strange low humming noise. “Funny. Dale not know word.”

Lyra felt like kicking herself. She’d already figured out that he didn’t like watching telekenesis, but as soon as she was back in Ponyville, she’d instinctively done it without a moment’s hesitation. Of course, he was going to have to get over that squeamishness—while she could suggest to the doctor and any other visitors that came by to avoid using it in his presence, she could hardly ask Mayor Mare to ban the practice in all of Ponyville, and Canterlot would be ten times worse.

“Lyra sorry,” she said, lowering her head slightly.

Dale grunted something in reply. He reached over and grabbed his serving tray with his left hand, trying to lift it without moving his injured limb. She leaned closer and grabbed it with her teeth, setting it on the bedside table. He smiled gratefully, then tapped a finger on the bed tray, which she also removed.

She looked back at him, and he made a waving gesture towards the door. She considered this for a moment, before deciding he meant to say that he was done with his breakfast. Lyra grabbed the serving tray first, noticing that he’d eaten everything except for the crushed gems.

She carefully set the gems aside—he might want to eat them later—and then took the rest out to the cart, followed by the bed tray.

He was shifting about under the covers, as if he felt uncomfortable, and what she could see of his face was starting to get redder. She’d seen this before, yet she was unsure exactly what it meant, since it had been precipitated by unconnected events. It had happened twice when he was naming things in the picture dictionary; both times had been when he was near the central points of the stallion and mare. It happened again when she asked him where the restroom was, and a final time when she asked him to touch her cutie mark.

She quickly ran through various possibilities in her head. While she hadn’t been watching while he ate, his breakfast seemed to have been to his satisfaction, and this wasn’t a curiosity look. They weren’t naming anything, so that wasn’t likely to be the cause of his reddening face. It was hard to imagine that he wanted to touch her cutie mark again; and if he did, he knew how to ask. Therefore, it must have to do with needing to use the restroom—and he had just eaten breakfast. Maybe it wasn’t polite to ask in his culture—it would be a strange thing, but then there were so many different cultures across Equestria, each of them with their own different rules and taboos. Why, she’d even heard that the Saddle Arabians liked to wear bridles, a thought that struck her as abhorrent—it was only one step removed from bondage. Admittedly, there were some ponies who liked the idea, but what they did in the privacy of their own homes was none of her business.

“Dale make water?”

He nodded.

Lyra walked over to the foot of his bed and took a quick glance at his chart. Nowhere did it say he had to stay in bed, which was just as well—she was sure there was a bedpan underneath, but it would probably be easier if he could walk to the public restroom, and he would no doubt be more comfortable with the idea—especially if even naming the facility was embarrassing to him. Already, he was sliding his legs off the bed, moving with difficulty since he was still tangled in the sheet. She was about to help him pull it off when he made an odd circling gesture with his hand. Puzzled, she stepped back. He made the motion again, then turned his head away.

He repeated the gesture a few times until she finally understood. He wanted her to look the other way. She wasn’t sure why, but she’d already made one faux-pas with her telekenesis; there was no reason to repeat the error.

She couldn’t help but turn an ear, though. Judging by his grunting and muttering, he was doing something challenging. He’d exhibited the behavior a few times when they were on the beach and a particularly daunting task had presented itself; it seemed he liked to mutter quietly to himself whenever he was frustrated. She knew enough ponies who did the same.

Finally, he walked past her and into the hallway, where he paused, looking curiously in both directions. He’d turned his sheet into a peplos like the ancient Pegasi wore. It looked a little ridiculous, since it only went down to his hocks, but perhaps that was a fashion in his home—and, to be fair, it was improvised. He’d made no attempt to alter the fabric to fit him better; in fact, he was clutching it closed with his left arm.

Lyra snapped out of her reverie and followed him. You’ll have to lead; he doesn’t know where he’s going. She heard him shuffling along behind her, his footfalls nearly silent. It was kind of creepy, how quietly he moved. She’d never really paid attention to the clopping of hooves on floors, but its absence was quite noticeable.

Finally reaching the door—labeled with a silhouette of a mare, rather than numbers, like the rest of the rooms—she pushed it open, turning in surprise when he didn't follow right after her. He was standing in the hall, staring into the open room with a confused look on his face. He hesitantly took a step forward, then another, his eyes darting around the bathroom.

Celestia stood on her balcony, deep in thought. Far below, the city stretched awake under the life-giving rays of her sun. The last telegrams from Ironhoof had been somewhat hopeful. With the latest reinforcements, there was a nearly impregnable defense around the reservoir, and he’d taken it on his own initiative to lower the water level, which could confound a hastily-cast spell. Unicorns had atomized every piece of the raft they found, so it couldn’t be re-used as a spell anchor.

Lyra was recovering satisfactorily, although the doctor was unwilling to speculate on what might have caused her injury further than it being a magical mishap of an unknown type. From the tone of the telegram, the doctor wasn’t willing to entirely commit to that theory, as they’d found a number of artifacts on the female which were unidentifiable; any one of them could have caused Lyra’s injuries.

Furthermore, both of their guests were stable. The doctor seemed to regard that as a miracle in and of itself. He nobly refrained from taking all the credit, stating that it had been a team effort by his nurses and Dr. Goodall.

Until they recovered and were able to speak Equestrian, she had no idea why they’d come, but that was a problem that could wait for later. First, she had to deal with Lyra.

She knew that the newspapers would get word of this thing. It would probably take them a couple of days, but reporters would find out. There had just been too much happening at once; somepony was likely to notice. Guards were missing from their post, dozens of professors were about to take the morning train to Ponyville or lose their tenure, and she had frequented her balcony throughout night. Somepony was going to start asking the right questions, and Lyra was going to be right in the center of it—unless she could forestall it.

Given Lyra’s position, a quick military inquest was the best choice. They could be convened anywhere, so Lyra wouldn’t have to leave Ponyville. Celestia would have to recuse herself, of course, since she’d been the one to issue the orders, so Luna would have to preside. Everypony thought Luna was cold-hearted but fair, which would work to her advantage—nopony would be second-guessing the verdict. Shining Armor, as captain of the guard, would of course be Lyra’s advocate, and she could probably persuade Fancy Pants to act as a civilian barrister. All the upper-class unicorns loved him, and they’d hang on his every word.

Best of all, the worst punishment a military inquest could mete out in a case like this was dishonorable discharge—although that was unlikely, since she was only an auxiliary guard. Because of the double-jeopardy clause in Equestrian law, if things subsequently went all wrong, Lyra couldn’t be re-tried, and if they held the inquest quickly—while the creatures were still in hospital—it was unlikely anything would go wrong enough in the interim to change the likely outcome of a trial. As an added benefit, foreign ambassadors and such couldn’t complain that Celestia was playing favorites, since the trial would be a foregone conclusion before they even found out about it.

She looked down at the bustling streets below. All this because I wanted to sleep in just for once.

Dale sat in the uncomfortably short chair, knees halfway up his chest. He was facing out the window in his hospital room, staring mindlessly at the activity taking place in the streets below. He felt like his mind was starting to disengage—in fact, it was like being really drunk—things were happening faster than he could hope to process them. He’d been lucky to even manage to drag the chair over—he couldn’t remember having done it.

The overwhelmingness of waking up injured in a strange place had initially quelled his curiosity, but now that he’d at least come to the conclusion that he wasn’t at death’s door—and that this strange hospital was probably a reality, and not a hallucination brought about by pain medications—he’d begun picking up on incongruities that had earlier failed to trigger any mental alarm bells.

When the nurse had come in, he’d imagined that he must be aboard their exploration ship, perhaps taken there as the only way they could save him after he had tackled the girl. To avoid an international—interstellar?—incident, they couldn’t stop her, so they had no choice but to grab him. It was odd that he was injured—it felt like his hair and beard were gone, although the hair on the rest of his body had mostly remained—and it was odd that his clothes were missing.

His first idea had been that their teleporter hadn’t been calibrated to non-living matter. It kind of made sense—hair was dead, after all, and his clothes were, too. Still, she’d come to the beach with saddlebags and fur intact. While he couldn’t totally rule out the possibility, it would be an odd kind of device which could transport all of him except his clothes and hair.

Dale closed his eyes and tried to concentrate over the increasing feeling of panic. When he was a kid, he’d fallen off his bike and broken his arm. To avoid exacerbating the injury, they’d carefully cut his shirt sleeve off before putting him in a cast. It was something often overlooked in medical dramas, but probably not an uncommon practice. Here, they’d have no idea what his clothing was made out of, or whether or not it could safely go in whatever kind of medical scanning devices they had, and doctors generally erred on the side of caution.

His glasses could have been knocked off when he tackled the girl. He remembered that they were still on his face as the two of them fell, but everything after that was a complete blank.

The only thing left unexplained was what had happened to his hair and beard. Curious, he reached up a hand and gently touched the bandage above his eyes. The stinging pain was reminiscent of a sunburn. It was hard to tell through the bandages, but it felt like his eyebrows were gone, too.

If they’d had to operate, they would have shaved him. Nobody wanted to get hair into a wound, and it made bandaging a challenge, too. Still, he couldn’t imagine what kind of operation would require removal of his eyebrows; it was more likely that they had been removed by whatever took the rest of the hair on his head.

Flashburns? There could have been some kind of weapon Lyra had—maybe a non-lethal self-defense weapon. Certainly, the police had a number of them, and he’d heard that the Secret Service had some sort of retinal disruptor—a device that sounded too science-fiction to actually be real. However—if Lyra did have such a device—it could explain why he couldn’t remember what happened after he tackled the Coast Guard girl. By accident or design, such a device might also be an effective depilator. Maybe fur was to them what clothing was to him.

