Fallout Equestria: Sola Gratia
Chapter 20: Castles Made of Sand
“Blood has been spilled in the name of everything, from God to justice to simple, psychotic rage.”

“You want me to kill you?”

The Priestess wept, her Rorschach eyes leaking whatever alchemic infusion had turned them serpentine. Below us was the pit, an open grave of ponies, poisoned or paralyzed, collapsed over each other.
However the last Viper, a matriarch to the corpses below, was not crying for her fallen kin.

Disturbed, and confirming a psychopathic trend, the mare was choking over thick tears. Not for the loss of pony life, but for the focus of her offering. Buried beneath the bodies she had toppled into the pit, as well as the charred corpses following them, were the Children of the Great Snake. She was expending more grief for a pit load of suffocated serpents, than she had for the genocide marking her tribe’s destruction.

There had been a lot of fresh corpses given to the Great Plain, a lot of killing, and I had taken more than a fair part in it. Now it seemed as if the great golden ocean was calling for one last offering of blood.

I had my Father’s pistol levitated by my side as, even though this wasn’t much of a first kill, it felt wrong to assist suicide with a rifle. “Yes…” she gasped, genuinely distraught. “Do it…”
She had just murdered the offspring of her God, and in her mind, deserved the torture I had refused her. Pressing the automatic pistol to her temple, I couldn’t help but to hesitate.
As there, distinct and undeniable, was a part of me that felt like smiling.

Call it psychopathic, but I couldn’t deny that I was truly more content than I had been in a while.
Not because of this gasping raider, this begging evil, but for the odd peace that had settled.
Ash and Caliber were on a controversially necessary mission, one which involved little danger, only severe detours, and they had been kind enough to spare me from it.
The Vipers…

A single 45 round blew her mottled face into oblivion, tearing through bone and brain to burst out of her opposite temple, sending a blossom of heavy crimson feathers over the smoking pit. Her body toppled, with a little guidance, into the mass grave, falling to share in her victim’s tomb. The image of widening eyes, stained in impossible patterns of poisonous influence, burned into my mind.

The Vipers had been obliterated; the face of the Plain all but swept clean of their primal religion.
No more captives would be taken for fruitless sacrifices; no more settlements would need to fear for their prying harvest of religious fodder. Most importantly: Cabanne was clean, empty and waiting above me.

Alone, for the first time since that first dark walk to meet Caliber, I sauntered out of the ancient suburb. There was something unsettlingly peaceful, oxymoronically, about watching the ocean of gold by myself. Grass breathed over the swells, around the corpses, as mourning air brought the Plain to life.

I dragged them, one by one: into the pit. Vipers after viper, into the pit, follow the leader.
Being so close to so many dead, reminded me why burial was a ritual that was not only important, but essential. Lifeless eyes seemed so innocent, their soft, bleeding bodies like pierced sacs though their skin was likely thicker than mine. They were vulnerable, and the wasteland didn’t waste its time with the weak. Past sins forgotten - except if there truly were some astral court of judgment - for we all deserved a grave.

No more mistakes, I promised. No more blatant disregard or oblivious hurrying, because from now on, it all had to be perfect. Twice, over the course of just two days, I had yelled: We need to go back!
Once, for a headless buck, and again, for a heartless one.

Those Libertines could’ve been caravaneers, they could have been a family of travelling missionaries for all we had known, and yet we had massacred them. Thank Celestia they turned out to be primal douches.

I had come to realize that most civilization was very far from the very definition its name assumed.
Savages, raiders, Vipers, Libertines: they were all degenerates.
Not Ash and Caliber, no, they were good ponies. Good ponies, who had… adapted, degenerated to the point which the wasteland demanded, to the point of strategic cruelty and justifiable injustices.

I probably could’ve gone with them, though I doubted my mood would have been improved by reliving the last few days so vividly. Now I was free of guilt, for the most part, and free of mind.
Cabanne was quiet, and after this burial was done, I would find peace within its towering stone walls.

Ash would be relieved to hear that she might soon be forgiven, reconsidered, but forgiven.
She would no longer be the quivering innocent I had seen her as initially, she would no longer be a victim, and duly so. I was the juvenile, the naïve newcomer, if anypony needed to be underestimated: it was me.
They were stronger, but Damascus had taken to me for a reason. Because he and I shared a blissful idiocy, a Stable-born good intent, a sheltered perspective on how wrong all of this truly was.

It may be a rule for me, not to murde- kill a pregnant mare, but Ash had no obligation to my moral code. Torture, in my eyes, was abhorrent, but Caliber had selective knowing of those who were not above it.
There were times when I would defame the Princesses, perhaps thinking them to be largely responsible for the war, and there were times when I would lie, even to one of my only friends, or disobey orders.
So who was I to enforce my laws on others, when I did not even adhere to their own?

I levitated the diamonds out of my saddlebags, the triplicate of pristine perfection, and set to work.
Though it was difficult to bring the beautiful gems to dirt, I perforated the crude pit’s walls, digging deep and drawing multiple narrow tunnels beneath the earth, weakening its hold.

More by luck than by my measly digging skill, the earth collapsed inwards, piling dark soil over the smoking abattoir, drowning the corpses which had suffocated the snakes.
There was an old pony who swallowed a fly; I don’t know why she swallowed a fly.
That rhyme got pretty morbid after a few verses, so I stopped thinking about it.

The grave was concave, and like a whirlpool it collapsed inwards, but every still extremity was covered.
Plumes of smoke had left the overhanging rock above blackened, but the billows were now suppressed under cool soil, their kindling’s shoddy funeral marking their own death.

My Pip-buck labeled the entrance to Cabanne on the other side of the mesa, so I trotted at a hasty pace, rounding the massive landform of natural and artisanal constructions.

The towers of the city were unlike any other Equestrian construction I had seen thus far, like the houses in the Viper’s camp; they were made up of hard lines, angular and sharp, a design far off from the curving rises of Canterlot. It was almost difficult to discern the city from the cool stone of the mesa, save for its precision against the more unpredictable base structure of sometimes thick, vaguely talon-like holds.

Tawny browns and gold ran in fences or thatching across the ambiguous skyline, pine pillars and subtle staircases also set off the otherwise consistent grayness. There were no fluorescents, no technological extremities like lamps of pylons. The city was even more natural than the Plain surrounding it.

Scampering over rock falls and gravel beds, I arrived at the Great Gate of Cabanne, a towering guardian.
A gentle rise of grassy earth gave way to steeper stone as the mesa took its hold, quickly overcome in turn by the city itself. This massive barricade was only one potential gap in an otherwise all encompassing wall, which fed out of ridges and faces to wrap around the entire body of rock.

It was a grandiose, though admittedly compact, wonder. Populated sparsely, as was common in the ancient world, but developed painstakingly, every shape marking designated labor and laborious design.
I had had trouble with doors before, and now faced the God of all entrances, some kind of final boss.

Armies had tried and failed to enter here, I embellished, this Gate had held dragons and demons at bay, rebelling peasants, the fires of drought and the waters of flood, this Gate has bested ponies thrice my size and dissuaded invaders with my determination in exponential increase, what hope have I to enter here?

None, but there was a conveniently marked tourist’s entrance cut into one of the gate’s parapets.

Candy cane signs and modern posters immediately destroyed the implications of timelessness, the smiling models and cheery welcomes stole the sanctity of my virgin city, replacing it with the same marketed enthusiasm apparent on billboards and magazines.

