Chthonic Paean

[jelloloaf]

Reader Notices (Last updated Jan 1, 2025)

1. This work is a recursive fanfiction of the quest 'Esquestria: The House of the Sun,' and as such, all content warnings which apply there also apply here. Specific chapter warnings have been omitted for the sake of spoilers; please read at your own discretion, especially if you are concerned with depictions of body horror in particular.

2. This work is not canon-compliant to the original quest. Most of the divergence comes in shuffling around the timeline of events before the story starts for the sake of better theming, and and I'm attempting to stick at least somewhat close to the plot other than that. However, at the end of the day, it's a different story. If you see a significant change from canon, it was most likely made on purpose.

Click to shrink...

---

Copper Secateur was not having a very good day. That was the excuse that she would give to anypony that she yelled at.

"Excuse me, ma'am?"

It was a possibility that seemed more likely by the minute. Her usually tolerable workload had dragged on endlessly -- her clients were being particularly obstinate about what proper gardening looked like today -- and now, just when she had almost managed to relax and set herself adrift like a leaf in the gentle river of alcoholism, somepony came up to talk to her.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but it's very important that I speak with you."

Copper briefly considered just not responding, but apparently she wasn't drunk enough yet to completely ignore social convention. With a lackadaisical push off the bar, she spun herself around in her stool to face the source of the interruption.

"If you're planning to ask me out, the answer is no," she drawled out, the words only slightly slurred.

Based on the surprise on the earth pony mare's face, she had not been planning on asking that. Her loss, really.

While her new conversation partner took a few seconds to get herself back on track, Copper drank in the atmosphere of the bar, as well as some more of her latest cocktail. Neither were particularly appetizing.

"No, I … wanted to ask you a question."

Well, that wouldn't be too bad, probably. So long as it really was a question and not just a complaint about how she had watered somepony's 'imported' roses with 'plebeian' hose water rather than some mineral infusion of moon rocks or whatever it was rich ponies wasted their money on these days.

Now it was Copper's turn to take a few deep breaths. Calm. Calm. She was calm. A leaf floating along a gentle river. Calm.

Oh, right, her would-be petitioner. She should probably respond to that.

"Yes, yes, go ahead." Copper waved a hoof in a manner that she had probably intended to look imperious, or regal, or one of those other sort of fancy words. Though the sense of entitled self-importance necessary for true accuracy takes a lifetime to cultivate, she at least managed to get the distain part right, which probably counts for something.

The pale blue mare took a deep breath, as though she was about to step onto a dangerously thin patch of ice on the rapidly freezing-over and no longer particularly gentle river of alcoholism. Then, with a great outrushing of air, the whole sentence came out at once.

"Are you satisfied with your life?"

Copper carefully formulated her response. She wanted something that showcased her razor wit, but still dulled it enough with self-deprecation to make it relatable to the common pony.

"What are you, a therapist?"

Perfect. She had nailed it. All the ponies who were doubtlessly listening in on her conversation would be awed by her flawless command of humor. Her conversation partner however seemed to be a lost cause, based off of the look of confusion that she now wore across her face. It took yet another few seconds of laconic blinking and a deep, slow breath for her to refocus herself. She seemed to do that quite a lot.

However, in lieu of further verbal response, the mare simply gave Copper a very complicated look. Although the blandness of the rest of her somewhat drowned it out, there seemed to be a good bit of pleading in her eyes, and while on any other occasion Copper would have ignored a request to talk about her life, she had passed the drunkenness milestone for oversharing personal details roughly fifteen minutes ago.

"No, no, I suppose I'm not."

Copper spun back around to the bar and took another swig of her cocktail – cherry something, maybe, she wasn't really drinking for the taste.

"I mean, I've got these," she said, gesturing towards the shears on her flank "And don't get me wrong, I like what I do, and I'm good at it, this isn't one of those 'useless talent' situations."

Copper waved her hoof around vaguely -- one of her favorite gestures for when she didn't really know what she was talking about.

"But for some reason, whenever I'm doing landscaping work for somepony who has the slightest trace of Canterlot blood, they always assume that since I don't, I must not be anything more than a convenient piece of furniture, and it just makes me mad, you know?"

At this point, Copper's brain realized that she was starting to stray into the territory of revealing actual problems with her life as opposed to just regular workplace griping, and tried to pump the brakes. Unfortunately for Copper, her mouth kept on going regardless.

"It's always unicorns, too. I thought we got over this a thousand years ago. Unity between the tribes and all that."

Her listener, who had politely remained silent up until this point, took advantage of the brief pause in Copper's budding emotional vulnerability to speak.

"I know something that will help."

Although Copper felt the urge to scoff at that, something told her that there would soon be a moment much better suited for a scoff that she should save it for. She did, however, spin herself back around again to glance at her conversation partner for a moment, before returning to her drink. It was a wonder that she hadn't gotten dizzy yet.

