Freebie Mondays: My Little Domerin – Episode 9: Act 2

I promised my twitch chat I would take Domerin, the grumpy elf main character from the Aruvalia Chronicles, and turn him into a pony if they helped me pay for my replacement computer. I never thought we’d reach that goal – but of course we did. Because my twitch chat continues to be the most generous community out there.

For more details on the project, check the intro. (There are pictures of my characters converted into ponies there as well.) You can also find links to the first half of the story here.

This story is meant to take place in the same world as “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic,” though it’s unlikely any of the characters from the show will appear in the story. I have attempted to adopt the style of storytelling used by the show (including an episodic format and a ‘season’ instead of chapters in a novel). And some of the ponies that appear were created by donators from my chat. VoDs of the writing sessions are available on my youtube channel!

I hope you enjoy this crazy, silly little romp!
. . .

The first few days after Crescent returned to the present were the loneliest of Domerin’s life. He had been separated from his partner before, of course. It came with the territory. Sometimes the captain of the Royal Guard needed to venture into dangerous territory and, as a diplomat, Crescent needed to remain safe. There were also times that Crescent needed to travel for work and Domerin couldn’t, for one reason or another, accompany him.

They were used to reunions of all sorts. Sometimes their absences were merely a matter of running down the clock, waiting for the moment they could be in the same room together again. Others they were fraught and emotional due to a long period without contact, potential danger or an injury Domerin sustained during a mission.

But always before, Domerin had at least been able to reassure himself that Crescent resided just over the hills, in the distance of whatever city, several days of travel from wherever he happened to be.

That wasn’t the case this time. Crescent had gone centuries into the future. And he had to take their only means of reaching that place with him when he left. Which meant, for the first time since they started dating, Domerin was completely cut off from his partner. He wouldn’t be able to reach him even if he tried.

Not only that, Domerin didn’t have any of the usual support systems to lean on. Everyone he knew, everyone he even remotely cared about, wouldn’t be born for the same number of centuries that separated him from Crescent.

He thought he’d been prepared for that reality. But only when he felt the soul-crushing isolation of being alone in this time period did he realize that he believed Crescent would return shortly after he left. All their talk of seamlessly transitioning and locating the perfect moment in time made him believe that Crescent would be able to offer his report on the future within a morning or two of his departure.

When the fourth day dawned without a sign of his beloved, a small twinge of anxiety crept through Domerin’s stomach. He was, after all, stranded until Crescent returned with the time remote.

But that worry was easy enough to banish. He remembered his history with perfect precision. He had drilled it into his head relentlessly before they left for the past the second time.

He would simply have to endure until the moment of his departure arrived. And he would simply have to trust that Crescent would appear sometime before that – as he had always believed from the start.

To that end, Domerin steeled himself and marched resolutely from his tent to join the bustling camp that was still in transit after the last confrontation in the woods. There had been a brief return to their mountain village to pack the rest of the supplies and make ready the craftsmen whose tools would be needed to support the massive war effort, then they began the slow and steady march through the mountain passes toward the area that would one day become Aruvalia’s center.

Ryland had been working feverishly over the past few days to divide his forces so that protection could be left at strategic points along the base of the mountains where the hillfolk were most likely to strike without also bleeding the power of his main force. It was a tricky problem to tackle, and it involved a lot of leaning over maps while stressing about which wooden tokens should occupy which areas.

Luckily for Ryland, however, Domerin knew where the biggest battles of the war were going to take place. With gentle encouragement and a few musings here and there, he was able to guide the warrior toward the best split of his forces without making him remotely suspicious of anything other than the fact that “Nirem” was likely more skilled at combat that he let on.

He found the army’s de facto leader near the center of the camp pursuing another map while he hastily devoured his breakfast. The second he noticed Domerin’s approach he looked up, grinned and set the map aside.

“Finally decided to venture out of your tent, did you?” he demanded and flashed the man a wink. “We’ll be glad to have you back at meals again.”

Domerin blinked. He hadn’t been avoiding meals – or company. At least, he didn’t think he had been.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Ryland insisted as he shuffled Domerin toward the area where breakfast was being served and shouldered through the crowd to secure his friend a hearty helping without having to wait. “We’ve all noticed how heavy you’ve seemed since Tencer had to leave. I won’t ask how things are between you-“

“It’s not secret,” Domerin protested, though he did feel the sharp stab of an internal reminder that Nirem had never been paired with another pony in any of the historical accounts he’d encountered. “We have been partners a long time.”

