A burnished moon hung low in the sky, gleaming in a band of indigo that hung just above the sharp mountain crags to the West. It’s light casts a shimmer of faded silver across the restless sea, and the wind blowing in from the water is cold and damp.
Tendrils of mist ripple and undulate across the murky shore, reaching tentatively Northward between the rocky crags, across rippling fields of pale yellow grass, and finally touching down on a travelers road of heavy black stone. As the night wore on, the mist would advance hungrily onward, and eventually enter the dense forests of dark pine beyond.
The lone traveler walking along the winding road eyed the billowing fog with a kind of wary dread. She knew that after days of travel, of sleeping on cold, damp earth, of strained hard rations, the mist and the wind would cut through her light summers clothing like a carving knife into a ripe pumpkin.
Clothing wasn’t the right word, that would imply she was in some way fully dressed, that she was in some way presentable. She had, at most, a cape. A dainty thing, a star spangled performers attire that could with some optimism could have been said to double as a cloak, but now the smooth velvet was coarse and thready, the once-white stars faded to a dirty grey. Even her mane was starting to lose it’s former, lustrous color. She had attempted to comb and clean it just to keep a modicum of it’s former splendor, but it was stubbornly beginning to clump together in a single, matted tangle. Droplets of precipitation hung like bits of broken glass on the frayed edges of her hair and fabric, and they went flying as she half-shook, half-shivered in the last dying beams of Celestial sun that still managed to pass through the craggy mountain tops.
There was a specific name for that time of the day, but she loathed to voice it, even in the echoes of her minds eye.
That name, of which even the mere thought managed to bring up enough shame to twist her insides into a painful knot, then continued to burn up that knot in wave of seething anger, as embittered by defeat as it was by her impotence.
She quickly hunkered down on the back of her hooves, eager for a distraction, reaching back for the meager bundle of the knapsack which she had managed to salvage from the splintered remains of her home.
(Fire-proof, water-proof, woodworm-proof, said the salespony, but unfortunately, not Ursa-proof.)
The sight of what remained inside made her scowl anyway. She was down to half rations. Half a day, that was, and she didn’t trust her luck enough to expect to find any more supplies along the way.
She straightened again with a considerable effort and looked out over the treeline, searching for a sign that a destination, any destination, might be close by. As her gaze wandered she was surprised to spot a sudden clearing between the copse of darkening forest. She narrowed her gaze, and she not only glanced a fire pit, but also a small stack of ready firewood leaning against a nearby pine, probably left behind by a previous traveler.
This lightened her mood somewhat. She would be sleeping on the bare earth again tonight, but at that moment the days exhaustion seemed to pile up on her, and even the small blessings felt like a sudden miracle.
By the time she reached her shelter she was half walking, half dragging herself along the dew soaked grass, she grasped a trio of the cured logs in a cloud of magic as she passed them by and trailed them, wavering, through he air behind her, finally dropping them down into the pit of ash and charred wood. Next she levitated a small piece of tinder, which she stuffed under the logs, as well as a piece of flint. She began to strike down, too quickly at first, but she caught on soon enough and eventually her methodical strokes scattered a stream of bright red sparks. She bent low to blow gently on the smoldering wood shavings, and within moments a tongue of fire rose from the tinder and licked along the length of the fire pit.
The next items to float bout of the bag were some of the last of her provisions; hard biscuit and some rubbery cheese. She devoured both quickly, still chewing as she reached forward a pale blue hoof expectantly towards the growing warmth. Around her, the trees were now painted with a flickering orange light. She stared as if in trance, and as the hour dragged on, something like a smile began to spread across her face. Her eyes, already heavy, had begun to feel like they were weighted down by iron, her exhaustion now enhanced by the heady warmth of the fire and the food in her belly.
She bent herself down and curved inwards, folding in her hooves, resting her head on the material of the knapsack. Her cape wrapped itself across her shoulders, her tail, grown longer and shoddier, covered most of her lower legs.
The last conscious sight she had was the clearing, and a faint impression of a place wreathed in awning darkness where the trees parted.
Then sleep took her, and nothing mattered anymore.
-----------------------------------------ooooooo//~~~~~~\ooooooo--------------------------------------
She awoke once more with a halting start. For a few moments she could only lie there, blinking owlishly as the details of her surroundings swam into focus.
The fire had died down, reduced to only a few gently smoking embers and motes of ashy chalk. The glowing ambiance that had surrounded her (by what seemed moments before,) had been lessened to a miserable little circle in her sight. The darkness, and the half-visible trees that now seemed to press in from all sides seemed suddenly very unnerving.
Or they would be, if she hadn’t been distracted. She felt the echoes of some kind of agitation, the faint ringing of a feeling that she couldn’t quite place. It had woken her from sleep like a half-formed memory gains a ponies urgency after it has begun to dissipate again, and the mind gives chase for the sake of it’s own absurd curiosity. Her ears twitched, like at the irritations of a fly.
Then it struck her again, and the whole sensation, the feeling, the memory, filled her at once with knowing recognition; it was music.
The music of a flute. A single sound that rang out from the surrounding forest, held fast like the trilling note of birdsong, then died down. It rose again a moment later, slow and ponderous and almost ethereal. A sudden chill crawled up her spine, and it had nothing to do with the breeze, the trees, or the darkness.
The tune played up again, and the unicorn quailed in the grips of terror. She felt a squeal slithering up from her belly and had to bite down on a shaky hoof just to suppress it. She held it for one moment. Two. Then that treacherous feeling passed, and she dared to call out.
‘Wh-- who...’ She stammered, in a voice that was barely a raspy whimper. She gulped, slacking her throat, and spoke again.
‘Who *dares** to disturb such a great and powerful sorceress?!’* The call sounded out into the surrounding gloom, and Trixie winced.
Confident. Way too confident. The fleeting bravado that had possessed her now seemed to whirlpool down like water in a basin.
The music, meanwhile, had stopped dead.
‘I-, I’m warning you!’ Trixie said shrilly, a few shades closer to that first fearful whisper she had started out with. ‘The Great and Powerful Trixie does not take kindly thieves and interlopers!’
Another stretch of that nerve-wracking silence. Trixies eyes flicked to her baggage. In a snap of movement, she grabbed the knapsack in her hooves, not daring to risk the tell-tale glow of a magical spell, and held it tight against her chest, the rest of her body tensed to sprint off at any moment. The silence bloomed out into a deafening void as she began to notice the rythmic pumping of her heart, a floundering bit of pressure that seemed to create an incredible amount of noise, the moment stretched on into an age, and then--
‘I am no thief.’ A voice stated simply, gradually. ‘But if I have trespassed on some domain, I apologize most profusely.’
Trixie blinked, her face blank with surprise. It was the tone. The voice was somehow both soft and well-carried, a confident rolling baritone. The voice of a public speaker, certainly not some desperate vagabond.
But she had still been spooked, and she was in no mood to take chances.
‘If you are honest about your intentions,’ she said, with far more confidence than she felt, ‘then show yourself where I can see you.’
Another pause. Far less scary. Immeasurably more bearable.
‘That sounds most reasonable.’ The voice replied.
There was a subdued thrum of building energy from up ahead, and mote of faint, white light began to glow against the blackness, past the opening she had assumed had led deeper into the forest.
As it turned out, it connected to another clearing. This one grew more wild with shrubs and long-grass, and in it’s center was raised a crude structure of large stone blocks, perhaps meant as a landmark or a token lookout point.
On top of this structure stood a figure, he of the smoky voice and the source of the witch light. And that was not all. The longer she looked, the more of him she saw, the greater her feeling of trepidation increased.
He was thin. He was the image of a pony that sprang to mind if she’d see the word accentuated. Thin. A narrow figure that rose lengthily from the rocks like a plant sprung from a mound of earth. He bent forwards, possibly to squint and see her more clearly, and she could easily imagine that a willow would bend in much the same way if it happened to be caught in a strong crosswind.
‘I am sorry.’ The voice said warmly, ‘But I am unable to see you clearly in all this gloom. Might I have your permission to step closer?’
Trixie tightened her jaw, then seemed to nod, more to reassure herself than to show her agreement. ‘Very well.’ She spoke confidently, her natural personality now firmly in place.
‘But move slowly. I might not be responsible for what happens otherwise.’
The figure did not nod back, but but his silhouette he began to make his way down the structure. She was surprised to see that he favored a two-legged gait, which was uncommon but not strange, and that his movements were both slow and ponderous-- but jerkily quick where he made more confident steps, which reminded her uncomfortably of a roving insect.
It took a few moments for the figure to reach her humble little camp, and she watched him tensely throughout. Eventually, however, he came to a halt at a respectful distance about a stone-throw away. He had lowered the brightness of his guide-light, which she now saw originated from a unicorns horn which in turn poked out from a narrow straw-hat. He was dressed in a red and white pinstriped vest that was straight and immaculate and cinched tight at the middle, further accentuating his skeletal frame.
He was smiling, an action that along with the earnest gleam of his eyes looked surprisingly kind and genuine, considering the sunken, sallow nature of his cheeks, and the slightly unhealthy looking pallor of his coat. It was the same color of the hardy coastal grass she had passed, struggling to survive between the rocky outcrops and saline winds.
‘Am I free to begin the introductions?’ he asked jovially, sliding off his hat with a quick burst of magic as he did so. The head it revealed was as bald as an egg.
Trixie looked at him sidewards, taking on a posture full of haughty indignation. ‘Go right ahead.’ She said testily. ‘You can begin with why you were skulking around my camp.’
His face fell into the look of the bemusedly crestfallen. ‘Madam, I protest!’ He cried back, ‘I was strolling along, not skulking. I simply missed you in the middle of my observation of the Celestial heavens, and my ruminations thereupon.’
Saying this, he raised his arms, indicating a sky that had cooled to a deep hued cloak of blue and black, speckled with stars.
‘And surely you agree, it is a most magnificent spectacle is it not? I find it so much more enchanting than the simple sickly orange glow of a city skyline. That has no real beauty to it, no lasting charm.’
Trixie furrowed her brow. ‘You came all way out here, alone, only for the sake of stargazing?’
The strangers arms fell back to his side. ‘It was not my only purpose,’ He replied briskly. ‘The walk was to stretch my limbs, the location served to clear my lungs and freshen my mind, and while the stars are quite spectacular on their own, on this most-- auspicious of nights, I have only eyes for the orb of our dear Lunar Lady.’
