Nectar

Chapter 1

The Great Light Railway was a true triumph of the modern world - it stretched hundreds of thousands of miles and connected civilizations all across the planet. Treetop had never seen it up close, and the station alone was larger than he would have expected - it was one of the biggest buildings on the island. Before, he had only ever seen the train approaching and leaving from a distance. Even though it had a station in his hometown, he had never dreamed that he would be boarding it - for a transoceanic voyage to Canterlot, of all places. Canterlot, the thriving economic center of the world - the heartbeat of the world economy.

The arrival of a massive, slick, polycarbonate train interrupted the young pegasus’ thoughts. On cue, an automated voice over an intercom announced, “The 9:30 direct to Canterlot will be departing in 15 minutes. We will begin boarding any first-class passengers at this time.” Treetop yawned, stood up on all fours, and began trotting toward the door of his section of the three levels of the train; he was boarding the much shorter top level reserved for first-class passengers. The rest of the station was deserted except for a few sullen late-night travelers who couldn’t afford first-class tickets.

Inside the cabin, there were two rows of very large, comfortable looking cushions, each equipped with a TV monitor. Treetop lay down on the one in the furthest-back corner, noticing a drinking tube hanging out of the wall next to his seat, and next to every seat for that matter. He took a guess at what they were, and tried to temporarily ignore them for that reason. He fell asleep for a few minutes, but was woken up by the female unicorn ticket master. Looking around as he handed her his ticket, he noticed he was still the only pony in first class.

“Sorry to wake you, sir. The train will be departing in five minutes, and I have to ask you if this is your first time riding a Great Light Railway train?”

“Yes, it is,” Treetop grunted sleepily.

“Then I must tell you that the motion of the train in transit has been known to cause violent motion sickness in many of our passengers. We provide complimentary supplies of concentrated nectar,” she said, indicating the tube on his left, “in order to prevent this from happening. Please drink as much as you need to feel comfortable on your journey. Do enjoy yourself!” she added with syrupy enthusiasm as she walked off to the other side of the cabin.

Treetop turned his head to the left, smiled weakly to himself, and began gingerly sipping at the tube of nectar. The cool, thick, minty liquid quenched his thirst and tasted refreshing. He checked the cabin clock; it was departure time.

Smoothly and abruptly, the train took off and quickly accelerated to its terminal velocity, somewhere around three hundred miles an hour. As he watched the rolling waves of the ocean suddenly whip by his eyes, an enormous lurch of sickness seized him - but not before the effects of the nectar kicked in.

Suddenly very relaxed, Treetop fell back from his window and into his cushion. The drink they provided was truly potent stuff, and he quickly felt it take hold of his nervous system as he slid off into a state of tingling numbness. One more sip, and his mind settled down into a subdued state. Nectar: one of the most valuable substances on the planet, and Treetop’s reason for visiting Canterlot in the first place.

Far behind the train, Treetop was leaving behind a diaspora of tropical paradise. Although isolated far out in the Equestrian Ocean, and not as large or cultured as more urban islands like Tropicoltica, the island chain of Marenia was a spectacular concentration of beauty and tropical wildlife, far away from the clamor of the heavily populated land nations of Equestria.

It was also home to one of the most dense concentrations of Lyranian trees in the entire Western Hemisphere. Lyranian trees - the source of a powerful narcotic liquid produced by the purple flowers of the tree - a liquid known to the civilized world as Nectar.

The natives of Marenia, although modern, had never had any real use for nectar, except for in small recreational quantities, and so it had never been a major export item. That is, it wasn’t until the West Equestrian Nectar Company harvesting crews had arrived fifteen years ago.

Back on Marenia, Treetop was living out his life's passion as an ecologist and biologist. With his thick, brown, flowing mane, bronze complexion, and deep, blue eyes, he was the living physical embodiment of Marenian islanders. Although the petite size and features of the Marenia natives, especially so in Treetop, wouldn’t suggest a hearty type, his teen and adult years had been spent in the outdoors, studying the lush and colorful flora of the island, after he had received his cutie mark in the shape of a leaf when he was a colt.

His most recent research had been spent studying the ecological effects of the nectar-harvesting operation in Marenia. Harvesting and refining the precious substance was a laborious and intensive process, with recently apparent disastrous effects on the environment.