“Ah, well, we all suspected,” Ryland replied without missing a beat. He set Domerin’s plate down on a log that served as a table and he settled on his haunches while Domerin took the position opposite and began eating the offered portion. Breakfast tended to be the heartiest meal of the day since they would spend the rest of the daylight hours marching. Lunch would be dried fruit and salted meat consumed while they marched, and dinner would be a hasty affair eaten in a hurry before everyone settled down to a few hours of rest.

“It isn’t like he left me,” Domerin protested into the expectant silence. “He just needed to run an urgent message back to our homeland in hopes he’ll return with greater assistance for the war effort. And it’s a long way to go, so I have no idea when he’ll be back.”

“Listen, Nirem, we all have the same unspoken fear,” Ryland reassured. “You know… that we’ll fall in battle before we get another chance to see our beloveds. I, myself, left a fine girl out the way of Silver’s Garden, and I have no idea how many handsome stallions will linger and attempt to catch her eye rather than participating in the war.

“But I believe I will see her again,” Ryland asserted and stamped one hoof against the ground in front of him. “Otherwise, what am I fighting for?”

Domerin bit his tongue against answering that they were all fighting to build a kingdom that would allow every pony to flourish beneath the banner of a fair queen. Instead he said with the confidence of one who knows the future, “You will see her, Ryland. In fact, I believe you’ll marry her and have a whole litter of fillies to raise between you.”

The army commander grinned, and Domerin did his best to mirror the gesture. His companion thought he was merely teasing in the way all soldiers did during wartime – but actually Domerin knew for a fact that Ryland would become the first captain of the royal guard. And several of his daughters would become famous during the early days after Aruvalia’s founding.

“And you will see Tencer again too,” Ryland asserted in a more somber tone. “We are certainly not going to allow you to fall before he gets back. And besides, we’ve all seen him fight. Woe betide anyone who attempts to stand in his way!”

Domerin grinned because, that much at least, was true. “I didn’t realize that I had made my mood so obvious,” he admitted sheepishly. He had been trying to keep to himself since this war started, mostly so he wouldn’t say the wrong thing to the wrong person and spark a fight that diverted the timeline. But he supposed what he had actually been doing up until now was spending his time with Crescent. And now that Crescent was obviously gone, he must appear to be brooding.

Which, he supposed technically, he was doing.

“How long do you think it will take us to reach the chosen waypoint?” he asked, hoping to change the subject to something a little safer. They had already determined where the bulk of the army would prepare for the next invasion – or counter-invade themselves if it came to that. But Domerin had to be careful not to act like he knew everything about what was happening.

That would surely give him away.

“Another four entire days of march, I’m afraid,” Ryland admitted somberly. Already the troops were tired and aching from the amount of gear each had to carry on their back – not to mention the carts that needed to be pulled behind them to ensure they had adequate supplies. Four more days of hard marching wasn’t going to be popular, and they’d be exhausted by the time they reached their destination.

Domerin considered for a long moment, weighing what he saw around him with what he knew was coming. Then he said, “Maybe we should let it take five.”

“Speed is of the essence!” Ryland began to protest, but Domerin cut him off with a soft, reassuring sound.

“I know it is. And it makes me nervous thinking that we’re still four days away. But think of the state we’ll be in when we get there. If everyone is falling off their feet – and grumpy about it because of the energy requirement – how will we faire if we’re attacked? Covering a little less ground across an extra day will give everyone the chance to stay rested. And it will allow the injured to stay with us without pushing too hard.”

Domerin cast a significant look in the direction of Lightfoot the Great and his squire, who had been struggling to keep pace since the forced march started. In the history he remembered, Lightfoot had never fully recovered from the injury he sustained during the ambush. Without his squire to help him, he had been overwhelmed by his duties, but he still insisted on fighting.

That perfect storm of circumstances had led to his death. And without his squire, his banner never passed to another knight.

He wondered what would happen now that the young pony had survived. Certainly it should mean Lightfoot’s banner would make it to the modern era. But it might also mean an entire family of ponies that hadn’t existed in the timeline Domerin came from.

Could one of those ponies be instrumental in changing Aruvalia’s relationship with the hillfolk?

“You know, I wasn’t sure about that kid at first,” Ryland murmured, lowering his voice for the first time since their conversation had started. “He’s got hillfolk blood in him. Did you know that?”

“No,” Domerin admitted, surprised. “Is it really all that uncommon, though? My understanding was that the conflict between us didn’t start until a few years ago.”

“Aye,” Ryland admitted, and his voice sounded strange. Like he was torn halfway between surprise that Domerin didn’t share his feelings and surprise to be reminded this conflict was relatively new.