When the situation on the beach had been stabilized—however briefly—she’d probably dragged him into the bubble. Maybe she’d had help. Or, maybe her weird tractor beam was strong enough. Once he got to the ship, they’d probably put him in a stasis field, and then transported him here. They might be examining his personal belongings—such as they were—they could even be holding them until he agreed to cooperate. It didn’t seem to be their style, but it wasn’t too unreasonable to think that the rules might have changed a little bit when Lyra was threatened on the beach.

His initial theory of being on a spaceship, while comforting, had been proven by further observation to be false. As long as his new world had consisted of nothing outside of his hospital room, the theory could hold. He could explain away the discrepancies. But once he went into the hallway, the working theory began to collapse. While they might have redecorated a single room into what they believed was a comforting location for him, they hardly would have done the entire hallway. If they had put that much effort into it, they would have at least tried to make the bathroom look familiar. As it was, he recognized not a single fixture, and could only begin to guess at the purpose of each. Fortunately for his bladder, but less so for the therapist he was sure he would eventually be seeing, he’d gotten a valuable insight into the workings of the plumbing and the extreme lack of modesty the ponies displayed. Since they apparently went around nude everywhere with only hats and butt tattoos as uniforms, he probably shouldn’t have been surprised, but it was something he desperately wanted to forget. Simply pointing towards the fixture he was to use would have sufficed, in his opinion. At least she’d been kind enough to look away when it was his turn.

Nonetheless, it led him to the inescapable conclusion that he was now on their home planet, or at least a large remote space station of some kind. There was too much open space for it to be anything else. Despite Hollywood’s set designs, any ship designed for a long-range mission would be jammed full of equipment and supplies. Even on terrestrial ships, every space was utilized for something. While a Bahamas cruise ship might have nice cabins for the tourists, the crew simply had to deal with crowded spaces. He’d had friends in the Navy who’d had to hot bunk as they worked through the ranks. While this practice would not extend to the sick bay, there still would be no more room than needed for a bed and a medic to work; the room he was in could easily fit another couple dozen beds the size of his—and his bed was larger than what Lyra would have required. If all the ponies were her size, the beds could be half as big, and twice as many could fit into the room.

He could only assume that as soon as Lyra had seen him tackle the girl, she’d radioed back to the exploratory ship and she’d done the only thing she could think of and grabbed him. Once he arrived, they’d flash-frozen him or whatever it was they did to cross deep space, and returned home with a report that the natives could be hostile.

If this was true, the only hopeful sign was that they did take him—for if they planned to lay waste to Earth, why bother? They could simply leave him to his fate on the beach, and open fire with their orbital cannons or whatever weapons they had. They probably weren’t planning on holding him for ransom—any survey of the planet would tell them that they held all the trumps—so they were still pinning their hopes on using him as a translator, and apparently they valued him enough to want to keep him, rather than wait for someone more qualified to come along.

To say he was out of his league was an understatement. The more he watched, the more the enormity of the task began to sink in. He felt like David facing Goliath, except instead of a sling and stone all he had were a whiffle-bat and ping-pong ball. Lyra had seemed to be a quick learner when it came to English; he could only hope they were all like that, because he was no good at languages. The words they’d already learned were fading in his memory, and he no longer had his notes to fall back on.

He wondered how much time had passed on Earth. He could imagine the confusion that had no doubt erupted on the beach the moment Lyra and he were spirited away. Maybe their spaceship had glided out of orbit slowly—or maybe it was around one of the other planets, or even hidden behind the moon—but if they left in a hurry, NASA might have just gotten a whole bunch of readings they couldn’t understand. If it was behind the moon, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter could be zipping along right below the pony spaceship, its many cameras never glancing skyward. Perhaps, in time, NASA would spot a shadow on the moon’s surface they couldn’t explain, but that might take years.

If anyone had even noticed. It was hard to say how many instruments there were on earth peering at the sky. Of those that were, how many of them were set up to measure the exhaust of a spaceship accelerating to warp speed? Even asteroids often got missed until they were fairly close—and those were only the large ones. Unless the ship was miles long, it was a very tiny object in a very vast space; it might have only been seen if a telescope coincidentally happened to be looking right at it as it went by.

He stared out the window, observing. He still had no idea where his glasses had gone, but he could see well enough by squinting, and what he saw was not reassuring. His initial impression of the town which surrounded the hospital was confusing, to say the least. The vast majority of the homes appeared to be medieval in their design, with exposed beams and thatched roofs. Of course, that could have just been their architectural preference; for all he knew the roofs were stamped steel made to look like thatching . . . but his heart monitor was actual wood, not a thin veneer. He’d dug a fingernail in it last night, despite the slight pain from his bandaged hand. At least, he thought he had. Maybe he’d imagined it.

There were a few buildings which were an exception to the general rule. One of them looked like a tent that had sort of melted on one side; another reminded him of a carousel that someone had converted into a home—if that was really the case, they took their amusement seriously, since it was several stories tall.

A tall round building occupied the central part of town, surrounded by a clear field. What roads there were seemed to lead to it. Fields and orchards were scattered around the outskirts of town, while off in the distance he could vaguely make out what might have been a rail line complete with a train pulled by a steam locomotive. Adding to the oddity, a very Dutch-looking windmill’s blades spun serenely in the gentle breeze that drifted through the open window. The whole thing reminded him of an amusement park, in a way. There was an overall theme, but occasional anachronisms were tossed in. While he was no expert in historical architecture, the town seemed to cover the Renaissance to Victorian eras.

And the streets were bustling with . . . ponies. Every color imaginable. Near to his eyrie, he had a view of what he could only guess was a market: dozens of wooden stalls with signs above them and merchandise spread out on the counter could be nothing else. Oddly, most of the signs simply had a painted picture, presumably of what the vendor sold. He watched as a horned pony made a transaction: even at his distance, he could see a faint green glow around what he guessed must be some kind of money, followed by a pot being carefully removed from the counter and led down the street, much like Lyra had handled the tray with her breakfast dishes. Other ponies were simply picking up items by mouth, or occasionally by hoof, a process just as inexplicable as the tractor beams all the horned ones seemed to be able to use at will. Dale cautioned himself to not jump to conclusions. Maybe they had little gripping claws on their feet. Or suction cups. Or magnets.

If that wasn’t strange enough, above the market—above the whole town—winged ponies were flying about, occasionally landing to walk into a building or make a purchase at the market. A few of them pushed what looked for all the world like fluffy clouds; he even thought he saw one land on a cloud and lie down. He had to force himself to look back to the market; he could already feel his sanity slipping away.

A new, larger shape moseying through the market caught his attention, and he watched in wonder as a cow—an honest-to-goodness cow—walked down the street, accompanied by an orange pony in a stetson. They appeared to be carrying on a conversation. It culminated when the two stopped before a stand: the cow pointed to something, the two talked back and forth for a few moments, and finally the orange pony received a bell, which she tied around the cow’s neck. The exchange pretty much deep-sixed any idea he had about trying to see if there were cheeseburgers on the menu. If the cows could carry on conversations, they probably had strong opinions about being eaten for lunch. Thinking about that made his stomach queasy—what if he were in some sort of Orwellian Animal Farm world where every animal could think and talk—where had his fish fillet come from? Had it—God forbid—volunteered?

His stomach suddenly turned, and he willed it to calm down by the thought of having to use their horribly public bathroom again. It was something he knew he’d have to get used to, but the longer it took the happier he’d be. Best not to dwell on the fish. Instead, he looked back down at the street, watching as a purple horned pony made its way towards the hospital. While its coloration was no stranger than any other pony, the fact that it was carrying a passenger was kind of remarkable. Without his glasses he could hardly tell what it was, but it appeared to be sitting upright on the pony’s back. It might have been a dog, or maybe a small purple ape. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem perturbed that its mount was floating a scroll before them, apparently reading while it walked.

Author's Note

As always, click this LINK for thank-yous and behind-the-scenes info on the chapter!

Onto the Pony Planet

Next chapter of Celestia Sleeps In is right here; just click through.

I Wanted to Write a Story
Admiral Biscuit
9.19.13

Friends, it’s been quite a journey. Celestia Sleeps In was one of the first fanfiction stories I conceived in my head, although not the first published. I needed practice.

Maybe I should start a little further back. Like most of my readers, I’m not a 6-12 year old girl. I’m male and in my mid-thirties. I work during the week at an auto repair shop, and on the weekends, I work with developmentally disabled adults in group homes.

I got introduced to the show by way of the Cheezburger network. I was regularly amusing myself at work looking at demotivational posters and funny pictures of cats, when I came across my first pony meme. Then another.

Before too long, I was working with a guy that was a real handful (I finally stopped taking shifts with him when he attacked me in the van while I was driving, then ran through traffic to Family Video); during brief downtimes I was amusing myself by scrolling through pictures of pastel ponies. It was a great form of escapism.

I hadn’t watched any of the episodes. It took me months to work up the courage to do it. The easy part was getting the Friendship Express video from the library. I sat at the computer, looking at the DVD and looking at my pony wallpaper and worried. What if the episodes weren’t as good as the show I’d imagined? What then? Maybe I wouldn’t like the voice actors. As anyone who watches Futurama knows, once you’ve watched it, you can’t un-watch it. Bravely, I clicked the play button.

I loved it. Absolutely loved it. Before too long, I had bought all the episodes on iTunes (after watching them all on YouTube first). My unlimited data from Sprint peaked at 35,000,000 datas one month (I assume that’s 35GB).