This time Trixie flicked her eyes upwards, and her gaze doubled back and held as she gasped in fear and surprise.
It wasn’t only the sky that had darkened. During her sleep, the moon had had made a metamorphosis. A terrible, unbelievable change. It had lessened in size, but it was the nature of its aspect that drew Trixies attention. The normally familiar gleam of burnished silver had corroded to a deep, dirtier shade of crimson, the color as startlingly bright as running blood, the scarring on the planetoids surface looking like freshly formed clots.
And yet, for all that she might have still seen it as a pretty little kind of curiosity. An elaborate decoration for a unicorn who had spent her entire life on comfortable terms with magic. But there was a catch. A detail that truly shook her to the core and then thoroughly terrified her. She recognized a figure.
‘Can’t...’ She stammered, the word sounding like a full sentence.
‘The moon... nightmare moon-’
‘Has not returned from the realms of the vanquished to menace us once again.’ Interjected the voice, calm and collected. ‘The change is startling to say the least, but-- it is purely superficial. A mask, if you will. A vibrant veneer in the spirit of the season-- in fact, it’s frightful visage is receding even as we speak.’
True enough, even as Trixie watched, the great orb in the sky altered before her eyes; the aspect of blood seemed to literally drain away, pulling back before the familiar gleam of alabaster which gained from a thin outline to an ever swelling crescent, before it once again overtook the entire moon. The image she had seen (or at least, believed to see) disappearing along with it’s previous color, and was wiped away entirely.
‘What did you do?’ She breathed incredulously, her heart suddenly thumping like a jackhammer, her mind reeling at the incredible display.
‘Me? Why, nothing.’ The thin pony informed casually, his voice catching speed. ‘I simply chose to be at the right place at the right time, same as any wanderer.’ He looked at her with something that seemed to be appraisal.
‘My good madam, you have just been lucky enough to witness the most extravagant of theatrics; the Lunar Lady had donned her deathly mask, and presented herself as a far more sinister entity... that, of the Bloody Red Lady,’ he chuckled, then went on, ‘with her vesture dabbled in blood, and her broad brow, with all the features of the face, besprinkled with the scarlet horror!’
This last, he exclaimed the the lustful gusto of a stage announcer, presenting with all his ham-hoofed abilities to a single audience member. He seemed to be on the verge of laughter.
‘Have you gone out of your mind?!’ Trixie cried breathlessly, ‘That’s not natural! We have to warn the royal guards, we haf- we have to warn Celestia!’
‘They won’t be too overly worried, I’m sure.’ He replied breezily, back to that deliberate tone. ‘That was simply a small disturbance in the grand scheme of things. Nothing more than a remnant of a being that was very powerful, very temperamental, and cooped up for a very long time. All thing’s considered, it’s fortunate that the effects weren’t more permanent.’
‘That “small disturbance” likely scared the horsefeathers out of half the population of Equestria!’
‘Truly now? He said, still in a voice that was so maddeningly calm. ‘I believe most ponies will have been long asleep, preparing for the festivities of the night at hoof... And even what if they did? How many would truly believe what they saw, would even be believed? Every year this phenomenon shows itself, and every year all that comes of it are a few scares and a a few more shouts that the sky is going to plunge onto our heads.
Trixie seemed seemed to calm down by a measure, her breath slowing, her mind steadying now that the situation was returning to normal. There was no impossibility for it to deal with, to deal, now paralyzing fear, only this eccentrically dressed loon.
Eyes narrowed with suspicion. ‘I’ve never heard of anything like this happening in my entire life. No-pony has decided to record something like this? Not the papers, not the stargazers... not even the princess of the moon?’
There was not a small measure of accusation in her voice. The Slim pony merely shrugged.
‘I imagine a thousand years of imprisonment would leave a sore subject by anyponies measure, don’t you?’
She slightly, indignantly, at the coy in his voice.
‘And her majesties,’ he continued, ‘as kind as they are, do not suffer discomfort lightly.’
‘Funny.’ She almost snapped back. ‘It seems the rest of us take it just as well. Stop playing games, sir, and tell me who you are.’ She glanced away and upwards for a moment, as if to check that the moon hadn’t made another change. ‘And why is the moon turning turning... red’
At this, the thin pony perked up. ‘Ah yes! The introductions-’ He smiled sheepishly. ‘I have a mind that far prefers theatrics to the details of memory, I’m afraid.’
Trixie waved an impatient hoof. ‘Never mind that.’
‘Yes, well...’ He coughed quickly into his hoof, then swept it out and back inwards into a hasty bow. ‘The name is Jim. Slim Pony Jim, as I’m known to my audience and acquaintances, but Slim will do just fine.’
Trixie’s eyes widened. ‘Audience? Then you are-’
‘In view, nothing more than a humble, vaudevillian, veteran.’ Now, straightening to regard her. ‘As I mentioned, I have a mind for theatrics. On some irrational, capricious whim I simply decided that the quiet solitude of a deep, dark place would make the ideal stage for a circumstance so-
‘Terrifying?’
‘I was going to say extraordinary. But very well, I’ve been prattling on long enough about myself. Can I, in turn, have the pleasure to know who I am addressing?’
‘My name is... She halted. ‘Trixie.’ She said. It felt... strange. Uttering the name without it’s usual title. She was still wary of her reputation, wary that that even this eccentric pony, so far out in nowhere, could have gotten wind of her situation.
To her great relief, there was little change in his demeanor, his face did not twist into anger or a derisive laugh, but remained at that same, easygoing smile.
‘Well miss Trixie, I must say its been a fine thing meeting you, a fine thing!’ His hoof went up in a dramatic little looping motion, ‘I am, however, an impresario of sorts, and as such have arrangements. Fish to fry, ducks in a row, calls to Neighcastle, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...’
His hoof reappeared, and now there was something in it’s hold
‘And now it seems my time is up.’
She managed to steal a nice long look at the object, and it was magnificent. The casing looked like a high karat of machine turned gold, with a frosted texture that reminded Trixie of a fine dessert. The emblem on it’s cover made up the enameled masks of comedy and tragedy.
‘Quite a thing, isn’t it?’ He murmured, a tone soft, almost reverent. ‘Unicorn-made, every part. They put it together under a focus-lens, and the jewels they use...’ He turned the watch back and forth so it’s innards sparkled.
‘... make even the hands chime.’
Abruptly, he snatched it up back into his breast , and gave her a plaintive, almost embarrassed kind of look.
‘Which reminds me, I really must be going... It’s a borrowed item, such a special borrowed item, and the fellow I burrowed it from is none too keen on thieves! Well, not to say that I stole it, not to say that at all...’
He had already stiffened, turned, and made off in a hasty, sudden kind of way so that Trixie was left four steps behind before she could even start after him, his voice faltering, then raising again,
... ‘But he’s a good friend! And good friends have a good sense of punctuality! A watch on time saves nine... or something, something of the sort.
‘Hold on! Trixie called after him. ‘Wait a second.’
He did. Barely. His head did a kind of quarter turn in mid-stride, the rest of him still straining to carry onward, a kind of frozen frenetic energy. but he did hold.
‘It’s quick, The Great and-’ She paused, swallowed, ‘I promise.’
A short silence. Wind whispering as it tussled high grass. A cricket chirping.
Finally, ‘I need a job.’
Slims reaction was immediate. ‘Great, grand, that’s-- that’s excellent! But we have to keep walking.’
Slim takes off, Trixie more or less scuttling to catch up.
‘Hurry on now, catch pace! Or, like the great jackalope, we’ll be late, very late, for a quite important date.’
-----------------------------------------ooooooo//~~~~~~\ooooooo--------------------------------------
They emerged out of the forested clearing, back onto the smooth, black rock of the travelers path. The thin
(slim)
pony took lead of the pair, now striding ahead on a more normal, but still loping gait. He gave no comment when Trixie fell in beside him, struggling, somehow, to keep up even when they were both on all fours.
She should have felt exasperated at how casually he outpaced her, and yet, she did not. She felt, instead, once again that strange sense of distraction, the way the sound of the flute had let her forget her fear, at least momentarily.
There was a strangeness about him, she thought. Perhaps it was his suit, the way it seemed to shine just a little too glossily when he caught the silvered beams of moonlight. Maybe it was the mannerism of his walk, his look, all at once clumsy and just that little bit off, but altogether carrying a calculated synergy. If he was, as he claimed, a performer, it seemed he needed to get back in the wing of more ordinary company.
The walk dragged on, minutes bleeding into hours, the moon crawling across the heavens as they made their long way onwards. Trixie expected the days weariness to catch up to her, but it seemed the strange medicine had done far more than invigorate. The muscles in her back and lower legs, parts of her that had felt so sore and strained they might as well have been knotted around her bones, seemed to have filled with a numbed sensation of warmth bare minutes after she’d swallowed the purple pill. The miles of dirt and rock and stubborn grass that already fell behind them seemed to have no more effect than a pleasant massage at the spa.
At last, they came across a three road crossing. Slim Jim reached into the fold of his coat and once again took out that strange instrumentality, his breath pluming evenly in the chilly air as he attempted to take some kind of reading.
Trixie waited, listlessly pawing at the ground. Although the medicine had eased the journey considerably, it did not take her long to decide that they were going nowhere fast. She had seen no change on the scenery, and it seemed to her that they were passing the same roots, the same darkened trees, the same bends int the road. Meanwhile, the moon had slinked it’s way over to the other end of the horizon. A night, a whole entire night had they walked!
She was about to call out to him, perhaps to admonish that she had little patience to be lolly-gagged in a loop around Equestria. Then his arm shot upwards, and she almost jumped back instead.
‘The route is changing.’ He declared. There was another pause as he leant his head forwards, his eyes following the instrumentality as the breeze carried it to and fro with gentle fingers.
‘We must go this way.’ He said, once again hiding the ornate watch-piece.
With that, he stepped neatly off the road, and within two strides and a single moment disappeared soundlessly into the tall grass.
Trixie, who had still not gotten a word in, wasted a few precious moments of being absolutely flabbergasted. Then her mind had the chance to catch on, and with a sudden lurch she bolted onto the greenery after him.
She hit the tall grass at full gallop, her hooves at once slowing to a more careful pace as they tested the uneven ground. The grass was everywhere, obscuring her sight, whipping past her sides and the front of her face and lancing her with tiny pinpricks of ice where the cold beads of moisture touched her skin. There was not a single sign of the slim pony.
