Special Circumstances #3

        You step out into the morning breeze without interruption this time. Bon Bon had left early in the morning, something about a local holiday being just around the corner. Lyra is still asleep, and you’d like some time disengaged from the pony’s side so you can observe your surroundings without constant commentary. If you’re going to be exploring Ponyville, you may as well get the low-down on this ‘Summer Sun Celebration’ business coming up.

 

        Mous has one knife-missile watching the house, and the other hovering somewhere in the sky above your head. The drone itself has drifted off into the fields and forests around the town, but is still in touch. Every once and awhile it’d report back some interesting factoid about the area, the two of you figuring out how to align this world with the many others you’ve visited in the past. It’s already a complicated task, with you being the only humanoid here, but you have a mission and you’re not going to give up on it just because of some difficulties blending in.

 

        With that in mind, while Mous was analyzing the flora and fauna, you had to analyze the society. At first guess you imagine the Sun Celebration to be a solstice event, a common occurrence across many civilizations.  Walking into town ponies scurry to and fro, the whole town must be involved in the preparation. Market stalls were done up in a festive style, vendors stocking extra product and posting sales.

       

        You stop in front of a fruit stall, staffed by an orange pony in a wide-brimmed hat. “How long are these prices going to be so low?”

 

        “Tomorrow only, partner. Ah don’t reckon we’ll keep ‘em after the festival, but we might if we got enough apples like some other years”

 

        “Thanks,” you smile and nod. The pony tips her hat in return, and you continue on your way. As you pass some other stalls, ponies reactions to your presence gives you the impression you were pretty lucky to approach a helpful one. Before you can linger long on these thoughts, a very loud bang startles you and draws your attention to the clear blue sky.

 

Above your head a pair of pegasi hovers besides a cloud. A third- pushing a cloud of its own- comes up to the group, leaving its load floating in place as it inspects the contumacious cumulus. One of the original pegasi gives the cloud a swift kick, but instead of punting it away, the cloud produces another thunderbolt. The bright bolt strikes the knife-missile’s effector field, throwing off a shower of lesser sparks and electrical tendrils as the charge fizzles.

 

        “Electrical and kinetic impact on my missile,” Mous speaks into your left ear with a note of concern, “Everything okay over there?”

 

        “Some pretty weird activity surrounding clouds is all,” you mumble back. “The pegasi can literally push them around. Well, except for this one. When they kick it the thing shoots just lightning. Not even proper lightning, just a bolt that fires in some random direction. It clipped the missile’s effector field; poor thing was at least smart enough to raise one when it rose to investigate.”

 

        “It’ll be fine,” Mous replies, “As long as you’re safe. Lyra’s just left the house, for your info.”

 

        Held enrapt by the spectacle over your head, you’re again startled when a pony runs into you from behind. You turn around to find she was paying as little attention as you were- a rope in her teeth pulling one end of a banner taut against a pole dominating her focus. ‘Welcome Princess Celestia’, this banner reads.

 

The pony squeaks loudly in alarm when she turns to see the obstacle, and you back off and bow your head in what is usually a sign of humility. The other ponies working on the banner scowl at you as the one who bumped into you scampers off. They soon follow, their work finished. You look up to the banner; ‘Welcome Princess Celestia’ it reads.

 

        You continue along the road that you hope would bring you to the heart of the town. The buildings around you take a multitude of different shapes, most being more permanent shops of any sort. Some look the same as the housing, when others represent in some manner what they sell. You make mental notes where the important things are; a bakery here, an apparel outfitter over there.

 

        The path does eventually lead to the center of town, dominated by a large round building. You walk down the path around its perimeter, peering into the windows as you go. What you can see of the interior doesn’t look residential, so though there’s a princess somewhere near the top it doesn’t appear to be a feudal structure all the way down unless the lord keeps home on the outskirts.  “See any castles or mansions on the edges of town?” you ask Mous.

 

        “None, why? What’ve you got?”

 

        “Place is a monarchy of some sort, principality or higher, but if you can’t find anything around town, the administration here may be more typical. A Princess will be visiting tomorrow and the festival lasts a single day, by the way. You got anything interesting?”

 

        “Well, I thought your weather pegasi was going to take the cake today, but get this; the common apex predator in this forest is made of wood! I have no idea how that would have come about, since there are no herbivores large enough to threaten trees. This biosphere is all sorts of weird. All the herbivores are small but all the carnivores are large, and I have no clue how they sustain themselves unless they actually snatch ponies right out of the town.”

 

        “Well that’d explain the weapon we found, but if that’s the case I’d expect it to be in a more accessible location. Keep an eye out for anything of interest.”

 

        “Always do,” the drone replies and closes the link. You turn down the next path radiating outward from the center, and wander off in that random direction. As you approach an intersection, a pony calls out to you from the side street.

