Fanfiction - MLP: Tranquiline's Trial by Fire (chapter 1)
There are many strange mysteries spread throughout the fabled land of
Equestria, but few are as strange and enchanting as one from the
ancient past, once forgotten but recently rediscovered by the land's
denizens. In ancient times this legend inspired both greed and fear in
the any pony who liked an adventure, but as time passed and generations
came and went, the legend was forgotten.
Yet some things survived the wear of time, improbable as that may
seem but not impossible, as we will soon discover. In a cave within a
cliff near an abandoned lakeside settlement whose inhabitants have
long-since moved on to other places, the nest of an ancient species,
known today as fire moths, lived undisturbed for countless years. Their
stone-like bodies are highly flammable, hence their name. Able to use
the fire from any nearby sources of flame, they attack in groups by
dive-bombing the vulnerable hides of intruders. Their unfortunate
victims flee the moths' lair with red-hot flesh, and it is almost always
their hindquarters that get the last few hits. All of this is bad
enough, but the fire moths are doubly dangerous as they are intelligent
enough to find weaknesses.
They originally settled in the lair of a dragon who kept a treasure
hoard but later moved on or died, leaving his or her treasure behind.
This was no accident. This was for camouflage, for their queen is a
gilded beauty beyond compare and the queen must have somewhere safe to
hide.
Since the rediscovery of this legend, many adventurers have tried to
retrieve the treasure the queen hides in or even the queen herself, but
none have been able to leave the cave unharmed.
xXx"Oh, really?" asked Tranquiline in her characteristic gentle voice,
grey eyes wide with curiosity and mind spinning with dreams of an
elusive species to record for science's sake. As she listened to the
fate of the last adventurer to explore the cave, Tranquiline made plans
on how she would deal with the queen's soldiers. Even if she could not
find the queen, the lure of golden treasure was far too strong to allow
her to just walk away from such a tale.
The leader of her study group nodded. "Yes. The legend of the fire
moth queen suggests that she never dies, that she is immortal. We must
go and find her if we can. If we can bring her back then we can learn
whether she is immortal, and if she is, then she will be a treasure
indeed. Imagine, young Tranquiline, a new immortal creature! The things
we might learn from her. So will you accept this adventure?"
"Of course I will!" she said, a big smile on her face and a warm
feeling of genuine excitement inside at the idea of what she might
discover.
xXxLater on, with her plans made in detail, the white earth pony visited
the Canterlot armoury and asked the smith if he had anything that would
protect her from such dangerous insects.
"Certainly!" the smith replied with a beaming smile, clearly pleased
with such a big order. "You came to the right place! In fact, you're
just in time to try my latest product." He led her to the back of his
workshop, his charcoal-black tail swishing back and forth and brushing a
dozen old burn scars on his broad rump. He came to stand beside a piece
of all-over pony armour. "This is the top of the line in personal
protection against arrows and fire, with only the very finest holes for
ventilation. The moths will be too big to get in." He waved one hoof at
the legs of the armour. "The limbs of the armour use flexible thin
layers of metal plates to enable mobility, while the main body of the
armour is made of larger plates to add extra protection and keep the
vital areas safe, with a comfortable mesh inner layer for prolonged
usage."
Tranquiline had been impressed with the design, but looking at the
torso of the armour from the front, she suspected a problem... well, with
the back. Perhaps it occurred to her now because she was such a private
pony by nature, but... She cleared her throat. "What about when nature
calls?"
"Of course, madam: with your body being completely covered, you will
need a way to deal with that without having to remove the armour, so if
you look back here, a hatch has been added to the design." He gave her a
moment to inspect the rear of the torso. Indeed, there was a hatch over
the rear. "This hatch is failsafe in that it opens only by the tail
while in a crouching position. The tail armour is fixed in place,
looping back inside, in order to provide the ultimate in defense against
intrusion."
"Are you sure the hatch won't pop open?" Tranquiline had come to
Canterlot's armoury to get the best possible product, but she was
unfamiliar with armour and didn't like the idea of the hatch popping
open and exposing her at an inopportune time - either when in company or
when surrounded by fire moths. "These fire moths have bodies of stone,
last I heard tell of them. Do you think the hatch could be damaged and
come open that way?"
"I have not seen any reason for such to happen. But why in Equestria
would you want to search for the fire moths? Is it truly possible that
they're real? The tale seems too strange."
Tranquiline smiled. "I'm fairly sure the fire moths are real. I want
to study them. If they're not real, I'll at least be able to get
funding for my team's other research projects." She took one final look
at the armour and decided that she wanted the best protection and to do
her best to find the elusive species. "How much is the armour?"
"That would be seven hundred and fifty bits," he told her.
Tranquiline felt herself go whiter than usual, if such a thing was
possible. That was really going to dip into the study group's coffers!
She resolved on the spot to get whatever she could on this adventure.
She had to, otherwise the study group wouldn't be able to support
itself, and would be no more.
xXxArriving at the entrance to the cave, Tranquiline, now fully encased
in armour entered cautiously. It had taken her some time to become
accustomed to the limited visibility that the visor allowed, but if that
was to be the cost for her protection then that was how it had to be.
The front chamber seemed safe, although she did notice a trail of
scorching on the ground punctuated with a few twin oval scorches that
Tranquiline could only describe as butt marks. She could picture what
had happened: previous treasure hunters had been caught ablaze from
their unfortunate encounters with the fire moths, galloped through, and
perhaps tried to cool their rumps on the cold stone. She stifled a
giggle at the thought of how they must have looked, but then
straightened her face. Ponies had been hurt; this was no laughing
matter.