Then the greenery ended, and she burst out onto barren ground , grey and sordid. Ahead of her began a leaning slope of loose grit that grew into pebbles, then to large boulders-- a crude entry ramp into a yawning crevasse flanked by towering set of hills, great mounds of impassable darkness that barred all entry to either side. As soon as she caught sight of these, she pulled pulled back, sharply and immediately, her hooves digging grooves into the loose earth and bringing up small clouds of dust and gravel.
The slim pony was waiting some distance away. He was perched casually against the rotting remains of a jagged tree stump, looking like he’d been waiting there for hours. He looked up at her, and smiled that merry, big toothed smile, though now the glint of his eyes was shadowed by the brim of his hat.
‘Just a little further now.’ He informed her. ‘A small climb over yonder, and we’ll have reached our destination. I imagine he is already waiting for us.’
‘He?’ Trixie asked quickly, trying to hide the shallow gasps of her breath.
‘The conductor.’ Slim answered, and turned without another word, his languid stride seeming to carry him uphill without the barest hint if effort.
Trixie sagged a little, exasperated at such a small respite, but nevertheless followed quickly in the others wake, her pride and sense of self regard kept her back straight and her own stride even, despite the sore travel pains that were returning with doubled vengeance. She dearly wished she’d had time to ask for another of those wondrous pills.
The next leg of the journey felt far longer to Trixie than the distance they had covered back on the road, though that had been several hours compared to what could have been no more than twice a dozen minutes. Her breath seemed to burn and expire in her lungs, no matter how hard she panted. A feeling of drawn out exhaustion seemed to slowly creep into her core and limbs, straining her muscles, turning every movement in an agonized effort of acidic pain. Several times she threatened to simply drop down onto the scattered rocks, releasing control of her body like a puppet cut loose from it’s strings.
But every time, she caught sight of the thin pony walking off ahead. He was making his way so easily, so confidently. What would he think, what would he say, if he saw her sprawled out in an ungainly heap? Would he smile that meaningless, maddening smile, mocking Would he indulge in her in some kind of lecture? A speech about willpower, perhaps?
The thought, even as it entered her mind, filled her with determination, a feeling that was pitch black and bile bitter and far stronger than the physical pain in her limbs.
‘Never again.’ She hissed under her breath, even as she planted her hoof forwards like a hateful blow.
‘Not on my life. Never again.’
-----------------------------------------ooooooo//~~~~~~\ooooooo--------------------------------------
At long last the side-ward hills fell away; their ascent ended, cresting a rocky ridge and plateauing on a flat, featureless plain. Trixie almost fell over the craggy lip, beads of sweat running from her face, her hooves shaking and threatening to simply collapse from under her even as she tried to strangle her bodies desperate gasps for air.
The slim pony was barely a few steps ahead of her. He had once again halted to check his pendulum, which this time remained completely motionless-- the wind had stopped dead as soon as they’d entered the protection of the surrounding hills, and the rising bulk of the mountain that still went on ahead of them.
His head straightened again, and he shut the gilded cover with a click and chime of delicate metal and a kind of satisfied finality.
‘Ching-Chime, right on time, as they say in the place next door.’
She wondered, briefly, if he meant her or their mode of transportation.
Speaking of which...
‘You never mentioned exactly what was going to pick us up.’
‘Why, a train of course.’ The slim pony replied, turning the lamp of his face towards her, bright and merry. ‘No traveling circus could truly be called so without a circus train.
Trixie took this in with her same painted on smile. She imagined the kind of lodgings his type of pony might be able to make free. Perhaps on old straggler kart, filled with suitcases and boxed animals and caked with the kind of grime of which the smell could only be removed after a week long use of citronella. She imagined, in her minds eye, a portly redcap allowing her into an ornate passenger cabin, and turning away the scruffy, scrawny companion. The idea touched her with real smile, brief and mischievous.
They continued their walk for a few minutes more. Now the air around them seemed thicker. Banks of rolling fog began to appear at their hooves, exposing some patches of ground while smothering others, like the design on a sleeping blanket if it were to shift endlessly. What she did see of the ground was once again becoming uneven, the way ahead littered with the silhouettes of rocks and jagged carries. She was beginning to worry about even taking another step, and it was with some sense of relief when when the slim pony halted both their progress for a third time.
‘Here we are.’ He declared, ‘We should see it pull in any second now.’
Trixie glanced at him strangely, then spread her gaze out over what she could glimpse of the ground.
‘There are no tracks.’ She said bemusedly, at the same time as she noticed the fact.
‘Well spotted.’ He said sincerely. ‘This particular machine requires no tracks.’ this last, with the solemn surety of stating a common known fact. ‘Only certain conditions to help attune it’s course.’
Trixie all at once felt a sudden chill. It was not quite fear, not yet, but the premonition of it, like the stomach lifting sense of vertigo at the start of a fall. Her gaze passed along the ground one more time, more slowly, disbelieving.
A shriek began to bubble up in her throat. The silhouettes she had noticed earlier had not been rocks.
This was a place of the skull, and countless skulls were there to greet them. She saw the sleek nosed ends of rabbit, fox, and deer. There, the alabaster xylophone of a cockatrice, large bands of white ending in delicate little chicken bones, the head perhaps ripped off for sport by a stray dog. A little further, the remains of some kind of primate lying belly-down, the scalp and upper teeth tipped backwards, the jawbone resting crookedly on the ground and creating an impression of everlasting, maniacal laughter.
Then there was the slim pony. He seemed suddenly very close, very tall, as dark and looming as any creature that had threatened her in her lifetime, and all the more terrible for his deathly silence. Trixie felt like her limbs had been bolted to into the earth. Her muscles, and not just her legs, felt paralyzed, too weakened to even shiver. The growing pressure in her chest only left her as barely tapering sigh, a shaking whimper of terror. It seemed the slim pony had not heard her, or he had chosen to ignore her, for he spoke again;
‘It’s in the bones, you see.’ He said, still in that chummy you-and-me are all who see tone of his. ‘There’s a certain special essence that stays behind in a place like this, a remnant of a simple creatures last sentient act, to choose to face the last moments in this world alone.’
There was a long pause, his expression unreadable in the brim shadow of his hat. He still had not turned to regard her.
‘Incidentally, I must apologize for having deceived you.’
Another silence. Trixie had to struggle to remember how she used to speak out words.
‘Duh-- deceive m-me?’ she stammered, her mind already racing, eagerly playing out each and every possibility it could conjure for her predicament, each one more of a vivid horror than the next.
‘Yes.’ He answered simply. ‘The distance was a good deal longer than I had previously surmised-- my guesses have the unfortunate tendency to be glaringly optimistic.’
Now he did turn to her, and his face was one of boyish contentment. Her earlier anxiety drained out just as quickly as it had before, leaving her feeling silly and sheepish. This was that absurd, smiling face that she had seen, forgotten, and remembered again? The one which promised no more malice than the makings of snips and snails and dog’s puppies tails?
Trixie, as ridiculous as she felt already, began to experience something even stranger; she began to smile. A real, warm smile.
‘That’s quite all-right, you know.’ She heard herself saying. ‘It pays to be optimistic in out line of work after all. Helps us be a little larger than life.’
‘An optimist is seen as the ponification of spring.’ He replied slowly, his tone serious. ‘To not see the light, or the dark of the sky-faring clouds, but to walk upon them.’
The silence that follows is not awkward. The pair of strangers stand contented in the growing fog.
After a little while he speaks again; ‘You strike me, madam,’ he began, ‘as a pony who seems to stay quite down to earth.’
Trixie feels that absurd feeling rising again, bubbling up as a flighty giggle.
‘You’ d be wrong about that, to put it lightly.’ She nickers. ‘I’m the kind of pony who let’s herself get inflated a little too easily. And I’ve been put down for it. Put down quite rudely, it’s no exaggeration to say.’
She stopped smiling. She had never felt this strange before, so conflicted at nothing. She considered that earlier sight of the changed moon. She considered the slim pony, and his suit that shined too glossily and his eyes that never seemed quite alive. She considered what she could possibly have been thinking before she followed him, and found she could not quite recall. She considered the strange passing of time, how it had seemed to change from a swift flow of water to a more recent sluggish crawl, like treacle. She considered her slow descent into sleep, before...
‘I’m dreaming, aren’t I?’ She murmured softly. She could barely hear it herself, and the loud confidence when she was answered almost made her jump.
‘Dreams, illusions, vivid fantasies, all are simply subjective to the measure of will we allow them. It doesn’t matter what they are, I say they should be enjoyed, before they collide with a small measure of reality and are simply dashed to pieces.’
‘Unless they get out of control.’ Trixie replied calmly.
Slim Jim inclined his head. ‘Well then, just be sure to notify me if I start to resemble a gigantic tap dancing pink elephant, won’t you?’
She didn’t reply. There was no way she could have replied, even if she’d wanted to. She was struck between the urge to laugh and to scream, both uncontrollably, both quite madly. Anything for a payment on her reality check.
Then the wisps of fog parted before them, and she gaped open-mouthed instead.
‘Ah.’ Jim remarked casually. ‘It seems our conveyance has arrived.’
-----------------------------------------ooooooo//~~~~~~\ooooooo--------------------------------------
The machine in front of her was not merely a train. The only word that did it any kind justice was locomotive, and even that could never catch the strangeness of it, the making of an epoch, a true deus ex machina.
What she first distinguished was it’s size, a great golden shape that materialized, hulking through the gloom, dominated by the facade of it’s cowcather-- a front of metal as steep and cruel as a predators beak, but as thick and imposing as any engine of war. This coverage skirted out to the machines sides, only exposing ornate under-wheels that must have been the size of factory presses.
A conical drivers pit rose from the back of the cowcatcher, slim window panes of purest, tinted jet. They were framed inside gleaming silver, flanked on two sides by beacons which projected a cone of radiant sunlight that seems to drive the mist before it.
Behind this, unprotected by the shell of brass armor followed a sleek silver body, an intricate lattice-work of heater tubes that in turn bled into a chimeric breeding of coils and bands, of grooves and furrows, of archaic figures that for all the world looked like the decorations of some alien place of worship, and at some points even that fell away to reveal bundles of black fibres that gleamed and glistened too wetly to be ordinary wiring.