She frowned slightly. "Look, if all this was just a setup for you to preach to me about the 'Magic of Friendship', then you can save yourself some time and leave now. 'Oh, just be nice to them, they'll come around eventually!' I've heard it a million times, and the millionth-and-first isn't about to be the lucky winner." Copper draped her muzzle across the bar, half-closing her eyes.

The mare shook her head. "No, not that. It's an old ritual, much older than friendship."

Once again, Copper could feel the scoff within her straining to get out, but still she held it back.

"Yeah? Just get to the part where you try to sell me something."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the other mare simply bob her head at that. Copper was beginning to believe that she'd never had a conversation before.

"Regardless of belief, it is true. It goes like this: tonight, before you go to sleep, cut a lock of your mane. While you would ordinarily need to burn it, his attention is already focused, so merely the separation will suffice."

Ignoring the odd, seemingly rehearsed phrasing of the other mare, Copper felt the certainty settle over her. This was the moment she had been waiting for. Copper let out a mighty scoff; a scoff so great that years later, fanciful bar patrons would still tell tales of how it echoed throughout the room like a peal of thunder. Copper scoffed, and such was the force of the scoff that it was as though the entire world waited in anticipation of what she would say next.

"Horseapples."

It was quite reasonable to say that Copper did not believe the mare standing next to her. Really, who would? It was time for her to leave, and she said as much, in the direct and straightforward way which made her such a good conversationalist.

"Alright, I'm heading out. Have fun being crazy."

If Copper thought about it for a while, she might have come to the conclusion that the mare was slightly offended by the blunt accusation, but she was much too drunk for that, so she didn't.

"I'm serious!" A little hoof stomp punctuated the first deviation from her previous near-monotone. "Please, just … don't forget."

She was definitely going to forget. Possibly on purpose, if she could be bothered to put in the effort.

"Leeeaving," Copper stretched out, as though the word was one of those exercise bands that you buy and only use once before giving up and getting a gym membership instead. Then, she very casually and suavely slid her way out of the bar, and most definitely did not trip over her own hooves on the way out.

---

"Hmmplph."

Thanks to the continual passage of time, Copper was now not having a very good evening. The formerly gentle river of alcoholism was now harsh and frigid, filled with treacherous rapids brought about by the unwanted interference of her greatest nemesis; walking. Apparently, the earth in earth pony had disowned her again at some point along the road, and was now giving its farewell in the form of one final faceful of dirt, just like the last three times.

She had almost made it to her house, too. A very picturesque little cottage, with the only thing marring its image of rural tranquility being a somewhat-unkempt patch of flowers out front; left as such for the same reason why a line cook might prefer to order out at the end of a long shift.

Brushing the soil off her tongue – too much silt for her tastes – Copper once again stood up. Sure, it was more than a little wobbly, but it's the effort that counts, and she really put her all into it. The front door kindly agreed to swing open after only a little fumbling with a key, and then she'd made it. Home at last.

Navigating around the shadowed forms of the threadbare couch and low table she called a living room by instinct, Copper flopped onto her bed like a fish that hadn't died quite yet, but had already come to terms with its impending mortality and was getting ahead of the curve. The sheets were still mussed up from the last time she'd done that, so she didn't bother trying to get under them nicely. Besides, she still had to brush her teeth and do all those other thankless little maintenance tasks which bodies require.

After a heavy sigh, Copper flopped back off of her bed and onto the floor. Giving a reprise performance of her stand-up routine, she made her way into the bathroom and flipped on the lights. The reflection of a dark-red mare was summarily ignored – looking into the mirror and questioning her life choices was scheduled for tomorrow, after the hangover.

Her teeth were cleaned in short order, but as Copper put the brush back, her hoof knocked against a pair of scissors. Against her prior wishes, her brain dredged up a memory. That mare from the bar . . .

Ah, what the hay. Book protagonists always cut their manes as a stand-in for character growth, maybe it would work for her too. Celestia knows she could use it.

Before she could change her mind, Copper took up the scissors and sheared off a small curl of light-pink mane.

It sat in her hoof -- completely silent, as hair so often is.

After a moment, she snorted quietly and tossed it into the wastebasket by the sink, turning off the lights on her way out. Slumping back onto her mattress for the third and hopefully final time of the night, Copper quite unceremoniously fell asleep. Or, at least, unceremoniously in every way that she knew of.

---

Copper was dreaming. She had to be, despite the chill and the alertness and the strange apprehension she felt whenever she scuffed a hoof through the dirt.

She was dreaming because she was certain that she had not gone to sleep in the empty clearing she was in now, a rough oval speckled with the occasional night-blue pebble, overshadowed by long-distant mountains.

She was dreaming because the alternative was that this was real, and it wasn't. It couldn't be.