All good things must come to an end, of course, and season two finally did. What could I do throughout the summer? I’m not going to claim that I wouldn’t have made it if I didn’t have my pony fix; I’ve probably got thousands (literally, thousands) of books I could amuse myself with. But there was just something compelling about the ponies. I wanted more.

I’ve always been more of a reader than a TV watcher. My parents threw out the TV before I was born, so I never really got into the habit of rotting my brain in front of it; rather, I was flopped out on the couch, reading through my dad’s collection of J.R.R. Tolkien or C.S. Lewis. By sixth grade, I’d moved on to more action-oriented stories, burning through the library’s entire collection of Alistair Maclean, Stephen King, and Piers Anthony. I devoured Clive Cussler, read as many Dragonlance books as I could convince friends to loan me, and got the idea in my head that maybe I could write my own story.

I still have the original copy of it somewhere, carefully written out in cursive pencil. It’s terrible. The idea was good; the execution was not. But I was undaunted. When I got to college, I had it in my mind to re-do the whole thing. Since I’d repeatedly gotten stuck on fiddly details, I just went through the whole thing without ever proofing it; then I went back and started fixing stuff.

My senior project was a short novel.

The next few years were pretty dry; I was coping with all the changes that accompany the transition from college life to adulthood. I moved four times, eventually finding myself nearly destitute and unemployed, and Christmas was coming.

So I wrote. I wrote and wrote. For the next few years, one of the presents I handed my parents each year was a new story. When my dad was down with knee replacement surgery, I sent him short stories nearly every day, to cheer him up.

Now back to the fanfiction. I had a less-than-charitable view of fanfiction writers. I knew that there was a large body of Harry Potter fanfiction, and while I liked the franchise, it held no interest for me. I figured that it was largely poorly-written wish-fulfillment stories by desperate middle-school aged kids who had no worldly experience whatsoever and probably couldn’t spell, either. I’m sure that I was largely right.

However. Being the curious and responsible person I am, I did my research. I started scouring fan sites for the most popular and best (not always the same thing) MLP fanfictions. I discovered such gems as It’s A Dangerous Business, Simply Rarity, Bubbles, and the Pony Psychology Series. I was hooked. I discovered FimFiction, and the marvelous feature box. Somehow, I began to read HiE stories. I’ve always had a fondness for Sci-Fi, and the first-contact scenario is fertile ground.

But as I read the stories, I became disillusioned. Many of them were the same wish-fulfillment story; many of them seemed to end in romance, either explicit or implied. I wanted more, and it was so difficult to find. I wanted the why and how behind the first-contact, but so many authors were glossing that over so that their character could get busy with a pony.

Then I read Arrow 18, and saw what the genre could be. I knew what I had to do.

The idea came about at work. Richard was late; his excuse was that he slept in. I muttered under my breath, “Celestia can’t sleep in,” and there was the first part. I thought about that during the day. Over a thousand years of leadership, the most powerful creature in Equestria . . . and she can never wake to the sun. Her only hope was to go somewhere else, where she didn’t control the sun, and let its warming rays play over her coat, get up, and then hurry back home to raise the Equestrian sun.

That same day, the idea of a hiker crowning a rise on the land and looking down at Celestia fast asleep in the early dawn, a bevy of guards around her, implanted itself in my mind and wouldn’t let go.

I wrote the story in one sitting; it was about 4000 words. It was pretty good, I thought. A nice little one-shot. It introduced the character of Dale (I have no idea how I chose his name).

But what happened next?

I could have submitted it as is. But I didn’t. Something about the story kept surfacing in my mind. My first two stories about Derpy were published and accepted. I was flattered that people were doing YouTube readings of them. Not Another Human In Equestria, a collection of HiE stories that were deliberately bad (well, most of them) was published and began garnering views. I kept thinking about Celestia Sleeps In. How would one go about making contact with a totally alien species? What if neither individual was a trained diplomat, linguist, or anything else? Just a man and a pony? Where would they meet? How would they avoid detection?

Now we delve into the next part of the story. Those of you who are reading this have no doubt been reading the author’s notes all along; if not, I recommend it. I had to do . . . research.

There’s a book I have by Ridley Pearson. It’s called Parallel Lies. It’s about railroads. Now, I’m not an expert. I’m a fan—I won’t deny that—but I’m no expert. If you asked me whether the Union Pacific or the Burlington Northern Santa Fe had more track mileage, I couldn’t tell you. This guy, though . . . he claims he had researchers help him. If he did, they either sucked or he just ignored them. I found the first major mistake on page 3: deadman’s switches not only cut engine power, they also put the brakes in emergency. A few paragraphs later, Ridley mentions that a locomotive weighs ten tons. A Kenworth weighs ten tons; a locomotive is more than ten times that. I did read the whole book . . . but I found more amusement at picking out the grievous errors than the plotline.

I’d thought, once upon a time, that writing fiction would be easy. After all, it’s not like a research paper on Poe, where one actually needs to read scholarly works . . . in a nutshell, I was wrong. Ridley Pearson showed me what happens if you don’t research. Simple questions need to be answered: what’s the golden breastplate that Celestia wears properly called, if anything? If real horses sleep standing up, why don’t ponies? How tall are they in comparison to a human? Most of this was fairly easily answered with internet research.

But other questions were more difficult. The problem with research is that one has to know where to look, and that’s not always easy. I recruited my parents early; they’re of Dale’s age, and my mother is a linguist. For what it’s worth, she figured Dale’s task was pretty much hopeless. I started asking questions about accents as I decided how their language might be written; I was fortunate in finding a co-worker who was educated in France. I even ate a chrysanthemum and cucumber sandwich, just to see what it tasted like (it was the wrong time of year to find daisies). Yes, I checked whether they were toxic first.

As time went on, I was putting my heart and soul in the work. There were times I should have stopped; times I staggered into work on a few hours of sleep because I was up late answering comments or writing another chapter. I skipped a SCA event I’d been to every year for the last 15—the story was more important. I sat on the edge of my chair, watching the view count tick up one-by-one, agonizing every time I got a downvote. What had I done wrong? How come that reader didn’t see it for the masterpiece it obviously was?

Eventually, I came to realize that there would be unhappy people no matter what I did. Virtually all of my stories have at least one downvote; I like to think it’s the same guy. I can picture him, hunched over his computer keyboard, muttering, “Admiral Biscuit published another story. Better downvote.” That’s ok. I can live with that.

Now here we are, just shy of a year after the story was conceived. It’s 145,000 words long; that’s about as long as The Two Towers. If it were published in paperback form, it’d be over 400 pages long.

I’m an old-school book guy; this whole fanfiction thing is new to me. I posted a question on my blog about whether I should make this a trilogy or not, and the votes were generally for ‘not.’ But the fact is, the way I envisioned it in my head, it’s a trilogy. It slowed me down, struggling to keep going when—in my mind—the story was over. While I might not have the instincts of a popular published author, I’ve got to go with my gut here; the story was always meant to be three parts, and that’s just how it’s gotta be.

So, now for a glimpse behind the curtain. I promised some people I’d give an insight into Dale’s character.

I’ve heard it said that you can’t write what you don’t know. I personally don’t buy that for a second . . . imagine how drab our bookshelves would be if they solely consisted of autobiographies. I can’t argue that experience makes a better writer, though. I think the right mix is a compromise between the two: write what you know and research what you don’t.

Dale is largely an amalgam of my grandfather, my father, and myself. He’s not college educated, and stuck with one career his whole life—much like my grandfather. He’s a generally self-made man. He’s patient, thinking before he acts, but he can act quickly if he has to. For his age, he’s pretty accepting of social change. All those traits could be found in my grandfather. From my father, Dale’s age and his love of science fiction, as well as the perspective of a man who’s travelled overseas (my grandfather never left North America). It was my father who provided the memories of the moon landing, and it was my father who speculated with me on language, what Dale might and might not know. He found the nautical charts for North Fox Island, and we went over them together. While he’s not fool enough to actually canoe out to North Fox (it’s possible, but risky), in Dale’s situation, I think he’d react about the same way. Finally, we get to myself. I was the one doing the experiments and taste tests; I was the one who read all the stories and novels that Dale recounts. All of them were old enough that he would know of them.

I want to go back to my grandfather for a bit. He was born in Anne Arundel County Maryland, in 1913. His life always seemed a bit like a mystical story to me, and one of my regrets was that I never had time to write a biography of him. In the eyes of history, he was nobody special—I want to make that clear. He went to school, dropped out of college, got a job at the Baltimore assembly plant, worked his way up to Fisher Body, and eventually retired. He died in 2009. It always amazed me at the changes he saw in the world as he aged: horses disappearing off the streets to be replaced with automobiles and trucks. The biplanes and blimps patrolling the naval air station being replaced with jets, and eventually satellites and UAVs. Perhaps he didn’t understand all of it—he certainly never got a computer—but he saw it. Looking through his old photo albums was like looking through a history book.

He was a very practical man, not given to flights of fantasy. He had a leaf-vac that he dragged behind his tractor. When it wore out, he bought a new one. The first thing he did with it was take it apart, since he didn’t like the design. He spent all winter re-building it into what he wanted. When he finally had to begin using a cane, he modified one, knotting a monkey’s fist for his hand and a turk’s-head knot around the middle, and since he used to make his own fishing rods, it was only natural that he’d put custom windings on it.

I can’t think of anyone who would be more qualified to meet a unicorn on a remote beach. I think he would approach it in the slow, methodical way he approached everything else.