WELCOME! TO THE ANCIENT CITY OF CABANNE! FAVORITE OF THE NOBLE PUDDINGHEADS!
- Tour the city with one of our extensively trained guides!
Information on the purpose of each building, from the foundry to the house of governance.
Stories from beyond the veil, a look into the early years of Equestria.
A complimentary meal and drink at our fabulous Cabanne Café!
- Only 150 bits!
- Chancellor Puddinghead’s Grand Inaugural Ball!
Fully replicated, including appropriate attire and ceremony. (Actual Ball occurred in Old Calvary)
You’ll barely be able to tell that you aren’t actually there! (Please Note: You Aren’t)
Dine like the earth ponies of old. Ball fully catered by the Food Court.
- Only 200 bits!
- Please visit Smart Cookie Souvenirs!
So you’ve heard of Smart Cookie square in the depths of Calvary?
Why not get a miniature replica of the monument, right here, right now!?

Why visit the actual first exclusive home to the earth ponies,
when you could buy miniature replicas of pretty much all of it?!

CABANNE! THE HUMBLER CUSTOMER’S OLD CALVARY!

Your awfully whorish for a virgin, aren’t you? I giggled.

Not only did this brochure make me less excited to see Cabanne, it was deflecting a lot of my interest to the old city nestled within Calvary. I swore to visit the new empty markers on my Pip-buck.
Smart Cookie Square: in the Eastern section of the distant city and Old Calvary: an abscess in the very heart of that sprawling metropolis, perched between a curve of mountains and the colossal new city.

I picked up a colorful map, childishly caricatured, and got some insight on Cabanne’s main attractions.
First, and regrettably foremost, were the Souvenir Shop and Café, in the circular courtyard just outside of this tower. I hurried over to a line of gated pay booths, glassed cubicles that looked like some primitive version of Stasis pods, which constituted a barrier, periodically broken with sets of odd, rotary metal arms.
I fumbled over one, but it spun as I bent myself into compliance, and quickly discarded me to the cobbled floor beyond. What kind of sadist decided to install that deathtrap?

Brushing myself off, I trotted out of the wide gateway tower, guided by the brightening morning light glancing off the faded stone of this first and foremost courtyard.

The plaza was wide, circular but for the buildings breaking into it. Its middle was ordained with a towering statue, the familiar form of Celestia rising, while breaches at its edge held relatively short, thoroughly stripped pines. The effigy was surprisingly pale, lacking the usual gold embellishment of religious tribute.

Cobblestone, unnaturally smooth, gave way to the occasional wooden deck or archaic lamppost.
Hello, technology, it’s good to see you again. I hadn’t counted on the reboot, which had turned this ancient courtyard into what could only be described as a mall.
An outdoor mall, valued customer! Some friendly looking topiaries reminded me.

Each store had a vibrant pastel sign, announcing its presence and advertising its contents.
Celestia’s Cross, the only remnant of aged ruin, was thankfully spared of colorful ordainments.
Even if they didn’t think that she was a god, nopony stuck posters to the sovereign ruler of Equestria.

Here were the thatched roofs, pristinely bound, light grasses with the benefit of wire and metal to contain them. In the city beyond, up the stairs which rose from beneath dead pines at the plaza’s far end, the buildings were bulky and crude, as that section had not been abominably reduced to a deadly tourist trap.

Although there was something soothing about the regurgitation of color and price tags, so I didn’t feel the expected urge to run from the courtyard with one hoof holding back disgusted retches.

A humble (relatively) coffee shop drew my attention, so I lazed my way over to its open deck.
It was set out like a fancy restaurant, circular tables with pristine ivory decorations and chairs crafted by a loving carpenter, a canopy of silky material extended over the cobblestone, shading it from the already diluted sunlight. The restaurant’ insides were, thankfully, not as fancy.

With none of the expected mahogany and pretentious artwork, it was a distinctly Equestrian coffee house. Like the diner, there were photographs of beautiful moving picture actresses, black and white, and cities lit up in nighttime brilliance. –there wasn’t a depiction of the great Calvary skyline, regrettably.

Patriotism had really gotten us in a hold, I thought gleefully, peering over the counter as if I were waiting for a boisterous, motherly waitress to come and ask me about my life, and eventually for my order.
Nopony came, so I hopped over and started tinkering with the machines.

It felt like a vacation, and though I still checked my E.F.S on occasion: It seemed this place was truly segregated from the wastes beyond, another, albeit more enjoyable, oasis in the Plains.
I was making myself coffee, for Celestia’s sake, history, and the making of it, could wait a little while.

Luckily, there was a training outline for the waitresses, so I got through the oddly foreign process.
Using some of my own water, I found that electricity was well and truly pumping trough Equestria’s veins, and boiled the questionable river refreshment to sanitized perfection.

After my concoction was done, I stole a few small containers of the unused coffee for later use,
(The Courtyard was so perfectly preserved that I actually felt guilty for my scavenging.)
then settled at one of the tables with Celestia Rising above it, her wings outstretched in a cross.

HEY KIDS!
DID YOU KNOW:
THE EARTH PONIES OF CABANNE ONCE SAW PRINCESS CELESTIA AS A GOD!?
It’s true!
Long ago, before and even during Nightmare Moon’s banishment to the moon, the North largely misconstrued our ruler as some kind of Goddess.
Isn’t that ridiculous, kids?
And you thought that adults didn’t have their own fairy tales!
In fact, there are entire Churches dedicated to worshiping her in many Equestrian Cities.
There were even ponies (Pegasus and unicorns too!) who believed this to be true until quite recently!
Now there is something that is hard to believe!

Here at the Ministry of Morale, we like to make sure that Equestrian education remains the best in the world. By contributing funds to train or hire dedicated and effective teachers? Of course not!
We do our part with factoids – little slices of truth – just like this one.
So if somepony tells you that Princess Celestia is some kind of Goddess…
Find an adult…, a smarter one at least! (But don’t be afraid to throw stuff at that crazy zealot first!)

THIS HAS BEEN AN EDUCATIONAL PAMPHLET APPROVE BY:
CHANCELLOR PUDDINGHEAD HERSELF!
A picture of… Pinkie Pie, I think, signed off the pamphlet.
JUST JOKING! IT IS ACTUALLY MINISTRY MARE PINKIE PIE!
published by the ministry of image.

Good thing Ash isn’t here, I thought, though the pamphlet, to be fair, was a little silly by its own merit.
Caliber would certainly have enjoyed this little remnant of religious persecution, benign as it was.

I had to admit: I didn’t care much. There were even fewer religious ponies around during the war than there were now, literally. To believe that Celestia was a god, even as she abdicated the throne of a country that may well have been losing a war, took a special kind of conviction.

I looked up the statue, as if to apologize for my internal remark.
Sorry Princess, I just don’t know what it was like, or even what really happened.
Bias and Censorship had made sure of that.

Apparently, an insurgency of malicious, highly sadistic, zebras had barged into Equestria and massacred an entire school-full of fillies and colts, essentially beginning the war that ended the world.
I had to hope that this was not how it really happened.
Though, the zebras in Zion had certainly been malicious… but murdering foals took a-
Never mind.

I thought Pinkie Pie ran the Ministry of Morale… not Image.

DID YOU KNOW:
THIS IS NOT EQUESTRIA’S FIRST WAR!?
Not technically, anyway.

This pamphlet already seemed more adult.