As if to prove it, she looked around her, searching for evidence. The clearing wasn't surrounded by normal trees; no sturdy chestnut to be carved into beams, nor straight pine for the papermill. These trees were dense and gnarled, a forest of dead spiders wound together in hydrostatic embrace. Slivers of moonlight peeked between their legs as soft hyphae-strands. There were no stars.

Copper felt the tight knot of tension releasing itself as an almost physical sensation, the deep exhale of now-redundant air. There were no stars. The real world had stars. She was dreaming. A terrifyingly realistic dream, but a dream all the same.

She thought about trying out one of those things you were supposed to be able to do in lucid dreams, like fly or be respected by other ponies, but none of her mental noodling resulted in any visible changes.

A faint shiver passed through the trees, but there was no wind. That poked Copper's brain somewhere around the ancient regions responsible for running away from danger, but she didn't listen to the ensuing fear, because all of a sudden, she felt incredibly tired for a reason that she couldn't quite place.

Why was she tired? Wasn't she already asleep? Could she go to sleep again while already dreaming? The unnatural exhaustion left no room for further questions.

The earth beneath her was dark and inviting. Copper laid down on it and it crawled gently over her ears, whispering soft moss. It told her that she could relax. It told her that she would be safe here. It told her that she should open her mouth.

Copper felt her tension slip away. This was a dream. She could just accept it. She didn't need to worry about anything.

She didn't need to worry about anything at all.

The earth extended lovingly past her teeth, coating her tongue with the taste of peat. Slowly, slowly, it pushed forward, replacing all of the fickle oxygen with kind, dependable loam that promised it would never abandon her.

Then, just as she felt it brush against the back of her throat, the wind argued back, descending from the trees in katabatic ropes. The gentle whispers fled before it, earth slumping back into mere soil.

And what do we have here?

An eddy swirled across her fur, and all of a sudden Copper shot up, full of panic and fear and thick choking mud which she frantically worked to retch back out. As soon as her mouth was clear, she drew in fresh air with short, desperate gasps, collapsing back to the ground in an exhausted heap.

"What . . . wha-t was . . ."

The response came instantly. Something that ought to know its place by now. Do not trouble yourself with it unnecessarily, I would never let a guest fall to something so predictable.

It was there, huddled and breathless, that Copper met somepony, or perhaps only something; something made of wood shavings and dusty fallen leaves and the spaces left behind after ideas are forgotten. Something that knew her name.

Hello, Copper, it said. Thank you for coming all this way to meet me. I trust my messenger in the Wake found you well?

A gentle breeze danced around her muzzle and Copper clamped her jaw shut even tighter.

You learn fast, Copper. Let me teach you a little more . . .

Copper shivered as another draft washed over her, hot and moist, like the breath of some primordial beast.

If you leave a hole open in the Wood, whether it be astonishment or fear or pain, something will come to fill it. Blood, splinters, or perhaps the soft earth, if you're desperate. However, I must ask that you refrain from that for now. I have a question for you.

It pressed in around her just as far as she shrunk away, and then a little more besides.

What do you want, Copper?

 

[jelloloaf]

Against her better judgment, Copper was awake.

In addition to being a bad idea, it was also very unpopular with her constituents. Her skull in particular was protesting loudly about how she was no longer looking after its best interests, and her spine was making some very pointed remarks about potentially withdrawing its support. There was even a tiny picket line of gut microbes who had gone on strike and were demanding to be given more carbohydrates and vitamins instead of just ethanol all the time, the ungrateful little peons.

Of course, like the practiced metaphor over-extender she was, Copper followed her political instincts and ignored the complaints of the citizenry in favor of her own problems. Right now, she was facing the unfortunate scenario of being tangled up in her sheets like an abstract sculpture. Expert analysis from her advisors predicted that her best bet to resolve the situation was performing a highly technical maneuver known as 'falling out of bed.'

Copper just had to twist her legs around like so, and . . . success! All she needed was a victory speech to commemorate the occasion.

"Guh," she said, quite eloquently. The way her muzzle was squished against the floor really enhanced the vocal performance. Truly, words to be passed down through the ages.

But that was enough lying around. She had a busy schedule today; suffering from a hangover, glaring at her reflection and blaming herself for having unhealthy coping mechanisms, fantasizing about having a better life but not actually doing anything to achieve it, maybe even a little worrying about that weird nightmare if she had the time to spare.

Hmm, actually, bump that last one up to the top of the list. Getting drunk to the point where she had trouble walking normally stopped her from having any dreams. It was suspicious that she'd had such a lucid one.

After a few seconds of spinning the wheels, her brain presented her with some potentially-related trivia. Given the vague information and rumors surrounding recent return of Luna, books about dream-interpretation had seen a massive surge of popularity as pseudo-intellectual grifters jumped at a chance to exploit somepony else's attempt to learn for their own financial gain.

In a rather unfortunate incident which she didn't much enjoy thinking about, Copper had read one of those books, and she still had a few factoids stuck in the corners of her memory like particularly stubborn patches of mold. One of them was that your dreams at night reflected what happened to you in the day, a way for your brain to process what had happened and sort everything out into memories.