At least from his timeline it was. From Domerin’s perspective it had been going on for centuries. And needlessly if anyone asked him.

“But there’s been a lot of talk out here on the border,” the army commander went on. He hung his head slightly and his voice sounded both sad and tired. “I guess lately the clans have gotten upset about the number of marriages between their women and men from the settlements. As far as I can see, it’s a better life for them. After all, the clans are vagabonds. They live out of tents and wander from place to place across harsh terrain. Who wouldn’t want to trade that for a house with four solid walls and a garden that produces an abundance of food?”

“Some of the hillfolk consider it a matter of pride that they never set down any roots outside of their blood,” Domerin replied with a light shrug. His plate was empty now, so his full focus was on the conversation. “I, for one, can understand the call of wandering. It’s why I’m out here so far from my home and without even a squire to assist me. But I’m guessing these ladies haven’t felt the same if they’ve been drifting toward more settled lives.”

“I, for one, would have been content to let anyone do what they wanted to do,” Ryland agreed. “But the first indication things were going sour with the hillfolk was when their chiefs started claiming we were luring their young ones away. Filling their heads with all sorts of nonsense. And worst of all, they’re now claiming we’re trying to breed them out of existence.

“When that young squire fled during the fight, I thought maybe he had mixed feelings about fighting his kin.”

“He was just under attack,” Domerin countered. “And he’s young and not sure how to handle that the way you and I are.”

“I see that now,” Ryland replied with a small smile. “Given the way he nurses Lightfoot, I can tell his loyalties are in no way split. But I can’t help feeling people like him should be helping us cement our relationship with the hillfolk rather than causing it to deteriorate.”

Something clicked inside Domerin’s head as if two gears had finally slid into the right positions to create movement.

He had known from the start that he wasn’t here to create drastic change. His theory had been that a few small nudges would create a situation that would subtly and gradually change as time moved on so that only a small amount of pressure need be applied to the future problem to prevent the explosion.

Now he saw what he was looking for – people who could help the Aruvalians connect with the hillfolk. People who could keep those lines of communication open.

He had prevented a major conflict between the two by saving an important clan child. Now he had created an ambassador who might soon become a distinguished knight within the Aruvalian defense.

But is it enough?

That was the question he wouldn’t be able to answer until Crescent returned. So until Crescent returned, he would have to continue looking for more of those little connections that could be fostered to subtly alter the timeline.

Domerin excused himself, lifted his dishes and returned them to the mess for cleaning. Then he made his way back to his tent. Without Crescent, all the work of pitching and breaking camp fell to him. Not that he minded. But he needed an early start if he was going to keep pace with everyone else.

To his shock, he found Lightfoot the Great lounging on a stump nearby. And his squire had already begun to break down Domerin’s tent.

“What’s this?” he asked, making it clear he was surprised rather than upset. “Haven’t you got enough of your own work to tend?”

“We’ve got an extra set of hooves between us, so we’re fine,” Lightfoot replied gruffly. “You, on the other hand, seem to have lost your assistance.”

“I-” Domerin started, but he didn’t get another word out before a second knight appeared with their squire in tow.

“Why don’t you pull your packs out?” she suggested with a grin as she and her squire went to work on the back half of Domerin’s tent. “We should be able to get this all bundled up for you by the time you’re ready to fix everything in place.”

“You’ve helped us,” Lightfoot’s squire added with an eager grin. “And don’t think we haven’t noticed that you always seem to have time for anyone even a little in need.”

“Now it’s our turn to support you,” the other squire concluded.

Emotion choked Domerin’s throat for a moment. Despite the urgency of the situation they all shared, he possessed a certain amount of detachment – a clinical sort of appraisal that came from knowing more than anyone else possibly could about the potential outcomes of these struggles. That had made it easy to know where a light touch or a gentle word could go a long way.

It hadn’t occurred to him that the knights he traveled with would turn the same kindness on him.

Stirred by the emotional nature of their words, he hurried inside the tent and pulled his packs outside before the canvas fell flat for folding. He realized only when he settled the packs over his back how much easier it was to manage these tasks with extra hooves.

And he began to understand how Nirem became such an integral part of the army in which he served.

*   *   *

“How long do you think this will take?” Crescent asked impatiently. He kept glancing toward the clock set high on the wall in the princess’s tower, but he realized each time he looked up it was pointless.

The time he was worried about passing wasn’t in the forward direction.