The Earth Ponies, Pegasus and Unicorns held many battles and skirmishes across the vast lands that would one day join to become Equestria… Against each other!
The story of Hearth’s Warming Eve tells of this trying time’s end, but before the fire of friendship defeated the winter spirits of war and united the tribes, there was massive animosity between ponies.
Cabanne itself, as an earth pony claim, had to endure many Unicorn and Pegasus sieges.
But… who were the bad guys?
If you had asked any of the tribes, they would have answered with any of the others.
Not like today! While the Zebras would surely point the blame at us, we know the truth!
The identity of the bad guy in this Great War is clearly black and white!

So enlist today!
DO IT FOR YOUR CHILDREN!
DO IT FOR YOUR COUNTRY!
DO IT IN HONOR OF CHANCELLOR PUDDINGHEAD’S EFFORTS TO UNITE US!
This time, Pinkie Pie posed in a resolute salute, with what looked like a pudding on her h- oh… I get it.
DO IT FOR THE WARRIOR’S RESTING IN THE TOMBS OF THE NORTH!
published by the ministry of image.

So the murals at Celestia’s Landing had been depicting ancient conflicts, and the tomb had indeed been home to their casualties. It wasn’t surprising, though a little upsetting, to know what those ponies had died for. Everypony had heard the story of Hearth’s Warming Eve, and it only made sense that all that tension could only have stemmed from decades of on-and-off warfare.

That enlistment propaganda had blindsided me, but was admittedly effective, especially after Zion.
I liked to think that I would have signed up, if the war ending wasn’t the reason I existed in the first place. Zebra’s were depicted unfairly in propaganda, but that didn’t detract from the fact that we were at war. Ideally I would support the rights of local Zebras, while making sure none crossed our borders, with Fern.

Though I didn’t really know what it tasted like, I wanted milk in my coffee.

Abandoning the abandoned, pamphlets I began to poke through the café, on an impossible quest for milk.

I didn’t feel guilty… and suddenly smiled, emerging from a drawer, with a pan on my head.
There was no whining subconscious telling me that I should be helping Caliber and Ash, no pining conscience reminding me that searching for lactose wasn’t saving any lives.
I was letting myself be happy… and I wasn’t used to it.

Slavers dead, save a family, Raiders dead, make a friend, Alicorns dead, make a friend, Griffons dead, Dj alliance, Savages dead, Zebra alliance, Poachers dead, Buffalo alliance, Vipers dead, help a friend.
Libertines pissed off… take a break.
It felt right, if only because I knew that none of us were in danger… except for the Minotaur buck.
Who probably deserved it.
Now… milk!

Leaving the violently tilting pan on my head, I ravaged the coffee shop.
There shouldn’t have been any rational expectation of milk, but I was nothing if not an idealist.
And in my naive view of the world: moo juice still existed.
The place was pristine, coated by the omnipresent dust, but free of that ashy fallout blanketing the wasteland outside. Although despite the sense of sanctuary, I felt a bitter resentment for its barren stock.

The last day must have been in the off season, I sighed.
There was no trace of any perishable goods, only an inexcusable abundance of tea.
Of all the-

This was Equestria damn it! A coffee shop, no less! Keep your fruity leaves you limp-hoofed…
Where did tea even come from?

After making myself another cup – cider mug more accurately - of black, bigoted patriotism, I settled back onto my All-Equestrian seat, resting on All-Equestrian flanks. I levitated the House’s journal from my saddlebags, which sat beside me. It was like a conversation, in some sad way, between me and the contents of my only remaining companion. I corralled my spontaneous and feral thoughts to focus.
The first entry from that old buck, of only two before my scrawled dream diary, was undated.

So this is what I’ve been reduced to.
Writing…

Things are too complicated for words.
Life is too fast to record, too short to spend half of it recording the other half.
But I bet your going to read this.
So I’ll try.
You’ll never let me forget how much I love you, huh?
Always have to make me prove it.
Thought you’d have realized it by now… it has been a couple of decades.

Scaffolding’s almost done.
I’ve cobbled the front yard. (Left you the space for that garden you wanted us to work on.
Although that’s something else I’m not surrendering myself to so easily. What’s the point?
You know I’m not exactly young, and we’ve already made much more impressive life than flowers.
… Slightly more impressive. When’s the last time those ragamuffins came to visit, anyway?)
Apart from that, wiring still needs tuning, but I want to leave the back bare, focus on the lake.

Who is this for, honestly?
We both know this stuff already.

Feelings…
What am I supposed to do with that?
I’m only in this mess because of feelings.

I smiled as I read the reluctant words; the buck was exactly as I had imagined him, stubborn but warm. There was something left of him in that house, his creation, the same resolve and bare emotion.
I wondered where the couple were buried, and hoped that they had died peacefully.
Fallout had reached the lake, which meant that that was painfully unlikely.
Maybe Ash’s congregation had found the bodies, curled up together like those skeletons in Acheron.

You don’t want me to write about the house.
You don’t want me to write about you.
I hate to tell you this, but there’s barely anything else here.
Just an old buck who wishes he was dead.
Not in general: just right now.
Don’t read into that… ink can damn well make a man give the wrong impression.
I just mean that this is not the way I dreamed of spending even a minute of my retirement.
What’s the use of words?
This stuff is all in my head anyway, probably in yours too, why do we have to go spreading it around?

I’m afraid for my country.
Is that a feeling, fear? Or an instinct?
Anyway, I’m worried about what we’re becoming.
It’s like all of Equestria has caught some disease.

Hatred.
There’s another one.
For the neighbors.
The real ones, not the zebras.

I once had a good friend who was a zebra.
Don’t know if you met him.
Kind of friend that makes you think twice before you make assumptions.
Makes you see the differences, but also the similarities, you know?

These preppy, rich bastards, they can go rot.
Most of them are packing up, cowards, but I’m not complaining.
As long as they don’t requisition this land for some idiotic military base, I’m perfectly happy.

Happiness is there.
Mixed in with nostalgia and… peace.
You’re happy, aren’t you?
Let’s hold on to it for as long as we can.

Way ponies are panicking… it’s like the world is gonna end.

I shuddered, repeating the last words in my head as I stared at the curling sky, past the frozen Goddess.
Of course they had known it was coming, of course they had... I wouldn’t exist if they hadn’t.
Bravery was watching it end, staying rooted where you were happy, instead of shivering in some hole.
There wouldn’t be anypony left, if they’d all been braver… fatalistic.

I can’t say I’m not happy with the way things turned out, in that respect – as we had survived for it – But I can’t say that I am. I know I’d rather be sitting in an ancient, exploited city with a pot on my head, than to have never existed. I suppose that made my decision for me.

Opening onto a fresh page, beyond touching reluctance and hurried recollection, I scribbled a few notes.
Not poetry, it was bad enough that I was sitting in a fancy courtyard drinking coffee.
I had tried to justify the experience by drinking out of a cider mug and spouting anti-tea slurs, but I was still either a tourist or a pretentious waste of time and space. I kept the pan on, that would help.

Ministry of Morale --> Pinkie Pie? or Ministry of Image --> Pinkie Pie?
Ministry of War-time Technology --> Applejack
Rainbow Dash: Unknown
Fluttershy: Unknown
TwilightSprinkle Sparkle: Unknown
Rarity: Unknown

I don’t know why I cared, but the mares had, in a way, been a part of my childhood.
To the extent that any nostalgic imagining, any painted hero, became to a foal.
They had saved Equestria at least twice, apparently, so they deserved some recognition.
I drew what I could remember of their cutie-marks beside each name.

Diamonds… huh.

There was something about these mares, an intrinsic goodness, which made me want to learn more.
I had read the stories, heard the legends, I knew about the Elements of Harmony, how they had saved us on more occasions than we likely knew. What I wanted to know was why, in the end, they had failed.