Had that been what had happened? Was a horrifyingly vivid nightmare about the ground being alive and also trying to kill her via suffocation somehow symbolic of the fact that she'd tripped and gotten dirt in her mouth the night before?

Probably not, but absent any better ideas, her brain gave the theory its stamp of approval and sent it off for long-term storage. It then decided to show initiative and remind her of the next item on the docket. Unfortunately for its dreams of a promotion in the decision-making hierarchy, this was not a good move on its part.

Copper groaned again, making her way into the bathroom and fumbling with the sink tap. A few splashes of water were sufficient to wash the sleep-crust from her eyes, and a muzzle stuck into the basin alleviated the lingering soreness in her throat.

Not for the first time, Copper thanked Celestia that she'd been born an earth pony, and thus much more physically resilient than unicorns or pegasi. What would have been an exhausting, all-day affair for them would probably clear up in an hour or so for her.

The face that met hers in the mirror only looked a bit more tired than usual, with slightly bloodshot eyes. But before the self-recrimination could begin in earnest, something else caught her attention. A tiny sprig of hair was missing from its usual place.

It took Copper a few seconds to remember that she'd cut it off last night at the recommendation of a stranger. Ugh, she'd really overdone it with the drinks if she'd actually listened to unsolicited advice about how to improve her life.

But who had that mare been? Had she been new to town? Copper wasn't the type that knew the name, birthday, and banking information of everypony in Ponyville, but she liked to consider herself decently well-socialized.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized that she'd need to revise her schedule entirely. Moping could come later, she had a mystery to solve.

Filled with determination, Copper made her way outside. However, as she stepped out of the door, she felt a brief twinge of fear at the sight of the ground, as thought it might rise up and try to kill her again, and potentially succeed this time. She quickly shook it off. She was a reasonable adult mare, not a scared filly crying for her mother because she'd had a bad dream. She'd be fine.

But just to be sure, Copper tentatively scooped up a small hoofful of soil and licked at it. Dry silt stuck to her tongue, limp and inert. Just as she'd hoped expected.

She spat it back out and shook her hoof clean before turning around to see her neighbor giving her a dumbfounded look, watering can spilling over onto a poor tulip. It was as if she'd never seen anypony eat dirt before.

"Just, uh, earth pony stuff. Don't worry about it."

Contrary to Copper's request, the probably-unimportant pegasus continued to look very worried about it, but a brisk trot down the street quickly put that out of sight, and thus by corollary out of mind. She needed the space for something else.

A plan.

---

"Dreams reflect what that happen to us when we're awake. It's a way of processing things."

Tin Can was an impeccably groomed earth pony stallion, with a rich, confident voice that seemed better suited to a radio host than a sales clerk. It might even have fooled Copper into thinking he actually understood what he was talking about, had they not known each other for years.

The sweeping gestures were also a nice touch to help cover up how he was rewording what she'd already said five minutes ago. He must have been running out of stock phrases in face of Iron's relentless rhetorical assault.

Iron Needle, the third member of the conversation, gave Tin a hard look. The flint-gray unicorn mare had eyes to match, and Copper could see them filled with determination as Iron kept her explorational talents solely focused on discovering the hidden meaning of Copper's account of her strange nightmare. Talents which would also be quite helpful in finding that mysterious mare from last night.

"What, you're saying it symbolized Copper's subconscious desire to eat dirt?"

Iron had almost certainly been making an absurd statement to use it as a proof by contradiction, and Copper was about to interject with something to get the conversation back on track, but at that precise moment, she had an excellent idea.

"Subconscious? No, I do that all the time. Maybe it was—"

Copper did her best to sound casual despite her rising glee, and just as planned, Iron took the bait. While she was distracted, Copper glanced at Tin. Fortunately for her plan, she saw, if not full-fledged excitement, at least a willingness to go along with the bit.

"Wait, you actually eat dirt? On purpose?"

"Of course," Copper lied. "Why did you think we were called earth ponies?"

"Mostly just clay," Tin chimed in, his voice perfectly level and explanatory. He may have been a bit of an idiot elsewhere, but within his area of expertise – making confident statements with absolutely no evidence – he was an extremely useful one. "It's an important dietary supplement, like fish for pegasi. Personally, I'm quite partial to a good kaolin – the pure stuff, not just any old micaceous slop mixed with chalk dust that some places try to give you."

Copper nodded solemnly in response, barely keeping herself from breaking into a wide grin.

"I'm more of a bentonite mare myself. The smoky aftertaste from the volcanic ash goes great with roasted carrots, and the crunch, by Celestia the crunch is just . . ." Copper waved her hoof vaguely. "Incredible. There's nothing quite like it."

Iron's eyes glazed over while she tried to adapt to this new information, her face slackening as all available energy was shunted to her brain.