She saw no chimney stack, but there was a deafening hiss of escaping steam as hidden regulator valves and relief pipes discharged, once again wreathing both the great machine and it’s two observers in a nebulous mantle that was far thicker than the natural mist. It felt like a great wight coming out at them, and it was more a sense of pressure, of air forcing itself into a limited space, expanding the invisible walls of a sphere. It felt like something alive.
Lastly she notices the structures rising from the machines back; a gigantic L shape of twin metallic calipers, like the resting legs of the worlds most monstrous cricket. They too gleam, once again with a lustrous sheen of silver, though she idly wonders of it isn’t the blinding contrast of the beacon-lights that are making her see that.
‘Quite a sight, isn’t it?’ Said Slim.
Trixie blinked, her lashes fluttering a half-dozen times in quick succession. It was no use, the apparition was still as solid in her sight as ever.
‘You can’t seriously call that a train.’ She said, her voice a flat monotone. ‘There’s just no way you can. It’s like calling pest control to handle an Ursa Major.’
If Slim noticed anything in the way she spoke, he didn’t care to voice it. He simply shrugged.
‘A train is a train, call it what you wish.’ A slight pause.
‘By the way, you might want to rethink that metaphor.’
Trixie’s expression remained neutral. ‘So sue me.’ She deadpanned. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t really gotten the hang of going coo-coo.’
Now the slim pony turned to regard her. ‘Oh dear.’ He remarked casually. ‘I’m sorry if you feel that way, I really am. I though you were more or less prepared for this kind of thing.’
‘It’s a train that appeared out of the feathering mist.’ She said, in a voice that was one the verge of trembling, and steadily getting loud.
‘It doesn’t use tracks, but apparently gets drawn to bone graveyards like a fish to a shiny trinket. It doesn’t make a sound coming in, not one. Single. Peep, but it does hiss like the mother of all angry snakes-
(and it breathes it actually breathes)
-On top of that, it looks like it was built in recreation time by the whole feathering population of the nine rings of Tartarus!’
He stood there, completely still. Trixie suddenly realized that she had walked almost right up to the stallion. There was a sudden urge, rushing and mad. She jabbed him, her hoof bumping quickly off his chest with nothing more than the soft rustle of fabric. She shied away quickly, feeling, of all things, the heated rise of an embarrassed blush.
‘Yes well-- it’s a very unusual train.’ He said at length, as if that explained everything. ‘I did think you realized we were an extraordinary circus, filled with individuals of with extraordinary means.’ He came forward, and now she saw, for the first time, that he looked earnest. The amplifying features of his face made it look almost grim.
‘Perhaps I had omitted just how extraordinary--’
‘No! She exclaimed with exaggerated flair. ‘Really?’
‘Nevertheless.’ He continued, despite her interruption, ‘I would still like to impress upon you that everything you’ve seen is real. I know it’s a lot to take in... Perhaps too much to completely process as reality, but, in the end, isn’t that what performers do? You and I, we enlighten our audience, we extend their suspension of disbelief.’
Trixie had affected a look of half-lidden fatigue. ‘I’m afraid I’ve missed your point.
To her surprise, he extended his hoof in the way of a shake.
‘I only ask that you tolerate all this for a few short moments longer. I’m not asking you to believe, you can take it all in as nothing more than the facade of a fevered dream if you wish, but go along with it. Act as an audience with the slightest interest in being entertained.’
‘And why, pray tell, should I agree to go along with any of this? What if I decide to bring in a small measure of reality, as you said, and let all of this just go away?’
‘Because, while you are not, I’m quite convinced of my own stake in corporeal reality, thank you very much.’ He replied blandly-- he had not yet lowered his hoof. ‘I am not a gambling stallion, I do not roll with dice or guess at cards, nor do I believe in coincidence, and so it is unequivocally clear to me that we are not just another pair of perfect strangers on another long road.’
Trixie stared at him, open mouthed. ‘Mister Jim, are you offering--’
‘--Hello, Hello? Is this thing on? Testing...check one...check two....Alright!’
She winced at the voice, the sound was both grainy and had the atonal, reverberating twang that made her want put a hoof to her ear. It came of course from the train itself, though the was pretty by her experience already for that to surprise her.
‘Well you winced at that, so it seems all in order. Anyways, Jim! I hate to break up your smooth talk, old fella, but we have schedule to keep to. Tell the girl she can hop on board, or she can stay and play teacups with the skellington family, her call. Either way, if we wanna go, we gotta go now.'
Jim sighed. ‘I suppose we better be going then. He said as he began to lead on. ‘The final call is loud and obnoxiously clear.’
The two figures approached the train. As soon as they got close, a curved section of it’s golden hull slid up. Beyond it was t=hick, startling red carpeting. Slim Jim stepped smoothly to the side, indicating a ornate support-pad that extended from the trains lower body.
‘After you.’ He curtsied.
Trixie reached up a tentative hoof, and tested the platform. It repressed slightly at her weight, even more when she leaned in her whole body, but as soon as she touched off the ground it retracted and whisked her almost effortlessly to the level of the opening. With a last, weary side-glance at the machines head (for it did look uncomfortably close to a head-- one with sleek and slanted eyes, like a preying animal that feigns at sleep), she stepped onto the threshold.
‘Welcome, fillies and gentlecolts, welcome aboard the Big, Brass, Bessy, ’ sounded the mysterious voice she had heard earlier, now overhead. It had decided to affect the smooth tone of a PA announcer, or as close to that as the rough, masculine voice could formulate itself.
‘Passengers aboard this ve-hi-cle are under the unspoken agreement that they will not, within any circumstance; litter, vandalize, stain, spill, or otherwise attempt to spoil the current or future ridin’ experience of their fellow travelers. There are no exceptions to this rule, and I will have you know I have no scruples dropping you off any where and any when, soon as it suits me.’
There was a brief pause after this last utterance, like the speaker wanted to let it sink in.
‘In case you were wondering, this friendly reminder was brought to you by your host and conductor. Next stop, the mid-moon fair! Fun and fantasy for the whole family! Or so I hear, anyway- you’ll just have to take their word for it on that one.’
Behind them, the curved section of the hull now slid back into place with a soft thud. Air began to hiss from hidden vents, and Trixie felt her ears pop gently.
‘Did he just pressurize the cabin?’ She asked out loud.
‘So I did indeed.’ Answered the voice.
Trixie actually jumped. She had been expecting an answer from the slim pony, not the electronic voice, and the knowledge that he could at least hear them-- probably see them as well-- did not help her feel any more at ease.
‘Don’t you look so worried now, little lady; I ain’t no rubbernecker. Soon as we get this baby going, my eyes will be far too busy for oogling.
The voice paused.
‘Just one question though, for curiosities sake; if I say, mentioned you had a beautiful body, would you feel flattered, or offended on behalf of your head?’ Trixies mouth fell open.
‘Anyhow!’ He exclaimed, cutting off any response she might have managed. ‘Fillies and Gentlecolts, guys and gals, we-are-off! Enjoy your ride.’
There was a brief stutter of electronics - BOOP! - and the voice cut out entirely.
Slim caught her stunned expression and let out a hearty chuckle. ‘Every time.’ He mumbled. ‘Every time he sees a new face, he feels compelled to go through that little act. I’m convinced he would do a wonderful job as a master of ceremonies, but he’s always refused.’
‘He certainly seems... colorful.’ Trixie agreed. She said it rather dreamily, most of her attention directed to the splendid sight in front of her.
They were standing in a long, tubular room, what must have been near a hundred metres from end to end, furnished not with row upon row of passenger seats but ornate swivel chairs and modeled sofas and chest-high coffee tables that gleamed like chrome. At the far end of the compartment, over stretches of bright red carpeting, there was a pedestal of polished oak-wood; resting on this were instruments she barely recognized-- a set of bright steel drums, and two kinds of electric guitar, one red and one black, both heavily modified judging by the sleekness of their shape and the many strips and control knobs on it’s body.
Next to these were seated three figures whom Trixie presumed were the owners. A wiry pegasus with his back to her, showing only his folded wings; a coal-coated unicorn with a thin stripe of a beard on his weathered features, and last but not least, the imposing frame of a diamond dog, about six or seven meters of matted fur and corded muscle, topped off by a trio spikes of stark green that protruded from the top of his head like a crown of grass. All three were drinking from large mugs of some steaming, mysterious liquid. At the sight of Jim, only the unicorn raised his mug as a kind of curt greeting, then went back to conversing with his fellows.
Her gaze then wondered on, briefly onto the oak paneled walls. They too were lovely, decorated with paintings of grand vistas from far off places and beautiful cities, not all of which were traversed with figures Trixie could recognize as ponies. There were no windows, but that did not detract much from it’s overall beauty, only giving the impression that they were perhaps standing in a cozy bistro, or a music club in uptown Manehattan. Finally, her gaze was pulled to the centerpiece of the room, pièce de résistance; a resplendent chandelier, hanging high above on the ceiling, each peace of crystal sparkling like a perfect diamond.
Then, finally, there was some sign of locomotion. The thrum from outside began to build up at an increasing rate. A faint thud ran through the floor, but nothing else. Something like alarm passed over Trixie’s face.
‘That’s it?’ She asked incredulously. ‘Were moving? Just like that?’
‘As you were so attentive to point out, it’s a very quiet train.’
Trixie could only try to hide her blush at the memory of the scene she’d made outside. She was at that moment thankful that he had convinced her to join him, into this machine that seemed to be equal parts beauty and utter madness, but at the same time still weary of the strangers possible contempt.
He looked past her, however, and his face visibly brightened. ‘Ah, hello to you too.’
Trixie turned, and was was suddenly met with a figure she was sure had not been standing there a minute before. It was a pony, normal looking enough, but her expression was hidden behind the emotionless visage of a smooth silver mask, the eyes showing, by design or by magic, as nothing more than narrow slits of darkness, framed inside a pattern of laurels that was engraved on the metal surface.
‘H-hello?’ Trixie asked nervously.
The figure did not respond with words, but it did acknowledge her with by a respectful nod of the head. Her hoof raised to her side in the form of a gesture, indicating one of the gleaming coffee tables off to their side.
Slim walked towards it without further ceremony. Trixie hesitated for a single moment, then made to follow him. They sat down at opposite ends, the slim pony perching himself lightly on one of the swivel chairs, while she found herself with a well stuffed-couch. She briefly tested the material with her hoof-- the feeling was incredibly soft, and made her want to bed down and sleep for at least an age.