The idiot ball.

I only include this because it’s one of the ongoing complaints I’ve noticed. People will say, “Why doesn’t Dale immediately recognize magic? How come Lyra doesn’t know what a canoe is?” Without citing other examples, I’ll just say that in a realistic first-contact scenario, both parties are limited by their experiences. To use the above examples, in modern society, an American would be more likely to imagine that a thing which he cannot explain is powered by some sort of fantastic tech, rather than magic. Do I know how my cell phone works? Not really. I’ve got a general idea of circuits and cell phone towers, but I certainly can’t open the thing up and say, “that’s the antenna.” Do I think it works on magic? No. Given the tech level in Equestria, boats aren’t made of metal, they’re made of wood. Lyra’s first impression on seeing an 18’ pointy metal object would not be “it’s a boat.” Especially since it isn’t in the water, and it is upside-down. If you told Columbus that he should build the Santa Maria out of aluminum and steel, he’d look at you like you were a special kind of madman.

The fact is, in a realistic first-contact story, neither party can assume anything about the second party. Just because it looks similar doesn’t mean it is. In terms of basic biological requirements, I’ve been merrily allowing every kind of helpful coincidence imaginable: they do breathe the same atmosphere, they do eat the same kind of food, gravity is roughly the same, etc. Both parties have been able to come to mostly-correct conclusions much faster than they would in a real first-contact situation, based on their coincidentally similar worlds. But, just to use our own solar system for an example: imagine if there were intelligent life on Jupiter. What kind of houses might they build? How would their eyesight differ from ours? What effect would earth gravity have on them?

I can’t make my readers like this story, of course. You either think I’m doing well, or you don’t. But to those of you who are on the fence, I ask you this: whenever you see a character jumping to a conclusion that you know is wrong, ask yourself why. Because I can tell you, loyal reader: whenever a character makes a mis-step, I was there. I was looking at it, thinking what does this object signify? I probably gave my pre-readers grey hairs (the commenting on the cupcake was . . . lively, to say the least), but I think I got it mostly right.

In fact, I have a challenge for you. Look around your computer or tablet or smart phone or neural implant, or whatever you’re using to get these words into your brain. Pick up something—it doesn’t matter what. Look at it carefully. Now imagine that you don’t know what it is. Maybe you’ve been raised in a cave by wolves, having no concept of life outside the forest. Imagine that you’ve never seen that object before. Maybe it’s a book, maybe it’s a half-empty can of Coke. Doesn’t matter. Look at it as if it were an alien artifact of unknown significance. What does it tell you? What does it imply? Are there images on it? If so, would you recognize them, or might they be foreign to you? Would you be able to tell the difference between the image being a photograph or a drawing? If it’s a machine (and I use this term in the loosest sense), would you be able to identify how it worked? How might you go about identifying its properties? What might you misinterpret? Feel free to comment; I’d love to hear what you discover.

I should close this off, I guess, with a friendship report, since that seems apt.

It’s hard to imagine that it’s been almost a year since I started working on the story. During the course of that year, I learned a lot about myself. I learned that I can write novel-length stories, if I put my mind to it. I learned that I can publish them in front of what we in the theatre world call ‘a hostile audience,’ and most of them will actually like it. I learned that a great number of you are willing to put in your own time commenting—both the good and the bad—and respectfully sharing your opinions. I’ve found a number of people who are willing to speculate with me, and go down the rabbit-hole hand-in-hand.

Some of my readers have volunteered to pre-read, and I’m indebted to them. There are countless corrections which they have made, both small and large. I’m greatly indebted to the reader who first posted a link to my story on the SpaceBattles forum. It wasn’t what one would call a flattering review, but it garnered interest. As they say in showbiz, any publicity is good publicity.

Finally, I want to thank Cynewulf. He suggested in a comment that I write something about my experiences writing, and so I did. I hope you enjoyed your peek behind the curtain.

It’s been a wonderful journey with you so far. Won’t you travel with me just a little bit further?

— admiral biscuit

Link to next chapter

Author's Note

--the title is adapted from William Carlos Williams I Wanted to Write a Poem
Comments on the trilogy (it's a gDoc)

Chapter 6: Morning Lessons

Celestia Sleeps In
Chapter 6—Morning Lessons
Admiral Biscuit

Lyra sat patiently on the beach, waiting for the creature to return with its kin. She idly watched the lightening sky, annoyed by the way that some of the stars moved about. She had seen a couple pass overhead in a long slow arc, while others flashed red or green or white, and moved about much more slowly, in seemingly random directions. One of those had even approached over the lake—in all appearances as low as a pegasus flew, not high overhead like a proper star—and then proceeded to stay in place for a little bit, before it turned and went back again, accompanied all the while by an odd pulsing beat.

She had taken the time before the sun rose to empty her teaching materials out of her saddlebags. She had to keep reminding herself to pull them out by mouth. Like most unicorns, Lyra had become overly dependent on her telekinesis. The princess had warned her to try and conserve her magic as much as possible, because they didn’t know how easily she would be able to adapt to the local leylines, nor did they know what magic she might wish to demonstrate to the creature, or to utilize in her defense.

So far, she had been unable to feel any of the local energies, but she attributed that to the powerful field emanating behind her. She hoped that the creature would want to move off the beach at some point, since she wanted to explore the island and get a feel for its habitat. That was unlikely to occur during this first true meeting. While Lyra had high hopes, she had to keep reminding herself that progress was likely to be slow: Roam wasn’t built in a day, after all.

Lyra turned her head to watch the sun break the horizon. As chaotic as the night sky was, the sun seemed to be controlled properly, and it was a magnificent sight as it rose above the water. Someday, she would have to take a vacation with Bon Bon to Baltimare and persuade her to watch sunrise from the beach, despite the earth pony’s aversion to being up before noon. It was almost as good as attending the Summer Sun Celebration.

She looked back just in time to see the creature top the slight rise that led down to the beach, unexpectedly alone. He also paused for a moment, gazing out over the waters, before he looked back at her, then at the objects arrayed on the beach.

Lyra frowned. Surely there was nothing here that would cause confusion. She had a couple of books, a small chalkboard, an open box, a dozen marbles, and—of course—the symbols of peace. She followed his gaze to the alphabet which she had drawn in the damp sand. He seemed slightly perplexed by that, too. It would be unfortunate if this creature was illiterate.

She watched as its focus turned back towards the broken weapons. She had placed them near where they had first come into contact, in what she hoped was a very clear message: we come here peacefully.

It moved down the beach, towards the objects, which was a hopeful sign. She was quite surprised to see no others of its kind around. She tilted an ear towards the woods, but heard no noises which could not be attributed to the small creatures which lived in the forest. Maybe its rulers were also nervous about her, and so they had sent the creature back alone. Maybe it—like she—was considered expendable.

She watched it carefully as it lowered itself down by the weapons, bending its hind legs in a way no pony could emulate. It reminded her of a cat waiting to pounce, the way it kept its muscles tense, its rump just above the back of its hooves.

As eager and apprehensive as he was for another meeting with the alien—if it was even there—Dale couldn’t help but pause as he broke out of the trees just in time to watch the sun come up over Lake Michigan. Another good reason to pause was to give his glasses time to adjust: they had darkened almost immediately when he got out of the trees, and for a moment he couldn’t help but think of the peril-sensitive sunglasses in The Hitchhiker’s Guide. Well, if they turned completely opaque, it was probably time to consider running. His canoe was stashed just behind the rise, and he was reasonably confident he could get the craft into the water in very few seconds, given the proper motivation—such as being pursued by aliens. Maybe someday that would be an Olympic event.

He turned away from the water and saw a large section of writing on the beach. He studied it briefly, counting fourteen characters in the first row, with some having more sketched underneath them. The only conclusion he could draw from the display was that the aliens were quite versatile—this seemed to be yet another method of communication. Could it be that they were all short words, arranged to be read vertically? He thought maybe Japanese or Chinese was written that way. No character seemed to be repeated, though, and each character in a following row appeared to be a permutation of the character in the first row.

Well, he was sure it would be explained in due course. It was kind of disappointing that what was obviously a message was written in the sand—he had been hoping for a hologram or something like that. On the other hand, the only successful communication that they had managed thus far had been done in that manner.

He was even more surprised to see the array of objects around the unicorn, and the arrangement of items on the beach where they had first come into contact. The unicorn stayed where it was, motionless, so he approached the nearest items and squatted down to get a better look at them.

The spear he recognized immediately. It was very similar to the spears that the guards had been carrying, although the shaft had been broken about midway, leaving a short stick on one side and a still-somewhat lethal head on the other. However, when he picked it up and examined it more closely, he could tell that the edges of the spearhead had been blunted. It looked like someone had placed it on an anvil and beat it with a hammer. The reason was unfathomable to him.

He picked up the second item, which reminded him of a curved sword, like the cutlasses that pirates always used in the movies. It was surprisingly light; he had expected that a sword blade would be heavier. The blade was about two feet long, with a dulled edge on one side—it looked like the same hammer wielding creature had been at this blade, too—while the back side had a series of holes about an inch back from the edge with rivets pounded into them. The rivets were crude, and appeared to have been added later. He was no expert in swords, but he couldn’t see how this weapon was meant to be used—if it was a weapon—as there was no way to hold it. Perhaps the closed holes were meant to mount it to a shaft, to make it into a polearm. He turned it over in his hands, noting that the back edge had a concave cut to it, which seemed to further suggest that it was meant to be attached to something.