I didn’t understand how Laughter of Honesty could stop a war, or even win one, but I had come to know friendship, come to experience it in ways that I never had before. There was something to the myths now, something believable, something relatable. Maybe having friends wasn’t going to encase a Draconequus in stone, or purge a demon princess, and sharing a bond surely couldn’t go so far as to unleash a rainbow of concentrated good feelings and happy thoughts, but… I knew that it was important… powerful.

I knew that it could drive me to pull diamonds from the earth, and collapse a mountain on those who would hurt the ponies that I had come to care about. I knew that it was something Damascus had been wrong to discard so completely, to cast out of himself with that dark, foreign magic. I knew then: it would lead me to accept a mare who had done something that I would always see as one of the purest sins.

Maybe they had been metaphors, simplifications of great battles our spanning struggles, but the stories were starting to make sense. It was the opposite of realizing, after years in reverence and inferiority, that your parent’s weren’t flawless, that they had just as much weakness, as much sadness, as you did.
This was coming to know that your childhood role-models, juvenile gods, were still there to guide you.

The North was barren, a few towns along the rails – more like cardboard cutouts than actual places – some technological amenities – network and electrical pylons – and infinity. Zion had its tombs, its religious grandeur, and the Plain had its ancient city and gemstone mines, but the hold of history, was older than the war. These places had been lost in time for longer than I could imagine, and so had very little to offer in the way of apocalypse, the last pieces of history before it all became wasteland.

Calvary would have these answers, it had to.

I passed some time doing something that I shouldn’t have done, something that I am deeply ashamed of. Even as I was writing the uncouth, but somehow unstoppable story, I would occasionally pause to scope out the area, or check my E.F.S, not only for raiders, but also for literary critics.

The Bucking Fabulous Wartime Misadventures of Rarity and her-
I began, already blushing as if my entire class was leering over at this first attempt at storytelling. And what a deplorable story it was. -Special Friend Applejack! Perhaps my Stable had been right to damn me.

Once I had finished: I cleared my table politely, packing brochures and a despoiled journal into my saddlebags then floating my empty cup to the sink. Since I had the run of the place, I might as well keep it clean. Sitting for a minute, underneath Celestia, I stared up at the sky.

The statue was contorted by my perception, the wings becoming looming shadows against an almost white sky. Mist and cloud overlaid into a shifting pale, a bright morning’s chaos to wake up the world. I wondered what it would have been like to live on those collides and rifts, though whenever a gap appeared behind two ambiguous bodies, a reaching solidity could be seen, the true roof of Equestria.

The pines and topiary rustled, foliage blissfully alive, in the winter’s breeze.
No gunshots, no backfiring exhausts or rattling machinery, no whining fluorescents or distant voices, this was the closest I’d ever come to silence – except for the senseless void of Damascus’ sleep – and I felt a wanting for statuesque permanence, to become part of Cabanne, and to stay.

Souvenirs weren’t going to steal themselves, though, so I rolled up off of the cobblestone, setting my sights on the most explicitly advertised store. It crested in a triangular roof of thatched straw, its deck wooden and short, but entirely covered in signs and slogans.

Honk if you love Equestria!
Requested one bumper sticker.
Better wiped than Striped!
I caught myself wanting to nod, and tried to remember that Zionists didn’t set a standard for kinder kin.
I support the Ministry of Peace
I support the rule of Princess Luna
Next there was a wide banner with Celestia at the end, giving a mischievous smile.
Miss me yet?

I stepped up onto the drowning deck, brushing past steel plaques and plastic sachets alike.
The inside of the store was equally colorful, bright words jumping out from every surface, be it wall or door, counter or rack, it was smeared in propaganda.
I was all for patriotism, but this regurgitated rainbow was making me sick.

I took a second, getting my bearings and levitating the journal out, to scrawl Ministry of Peace beside Fluttershy’s butterflies… It didn’t take a genius to figure that one out.

There were action figures, disturbingly enough, of all the Ministry Mares, as well as a controversially caricatured selection of Zebra’s for them to fight.

I had never seen a picture of the six heroes, but it didn’t take me long to figure out which was which as, like the Zebras adjacent, their designs were exaggerated in either cartoon amplitude or lampoon.
Rarity and Twilight’s horns could light up, you could make Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy flap their plastic wings in stiff repetition, Pinkie Pie came with a party cannon, and Applejack could buck against gravity.

For politicians, they were awfully naked.
I could imagine that a lot of ponies had been sued for these burlesque figures, but the inevitable retractions hadn’t reached Cabanne in time, apparently. At least there weren’t any Articles of ridicule towards the Princesses, only jibing digs veiled as political slogans.

Caeli…
There were masks, plastic and pretty, of everypony who was anypony.
They were almost eerie, staring out from stacked sockets in a fixed expression of molded personality.
I levitated down Fluttershy and Applejack masks, strapping one to either side of the now floating pan.

“Oh… my.” I bobbed Flutterpan up and down as she spoke. “Your poor mane.”
Grooming myself in a mirror, intended for fitting the masks, not conversing with them, I spun the utensil around to the hatless Applepot.

“Leave it be, girl!” I drawled that shoddy rural voice. “Aint’ nopony here gonna judge you for pan-head!”

“I will!” Chimed Rarity, as she floated down from the display. “You poor darling, it looks like something crawled onto your head and died!” the mask floated around to my flanks. “Good Gracious! Your tail!”

“Why d’ya’ve to be so dang fussy!” Applepot rounded on the levitating Rarity, putting herself between the seamstress and my severed tail.

“Why can’t you have some regard for proper language? You just fused three words into one!”
Flutterpan said nothing, silently cowering behind Applepot’s… face, as they pulled closer to the deceptively happy looking unicorn. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“My, have you got gorgeous eyes.” Applepot cooed. “Y’know… Ah never realized how beautiful you are.” She drew in closer. “Until. Just. Know.”

“Darling?” Rarity was flustered, taken aback, not only by the suddenly impassioned country-mare but by the new, excited warmth welling within herself. “I don’t know that to say…”

“Then don’t say anything at all.” The mares came to be free from the repressed tension of a guarded friendship, finally submitting to the urge that each harbored for the other, finally letting themselves lust.

I bumped the masks together, making kissing noises.

Rarity was getting battered by the metal, but It could not stop their love, neither could the little screams made by the reluctantly involved Flutterpan every once in a while. “Goodness... maybe… I… Oh my.”

Strapping a Celestia mask to my own face, I saved the shy mare from her torturous prison of hot political action.
“What is going on here!?” I boomed, doing my best to sound royal and powerful.
“Rarity? Applepot? Explain yourselves, this instant!”

“Princess Celestia?” Rarity balked, pulling away from the accidental threesome of kisses. “I… I”

“We’re in love, yer highness.” Applepot swung to her side, nuzzling against the constantly smiling minister, flipping Flutterpan away into a sightless oblivion. “Marry me, right here, right now!”

“Oh yes, darling! A thousand times yes!”

“By the power vested in me, by the state of Cabanne and by… the freaking universe, I don’t know.” So I wouldn’t win any awards for my depiction of our great ruler, sue me. “I hereby pronounce you… oh wait, Flutterpan I’d completely forgotten about you. Do you take these mares to be your lawfully wedded wives, or at least, the lawfully wedded wives that you will remain attached to for all eternity?”

“Oh… I wouldn’t want to be any bother…” she eeped. “Yes… I mean… if that’s alright with you.”
Applepot nodded, so Flutterpan nodded too. They were already finishing each other’s gestures.