She heard Slim say something, but when she spared him a glance she could see it was not directed at her.
‘Only a small bite, my dear. Just a quick pick me up will do.’ He said. Trixie noticed, in a jaded way that was quickly becoming a matter of course, that the attendant had reappeared at the head of their table without so much as a single sound.
Now Slim turned his head towards her. ‘And as for my guest...?’
Trixie paused. She suddenly deduced that she was expected to make an order. An idea slipped to mind, briefly halted by the nature of it’s absurdity. Then she let the words out anyway, with the mental impression of a half-caring shrug. Today, nothing seemed to absurd to consider.
‘I’d like to try your finest pine-cones, if you please.’ She declared, with the air and confidence of a high-born aristocrat. ‘Well cleaned, but not too well done. I like mine while they’re still crispy.’
The attendant gave another one of those unreadable nods as an affirmative, and moved off towards the far end of the train.
Trixie sat down, and it was every bit as comfortable as her hoof told her it would be. She was only half-aware that, in a kind of self conscious gesture, she was trying to keep her dirty cape from falling on the material of the couch.
‘An unusual choice of meal, if I may say so.’ the slim pony remarked.
She shrugged. ‘It’s surprisingly rare to find a place that has it on the menu. Somehow, I didn’t think that would be the case here.’
Slim nodded. ‘Was that a subtle way of conveying that you understand, or at least, accept that what we are capable of is not entirely orthodox?’
‘I suppose... I suppose it is.’
He nodded again, then went on. ‘This train is only the most extreme example, a true wonder of both technological achievement and what the carnival could come to represent. I’m still a little amazed at the fortune we had, discovering it so soon after the we launched our endeavor -ah- of course I have told you before-’
‘You don’t play with dice, and you do not believe in coincidence.’ Trixie finished for him.
‘Quite right. Well, as I was saying the train is a very extreme example, but I like to think that the secret of the carnival lies in it’s ability to spruce up ordinary details--’ He moved his hooves in a kind of flourish to drive the point home, ‘a little something we add to help turn even the mediocre and the mundane into a memorable experience. And then, what is already extraordinary, we enhance, intensify. Something cannot shine unless it first glows, after all.’
He now looked at her with a sudden earnestly; ‘All that we lack, is to create that first glow ourselves.’
There was a full blown pause. Neither of them spoke, but Trixie felt something like anticipation pull at her heart.
Then there was a sudden trill of a dinner bell, and her sight abruptly filled with her own reflection, lessened on a gleaming view of silver. Then the bubble was lifted, and she found herself staring at a triplet of pine-cones, glazed a golden brown and giving off the appetizing aroma of savory spices.
The slim pony meanwhile, was already tucking into a plate of several Hors d'oeuvres, the narrow outline of his jaw working methodically as he popped in the bite sized foodstuffs one after the other.
It took a little while before his eyes flicked up and noticed her stare. He finished chewing and swallowed once, a raised hoof touching a napkin to his mouth.
‘You seem to have a question burning on your mind.’ He observed.
‘You seem to be asking one yourself.’ Trixie said, her expression uncertain.
She hooked off, prompting Slim to raise his eye brows in a manner that said ‘go on.’
‘Is this...’ She indicated her surroundings, ‘Is all this some absurdly convoluted way of offering a position in your... what did you call it...’
‘The black carnival.’ He said. ‘And it’s not “mine” in any sense of the word. I’m just a member.’
‘I don’t believe for a second that just any member has enough pull to call a magic train for a midnight pick-up.’
He sighed, and dropped his fork next what remained of his food.
‘A member’ He insisted. ‘Somepony who can pull some strings at the place where he works is nothing out of the ordinary.’
‘I’m sure it’s not.’ A pause. ‘You still didn’t answer my question.’
‘Well, that would depend. If you want to join us.’
‘Of course I do.’
Slim merely shook his head, ‘No you don’t. Not yet. Not really.’
Saying this, he gave her one of those careless smiles. She thought he would say more, but instead saw him simply stand up, and waltz over to the other side of the cabin, seemingly to admire a a painting that was, apparently, far more interesting than the conversation he had just broken.
She felt the first few moments of surprise, steadily moving on to indignant anger, but the the Slim Pony turned again, motioning for her to join him.
She wavered, still. Part of her felt that she should maybe stay where she were, simply to give her wayward host a taste of his peculiar ways of interaction. Then there was the more rational part of her mind, the part that could think long term, when it was needed; here was a character that was eccentric, yes, but obviously of some grand means, a means that could hand her a job on the short term, and on the horizon, a possible springboard back into showbizz-- a slight twist to her costume, a touch of makeup to her complexion, a change of name-- and, presto! She was back, reborn, a proverbial rise from the ashes.
All this played through her mind in a mere moments time, from the few steps towards the Slim Ponies side, for she was nothing of not deviously quick and efficient at constructing it’s own ambitions. Her food and her appetite had been completely forgotten, the plate not even spared a second glance as she pushed it away from her over the table.
As she walked forwards, her gaze was pulled towards the painting on the wall, and it managed to catch her attention, if only for a brief while.
It was truly dazzling, resplendent in it’s detail. Greenery seemed to foam and froth over walls and pergolas, spread like tides beneath trees, the flowers stretching out like islands of colored light. And yet, in all of it, Trixie was unable to make out a single individual plant.
‘This one is a real one-shot.’ Said Slim. ‘A collaboration between a sheltered professor from Trottingham and an aristocrat in the highlands of Prance. Both suffered from a condition that led to the particular style you see before you, which is either fortune or irony of the highest caliber, depending on your appreciations. The only way anypony else would have been able to perceive this scene would be by squinting.’
‘However,’ he said, raising his hoof in the precise manner that could only indicate a signal, ‘I believe I have a sight you will find far grander.’
What happened then was so spectacular that it stunned Trixie into silence throughout; notably, unlike the sight of the train, though she had spent a large part of her life on comfortable terms with magic and showmanship.
The walls of the cabin and it’s magnificent painting disappeared. It wasn’t just a case of a window appearing in the walls; the entire cabin, floor, ceiling and walls, disappeared, growing translucent, moving on to transparent, then dissolving completely.
Trixie might have yelped, but of course, she was stunned into silence. She watched in stupefied amazement as the ground below her rushed by; a flat plateau of rugged black rock that seemed to be carved into the mountain itself. She glanced around, her initial alarm being replaced by amazed delight.
The furniture groupings were still there, but now-- on their section of the cabin at least-- they seemed to be suspended by nothing, cruising along at breakneck speed seemingly by their own momentum. Only further along the cabin was the illusion broken; the walls seemed to fade back into consistency, and the nothingness vice-versa. The trio of guests she had spotted when she first entered seemed undisturbed, going on with their palaver like this was nothing more than an everyday sight.
She was so distracted by the display of what had happened around her that she missed what she was meant to see in the first place, and when she once again turned her head forwards she was enraptured by that delightful surprise all over again; what she saw, nestled cozily in the shallow darkness of a valley bowl, was what looked like a township, a collection of pointed silhouettes, and the skeletal frames of basic superstructures that raised themselves to the night sky, interspersed by a great number of tiny lights; cookfires and giant lanterns and other pin-pricks of luminance that stood defiant against the encroaching darkness.
Some of which she noticed growing steadily brighter.
‘Oh dear.’ Slim remarked, and Trixie started; for the first time, she’d heard something that sounded like worry in that tone.
‘What’s wrong?’ She asked, anxiety creeping into her own voice.
Slim had once again procured his timepiece, and was looking at it with no small measure of consternation. ‘Were late.’ He said simply, and without much as a second glance or an ‘excuse me,’ he made off again.
Trixie stared after him, open mouthed. Then she regained her posture, and immediately charged after the evasive stallion; fuming, indignant, completely enraged at being brushed off so easily.
‘Now hold on just one second-’she began, and no doubt intended to finish with a shaming imprecation-
But the Slim Pony had already closed the distance towards the other end of the cabin, past the chandelier and it’s glistening beauty, past the silent artworks, past the table with the three musicians and the instruments on their wooden pedestal and onto an imposing, rounded door that looked had the same polished sheen of the brass armor of the trains exterior. Even while he was only a short pace away, the wheel set in the obstructions middle began to turn, and the door began to swivel open without so much as a hitch. He stepped through, disappearing into the gloom beyond, and the door swung back shut with something like a doomed finality.
Trixie halted before the same obstruction but a second too late. For a few precious moment she simply paused, honestly wondering what she should do next.
Then that strange mental prompt came up again, that half-caring shrug.
She focused her magic on the metal hold, and began to turn. It was to her great surprise that the door began to open itself before the wheel had made even half a revolution, and without a further thought she slipped into the breach--
And skidded to sudden halt.
The ground below her gave away to a metallic gridwork of thin, stainless steel. The air around her, though breezy, was thick and hot and humid, and her throat tightened as it had to struggle with breath that had suddenly seemed to gain the consistency of taffy. To her sides were thin poles that carried a double set of chains, presumably as some kind of safety catch, and beyond that she saw movement.
Her eyes strained to pierce through both the all-enclosing gloom and the thick shroud of vapor that was rising up from all around, the steady, rhythmic motions she beheld began to sharpen and solidify, until she found she was staring at a spanner, the breadth of her torso, gyrating endlessly in midair.
Then her eyes adjusted further, and she saw that the great machinations were, in fact, attached. Straight behind them were the fainter movements that constantly sent small eddies of the vapor-mist spinning through the air on little maelstroms. It took a moment longer for Trixie to realize that these were the wheels (as big as factory presses had been no exaggeration,) which created an artificial wind-gust with each rushing movement.
She had entered the great machines bowels. A literal belly of the beast. By that reasoning, how long would it take before she found find her way onto that great, pulsating engine she had imagined for it’s heart?
She had to suppress a shudder- though all in all, that was only a brief repose. Soon enough her more natural character established itself, the burning drive of ambition- always present, but brought forward now that the prospect of what it could bring her was so close within reach, driving her ever onward despite her fear and despite the strangeness of the things she had witnessed- compared to her first meeting with the slim pony, the graveyard, the train itself... this was considerably tamer.
There was a flicker of brief, sardonic humor; she was rapidly becoming quite the jaded passenger. Then, that too, was washed away.