“I don’t honestly know,” Rose admitted. “I’m not even sure that leaving a history book outside of the barrier is going to allow it to change. It might just vanish. And if it does, Gregory would have to hunt down a new one to bring back.”

That might mean traveling between towns until he found one that had ready resources available.

Crescent gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to flip the nearest table in order to dump its contents on the floor.

“We can send you back to the day after you left,” Rose insisted. “You’re not keeping him waiting by taking your time on this, Crescent. I promise.”

Crescent tried to believe her – but he wasn’t so sure. He felt the time between him and Domerin stretching like a bungee cord about to snap – and he didn’t like the odd pressure it left in his gut.

“I just don’t like the idea of him back there all alone. There are a lot of factors involved in every action he has to take. I just think it would be easier if he didn’t have to manage all the mundane minutia on top of it.”

Plus he hated feeling like he had abandoned his beloved and stranded him without a way to get home.

Crescent bit his tongue against all the other statements fighting to get out of his mouth. While it was a relief to discover that Aruvalia had been restored shortly after their departure, there were still so many unknown factors, thinking about them threatened to explode his brain.

How much have we really changed? And how many more small adjustments do we have to make in order to get the timeline we want?

If the point was to create continuous change, Domerin would have no way to evaluate the evolution of the future without word from this portion of the timeline – which was why he fought so hard for Crescent to make this trip.

Suddenly he wished he’d done it sooner so that he could be back already.

The sound of hoofbeats interrupted his frantic thoughts. Crescent didn’t wait for Greg to burst through the door, he trotted to the entrance and thrust it open himself. The police constable blinked at him in surprise but then hurriedly rushed forward. He closed the door in his wake with a small hind leg kick.

“This is the same book I left with,” he declared as he removed the bundle strapped to his back and dumped it unceremoniously on the floor. “It doesn’t look the same anymore. The binding is different. But I swear I left it on the hill top for three hours before I came back to check.”

The princess’s horn began to glow and the book lifted off of the floor. For a moment, Rose stared at the volume with grim determination. Then her eyes began to glow as brightly as her horn and the pages of the book began to flip rapidly.

Crescent leaned slightly over the princess’s shoulder, hoping to catch some glimpse of the words as they scrolled at top speed past her eyes. But the pages moved too rapidly for him to see anything other than a handful of symbols that leapt off the page.

When she reached the end of the book, the cover snapped closed. The glow leached from Rose’s eyes and her grim expression remained. Then she floated the book toward Rupert, who had stood in silence throughout their silent vigil.

“It’s different, all right,” the princess announced. “But I’m not sure how much has actually changed. I’m afraid I’m not as good a history student as Domerin. Why don’t you take a look?” she prompted the robot.

Luckily for all of them, they had scanned the book before Greg departed with it. Rupert had a copy in his memory banks. All he had to do was scan the new book and he’d be able to make a quick comparison of the two.

To that end, Rose helped the robotic pony prop the book on one of her tables. Then she turned back to the police constable of her capital. “Were there any visual changes to the city?” she asked.

“Yes, actually,” Greg replied. “It’s a bit hard to tell because there are sentries at the gates now, and they’re looking closely for any pony that might try to approach. But there’s no longer smoke rising from the city. And from what I could tell, that’s not because the fires have burned out. It’s because there is no damage. The city is occupied, clearly. And empty of citizens thanks to the evacuation. But it doesn’t look like they tossed the castle or caused any kind of rampant property damage.”

Which meant that if things never got farther than this, those girls in the other room entertaining their stowaway from the future might at least get to go home to the house that nearly fell on them.

“Interesting,” Rose mused after a moment to consider Greg’s report. “So the attack still happened, but the results were different. Perhaps because the hillfolk’s goals weren’t the same?”

“I didn’t think it was wise to question anyone,” Greg admitted. “But I did swing by the nearest garrison and I noticed a few unfamiliar faces. Domerin would be better able to tell you if it’s because they’re actually new people or because I just don’t know them. But those were the things that stood out against my last circuit of our surroundings.”

Crescent barely resisted the urge to stamp his hooves and dance from foot to foot to express his agitation. The fastest and easiest way to figure out what was really going on in this new future would be to step outside the time barrier and let the changes ossmos into one of their brains.

But then they wouldn’t remember what they were trying to do. And he couldn’t do that to Domerin, not when the man was counting so heavily on him.

“I have found the most relevant changes between the two volumes of history,” Rupert announced as sheets of paper began to fly from a small slit in the right side of his abdomen. “Though there are many small differences in quotations and references, these are the most significant passages, most of which were missing before.”