“Well shoot, I might as well get in on this.” Celestia laughed. “I herby pronounce all of us, wife, wife, wife and Great-and-Powerful-Supreme-Ruler-of-Equestria-Nearing-Godliness-but-also-wife.
“Now, let’s get some strippers for the bachelor party!”

“Hooray!” they all cheered, then went forth to live happily ever after on the display.
I kept Flapplepot with me, leaving Rarity and Celestia to spread their good news amidst the other masks.

For a second I felt guilty for cheapening Applejack and Rarity’s love by forcing in the other mares, but then I realized that I was playing with plastic masks, and my acting was already questionable, at best.
Plus, they probably never even got together in the real world.
Don’t say that.
It must have happened. In the story where Twilight was messing around with time travel, they were totally making it obvious; I mean come one, they were together for the whole thing. And the sleepover? Please...

Levitating my new, two-faced companion at my side, I scoured the rest of the souvenir shop.
Apart from an abundance of patriotic trinkets and political effigies, the store had little of interest.
There were miniatures, both of monuments and ministry mares, and a few genuine Cabannite… Cabannical? Souvenirs. Most unnerving were the colors, which made me eager to leave.
Deciding to indulge my imagination’s juvenile return, I floated Flapplepot out of the store with me, intent on finding out what they thought about the rest of the city. There would be much discourse and discussion on this adventure, considering that I had effectively conjoined the Ministerial heads of War and Peace.

Another barricade, with the same treacherous spinning spindles, barred our passage to the next tier of Cabanne, which was already promising in its less sickly palette of grays and tawny browns. There were two dispensers along the gateway, one for Sparkle Cola and the other simply labeled: Automated Tours.

On further examination I found that even the heralded tour guides had been weaned out in favor of these tapes, technology stealing what little expectation of life this place had left, for a preferable convenience.
Unfortunately, ponies of the old world had seen the flawed business model in putting a machine that excepted caps beside a machine that dispensed capped bottles, so the Audio-matic Tour Guide was going to cost me twenty five bits: more than I had ever had.

I hurried back to the souvenir shop, intent on getting the full Cabanne tourist experience, and clambered over the counter. As expected, nestled in the alcove below, was a bit register.

I tried to avert Applepot’s eyes, saving myself from her old-world scrutiny, only to replace it with the pleading sweetness of Flutterpan. Both weren’t used to wasteland law, having lived in this sheltered sanctuary for the last two hundred years, and being quite incapable of… anything. Still, I felt that they were going to be very disappointed in me, judging my behavior from beyond the plastic veil.

Stealing exactly as many bits as I needed, and no more, I headed back for the barricade, reminding the mares that they themselves were stolen goods, and had no right to talk.
The machine clunked and sputtered, struggling to ingest the golden disks, as its rusted insides were now unused to this kind of invasion. I gave it a swift kick, forcing it to cough up a black brick.
The device was similar to Ash’s long since discarded tape recorder, but wouldn’t play on its own volition.
Acting as the cheapskate it was, the dispenser had refused to give me the necessary earplugs.

I loosed the input cable from my Pip-buck, which had successfully plugged into both terminal and radio before, and jimmied it into my Automated, and decidedly mute, tour guide.
This was better for all of us anyway; Flapplepot would have been missing out if I hadn’t found a way to play this tape out loud, and I’d already upset them enough.

“Welcome to Cabanne proper!” The tape began, triggered by some unknown knowing. “This tape will be your extensive guide of the city beyond, and will activate at several marked locations.” I scrambled over the locked gateway, continuing on a crime spree that was probably ruining my Karma. “Do not attempt to ask this device questions or form any kind of relationship with it, and please take consideration for its safe return, if you have any anger issues or frustrations that you would like to vent, remember that this is only a recording, and cannot feel pain.” Ponies used to get passionate about this kind of thing, apparently.

Scampering up the stairs, which cut through a large rising rock face, allowing easy navigation over and around the mesa, I found myself in what looked like a pleasantly cozy town. Houses, most angular and non-descript in opposition to the slight definition on wealthier constructions beyond, lined a cobblestone pass. The wide road, never used by anything but hooves, was broken apart by solid benches, pine rises and a round fountain in the center of the residential area. Lamps had been subtly adapted, still appearing humble and primitive, to allow for electrical influence, but apart from that: things were genuinely ancient.

“This area may appear small to our modern expectations,” The tape chimed. “But it once housed the majority of Cabanne’s citizens, as each building often held one or more families at a time, and populations were much lower back then.” I peeked into doorways, unhinged and insecure, only to find dark unfurnished nothing beyond. “For insight into how ponies lived without electricity or other amenities, please consult the resources available at Smart Cookie Souvenirs.”

They really knew how to beat a dead horse.

The benches weren’t conveniences from modern restoration, I realized. These stone seats were remnants of the rock that had been otherwise cut away. Similarly, the fountain seemed to sink into the mesa, drawing from some infinite subterranean water source. It trickled on in a continuous babble.

“This fountain marks the centre-middle of Cabanne, and was an area of congregation for the great minds and personalities of the past.” The tape explained. ”Housing projects reach out from around it and, if you are lucky, you will now find yourself at the heart of one of Equestria’s greatest historical recreations.” Of all the things destroyed by the apocalypse, Renaissance fairs were not exactly what I mourned most.

Two notable buildings rose further up the tiered bluff: one sharp and regal, and the other almost reminiscent of an observatory. The city was built as a rise of courtyards and strips of smoothened stone, starting with the mall and winding up through the residential square, to conclude at what had to be a kind of town hall. The observatory leaned over the palisade walls, staring into the sky from its ridged perch.

Windows, many stained by both dust and design, prevailed in golden, syrup-like redundancy, unable to allow sight in or out. Down one stretch of the city to my left, was a planned cornucopia of botany open to the lake view beyond, which could only be described as a park, despite its fairly miniscule size.

“You may want to visit the Great Hall, which was converted into a church soon after Equestria was founded.” The market’s celestial statue would also have been a slightly newer addition. “Otherwise you may choose between the other three avenues of Cabanne. Notice that the city is vaguely structured like a broken cross, as despite the rises and necessary compliances with the landform it was built out of, the earth ponies of the past still tried to maintain this popular shape of design as the city expanded.”

I waited for an elaboration as to what each avenue led to. “If you are facing away from the main courtyard – as well you should be – then the Park lies to your left, the Observatory on an escalated terrace to your right, and the Great Hall at the head of the cross, straight ahead.”

The park seemed self explanatory, and I would leave the Observatory for last, as it overlooked the southern stretch of Plain where I expected to find the Buffalo’s camp, so I kept a beeline for the regal pinnacle of Cabanne. The city was layered, and to call it a cross was a stretch, as multiple echelons and extremities had been carved in and around the ridges and rock faces, architecture forced to adhere to natural structure. There were more houses than I had assumed, each individual in its simplistic shape, and it was feasible that this settlement could have been home to at least a few hundred ponies.

Still, it was compact, toppling over itself like the rock falls and landslides surrounding, and it didn’t take me long to get to the majorly, if unusually, wooden Hall. Dark mahogany broke out in bands from beneath an exoskeleton of grayed rock, and the entire roof was carved from the same dark timber, sharply reaching into the sky across multiple layers. The windows here were definitively stained, the recurrent gold sharing its purchase with hues ranging from green to royal crimson, depicting ambiguous stories in their basest form. Some looked like ponies, hooded and devout, while others looked like Equestrian familiars: the towering obelisk of Celestia’s Landing, as well as a depiction of the rising Cabanne itself.