"Wh–no, no, that can't be true. Can it? Dirt?"

Copper managed to hold it in for a moment longer before she broke down laughing, Tin joining her a half-second later.

Finally realizing that she was being messed with, Iron huffed, stomping a hoof. "Very funny. Did you actually need help with something, or was that just part of the setup?"

Copper straightened herself out, clamping down on a residual giggle. "Sorry, I just saw the opportunity and couldn't resist. I do have a ques---well, two actually, now that I think about it. But one of them is really quick. One and a half questions."

Iron glowered at her. Copper, being the kind and generous conversationalist that she was, decided out of her own free will and definitely no other reason to hurry it up a little bit.

"Quick one first, have either of you seen Brass Band around?"

"She's still on tour, I believe. Manehattan has been good for her." Tin raised his hoof, clearly eager to explain something now that he was actually knowledgeable about the subject matter. "Why, were you thinking about getting the group back togeth—"

His question was abruptly cut off as Copper's hoof met his mouth in what just barely skirted under the legal definition of assault. "No! Shut up!" she cried. "We agreed to never speak of that again!"

Sensing an opportunity to pay back the messing-with, Iron closed in, a smile of her own spreading across her face. "Aww, but the 'Metalheads' were so cute! Remember when we won that music show as foals?"

"You can't prove anything! I was never there!" Having realized her mistake, Copper attempted a strategic withdrawal from the conversation by means of running away. Unfortunately, she felt Iron's magic pull her to a halt before she got more than a few meters.

"I think my parents still have a photo album that would argue otherwise."

After a few more seconds of struggling against the reality of the situation, Copper finally admitted defeat and slumped down. "It was a stupid name anyway," she groused. "We played jazz."

Probably driven by a fear of no longer being relevant to the conversation, Tin spoke up with his opinion on the matter. "I thought it was very clever"

Copper lolled her head around to stare at him. "That's not the complement you think it is." She cleared her throat. "But anyway, the reason I ask is because I was keeping some stuff for her before she left and I need the closet space back."

"I have extra room, you can drop it off at my house whenever," Iron offered.

"Thanks, Iron."

"What are friends for?" Iron shrugged nonchalantly, releasing her magical grip now that she saw Copper had stopped trying to escape. "You said you had two questions though?"

Success. She'd pulled off the double-bluff. Iron had fallen for her faked retreat and let her guard down, and having already agreed to help with something minor, she was primed to accept a similar proposal. All Copper had to do was play her cards right.

"Oh, right, yes. I was going to try and find that mare from yesterday, the one who told me about the 'ritual.'" Copper waved a hoof around, expressing her general disdain for the concept. "She was another earth pony; very light blue, kind of bland-looking. Like she was really tired of everything. I'd know her if I saw her again."

"You know my talent is geographical navigation, right? Not just magically sensing the location of ponies I've never met before?"

In lieu of an answer, Copper simply made her eyes as round and wide as she could manage, hunched down slightly to look up at Iron, and generally just attempted to look as pathetic as possible. If she was more insecure about herself, she probably would have been disappointed by how easily it came, but Copper was willing to play to her strengths. It was an incredibly versatile trick, and she considered it to be well-worth the months of practice she'd given it back when she was a filly.

Iron sighed heavily, gently resting her face against her hoof. "Copper."

Copper widened her eyes a little more.

"Copper."

---

As was quite typical, the Ponyville Records Office was dark and dreary and dismal and depressing and all those other sorts of words which meant that nopony ever went inside. What was not quite so typical was that there was nonetheless somepony inside it. Two someponies, if you were being pedantic about it.

"Hold on for a second, Copper. Explain your thought process here."

Copper suppressed a sigh, her previous good mood having evaporated sometime in the last hour of investigation. She was making progress, to be sure, but not quickly, and it was getting harder to hide her restlessness from Iron.

There had just been something about that dream that she couldn't quite put her hoof on. It had had felt real in a way that dreams weren't supposed to. She didn't like it, and even more than that, she didn't like not knowing why it'd happened. It made her usual problem-solving strategy of rationalizing things away much less effective.

Another sigh was bit back as Copper set aside the box of files she was searching through. "What's there to explain? Cherry Berry said that—"

"I know that the bartender said she'd seen this 'Jade' mare before. I was there when you asked. What I want to know is how exactly that connect to us looking through," Iron lit up her horn, grabbing one of the files out of the box and bringing it up to her face, eyes briefly flicking across it. "Property deeds." She turned back towards Copper, giving her an inscrutable look.

Copper's eye twitched. Iron had been doing this constantly, always asking Copper to 'slow down' and 'think things through.' Would it kill her to shut the buck up for once and just accept that Copper knew what she was doing?

"Cherry's set up off of the main road; she doesn't get a lot of traffic from non-residents. If she's seen our mystery mare before, that means she probably lives in Ponyville. Land is relatively cheap here, so almost everypony owns their own home instead of renting. If she lives here and owns a house, she'll need to have some documents on record for tax reasons. The address will be listed, so we can head straight there without needing to wander around aimlessly for any longer."