"It won't happen to me. I came prepared," she muttered. Encased in
her expensive armour and confident in her preparedness, the earth pony
convinced herself that she wasn't in any real danger.
As Tranquiline entered the hidden chamber, the armour making her legs
feel heavy with every step but clinking reassuringly, she came upon a
mound of gold, lit from a few small holes in the top of the cavern and
glinting beautifully. It was incredible!
"There's more here than a hundred ponies could carry back!" she
whispered to herself in wonder. Here was the answer to her funding
problem, the payment that would make the purchase of the armour okay!
She whinnied with glee and trotted closer.
Something stirred among the coins but at first she didn't notice.
The fire moths awoke and took to the wing, aware that their home had
been invaded. At last Tranquiline looked up and saw many small pairs of
wings flapping fast, trailing little plumes of flame in their wake.
She gasped with awe. "They're beautiful!" she whispered.
Then she remembered why they were taking flight and braced herself.
The first dive-bombed her shoulder and she heart - and felt - its
collision. It wasn't bad in itself but she could tell it would have left
a bruise if she hadn't had the armour. She looked up: there were plenty
more where that one had come from, and even that first moth was
rejoining its comrades for another try. "Well, now we get to see how
good this armour is," she told the moths, although she was sure they
didn't understand. "I hope that smith knew what he was doing."
She lowered her head and squinted, and braced her legs. One and two
hits turned to three-four-six-twelve and then more than she could keep
track of. They couldn't hit too hard as individuals but having dozens of
moths attacking her at once meant she had to brace harder not to get
pushed aside. Each one had its own flame and as they got more active
they seemed able to get hotter, burn with bigger flames. They were
beautiful and fascinating, but at this moment Tranquiline also believed
they were fearsome.
"I'm sorry guys, but I have to do what I came here to do." She
reached around to nudge her travel packs open and started hunting for
gold and gems to load into them. There would be space for that and the
queen.
A few of the gold items in the room weren't coins. Some were statues
or pieces of jewellery, but without knowing exactly what the queen
looked like, Tranquiline was forced to look at every piece carefully to
make sure she didn't miss her. She crouched and bent over forward,
presenting her silver-grey tail and well-protected butt cheeks to the
swarm. It was true that their combined efforts were making her somewhat
warm inside the suit but she had a little ventilation, and ultimately
she trusted the quality of the smith's craftsmanship.
One piece of gold looked different from the others. Too big to be a
brooch, it looked exactly like... "The fire moth queen!" Large emerald
eyes shone from a detailed golden face. Wings encrusted with pieces of
diamond so tiny they almost looked like frost, or moth dust. Six legs
of the very finest gold filament. Tranquiline stared at the queen's
beauty. "Oh my. You're even more beautiful than I imagined!" The
biologist picked the queen up in her well-protected hooves. Now she saw
that the queen herself was the very greatest treasure to be had here.
"Is this how you survived so long?" she asked the female moth, who
crawled over her hooves buzzing her wings restlessly. "Are you made of
gold instead of flesh? You're incredible! And your subjects..." she looked
around at the steady stream of angry moths, paid fresh attention to the
glow of heat coming through the still-closed hatch to her butt. Was it
just her or were some of them skittering around at the base of her tail,
where the hatch locking mechanism was? That made her feel a little
jumpy. "...they're very loyal. No wonder, for a beauty like you. Come on,
I'm going to take you back."
But she didn't have time to say any more as the fire moths finally
discovered the weakness in her armour. Dive-bombing at the hatch, enough
of them nudged the lock and the hatch fell open - much to Tranquiline's
horror. Tranquiline panicked. She felt a chill of horror - and then
the first burn.
It patted against her rump and the impact wasn't so bad, but the heat
burned her glute and made her squeak. Dropping the queen, she tried to
retreat, but more and more of the insects hit her exposed butt cheeks
and by the time she'd had a couple of dozen of them, re-evaluated the
idea that the impact wasn't too bad. Each one seemed to ram home the
heat a little more, making the flesh of her butt more sore even as it
got hotter, until eventually she couldn't stand it any more.
She galloped away from the queen in the hope that her swarm would let
up. They didn't. Yelping in pain, Tranquiline bolted for the cave
entrance, screaming and trying to get her armour off before the glow got
any worse. But she couldn't run and shed the armour at the same time.
She had seen the lake before she'd found the cave so instead she made
for it, her butt roasting and super-hot.
As she ran, her haunches pumping furiously from both her fear and the
burning, her breathing became labored and the pain got worse, got sore
as well as hot. It was like the skin was getting more tender with every
few breaths. The wind she created in her gallop made the heat cool
slightly but she knew that if she stopped, the pain would return.
By the time she reached the rim of the ledge outside the cave she was
too far gone to even think of the distance she would have to fall
before hitting the blissfully cool water of the lake. With only a
second's caution, she leaped from the cliff side. She gathered her
armoured hind legs beneath her so that she'd fall butt-first into the
water. "Ow! Ow! Ow!! Oh please, hurry!" She couldn't fall fast enough.
Her butt felt twice the size from the heat and all she wanted was to
feel-
Her hind hooves and ass hit the surface of the water. Her legs didn't
feel the cooling but with the hatch still open, the water found its way
in instantly and soothed her rump. As she gasped and sighed with relief
and waggled her butt to get more benefit from the cold water, it
glugged into the spaces of her armour.
She swam to shore with difficulty, her legs paddling hard, and lay in
the shallows until her butt felt cool enough. And then she went home,
dejected and scared.
TO BE CONTINUED...