“This building was often used as a meeting place for ponies of near royal stature – note the aesthetical improvements in the houses surrounding, superior design and craftsmanship to represent superior rank – but for the most part served as a place of worship.” Like the Lower Atrium. “Also pay attention to the fact that this is the highest point of the city, constructed at the very peak of its bluff, and views from within the houses are spectacular, though some pale in comparison to the northern overlook from the Park.”

What was best seen from here was the angled entirety of Cabanne below, beyond the arching avenue to the fountain square, and above the almost distant Great Gate near the landform’s base. It was not an over-cluttered space, as the number of houses was still far fewer than any modern town, and they were spaced out accordingly. Collections of cobblestone and ridge rock, pinewood and mahogany, grass groves and stained windows, each defined themselves comfortably, set into or against the straying bluff.

I stood before another great entryway, a tall door, dark wood carved into unintelligible symbols and runes. They gave way easily, swinging apart at my prompt to reveal the stretching hall beyond.

Unlike the monastery beneath Celestia’s Landing, this chamber was centrally focused, pews lining the walls like collapsed stands at a sports arena, and a centerpiece of ambiguous purpose. The rising glass obelisk, a natural, sharp prism to the rays of multicolored light, could have served any purpose: perhaps a ritual focus, a memorial, or even a simple, unavoidable crystalline extrusion from the earth beneath.

Flapplepot was struck silent, reverently taking in the internal beauty of rock and wood, majestic windows and gold adornments. Celestia rose once more on the opposite wall, in a tall antechamber that was devoid of pews, where ceremonies and sermons were undoubtedly conducted from. She looked like an enormous insect on the wall. The tape, however, had seen it all before.

“While there is no basis for the religion once followed by the ponies of Cabanne, their inherent culture of Faith has inspired many of Equestria’s ceremonial and architectural aspects.” Perhaps the tapes creators had feared for its safety in the hooves of some religious remnant. “Hearth’s Warming Eve, for example, was presented as a story of the Princesses’ intervention… though they hadn’t yet come to Equestria.”

In my, more contemporary, version of history, Equestria had been founded without the royal sister’s influence. But sh- the tape was right; even the Stable’s Faith had inserted their Goddesses into the story. ”Even in our modern recounting of the tale, the flag of the newly formed nation bears the remarkably impossible presence of both Princesses, even though they were not present at the time… except, as the old world claims, in spirit.” Then they came to us in physical embodiments to combat Discord, and secure their place as permanent rulers of the newly formed Equestria, saving us from our own incompetence.

“Now we know the true course of history, but do not think less of the Cabannites for their stoic belief.” This tape was clearly not produced by the Ministry of Morale. “This baseless idiocy was not their fault.” Never mind. “Back then, the Princesses were barely seen this far North and, for much of history, only the ponies of Canterlot and surrounding regions knew them as alicorns, or even knew that alicorns existed.”

I had settled down beside Flapplepot on one of the pews, and we watched the birthing light of morning dance across the prism’s facets, laced with rich colors by the stained windows across each wall.
“They saw the Princesses… as Goddesses, and never even knew that they lived, quite similarly to their subjects, In Canterlot. To them they were immortal, unfeasibly omnipresent, infallibly powerful and ultimately perfect, unable to be replicated or replaced, impossible to refute or to question.” Applepot scoffed. ”Can you imagine what they would have done if they’d seen the Ministry of Arcane Sciences?”

Twilight Sprinkle Sparkle: Ministry of Arcane Sciences
-Worked on considerably blasphemous projects or perhaps simply rebellious to Princess rule.

“Luckily, and as you know, religion has long since fallen away, and we are only left with buildings such as this to remember it.” The tape concluded, not before adding in a little profitable referral. “There are many resources that can be purchased in Smart Cookie – who wouldn’t have been religious, herself, as such – Souvenirs if you would like to learn more about the Faith. Don’t get too carried away, though! The Ministry of Morale is happy to make it very clear that the Princesses are not Goddesses.” The tape laughed a disturbingly malicious promise. “It must be understood that this war will not be won by divine right, and that each and every one of us must do our part to secure Equestria’s imminent victory.”

“Buy war bonds, or if you wish to truly make a difference, Enlist Today, there is a military recruitment office right here in Cabanne, waiting for the bravest of heart, the truest Equestrians.”
Way to rub it in, Pinkie Pie – though I doubted the voice was hers; it was too cold somehow, too dead. -

“You know I’d sign up if I could Applepot.” I floated my companion(s) at my side as we left the church. “Maybe if you were two hundred years less dead, and I could master Twilight’s time travel spell, you could give me a referral into the Steel Rangers, huh?”

Flutterpan didn’t like that. “I’m not really a doctor,” I argued. “And besides, I could be a field medic, that’s like the best of both worlds right?” I compromised, as we headed down the terraced city, towards the Observatory. “Maybe when I find out more about your Ministry I’ll understand your point, but so far, the only precautions I’ve seen were taken by Applejack and her Rangers, at the border security station.”

I thought for a moment, as Applepot gloated. “And by Pinkie Pie, even if her methods are a little creepy.”
“I just don’t see how a Ministry of Peace could have helped during times of war.”

“It’s like bringing an Animal rights activist to a good pig rasslin’.” Applepot agreed, drawing on her country wisdom to make very little sense. “Or Rarity to a pie-eating contest.”

“Shut up, you love her.” I reminded. “Whether you like it or not.”

Passing the fountain, the tape suddenly chirped up again, somehow able to avoid repeating itself on round trips. “Happy Lunch-Time visitor! Why don’t you take a break and visit the Food Court?”
I ignored its cloying. “You know, malnutrition was one of the leading causes of death in Cabanne!”

“You used to be a salespony, didn’t you Applepot?”

“Sure did, but Ah needed the bits to replace my hip.” That couldn’t be right. “Granny’s hip.” More likely. “Tried to sell my wares in Canterlot, but those hoity-toity unicorns didn’t appreciate good country cookin’!”

“You don’t dislike unicorns, do you?” I asked the expressionless disguise.

“Nah, Ah’m hopelessly in love with one remember?”

“Damn straight.”

Just had to make sure every once in a while.
“This towering structure is not only a great feat of manual architecture, but of great scientific strides.” The tape announced, introducing us the looming building ahead. “Constructed just against the palisade walls, it was used to observe the southern expanse of space. This is especially remarkable when we remember that buildings, just besides and constructed in the same period, barely had the basest utilities. Therefore these technologies are all but organic, no arcane influence or even electrical inputs, the mysterious properties of earthly reagents, glass, stone and the elements, are all that it had to work from.”

The building shared the layered style of the city as a whole; it rose like the bluff in periodic sections, walled and windowed, ending in an inevitably angular roof. From a modern perspective, it looked more like a medieval prison – with dark stone and guarded borders - than an ancient scientific marvel.
Familiarly intrusive pines broke through the stone near its base, lining the tall wall between us.

“Few ponies had regard for the explorative mission of this Observatory.” The tape justified. “So this wall, which once held an impassable black gate of metal, was put in place to protect the sensitive material within. If you are lucky enough to be taking part in a recreation, then watch out for the city guards!”
It kind of destroys the illusion if you keep mentioning the falsity of it, Tape.

We walked through the gaping expanse, from which the aforementioned gate had been wrenched entirely, leaving only its daunting frame. The entire city seemed oversized, each house built to sustain multiple families and every courtyard or avenue wide and empty to allow for far greater traffic than one mare and all her psychosomatic friends. Even the fountain was big enough to serve as a wading pool.