It was like a flame. She burned, in a sense, she burned for answers. It was obvious that the slim pony... this Slim Jim, was stringing her along. Feeding her bits and pieces of the big picture as some exaggerated effort to bring dramatic tension. Trixie decided she’d had enough of his eccentricities. She wanted answers, and it there would be no more perfect place was the here and now, in the choking confines of the walkway, with the only route of escape through her and her queries.
Or, of course, towards the beating heart beyond. And she had no interest at all into getting any any closer to that.
For a little while longer though, she could at least bear the thought of it. She made her way onward, through the whirls of eddying mist, her hooves clipping sharply against the metal grilles. Eventually, her perseverance was rewarded when another shape loomed into her sight; This time of a narrow protrusion that lowered itself from the walls, and which thickened on it’s way down in a in a manner of tiered sections, the last part touching the ground at about twice the size and circumference of an oil drum. She stared for a moment, simply unsure of what to even make of it, when a very thin and very familiar figure swung out from behind the obstruction.
‘Why, Miss Trixie!’ He called out merrily, ‘You should have stayed at the compartment! The view is so much grander.’
Despite her earlier drive, there was still a touch of wonder, a little hook of curiosity.
‘View? she asked. ‘A view of what?’
‘The preliminaries, my dear! The precursory proceedings propagated prior to the pinnacled payoff to a performance that’s simply pregnant with promise!’
His voice had gone up to a twittery, lilting sort of tone, bereft of almost all composure or control. As if to prove this wasn’t enough, he made was dancing- actually dancing- as he turned his way around the structure, his hooves slipping and sliding, bipping and bopping, shucking and jiving. The showmare was so stunned by this sudden display that it took her several moments before she finally realized he was pulling something behind him- what another moments look told her was a wrought iron handlebar, sticking out from slit in the structures side.
It took a longer while for him to actually get to her- such a long length of time that it was beginning to feel ridiculous, somehow, and she had to fight the urge just snap for him to hurry up and finish what in the hay ever it was that he was doing- but reach her he did, and then, with a change of behavior that was as capricious and weirdly erratic as a flailing shuttlecock, he halted, stood immediately and immaculately still, and reached out his hoof.
‘Righty-o,’ said Slim, unheard by anyone, and he pulled the lever upward.
There was a series of metallic sounding clicks, like the constant drum of a great many number of copper digits, and lowest, largest section of the tiered entity hitched upward like a skirt to reveal-
- not legs, but a mess of iron and copper pipes held together by what seemed to be two large cart wheels, joined at the center by a thick axle running through a brass ball point of considerable size, showing instruments and controls that could only be guessed at. He began to flick switches, to press buttons, to spin a pulley, and the machine responded by hissing into slow cantankerous life. The wheels began to spin into counter motion, setting fluids and energy charges flowing into metallic veins. Steam began to escape at every crack, every vent, the air suddenly filling with the burning stink of electricity.
‘Critical point approaching!’ roared Slim, his voice amplified by the confines of the chamber.
‘Firing capacity set, solutions calculated, heat and humidity levels acceptable, munitions...’
He reached out a dextrous hoof and opened a tiny hatch set at the ball points centre, took a peek, and had his expression curdled.
‘Missing! Absent! Un-lo-catable!' He spun his head in her direction so quickly that Trixie started in surprise. ‘MISTER GIZBO!’
More metallic beats. A quick pitter-patter of frantic hooves on unyielding metal behind Trixie. Both turned towards the sound, and the empty steam-choked gangway is all that meets them.
‘I’m right here, mista’ Slim.’ Behind--not her, but him.
Slim whirled again, his eyes staring pointed daggers.
‘Did I not imply,’ He said, lowering his voice, if not his temper, ‘That I wanted this instrument in readiness no less than yester-day ago?’
Trixies own eyes followed past him, and then downwards, to the diminutive figure that had so suddenly joined them. A tussled mane that was stuck between rusty orange or zesty red, same for the eyes, and a coat made rough by endless preening and not enough cleaning.
‘Yessir, you did say so, right enough, ‘said the colt, ‘“have her primed by seven sharp tomorrow”, by your very words, mistah Slim-sir.’
He craned his neck backwards, towards a little worn carry-bag hanging by his side, and procured a small round object, something not much larger than a tangarine, wrapped in thick fold of pure white linen, before a yellow glare of magic caused it to levitate away.
‘Beggin’ your pardon sir, but as this here lil’ blue-ball is a real blower if I ever clapped eyes on one. I just savvied I’d keep the load from the trigger till you got here, you know? No reason to point your pistol next to your pork-’
His eyes glanced off sideways, widened, and he finished in a near whisper,
‘-unmentionables.’ He looked over to Trixie. ‘Sorry miss.’ He added.
Trixie almost smiled at the gesture, the prudishness after the honest talk.
He looked like a thin-faced colt fresh off the streets of Manehattan, the strapping sort of kid who’d come after you mouthing a club and only apologizing for the ordeal later, when all your friends were clear of the scene and everything was cozy and private again.
Meanwhile, the little ball of linen had been unwrapped, and deposited in the waiting machine with a hungry -schloop- of displaced air. As if to vilify those earlier precautions, the machine came to new, and un-restriced, levels of life. A constant buzz of kinetics thrummed throughout the chamber, from both everywhere and nowhere. A bar of metal, like a large central antennae or the proboscis of an insect, raised itself through the middle of the tangled brass and piping, and bright blue arcs of lightning danced between it and the inside of the machines body.
A deafening rush, like the surf of water filling an underground cave, and a section of the wall gave away and was pushed upward. Slim straightened, his vest fluttering about his frame like a loose lap of tarpaulin. He had at some point found time to replace his hat with a set of bright brass goggles, raising his hoof and, she imagined, squinting all the while into the distant horizon.
‘Mister Gizbo!’ He cried, ‘Tighten the firing coil, three revolutions!’
The diminutive colt leaped forward, all the while craning back his head once again, this time fishing out a small wrench which he held between his jaws, eased into the machines side, caught onto something, and continued to twist sideways. The molar manipulation had a subtle effect-- she could only barely notice the change as the machines insides moved, the piping and wiring surrounding the antennae coiling almost imperceptibly around it.
‘All preparations are in order.’ Slim declared, loudly, calmly, his insectoid eyes flashing in bright blinks of electric blue. Then, urgently; ‘Cover!’
The colt’s reaction was immediate; he darted out from under the machines cover, hooves battering the metal floor in his mad, scrambling rush, pausing only briefly to toss the wrench from his mouth and send it clattering away. He went out of Trixie’s sight, her attention being strictly fixed in the power before her that was growing, gaining. Then she felt a slight nudge on her shoulder, and looked down to see another pair of those brass goggles, probably the colts own, held expectantly out towards her.
Trixie took them, one brow raising itself into a questioning arc.
‘What, no gears to glue on?’ She asked breezily.
The colt hunkered down to her side, settling in as if in preparation for a storm.
‘Duck, cover em, or let em’ fry.’ He quipped, crossing his hooves out over his nuzzle. ‘Don’t know how you feel about yours, but my ma gave me mine. It’s what they call sentimental value.’
Trixie glimpsed his hair. It was raised with static, standing some clumps standing straight from end to end. She decided she would oblige him.
The build up was unfolding into some great and undeniable climax, the crackling arcs of power summoning up heavy-handed comparisons to the silvery tones of a trumpet glissando, landing like skittering drums. Slim still stood rigid and unmovable, his goggles now a constant white against the blinding glare, a grin cracking across his features and shining like a storm-lamp.
‘Fire.’
The thing seemed to give a sudden lurch-- actually seemed to strain against it’s very foundations for a moment, all the machinery and wiring and copper twisting together yet another notch with an alarming squeal of protesting iron, of foundations being forced past their limit... and then release.
There was a brief stumble as the floor shuddered; a sudden, almost disappointing THRUM, and then the stench of burning ozone.
Trixie blinked rapidly. Then the realization struck her, and she rushed over towards the opening, holding her breath against the smoke and the smell, almost pulling off a patch of fur in her haste to remove the now useless goggles.
The projectile is streaking away from them. It’s pace seems so slow, almost leisurely as it begins to disappear into the distance, but of course that’s just the angle. Soon enough it had reached it’s apex in a sky, one already heating like metal in a forge, a starless blanket of blue steel, and the bolt shining like a radiant gem at it’s middle.
A bright flash, like an arc-sodium juiced until the power would make it burst into a million pieces; and the sky was rent apart. Great bolts of lightning lanced out from the pinpoint of the explosion-- only Trixie had never in her life heard of lightning that could split from thin air, nor streak through the skies and quarter it in such a neat and orderly fashion.
It’s over in an instant. The lightning, already faint against the the domed sky disappears completely, but the image still seems-- brook, off skelter, just-- strange...
And then she notices, the clouds are moving. Not just borne on the will of the winds, but being pulled away from the locus point of the magical reaction, as if themselves terrified by the unnatural bolts. They rest at the edges, whirls and curves and swirls and cumulus forming together in a gigantic amorphous ring, like a band around the opening of the valley.
Slim is exultant.
‘Thats it!’ He cries, ‘Right on time and target! A real bulls-eye! Oh, tell me that doesn't look just be-eutiful!?’
Trixie winced. ‘Yes, yes, super.’ she lowered her hoof. ‘You can stop yelling now, please.’
Slim stepped over, beaming like he’d taken a good dose of electricity himself.
‘No wind, nor hail shall plague our endeavor this time!’ He grinned triumphantly. ‘By the by, Miss Trixie, meet Mister Gizbo, our resident cog-colt and general know-it-all munchkin.
Gizbo opened his mouth to speak-- but he was cut off.
‘Pleased to meet you Miss Trixie.’ Slim mimicked ‘Well splendid! Now you know each other.’
He gestured with his hoof in a way that seemed, to Trixie, almost petulantly dismissive. 'Hurry on now, Mister Gizbo! The overture might be finished, but we are still straight on track for act one! Hurry on, and make good time!'
And Gizbo did, to her surprise. She had for some reason expected some kind of back-hoofed remark, but he scuttled out of their sight without so much as another word.
Slim almost did the same, but she tapped him smartly on the side before he could escape
‘Could we talk for a moment?’ She asked.
‘Yes, yes!’ He answered brightly, eagerly. ‘The time has come to talk! Of many things, I’m sure, of vegetables and royalty, and, and...’
He paused, his face suddenly tightening in consternation. He seemed lost, all of a sudden, almost as coltish as the pony he'd just ordered away.
‘No, no, no, that's not how it goes, is it?’ He mumbled.