 

        “Anon!” calls Lyra’s excited voice. She breaks into a gallop as you turn to face her, saddlebags rapping at her sides. “Just in time! Come with me!” Sighing to yourself as your solo mission apparently ends, you just nod and follow her down the street to your left.

 

        “I was disappointed I wouldn’t get to show you my digsite, but luckily I caught you on the way there! This is gonna be great, I get to have you confirm my notes and everything! There’s no way they can laugh at me now!” Lyra’s pace quickens to a trot out of sheer excitement, and you start jogging to keep up.

 

        “Laugh at you?” you ask in as polite a tone as you can muster. Lyra doesn’t answer, but you can swear you can see her cheeks grow red

 

        The two of you continue in silence, Lyra having slowed back down to a walking pace. As you reach the outskirts of town, a purple unicorn with a clipboard approaches you two. “Lyra!” she calls out, “Lyra, got a second?”

 

        Lyra sighs audibly and looks at the unicorn in a way you can tell she just rolled her eyes. “What is it, Twilight?”

 

        “Oh you know, just making sure everything’s going perfect for the Celebration, planning and setting up a schedule. I was wondering if you were going to play something for us this year?”

 

        Lyra stares at Twilight for about six seconds, and then starts walking off again. Another handful of seconds pass again before a curt and very irritated “No.” issues forth. Twilight looks to you with a bewildered expression, but all you can do is shrug and start walking after the departing pony. You get about a dozen paces before Twilight finally reacts

 

        “Anon” she calls out. You turn, a passive face masking your surprise she knows your name. Twilight’s wearing an expression of concern, rather than the earlier confidence. “Take care of her?”

 

        It was your turn to stare for several seconds, before nodding and continuing on.

 

        After about an hour of walking, the two of you finally come into sight of the excavation. On the trip over, you had been enjoying the scenery, but Lyra had been sulking. She jumps down into a flat square depression and lands heavily, snatching some brushes up in her magical grip.

 

        “Well here we are. If you have any questions, just butt in. If you don’t mind I’m just going to start talking,” Lyra says tersely.

 

        “Basically I learned about you lot following up on possible sites around Ponyville. There were various depictions of your kind across different old digs, but they’re usually dismissed as inaccurate, or overly vague, or whatever. Doesn’t matter, they’re all wrong.” Lyra looks at you with a strange mix of determination and something approaching wrath. “And now you’re here to prove it.”

 

        With her meager array of brushes, Lyra squeezes through a thin opening in a crumbling wall. You follow easily by turning sideways and sidling through. She works the brushes over some markings on the wall, and you cannot deny that on the most basic level, the shape depicted is a humanoid silhouette. “I pieced together different myths until I was able to locate this… temple thing. And look, its right here! I can’t figure out if humans were an object of worship or of fear…”

 

        Fear probably, you think to yourself, remembering some of the looks you received before. You look about the digsite, trying to get a feel for the place. To you it appears way too small to be a temple of any variety. Crouching down to the section of wall Lyra indicated, you look over the pictograms. You are very confident it is some sort of writing system, based on the arrangement of the glyphs, but little else can be discerned. The silhouette is definitely humanoid if one were to interpret it as a creature, but you can’t be sure the context is correct. Another glyph looks like a stick figure without a head, so you aren’t sure if it is just some sort of script convention. If you’re to be completely honest with yourself, you’d concur with the nebulous ‘they’ in that it’s definitely too vague to draw an immediate conclusion.

 

        But Lyra was already continuing to rant. “Whichever way, I have proof now. You’re here. And even if you have no idea about the past, your presence combined with these symbols right here is proof they can’t deny! Humans DID exist on Equestria! They were the beginnings of our culture!” Lyra starts pacing around the clutter of the poorly-maintained digsite. “And they’ll all have to admit they were wrong about all of this. I’ll run the whole ranks, from the Minister of Rites all the way down to Twilight Sparkle!”

 

        Lyra was shaking and shouting by now, overcome by a rage you couldn’t understand. The mention of the unicorn reminded you of her request, and you move towards the shuddering pony. Lyra falls silent, her whole presence folding in on itself in a terrible silence after the tirade. You get the feeling she needed to rant for awhile now, and this wasn’t everything, but you were concerned for her in her current state. You crouch by her side and put a hand on her mane; Lyra jumps at your touch, but doesn’t turn to look at you.

 

        “Lyra, are you alright?” You try on your best soothing voice. It takes all your effort not to stroke her mane as you would an animal’s.

 

        For the longest time, she doesn’t even move. Then just before you are about to call her name again, her head jerks side to side in a rough approximation of the universal negative. “How about we go home then?” you helpfully continue, tacking on as an afterthought, “I’m grateful you showed me this place, but maybe now isn’t the best time.”

 

        Lyra again unmoving, you stand up and look to the sky, trying to spot the knife-missile. “Mous,” you say aloud, not bothering to be covert, “Mind helping me out here? Lyra had some sort of paroxysm.”