Her monologue complete, Copper huffed, staring back at Iron. "How's that for an explanation?"

A moment passed, and Iron's gaze resolved itself into concern. An emotion which Copper steadfastly ignored, turning back to her chosen box.

"Now, are you going to give me a hoof here or not? These files won't search themselves."

"Copper, please. Take a second, sit down, and talk to me. You seemed fine earlier, but we've been going for a while and you're getting much snippier than usual. What's bothering you?"

Copper fumbled briefly for a good excuse. "Nothing's bothering me! I'm just, uh, excited to . . . solve the mystery."

Iron tilted her head slightly. "So excited that you nearly yelled at Cherry when she said hello and asked how you'd been?"

Copper shifted, scuffing a hoof against the floor. That had been a terrible excuse; now she'd gotten herself trapped talking about about her emotions. Her brain was clearly not earning its keep.

Iron kept looking at her.

After several more seconds of avoiding it, Copper finally slumped and met Iron's gaze. She could still find a way to salvage this conversation. Somehow. "Fine. I may have left out a few details earlier."

Iron just nodded, eyes still uncomfortably sympathetic. But it was fine. If Copper dumped some vague complaints on her that she couldn't actually do anything with, she'd give up and stop trying to insinuate something.

"I told you about last night earlier, but I didn't tell you all of it. After the whole 'evil dirt' incident, something else happened. There was this . . . voice, I suppose, in the wind. It told me that it hoped its 'messenger' had reached me well. I know it's stupid; it's just a dream, but it felt—"

Iron cut her off once again. "I don't think it's stupid, Copper. It's clearly bothering you, and there's nothing wrong with wanting an assurance."

This had been a mistake. Even if it would've taken longer, she should have just come alone. Then she wouldn't have had to deal with the world's most stubborn mare and her refusal to accept that Copper. Was. Fine.

Copper continued staring at Iron, until she eventually forced the unicorn to sigh and shake her head. "If you're sure you're okay, then okay. Just . . . don't be afraid to talk about it if you're worried about something, alright?"

Reluctantly, Copper nodded.

A small smile crept onto Iron's face. "Now come on," she said, bumping against Copper lightly. "These files won't search themselves."

---

The author advises that clay, while technically edible by humans, has no nutritional value and can severely damage the digestive system. Recipes available upon request.

Click to shrink...

 

[jelloloaf]

Copper had mixed feelings about Iron's perceptiveness. On one hoof, it'd prevented her from needing to sort through decades of irrelevant paperwork by herself to find what she was looking for. On the other, it'd gotten the conversation uncomfortably close to discussing the problems that she definitely didn't have.

She dragged a hoof against the ground. Iron was too nosy for her own good sometimes. There was no need to pathologize a completely normal amount of stress with a completely normal cause. Everypony had nightmares sometimes.

Copper was fine. She was perfectly well-adjusted and had no insecurities whatsoever. Or at least, that was what she kept telling herself. That was how it worked, right? She lied to herself, and then eventually she would start believing the lie and it would become the truth.

Looking on the positive side though, Iron's help had produced an address, even if it'd come at the price of promising to spend some time with her later. And speaking of addresses, she'd arrived at the specified one; a thankfully house-shaped house.

Not that she had anything against the more . . . unique . . . architectural choices in town, but sometimes, simplicity was better. And easier to maintain, though it looked like the owner hadn't decided to take advantage of that virtue. The paint on the walls was drab and worn, and the wood underneath it had started to splinter slightly.

Ignoring the uncomfortably loud creak as she stepped onto the porch, Copper raised her hoof to the door and, after a moment's hesitation, knocked.

It took nearly thirty seconds of shifting from side to side for the door to finally open, revealing the mare from before – Jade Whistle, her name was Jade Whistle. Her dusty-gray mane was somewhat mussed, and her eyes were half-closed. Copper readied a polite greeting, but the other mare beat her to it.

"Oh. It's you." The door shut again.

Copper blinked. Why had—

Wait, buck.

Buck, she'd called Jade crazy to her face last night. No wonder her reaction to seeing Copper again had been so negative.

Copper paced back and forth. This was bad. Not only had she gotten drunk enough to start insulting ponies at random, she'd also gotten drunk enough to completely forget about it until the most inconvenient moment possible.

She froze. If she'd somehow missed the fact that Jade wouldn't be inclined towards a second meeting, had she also missed something else important? Was it possible to tell if she'd forgotten something?

Maybe she hadn't even been given cryptic advice last night. Maybe she'd just cut her mane on her own and made up a justification after the fact, and Jade had nothing to do with this at all.

Was that what was happening? Had she spent several hours tracking down a random mare for absolutely no reason?