Rose’s horn glowed again and she caught each paper as it flowed free of the robot pony’s internal printer. She arrayed them in a small half-circle in front of the group so that each of them could peruse the changes.

“There’s Lightfoot the Great!” Crescent interjected and poked one of his hooves toward the paper that bore mention of a ceremony including the previously slain knight. “According to this, he was mortally wounded during a battle near the middle of the war, but he was pulled from the field by his squire. His injuries didn’t recover enough for him to rejoin the efforts, but he did survive. And he passed his title and honors onto his squire who took up his mantle and finished fighting the war in his stead.

“Domerin told me that in the original history, Lightfoot’s banner died with him!”

“That is correct,” Rupert replied with a small hint of triumph. “In fact, very little mention is made of him in the original history volume and none of his squire aside from his death. But after taking up his mantle, there are a great many stories told of his knighted squire.”

“So it did matter,” Crescent breathed as his heart began to hammer harder within his chest. “Just the survival of that one pony made a huge difference to the stories told about the struggle.”

“It also means that there will have been different influences at work on the timeline,” Rose agreed. “Though we can’t determine the full extent of them from one history book.” She cursed softly then added, “I wish I dared transport my whole library outside of the time barrier, but who knows what it would transform into!”

“There are also several passages missing from the new history book that involve a conflict over a murdered child,” Rupert declared when silence settled over the group. “It seems that same name does appear in several new passages, however, near the end of the volume.”

“I see it!” Crescent called with triumph as he located the relevant paragraphs. “It looks like the child Domerin and I saved became a diplomat near the end of the war. He helped negotiate the treaty agreements that established peace between both sides.”

“But why did the attack still happen?” Rose demanded, frustrated. “Why aren’t these changes enough to ensure we establish a decent relationship with the hillfolk before everything explodes?”

Crescent took some heart from the fact that it seemed like Rose also wanted to kick a table over. But he drew a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“We just haven’t found enough of the relevant pieces,” he insisted. “I think that’s the other reason Domerin sent me back here. He was hoping I could find something that would make his life easier.”

His eyes rapidly scanned the rest of the pages Rupert printed out. Most of the text was dry, which made Crescent’s eyes cross as soon as he got two or three paragraphs in. But he kept reading anyway, looking for anything that might serve as a clue.

“If we’re looking for people who can soothe the relationship between Aruvalia and the hillfolk in the past, there might be some way to find the information in the old histories,” he mused, mostly because talking helped keep him focused.

“That will be a needle in a haystack unless we know what type of people we’re looking for. Or when and where they lived,” Greg grumbled.

It seemed he was just as thrilled about the dry nature of this text as Crescent.

But then the diplomat’s eyes struck something he couldn’t ignore, something that lodged his heart in his throat and refused to let it return to its regular place in his chest.

He read the passage three times before he snatched the page out of the air.

“This is it!” he declared breathlessly. “This is what we need to find!”

“What is it?” Rose demanded as all four of the ponies sharing the room with him formed a tight circle to glance over his shoulders.

“It’s a letter Nirem sent near the midpoint of the war to the mountain village where everything started. A lot of it is just flowery filler, I think. But the main point of it is that he’s looking for Aruvalians with hillfolk ancestry. He specifies people who had come down out of the mountains in the last two generations and still boasted strong ties to specific clans.”

“It shouldn’t be terribly hard to find which clans claimed that land as their ancestral homes at that time,” Rose mused. “Though we didn’t exactly perform censuses back then, so identifying the specific Aruvalian families we’re looking for might be trickier.”

“Maybe,” Crescent agreed. “But we need someone with a strong tie. A chief’s child or the child of a renown warrior. I’m certain this is what Domerin wants us to determine,” he added. “In fact, I’m pretty sure he sent this message for us, not because he expected to get an answer in the past.”

“How could Domerin send us a message?” Greg protested.

“Because look at this last paragraph,” Crescent commanded and jabbed his hoof toward the page again. “It says tell Tencer if you see him that the clan tartan is the key. Tencer is me. It’s the fake name I gave when Ryland asked who we were after the first battle.

“Domerin wants me to find a particular person tied to a specific clan’s tartan. Then I assume I go back in time and tell him who he’s looking for.”

“Easy,” Rose muttered, though she no longer sounded enthusiastic.

“It’s a riddle Domerin can’t be expected to solve in the past,” Crescent replied, though he now spoke with excited determination. At least he had a direction to look in now. “So we’re going to have to solve it for him.”

He waited a moment but, when no one said anything else, Crescent cleared his throat and added, “Who do we know that’s good at solving history puzzles?”