‘That doesn’t matter.’ Trixie pressed. If I am going to work here, to perform, we are going to have to work through some details.’
‘Oh, yes, yes of course,’ Slim focused on her, almost thankfully. ‘Bits and bobs and thit’s and that’s, right enough. What did you have in mind?’
The first thing’s first,’ Trixie said, and her mouth quirked upwards in the way of smile even as she thought the words;
‘I am going to need new hat.’
The cold rush Autumn air ran through and went straining against the broad side of the barn, red and flaking paint stark against the a brooding coal-smoke sky; windows were pushed inside of their panes and whistled through their cracks, an iron crow was sent spinning aimlessly, helplessly whirring away on a squeaking axle in all the directions of the compass.
Big Mac awoke with a sudden jolt and a breath that hitches into a snort. Sprawled ungainly between his bedsheets, one hoof sticking out and with his neck wedged to his side after the throws of uneasy sleep.
"Well, ah’m up." He thinks, and the thought bounces around his suddenly cavernous and echoing skull. Its the first of anything he thinks that night, the rest is about the house and it’s myriad of rheumatic creaks and groans and wanton bumps, all of which he’s grown familiar with over the years. It’s not what’s bothering him.
The air seems heavier somehow. Too still even for the angry promise of the thunder clouds a look outside would give him. He felt heavier too, still pulled down by the vast adhesive weariness of only a part night’s sleep, but itching with something restless besides, something that seemed to work it’s way into his limbs and fray at his nerves as surely as the wind worked it’s way through the oak and timber foundations of his home. He knew with a rising sense of ire that tonight would be a sleepless one.
He indulged in a drawn-out grunt as he kicked the covers off him, swinging out over his bed before he his mind had caught up enough to slow down and slide his legs gingerly onto the creaking floorboards. Bad enough that he should have to deal with a restless night without waking up the rest of the family. Besides, what cold-comfort he was seeking out now would require some awkward explanations he’d rather not give.
Walking through to the back of his bedroom, he brings around his considerable bulk and pushes against a cupboard on the far side; years of working under the yoke show themselves, really, the closet might as well have been on wheels. The ground under him is insulated by thick carpet, and what little friction there is stays muffled down to a mousy squeak.
The moved furniture reveals a cut in the carpet, a loose plank hitched between the other floor boards that a push of a hoof turns vertical. He reaches in with his head and nips down on loose fabric, pulls out, and with him comes something that looks like its been dragged through a coal shed and left out for a week in bad weather- but it still had an unmistakable, if crude, resemblance to what was a dollmakers idea of an equine, dressed up in spotted denim that rode high on it’s torso and with a face of lumpy dimensions.
Bic Mac throws the item over one shoulder, pushes the closet back with the other, and then, with a jump that seems just a tad to quick and sprightly for a colt his age, throws himself back onto his bed and curls up in a way that was oh so reminiscent of a newborn foal, giving a short, happy nicker and settling the item snugly between his hooves.
Time bled by. There was the endless, droning, ticka-tick-tack of fat raindrops hitting the glass of his window, the rhythmic, shallow sound and sense of his own breathing, and once in a while the all-encompassing groan of protest as a great gust of wind threw itself against his face of the Apple residence, heavy wind straining against wood and groundwork, failing and wilting away as its the momentum of its charge lost out against the solidity of the back to nothing, back to-
‘Bitter batter, pitter patter, bitter rain for little chatter, and round and round and round, doesn’t it just?
Big mac began nod his head in the way you always did to sagely advice; the snippet did have some strange sort of sense to it, if only because his mind had two hooves set in that mystical place where anything and everything made sense, the anywhere of anytime- then his eyes snapped open as he caught himself.
That hadn’t been his voice.
He turned his gaze out slowly, and met up with something like a cross-stitch smile and two gleaming discs that were as bright as silver dollars, but then his eyes blinked away their foggy sleep and saw that the discs were merely buttons, catching out the wan moon-light at an opaque angle.
But, the thing that had them was standing. Whats more, the owner had become an operator, and the head turned to face him on-- what? Eye to eye and hither to thin and with that dreadful cross-stitch grin that had popped into existence-- and did not, as he had dearly hoped in that moment, pop back at the speed of thought-- it only seemed to widen.
His heart did something of a free-fall to the rock bottom of his stomach, but it was still an easy kind of fear. The kind you rode with on as something you just had to endure. He expected, with a kind of deep, inner surety (his heart of hearts,) that his senses would catch themselves, that reality would reassume it’s grip and he’d be staring at something that was as dead as anything of cloth and stitches should be.
Instead, he got the voice again-- reassuring him of it’s existence as crudely as a hammerblow.
“Wha-’ he stammered, Wha-”
“Wha - Wha -Wha whats up, pard?” It mimicked him, mocked him. Then it giggled. “Come on now, close your mouth when you’re talking, its just unsettling is what it is.”
It took the last rags of what was left of his cunning, but managed to bundle it together and get the sense to bring up his jaw. It was likely still slack though. Like an idiot savant that has gotten his first view of fireworks.
It was standing on two legs now- shoulders straight, head narrowed. Narrowed in the sense that it had become thinner, more angular, more masculine. The spots on it’s belly high working bib joined the bug-button eyes in a shine like a burning fever.
“So, then!”the voice exclaimed heartily. “What do you call yourself, my fine foaly fellow? He stared, wide-eyed, as it began to make it’s way towards him across the covers, kicking out folds of linen out of it’s path as it went.
“ What do they yell out in the fields when you go out in the morning and back for the ol’ taters and gravy, or whatever swill you kinds eat? Something like Ranch Rolly, or Yoken Yeller or just plain-old -Red...”
Still staring. Still silent.
The head tilted, as if curious. “Whassamatter? Cat got your tongue?” Now it was half leering, half trusting, the voice of smiling authority with a mind to let loose the mother of all hazings on the latest greenhorn. “Wag that rag, my friend, or you’ll bag a bug!”
The doll thing took a final step forward, and began to reach out.
Somehow, that brought something to snap inside of him, a line over which his mind was turned, and his stomach churned, the final straw.
His hooves burst into frenetic motion, running, gunning, pistoning into a frantic trot like they were positioned over speeding roller bands. The bed sent scraping rudely over the oak floor, the mattress sent flying. The bedsheets were tangled in between his flailing limbs and brought him down on his lower jaw. He didn’t stop, his legs kept moving, fighting through resistance, and there was the thick, sudden sound of tearing cloth. Then he was up again, eyes wide, heart racing, teeth aching, and hooves clocking down on old wood with a noise that tore through the silence like buckshot, like trees being felled and falling down to earth with their whole length at once, but still not loud enough that he couldn’t hear that soft and pleasant voice once more, floating over, ripping like a razor blade:
“Close the door behind you, partner, was you born in a barn?”
He was well into the hallway now, running past a high backed linoleum chair, a heirloom desk, a portrait line, faces set in ovals and ordered by ages, and with light falling in like liquid silver; he was slowing, preparing to take the corner and the first flight of stairs.
He stopped at the edge where the hallway split off into the stair corridor like a triple intersection, front hooves almost scattering over the edge, waiting, willing his eyes to adjust to the darkness, eyes which were for once opened into wide and fearful windows that scanned desperately for movement while his body was coursing through with adrenaline and his mind was running endless circles of WHY and WHAT and calling on Celestia and Luna and and anything else that might be listening as his ears made poised little satellites at the top of his head for a tell-tale rattle or slip or slide of something-
(goddess he hoped it walked but I won't think about that now not just now no not just now)
-moving along the hallway towards where he stood. Was is even moving? Was is still monologuing?
Meanwhile the way down had become clear, and it was with no small measure of relief that he began to reach down towards the vague but still discernible outline of-
The voice spoke just when he reached the first step, and it froze him solid. “Hey-ho, do I smell something?” lazy, languid, a husky whisper right at the edge of his hearing, “Do I smell something... wet?”
As it spoke, he felt the loose little frayed wires- perhaps from stitch-work, or the crows nest that formed it’s hair- brush ever so delicately onto the sensitive skin of his inner ear. It might even have been accidental, but those frayed strings he felt repulsed him. They were living strings, like a probing antennae, or the nerve hairs of some nightmare spider, blood red and as big as a rat, and a bloated body quivering with venom. The image was horribly vital, horribly real, and he was absolutely sure that the thing was poised right next to the soft nape of his neck with black gleaming fangs dripping with clear fluid that would no doubt burn through the floor and leave perfect concentric little circles... and all of this he imagined in an instant.
He screamed. It was a croaking, blubbering sort of scream, coming from a voice not much used to being raised and still in the process of waking up besides, but a good long holler nonetheless... you could call it healthy.
He did it as he went crashing down into the darkness, he did it as his body went hitting the stairs with bone-jarring impacts as it rolled, banged, and tumbled.
And the horrid, happy laughter of the voice followed him all the way down.
“Opal! Diamond! Sapphire! Jade!’” Yelled the voice in cheery falsetto, accentuating each bounce,
“Do I smell Reddie’s lemonade?”
The doll-thing threw itself on it’s back in the little flat place, and laughed some more.
-----------------------------------------ooooooo//~~~~~~\ooooooo--------------------------------------
Applejack struggled out of delirium with with a breathy hitch and snort, and immediately regretted that she did. The first breath she took already seemed to narrow the canals in her nose and throat down to the bore of a foals water-gun. The whole room felt hot. Not in the same way as she felt out among the apple trees with the sun at it’s peak and hard light beating down on her back, this was worse. This was an inside hot, like she’d swallowed a torch, and it was working itself into her body a terrible kind restless duality between her hooves, which were insisting on the need to move and run an trot, and her mind which thought it too much of a bother.
Suddenly there was a noise. A very loud noise of a very big thing. A loud KAR-THUNK of an object hitting the ground at an edge and then coming down on it’s whole, and it came from above her.
“...Big-mac?” she asked hesitantly. She meant to say it soundly, (practically a yell it as a matter of fact-- her head felt foul and her mood felt fouler,) but the constricted feeling of her throat let it out as not much more that a rough whisper.
She cut off and had to swallow- she felt like a ground pump without the grease to help along the machinations- but before she could call out, the sound above her broke out again. Now there was the jagged pounding of footfalls clocking along his upstairs hallway, boards groaning and creaking and protesting under the weight of those merciless panic-wild hooves. Then a pause when they reached the stairs.