Efforts to slow the harvest had fallen on deaf ears in company headquarters in Canterlot, where the stockholder and joint chief-executives who owned a huge portion of the world’s economy were raking in wealth.

Treetop had apparently dozed off under the heavy dosage of nectar, because he awoke suddenly to a ticket master announcing their departure from the port of Tropicoltica. They had traveled far in his sleep.

It was still nighttime, and the first class cabin was much more crowded now. As the train once again shot out from the station, he felt another lurch of sickness and wondered if he should drink more nectar. He decided to ward off the craving for another few hours, and instead better prepare for his presentation. Some of his recent biological studies had revealed nectar’s depressive effects on the frontal lobe of the brain, and he had come to regard the stuff with disgust. But, like most ponies, efforts by the Western Equestrian Nectar Company, also known as the WENC, had gotten him addicted to it years ago. Luckily, he was not as far gone as the more urban Equestrian ponies were, who had been hooked on the stuff since they were mere fillies.

He started to take his notes out, when he suddenly noticed a very pretty young unicorn sitting in the seat directly across from him, smiling at him dreamily. “Hello,” she said in a flowing tone, a hint of a Tropicoltica accent slipping into her voice, probably from the effects of the nectar.

Treetop turned to his window nervously, then turned back with his head down, returning a quick “Hi,” his voice coming out in a squeak. The unicorn giggled, before continuing,

“I saw you sleeping here by yourself in this corner and thought you might like some company when you woke up.”

“Oh.” Treetop rubbed his hooves against each other awkwardly and stayed silent.

“My name’s Softspeak,” she said.

“Hi. I’m Treetop…”

“You look like you’re from Marenia,” she guessed accurately. “What are you doing, going to Canterlot?”

He glanced sheepishly down at his notes. “Well, actually…I’m going to give a presentation at the WENC."

"That's...wow. That's pretty big-league. Are you trying to break into the banking industry?"

At this, he laughed. "Oh, no. I'm an ecologist. I'm just giving a report on the nectar harvest in Marenia. It's been horrible for some of the local ecosystems. Hopefully, presenting before the joint chief-executive board will finally get some change rolling,” he added quickly to the end.

Had she not been relaxed from the nectar, Softspeak’s jaw would have dropped to the floor. Instead, her deep, sparkling green blue eyes widened, and she gasped, “You’re meeting with the chief-executive board?! You must have so much clout there!”

“Not really. I have a childhood friend who’s a stock analyst at the WENC…he managed to pull some strings and get me a meeting with them tomorrow. He gave me a video call just a few hours ago, and I had to rush out here.”

Softspeak stood up and expressively walked over to Treetop’s seat, plopping herself down next to him and causing him to blush. She mused, “Then you must be even more excited! Is this going to be your first time in Canterlot?”

“Yeah…I’ve never actually been outside the Marenia chain. But I’ve read so much about Canterlot! And my friend tells me so many stories....I really can't get enough of them.”

Softspeak grinned. “Well, I could also tell you a thing or two about it. I live there as a public relations director at the University. I was just visiting my mother and sister in Tropicoltica.” Treetop’s eyes lit up, and he took a sip of nectar as they struck up some light banter about their respective homes. He grew more and more enthralled as Softspeak described the soaring vertical neighborhoods, magnificent mile-high skyscrapers, and the magical sub-city of Cloudsdale that had been absorbed into Canterlot long ago as a manufacturing and weather center. They grew more and more friendly with each other, and eventually, Treetop fell into a deep, drug-induced sleep, hypnotized by the ocean outside his window and the delicate sound of Softspeak’s voice…

He awoke a third time to find the train was no longer over the ocean, but was now moving very quickly over a vast expanse of rolling, grassy plains. Mountains could be seen in the distance, as well as a bright smudge on the horizon, which he guessed was Canterlot. It took him a moment to realize that Softspeak had fallen asleep against him. He blushed very hard, hoping nopony noticed him.

The train jerked briefly as the railway suddenly lifted off the ground and into the air, elevated as it had been over the ocean, and waking up Softspeak. She started to say something to Treetop, but stopped when she noticed him staring dumbfounded out the window. She knew why.