Both the blade and the spearhead seemed to have been very well constructed. He was no expert in swords, but he did have a lifetime of experience in a machine shop, and it was obvious that a lot of work had gone into both the blade and the spearhead. The long blade had been folded and hammered multiple times—he could clearly see the grain of the metal—and it had been fullered to cut the weight. If that wasn’t enough, the blade had been case-hardened on the cutting edge only, and it had been done the traditional way: he could see the irregular border where something had been applied to keep the heat away from the main part of the blade. On earth, it was usually done with clay.

The spear tip, unsurprisingly, was much less worked. Nevertheless, it too had been hand-crafted. He knew that it was probably made out of a high-carbon steel, but the lack of even slight surface rust told him that it had been well-cared for, up until someone blunted the edges anyway—that was clearly recent. He absently rubbed his finger along the blade. There weren’t any sharp burrs, which he would have expected. When he looked closer, it appeared that it had been re-heated before it was dulled, which was even more interesting, since that couldn’t have been done when it was mounted to the shaft. Someone had put a lot of effort into rendering these weapons useless.

He set it back down, and picked up the claw. His first impression was that it came from a Tyranasaurus Rex, it was so large. His entire hand could barely close around the base of the claw, and it curved forward a good eight inches, to where it was broken at a point where it had thinned to about the thickness of his thumb. He imagined that it probably originally was a couple of inches longer, and he was sure it had ended in a very sharp point.

It clearly hadn’t come from a creature the size of the alien, which was somewhat worrying for two reasons: first, that there was some kind of creature where the alien came from that had claws this size; second, that the alien had somehow managed to get and break one of them. It made him wonder just how powerful they were. Moreover, why had it brought such things? Was it a message that it was easily able to kill him? Perhaps some kind of trophy—these are the things I have killed; show me what you have killed so that we might treat as equals?

No, he decided, that probably wasn’t it. They had not seemed aggressive at all in their first meeting; as surprised as they had acted, he suspected that they had never seen a creature like him before. If he were to assume they were aggressive and kept trophies of their kills, then he would have been an irresistible target. He remembered how big game hunters used to kill animals just because they could, and then display them on their walls for bragging rights, and shuddered a bit as he imagined himself displayed in a trophy room, his head right above the fireplace, and perhaps the alien resting its feet on a human-skin rug. That seemed unlikely.

He picked them each up again, the spear, the blade, and the claw. There was something that they all had in common, and there was a reason that they had all been placed there. He looked down at the beach again, where the alien was sitting amongst a group of objects he couldn’t begin to imagine the significance of—although at least he recognized all of them, which was better than he was doing here.

They were all weapons, he thought, that was one thing they had in common. The spears he had seen before. He had thought, at the time, that they were possibly symbolic, since what advanced race used spears? As he was hefting the blade in his hand, trying to imagine what it meant, it suddenly hit him. All three items were weapons, and they were all broken—in the case of the two metal weapons, obviously deliberately broken. It must mean that they were not interested in violence, since a broken weapon wasn’t useful for anything. There was a proverb about beating swords into plowshares, and this must be the alien equivalent. Clearly, they had decided to show him simple weapons, so that he would grasp the meaning. He supposed that if they had put a broken ray-gun with dead batteries on the beach, he would have had no understanding of what it meant.

Dale thought he should probably also make his intentions clear, although he had not chosen to bring anything along which could be thought of as a weapon except for his Swiss Army knife, and looking at the claw, he figured that would be no more considered a weapon than a wet towel.

Twilight sat on her balcony, books piled up around her. She was having a difficult time focusing, instead looking up towards the Ponyville dam each time she turned a page. She wanted to be closer—even though she knew she would see nothing from the Equestrian end of the portal—but Princess Celestia had forbidden it.

The Elements of Harmony were safely in Twilight’s bedroom, and the bearers were close. Pinkie Pie was at Sugarcube Corner; Applejack was at her booth in market, rather than on the farm; Rarity and Fluttershy were working together at Carousel Boutique; and Rainbow Dash was observing the Royal Weather Patrol keeping the clouds inside the Everfree. She snickered—Rainbow was probably actually sleeping at her observation post.

She faintly heard a pop inside the library, followed almost immediately by a tapping at her Prench doors. Frowning, she closed the book and turned her head to see Luna staring back at her. “Princess?”

“We did not wish to alarm our townsponies,” she said sadly. “We feared if we flew in unbidden they might believe some disaster were ahoof.”

“Is there some—“

“Fear not, Twilight Sparkle.” The diarch stepped onto the balcony, carefully keeping herself close to the body of the tree. “Our duties were done for the day, and we did find ourselves unable to sleep. We wished to place ourselves closer than Canterlot, and we felt that thou mayst wish company for thy vigil. We are also curious if we can feel any of the creature’s magic interspersing with that of Equestria.”

Twilight stomped her hoof in frustration. “That’s why I wanted to be there! Where I could see what was happening! I know the Princess, um, Celestia wants me to stay here, but I could have teleported back in an instant if anything went wrong!”

“As thou didst teleport thyself free of Sombra’s crystal prison?” Ignoring the blush on Twilight’s face, she continued. “Hast thou practiced seeing magical fields, as Trixie taught thee?”

Twilight’s ears drooped the rest of the way. “No, I can’t. At best, I can get a faint glimmer, but I think I’m overpowering it with my own magic.”

“Hast thou a quill and parchment?”

Twilight brightened, and produced the requested items. Luna wrote a page, pausing frequently in thought, occasionally looking at Twilight critically. The unicorn desperately wanted to know what she was writing, but couldn’t bring herself to stare over Luna’s withers. Finally satisfied, the princess floated the parchment over to Twilight.

“We did craft a cantrip to allow thee to render thy magic invisible to thy sight. With practice, thou shalt need not utilize the spell, but ‘twill enable thee to clearly see the fields. We shall procure a treatise by Starswirl the Bearded which doth detail magical energies in every facet, and grant it to thee. Now, however, we wish to study, and we suggest that thou continue thine studies.” The princess lifted the book Twilight had been reading back up. “Principles of Language. Art thou planning a translation spell?”

“We don’t know enough of the creature’s neurology to even attempt one,” Twilight protested.

“If it hath writing, than its written words can be magically translated,” Luna retorted. The two began discussing the possibilities in earnest.

Lyra’s hopes fell as the creature examined the weapons. At first, it seemed it wasn’t sure what to make of them. She had thought that the metal objects it had held during their first contact indicated it had experience with metalwork, but now she was more convinced it had been given those object by its master. Surely it shouldn’t take five minutes of examination to identify a spear blade—unless these creatures had no natural enemies. But that thought was ridiculous: if it had no natural enemies, why was it frightened of them?

It picked up the spear and held two halves of the shaft together. Lyra suddenly worried that it did know what it was for, and that it was prepared to use a mending spell on it. If she remembered her cultural anthropology class correctly, it was considered an act of contempt in minotaur culture to kill a foe with her own weapon. Was their culture similar? Even if it didn’t use it on her, the act of mending the spear was practically a declaration of war.

Unnoticed by the creature, she took a step back, towards the safety of the bubble, and prepared a defensive spell. As it pantomimed breaking the spear, she breathed a long sigh of relief. It might not be terribly quick-witted, but it seemed it desired peace, at least for the nonce.

When the creature was about two body lengths from her, it stopped, and sat down on the beach, looking calmly at her. She figured this was the time to present the book. She turned her head—it was difficult to levitate objects when they were out of sight—and as she did, remembered that she was trying to conserve her magic.

This would be the second hurdle, Lyra supposed. Thus far, they had never gotten closer than slightly beyond its forelimb’s reach, but there was no way it was going to figure out that she wanted it to pick up that book. She could tap it with her hoof, and then back off, and it might come over and take the book. She could also just float it over, but if she started doing that now, by the end of the day she risked being completely exhausted.

She looked at the creature again, thoughtfully. It was much bigger than her, and—despite the shuffling gait it normally used—it could probably move quite quickly when it wanted to. Still, with its rump on the ground, it was unlikely to be able to get up to speed before she could defend herself; and if they were ever to truly befriend each other, they were going to have to get closer.

Lyra grabbed the book gently with her teeth, and walked towards the creature. When she was almost within touching distance—and easily within its reaching distance—she dropped the book in front of it, before quickly backing up to her original location.

The creature tentatively picked it up and opened the cover. The first page bore a likeness of Princess Celestia, which it seemed to recognize. It slowly turned the pages, its brow furrowing in concentration. She watched its eyes move, which suggested that it was at least trying to read the pages, although it was obvious it didn’t understand the languages. Lyra was hardly surprised; she and Twilight had both thought it was a long shot, but worth the try.

Dale looked at the book resting before him thoughtfully. Before today, he would never have described a book as a new-looking old book, but this book fit that description. The cover was a tight cloth appliqué, with an embossed fairyland type of castle highlighted in gold. It was a fairly simple drawing, much like a woodcut. He could clearly see a damp arc where the alien had carried it.

He tore his attention away from the book for a moment, and looked back at the alien. He had been reminded of the Black Lab he’d had as a kid when it brought the book over in its mouth. Did it want to play fetch? Surely it could have found a better object than a book to throw—there was a forest less than ten yards away. Besides, who came all the way across the vast reaches of space to play a game of fetch?

A moment’s consideration of the alien’s physique made him realize that there was no other way it could have gotten the book to him, unless it pushed it with its nose. The alien’s feet—hooves—would have a very hard time grasping, especially if it did wear shoes. He giggled: here he was on a beach with an alien creature that looked like a unicorn, and of all the questions that kept popping into his mind, the one which seemed to vex him the most was whether or not it wore horseshoes.