The statue of Celestia in the mall was actually one of the humbler constructions, relative to its importance at least. It was entirely possible that the one on the church wall was equally as large, but diminished in comparative perspective with the yawning basilica around it.

Now the grandeur was made clear by the pines rising in the Observatory’s small front garden.
They were stunted, if only by comparison, measly and meek, shameful to their kin in Zion, and even their compatriots in the Plain. While mountains rose around the wild forests, they were distant, far-off when compared to this city’s encompassed overshadowing of its more domesticated trees.

The front door, however, was much more humble, as Cabanne did not strive to belittle its citizens: it only sought to outdo the world outside, to defer its enemies and challenge the landscapes around it. When you were building a city in infinity, you had to build it big, if only to avoid it seeming insignificant.

Cabanne was an anchor, the heart of the Plain, a sunken ship in the ocean of gold and stone.
It may have been all that kept me sane on first exposure to this emptiness.

“Relatively.”

“Please be careful when you enter the Observatory, it is encouraged that you do not dawdle on the lower floor, as there may be other visitors above. Likewise, it is important that you do not drop anything when reaching the higher levels. If one or both of the rules are followed: the Observatory is perfectly safe.”

I lit my horn, bracing us against the creeping darkness that breached as I pushed open the front door, further proving that the apocalypse had arrived in the off season.
A winding scaffold wrapped around the inside of the hollow building, leading up to some unknown finality. It seemed purposeless in its size, as there was nothing between this floor and the highest, save for a means to ascend. Perhaps the telescope worked better when lifted out of the city’s dim haze.

There was a rat on a box, staring at us.
Barely visible in my restrained illumination, it seemed almost statuesque in the depths of its focus.
Black eyes glinted, evidence of life – or expert taxidermy - and seemed to move after me as I walked.

The rest of the room was uninteresting for the most part, almost circular by way of numerous faces, and barren save for a few cobwebbed boxes, haystacks and indiscernible figures in the darkness.
The silhouettes of furnishings, rather than inhabitants, leaving me alone… but somehow crowded.

The Rat followed as I took my first steps up the reinforced pathway, a single helix that must once have been even more perilous than it was now, without the metal braces to keep tourists sturdily alive.
He was… (It?) It was mottled and frayed, but not maleficent, and pursued with obedience rather than malice, politely waiting as I paused to observe it, as if sentient.
Its eyes were bright, curious and invested, to spite its unpleasant body, its archetype.

“Please do not attempt ascension without being validated; the Ministry of Morale is not accountable for injury sustained by unregistered visitors.” The Tape warned, as if speaking very specifically to me.
I gave the Rat a look for good luck and continued on, tempting the unpredictable rings of scaffolding.

“Can’t we help the poor dear?” Flutterpan asked, breaking her silence. “He looks very sickly.”

“It’s a rat, Sugarcube.” Applepot dissuaded. “The kind of varmint that ruins winter stores and digs up tenderly grown crops in the summer, a nuisance the whole year round. It’ll scavenge itself some food.”

The Rat seemed to be enjoying my kitchen-utensil, plastic-caricature puppet show, and kept close.
It was unsettling by nature, the seemingly rotted fur and yellowed claws, but its eyes glimmered with an oddly personable shine. He was following out of some curiosity or interest, unthreatening and even childish in its clumsy scampers, eagerly loyal… like a baby duck.

“Congratulations, you are almost at the top!” The tape cheered. “Thank you for not getting yourself killed! The Ministry of Morale wishes to personally express our gratitude for your consideration.”
Within just one morning in Cabanne, I had become more popular than I had ever been in my entire life.

The winding woodwork drew to a brightening close ahead, concluding in a rectangle of smoky light, defined against the darkness of the ceiling around it, a ceiling of splintered rot and barricaded in steel, held aloft by the influence of the Ministry of Morale, or whoever had reinforced this place against time.

Applepot hit her head as we stepped into the gray haze, but she didn’t make any more noise than a metallic clang – I wasn’t that invested in the pantomime – as I swung her back to float at my side.

The room was circular, spherical even, as the roof curved outwards. The illusion of sharp angles created by the outside walls had refuted the true shape within. A wide slit cut through the ceiling, on the southern face, allowing a sectioned telescope to peer out of it, an eye to the gray void beyond.

On thick metal legs, curved and anchored, the device stood, reaching from the rickety floor to the convex roof. The walls were concrete barred with pinewood, and the telescope had been constructed in the same material pattern, with rusted metal replacing stone. Its barrel, for lack of a technical term, seemed to balance on a gear, and was manipulated by another, smaller gear at its side, angled to survey different stretches of space. The eyepiece, a crude default at the narrow end of the conical barrel, was high.

Organized chaos filled the rest of the room, scraps of blueprint and data alike, strewn about in coordinated discord, to keep the room real, while prompting tourists to keep their hooves to themselves. Books stacked on desks, some with no feasible relation to sciences of the stars, or even observatories.
Ancient devices, wooden tools, compasses and parchment maps, covered the work stations.

The rat scampered to perch on one of the barren crates, resuming his intensely curious watch, never letting me out of his beady, black stare. I kept Flutterpan facing him.

“This… is a telescope.” The tape explained. “It was once used by ponies, easily more than a dozen centuries ago, to explore the stars. To think that it has only been ten years, eons after this observatory was built, since we developed the technology to actually visit them.” Who, the stars? “Our ancestors shared our curiosity. Just because they hadn’t the means to achieve what we can now, doesn’t mean they didn’t try. Though there were many, especially those of the Faith, that tried to hinder their work.”

“You guys could go to space?” I asked, speaking to everyone but the Rat.

“Princess Luna went to the moon over a thousand years ago.” Flutterpan reminded.

“Didn’t sound like she meant it like that.” I pressed, not expecting any answers, as they were technically the same ones asking the questions. “I think she meant spaceships.” I could’ve been buried on the sun.

“The Church of Cabanne made it very difficult for the scientists here – or anywhere- to conduct research, and records indicate that they were intent on getting this observatory shut down.” She moved on. “If ponies as important as Smart Cookie, or even Chancellor Puddinghead, were faithful to some precursor religion, you can imagine how hard it must have been for the progress of science, arcane or otherwise.”

It added another aspect of marvel, to think that this place was constructed entirely without the aid of magic. No telekinesis to lift the bricks, no sealing spells to hold the walls, not even any other source of light but for the sun and torches. I couldn’t even comprehend how they had built a curved room like that.

“Regardless, our kind learned a lot in those early days, things that we take for granted today. For example: as soon as Equestria was founded it was considered to be the most important place in the world, if not the only place, but this facility discovered the vastness around it, the insignificance of a solitary place, also disproving the theory that anything far beyond Zion was a sunless void.”

I could imagine the controversy this had caused, considering that the monument of Celestia’s Landing was once largely considered to be the place behind which our sun came to rest.

“Perhaps if the observatory had been built long before the church, before Equestria and the Princesses, we would have record of what guided their arrival, of the unicorn’s control over the sun and moon. Perhaps we would have understood Discord better, if we had observed him in his prime.” The tape was getting awfully existential, and slivers of a personality were seeping into its tinny voice. ”Maybe if we hadn’t been so self-interested, we’d have developed a better relationship with the Zebras, maybe the wa-“

The word was severed and I had the horrible image of Pinkie Pie pressing a silenced pistol to the back of Tape-mare’s head, just before she could finish her thought. She’s watching you… Forever.