 

        “We’re not talking about the medical definition here, are we?” comes the drone’s reply, and you finally spot the missile as it starts to descend.

 

        “No, but she’s in quite a state. Mind giving her a lift back to the house?”

 

        “No, I’m fine,” Lyra says. “Sorry, I’m just so… upset. I only came out here to pick some things up anyway.” Lyra sullenly moves towards a box off to one side, and places it in one of the saddlebags on either side of her.

 

        “Maybe we can talk about it another time, Lyra. If you’re that upset about it getting it out would probably be for the better.”

 

        Lyra doesn’t respond as she packs a few more things away in her bags. While she goes about her business you climb back out of the work area, hands on your hips and head to the sky. Subvocalizing this time, you ask Mous, “Can your knife-missile do an analysis of this site?”

 

        “It doesn’t have as complete a sensor suite as I, but I’ll see what it can do” Mous is generally very, very thorough in whatever task it undertakes. You have great confidence if there is anything important here, it can find it. “Wait right there while I send the other one over to escort you back?”

 

“Sure thing,” you respond, and turn to look at Lyra’s progress. The pony is climbing out after you, still wearing an expression crossing indignation through sorrow. You smile and hold out a hand to her- a gesture that would make a lot more sense if she too had hands to return the grip, but you hoped it conveyed roughly the same meaning of offering support.

 

Instead Lyra slides her head under your arm, brushing her mane against your hand in the same manner as moments before.

 

You drop to a knee and wrap your arm around her neck in a quick hug. “We can talk about it all later if you want Lyra. Just come to me anytime.” Lyra nods and starts walking forward. You release her, stand and do likewise.

 

Heading back through town, you’re still observing all you can. Festival decorations are now up on most of the buildings, and many ponies look to be cleaning out and around their houses. Most ignore you but some give unkind looks your way, looks Lyra notices and just grows a little more miserable every time.

 

You’ve just about made it to the house when your earbud crackles to life. “I’ll let you in on this conversation,” Mous says, and you start to hear the gentle static of an open audio input.

 

“So what exactly are you?” asks a voice you recognize as Bon Bon. She sounds more interrogating than curious. “And what are you to the humans? As much as I tried to avoid Lyra’s notes she’s never mentioned anything like you in all her inane ramblings.”

 

“My kind?” Mous replies rhetorically, “We’re their servants. We’re their masters. Some of us work ceaselessly as slaves while others rule tyrannically as overlords. My siblings, my cousins, my most distant relatives shape all aspects of their society, and without us their way of life would crumble, but we expect no recompense, for just as they do we too receive everything we could ever want already.”

 

“So what are you here? You don’t seem to be her minder. Are you a bodyguard?” The questioning continues.

 

“I am her traveling companion. I’d like to think I’m her friend. Sometimes I’m her bodyguard and sometimes she’s my public face. It’s a mutual relationship.”

 

“Coming in, wrap it up,” you subvocalize as you and Lyra approach the front door of her house.

 

“But if you really want to know more, it can wait until later. Your friend may want some support.” Mous continues without missing a beat.

 

You reach over Lyra’s head to open the door for her, letting her enter first. Waiting there with an irritated expression is Bon Bon. Lyra’s gaze hits the floor when she sees her housemate, but meekly slinks to the pony’s side, and Bon Bon escorts her to their shared bedroom.

 

Immediately behind where Bon Bon was standing, is Mous. “So, ready to draw up some plans, or are you going to bumble through the celebration tomorrow with no idea what’s going on?” the drone says over external speakers

 

“Aww, it works so well for us most of the time,” you reply aloud with mock disappointment.

 

“Wait, the fun part isn’t over yet,” the drone reverts back to your earbud. “The knife-missile that escorted you home just affixed itself to their bedroom door. Patching it through.”

 

 “I hear you’re not going to be playing this year either, Lyra? This is the third year in a row now?”

 

“Please, I don’t want to deal with this, I didn’t quite have as good a day as I’d hoped.” Lyra sounds pretty exhausted.

 

“Oh? I thought you went off to do your favorite thing in the world. How could that turn out badly, especially with your little human to follow you around now?”

 

“Bonnie I just want to-“ Lyra’s voice becomes muffled beyond the knife-missile’s capacity to hear through the wooden door.

 

After a moment, Bon Bon speaks again, in a much softer tone than before. “Please, will you at least consider playing? For me, for us?” If Lyra answers the plea it’s outside the missile’s ability to discern.

 

You adopt an expression of dull discontent. “Well we can’t be loved by all, can we? C’mon, let’s go upstairs, where you can regale me with your best laid plans. I want to know how to best piss you off tomorrow.”

 

“You do just fine without my briefing beforehand, Anon.” the drone remarks, following you up to your room.