He picked the book up tentatively, being careful not to touch the part of the spine that had been in its mouth. There was no telling what kind of diseases could be contracted from alien saliva—the only upside was that if he got one, there would probably be a new disease named after him. In retrospect, he wondered if he should have worn a Hazmat suit, although it was probably already too late for that.

When he opened it, the first page had a likeness of the winged unicorn he had seen on the beach before, which validated his assumption that it was important. Underneath was some sort of writing which reminded him of runes, and below that was a more elegant, flowing script. He looked at the two lines thoughtfully. The first was shorter, and he could see that several of the characters were repeated. Looking over at the symbols the alien had carved in the sand, he realized that each one of the seeming runic characters was also written on the beach, as well as many more which were not under her name. Clearly, this was writing, although its meaning was unknown. Most likely it was a name and title.

The detail of the picture was near-photographic quality, when he allowed for the roughness of the pages, although he was surprised that the writing under it seemed to have been written by hand, rather than printed by machine. He looked a little more closely and discovered that what he had taken as a decorative border to the picture was in fact concealing printed text. It was very artfully done, but to what end? If it was something the aliens were trying to conceal from him, they needn’t have bothered—it was going to be quite a while before he could even hope to puzzle out the meanings of the words, assuming they were even going to teach him. Alternately, it could have been a correction made after the book had been printed. He had frequently seen that back in the days of printed parts catalogues. He even had a old catalogue which had a sticker covering the entirety of one page, because it was cheaper than re-printing the whole thing to correct an error.

Turning the page, he was confronted with a wall of text in the same quasi-runes as those on the beach, while the facing page was filled with the flowing script which made up the second line of the title page. He scanned over both for a while, mentally counting the distinct characters. It seemed that there were more in the cursive than the runic, although he wasn’t absolutely sure. The cursive had entirely distinct letters, while the runic frequently had additions to the ‘base’ character. He suddenly realized that they were probably accents, which made the message on the beach clearer—it was the alphabet, and the other forms of the letter were beneath its primary form.

He turned to the next page, and saw two more blocks of text, written in new alphabets. Each of those had a woodcut at the top left. The first page looked like a striped hornless version of the alien, and the second reminded him of an eagle, although it was no more realistic than a Hanna-Barbera eagle. It nagged at his mind a little, and he wasn’t quite sure why. It reminded him of a commercial he’d heard on the radio, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

The next two pages were filled with yet another two different texts and different woodcuts, and it suddenly hit him. The passages were all the same thing, written in different languages. These creatures had given him a Rosetta stone, of sorts. They were clearly hoping that he would recognize one of these languages. He flipped back, trying to remember what he knew of foreign languages, which unfortunately was nearly nothing. He figured he’d recognize a Cyrillic alphabet if he saw it, or Greek, or possibly Egyptian, but as he went through the book, nothing looked like anything he’d ever seen before. If these aliens had built the pyramids, they hadn’t taken notes. He did notice that several of the pages contained languages which seemed to be written in the same character sets, but none of them were familiar to him at all. When he reached the end, he shook his head and set the book down.

It was strange that of all the things the alien might have brought, a book was the first thing that it put in his hands, and what appeared to be their alphabet was drawn out in the sand. It was not too difficult for him to believe that the stick resting at the end was the tool which had been used to form the letters. Even he could have come up with something better—he was sure that if he had looked hard enough, he could have found a laptop or tablet or something that was hardened against electromagnetic interference. Undoubtedly, the military had them. Even a whiteboard would have been an effective, simple solution.

Suddenly, it hit him. An anthropologist wouldn’t go into a primitive culture with the latest and greatest electronics. What tribal leader would have the slightest idea how to interact with a laptop? At best, they’d think it was powerful magic; at worst, the work of the devil. No doubt these aliens were lowering the bar—so to speak—in order to keep him from freaking out any more than he already had. If they weren’t on a mission of contact, then they probably didn’t have their normal materials at hand, and were making do with what they could find.

The book was a bit of an oddity, since it appeared to have been printed using Reinasssance technology, but perhaps that was just a trend for them. Retro was popular enough in America, anyway. His first fridge had been a stainless steel monstrosity, replaced by an avocado-green eyesore, then a dull beige unit, and now stainless steel was back in. He could have made a fortune if he’d kept his Frigidaire. They probably just typed in some text in their language, had the computer translate it into every different race’s language that they knew, and hit the print button. They’d probably changed the text around the ruling one, in case he actually could read their language. Perhaps it had been a political poster. He snickered, wondering what they’d think if he showed them a picture that said “Nixon’s the One” underneath.

He took a sip from his Camelback—which got him a strange look from the alien—before reaching for his backpack. He was about to take out the first-grade primer, when he thought of making introductions. Surely the alien had a name? Maybe that was a false assumption; maybe they had grown past that. Maybe they were a hivemind, like the Borg. That could be the reason why there weren’t any others this time around.

He tapped his right hand to his chest, and slowly said “Dale,” adding, after a second of reflection, “Paard.” It cocked its head slightly, focusing its ears intently on him. He tried again. “Dale Paard.”

Trixie lay listless on the damp straw. Her coat was matted and her mane tangled. Time had lost all meaning. The only highlight had been when she had taught Twilight Sparkle—the leaden disruptor had come off her horn, and she had been able to make her chamber look nice.

Now it was back on. She spent most of her time sleeping, as there was nothing else to do. The guards stayed at their posts, rarely interacting with her at all. For all intents and purposes, she was alone. Meals arrived and dishes were removed without a word being spoken.

For a while, she had scratched the wall to mark the passage of time, but lately that had lost its appeal. The brazen showmare was gone, now, replaced by a lost soul. Part of her wanted to just lie down and die—she was ashamed of what she had become, of what she had done. After the amulet had been removed, she truly had been repentant, understanding to her horror that she was worse than even her mother. She knew she deserved to be punished.

But a darker part of her mind had been whispering that this wasn’t so. The ponies liked having her in charge. The foals worshipped her, and would do anything for her. Twilight had been jealous of her power, and had cheated to steal the amulet from her. She tried to silence that voice, but it whispered from shadows in her sleep, gnawing at her.

Recently, she had discovered that if she concentrated, she could make small crystals grow from shadowed corners. It frightened her what are you doing Trixie because they grew with a pulsing red aura, but it was the only amusement she had, and might provide the key to her escape. She stared at the rough stone, coaxing forth the minerals trapped within, not noticing as her eyes began softly glowing a sickly green.

When it had finished with the book, the creature put it down and sat for a moment, before taking a tube into its mouth. It appeared to be swallowing something—was this their feeding behavior? Then it reached into its backpack, appeared as if it were going to withdraw something, but it remained empty-hoofed. Taloned, she reminded herself. Lyra was sure Twilight had been right about this creature being a hybrid. It was the only logical explanation for the differing shapes of its talons and hind limbs.

It tapped itself in the breast, and muttered something slowly. She cocked her ears forward instinctively, trying to pick up on it. It repeated it, watching her intently.

It might be some kind of greeting in its language. Even if it didn’t know how to read, it did know how to communicate orally; it had already proven that. If it was a greeting, it was best to repeat it. She tried to mimic the creature’s movements as exactly as possible, touching her right hoof to her breast, and did her best to clearly enunciate the low sounds it made.

The creature’s reaction surprised her—it began laughing. It repeated the motion, touching itself and saying the same two words, then pointed to her. She suddenly realized it was introducing itself. That was its name, or what kind of creature it was, possibly both. It was very short—pony names tended to be two or more syllables long—but that could be attributed to cultural differences. Diamond Dog names were rarely more than a syllable, if they even had a name: since they relied so heavily on scent, parents rarely felt the need to name their offspring.

In that case, it was best to reciprocate. She repeated its motions, this time carefully saying her name, while pointing to the creature and slowly pronouncing its name.

It brightened, and tried to say her name back. The low tones of its voice, as well as the unfamiliar—to it—syllables in Equestrian came out like mush, grating to her ears. She imagined that she had garbled its name just as badly.

The creature fell silent, and she did, too. It seemed like an opportune time to reflect on the success of the communications. Lyra was sure that the day’s progress would be measured in small leaps like this.

Its baritone voice made her think she had been correct in her initial assumption that it was a stallion, which was too bad. It was unlikely to have very high standing among its mates—if it even had any. Since it had been there alone, and was still alone, it was probably unallied. Once they had gotten past the initial communication phase, he might not be able to offer her much. He probably would have a very difficult time gaining her an audience with any alphas.

They might do things differently here, she reminded herself. What held true in Equestria might not here. Who was to say that there even were two sexes among these creatures? They might divide like parasprites, or be magically formed from parts that lay around the island, like timberwolves or rock doves. It was a question she wanted to ask, but how to bring it up? They had a lot more work to do before they reached that point in their conversation.

Dale’s throat hurt from trying to emulate the alien’s name, although it came out of the creature’s mouth in a smooth, lyrical flow. The range was the first problem—he wasn’t sure he could have spoken in such a treble range even before he hit puberty. He could have brought a tank of helium, which might have given him a chance. But he was mentally kicking himself; he had heard them speak before, and all of them had a higher range than he did, apparently.

Still, it seemed to be satisfied with the progress they had made. He looked at it again, thoughtfully. When he had first seen it up close, he had come to the conclusion that it was female, and its voice seemed to support that theory. Of course, they all spoke like that, and it was unlikely they were all female. Maybe they didn’t even have genders, or maybe it was something weird, like an earthworm or a tree, or something he couldn’t even fathom. It could even be a robot.