Copper's panic-spiral was interrupted by the door reopening and Jade slipping out onto the porch, holding a small sheaf of papers.

"You got here faster than I thought you would." Jade turned and closed the door behind her again. "It hasn't even been a full day yet."

Oh thank Celestia, she wasn't going insane.

Copper shook herself slightly. Now wasn't the time for whatever it was that was going on with her brain. She needed to focus. "What do you mean? A full day since what?"

Jade cocked her head, face still blank. "Not a lot of ponies know where I live. I thought you would take longer to find me."

Then, without warning, she began walking away. Forced to once again switch tracks, Copper stood idle for a second before she realized what was going on and scrambled after Jade. "Wait! What's going on? Why did you tell me to cut my mane last night?"

Jade didn't look back as she replied. "So that you could meet him." She waited a moment before preempting Copper's next question. "In the forest. I can tell you had the dream. You wouldn't be acting like this if you hadn't."

Copper bit back her exasperation. Polite. She was going to be polite. "Acting like what?"

"Restless. You want something, but you don't know what. It's hard for you to think clearly because there's no room for your thoughts."

Celestia, was there a 'psychoanalyze Copper' convention in town that she didn't know about? She was the only one who was supposed to do that.

However, completely disregarding Copper's inner complaints, Jade continued speaking. "I felt it too. It'll pass in a week or so, but until then, you won't be good at understanding. When it does, read these." She held out the papers.

Copper started to bring her face into a neutral smile, and—no, no, there were limits to her politeness. She was not going to get looked down on by some random nopony out of some misguided sense of empathy. Not today. She grabbed the offered sheaf and flipped to a random page, ignoring Jade's slightly narrowed eyes.

. . . Was this a joke? She looked back up at Jade, brow furrowed. "This is blank."

"That's the winter section," Jade said, as though that explained anything at all. She took the papers back, shuffling through them for a moment before returning them to Copper. "Moth would be more relevant here."

The newly-revealed sheet wasn't empty like the previous had been, but Copper halfway wished it was. At least then, she would only be irritated at having her time wasted, instead of both irritated and confused. An incomprehensible web of lines was sketched across the page, connecting circled fragments of poetry and little doodles of buildings like a detective's corkboard.

At that moment, Copper's brain – still bitter about having been demoted for gross incompetence – ignored the orders of her rapidly-eroding self-control and disengaged the filter to her mouth. "How the buck am I supposed to read this?"

However, rather than taking offence, Jade simply kept up the same impassive expression as she'd worn the entire time, save perhaps for a slight tightening of the lips. "I told you that you won't be good at understanding yet."

"Try me." Something about how she was acting felt ever so slightly off, but the feeling went away quickly. It was normal for her to be snippy; she had a pair of shears on her flank.

Jade exhaled slightly. "Fine. How do I put this . . ." She pressed her eyes shut for a moment before turning to stare at Copper. Something about her face seemed wrong, somehow. Longer than it had been before. "You have a mane, yes? It grows out, but now it grows in. The hairs are all poking your brain. You need to cut them off. Cut, cut, cut."

Wait. "What?"

Jade nodded. "Yes, cut. The hair remembers, but you need to forget. It's not safe to have secrets. Secrets are meant to be kept, and the world doesn't care if they're still you when it keeps them." Her eyes were wide and still and uncomfortably close to Copper's own.

"I don't—"

"Listen to the wind speak in the branches. Dream of it. Dream, but don't sleep. Have you seen?"

Copper stomped her hoof against the ground. "Stop being cryptic! What are you talking about?"

Jade froze for a moment before a shiver ran up her body and she began to blink rapidly, returning to her original expression. "Ah. The influence. You were supposed to have waited longer." She stood up. "Moth isn't good with finding, only seeking. Neither of us have the time for me to explain anything else. Cut your mane again tonight."

Copper managed to restrain herself from shouting that nothing had been explained yet. "But wh—"

"It's all in the notes I gave you. I'm sorry."

Then, without any further comment, Jade reentered her house, and, judging by the sound, locked the door behind her, leaving Copper with nothing but a small sheaf of papers and a headache.

---

Several hours later, Copper amended her previous conclusion. She wasn't going insane; she was already there.

She could tell because it was all starting to make sense. She'd been looking at the papers wrong. They weren't notes, they were letters. Letters that needed to be combined into words.

They were all splayed across a table now, the wood reminding them how they were supposed to act. The crisp lines helped quiet the incessant noise that was building in her mind. Like Jade had said, it was all in the letters. Copper was supposed to have taken longer; a week. The week meant weak, but she hadn't used it, so the sound was strong instead, strong inside her head.

There was too much inside her head; she needed to forget something so that there would be room for herself again. Inside her head was her mind, but outside her head was her hair. They were reflections of each other. The inside followed the outside, so she needed to remove something outside to fix the inside. Cut the hair.