The Canterlot skyline was rapidly filling up the horizon. From a distance, it resembled a gargantuan jungle of steel and crystal rising into the air. As they moved closer, he could see that it was not a jumbled mess, but a shimmering, multilayered city rising out of the ground, soaring up and out of view above the clouds. Over the past millenium, as the global economy blossomed, Canterlot, its life-force, had gone from a modest gathering of political offices and banking centers around the ancient Canterlot castle to a dense metropolitan paradise, rapidly growing vertically - it had hundreds of street levels and ballooned out from where Canterlot Castle hugged the mountain almost directly in the center. As the tramway rose further off the ground, Treetop was able to take in more details of the upper portions of the city - dozens of enormous vertical towers and skyscrapers pierced through and connected the hundred of layers, getting higher and higher the closer they were to the center, and peaking with the most gigantic structure of all - a three columned skyscraper rising a good quarter mile above the rest of the city. Even Treetop knew what this was - headquarters of the WENC and its child companies - arguably the most important building in the world.

“Dazzling, isn’t it?” said Softspeak in a hushed tone.

Treetop soon realized the city wasn’t just massive above ground. As they approached downtown, they began to pass over massive trenches spanning out from the city in a concentric circle pattern. Although he could only catch fleeting glimpses of them at the speed they were going, he was able to make out dirty balconies and buildings in run-down looking alleys. “Those are the slums,” Softspeak replied to his silent query. “They’re interconnected underground. The slum ponies are nice enough, and come above ground a lot to shop and work, but nopony from the upper levels goes down there unless they have to. It’s much too unpredictable.” Treetop nodded, trying to process everything. So Canterlot wasn’t as much of a paradise as he had thought.

Soon enough, the train was shooting in between the skyscrapers and street levels all stacked on top of each other. Treetop tried to absorb it all - shops and apartments and restaurants and penthouses and banks - and ponies! Ponies everywhere! He’s never seen so many ponies packed together; they were crammed into seemingly every available space on the street.

The train finally came to a halt in a station close to some of the larger skyscrapers, near the center of downtown. Softspeak shot Treetop a dreamy smile, and they got up and walked off the train together into an enormous, slick steel station, with magnificent crystal columns rising from the floor to the ceiling high above.

They gazed at each other for a moment before Softspeak said, “So where are you going now?”

“I’m meeting my friend Checker so he can take me to my hotel. He’s the one who booked me the presentation.”

“Oh. Well, listen, if you’re ever in Canterlot again, and you need a place to stay…you can come stay at my apartment at the University.” She levitated a pen and paper out of her bag and scribbled an address down.

“Um…thanks…” Treetop squeaked as he tucked the slip of paper into a pouch he carried around his neck, not wanting to lose it in the clutter of notes in his traveling bag.

The stood there briefly in an awkward silence before Softspeak looked up and nuzzled Treetop. His muscles tightened and he stammered for a moment, lowered his head and mumbled something neither of them could make out. Giving a genial smile, though slightly disappointed, Softspeak said, “It was nice meeting you, Treetop,” and turned to walk away. She got no more than a few steps before something clicked in Treetop’s mind.

“Softspeak! Wait!” he shouted. She turned around, surprised and hopeful.

“Yes?”

“I just noticed something. Where are all the unicorns? You’re the only one I’ve seen since I left Marenia, besides a ticket master on the train.”

Her face fell again. “You don’t know.” He shook his head. “Oh. I’ll give you the short story, because I have to get going. A while back, there was a horrible horn rot epidemic. It basically decimated unicorn populations across the world, and Canterlot was the epicenter. It happened around 200 years ago, I think at about the time they started harvesting nectar.” A sly smile crossed her lips. “Unicorns are a rarity in Canterlot, you know. All the more reason you should come visit me sometime.” And with that, she turned on her hoof and trotted off briskly, calling out “Bye!” as she went.

Treetop stood rooted in place, thinking about what he’d just heard. Before he got too far, his thoughts returned to Softspeak. He had blown it with her and he knew it. His good mood from earlier on the train immediately turned to frustration with himself. He turned angrily towards the sign that directed him towards the entrance, but only got halfway there before he heard a familiar voice cry out to him.

“Hey, Treetop! Over here!” He snapped his head in the direction the voice was coming from and saw a very familiar pony trotting over to him. “Wait till you see the hotel we got for you!”