A robot. Why hadn’t that occurred to him before? He thought of the astronomy book that rested in his bag, with all its pictures of planets and moons taken by robots. What safer way to explore a foreign land? The group before might have been repairing the robot, and now that it was back in service, they were going to use it. Its odd coloring might really stand out to them; it could be their equivalent of blaze orange. If it was a robot, it acted very smoothly, much more naturally than human androids.

With a robot, they would have no fear of him harming it, nor would they have to worry about any possible contamination of the creature. The field the big one put around it might have been a way of cleaning it, or the barrier might prove impervious to any foreign bodies. If they were really worried, they could just upload the data from the unit, and destroy it here on the beach when the meeting was over, then send down another identical one for the next meeting.

It was a good theory, but something about it didn’t quite jibe. He looked back at the book she had brought over. He had seen the dampness on the cover. If they were trying to make a robot blend in, they would have been hard-pressed to come up with a worse disguise, and there was no other point he could think of to make a robot salivate. The unicorn-style horn it was sporting might be an antenna, but any self-respecting robot had manipulator arms, not hooves. Furthermore, the tail was a completely unnecessary detail, and she would have no reason to blink, either.

This was certainly a creature. No doubt she was having the same thoughts, considering his form. Well, the only way to find out was to truly establish communications. She’d been putting in all the effort so far; now it was his turn to see what he could come up with.

Dale walked down the beach, towards where the unicorn had written its alphabet in the sand. It was probably the best place to start, he thought, picking up the stick.

Lyra trotted behind the creature, unnoticed, as he walked purposefully down to the water’s edge. He picked up the same stick she’d used with his talon, and began to trace shapes in the sand, next to hers. Before he was halfway done, she understood that it was an alphabet, and her hopes soared. They had been so worried that it did not use written communication, yet it obviously had understood the purpose of her alphabet, and was demonstrating its own.

She looked back to where they had been sitting, where it had left its backpack. It might be full of books! While the idea didn’t thrill her as much as it would have excited Twilight, it still meant that the two cultures had at least a few things in common.

He finished tracing, and stood back from his work. There were twenty-six characters in the first row, with another twenty-six below that. She smiled inwardly—a fifty-two character alphabet implied that it had quite sophisticated linguistics. They were very neatly organized, too: a top row of big letters for bold sounds, and a second row of smaller letters for softer sounds. Clearly, a lot of thought had gone into its language, which was good. It would make it much easier to learn. For all its precision when it came to sound, the Equestrian language had borrowed words from Equuis and Pegos, as well as from the other intelligent races, and was littered with irregular verbs and unexpected plurals. Undoubtedly, this creature’s language would be much simpler, despite all the different letters she’d have to memorize.

He looked at the writing in the sand, then back at his backpack. She was suddenly reminded that her writing supplies were still tucked into her saddlebags—she hadn’t expected to be this far away from them. She hadn’t planned to take them off, but the girth strap was damaged, and it pinched her belly. She’d been meaning to get that fixed, but with all the planning that had been done, she just hadn’t had time. Lyra wasn’t sure how to communicate that she wanted to get parchment—would he be insulted or worried if she ran back to her bags?

Dale glanced at the unicorn, seeing what could only be recognition in its eyes. He had already decided that reciprocating in kind was the easiest way to handle things—if the book was any indication, these creatures had vastly more experience interacting with aliens, especially since humanity’s score thus far was—at best—one, and he was probably giving himself too much credit. Maybe one-half, since they hadn’t declared war on Earth yet, as far as he knew. He’d upgrade it to one when his leaders and their leaders met peacefully.

He mentally kicked himself at his unpreparedness. First, he wasn’t sure what came next. Should he try to pronounce each letter? That could lead to trouble, since their pronunciation was heavily tied to what came before or after. They had learned the alphabet song when he was in kindergarten, but that hardly seemed appropriate for this situation; he’d have to pronounce the letters. First came the alphabet, then spelling, then phonics, or something like that. If only he was trying to teach something simple, like programming a CNC lathe. He could have done that in his sleep. Why hadn’t he brought his notebook? At some point they were going to want to move back up on the beach, and they could hardly take sketches in the sand with them. He looked over at her again, noticing that she was glancing at her bags. What if she also forgot to bring writing tools? He chuckled, and sheepishly walked towards his bag, unsurprised to see her do the same with hers.

Shortly thereafter, the two had finished writing down their respective alphabets. Dale had been quite surprised to see her pull out a quill and inkpot, but again attributed it to the aliens lowering their technology so not to alarm him. He was amused watching her trace out the letters with her mouth—she was reasonably adept, but it was obvious that she normally did not use this technique, further reinforcing his notion. He wondered—given their lack of manual dexterity—how they had managed to build spacecraft, and all that went with it. Still, he knew of enough amputees that managed to gracefully navigate a world which was not built for them, thus proving the old adage that when there was a will, there was a way. A worrying thought was nagging at the back of his mind: maybe they didn’t build spaceships. Maybe they enslaved creatures who did. Creatures with useful hands, perhaps. What if they wanted to know if he was intelligent enough to train in the fine art of re-entry shield bonding, or control panel wiring? Should he play dumb, to avoid the possibility of being press-ganged into unwanted space servitude? No. Even if that was what she wanted, it would be worth it for the experience. He glanced up at the sky briefly, before picking up the stick.

Using it to identify which letter he was naming, he pronounced them each three times, slowly and carefully. She got the idea, repeating them after him. Each time, she would take notes. A glance told him that she was not using the same alphabet as the one she had written on the beach, which was curious. Maybe it was their version of a phonetic system, and she was writing a pronunciation guide. If so, they were rapidly going to run into complications when they arrived at actual words, but that was a bridge to cross when they got there. He could have brought “Hooked on Phonics.” One call to 1-800-ABCDEFG, and they would rush a system to his door which could teach a preschooler, or even an adult. They never did say in the commercials if it would work on aliens, though.

He had reached lowercase d when he heard her give off a snort. She was glancing upwards at her earlier notes. It was a lot to learn, but they were going to have to get it out of the way.

Lyra was rapidly scribbling notes as he sounded out his alphabet. She struggled with the first few letters, before pausing at the sixth. She had been taking very incomprehensible notes in unicorn, when it suddenly hit her to think of the noises as music. While it was true that she normally played, she had taken a few choral classes at the conservatory, and she’d sang in more languages than she cared to think about, even performing a piece in Draconic once. With that mindset, she began to add musical notation to all the letters as he spoke them, remembering that she had to pitch up two octaves to hit the center of her normal vocal range. It was the kind of thing that no doubt would make a linguist cringe, but she was here and they weren’t.

He had reached the fourth letter of the second line, when it hit her that he was repeating what the first line had said, with a different character set. She checked her notes, and—accounting for differences in her notation, they were exactly the same. He seemed to understand that she had just figured that out, because he tapped the fifth letter, but rather than speak it, he looked at her expectantly. Taking her cue, she checked her notes, and carefully pronounced it. He appeared to be satisfied, because he touched the next letter. In fairly short order she had worked her way to the end of the alphabet—although it was more a testament to her careful note-taking than anything else—and she knew that she could repeat it again and again. After all, her special talent was musical in nature, and so was this.

It did beg the question why there needed to be two copies of each letter. None of the languages she was familiar with did that—it seemed such a waste of effort, and unnecessarily complicated. She hoped that when he revealed his books that her question would be answered.

He looked over at her alphabet, and she imagined he wished to repeat the exercise. She needed a drink, first; fortunately, they were rather close to the water. Lyra carefully stepped around their work area and walked in until she was fetlock-deep. It smelled all right, but she cast a disinfectant spell in her mouth, just in case. This was an alien land, after all, and it was best to be careful.

She drank slowly, relishing the coolness of the water. It certainly tasted pleasant, even though the wavelets were stirring up a little bit of sand. The wells in Ponyville had a lot more minerals in them than this water. She absently wondered if the creature had to take some kind of mineral supplements, like the ponies who lived in Appleoosa. More likely, if its kind had lived here for a long time, it didn’t require them.

She walked back to the beach, and began to recite her alphabet, going down columns instead of across, since it made much more sense to her mind to teach the base letter followed by its alternate forms. She indicated the diacritics on each form, hoping that it would begin to understand the pattern. She had to settle with pointing with her hoof, since it would be impossible to carefully enunciate the letters with a stick in her mouth.

It was disappointing how much trouble he was having pronouncing the words. Clearly, his strengths were neither language nor music. He was making a valiant effort, but it just wouldn’t come to him.

Suddenly, inspiration struck. Before they sung the piece in Draconic, they had learned a spell to lower their voices, and—since everypony wasn’t a unicorn—the voices of others. It required minimal effort to cast, and would remain in effect until deliberately dispelled. Twilight and she had been discussing the possibility of such a spell, but she’d been concentrating so hard on scholarly spells, this one had never occurred to her. If she used it, she could drop her voice two octaves into his vocal range, and he might have better luck understanding. It was by no means a permanent solution—if he ever went to Equestria, it was unreasonable to expect that everypony would alter their voice just to speak with him—but as long as he could correctly pronounce words, he would be understood. Like most creatures, ponies’ aural range was much broader than their vocal.

It took but a moment, and she started from the beginning again.

Dale was struggling mightily to imitate the unicorn. It was challenging enough for him to pronounce foreign words—he had suffered through a few semesters of Spanish before throwing in the towel—but one that was almost entirely out of his vocal range was an insurmountable challenge. The combination of trying to repeat foreign sounds while pitching them down was simply too much, and it was depressing how easily she had done the reverse.