She was up herself now, having kicked off the covers and already trotting down between the door-posts of her own room. She could hear something else now too, something that had bobbed serenely from the top floor down the stairwell to the hallways which connected the living rooms to the central bedrooms, where Applejack was. The voice sounded so far-off and alien that she wondered if she was having throwbacks to a dream.
‘Big-Mac?’ She tried again. Louder now, but still with a softer tone. Wakefulness had brought back awareness of granny and little sister, still dozing away at this ridiculous hour, and she didn’t want to wake them anymore than that she wanted something else to go-
WHAM! came the sound, and then repeated again over and under and onto itself in a relentless staccato beat.
WHAM! WHUMP! WHAM!
Like a knock on wood, like a buck on wood; like a laundry-bag full of soap bars falling limply but heavily on every part of it’s surface- Applejack galloped over to where the sound terminated, surprised, alarmed, a little fearful... but the laughing she heard, or at least thought she heard ringing all about her brought up the idea that this was all some kind of prank; it would be a prank in bad taste perhaps, and uncharacteristic of a pony as soberly self-controlled as her big brother, but that was the thought that her mind threw up in the spur of it all, like a dog biting on the run.
When she ground to a halt at the foot of the stairs, and saw that what had fallen down them had been nothing as simple as a soap bag. And then that little worry became a lot. It became everything.
‘Big Mac!’ She yelled out, not caring much of single bit now even if she’d woken every pony from Acres to Everfree. Her big brother was lying in a heap before her; he lay trembling, his feverish body soaked from tip to crown, his head thumping, his eyes bulging. His throat was closed to a raw slit and he began to struggle for miserable breath. His body began to shake and shiver.
‘Big Mac! She said more reasonably, tenderly, ‘Oh sweet gosh darn Celestia, what in the hay...’
She’d seen scared before. She’d been scared before. She’d stood before the corrupted goddess of the moon, a face that blistered with a thousand years of wrath and hate and envy like the drink broiling from a shattered cider neck. She’d had run-ins with such wonderful little critters like hydras and timber-wolves, things that came on with great leaps, slavering chops and jaws all a-hungry...
This looked worse. His eyes were trapped little balls inside of their sockets- it was an animal kind of fear. Like the eyes of a rabbit with it’s limb caught in a the steel jaws of a trap; it would have no idea of springs or wires or cogs- the size of that thought alone would defeat it’s mind- but there would still be enough to signal that vital and all important directive;
Run rabbit – run rabbit – Run! Run! Run!
So all she could muster out to say- all that she could dare to say, was...
‘What in the hay happened to ya?’
And in response he could only give back a sort of furry moan, but soon he settled down onto his haunches, seemed to try his level best to look back at her with what was a measure of his old composure (She didn’t dare touch him, for he might still go into cramps) settling his shoulders and squaring his jaw, ready to speak-
"HEEEEEEEOOOOOOWWWWWWWW! " A high and undulating cry that cut through her like a cord of ice.
Applejack swerved her head- and could only stare at the thing that had appeared in the center of the upstairs hallway. Although she could see even from she stood that its height would barely reach up to her own knees, it was the face that threw her off-- two eyes that gleamed down at her like the surface of thick spectacles, a mouth that didn’t so much stretch into a smile; rather, it crossed across it’s head like a bolt of jagged lightning.
And that hateful, happy voice.
“Ah say, good day!” It roared merrily. “Ya bumpkins, ya local yokels, ya country cousins, ye hayseeds! How ya’ll doing?!” The figure spread limbs from wall to wall; a spook spreading out it’s cloak. “I have happy news for you!”
He laughed above them and the sound crashed around them, reverberating like surf in a filling cave. “Come one, come two, come all! Come to the midnight-night car--”
A new sound interrupted it. A racketing pound barreling up, the crash like a door falling in, a blur of orange.
“...nival?”
The act was practiced, automatic, instantaneous. She hit the deck with both hooves and whirled on the backs, her whole body turning in perfect momentum, her hair trailing loosely behind the rest of her-- and then the spark inhabiting a very deep place of that well-loved doll felt a great shudder in it’s senses, of pressure and release, and then it was blasted off its feet by a great and invisible shock wave like a corn sheaf spinning in a hurricane.
A sharp whip-crack blow to the back, a sound of breaking glass, then nothing. Rushing silence, roaring dullness, and then a switch back to sudden and violent movements, movements which were now sure and fluid as if the machinations behind it were all of muscle and sinew and bone instead of stuff-fluff and stitches. The host-body of the Voice to hit the ground like a deadweight only to snap back upwards in one convulsive spasm so that it would be free to jack-knife and whip about like something alive and very much in pain.
It didn’t like that. The pain drowned out anything else, shrinking it’s presence, marooning it’s thoughts like a sail-less ship in the eye of the storm. Back home sinuses were firing off ghost signals, bones creaked with imagined strain, and the brain was lighting up with all those wonderful warning colors that threatened to start a blackout. Strangest of all was the hard crystal now falling all around, falling above it and making fragile plinks as they landed, gleaming in it’s eyesight.
So the presence decided it had had enough; it was time, so to speak, to take the curtain call.
It reached out the forefront of it’s mind like seeking tendrils and out towards the passages it had made when it had cast it’s magic; like a trapdoor, a pet-gate carved into the fabric of reality through which the presence could worm into, latch a foothold, and finally spring out into a vast and limitless freedom, where it floated, until the anchor of it’s original body caught it as firmly as a hook in the gullet of a prize fish, and pulled.
In that part of the world, the presence winked out and was gone like snap of air.
-----------------------------------------ooooooo//~~~~~~\ooooooo--------------------------------------
Applejack nudged her hooves out over the wooden banister and risked a peek, scanning over the countryside, watching, seeking. Nothing but acres of shadowed trees and rolling hills still steeped in gloom. Finally, she glanced down, eyes still glancing for a moving target, and saw the tiny figure of a foals doll sprawled amid the glass shards now turning to ambers in the morning sun.
‘Darn tootin’ splithooves...’ She murmured, glancing about again. Had she missed the real culprit? Was he (or she!) even now skulking out in the dying shadows, or galloping out to their escape?
A sound behind her made her turn. Big Mac was trotting up the stairs, still wary but seemingly more himself, at least. She smiled at him the best she could.
“Sorry big brother. Ah thought I’d knocked his light’s right out, but mah hooves musta just clipped the rascal.”
Now she was looking out again, squinting.
“He won’t get far though, you can write me down on that one.” A hoof went up to shield her eyes. “Hit like that should at least hobble him, and besides-- he sounded crazier than a snake bit varmint.”
He looked out over the railing, staring down at the same sight.
“Big mac?”
He didn’t answer her back, but his body was shuddering again, and his eyes stared like stark white cue-balls right at his own hooves, as if they might sink to the floor unobserved.
“Sis,” He says, and now his voice is a tone closer to hale and hearty. “Sis, what’s wrong with me.” his complexion was turning a couple of shades from its usual colour to-- she hated the thought even as she had it-- apple green. The great mound of his back shuddered in vibration and was still again.
“The sweatin’?” She asked. “The lung-pumping? The jelly-legs?” He nodded weakly. The way he looked shook her up more fiercely than anything in the whole ordeal had.
“Shoot big mac, all you got is a cold-cut case of the skitters.” He looked up, his face dull, uncomprehending.
“Fear, big brother.” She forced the smile to stay. “You just have more of it ta’ get used to, is all.”
He lowered his head for a few moments, took a long, fortifying breath, then looked up at her.
“The doll.”
Now it was Applejack’s turn to look surprised.
“Is the doll... done?”
She blinked owlishly, then she glanced over her shoulder out of habit, the mention bringing about her attention.
“Well, ah suppose the glass might have scratched it up a notch, but nothing that Granny can’t stitch up if you’re feeling sentimental.”
“That’s not what ah meant-”
“Whats all that noise?”
Both red and orange heads turned at the sound of that third voice, staring down the stairway to see yellow poke it’s it’s head out from behind the barrister. Orange hitches her breath a moment, stealing a glance at red.
“It ain’t nothing Applebloom. Go back to sleep.”
“But wah’t was all the racket?”
Both red and yellow now glance at each other with something that they both recognize, the slightly wide eyes for a little white lie.
“Crow.”
“Eeyup.”
“Poor thang flew right into a window. Glass everywhere. Big mess.”
Appleblooms head paused, and then one brow arched upwards in a questioning bow. “Just a crow couldn’t have made all that stompin’”
The glance again, quick as an arrow.
“Well ya see-- that was me” Applejack suddenly grimaced and began to worry her head, like she was grabbing for gulps of empty air. “I had to wrastle that panicky featherball back out the window, didn’t want em to smash anything else up... like, you know...” Her eyes darted up and back to center. “you know, pictures.” She finished, a little lamely.
It was at this pint that big mac began to amble down the stairs, his head tilting a motion that Applejack should follow.
“We were gonna go out to clean up. Outside. Right now.”
“Well- well-- can’t I come help?”
Applejack, now trundling down the stairs herself, raised her head to address her littlest sister; she caught the gesture when she saw her older brother standing a few steps behind, his head furiously shaking left to right.
This prompted a raised eyebrow of general doubt, but after a moment she decided she’d go along with it; there was nothing left of the shivering wreck she’d encountered not a minute ago. Whatever her brother had in mind right now, he was wholly sure of it.
“Better you should check on Granny.” Applejack suggested. “You know how she gets panicked
with that poor old ticker of hers.”
The little filly bobbed her head with feverish enthusiasm, her face beaming, simply happy to be given something to do. Any doubts or reservations gone with a gust of wind, she scuttled out between them on foreshortened legs, out onto the lacquered tiles of the kitchen, and was gone again.
Applejack turned bag to her brother “Why are we going outside?” She asked. Glass out in the open could have somepony hurt, true, but the way he was looking...
“Because, with what I’m about to have to rationalize for the the both of us, were going to need that fresh air.”
This brought up another weird look from his sister, but not another word. He looked back to his usual self now, his eyes were back to that half lidded look that might have made him out as bored or stupid but, as family, she knew as something which projected a mind that was thorough and coldly contained. She didn’t call out another word until they reached out the back of the house and were staring down on the cross-stitched doll (scary to one, quite quite still-- the doll was done.) and he told her what he had seen, and how he knew what he had seen.
And his prediction about the fresh morning air turned out to be very right indeed.