“Did you know that the Equestrian military has ample need for more scientific minds?” The voice returned, chipper and promotional once again. “The Ministry of Arcane Sciences is known to combine its efforts with those of the Ministry of War-time technology – or even the Ministry of Awesome – to develop new archano-technology. Nowadays our potential to discover is infinite, and the ministries’ fields of interest have often crossed to take some of Equestria’s greatest steps into the future.”

“Unfortunately, and as you should know, the pursuits of space technology and astronomy have been all but shut down, their funding retracted to support the war and technological revolution. But why send a couple dozen ponies into space on a shuttle when you could get every Equestrian into a new Chrysalis? When you could create the greatest weapons in the world, and have our country safe once again?”

I stood at the base of the telescope and stared out into… into a wall of clouds.
The Enclave had gotten their cruisers, but they hadn’t needed the ability to traverse space, they had found their sanctuary in the sky. The Kingdom of the Skies was a cowardly oligarchy, and it seemed even the Kingdom of the Stars was nothing but a long abandoned dream.

“Don’t use that word, Sugarcube.” Applepot berated. “It sounds too much like Olive Garden.”

“You really needed all that money?” I asked, with no accusation in my tone.

“Building an army of super soldiers ain’t exactly cheap.” I impersonated. “And it’s not like digging up moon dust would’ve helped us win the war.”

“Yeah.” There was something deeply depressing about how we had come to lose ourselves. The Telescope had been one of our first steps, towards the future as the tape would put it, but we’d changed our course during the war, had started walking towards the holocaust, no longer heading for a long, prosperous future, but to apocalypse, to something that had sent us spinning around the rim of an ending.

“Consider this my enlistment.” I said to the tape. “I want to make our country safe again, I want to give us a chance, make all the deaths mean something.” Stop the ending.

“We need the brightest minds, the strongest hearts, the truest Equestrians.” she repeated.
“With the fullest bellies! Why not get a snack at the Cabanne Café on your way to the enlistment office? We certainly don’t want any hungry soldiers out on the field.”

“May I?” Applepot asked, as I imagined a coy grin slowly crossing her molded face.

I tossed the Tape into the air, even as it continued on its tirade of motherly, monetary fretting.
Applepot swung in a wide arc, Flutterpan screaming quietly behind her, and hit the device with a muffled combine of wrinkling plastic and ringing metal.

“You know malnutrition was…” The tinny voice tapered off as its herald went soaring out of the telescope’s high window, spinning through the hazy air and disappearing as a tiny black dot, drowning in the void.

I mulled over some of the last information that it had yielded, then recorded whatever I could decipher.

Rainbow Dash: Ministry of Awesome
- Did something, apparently.

The list wasn’t difficult to finish, though I felt a pang of guilt for the exiled Tape, seeing as it had been so helpful, if a little badgering. I had even started giving it its own personality.

Ministry of Morale --> Pinkie Pie
- Worked in tandem with MOI on war awareness/publications and seemed to handle enlistments.
– Involved in many sectors, e.g.: tourism. Pinkie had her hooves in a lot of Pies (harf harf).

Ministry of Image --> Pinkie Pie Rarity
- Mention or reference to this ministry’s purpose is a RARITY.
(Note to Self: This is ink; please do not try to make jokes. You will only regret them later.)

During the war, religion was pretty unpopular in Cabanne.
Unlike me. Rats are not as bad as you thought they would be – look into their eyes.
Old Calvary sounds interesting – be sure to check it out.
The Ministries drained most governmental funding – look into science stuff.

Feeling Patriotic – Save Equestria

Possible name for book: The Book that Love Guilt
Get it? Because of: The House that Jack built.
And the old buck… for his….wife…

- Find Pencil

I enjoyed writing in the book, it seemed that as soon as that dream was out of my head, I felt a lot better. Until the whole Foal-killing thing, of course.
But Cabanne had done its job, and I had certainly had time to think.
Perhaps too much time, I thought as I performed unhurried triage on Flapplepan’s indented face.
Applepot’s face was all but smashed in, so I decided that it may soon be time to retire the old girl.
I’d leave the masks back in the souvenir shop on my way out, but first, I had to find the Buffalo.

The telescope jutted out of the slit in the ceiling, meaning that it would be impossible to aim down into the Plain. Setting my two-faced puppet gently aside, I focused my telekinesis on the elevated eyepiece. Without the subtle system of lever and gears, I never would have been able to move something so heavy, but as intended, the telescope bent itself to angle nearer to the floor, lowering the eyepiece to my level.

There was nothing to see but gray, a mass of it, barely even shifting through the magnified perspective that I was given as I looked through the great machine. I then found a much less honorable use for the device, however, and clambered onto the barrel with a short hop and a panicked flustering, thereby forcing the wide end of the cone to knock against the tall window’s upper frame.

Weight distribution didn’t seem to affect its orientation much and, even as I slid myself up onto the wider half, the telescope wouldn’t budge. Rust or design held it still, and so I had to use magic to interfere.

This time I set the barrel down on the window’s bottom frame, turning it into a, much less terrifying, horizontal slant. How had earth ponies done this? Probably had a partner work some contraption in the gears. Actually, they were likely more interested in looking through the telescope than straddling it.
To them I would have looked like a drunken mare who thought that she was at a rodeo.

At the very brink of the barrel, I found myself looking out over the world, and was taken by overwhelming waves of numbing terror that fell into rhythm with the breeze. There were no palisade walls beneath me, and the city was all but invisible below and behind. Only curved rock-face until the ocean took its hold once again, lapping up against the sloping landform, breaching only to the rise of stone and earth.

The golden bristling seemed, at least in my mind, to be a manifestation of waves and shifting currents, forces of erosion that sought to submerge the insolent Cabanne, to take the great city to its watery grave.

There was almost too much to look at, but there was one thing that made it easy to choose a focal point.
A glimmer, dull in the filtered gray of daylight, was just visible above the southern mountains of the Plain.
Towers… in the clouds?
That was Calvary, it had to be! I shifted excitedly, craning my neck to overcome the mass blockade of rock. I might’ve been able to make out the skyline: the reality of my crude dreams and cruder scribbling.

Though I only succeeded in making it much more difficult to see, getting harder by the millisecond in fact.

I was falling.

Stupid

Stupid

Stupid

Stupid

St-
Footnote: Level Up!
Perk Added: The Way of the Cabannite: Decreased spread and double critical chance for .45 Auto pistols.

A VERY humble message FROM THE CLOSEST THING YOU HAVE TO GOD:
The Christmas Obstacle:
How you doin’, people of the world! Feels pretty damn good to be a human, doesn’t it?
Just think of all the inferior animals we get to eat! …Delicious!
I hope you’re all sitting down, because what the hell else would you be doing at a time like this?

As you may know: Christmas is coming (And, more interestingly/ethnically: Kwanza!)
For your humble author/deity, that means travelling thousands of miles just to get somewhere with less of this obnoxiously comfortable African sunlight and a much higher chance of hypothermia.
Anyway, point is: New Chapters are going to land every two weeks, instead of every Friday.
(So Chapter 21 will be out on the 21st, in case you measure your weeks differently)

This may go on for a while, with the occasional exception, because I’m going through a lot of changes come next year, which I’m told is only natural at my age.
You can take solace in this chapter’s ridiculous, hard-to-find Easter Egg, and perhaps an upcoming Christmas special.

Lynch mobs form on the left, more traditional torch-and-pitchforkers on the right.
Let’s keep this civil, people.

Next Chapter: Chapter 21: For What It's Worth Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 24 Minutes