She stopped, and her pose seemed to him as if she was thinking. He hadn’t managed to make any of the sounds correctly, despite his best efforts, and he could see on her face that she was rapidly giving it up as a lost cause. She closed her eyes for a moment, and faint golden glow pulsed in her neck. Much to his surprise, she pointed her hoof at the first letter again, but this time her voice was much lower.

This time, he was more easily able to imitate the sound. He took notes, as best he could, on how each letter sounded. This time around, it became clear that the columns indicated predictable variations on each letter. As complicated as her alphabet seemed at first glance, it apparently covered phonics much better than the one he was stuck with.

She finally reached the end, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He wished he’d thought of bringing something along to record the sounds the letters made. He had a feeling he’d be mispronouncing them a lot.

His stomach grumbled, and he glanced down at his watch. It was almost noon—they’d been on the beach together for over five hours. It hardly seemed that any time had passed. He took another sip of water, wondering how he might indicate that he was hungry, especially in a non-threatening manner.

Jennifer whistled to herself as she shoved the Piper out of its hanger. The weather over Traverse City was beautiful, and the weather map showed every indication that it was just as nice over Lake Michigan, too. The twin-engined plane was in perfect condition—it was just a month out of annual inspection, with no major flaws noted. As always, there were a dozen or so piddling things to correct. Checklists and inspections or no, they cropped up every year.

She popped open the nacelles on the engines. A quick check verified oil levels, and she also took the opportunity to make certain everything was in place and secure. It was her firm belief that a well-maintained machine would always perform flawlessly, and this plane certainly had, despite being older than she was.

After checking the fuel tanks for water contamination, she backed her Explorer up to the plane and popped the liftgate. She’d managed to land a contract with the owner of most of South Fox Island, who was apparently planning a party, judging by the cases of champagne and local wine she was loading. Normally, she knew he’d have had it brought over by boat, but this was probably a last-minute gig.

She’d mentally calculated weight and balance as she loaded her truck, and carefully stowed all the boxes according to her plan. There was no reason to believe she was going to run into any sort of turbulence, but it was foolhardy to assume she wouldn’t.

Loading finished, Jennifer parked her Explorer, nosing it against the hanger, centered between the lines with surgical precision. She was reaching for her shades on the dash when her cellphone chirped.

Five minutes later, the frustrated pilot pushed her plane back into the hanger. Of course the caterer would have forgotten a box of food. Of course it would have been the filet mignon, which had naturally been stored in the cold room, and which the helpful cartboy had forgotten, because he was too busy staring at her ass. She should have double-checked the list herself.

Now she was going to be delayed by hours by the time she made the round trip, pre-flighted the plane again, and filed a flight plan with ATC—who never seemed to grasp that there was an airstrip on South Fox, despite her frequent flights there. And, if that wasn’t enough, she was going to be flying into the sun. Well, at least it isn’t raining.

Yet, she corrected herself. At least it isn’t raining yet.

Lyra looked at the sun. As strange as things were on this world, it at least made a predictable arc. Since it was nearly overhead, it was about noontime, and she was quite hungry.

She had completely forgotten to eat in her excitement of learning more of the creature’s language, and he hadn’t disappointed her. Had it only been a few hours since she was worried that this creature had no language at all? While he might not have been learning with as much speed as she hoped, he was certainly stubborn enough to keep trying, despite his obvious difficulties.

Her next question was how to indicate that she was hungry? It might be rude to just start eating in front of him, especially if he wanted to share. There was no telling what kind of etiquette these creatures had.

He seemed to be looking at her, as if expecting some sort of clue how to proceed. It dawned on her that he was probably far out of his depth. What if—as crazy as it seemed—there were no other intelligent species with which he spoke? He had been following her in all aspects, as if he expected her to set the tone. Perhaps he expected it, being a stallion.

Well, since she was hungry, then the next order of business should be lunch. It might be an opportunity to get an insight into the creature’s biology, too—what did it eat, if it did? It appeared to swallow something that came from a tube which was attached to its back, occasionally. Perhaps that was how it fulfilled its nutritional needs.

She rolled up her parchment with a hoof, ink bottle centered in the tube to provide strength. The quill was stuck in the cork, to prevent stains. Normally, she would have levitated it, but she instead grabbed it in her mouth, gripping around the ink bottle. He seemed quite interested in the process, although she could not fathom any reason why he would be. Certainly if she had possessed talons like his, she would be taking full advantage of them.

As soon as she returned to her earlier location, she tucked her notes into her saddlebags, and pulled out a lunchbag. Bon Bon had packed her favorite daisy sandwiches, along with a dessert of home-made candies, and a stack of carrots.

She watched him absently from the corner of her eye as she carefully dumped the contents of the sack out, keeping them on her saddlebags to avoid getting sand in her food. It had been a long time since she’d been forced to eat without her magic, but she grimly gave it a go, all the while keeping a watch on him.

He seemed to require solid food, as well. He reached into his pack, and removed a sack similar to her own, although it looked to be made of some sort of brown parchment. As he emptied it, she was surprised to see that his food was further wrapped in some sort of glassy cloth, which he crumpled up and placed in his pants pockets.

She couldn’t help but get a scent of his lunch, which caused her stomach to briefly churn. Although the grains and vegetables on his sandwich seemed very similar to her own, there was an overpowering smell of dead flesh.

Is it a carrion-eater? Many of them were quite smart, and they also had a very good immunity to disease. It was a little distasteful, but such creatures certainly had their place in nature, and who was she to judge, anyway? Pegasi often ate fish, and sushi was a Neighponese delicacy. Dragons consumed gems and minerals, often aging them for years. They couldn’t help their nutritional needs.

Dale watched in fascination as the alien rolled up her paper around the ink bottle and quill, then gently picked them up with her mouth. It was clear that she had done this before, and he once again admired her dexterity, although she seemed to pause momentarily before she moved anything, as if she were considering the best way to approach the challenge.

She stuck the notes back in her saddlebags and pulled out a cloth sack. Dale watched intently, wondering what the next lesson would be. So far, she had shown a much greater aptitude for dealing with a complete stranger. He was briefly taken aback as she dumped her lunch out on her bag. Assuming that their food was roughly analogous to his own, she appeared to have two sandwiches, carrots, and some small candies, which looked very much like the buckeyes his mother used to make every now and then.

What was of particular interest was that none of the food was wrapped—not even the sandwich—yet it seemed to be holding together. The only two things that came to his mind which would effectively glue a sandwich together were peanut butter and frosting, and one certainly wouldn’t put those on a sandwich . . . which seemed to contain flowers. Actual flowers.

Dale really wanted a closer look at her food. So far, she had drunk directly from Lake Michigan, which seemed like a far more animalistic behavior than he would have expected—hadn’t the aliens invented bottled water yet? On the other hand, given the species difference, it was possible that she knew—by way of scanning, or something—that there was nothing in the water which could hurt her. If that was the case, why bother carrying water at all? There were millions of gallons of it within very easy reach.

When he was a kid—before the fiasco of the Vietnam War—there was a time where he had been an avid reader of war comics and war stories. In those days, in what was an unfortunate tradition leading back to when man first took to the seas, fresh fruits and vegetables were scarce or impossible to come by. Was it possible that these aliens had no better skills and her food was earthly in origin? Or did they have hydroponic gardens aboard their vessel? They could even have food replicators, a device which—like so many other sci-fi staples from his childhood—actually existed. He really wanted to get a closer look, but was worried that it would be misinterpreted. What might she think if he came over and started to nose at her food?

Curiosity won out. After a single bite out of his roast beef sandwich, he walked closer to her. She looked up at him, but did not move away, and quickly returned to her food. For a moment, he considered offering to trade, but put the thought out of his mind almost as soon as it came. He knew full well that there were a surprisingly large number of plants on earth that were toxic to humans, and there was no telling what effect alien food might have on his digestive system.

Lyra was startled when he came over. His moves did not seem aggressive, simply curious. Thus far, he had demonstrated considerable restraint, and she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt: while he might be considering asking her for some food, he was unlikely to steal it from her.

Nevertheless, she thought it might be interesting to see what he would do if she offered him something, so she nosed a carrot off her saddlebags and nodded at him. He seemed to understand the gesture, because he picked it up and examined it critically. It wasn’t that impressive, in her opinion: when they were in season, Golden Harvest dragged carrots twice as big to market by the bushel. This was a early spring carrot, and while it didn’t look as good as the ones that she produced later in the year, in Lyra’s opinion these were much more flavorful. As strange as it seemed, the cooler ground somehow seemed to concentrate the flavor.

Oddly, instead of trying to eat it, or even smell it properly, the creature pulled one of the transparent cloth bags from his pocket, and carefully wrapped the carrot inside. He then put it in his backpack, saving it for later.

At first, she thought that a particularly odd behavior. Upon reflection, it made a lot of sense. He might or might not have had claws on his hind paws—they were still concealed in the odd fetlock corsets he wore—but he certainly didn’t have them on his forelimbs, and his teeth didn’t look particularly useful for catching a creature, either. She had no idea what his metabolism was, although it was a reasonable assumption that he needed to eat a lot of nutritionally dense food, given his size. Since he seemed to not be well-built for hunting, it made sense that he would have to rely on waiting to find a fresh carcass, so it was logical that when he found a source of food which would keep that he would save it for later. At least he was civilized enough to do something artful with his food, rather than pull out a dead animal and start chewing on it.

Author's Note

As always, thanks to my pre-readers!
More stuff in the blog, here!
(and it's actually up concurrently)