She had to cut the hair. But cut it where? Into h and air. The air was the wind, and the wind was in the trees, and the trees grew around the edges, but that still left the h. It was the opposite of the air, and the air was outside, so the h was inside. The h meant house, because the ouse was a river, and a river was water, and water was always changing, but change was fleeting so she called the change h also and as h approached zero she found that the limit was the walls of the house.

Knowledge was a wall built stone by stone, but what awaited her in the darkness beyond the walls? There was no need for a fortress unless she had something to fear. Something to hear? Something near. That was why was she in her house. She couldn't go outside without first being inside. She would exit through a door, but a wall was the opposite of a door, so she would need to break the wall.

Copper had made a breakthrough. Or she'd been broken through, she wasn't sure if it mattered which way she said it. Knowledge was dangerous. The lines circled the words; the house contained the ideas. The memory was the hair, and the walls were the edge, so when she left the house she cut off the h and the hair became air. Living air, for the wind to speak though. Silver air, to bring silver dreams.

Silver dreams. She needed silver. Silver silver silver silver silver.

But where to find it?

She paused a second before it came to her. Mirror. She needed a mirror. The hair and the memory were reflections of each other and her skull was the mirror. There was also one above the sink.

She all but collapsed into her bathroom, not bothering to turn on the lights. The low beam of sunset that came in from the window would have to suffice. She could feel the metaphor beating its wings against the inside of her head, trying to get out, but a glance into the mirror (silver!) revealed that her eyes were still closed, so she had time.

Ignoring the clatter of swept-aside toiletries, Copper smashed her hoof into the mirror before almost falling over in the process of blindly scrabbling against the floor for a sharp enough shard. Once she found one, she set it against her scalp and pulled. The glassy edge cut skin and hair alike, but that was fine. Her body was just another wall.

The requirement fulfilled, she dragged herself back into her bedroom and atop her mattress. For a moment, she simply laid there, until she opened her mouth and began reciting the sights she'd seen.

"It's a candle, not a risk, and I'll like that light. I'm blessed to be in the light. I can see better in the sun. I can see better in the sun. I can see better i—"

---

"—n the sun."

And then, in the space between one letter and the next, she'd crossed over. She could feel that she was back in the strange dream-forest even before opening her eyes, but she opened them anyway, just to confirm.

"You're back sooner than I expected, Copper. Eager to see me?"

The wind was there too, twisting playfully through the moss-crowned trees. She relaxed at the sound. The wind was the air, and the air meant that it'd worked.

"What's all this here with you, Copper? You've been busy."

It even sounded like an actual voice now, instead of a collection of forest-sounds that were just pretending. That was neat. She'd think more about it later, though.

"I suppose I should have expected this sort of reaction. Desire becomes yearning, and we long for the flames."

Right now, she was exhausted. The last few hours were a little fuzzy – the memory was fading even now – she must have pushed herself a little too hard to try and figure out the . . . walls?

"Still, for such a light mantle, it's had a very great effect on you; far more than I'd anticipated. A good sign for things to come."

What had she been trying to do? Something about a house? A door?

Well, if she couldn't remember, it probably didn't matter that much.

"A channel through which power will return to the world. You will serve me well, Copper."

Ugh, that sounded like effort. This was sleeping time. She knew that she was already asleep because she was dreaming, so if she went to sleep again in the dream, she'd be twice as rested in the morning. That was how it worked, probably. Maybe.

"I would recommend against it, Copper. You've felt before what happens to the unwary."

Oh, it was talking to her instead of just at her like she'd thought. That seemed wrong, somehow. She was supposed to listen to the wind, not talk to it.

"Jade means well, but her understanding is limited by her nature. Not like you, Copper; so easily malleable."

It was nice of the wind to compliment her like that, but she still didn't understand how she was supposed to say anything back. Her brain was fuzzy with stubble, but she could remember that she wasn't supposed to open her mouth, because then the u would get taken out and she'd just be a moth.

"You recall correctly, Copper, but there's no need to be concerned about responding. Your mind is open to me."

Awesome. Always good when a problem solved itself.

"Speak to Jade again when you wake; she will explain our mission to you more fully. Do you understand, Copper?"

She did indeed. There was just one question that she had. Why did it keep saying her name every time it spoke? Was that some kind of wind etiquette? Should she say its name every time too? What even was its name?

No wait, that was several questions. But they basically all rounded down into one, so it was fine.

"I say your name so that we can remember it, Copper. It wouldn't do for either of us to forget just yet."

That made sense to her. It was easy to forget things, especially if you weren't doing it on purpose.

"But as for my name? I've long since given it up. Instead, call me what I am, Copper."

Leaves rustled softly as the tramontane wind curled around her, cold and dry.

"Your Master."

---

Brought to you in part by me avoiding my finals. Might not be able to update next week depending on my schedule, but after that we'll be back on track for sure.

Also, didn't have as much time to edit this week, so if you spot any issues, please point them out. Hope you all enjoy!

Click to shrink...